Never seek you to learn, Leuconoe,
What end the gods assign to you or me;
'Tis sin to be too curious. Meddle you
Nor with Chaldeans nor Astrology.
Whatever comes, bear that, and ask no more
If Jupiter have other years in store,
Or if we see this our last winter break
The Tuscan billows on the rocky shore.
Be wise and strain the wine, for life is short,
Trim down your hopes. Look you! grim Time makes sport
To fly while thus we talk. The present snatch,
The future trust not you in any sort.
Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quicquid erit, pati,
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Monday, December 18, 2023
Carpe Diem
Horace, Odes 1.11, tr. T.R. Glover in Queen's Quarterly 5 (April, 1898) 310: