Dust and dreams

Here is a wonderful poem by two men who are hardly read nowadays - Horace and his translator, Housman.  A E Housman was a classical scholar, and in Tom Stoppard's marvellous Invention of Love (read it immediately if you don't know every line!), he has Housman lecture on Horace:  "Diffugere nives goes through me like a spear.  Nobody makes it stick like Horace that you’re a long time dead – dust and shadow, and no good deeds, no eloquence, will bring you back.  I think it’s the most beautiful poem in Latin or Greek there ever was.”   The poem is simple in form, describing the renewal of life in the spring, and lamenting that we cannot share in it, that our decay is for ever (where "Tullus and Ancus are" in the extract below, that is, dead and in Hades).  Finally, it describes Theseus’ failed attempts to free his lover Pirithous from the chains of hell.

I have regretted, in an earlier post, that Horace is so little read now the classic tradition in education is almost dead.  But this poem, Ode 7 from Book 4, will surely reaffirm the value of reading him.  The fourth stanza by itself is vaut le voyage! This is the stunning translation by A E Housman of Horace's Diffugere nives.

The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws

   And grasses in the mead renew their birth,

The river to the river-bed withdraws,

   And altered is the fashion of the earth.

The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear

   And unapparelled in the woodland play.

The swift hour and the brief prime of the year

   Say to the soul, Thou wast not born for aye.

Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of spring

   Treads summer sure to die, for hard on hers

Comes autumn with his apples scattering;

   Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs.

But oh, whate'er the sky-led seasons mar,

   Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams;

Come we where Tullus and where Ancus are

   And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams.

Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add

   The morrow to the day, what tongue has told?

Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had

   The fingers of no heir will ever hold.

When thou descendest once the shades among,

   The stern assize and equal judgment o'er,

Not thy long lineage nor thy golden tongue,

   No, nor thy righteousness, shall friend thee more.

Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,

   Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;

And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chain

   The love of comrades cannot take away.

Comments

[Mr Cornflower]

There was a phase when Housman went right out of fashion, derided as mawkish and self-indulgent - as Auden brilliantly but cruelly put it, 'he kept tears like dirty postcards, hidden in a drawer'. But this translation, and some of his best original work, are exceptionally powerful just because they appeal to very strong and near universal human emotions, the awareness and resentment of our ultimate end. I'm very grateful for the pointers to Horace (and Stoppard) and will try and follow them at least part of the way.

[glo]

Very interesting, thank you to both the lovely blogger and the lovely cat for educating me.
Caught in an avalanche? My goodness! I hope you'll tell us one day how it happened and how it feels.
I also wonder what you may think when you write about something and your readers discuss something else and very different.

[Dark Puss]

Pure water (and pure ice without air-bubbles) absorbs light more strongly in the red region of the spectrum than the blue. In very pure ice light penetrates for a significant depth before being backscattered and thus the absorption of the red light is significant. Snow, and ice with air bubbles, scatter light strongly near their surface and in a wavelength (= colour) independent way which is why they look white. In some icebergs (greenish ones) there appear to be additional organic material incorporated which can explain their unusual colour (see JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-OCEANS Volume: 98 (1993) Pages: 6921-6928).

[Lindsay]

Yes, you frequently come across the phrase "son of the manse" which just means someone brought up in a household where the father was the local (Scottish protestant)clergyman, and implying a strict, puritan cast of character.

The blue in the icebergs comes from within them - its not a reflection, but the refraction of white light from the crystal structures within the ice. Snow and ice typically give a wonderful range of blues and greens - as I once saw when caught in a small avalanche!

[Dark Puss]

Dear Glo
"Manse" refers to a house inhabited (or formerly inhabited) by a minister of the Church of Scotland (or similar Presbyterian organisation). It is equivalent to Vicarage or Rectory I guess.

[glo]

What to say then? just too stupendous for words. And the translation is awesome too, it has such a wonderful rhythm and musicality. Thank
you for the travel, Mr Bagshaw.

Re. the new quotation on the right column
"in the manses of Scotland" ? "in the manes of Scotland" would be very fine.... or is it "in the mansions of Scotland" ?!