Housman and Horace

[jadesfire]

Before moving on to more serious things, seen on Broad Street today:

The definition of 'cheeky': calling out to people on an open-top tour bus and inviting them on your walking tour of the city.

---

Getting back to poetry month:

One of my favourite plays is The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard. I was lucky enough to see the original production at the National Theatre, and while I was a little young to enjoy it properly, it still caught my imagination, and when I've read the play since, I've been able to 're-watch' it in my head. There are many wonderful lines, although the best are usually lifted from Housman's own writings.

When it comes to Roman poets, I prefer Catullus and Ovid to Horace in general, but this is one that has stayed with me. Housman's translation went unpublished until after his death, and when he was teaching, he would take all the other poems apart, but he would just read this one in Latin and move on. It seems to have touched him deeply, and in the play he says "There's no one like Horace for telling you you're a long time dead."

I'm still looking for that in Horace, if I'm honest, but I can see what he means about this poem.



Horace. Odes IV.7

Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis
arboribusque comae;
mutat terra vices, et decrescentia ripas
flumina praetereunt;
Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
ducere nuda choros.
immortatia ne speres, monet annus et almum
quae rapit hora diem;
frigora mitescunt Zephyr-is, ver proterit aestas
interitura simul
pomifer Autumns fruges effuderit, et mox
bruma recurrit iners.
damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae:
nos ubi decidimus
quo pater Aeneas, quo Tullus dives et Ancus,
pulvis et umbra sumus.
quis scit an adiciant hodicmae crastina surnmae’
teinpora di superi?
cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico
quae dederis animo.
cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos
fecerit arbitria,
non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te
restituet pietas;
infemis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum
liberat Hippolytum;
nec Letheae valet Theseus abrumpere caro
vittcula Pirithoo.

Translation by A.E. Housman

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 woodlan’d play.
The swift hour and the brief prime of the year
Say to the soul, Thall 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, whatever 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 shadows among,
The stem 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

[crystalshard.livejournal.com]

That's gorgeous.

I'm not entirely clear on the 'long time dead' comment, but I can see the outline of where he's coming from.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I guess it's reasonably cryptic, but it ties in closely to the last couplet of the poem and Housman's own life. (Sorry if you already know this and brace yourself for a swift Classics lecture ;)) Theseus and Pirithous were friends, comrades, brothers by all but blood and closer even than that. They made a pact that they would help the other gain whatever woman he wanted. Theseus chose the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta (see: A Midsummer Night's Dream). Pirithous chose Persephone, queen of the Underworld. While down there, they sat on a couch of Hades', and literally got stuck there. Theseus was rescued by Heracles, but nothing he could do could save Pirithous and he had to leave him behind.

In his own life, Housman was a Classics scholar who failed all his exams - no one knows why for sure - but he ended up sharing digs with his best friend from Oxford, Moses Jackson. He worshipped Jackson, who didn't return his affections and moved to Canada, where he died. In many ways, the comment is ironic for Housman in the play - it's about taking what you can get, 'carpe diem' (also Horace) if you like, because this life is short and you're a long time dead. But Housman...never did. He ended up publishing, being elected to a Professorship in Cambridge, never finding someone to replace Jackson and dying in a nursing home. He blamed his poetry on having a bad cold.

"The Invention of Love" (which I heartily recommend to you - I think you'd *love* it) draws a contrast between him and Oscar Wilde, who was contemporary with him at Oxford. The difference between seizing life and damn the consequences and living as Housman did, quietly and dryly. It's incredibly moving and beautiful as a piece of theatre, about what you lose with the passing of time, and how everyone looks back at golden times, possibly missing them in the present.

Er. Sorry. Got a bit carried away there... *sheepish*

[crystalshard.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I love it when you get all literary-enthusiastic. Very useful little potted history.

I'll admit, I was seeing it more of the cyclic way, where it's implied that the seasons will go on even when you're dead, and that the heroes of history become mere legend - that the poet was looking ahead to a time when he himself would be history.

[crystalshard.livejournal.com]

That's gorgeous.

I'm not entirely clear on the 'long time dead' comment, but I can see the outline of where he's coming from.

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I guess it's reasonably cryptic, but it ties in closely to the last couplet of the poem and Housman's own life. (Sorry if you already know this and brace yourself for a swift Classics lecture ;)) Theseus and Pirithous were friends, comrades, brothers by all but blood and closer even than that. They made a pact that they would help the other gain whatever woman he wanted. Theseus chose the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta (see: A Midsummer Night's Dream). Pirithous chose Persephone, queen of the Underworld. While down there, they sat on a couch of Hades', and literally got stuck there. Theseus was rescued by Heracles, but nothing he could do could save Pirithous and he had to leave him behind.

In his own life, Housman was a Classics scholar who failed all his exams - no one knows why for sure - but he ended up sharing digs with his best friend from Oxford, Moses Jackson. He worshipped Jackson, who didn't return his affections and moved to Canada, where he died. In many ways, the comment is ironic for Housman in the play - it's about taking what you can get, 'carpe diem' (also Horace) if you like, because this life is short and you're a long time dead. But Housman...never did. He ended up publishing, being elected to a Professorship in Cambridge, never finding someone to replace Jackson and dying in a nursing home. He blamed his poetry on having a bad cold.

"The Invention of Love" (which I heartily recommend to you - I think you'd *love* it) draws a contrast between him and Oscar Wilde, who was contemporary with him at Oxford. The difference between seizing life and damn the consequences and living as Housman did, quietly and dryly. It's incredibly moving and beautiful as a piece of theatre, about what you lose with the passing of time, and how everyone looks back at golden times, possibly missing them in the present.

Er. Sorry. Got a bit carried away there... *sheepish*

[crystalshard.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I love it when you get all literary-enthusiastic. Very useful little potted history.

I'll admit, I was seeing it more of the cyclic way, where it's implied that the seasons will go on even when you're dead, and that the heroes of history become mere legend - that the poet was looking ahead to a time when he himself would be history.