A giant whip? A Cat ’o Nine Tails with six tails

Writing around 430 BC, Herodotus tells how, when the Persian king Xerxes sought to invade Greece fifty years earlier, he instructed his engineers to bridge the Hellespont at its narrowest point, between Abydos on the Asian shore and Sestos on the European side (about 1,300 metres). Two parallel pontoon bridges were built side by side, each using more than 300 ships. The moored boats were spanned by six giant ropes, two of flax and four of papyrus, stretched taut from shore to shore and tightened with wooden windlasses. Over these cables, logs were laid, brushwood was heaped on top and earth was trodden down over the brushwood to form a solid roadway, with a fence along either side.

The earliest surviving witness to the bridge is the tragedian Aeschylus. The Chorus of Elders in his Persians (472 BC) sings (69-72):

“On a flax-bound raft, traversing the strait
of Athamantid Helle,
 a many-bolted crossing
is thrown like a yoke on the neck of the sea.” 

λινοδέσμῳ σχεδίᾳ πορθμὸν ἀμείψας
Ἀθαμαντίδος Ἕλλας,
πολύγομφον ὅδισμα
ζυγὸν ἀμφιβαλὼν αὐχένι πόντου.

The metre is ionics, a rhythm associated with the oriental-sounding drumbeat di di DUM DUM, di di DUM DUM. (Rod Stewart's "Sailing" has a slow form of this rhythm).

Both bridges were destroyed by a storm before they could be used. Herodotus tells how Xerxes flew into a rage and ordered the strait whipped in punishment. The story is not credible and was undoubtedly intended by Herodotus to instantiate Xerxes’ hubris. But the detail of the giant ropes makes me wonder whether (as elsewhere, such as with the “gold-digging ants” story) Herodotus was faithfully reporting what an informant had told him, but in a garbled form. Seen end-on, from high ground on the Chersonese side looking along the length of one of the bridges toward the point where its six cables converged and were winched down to shore, the ropes might well have looked to an onlooker like the tails of a giant whip - and that image then became imaginatively elaborated into what was eventually reported to the historian.

It’s a theory…

Mount Parnassus, Greece: the Mountain of the Muses

What is one to write when a much-loathed political figure turns his hand to poetry? Catullus’s bête noire in this regard, as in others, was Julius Caesar’s corrupt sidekick Marcus Mamurra, who enriched himself at the expense of Britons (among other conquered peoples). A notorious profligate, he was the butt of several epigrams by Catullus, who gave him the nickname ‘Mentula’ - ‘penis’.

Mamurra was clearly an inferior poet - a poetaster. My translation of Catullus’s poem 105 is as short as I can make it, two lines of iambics. I’ve softened the nickname to ‘Clown’: in this case the thrust of the epigram is that Mamurra can’t write a decent poem, try as he might. Parnassus is the mountain of the Muses, the goddesses of poetry; they are unimpressed by Mamurra’s efforts.

He's trying to scale Parnassus, silly Clown:
The pitchfork-wielding Muses toss him down!

Mentula conatur Pipleium scandere montem:
Musae furcillis praecipitem eiciunt!

In the wake of Nolan’s Odyssey, some people are asking me about ancient Greek soldiery. I thought of the chant of the Spartan squaddies in the fifth century BC . A marching song (embaterion) survives - reminiscent of the Marmite chant - which I’ve translated in the same metre as the Greek:

Come on, noble Sparta’s heroes,
young men from the lands of our fathers!
Thrust forth with the shield on the left side
as you aim your spear unflinching,
not thinking about your safety,
since that’s not the way of Sparta!

ἄγετ’ ὦ Σπἀρτας εὐἀνδρου
κοῦροι πατἐρων πολιητᾶν,
λαιᾷ μὲν ἴτυν προβάλεσθε,
δόρυ δ’ εὐτόλμως πάλλοντες
μὴ φειδόμενοι τᾶς ζωᾶς,
οὐ γὰρ πάτριον τᾷ Σπάρτᾳ.

Metre and Mozart:

The metre is based on the ‘anapaest’, a rhythmical unit (∪∪ −) that consists of the repeated elements short-short-long. It happens to be the shape of the word ‘anapaest’ (in English, pronounced a-na-peest: my mnemonic runs “anapaest is a beast / that has ceased to be fleeced…”).

This marching song has three anapaests, and ∪∪ − is often contracted to − − , as in all the opening rhythms other than in the first line. They are followed by a single long beat:

For a man on the march, nothing's neater!  (^)           ∪ ∪  −  ∪ ∪  −   ∪ ∪  −  −   (^)
A- na - paest   is   a   b e a s t   of  a  metre! (^)           ∪ ∪  −  ∪ ∪  −   ∪ ∪  −  −   (^)
D o n 't   t e l l  me  a  dactyl   i s   sweeter!  (^)            −   −   ∪ ∪  −   ∪ ∪  −  −   (^)

The feet must have thudded down on the beat accompanying the words shown in bold. A final step would come in the space after the last word of the line as shown by (^).

The ancients called the metre of each line ‘enoplian’, which literally means ‘in armour’. By happy coincidence, we can find a precise equivalent of the metre in the graceful phrases of Mozart’s 40th Symphony:

These enigmatic words, “A kid, I fell into milk” (or “you fell into milk”) are found on just four of the few dozen inscribed gold-leaf tablets (lamellae) that were buried with followers of the ancient Greek mysteries from around the 4th century BC. What does it mean?

The lamellae contained ‘chthonic’ (i.e. ‘underworldy’) texts for devotees of the Orphic or Bacchic mysteries, which were cults designed to teach how to live on beyond one’s death. On one set of tablets found (‘Group B’), devotees are instructed to utter a password to the Guardians of the Lake of Memory. They must avoid the urge to drink from the river Lethe: Lethe means “forgetfulness”, so to drink from it would make the dead forget their previous life, and thus be subject to reincarnation into new earthly bodies. Devotees sought to escape reincarnation so that their souls might enjoy eternal bliss (olbiotês) in Elysium, the heavenly region of the Underworld.

The variations on this set of tablets have been compiled and a uniform text reconstructed (by Richard Janko). I translate as follows:

To the right of Hades’ Halls you’ll find a spring,
and standing near it a white cypress-tree,
where the dead souls, descending, slake their thirst. 
This spring is one that you must not approach.
Ahead of it you'll find cool water flowing,
from Memory’s lake, before which guards are stood. 
These guards will ask you with inquiring minds
what is your quest in Hades᾽ murky gloom,
and they will probe the reason you have come.
To them best tell the truth entire and whole. 
Say: ‘I’m the child of earth and starry heaven, 
but heaven’s my lineage: this you know yourselves.
I’m parched with thirst and dying; give me quick 
cool water flowing forth from Memory’s lake.’
Then will the Chthonic Rulers pity you, 
and give you water from the holy spring. 
Now, when you’ve drunk it, take the sacred road 
trod by the mystics and the devotees,
and then with other heroes you will rule.

εὑρήσεις δ' Ἀίδαο δόμων ἐπὶ δέξια κρήνην,
πὰρ δ' αὐτῇ λευκὴν ἑστηκυῖαν κυπάρισσον,
ἔνθα κατερχόμεναι ψυχαὶ νεκύων ψύχονται.
ταύτης τῆς κρήνης μηδὲ σχεδὸν ἐμπελάσῃσθα.
πρόσθεν δ' εὑρήσεις τῆς Μνημοσύνης ἀπὸ λίμνης
ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ προρέον· φύλακες δ' ἐπύπερθεν ἔασιν.
οἳ δέ σε εἰρήσονται ἐνὶ φρεσὶ πευκαλίμῃσιν
ὅττι δὴ ἐξερέεις Ἄϊδος σκότῳ ὀρφνήεντος.
οἳ δέ σε εἰρήσονται ὅτι χρέος εἰσαφικάνεις.
τοῖς δὲ σὺ εὖ μάλα πᾶσαν ἀληθείην καταλέξαι·
εἰπεῖν· "Γῆς παῖς εἰμι καὶ Οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος,
αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ γένος οὐράνιον· τὸ δὲ ἴστε καὶ αὐτοί.
δίψῇ δ' εἶμ᾽ αὔος καὶ ἀπόλλυμαι· ἀλλὰ δότ' ὦκα
ψυχρὸν ὕδωρ προρέον τῆς Μνημοσύνης ἀπὸ λίμνης."
καὶ δή τοί σ᾽ἐλεοῦσιν ὑποχθονίοι βασιλῆες,
καὐτοί σοι δώσουσι πιεῖν θείης ἀπὸ κρήνης,
καὶ δή καὶ σὺ πιὼν ὁδὸν ἔρχεαι, ἥν τε καὶ ἄλλοι
μύσται καὶ βάκχοι ἱερὴν στείχουσι κλεεινοί,
καὶ τότ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἄλλοισι μεθ᾽ ἡρώεσσιν ἀνάξεις.

On another group of tablets we find the following words:

“Blessed and happy one, you will be a God and no longer mortal.”
A kid, I fell into milk! (ἔριφος ἐς γάλα ἔπετον)

and

You have become a God from a man. A kid, you fell into milk!

A kid’s whole existence is oriented towards its mother’s milk, the object of its desire for life and nourishment. I suggest that for a kid to have fallen into milk means that it is entirely surrounded, to the point of its death by drowning, by the element that gives it life and pleasure. The phrase is therefore equivalent to “I am (or you are) drowning in bliss”.

Post script:

Some have connected to this the Biblical injunction (e.g. in Exodus 23.19) “do not boil a kid in its mother’s milk”, suggesting that the latter command was intended as a Hebraic disavowal of pagan mysteries. But the connection is tenuous, and the biblical phrase is in fact more likely to mean “do not eat the meat of a kid that is still suckling on its mother’s milk”.

Assyrian King Sennacherib receives captives at Lachish c. 700–692 BC. British Museum.

Cavafy's best-known poem after 'Ithaca' is 'Waiting for the Barbarians". The image is of a fearful, static, society waiting for the impact of an uncertain, external threat - perhaps a stimulus to creative activity. With its casual, steady build-up and ironic ending, the poem has a rhythmical (iambic) underlay, pulled tight by the repeated refrain "Because the barbarians will arrive today". I have sought to preserve something of its loose rhythmicality in this translation and my readings.

— What are we waiting for, gathered in the forum?
“It’s the barbarians, they’ll arrive today.”
— Why’s there such inactivity in the Senate?
Why are the Senators sitting and not legislating?
“Because the barbarians will arrive today.
What sort of laws will the Senators enact?
The barbarians, when they come, will legislate.”
— Why is our Emperor getting up so early,
and sitting at the city’s largest gate
high on a throne, in state, wearing his crown?
“Because the barbarians will arrive today,
and the Emperor is waiting to receive
their leader. What is more, he has prepared
a parchment scroll to give him. On it, he
has written for him many names and titles.”
— Why’ve our two consuls and praetors emerged
today in their scarlet, embroidered togas?
Why are they wearing amethyst-studded bracelets
and rings with brightly glistening emeralds?
Why are they carrying precious rods today,
exquisitely wrought with silver and with gold?
“Because the barbarians will arrive today,
and things of this kind dazzle the barbarians.”
—Why aren’t the worthy orators here as usual
to make their speeches and to have their say?
“Because the barbarians will arrive today;
and they find words and speeches tiresome.”
—What’s this upheaval now, what’s this commotion
and stir? (People’s faces have turned so solemn).
Why are the streets and squares emptying out fast,
and everyone heading home absorbed in thought?
“Because night fell and no barbarians came.
And some people turned up from the frontiers,
And said that there are no barbarians now.”

So how'll we manage now without barbarians?
These people were some kind of a solution.

— Τι περιμένουμε στην αγορά συναθροισμένοι;
Είναι οι βάρβαροι να φθάσουν σήμερα.
— Γιατί μέσα στην Σύγκλητο μια τέτοια απραξία;
Τι κάθοντ’ οι Συγκλητικοί και δεν νομοθετούνε;
Γιατί οι βάρβαροι θα φθάσουν σήμερα.
Τι νόμους πια θα κάμουν οι Συγκλητικοί;
Οι βάρβαροι σαν έλθουν θα νομοθετήσουν.
—Γιατί ο αυτοκράτωρ μας τόσο πρωί σηκώθη,
και κάθεται στης πόλεως την πιο μεγάλη πύλη
στον θρόνο επάνω, επίσημος, φορώντας την κορώνα;
Γιατί οι βάρβαροι θα φθάσουν σήμερα.
Κι ο αυτοκράτωρ περιμένει να δεχθεί
τον αρχηγό τους. Μάλιστα ετοίμασε
για να τον δώσει μια περγαμηνή. Εκεί
τον έγραψε τίτλους πολλούς κι ονόματα.
— Γιατί οι δυο μας ύπατοι κ’ οι πραίτορες εβγήκαν
σήμερα με τες κόκκινες, τες κεντημένες τόγες·
γιατί βραχιόλια φόρεσαν με τόσους αμεθύστους,
και δαχτυλίδια με λαμπρά, γυαλιστερά σμαράγδια·
γιατί να πιάσουν σήμερα πολύτιμα μπαστούνια
μ’ ασήμια και μαλάματα έκτακτα σκαλιγμένα;
Γιατί οι βάρβαροι θα φθάσουν σήμερα·
και τέτοια πράγματα θαμπώνουν τους βαρβάρους.
—Γιατί κ’ οι άξιοι ρήτορες δεν έρχονται σαν πάντα
να βγάλουνε τους λόγους τους, να πούνε τα δικά τους;
Γιατί οι βάρβαροι θα φθάσουν σήμερα·
κι αυτοί βαρυούντ’ ευφράδειες και δημηγορίες.
— Γιατί ν’ αρχίσει μονομιάς αυτή η ανησυχία
κ’ η σύγχυσις. (Τα πρόσωπα τι σοβαρά που έγιναν).
Γιατί αδειάζουν γρήγορα οι δρόμοι κ’ η πλατέες,
κι όλοι γυρνούν στα σπίτια τους πολύ συλλογισμένοι;
Γιατί ενύχτωσε κ’ οι βάρβαροι δεν ήλθαν.
Και μερικοί έφθασαν απ’ τα σύνορα,
και είπανε πως βάρβαροι πια δεν υπάρχουν.

Και τώρα τι θα γένουμε χωρίς βαρβάρους.
Οι άνθρωποι αυτοί ήσαν μια κάποια λύσις.

The most famous love poem of antiquity is Sappho’s “To me he seems equal to gods”, (fragment 31, composed on Lesbos c. 600 BC). Four full stanzas survive of what was probably a seven- or eight-stanza poem. They are quoted by the critic Longinus to demonstrate how Sappho “lists many different and striking symptoms of passion, and combines them into a single whole”.

In the fourth stanza Sappho describes how she sweats, trembles, and is “more chlôros than grass”. One meaning of chlôros in ancient Greek is “green” (hence ‘chlorophyll’), and Anne Carson translates the stanza

and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass
I am and dead—or almost
   I seem to me.

When the Roman poet Catullus adapted Sappho for his poem 51 (‘ille mi par esse deo videtur') he stopped short at the third stanza (he added a final one of his own). The renowned Oxford classicist Martin West wrote (clearly somewhat tongue in cheek) that Catullus “omits the fourth stanza, whether from weariness of the exercise or from reluctance to describe himself as greener than grass”.

Martin West was familiar with bright green Oxford lawns, so the colour-image will reasonably have struck him as absurd. When I was walking in Primrose Hill today, however, it was noticeable how after weeks of hot sunshine and no rain the usually lush grass is not green at all (see photo above). Lesbos has green meadows for some of the year, but in the summer months the grass becomes decidedly yellow.

Attempts to connect chlôros to the notion of dampness (even of a sexual nature). are in this context misguided. Since chlôros is used by Homer to connote the pallor of fear, “pale” or “sallow” are more appropriate translations, and are often found. Using a colour-term, however, is stronger and more poetically distinctive.

κὰδ’ δέ μ᾽ ἴδρως κακχέεται, τρόμος δὲ
παῖσαν ἄγρει, χλωροτέρα δὲ ποίας
ἔμμι, τεθνάκην δ’ ὀλίγω ‘πιδεύης
φαίνομ’ ἔμ’ αὔτᾳ.

my sweat runs cold and all my body
shakes, my face turns yellower
than grass; it seems to me I’m just
an inch from death.

A few years ago the TV presenter Michael Wood and Rebecca Dobbs, his partner (and producer of his marvellous documentaries, which include In Search of Troy), gave a generous charity donation of £1500 to Classics for All to win the prize of a Greek Ode composed by me. Now that Troy and Odysseus are all the rage, it seems a good time to post it.

The Ode is 28 lines in English and Greek hexameter verse. (You can read it all, with explanatory notes, via this link). Here are the opening 8 lines:

TELL, MUSE, of many-sided Michael Wood,
famed on account of Troy and other things;
Rebecca too, who with him oft has stood,
for of their partnership one gladly sings.
But where to start and where to end my song?                 5
For, like Odysseus, Michael’s done it all,
while she who’s journeyed with him far and long
strong-willed Penelope bids us recall....

ʽΥληέντα μοι ἄνδρα πολύτροπον ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα,
ὃς μέγα κῦδος ἔχει Τροΐης ἕνεκ’ ἠδὲ καὶ ἄλλων,
τῆν δὲ φίλην ἑτάρην, ἣ πολλάκις ἄγχι βέβηκεν·
τῶν γὰρ όμοφροσύνην ἀΐων χαίροιμ’ ἂν ἀείδων.
ἀλλὰ τί μοι πρῶτον, τί μοι ὕστατον ἔσσετ’ ἀοιδῆς;                   5
ἦ γὰρ ὅδ᾽ώς ʼΟδυσεὺς τόσ᾽ ἀγακλυτὰ ἔργʼ ἐτέλεσσεν,
ἣ δὲ συνεργὸς ἐοῦσ᾽, ἅτε τετληυῖα καὶ αὐτή,
ἥρωος γαμέτῃ τοι ἐοίκεν Πηνελοπείῃ...

The truly polymathic Michael has just complete a wonderful book on Athelstan, which will come out next year.

In 57 BC, posted to Bithynia in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Roman poet Catullus was able to visit the grave of his beloved brother (we don’t know how he died) near the site of ancient Troy, and to pay his last respects.

This grief-stricken poem is famous for the pathos of its final line. I translate the elegiac couplets into English iambic rhythm:

Through many lands and over many seas,
brother, I’ve come for these sad burial rites,
to pay this final tribute to your death
and to address, in vain, your mute remains,
since fate has stolen you from my embrace -
ah, brother, so unfairly snatched away!
But these sad rituals, which our forefathers
bequeathed to us in honour of the dead,
accept now, wettened with a brother’s tears.
Hail, brother, and, for evermore, farewell.

Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
   advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
  et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum -
  heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi!
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
   tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu.
   Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

Grotte di Catullo, Sirmio (photo: Wolfgang Moroder)

Not Odysseus’ nostos (homecoming) this time, but Catullus the Roman poet (c. 80-50 BC) comes home from his spell of duty in Asia Minor (the dry, flat, province of Bithynia) and greets his beloved ancestral home, the islet of Sirmio on Lake Garda, with one of his happiest poems.

It’s in a metre called ‘limping iambics’, which trots along until the long penultimate syllable, which seems to add an unexpected halting feel to the line. Catullus uses it in a poem of resigned misery (poem 8), but here turns it into an expression of joy that leads up to the last word ‘cachinnorum’ - peals of laughter.

My new translation:

Sirmio - pearl of isles, peninsulas,
whatever’s found in undulating lakes
or in vast oceans (both are Neptune’s realm) -
what heaven to set eyes on you again! -
scarce trusting that I’ve left Bithynia’s plains
and Thynia's fields - and see you safe and sound.

What’s lovelier than, when our tasks are done,
our minds unburdened, and exhausted from
our foreign toils, we come back home at last
and throw our bodies on our longed-for bed?
This is the thing that makes it all worthwhile.

Now lovely Sirmio, greet your happy lord,
and you too, waves of Garda’s lake, rejoice
with every peal of laughter you can muster!

Paene insularum, Sirmio, insularumque
ocelle, quascumque in liquentibus stagnis
marique vasto fert uterque Neptunus,
quam te libenter quamque laetus inviso,
vix mi ipse credens Thuniam atque Bithunos
liquisse campos et videre te in tuto!

O quid solutis est beatius curis,
cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum,
desideratoque acquiescimus lecto?
hoc est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.

Salve, O venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude
gaudente, vosque, O Lydiae lacus undae,
ridete quidquid est domi cachinnorum!

In this short poem Cavy muses on how Emperor Manuel Komnenos (1118-80) called for humble religious clothing when he thought death was imminent. Dying in monastic attire was a Byzantine custom, believed to wash away one’s sins of pride and impiety (the historian Niketas Choniates notes that the opulent Manuel had to find a spare cloak since none was on hand). Paid astrologers are set against pious vestments as Manuel’s hedges against death, and the poem closes with a subtly ironic comment on the consolation of faith.

I translate, and read, in Cavafy’s chosen rhythm, iambic pentameters.

The Emperor Lord Manuel Komnenos,
one melancholy dull September day,
sensed that his death was nigh. The fortune-tellers
(well bribed) within his Court began to babble
about how many years he’d go on living.
But even as they spoke, the king himself,
recalling old traditions of devotion,
instructed that from the monastic cells
ecclesiastical attire be brought;
he put it on, delighted to assume
the humble likeness of a priest or monk.

How fortunate are all who have belief,
and like the Emperor Manuel end their days
dressed in the humble garments of their faith.



Ο βασιλεύς κυρ Μανουήλ ο Κομνηνός
μια μέρα μελαγχολική του Σεπτεμβρίου
αισθάνθηκε τον θάνατο κοντά. Οι αστρολόγοι
(οι πληρωμένοι) της αυλής εφλυαρούσαν
που άλλα πολλά χρόνια θα ζήσει ακόμη.
Ενώ όμως έλεγαν αυτοί, εκείνος
παληές συνήθειες ευλαβείς θυμάται,
κι απ’ τα κελλιά των μοναχών προστάζει
ενδύματα εκκλησιαστικά να φέρουν,
και τα φορεί, κ’ ευφραίνεται που δείχνει
όψι σεμνήν ιερέως ή καλογήρου.

Ευτυχισμένοι όλοι που πιστεύουν,
και σαν τον βασιλέα κυρ Μανουήλ τελειώνουν
ντυμένοι μες στην πίστι των σεμνότατα. 

Ulysses and Penelope by Francesco Primaticcio (1504-70)

Two ancient scholars, Aristarchus of Samothrace and Aristophanes of Byzantium (3rd-2nd century BC), agreed that the true end of Homer’s Odyssey should come at verse 23.296, more than a book earlier than the ending we have in our texts. This is the point at which the hero and his faithful wife Penelope retire to their bedchamber - after Penelope’s ruse about the bed, the moving recognition scene and simile, and Odysseus’s account of what Teiresias has predicted for him.

It’s not clear what the critics meant. Formally, the chosen verse contains a particle (μέν) that looks forward to a continuation, so it would be a strange (though perhaps not impossible) place to pick for an actual ending to the song - a bit like a fairy-tale ending with “And so the Prince and Cinderella lived happily ever after, but.” (What about the Ugly Sisters, one might ask?) It seems more likely that the scholars simply thought that the narrative arc of the story is complete at this point, and that the additional material to the end of Book 24 was not needed for a satisfying ending and might even detract from it.

I wrote about and translated the simile in a previous post. Here I translate the additional verses (241-296) into my favoured scheme of iambic heptameter.

Now Dawn with rosy fingers would have risen as they wept,
had shining-eyed Athena not had other plans in mind.
She held the long night back, right at the point it turns to day,
and stayed Dawn’s golden chariot beside the Ocean’s stream,
preventing her from yoking her swift-footed pair of colts,  
Lampus and Phaethon, bringers of the light of day to men.

Then sharp-witted Odysseus addressed Penelope:
“Dear wife,” he said “We haven’t reached the end of our ordeals:
ahead of us remains a host of trials undefined –
a labour long and difficult, a task I must complete,
since that is what the spirit of Teiresias foretold,
the day that I went down to Hades’ halls to ask about
the homecoming in store for my companions and myself.
But come with me, dear wife, let’s go to bed; may we at last
be lulled by calm-inducing sleep when we lie down to rest.”

Astute Penelope gave this response to him in turn:
“Your marriage-bed will welcome you whenever you desire,
now that the gods have rescued you and brought you home again 
to your well-crafted residence, and to your native land.
But since this thought has come to you – god put it in your mind –
inform me of your task, since in the course of time, I think,
it’s something I will learn - to know it now would be no worse.”

Ingenious Odysseus gave this answer to his wife:
“Strange lady! Why do you so urgently insist that I
should tell you? Well, I will then, nor hide any part from you - 
though you will find no pleasure in it, nor do I myself 
find any cheer. The prophet bade me head to many towns 
of mortal men, conveying in my hands a well-shaped oar,
till I should come to people with no knowledge of the sea,
who eat their daily fare without the seasoning of salt.
They have no ken of sailing craft with cheeks of purple stain,
or shapely oars that act like wings for ships that skim the waves.
He said there’d be a glaring clue – not one I’ll keep from you –
when on the road another traveller would claim that I
was carrying a winnowing-fan on my strong shoulders. Then
it’s time, he said, for me to plant my oar into the earth, 
and there and then make sacrifice to lord Poseidon, with
the offerings of a ram, and bull, and boar that mates with sows;
then head back to my home and offer sacred hecatombs
to the immortal gods who rule the wide and open sky,
to all of them in order; till a death so gentle comes
at last to me myself, far from the sea, that lays me low,
worn out by rich old age, while all around my citizens
will live at ease. All this, he said, will come to pass for me.”

Then shrewd Penelope in turn responded with these words:
“So if the gods have planned for you a happier old age,
There’s hope that, at the last, you’ll have relief from all your toil.”

So they exchanged with one another musings of this kind.
Meanwhile Eurynome and the old nursemaid made the bed;
They placed on it soft blankets, while their torches gave them light;
and when they had prepared the well-built bed with busy hands,
the older nurse departed to her quarters to lie down.
Eurynome, the maiden of the chamber, led them forth,
a flaming torch held in her hand, to bring them to their couch;
And having reached the chamber, she turned round again and left,
while they with gladness sought once more the bed they knew of old.

                                                [THE END]

καί νύ κ᾽ ὀδυρομένοισι φάνη ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς,
εἰ μὴ ἄρ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐνόησε θεὰ γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη.
νύκτα μὲν ἐν περάτῃ δολιχὴν σχέθεν, Ἠῶ δ᾽ αὖτε
ῥύσατ᾽ ἐπ᾽ Ὠκεανῷ χρυσόθρονον, οὐδ᾽ ἔα ἵππους
ζεύγνυσθ᾽ ὠκύποδας, φάος ἀνθρώποισι φέροντας,
Λάμπον καὶ Φαέθονθ᾽, οἵ τ᾽ Ἠῶ πῶλοι ἄγουσι.
καὶ τότ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἣν ἄλοχον προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς
‘ὦ γύναι, οὐ γάρ πω πάντων ἐπὶ πείρατ᾽ ἀέθλων
ἤλθομεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔτ᾽ ὄπισθεν ἀμέτρητος πόνος ἔσται,
πολλὸς καὶ χαλεπός, τὸν ἐμὲ χρὴ πάντα τελέσσαι.
ὣς γάρ μοι ψυχὴ μαντεύσατο Τειρεσίαο
ἤματι τῷ ὅτε δὴ κατέβην δόμον Ἄϊδος εἴσω,
νόστον ἑταίροισιν διζήμενος ἠδ᾽ ἐμοὶ αὐτῷ.
ἀλλ᾽ ἔρχευ, λέκτρονδ᾽ ἴομεν, γύναι, ὄφρα καὶ ἤδη
ὕπνῳ ὕπο γλυκερῷ ταρπώμεθα κοιμηθέντε.’
τὸν δ᾽ αὖτε προσέειπε περίφρων Πηνελόπεια:
‘εὐνὴ μὲν δή σοί γε τότ᾽ ἔσσεται ὁππότε θυμῷ
σῷ ἐθέλῃς, ἐπεὶ ἄρ σε θεοὶ ποίησαν ἱκέσθαι
οἶκον ἐϋκτίμενον καὶ σὴν ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν:
ἀλλ᾽ ἐπεὶ ἐφράσθης καί τοι θεὸς ἔμβαλε θυμῷ,
εἴπ᾽ ἄγε μοι τὸν ἄεθλον, ἐπεὶ καὶ ὄπισθεν, ὀΐω,
πεύσομαι, αὐτίκα δ᾽ ἐστὶ δαήμεναι οὔ τι χέρειον.’
τὴν δ᾽ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς:
‘δαιμονίη, τί τ᾽ ἄρ᾽ αὖ με μάλ᾽ ὀτρύνουσα κελεύεις
εἰπέμεν; αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ᾽ ἐπικεύσω.
οὐ μέν τοι θυμὸς κεχαρήσεται: οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτὸς
χαίρω, ἐπεὶ μάλα πολλὰ βροτῶν ἐπὶ ἄστε᾽ ἄνωγεν
ἐλθεῖν, ἐν χείρεσσιν ἔχοντ᾽ εὐῆρες ἐρετμόν,
εἰς ὅ κε τοὺς ἀφίκωμαι οἳ οὐκ ἴσασι θάλασσαν
ἀνέρες, οὐδέ θ᾽ ἅλεσσι μεμιγμένον εἶδαρ ἔδουσιν:
οὐδ᾽ ἄρα τοί γ᾽ ἴσασι νέας φοινικοπαρῄους,
οὐδ᾽ εὐήρε᾽ ἐρετμά, τά τε πτερὰ νηυσὶ πέλονται.
σῆμα δέ μοι τόδ᾽ ἔειπεν ἀριφραδές, οὐδέ σε κεύσω:
ὁππότε κεν δή μοι ξυμβλήμενος ἄλλος ὁδίτης
φήῃ ἀθηρηλοιγὸν ἔχειν ἀνὰ φαιδίμῳ ὤμῳ,
καὶ τότε μ᾽ ἐν γαίῃ πήξαντ᾽ ἐκέλευεν ἐρετμόν,
ἔρξανθ᾽ ἱερὰ καλὰ Ποσειδάωνι ἄνακτι,
ἀρνειὸν ταῦρόν τε συῶν τ᾽ ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον,
οἴκαδ᾽ ἀποστείχειν, ἔρδειν θ᾽ ἱερὰς ἑκατόμβας
ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι, τοὶ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσι,
πᾶσι μάλ᾽ ἑξείης: θάνατος δέ μοι ἐξ ἁλὸς αὐτῷ
ἀβληχρὸς μάλα τοῖος ἐλεύσεται, ὅς κέ με πέφνῃ
γήρας ὕπο λιπαρῷ ἀρημένον: ἀμφὶ δὲ λαοὶ
ὄλβιοι ἔσσονται: τὰ δέ μοι φάτο πάντα τελεῖσθαι.’ 
τὸν δ᾽ αὖτε προσέειπε περίφρων Πηνελόπεια:
‘εἰ μὲν δὴ γῆράς γε θεοὶ τελέουσιν ἄρειον,
ἐλπωρή τοι ἔπειτα κακῶν ὑπάλυξιν ἔσεσθαι.’
ὣς οἱ μὲν τοιαῦτα πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἀγόρευον:
τόφρα δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Εὐρυνόμη τε ἰδὲ τροφὸς ἔντυον εὐνὴν
ἐσθῆτος μαλακῆς, δαΐδων ὕπο λαμπομενάων.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ στόρεσαν πυκινὸν λέχος ἐγκονέουσαι,
γρηῢς μὲν κείουσα πάλιν οἶκόνδε βεβήκει,
τοῖσιν δ᾽ Εὐρυνόμη θαλαμηπόλος ἡγεμόνευεν
ἐρχομένοισι λέχοσδε, δάος μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχουσα:
ἐς θάλαμον δ᾽ ἀγαγοῦσα πάλιν κίεν. οἱ μὲν ἔπειτα
ἀσπάσιοι λέκτροιο παλαιοῦ θεσμὸν ἵκοντο.

                                [Τἐλος]

Henri Matisse ‘Le bonheur de vivre’ (Joy of living) 1906

Odysseus returns after twenty years to Ithaca and to his faithful wife Penelope (see my review of Christopher Nolan’s film). Penelope is hesitant to believe that he is who he claims to be - even after he has strung his bow and killed the suitors! She tests him by instructing her maids “move the bed”. Odysseus knows that it cannot be moved, because he had carved the bed out of a treetrunk rooted in the earth - it is a secret between him and Penelope. He testily says so, whereupon Penelope - having outwitted the cunning hero, a first in the epic - dissolves in tears and begs him to forgive her distrustfulness.

What follows is the most masterful simile in Greek literature. Now fully returned, Odysseus weeps, and Homer evokes the joy of the sailor who has come to land after being shipwrecked. But while the simile begins by being apparently related to Odysseus’s feelings, when it ends we find that it is related to Penelope’s - it is her joy in recognising Odysseus that is compared to the sailor’s joy. The balance and equality between the husband and wife is thus subtly indicated (as insightfully explained by John Winkler in his 1990 chapter ‘Penelope’s Cunning and Homers’).

My translation in iambic heptameter):

Her words aroused a sharp desire for tears within his breast.
He wept aloud, embracing his beloved, loyal wife. 
As welcome as dry land appears to sailors forced to swim  
when Lord Poseidon strikes their sturdy ship in open sea 
and drives them here and there with overpowering wind and waves -   
a few contrive to struggle through the frothing surf to shore 
by swimming, with their bodies shrouded by the salty brine,  
and overjoyed they come to land, released from evil fates -  
with just such joy Penelope gazed on her husband's form
and wound her white arms round his neck, unable to let go.

ὣς φάτο, τῷ δ᾽ ἔτι μᾶλλον ὑφ᾽ ἵμερον ὦρσε γόοιο.
κλαῖε δ᾽ ἔχων ἄλοχον θυμαρέα, κεδνὰ ἰδυῖαν.
ὡς δ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἂν ἀσπάσιος γῆ νηχομένοισι φανήῃ,
ὧν τε Ποσειδάων εὐεργέα νῆ᾽ ἐνὶ πόντῳ
ῥαίσῃ, ἐπειγομένην ἀνέμῳ καὶ κύματι πηγῷ,
παῦροι δ᾽ ἐξέφυγον πολιῆς ἁλὸς ἤπειρόνδε
νηχόμενοι, πολλὴ δὲ περὶ χροῒ τέτροφεν ἅλμη,
ἀσπάσιοι δ᾽ ἐπέβαν γαίης, κακότητα φυγόντεs.
ὣς ἄρα τῇ ἀσπαστὸς ἔην πόσις εἰσοροώσῃ,
δειρῆς δ᾽ οὔ πω πάμπαν ἀφίετο πήχεε λευκώ.

As the US and Iran engage in intermittent warfare, the opening of the first written work of history, Herodotus’s Histories, comes sharply to mind. A generation after Persian Wars (the series of Greek-Persian conflicts of 490-479 BC) Herodotus showed how that major conflagration echoed previous episodes of East-West conflict going back to mythical times, above all to the Trojan War waged between peoples of Greece and Asia as narrated in Homer’s Iliad.

Herodotus’s magnificent 9-book work, published around 430 BC, initiated the idea of empirical, source-based historical investigation. The word historiê in Greek means ‘inquiry’; we still use the word in that sense, as in ‘natural history’, the investigation of nature. The introduction to the Histories is a long, rolling programmatic sentence, in which Herodotus names himself and speaks of a ‘presentation’ of his inquiry; he was said to have presented passages to audiences in oral form. He identifies his home city as Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, now Bodrum in Turkey, located between mainland Greece across the Aegean and the non-Greek world in the Asian hinterland. A century later the philosopher Aristotle recorded a different text of the opening, attributed to “Herodotus of Thourioi”: Thourioi was a new Athenian settlement in southern Italy, founded in 443 BC, where the historian settled for a while as a citizen before returning to Athens.

Herodotus thus wrote from the vantage point of someone neither wholly Greek nor wholly Asian, whose perspective and experience spanned the world of his time. He set out not only to give both sides their due - his word ‘unsung’ (aklea) echoes the Homeric kleos, ‘glory’ or ‘renown’ - but in particular to trace the cause of the Persian Wars, his account of which spans the last five books. I translate and read here:

      A presentation of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is here set forth 
          so that what human beings have done may not be obliterated by time 
and that great and wonder-worthy deeds performed by both Greeks and non-Greeks   
  may not go unsung and above all the cause of the war they waged with one another.

                           Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε 
               ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται 
μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα      
           ἀκλεᾶ γένηται τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δι’ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι.

The Farnese Atlas, c. AD 150, Naples Archaeological Museum

Keir Starmer’s recent resignation to make way for Andy Burnham reminded me of a witty ode by Horace (Odes 1.34, which I translate and read below) that ends with the image of Fate capriciously “snatching the crown from one man’s head and placing it on another’s”.

In the ode Horace takes a side-swipe at his favoured philosophy of Epicureanism, which teaches that the universe is wholly material (made of atoms). Rather than, say, supposing that thunderbolts indicate the anger of Jupiter, Epicureanism held that such phenomena are explicable in purely physical terms such as clouds clashing together.

What, then, if lightning and thunder occur in a cloudless sky?

Horace mock-solemnly suggests that, having witnessed just that, he’s now bound to return to traditional religious beliefs. He sketches how Jove’s fearsome thunderbolt penetrates even Hades (the notion of the Underworld was also dismissed by Epicureans) and the ends of the cosmos supported by Atlas (a mythical giant).

The final moral of the ode, that Fate swaps people’s fates around in an instant, does not obviously follow from these considerations. But perhaps an unusual natural phenomenon such as Horace has witnessed might serve to make one more keenly aware of the sudden mutability of human life.

A rare and intermittent worshipper
of gods, I’ve strayed, a keen adherent to 
  perverse philosophy. Now I am forced
   to turn my sails around and trace the route

I sailed before, because Lord Jupiter,			5
who as a rule divides with fiery lightning
   the clouds asunder, now through cloudless sky 
    has launched his chariot, swift with thundering steeds,

and churned up solid earth and winding streams,
  making the Styx and the macabre realms 			10
  of loathsome Hadês, and the world’s outer rim 
   shouldered by Atlas, shake.   God has the power

to swap round low and high, reduce the proud
and raise the humble high. Capricious Fate
  delights in placing, with a strident laugh,			15
    one person’s crown upon another’s head.

parcus deorum cultor et infrequens,
insanientis dum sapientiae
  consultus erro, nunc retrorsum
   vela dare atque iterare cursus

cogor relectos: namque Diespiter,			5
igni corusco nubila dividens
  plerumque, per purum tonantis
   egit equos volucremque currum

quo bruta tellus et vaga flumina,
quo Styx et invisi horrida Taenari			10
  sedes Atlanteusque finis
   concutitur. valet ima summis

mutare et insignem attenuat deus
obscura promens. hinc apicem rapax
  Fortuna cum stridore acuto				15
   sustulit, hic posuisse gaudet.

Orestes defying the Furies, detail from an Apulian vase c. 380 BC

At the heart of Aeschylus’s tragic trilogy of 458 BC, the Oresteia, are two cryptic mottoes repeated by the chorus: pathei mathos - literally ‘by suffering, learning’ and pathein ton erxanta - ‘the doer suffers’. These are presented as cosmic truths. But curiously, no character is shown to learn by suffering in the trilogy itself. Perhaps it just means that the characters ‘learn the error of their ways’ —by dying. Or perhaps it’s us, the audience of the plays, who learn about the folly of vendetta by observing the suffering of those compelled to pursue it.

In the three plays of the trilogy, Aeschylus creates an arc of revenge and redemption. In Agamemnon, the conquering hero returns from Troy only to be murdered in his bath by his wife Clytemnestra in revenge for his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigeneia, demanded by the goddess Artemis. In the Choephori, their son Orestes kills his own mother to avenge his father, compelled by the god Apollo to commit the most unnatural of crimes. In the Eumenides Clytemnestra’s spirits of vengeance, the Furies, pursue Orestes until Athena establishes the Areopagus court in Athens. He’s acquitted, and the Furies are transformed into the Kindly Ones, guardians of the city.

The notion that ‘the doer suffers’ is well demonstrated. Every main actor pays a price for their actions - Agamemnon for killing Iphigeneia, Clytemnestra for killing Agamemnon, and Orestes for killing Clytemnestra. In addition, the blameless Cassandra, Agamemnon’s Trojan captive who prophesies her own and Agamemnon’s death, is killed — not for doing anything, but because it’s her fate to die.

Aeschylus doesn’t connect the two mottoes, but we might be tempted to: we learn from bitter experience that all action has a consequence. That consequence might be postponed or even apparently avoided; but whether we choose action or inaction we all die in the end

My very positive review of Richard Jenkyns’ latest book, The Path from Aulis, can be read here.

Erotic fresco from a house in Pompeii

When I see a short English poem I often translate it in my head into Latin or Greek. The other day I composed a Latin elegiac couplet, as if it had been addressed by Catullus to his beloved Lesbia, as follows:

Lesbia, te cupiens prorsus faciam omnia semper,
desuper aut subter, nunc, et amore potens.

Literally this means

“Lesbia, desiring you I would absolutely do everything always,
above and below, now, and vigorous with love.”

In fact my Latin was intended as a translation of this short poem by the late Jeremy Prynne:

For you I’d do
    the whole thing through,
below, above,
    for now, for love.

Were the Latin an original Catullan couplet, I think this would be a fine translation of it. It captures the meaning and effect far better than the awkwardness of the literal version.

The literal translation of words and phrases rarely captures the meaning of Latin and Greek literature. I've just completed a translation of Plato's Symposium, trying to find ways of expressing the meaning accurately in idiomatic English for a non-specialist (and to some extent also a non-British) reader. This almost always means avoiding a purely literal translation. I decided that I should also have the courage (or audacity) to add or remove what I consider to be non-crucial elements (others might disagree, of course), so as to make the prose clearer and more immediate to the modern reader. 

The opening sentence, for instance, is spoken by the narrator Apollodorus to his  interlocutor Glaucon (as yet unnamed in the Greek text), who has asked him to tell the story of the party in which Love was the topic of discussion:

δοκῶ μοι περὶ ὧν πυνθάνεσθε οὐκ ἀμελέτητος εἶναι. καὶ γὰρ ἐτύγχανον πρῴην εἰς ἄστυ οἴκοθεν ἀνιὼν Φαληρόθεν· τῶν οὖν γνωρίμων τις ὄπισθεν κατιδών με πόρρωθεν ἐκάλεσε, καὶ παίζων ἅμα τῇ κλήσει, ὦ Φαληρεύς, ἔφη, οὗτος Ἀπολλόδωρος, οὐ περιμένεις; κἀγὼ ἐπιστὰς περιέμεινα.

A literal translation runs: 

I think I am not unpractised in what you inquire about. You see, the day before yesterday I happened to be going up to town from my house in Phalerum, when one of my acquaintances caught sight of me far ahead of him from behind and called in a jocular way "You, Phalerian! I say, Apollodorus, won't you wait for me?" So I stopped and waited.

Our translation might, among other things, rephrase ‘not unpractised’, drop ‘I happened to be’, add the name of the ‘acquaintance’ Glaucon, and remove reference to Phalerum (the point of the jocular address ‘Phalerian’ is uncertain):

I guess I know this story well enough because I’ve told it before. You see, when I was heading to town the other day Glaucon caught sight of me walking ahead of him and jokily called out ‘You, Sir, Apollodorus! Wait for me.’ So I stood still and waited for him to catch up.

Well, that is just the opening…

Detail from Raphael’s School of Athens (1509-11) showing Plato and Aristotle

To Homer was attributed a series of ancient hymns dating from around 700 to 500 BC, addressed to the Olympian gods, in hexameter verse. The recent voyage of Artemis II, the rocket that flew around the moon, brought to my mind the Homeric Hymn to Artemis, goddess of the hunt:

Of Artemis sing, Muse, the sister of the god Far-shooting, 
Virgin of copious arrows, fellow nursling of Apollo; 
who waters first her horses by the reedy river Meles
then swiftly drives her chariot wholly made of gold through Smyrna
to Claros rich in terraced vines, where silver-bowed Apollo 
sits waiting for the Shooting-far Goddess of Copious Arrows.
So I salute you, and with you all goddesses along:   
of you I sing, and from you first of all I raise my song.

Ἄρτεμιν ὕμνει, Μοῦσα, κασιγνήτην Ἑκάτοιο,
παρθένον ἰοχέαιραν, ὁμότροφον Ἀπόλλωνος,
ἥ θ᾿ ἵππους ἄρσασα βαθυσχοίνοιο Μέλητος
ῥίμφα διὰ Σμύρνης παγχρύσεον ἅρμα διώκει
ἐς Κλάρον ἀμπελόεσσαν, ὅθ᾿ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων
ἧσται μιμνάζων ἑκατηβόλον Ἰοχέαιραν.
καὶ σὺ μὲν οὕτω χαῖρε θεαί θ᾿ ἅμα πᾶσαι ἀοιδῆι·
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ σέ τε πρῶτα καὶ ἐκ σέθεν ἄρχομ᾿ ἀείδειν.

Singer with kithara on a Greek vase by the ‘Berlin painter’ (c. 490 BC)

What do we pursue in life? The Roman poet Horace chose to be a master of lyric song.

Horace published three books of Odes (short poems in lyric metre) in 23 BC. In the opening Ode, the poet addresses his patron Maecenas (a friend of the emperor Augustus), and proceeds to list the occupations that appeal to different people - athlete, politician, merchant, soldier, and so on.

The list culminates in Horace’s own desire to be ranked among the great lyric bards, Greek poets such as Sappho and Pindar who had lived and sung centuries earlier.

Maecenas, offspring of an ancient line
of kings, o my protector, pride and friend:
see how men love to watch Olympia’s dust
thrown up by racing chariots, the bend

grazed by their scorching wheels, the winning lap
exalting then to lordship in the skies.
For some, a fine career in public life
with popular approval is the prize,

while others strive to fill their granaries
with heaped-up corn swept up by Libyan trade.
The farmer who drives furrows with a pick
on his ancestral fields, you won’t persuade,

not with a tyrant’s ransom, to endure
the terror of a leaky boat at sea.
The merchant, fearful of the roar of wind
and wave, commends the rural harmony

of his home town, but soon enough, unused
to humble ways of life, fits out his fleet.
Then there’s the man who quaffs his vintage wine,
and for an hour or two puts up his feet,

lolling at ease beneath an arbute shrub,
or by a gentle river’s sacred head.
Some relish war’s alarms, the call of pipes
and bugles mingled, battles that strike dread

into a mother’s heart. Through frozen nights,
the hunter with his faithful hounds forgets
his tender bride, intent on catching deer,
or Sabine boars that tear his fine-meshed nets.

But as for me, I seek the ivy crown
that links me to the heavens: my domain
is the cool shade where nymphs and satyrs dance.
I only ask the Muses: don’t disdain

to grant me inspiration with your pipes
and Lesbian lyre. Then, if only I
might take my place among the lyric bards,
with upraised head I’ll strike the stars on high.

Maecenas atavis edite regibus,
o et praesidium et dulce decus meum:
sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
collegisse iuvat metaque fervidis

evitata rotis palmaque nobilis	              5
terrarum dominos evehit ad deos.
hunc, si mobilium turba Quiritium
certat tergeminis tollere honoribus,	

illum, si proprio condidit horreo
quidquid de Libycis verritur areis. 	              10
gaudentem patrios findere sarculo
agros Attalicis condicionibus

numquam demoveas, ut trabe Cypria
Myrtoum pavidus nauta secet mare.
luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum                     15
mercator metuens otium et oppidi

laudat rura sui; mox reficit rates
quassas indocilis pauperiem pati.
est qui nec veteris pocula Massici
nec partem solido demere de die                         20

spernit, nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
stratus, nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae.
multos castra iuvant et lituo tubae
permixtus sonitus bellaque matribus

detestata. manet sub Iove frigido                         25
venator tenerae coniugis inmemor,
seu visa est catulis cerva fidelibus
seu rupit teretes Marsus aper plagas.

me doctarum hederae praemia frontium
dis miscent superis, me gelidum nemus            30
Nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori
secernunt populo, si neque tibias

Euterpe cohibet nec Polyhymnia
Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton.
quodsi me lyricis vatibus inseres,                    35
sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

The final image - ‘with upraised head I’ll strike the stars on high” - has been interpreted in different ways. The sense is clear: Horace wishes to be elevated to poetic divinity. But it brings to my mind the way ancient lytic singers were often depicted (as in the Greek vase-painting above) with their heads flung back and facing up to the stars.

The ancient Greeks tended to believe not in progress, but in regress. Observing the harsh and unjust world in which they lived, they could only assume that life had once been better and that the world had declined because of humanity’s unceasing moral turpitude.

The notion of regress was elaborated by Hesiod, a poet-singer of the same era as Homer (8th-7th century BC). Once there was a Golden Age, but a succession of ages has intervened (Silver, Bronze, Heroic) and we now live in an Age of Iron. During this age, humans live an existence of toil and misery. It is a world where might is right, and lies win over truth; children abuse their parents, families break up in strife, and all social bonds are loosened. It sounds very familiar.

The worst of it is to come, says Hesiod. People will no longer feel shame to commit crime, and babies will be born with grey hair (prefiguring Benjamin Button!). The gods will forsake humanity. Hesiod’s Works and Days 174-201 (read here in English and Greek) is a searing indictment of modern life and an alarming vision of the future.

If only I didn't have to live among the fifth generation, 
but could have died first or been born afterwards! 
Today's race is truly one of iron. Every day
it toils on grimly, every night it is exhausted, 
since the gods give it pain and trouble.
Still, in this generation good is mixed with bad.
But Zeus will destroy this race of mortals
when babies are born with grey hair on their temples; 
then fathers will fight with sons, sons with fathers,
guests with hosts, friends with friends; 
brothers will not cherish brothers as before; 
children will dishonour their ageing parents,
scolding them with unpleasant words
(fools, they don't think about divine punishment!)
and not repaying their parents for rearing them.
Wantonly destructive, men will destroy others' cities. 
There will be no benefit for those who keep their word 
nor for the just or good men; more honour will accrue 
to evildoers and men of violence, in whose hands justice lies. 
Decency will not exist: bad men will harm good ones, 
with crooked words and false promises.
Envy, raucous and gloating, loathsome to behold, 
will accompany all miserable human beings. 
Reverence and Retribution will cover their faces 
with white veils, and will leave human beings behind, 
as they retreat from the broad earth to the 
race of the immortals on Olympus. Terrible pain will remain
for mortals, and there will be no guard against ills.

μηκέτ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ὤφελλον ἐγὼ πέμπτοισι μετεῖναι
ἀνδράσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἢ πρόσθε θανεῖν ἢ ἔπειτα γενέσθαι.
νῦν γὰρ δὴ γένος ἐστὶ σιδήρεον· οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἦμαρ
παύσονται καμάτου καὶ ὀιζύος οὐδέ τι νύκτωρ
τειρόμενοι· χαλεπὰς δὲ θεοὶ δώσουσι μερίμνας.
ἀλλ᾽ ἔμπης καὶ τοῖσι μεμείξεται ἐσθλὰ κακοῖσιν.
Ζεὺς δ᾽ ὀλέσει καὶ τοῦτο γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων,
εὖτ᾽ ἂν γεινόμενοι πολιοκρόταφοι τελέθωσιν.
οὐδὲ πατὴρ παίδεσσιν ὁμοίιος οὐδέ τι παῖδες,
οὐδὲ ξεῖνος ξεινοδόκῳ καὶ ἑταῖρος ἑταίρῳ,
οὐδὲ κασίγνητος φίλος ἔσσεται, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ.
αἶψα δὲ γηράσκοντας ἀτιμήσουσι τοκῆας·
μέμψονται δ᾽ ἄρα τοὺς χαλεποῖς βάζοντες ἔπεσσιν,
σχέτλιοι, οὐδὲ θεῶν ὄπιν εἰδότες· οὐδὲ μὲν οἵ γε
γηράντεσσι τοκεῦσιν ἀπὸ θρεπτήρια δοῖεν.
χειροδίκαι· ἕτερος δ᾽ ἑτέρου πόλιν ἐξαλαπάξει·
οὐδέ τις εὐόρκου χάρις ἔσσεται οὐδὲ δικαίου
οὔτ᾽ ἀγαθοῦ, μᾶλλον δὲ κακῶν ῥεκτῆρα καὶ ὕβριν
ἀνέρα τιμήσουσι· δίκη δ᾽ ἐν χερσί καὶ αἰδὼς
οὐκ ἔσται· βλάψει δ᾽ ὁ κακὸς τὸν ἀρείονα φῶτα
μύθοισι σκολιοῖς ἐνέπων, ἐπὶ δ᾽ ὅρκον ὀμεῖται.
Ζῆλος δ᾽ ἀνθρώποισιν ὀιζυροῖσιν ἅπασιν
δυσκέλαδος κακόχαρτος ὁμαρτήσει, στυγερώπης.
καὶ τότε δὴ πρὸς Ὄλυμπον ἀπὸ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης
λευκοῖσιν φάρεσσι καλυψαμένω χρόα καλὸν
ἀθανάτων μετὰ φῦλον ἴτον προλιπόντ᾽ ἀνθρώπους
Αἰδὼς καὶ Νέμεσις· τὰ δὲ λείψεται ἄλγεα λυγρὰ
θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποισι, κακοῦ δ᾽ οὐκ ἔσσεται ἀλκή.

The lexical evidence suggests that the Greeks of Hesiod's time thought of the past as in front of our eyes and the future as behind our backs.  This makes sense: we can, after all, survey the past, but we cannot actually see the future. An exception was made for prophecy, which might be thought of as allowing us to glimpse the future by momentarily turning our head.

The image, then, is that we’re travelling, as if on a carriage - backwards. The road we have traversed, the past, stretches before our eyes. The bumps and ruts of the road to come — the future — are invisible to us.

We must hope that we don’t tumble backwards over a precipice.

John Jagger, a generous benefactor to the Oxford college where I work, Jesus, turned a youthful 90 this March. Educated at Bradford Grammar School and Oxford (where he studied with my predecessor, Classics tutor John Griffiths) John had a successful career working in senior positions for Grand Met (now Diageo) in the brewery and entertainment business. Having retired to Ilkley, Yorkshire, he continues to live a very active life with his wife Jane, enjoying golf and travel.

John’s 90th birthday was celebrated with a dozen friends at Jesus College, where a concert of ancient Greek songs was put on by graduates, and “When I’m 94” was performed by undergraduate Sam Honeybone on clarinet and me on the cello. I then presented John with an ode in Latin elegiac verse “Tu vetus es” based on Lewis Carroll’s “You are old, father William”, which (with John’s permission) I print and read here in English and Latin:

You are old, Father Jagger," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
Yet the love of the Classics remains in your head:
Do you think at your age that is right?"

"In my youth," John replied, looking down at the lad,
"I was taught by John Griffiths at Jesus;
My school, BGS, was the best start I had,
And these early foundations still please us."

"From Oxford, then,” prodded the youth, "you were sent
To Grand Met, where you made quite a stir;
From Websters to Watneys the brewers you went:
Please tell us your secret, good sir.”

"In those days," John replied, “I could open all doors:
"I made Carlsberg a massive success.
I then worked in America, far from these shores,
It was jolly good fun, I confess."

"You’ve not stopped," said the lad, "Now you're married to Jane,
And must tend to your Ilkley estate,
You still travel and golf, and your hobbies maintain;
Don’t you wish you had less on your plate?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said John sharply, "now bridle your tongue.
You are wasting my time with this “You are old” stuff:
See – today I am ninety years young."

‘Tu vetus es’, dixit iuvenis, ‘candesque capillos,
nec desunt capiti Grammata Prisca tibi.
Num recte, quippe es senior?’ Responsa Ioannes
adfert dum iuvenem respicit altus avus.
‘Me puerum quondam Jesu Collegium alebat,
necnon Bradfordi ludus amandus erat:
fundamenta placent’. ‘Sed deinde’ ait ille, ‘volabas
ad Solios Grandes’ (nomina multa refert).
‘Vero successus habui,’ respondit, ‘et ultro
gaudens tum vidi multa aliena loca’.
‘Haud tibi finis adest’, ait alter, ‘namque maritus
Janae, illam curans atria et alma fovens,
orbem percurris, iucunda et ludicra carpens:
nonne operum nimium perficis atque super?’
‘En, tria nunc responsa dedi’ strepit inde Ioannes,
‘nonaginta adsum, iunior atque putor!’

(Literal translation:

You are old”, said the youth, “and your hair is white
And you still have a mind for ancient Classics.
Can that be right, given your age?” Old John 
Replied, looking down at the youth:
“As a boy Jesus College once nourished me,
Nor was Bradford school less admirable.
I cherish these foundations.” “But then”, said the lad, “you soared
To Great Heights (he named several of these)."
“True, I was very successful,” John replied, “and above all
In those days I enjoyed visiting many places abroad.”
“There’s no stopping you”, said the lad, “since you’re married
To Jane,  you look after her and your lovely home,
And you tour the world, enjoying fun and games:
Aren’t you doing too much and more?”
“Look, I’ve given three answers”, growled John,”
Here I am, at 90 - and in people's minds I’m young!” )