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HOW
TO BE CONTENT
An ancient poet’s guide for and age of excess
Horace
Trans and intro by Stephen Harrison
ISBN 978-0-691-18252-0
Horace wrote for a period of thirty years. His works are well-known:
Satires, Odes, Epistles, Carmen Saeculare and Ars Poetica. He
described the aim of the Satires as ridentem dicere verum,
to speak truth with laughter. Stephen Harrison is an expert guide to
Horace’s life and work, and to the background. Many readers will
probably find the Latin a challenge, but Harrison is very good at
making the difficult accessible. His selection is based on a
thorough knowledge of the corpus and his ability to link Horace’s
poetry to contemporary reality shrinks the daunting distance between
his culture and ours.
Harrison provides a useful introduction and four chapters: The
Search for the Good Life; The Importance of Friendship; Love – the
Problem of Passion and Death – the Final Frontier. This neat
organisation is a helpful means of orientation: for the reader
unfamiliar with Horace it provides handy signposts and permits a
sense of familiarity with the writer to grow on the basis of
encounter with a small selection of his work.
Horace liked to propose acceptance of one’s lot. He is a critic of
what the Greeks called mempsimoiria, discontent with one’s
condition. Including himself amongst the discontented is a way of
deflecting the accusation of adopting a superior pose. Don’t worry
about tomorrow, he advises. Let today be sufficient unto itself.
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero is his famous
formulation (Make the best of today, trust minimally in what is to
come). Of course, we mustn’t forget that Horace lived well. He was
lowly born but he rose to significance and he was awarded a fine
Sabine estate. This raises the question of the degree of
sententiousness in his work. If we are meant to live in
accordance with nature, he writes, before praising the
countryside over the city. Yet the simple bucolic life is the
contrary to the ambition, pursuit of power and wealth which were
characteristic of his time. In a way, he’s able to take the wise,
golden pathway between extremes, because his views are a
counterbalance to the prevailing follies of the Roman Empire.
He sets great store by friendship and advises choice of friends
based on qualities of character rather than success or material
wealth; one should be tolerant of a friend’s foibles as one should
support a friend in need while helping them keep sadness within
limits. He believes in a hierarchy of virtue to which he and his
friend Maecenas belong. This view of friendship is edifying, but
like the rest of his wisdom leaves the sense of a discrepancy
between the ideal and how people actually behave. We live in a
culture in which people are divided by property. Few people from the
bottom end become close friends with millionaires. Horace’s advice
is humane, gentle, reasonable, tolerant but in his time as in ours,
hard for most people to follow.
With passion as with death, Horace takes the middle way: avoid
excess, choose carefully, accept what must be with a good grace.
Passion is for the young, age brings moderation and wisdom. Death is
the great leveller.
Harrison has provided an excellent introduction and Horace is fine
company. The translations read fluently and the balanced, thoughtful
philosophy has much to offer our frazzled age. The question does
arise, however, as to how to bridge the gap between the wise
acceptance of life, the avoidance of extremes, the cultivation of
the gentle, tolerant emotions and the demands of a culture which
makes Horace’s wisdom appear available only to those who have
withdrawn from the fray to live in bucolic retreat.
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