Epodes

by Horaci, Joan Carbonell i Manils (Translator)

Els «Iambi» o «Epodes» és un poemari format per disset composicions que va ser publicada entorn a l'any 30 aC, després que l'autor hagués donat a conèixer el primer llibre de «Sàtires» (35 - 34 aC). Aquest recull de poemes, plens d'ironia, són de temàtica diversa: sàtires mordaces, poemes de caire patriòtic que tracen temes relacionats amb el destí de Roma, odes líriques de tema amorós, sobre rivalitats literàries i polítiques, crítiques a certs personatges públics i afers quotidians.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

138 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 31

Reviews

[Vitali Abadal · Rating 3 out of 5]

joan ratbonell et virgiliem

[James Carrigy · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

Favourite poems: “Quo, quo, scelesti ruitis?”, “Rogare longo”, and “Altera iam teritur”.

The ability to write about both the immense inhumanity of civil war and the sagging tits of a spurned lover is what we call “artistic variety”.

[Toon Pepermans · Rating 3 out of 5]

my favourites are epodes 2 and 13

[Hedvig Wilhelmina · Rating 4 out of 5]

king shit. obligatory minus one star for misogyny.

[Aarya Newasekar · Rating 5 out of 5]

First Latin text I read through in its entirety!

[Lydia Collado · Rating 3 out of 5]

Avui tinc examen i surt aquesta obra.
Edit: he tret molt bona nota🤭

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I find Horace's epodes, taken as a whole, to be a rather uneven affair, there are still a few poems in here that rise to greatness. Mankin is a fine commentator, meticulous and helpful without smothering the text.

[Ahenobarbus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vigorous mixed-bag. The trick here is to read the collection in a concerted & concentrated pass, not terribly difficult as it consists of 17 poems -- I made the mistake of being distracted at two-or-three intervals, running off to read snippets of the "Historia Augusta" or Juvenal before stumbling back.

There is a lyric vigor here, a refinement but not a sleek repose that one finds occasionally in later compositions like "Odes 1-3". Topically the poems are wide-ranging -- from political retorts & anxieties (Epodes 1 & 16) , to an extended pastoral fantasy that gets shockingly quashed in a final couplet by putting the speech on the lips of an un-reformed usurer (Epode 2, like a Vergilian eclogue dutifully inhabited but ultimately skewered by Horatian satire), to sneering invectives (this being the more expected province of a genre modeled on Greek poets like Archilochus or Hipponax), to more quiet moments where "Horace" & co., seeking shelter from a storm with an impromptu symposium, invoke the sorrow of Chiron who tells Achilles he will never return from Troy (Epode 13). The poems on Canidia (3, 5, 17) are all quite excellent -- she is a nemesis throughout the collection, both stock witch in the Thessalian tradition (i.e. we are told she can draw/de-duct celestial bodies from the heavens) and "domina"/mistress of love elegy. Epode 5 is an incredible back-and-forth between Canidia and a young boy she has captured for sacrifice -- a dialogue between prey & predator, as though drawing up the psychological currents in elegiac love poetry and staging them in a malevolent, merciless narrative.

As noted above, however clumsily, this collection feels like a proper pivot in Horace's canon -- from the chatty strut of his "Sermones" to the refined splendor of his "Odes". There is a fair amount of planning and detail in this collection that hints at the poet's transition. I pluck but one detail to support this in closing: the final word of the "Epodes", from the lips of Canidia, is "exitus" which, slightly out of step with its context, means departure, conclusion. Looking back at the first word of the first poem, "ibis", "you will go", i.e. a beginning, one sees a tidy, almost itinerary traced throughout the collection: from "ibis" to "exitus", a journey started and eventually concluded.