Odes (Horace) - Book 1

Book 1

Book 1 consists of 38 poems. Notable poems in this collection include:

I.3 Sic te diva potens Cypri, a propempticon (travel poem) addressed to contemporary poet Virgil.

I.4, Solvitur acris hiems a hymn to springtime in which Horace urges his friend Sestius vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam (Life's brief total forbids us cling to long-off hope)

I.5, Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa, on the coquettish Pyrrha, famously translated by John Milton.

I.9, Vides ut alta ... Soracte ..., (with borrowing from an original by Alcaeus) moving from the stiffness of a wintery scene to an invocation of youth's pleasures that are now there to be had.

I.11, Tu ne quaesieris, a short rebuke to a woman worrying about the future; it closes with the famous line carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero (Seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as possible).

I.22, Integer vitae, an amusing ode that starts as a solemn praise of honest living and ends in a mock-heroic song of love for sweetly laughing, sweetly talking "Lalage" (cf. II.5.16, Propertius IV.7.45).

I.33, Albi, ne doleas, a consolation to the contemporary poet Tibullus over a lost love.