Beatus Ille
Beatus ille (blessed the one) - I found it with slight verbiage variations in three places, each one giving to these words a different meaning, while each one is a statement on the principle of happiness.
In the First Psalm, beatus vir (blessed the man) states the happiness according to the Abrahamic monotheism: beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum (Vulgata) / blessed is the man that walketh not in the council of the anybody (King James Bilble) - interesting English rendering, anybody could be for you a reason to loose the right path, stay far away, blind to temptations.
It is then heureux qui comme Ulyse, the principle of happiness according to Ulysses paradigm (and I am talking here about the Homeric hero: Joyce gave a splendid paraphrase, while also Ibsen's Peer Gynt is a paraphrase): heureux qui, comme Ulyse, a fait un beau voyage... et puis est retourné... vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge / happy the man who, like Ulysses, went sailing afar... then returned... amonst his own, to live and die content / fericit cel care, ca si Ulise oarecand... traind mai apoi impreuna cu parintii sai pe vecie (Joachim du Bellay - Le Beau Voyage). And another Abrahamic text comes maybe to mind here (this time from Luke's Gospel): the Return of the Prodigal Son.
And it is beatus ille, the balanced view on advancing toward a possible, maybe improbable, happiness, through the reality of our conflicting interests and passions - the view that Horace gives in his Second Epode:
Beatus ille qui procul negotiis,
ut prisca gens mortalium,
paterna rura bubus exercet suis
solutus omni faenore
neque excitatur classico miles truci
neque horret iratum mare
forumque vitat et superba civium
potentiorum limina.
ergo aut adulta vitium propagine
altas maritat populos
aut in reducta valle mugientium
prospectat errantis greges
inutilisque falce ramos amputans
feliciores inserit
aut pressa puris mella condit amphoris
aut tondet infirmas ovis.
vel cum decorum mitibus pomis caput
Autumnus agris extulit,
ut gaudet insitiva decerpens pira
certantem et uvam purpurae,
qua muneretur te, Priape, et te, pater
Silvane, tutor finium.
libet iacere modo sub antiqua ilice,
modo in tenaci gramine:
labuntur altis interim ripis aquae,
queruntur in Silvis aves
frondesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus,
somnos quod invitet levis.
at cum tonantis annus hibernus Iovis
imbris nivisque conparat,
aut trudit acris hinc et hinc multa cane
apros in obstantis plagas
aut amite levi rara tendit retia
turdis edacibus dolos
pavidumque leporem et advenam laqueo gruem
iucunda captat praemia.
quis non malarum quas amor curas habet
haec inter obliviscitur?
quodsi pudica mulier in partem iuvet
domum atque dulcis liberos,
Sabina qualis aut perusta Solibus
pernicis uxor Apuli,
sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum
lassi Sub adventum viri
claudensque textis cratibus laetum pecus
distenta siccet ubera
et horna dulci vina promens dolio
dapes inemptas adparet:
non me Lucrina iuverint conchylia
magisve rhombus aut scari,
siquos Eois intonata fluctibus
hiems ad hoc vertat mare,
non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum,
non attagen Ionicus
iucundior quam lecta de pinguissimis
oliva ramis arborum
aut herba lapathi prata amantis et gravi
malvae salubres corpori
vel agna festis caesa Terminalibus
vel haedus ereptus lupo.
has inter epulas ut iuvat pastas ovis
videre properantis domum,
videre fessos vomerem inversum boves
collo trahentis languido
positosque vernas, ditis examen domus,
circum renidentis Laris.'
haec ubi locutus faenerator Alfius,
iam iam futurus rusticus,
omnem redegit idibus pecuniam,
quaerit kalendis ponere.
ut prisca gens mortalium,
paterna rura bubus exercet suis
solutus omni faenore
neque excitatur classico miles truci
neque horret iratum mare
forumque vitat et superba civium
potentiorum limina.
ergo aut adulta vitium propagine
altas maritat populos
aut in reducta valle mugientium
prospectat errantis greges
inutilisque falce ramos amputans
feliciores inserit
aut pressa puris mella condit amphoris
aut tondet infirmas ovis.
vel cum decorum mitibus pomis caput
Autumnus agris extulit,
ut gaudet insitiva decerpens pira
certantem et uvam purpurae,
qua muneretur te, Priape, et te, pater
Silvane, tutor finium.
libet iacere modo sub antiqua ilice,
modo in tenaci gramine:
labuntur altis interim ripis aquae,
queruntur in Silvis aves
frondesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus,
somnos quod invitet levis.
at cum tonantis annus hibernus Iovis
imbris nivisque conparat,
aut trudit acris hinc et hinc multa cane
apros in obstantis plagas
aut amite levi rara tendit retia
turdis edacibus dolos
pavidumque leporem et advenam laqueo gruem
iucunda captat praemia.
quis non malarum quas amor curas habet
haec inter obliviscitur?
quodsi pudica mulier in partem iuvet
domum atque dulcis liberos,
Sabina qualis aut perusta Solibus
pernicis uxor Apuli,
sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum
lassi Sub adventum viri
claudensque textis cratibus laetum pecus
distenta siccet ubera
et horna dulci vina promens dolio
dapes inemptas adparet:
non me Lucrina iuverint conchylia
magisve rhombus aut scari,
siquos Eois intonata fluctibus
hiems ad hoc vertat mare,
non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum,
non attagen Ionicus
iucundior quam lecta de pinguissimis
oliva ramis arborum
aut herba lapathi prata amantis et gravi
malvae salubres corpori
vel agna festis caesa Terminalibus
vel haedus ereptus lupo.
has inter epulas ut iuvat pastas ovis
videre properantis domum,
videre fessos vomerem inversum boves
collo trahentis languido
positosque vernas, ditis examen domus,
circum renidentis Laris.'
haec ubi locutus faenerator Alfius,
iam iam futurus rusticus,
omnem redegit idibus pecuniam,
quaerit kalendis ponere.
Here is what the Hachette edition from 1911 has to say about the Second Epode:
Frais et gracieux éloge de la vie champêtre… dans la bouche d’Alfius, un usurier à qui son amour de la campagne ne fait perdre de vue ni ses créances, ni le remploi de ses capitaux. Mais, ceci, nous le savons qu’à la fin ; et les derniers vers, qui nous l’apprennent, font épigramme, sans transformer la pièce en satire : non seulement ils n’enlèvent à la description et au sentiment rien de leur charme et de leur vérité, mais il n’est pas dit qu’Horace entende contester la sincérité d’Alfius ; il est plus digne d’un moraliste comme lui d’avoir montré la complication, parfois amusante comme ici, du cœur de l’homme, le conflit de nos goûts et de nos intérêts, et d’avoir su en tirer une idylle qui se termine par une point d’esprit. – Sénaire et quaternaire ïambiques. – Date inconnue : probablement vers l’an 37 AEC.
(Fresh and gracious praise of the pastoral life … in the mouth of Alfius, an usurer whose love of the countryside does not make losing sight of his credits, or of re-employment of its capital. But, we find this out only by the end; and the last lines of the epode, which tell us about, make an epigram, without transforming the poem into satire: not only they don’t erase at the description and feeling anything of their charm and truth, but it doesn’t result that Horace would intend to dispute the of Alfius; it is worthier for a moralist like him to show the complications, sometimes amusing like here, of the human heart, the conflict of our tastes and our interests, and to know how to draw from it an idyll which ends in a flash of wit. – Senary and quaternary iambic. – unknown date: probably towards year 37 BCE)
The fellow's worth a fortune who, far
from commerce, cultivates his fathers'
farm with his own oxen & is free
of usury -- like the folk of yore.
No soldier, summoned to battle by the bugle
or fearful of a fuming sea,
no plaintiff or haunter of the haughty portals
of especially-powerful citizens
is the man who marries mature growths
of grape to poplars he's pampered
or watches over his wandering herd
bellowing in lonely bottomlands
while he saws away worthless scions
& engrafts the gainful
or hoards
honey from the comb into clean containers
or shears his compliant sheep.
As Autumn hoists its head, adorned with
fleshy fruits, through fields,
he gloats, gathering prize pears
& grapes purpler than the pigment
to pay you, Priapus, & you sir,
Silvanus, protector of property.
The bliss of napping beneath an old oak
or on a luxuriant lawn
while water wends between wide banks
& birds whine in the woods
& fountains fret with splashing spray --
a summons to soft slumbers!
When wintry weather threatens with thunder,
storms & snow, he speeds
into snares (from all sides) boars
battling a horde of hounds
or suspends from slender staves the webbing
widened to fool feeding
figpeckers and ropes the frightened rabbit
& drifting crane (a delicacy!).
Living that life, who wouldn't ignore
the ills latent in love?
Should a faithful wife do her fair share
helping with the home & cherished
children (a Sabine, say, or the sunburned
bride of an assiduous Apulian)
and stack seasoned timber on the hearth
for her tired husband's return
and pen yielding ewes within pleachwork
to drain their distended udders
and, ladling a lively vintage from the vat,
prepare an unpurchased repast --
I'd freely forego the finest oyster
or flounder or scaurfish forced
to these waters when winter blasts
bolts on Eastern breakers.
African fowl & Greek game-hens hardly
would settle into my stomach
happier than the odd olive, harvested
from the orchard's oiliest offshoot
or meadow-dwelling sourdock & mallows
(medicine for a body's burdens)
or a lamb slain for a farmers' festival
or a friskling whisked from a wolf.
How felicitous at such feasts to see fattened
flocks hurrying homeward,
bone-weary bulls with nodding necks
pulling an upended plough,
& the worker-bees of a wealthy abode: slaves
stationed near smiling cult-statues!
So spoke Alfius, a financier,
bent on becoming a bumpkin.
Midway through the month, he cashed his capital --
to float it again on the first.
from commerce, cultivates his fathers'
farm with his own oxen & is free
of usury -- like the folk of yore.
No soldier, summoned to battle by the bugle
or fearful of a fuming sea,
no plaintiff or haunter of the haughty portals
of especially-powerful citizens
is the man who marries mature growths
of grape to poplars he's pampered
or watches over his wandering herd
bellowing in lonely bottomlands
while he saws away worthless scions
& engrafts the gainful
or hoards
honey from the comb into clean containers
or shears his compliant sheep.
As Autumn hoists its head, adorned with
fleshy fruits, through fields,
he gloats, gathering prize pears
& grapes purpler than the pigment
to pay you, Priapus, & you sir,
Silvanus, protector of property.
The bliss of napping beneath an old oak
or on a luxuriant lawn
while water wends between wide banks
& birds whine in the woods
& fountains fret with splashing spray --
a summons to soft slumbers!
When wintry weather threatens with thunder,
storms & snow, he speeds
into snares (from all sides) boars
battling a horde of hounds
or suspends from slender staves the webbing
widened to fool feeding
figpeckers and ropes the frightened rabbit
& drifting crane (a delicacy!).
Living that life, who wouldn't ignore
the ills latent in love?
Should a faithful wife do her fair share
helping with the home & cherished
children (a Sabine, say, or the sunburned
bride of an assiduous Apulian)
and stack seasoned timber on the hearth
for her tired husband's return
and pen yielding ewes within pleachwork
to drain their distended udders
and, ladling a lively vintage from the vat,
prepare an unpurchased repast --
I'd freely forego the finest oyster
or flounder or scaurfish forced
to these waters when winter blasts
bolts on Eastern breakers.
African fowl & Greek game-hens hardly
would settle into my stomach
happier than the odd olive, harvested
from the orchard's oiliest offshoot
or meadow-dwelling sourdock & mallows
(medicine for a body's burdens)
or a lamb slain for a farmers' festival
or a friskling whisked from a wolf.
How felicitous at such feasts to see fattened
flocks hurrying homeward,
bone-weary bulls with nodding necks
pulling an upended plough,
& the worker-bees of a wealthy abode: slaves
stationed near smiling cult-statues!
So spoke Alfius, a financier,
bent on becoming a bumpkin.
Midway through the month, he cashed his capital --
to float it again on the first.
Dichoso aquél que alejado de los negocios,
como la antigua raza de los hombres,
dedica su tiempo a trabajar
los campos paternos con los bueyes,
libre de toda deuda,
y no se despierta
como los soldados
con el toque de diana amenazador,
ni tiene miedo
a los ataques del mar,
que evita el foro
y los soberbios palacios
de los ciudadanos poderosos.
como la antigua raza de los hombres,
dedica su tiempo a trabajar
los campos paternos con los bueyes,
libre de toda deuda,
y no se despierta
como los soldados
con el toque de diana amenazador,
ni tiene miedo
a los ataques del mar,
que evita el foro
y los soberbios palacios
de los ciudadanos poderosos.
(Horace)
Labels: Horace
posted by Pierre Radulescu at
9:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home