People in many cultures have found it proper to meditate on the
inevitability of death. For Medieval Christians reminders of death were spurs to
repentence, so that the believer should escape Hell and spend eternity in
Heaven. Buddhists stress that focussing on the temporary nature of life helps
one to become detatched from it in a way that promotes an enlightened entry into
Nirvana. But the ancient Romans, especially the stoics among them, seemed to
meditate on death almost for its own sake, as a sobering and steadying
influence. It is not surprising that Christian writers found such poems highly
edifying. This classic translation of a poem by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BCE
8 BCE) was published by the great English poet Samuel Johnson in 1760.
What sorts of dangers does Horace say it is useless to avoid? How does he say
the dead person's heir will behave?
Alas, dear friend, the fleeting years
In everlasting circles run,
In vain you spend your vows and prayers,
They roll, and ever will roll on.
Should
hecatombs (1) each rising morn
On cruel
Pluto's (2) altar dye,
Should costly loads of incense burn,
Their fumes ascending to the sky:
You could not gain a moment's breath
Or move the haughty king below
Nor would inexorable death
Defer an hour the fatal blow.
In vain we shun the din of war,
And terrors of the stormy
main, (3)
In vain with anxious breasts we fear
Unwholesome Sirius' (4) sultry reign;
We all must view the
Stygian flood (5)
That silent cuts the dreary plains,
And
Cruel Danaus' bloody brood (6)
Condemned to everduring pains.
Your shady groves, your pleasing wife,
And fruitful fields, my dearest friend,
You'll leave together with your life:
Alone the
cypress (7)
After your death, the lavish heir
Will quickly drive away his woe;
The wine you kept with so much care
Along the marble floor shall flow.
Translated by Samuel Johnson (1760)
Notes
(1) Extravagant sacrifices, consisting of a hundred oxen.
(2) The Lord of the Dead.
(3) Ocean.
(4) When the Dog Star Sirius was in the ascendency in August it was thought to exert a harmful influence on human health.
(5) The Styx, the river which the dead crossed into on their way to Hades.
(6) Danaus persuaded his fifty daughters to kill their husgbands because he was feuding with their new father-in-law. The women were punished in Hades by having continually carry water in leaking vessels so that their task would never be finished.
(7) The cypress, common in Italy, is traditonally associated with mourning.