Odes 1.5, also known as Ad Pyrrham ('To Pyrrha'), or by its incipit, Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa, is one of the Odes of Horace. The poem is written in the fourth Asclepiadean metre and is of uncertain date; not after 23 BC.[1]

Summary

To a coquette or flirt: What slender innocent youth enjoys your smiles to-day, and courts you, Pyrrha? (1–5) Alas, he does not yet suspect that you are fickle as the sea; your smile lures on his love to shipwreck (5–13). Thank Heaven I escaped betimes: in Neptune's temple I hang my dripping clothes as votive gift (13–16).[2][1]

Translations

Milton's version is well known. Imitation by Cowley, and by La Fontaine.[3] According to Clifford Herschel Moore, "The perfected simplicity of this ode can best be tested by an attempt to alter or transpose a word, or by translation. Even Milton's well-known version is inadequate."[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Bennett 1901, p. 8.
  2. 1 2 Moore 1902, p. 71.
  3. ↑ Shorey; Laing 1911, p. 160.

Bibliography

  • Bowditch, P. Lowell (2011). "Horace and the Pyrrhatechnics of Translation". The Classical World. 104 (3): 355–62.
  • Hoppin, Meredith Clarke (1984). "New Perspectives on Horace, Odes 1.5". The American Journal of Philology. 105 (1): 54–68.
  • Mason, H. A. (1976). "Horace's Ode to Pyrrha". The Cambridge Quarterly. 7 (1): 27–62.
  • Storrs, Ronald (1959). Ad Pyrrham: A Polyglot Collection of Translations of Horace's Ode to Pyrrha. London: Oxford University Press.

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