The Odes of Horace, translated by David Ferry, 1997

Discovered through an essay in Daniel Mendelsohn’s book (see #9 Essays), reading these two books side by side was a delightful and illuminating experience. Horace (65 BC-8BC) lived through one of the most chaotic periods of Roman history—the assassination of Julius Caesar, the end of the Republic, the triumph of Octavian over Cleopatra and Mark Antony, the rise of Augustus.  His four volumes of 88 Odes are felt to be a major influence on poetry from the Renaissance to Pope, Housman, Auden and others.   His great gift was making the commonplace notable, even luminous while making the unexpected the expected.   Each of these two books of translation features the original Greek on the left hand page and the translation on the right.  The Odes are quite wonderful, but perhaps the most interesting issue raised by reading them side by side is the issue of translation.  In some cases, a reader might wonder whether Ferry and Donald Hall, to choose just one of McClatchy’s cohort, were translating the same poem.   Raises some fascinating questions about translation as well as gives great pleasure in reading poems that have survived 2000 years and remain relevant today.