Martin Amis and Satire

I read a Martin Amis novel for the first time this year, and so this interview with him caught my eye. It's super long, and interesting only in sections, but there were numerous times when I was reminded of Juvenal's (and to a lesser extent Horace's) satires. Here are a few bits that piqued my interest:

...the book is a kind of satire of contemporary England—a member of its underclass wins the lottery and enters its tabloid class. Satire is—I wonder how helpful it is as a category. It was once defined in apposition to irony, in that the satirist isn’t just looking at things ironically but militantly—he wants to change them, and intends to have an effect on the world. I think that category just doesn’t exist in literature. No novel has ever changed anything, as far as I can see. And the great satirists, like Swift and Dickens, tend to write about abuses and injustices that have already been partially corrected—you write about it after it’s over. I would say I’m an ironist not a satirist. All you do is you take existing tendencies and crank them up, just turn up the volume dial.

Alan Treloar

I've developed the odd habit over the last couple of years, perhaps related to my interest in dead languages, of reading the obituaries in the paper from time. Not in an obsessive way, but I'll often flip to the back of the Herald and have a glance to see who's featured, and more often than not it's someone who I've never heard of, but who lived a remarkably interesting life.

Like Alan Treloar, whose obituary included the following:

Colonel Alan Treloar was one of Australia's greatest linguists and classical scholars and also a distinguished soldier.


Few could rival his knowledge as a scholar of ancient Greek and Latin. He had a special interest in the Roman poet Horace but had read the entire classical literatures of both languages at least twice.


He had an astonishing gift for languages and would admit, when pressed, to direct knowledge of about 80. He had a formidable command of many, such as Sanskrit, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and Hittite. In his early 80s he was investigating Bunuba, a language of the Kimberley.

Being (at a stretch) tri-lingual I often meet people who express amazement at my language skills, but in reality I am a mere dwarf compared to such a giant. I am especially in awe of his claim to have read the entire classical literatures of both Latin and Greek twice, to the extent that I wonder if it could possibly be true. I'm sure it is, though how he managed to find the time is completely beyond me.

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HSC 1937 style

While going through some papers the other day I cam across the Leaving Certificate (the equivalent of the HSC) Latin Exam from 1937. It's interesting to see what has and hasn't changed. Back then there was some Livy to translate and comment upon, some Horace as well for the 'Higher Standard' (i.e. extension), and a longish translation from English into Latin for everyone.

Horace is still set as an extension text (Lyric Poetry last year, Satire this year), and Livy will be next year's year 12 prose text as well. And hardly anyone does prose composition any more (it is an option in the Extension exam - most years it is attempted by at most one or two candidates out of a hundred or so).

The most remarkable thing is, I think, that a three hour paper can fit on three A5 pages!

urna movet

urna, ae f. a vessel of baked clay, vessel for drawing water, water-pot, water jar, urn: a voting-urn, ballot-box: An urn for lots, vessel for drawing lots.


The recent Latin Extension HSC paper had what I thought was a pretty difficult unseen in it. There was some pretty difficult language and a typo (don't tell the SMH) didn't make things much easier. But I thought the most difficult thing  was to understand what on earth Horace is talking about, with very little context. The end of the extract in particular contained the phrase movet urna, which has a particular, pretty specific meaning. Here's the extract the kids had to translate:

300

This is my 300th post since starting this blog way back in July 2006. The number 300 is one that crops up regularly in classical literature, for example in the 300 Spartans made popular by this movie a couple of years ago. It's often used imprecisely, to simply indicate a big, indefinite number, or often a number with some kind of magical or mysterious significance. Here are a couple of examples from Roman poetry:

Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
labuntur anni nec pietas moram
rugis et instanti senectae
adferet indomitaeque morti,

non, si trecenis quotquot eunt dies,
amice, places inlacrimabilem
Plutona tauris,

Ah, Postumus, Postumes, the fleeting
years slip by and not even your righteousness
can put on hold your wrinkles and inevitable
old-age and unyielding death,

not even if you sacrificed 300 bulls
everyday could you please pitiless
Pluto, my friend.

(Horace II.14)

wind and running water

The speaker on Lyric Poetry at Wednesday's HSC study day, made a comment at one point that whenever you come across storm imagery, you know the poet is about to have a go at women - for being unpredictable, fickle, irrational, even violent. It's not a bad point, think for example of Horace I.5, where he takes pity on his ex-girlfriend's new lover:

...heu quatiens fidem
mutatosque deos flebit et aspera
nigris aequora ventis
emirabitur insolens...

Alas, how often he will weep
At your (and the gods') vacillations
And be exasperated by your rough seas
And black gales.

But it's not just women who get this treatment. In Ode III.9 (a conversation between two lovers) the woman uses similar imagery to describe the man:

quamquam...
...tu levior cortice et improbo
iracundior Hadria,
tecum vivere amem. tecum obeam libens.

Though... you are as light as cork and as bad-tempered
As the deceitful Adriatic, I'd love
To live with you, with you I'd gladly die.

Catullus and Horace Word Cloud

Here are a couple more word clouds, first for Catullus (based on the prescribed poems for 2008-2010):



and simlilarly for Horace:

your favourite author

I've added a poll to my blog to let you vote for your favourite Roman author (you have to scroll down a bit to see it). I've only included the authors I've studied this year with my senior classes: Virgil, Cicero, Catullus, Horace and Ovid. If you vote, leave me a comment explaining who you voted for and why.

I had a similar poll set up ages ago, I don't remember what the figures were, but you can read a brief bio of each author as well as some of the comments here.

The Man of Doubtless Honour...

Here's another poem from one of my (former) year 12 students - her version of Horace Odes I.22. It's much longer than the original poem, but very well done in my opinion. For a comparison you might like to check out this version, by John Wesley, the 18th century preacher.

The man of doubtless honour,
Ne’er once will he require
Hostile blood-stained spears,
Forged in blood-red fire...

The guiltless man shan’t need
The quiver nor the arrow,
Poisoned though it be,
And sharp to pierce the marrow.

Carol Manners Essays

Each year the CLTA holds an essay competition "for Year 12 students of Latin and Greek who may write an essay from a range of topics related to the HSC and IB Latin and Greek prescribed texts."

The winning essays for 2009 have been published online:

• Vice and Virtue in Cicero’s In Verrem V
• Cicero’s Rhetorical Method in In Verrem V
• Two major differences between the lyric verse of Horace and Catullus

The standard is of course exceptional, and all three essays are well-worth reading. Here is part of the introduction to the second essay, as a brief taste:

Cicero’s rhetorical method in Verrine V fulfils various functions, diverting from structured reasoning (probare), and becoming a “self expression of the orator”. It influences emotionally (flectere), entertains (delectare), and makes Verres a “human object of contempt”. The need to persuade a jury and audience had already been ccomplished in the Actio Prima, where the weight of evidence incriminated Verres. Considering the Actio Secunda was published but never delivered in court, the focus will be particularly on dispositio (arrangement of material), elocutio (style and power of words) and the context of the Verrines in Cicero’s career.

Alas, my friend...

As a bit of fun end of year exercise for my year 12 extension students, I asked them to have a go at translating one of the poems we'd read this year into poetry.

It's a task that's been attempted by many famous writers in the past, including John Dryden, Basil Glidersleeve, Samuel Johnson, Ben Jonson, James Joyce, Alfred Tennyson, John Wesley, William Wordsworth and many others. You can find many of their versions collected at this excellent site.

iam ver egelidos refert tepores

Here are a couple of poems in celebration of the first day of spring.

Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis
arboribus comae;
mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas
flumina praetereunt;
Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
ducere nuda chorus.

The snows have fled, now the grass returns to the fields, and to the trees their leaves, the earth changes in turn and the swelling rivers flow past their banks, the naked Grace, along with the Nymphs and her twin sisters dares to lead the dance.

Birthplaces of Roman Authors

Strangely, most of the Latin authors we read today were not actually born in the city of Rome, but moved there from the provinces. This is true of Virgil, Cicero, Livy, Catullus, Ovid, Horace and many more.

This map shows the birthplaces of some of the most famous Roman writers:



View Birthplaces of Roman Authors in a larger map

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Warren Buffet, Horace and Ovid

I was reading something a couple of weeks ago (though I can't for the life of me remember what), and came across a quote from Warren Buffet (currently the world's richest person) that stuck in my head. He said something along the lines of that he had made so much money by being cautious when everyone else is greedy, and by being greedy when everyone else is cautious. Good on him.

A few days later I happened to be reading a Horace poem which contains a similar idea:

auream quisquis mediocritatem
diligit, tutus caret obsoletis
ordibus tecti, caret invidenda
sobrius aula.

saepius ventis agitatur ingens
pinus et celsae graviore casu
decidunt turres feriuntque summos
fulgura montis.

sperat infestis, metuit secundis
alteram sortem bene praeparatum
pectus.

Whoever cherishes the golden middle-way
will safely avoid the squalor of the slums
and will soberly avoid the palace
which brings only jealousy.

Often a huge pine tree is uprooted by the winds,
and tall towers fall with more serious
consequences, and lightning strikes
the highest mountains.

When times are tough, the well prepared heart
hopes for a change of fate, and, when they are favourable,
fears it.

(Horace, Odes II.10)

The idea of the 'golden middle-way' (auream... mediocritatem) was particularly dear to the Romans (especially Stoics), who took the story of Daedalus and Icarus as a kind of parable on the dangers of excess:

instruit et natum 'medio' que 'ut limite curras,
Icare,' ait 'moneo, ne, si demissior ibis,
unda gravet pennas, si celsior, ignis adurat...
me duce carpe viam!'

He fitted his son with the wings and said to him 'I warn you, Icarus, to fly on the middle course, so that, if you fly too low, the waves won't weigh down your wings, nor, if you fly too high, will the sun's fire burn them... With me as your leader, take to the sky!

(Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII.203ff)

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Mount Soracte

Horace's Ode I.9 (a translation of which you can find here or here) opens with the poet observing the effects of winter all around him and urging his (probably imaginary) friend to build up a nice big fire and get out the wine.

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte nec iam sustineant onus
silvae laborantes geluque
flumina constiterint acuto?

Dissolve frigus ligna super foco 5
large reponens atque benignius
deprome quadrimum Sabina,
o Thaliarche, merum diota.

See how Soracte stands deep
in dazzling snow and the trees cannot bear
their loads and bitter frosts
have paralysed the streams?

Dispel the cold, heap plentiful logs
on the hearth and draw out
your four-year old Sabine wine
from its two handled jugs, Thaliarchus.

This is what Nisbett and Hubbard have to say about Mt Soracte in their commentary on Book I of Horace's Odes:

Mount Soratte is sometimes visible from a few favoured parts of Rome, and the modern tourist, as he (sic) surveys the horizon from the Gianiculo on a clear day willingly imagines that he is re-creating the poet's experience. But we should not suppose that Horace saw the mountain twenty miles away on a winter evening through the narrow slit of an ancient window; he is simply giving local colour to a Greek theme... Horace is not describing a particular scene; rather he has composed a picturesque Christmas-card, based on Alcaeus, and containing among more conventional elements a single feature of familiar topography.

Mount Soratte, 2,400 feet high, [is] about 20 miles north of Rome... At different times it has been called Monte S. Silvestro (after Pope Sylvester I who hid there during the reign of Constantine), or Treste, or Sant'Oreste. It is visible from the
Gianiculo and the Pincio, some tall buildings in Rome, much of the Campagna, and Tivoli (though not, of course, from Horace's Sabine farm). It was associated with Apollo, with the fire-walking Hirpini, with Soranus and Feronia and the cult of the dead (Virg. Aen. 11.785 with Servius, Str. 5.2.9). Some scholars suppose that it has been introduced here becauses of it's funereal associations... but so melancholy a note would be inappropriate at this place in the poem, There is no evidence that the mountain was so sinister that every mention of it suggested thoughts of mortality.

Catullus and Seinfeld

The other day while marking some year 12 essays I had a revelation. It struck me that Catullus’ poetry is a lot like the TV show Seinfeld, while Horace’s is more like Sex and the City. Let me explain.

Seinfeld was a show which claimed to be about nothing, but in fact was about lots of stuff- based around the everyday lives and relationships of four friends. Sex and the City on the over hand claimed to be revolutionary television, but when you stripped away the rhetoric it too was about the everyday lives and relationships of four friends.

Catullus claims in his introductory poem that his poetry is also about nothing when he calls his poems mere trifles (‘nugas’). What I think he means is that his poetry doesn’t deal with any of the subjects which were considered in his time to be serious and important; subjects like mythology, gods, heroes, wars, history and even philosophy. Rather his poems are (generally) about his everyday life and relationships. Catullus was not the first to write this kind of poetry, he was heavily influenced by the Alexandrian poets of 200 or so years before (especially Callimachus)

On the other hand, Horace (in Ode III.30, a kind of epilogue, reflecting on his own poetic achievements) claims to have completed in his poetry a monument more lasting than bronze (‘aere perennius’) which will ensure his immortality as long as Rome exists. His boast rests on the assertion that he was the first (‘princeps’) to bring Greek poetry to Rome – though this is not strictly accurate. Catullus and the other poetae novi (whose work is for the most part sadly lost) also experimented with Greek themes, forms, meters and conventions in the same way that Horace did.

So, like Seinfeld, Catullus claims that his poems are nothing, when really they are something, and Horace, like Sex and the City, claims that his poems are revolutionary, when really they are heavily indebted to what has gone before.

[Disclaimer: I have never actually watched an episode of Sex and the City - this is just the impression I get of the show]

monumentum aere perennius

Horace's Ode III.30 is a reflection on the completion of his first three books of poetry. It begins:

exegi monumentum aere perennius
regalique situ pyramidum altius...

I have completed a monument more lasting than bronze
and more noble than the pyramids of kings...

Obviously he had a pretty high view of his achievement (see previous post if you want to know more), but it turns out he was right. In fact more right than he could have imagined. Later on he writes:

non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei
vitabit Libitinam...

I shall not die completely, but a great part of me
shall avoid death...

...dum Capitolium
scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex.

... for as long as the chief-priest
ascends the Capitol with a silent maiden.*

Roman sacrifices on the Capitoline Hill stopped long ago, but Horace's poetry is still read (and even sometimes appreciated) widely. If you don't believe me check out this post.

Anyway, this picture is a statue which is at least as old as Horace's poetry; from the Museo Nazionale Romano at the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme in Rome, where it lives in the same room as this statue. The statues in pretty good shape, which is Horace's point - bronze lasts a long time, and so will his poetry. I guess only time will tell whether Horace outlasts the statue in the long run.

*[Just to clarify, the maiden, the embodiment of goodness and purity etc, was to help out with the sacrifices, not to be sacrificed. The Romans didn't do human sacrifice. Much.]

another essay

I've written another essay, for the benefit of my year 12 class. Here it is:


With reference to Catullus’ Carmen I and Horace’s Odes III.30, compare each author’s attitude to their own poetry.

hospites Romani

If you could have dinner with three Romans, who would you invite? I was thinking about this the other day, and here is my guest list:

Cicero was my first choice. I suspect that he was a bit of an arrogant git, but there’s no doubt that the man was a genius. From humble(ish) origins he rose to become one of the most influential men in Rome. He was consul in 63 BC, and Julius Caesar invited him to join the first triumvirate (Cicero refused because he hated Caesar, but that’s another story). He had a sense of humour and a bitterly sharp wit, and was incredibly educated- he studied oratory in Athens, and in his later years when he was effectively side-lined from politics he spent his spare time translating Greek philosophy into Latin. He also lived in one of the most interesting periods of time in Roman history- the final years of the republic- and knew lots of fascinating people- not only Caesar, but Antony, Octavian, Cleopatra, Catullus (and Lesbia/Clodia). He didn’t like most of them, but that only makes him a more entertaining guest.

It would be tempting to invite some of Cicero’s acquaintances (perhaps Catullus and Lesbia?) just to watch the fireworks, but in the interest of variety my next guest would be Agrippina, mother of the emperor Nero. Agrippina was one of the last of the fascinating, but troubled, Julio-Claudian family. Her brother was the emperor Caligula, and her uncle (later also her husband) was the emperor Claudius. Caligula didn’t like her much (he sent her into exile) but she had considerable influence over Claudius, and when Nero came to power she was for a time effectively co-emperor. Later Nero grew to resent her, and eventually had her killed. Such a powerful and ambitious woman so closely connected to three different emperors would undoubtedly have a few good stories to tell, though you’d probably need to watch the food closely (she was said to have poisoned Claudius).

I can imagine the conversation at my dinner party getting pretty heavy with those two, and can think of no one better to liven the mood than the poet Ovid. Whereas Cicero’s humour was (I suspect) bitter and vicious, Ovid comes across in his poetry as fun-loving, warm and generous, if sometimes a bit vulgar. At times he is completely over the top and it seems like he has trouble taking anything seriously, though he was by no means a light-weight- in addition to his love poems and manuals he wrote mythological poems (not just the light-hearted Metamorphoses, but the Heroides as well), a kind of historical calendar (the Fasti) and a version of Medea, sadly lost to us. As part of the literary circle of Maecenas he knew many of the other eminent poets of his day (Propertius, Tibullus and Horace for example), and probably Augustus himself. Whether he knew Augustus personally or not he certainly did something to upset him (we don’t know exactly what- it’s one of the things I would ask him if I had the chance), and he was banished from Rome in AD 17 never to return.

That’s my list, who would you invite?

an essay

Here's an essay, which I've just finished writing. I set the question for my year 12 class recently, and thought I should have a bash at trying to answer it myself. If you're not in my year class, you may not find it very interesting (sorry). If you are in my year 12 class, I hope you find it helpful. Feel free to leave a comment (even a negative one).

What can we learn about Horace’s approach to life from his poetry? In your answer refer to at least three poems we have read this year.

Though it may be a dangerous task to try to discern something of a poet’s character from his work, a strong impression of Horace’s approach to life presents itself throughout his Odes. He writes often about the brevity of life and the inescapability of death, and consequently urges his readers to make the most of the short time they do have, without worrying too much about the future.