Horace - Book 4

            While Horace’s first three books of odes were written as a collection, Book 4 was written at a later date and specifically commissioned by Augustus Caesar. This fact likely explains the notably more Pindaric style of these poems than those of the previous books; just as Pindar wrote victory odes to commemorate successful athletes, Horace’s odes in Book 4 largely demonstrate praise for Caesar, while also treating the broader concepts of fame and legacy. Though Horace does express the increasingly familiar theme of poetry’s ability to immortalize reputations, it is interesting to consider how this idea relates to another prevailing subject throughout this book: that of aging and the inevitable passing over of the world to a younger generation. This idea, in a way, only further underscores the significance of the poet’s power; commemoration in verse allows one to continue existing in the world in some form even after one has left it—as everyone eventually will.

            This thematic connection is perhaps why Horace opens this book of praise with an ode that focuses on the concept of aging rather than on his subject of celebration. In Ode 1 of Book 4, Horace laments his growing older, complaining that he should no longer be troubled by matters of love. In this address to Venus, he tells the goddess to “answer the charming prayers of young men” instead of continuing to torment him, as he evidently believes he is past the stage of his life where he should be distraught by desire. While the odes that follow vary in their specificities, they deal with largely similar concepts relating to the passing of time, and can broadly be classified as dealing with the following themes:

1.     Aging, new generation

2.     Poet’s ability to confer legacy, new generation

3.     Poet’s ability to confer legacy

4.     Aging, legacy

5.     Legacy

6.     Poet’s ability to confer legacy, new generation

7.     Aging

8.     Poet’s ability to confer legacy

9.     Poet’s ability to confer legacy

10.  Aging

11.  Aging

12.  Aging

13.  Aging

14.  Poet’s ability to confer legacy, aging

15.  Poet’s ability to confer legacy

            Though only a loose outline, there is an evident relationship between the odes and their messages, which Horace only further illuminates through his consistent use of natural imagery. Horace frequently refers to elements of nature—rolling seas, flowing rivers, the setting of the sun, and the changing of the seasons, for instance—in order to both demonstrate the unceasing passing of time and to emphasize the fact that people are ultimately outlived by the world around them. In Ode 7, for instance, Horace says, “Swift moons make good their losses in the sky, / but when we go down… / we are dust and shadow”—indicating that the moon will rise again each night, but a person is gone forever once they die. Repetition of such images throughout Book 4 emphasizes the contrast between the essentially infinite existence of the world and the brevity of human life. Horace thus shows that aging and death are unavoidable, and that the world will eventually be left to a new generation of people, thereby insinuating the importance of written poetry to preserve one’s legacy.