Latin Poetry Podcast

Health Benefits of Vaping: What You Need To Know A debate has been ongoing ever since vaping was introduced in the market. It might be that friends and family have their own opinions about this. Unfortunately, most of these opinions are based on myths and research and not based on evidence-based research. There is one […]

Martial De Spectaculis 9 The epigram writer Martial describes a mythological enactment in the arena, the execution of a slave which was staged to resemble a popular mime based on the story of a notorious bandit, Laureolus. He compares his fate of being exposed to a bear to that of the mythological hero Prometheus, punished […]

Quintus Serenus 1.87-99 ex vitio cerebri phrenesis furiosa movetur 87 amissasque refert frendens amentia vires, sive calens febris iactatos exedit artus sive meri gustus seu frigoris efficit aura. 90 convenit calidis pecudum pulmonibus apte tempora languentis medica redimire corona. inlotis etiam lanis suffire memento cerritum; saepe horrendi medicantur odores. non semper praesens dolor est sanabilis: […]

Horace Odes 1.3 Horace’s sending-off poem (or propempticon) for Vergil is written in a meter usually called the “Forth Asclepiad,” (though the terminology varies depending on which modern authority you check). It consists of a Glyconic line followed by an Asclepiad line. In this installment I discuss the poem briefly and describe its meter, give […]

This is the second in a series dealing with Horace’s lyric meters. The previous installment covered Asclepiadeans.This one discusses the Sapphic stanza, so named because of its association with Sappho, the famous Greek lyric poet. Odes 1.2 is summarized as follows by Nisbet and Hubbard: God has sent enough ill-omened weather. We begin to be […]

Herewith a re-do of a poem I have done on an earlier podcast, this time with special attention to the meter. It is part of a series on Horace’s lyric meters. This installment focuses on a meter that scholars call variously Asclepiads, asclepiadeans, the First Asclepiad, and the Lesser Asclepiad. The name is given by […]

Phaedrus Fables 1.18 Nemo libenter recolit qui laesit locum. Instante partu mulier actis mensibus humi iacebat flebilis gemitus ciens. Vir est hortatus, corpus lecto reciperet, onus naturae melius quo deponeret. “Minime”, inquit, “illo posse confido loco malum finiri, quo conceptum est initio.” Phaedrus, Fables 1.18. Text: Giannina Solimano, ed. Fedro: Favole (n.p.: Garzanti, 1996) Francesco […]

“De mutata Romae fortuna,” incerti auctoris, ed. N. E. Lemaire, Poetae Latini Minores vol. 4 (Paris, 1825), pp. 537-538. De mutata Romae fortuna Nobilibus quondam fueras cōnstructa patrōnīs subdita nunc servis, heu, male Roma tuis. Deseruere tui tanto te tempore reges; cessit et ad Graecos nomen honosque tuus. Cōnstantīnopolis florens, nova Roma vocatur, 5 moribus […]

The Wrath of Iarbas protinus ad regem cursus detorquet Iarban incenditque animum dictis atque aggerat iras. Hic Hammone satus rapta Garamantide nympha templa Iovi centum latis immania regnis, centum aras posuit vigilemque sacraverat ignem,200 excubias diuum aeternas, pecudumque cruore pingue solum et variis florentia limina sertis. isque amens animi et rumore accensus amaro dicitur ante […]

Translating Vergil Aeneid 1.305-309 At pius Aeneas, per noctem plurima volvens, ut primum lux alma data est, exire locosque explorare novos, quas vento accesserit oras, qui teneant, nam inculta videt, hominesne feraene, quaerere constituit, sociisque exacta referre. Fitzgerald: But the dedicated man, Aeneas, thoughtful through the restless night, Made up his mind, as kindly daylight […]