Horace and Me: Life Lessons from an Ancient Poet

by Harry Eyres

A wise and witty revival of the Roman poet who taught us how to carpe diem What is the value of the durable at a time when the new is paramount? How do we fill the void created by the excesses of a superficial society? What resources can we muster when confronted by the inevitability of death? For the poet and critic Harry Eyres, we can begin to answer these questions by turning to an unexpected the Roman poet Horace, discredited at the beginning of the twentieth century as the "smug representative of imperialism," now best remembered―if remembered―for the pithy directive "Carpe diem."
In Horace and Life Lessons from an Ancient Poet , Eyres reexamines Horace's life, legacy, and verse. With a light, lyrical touch (deployed in new, fresh versions of some of Horace's most famous odes) and a keen critical eye, Eyres reveals a lively, relevant Horace, whose society―Rome at the dawn of the empire―is much more similar to our own than we might want to believe.
Eyres's study is not only intriguing―he retranslates Horace's most famous phrase as " taste the day"―but enlivening. Through Horace, Eyres meditates on how to live well, mounts a convincing case for the importance of poetry, and relates a moving tale of personal discovery. By the end of this remarkable journey, the reader too will believe in the power of Horace's "lovely words that go on shining with their modest glow, like a warm and inextinguishable candle in the darkness."

Genres: Nonfiction, Classics, Poetry, Biography, Memoir, Philosophy, Travel

256 pages, Hardcover

First published June 4, 2013

Reviews

[Sonia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fortunately I really really love Horace; otherwise this irritating pretentious specimen of snobbery and privilege might have spoiled him for me. I almost came around to Eyres when he described his visit to the Sabine Farm in ways that were familiar to me, but then he went and leveled a gratuitous insult at Americans that made me hate read the rest. What new thing can he find to judge and bemoan? Oh, he's so emo that he can detect messages in Horace hidden to scholars, observe things about Pompeii that Mary Beard got wrong. It's remarkable that his critical eye falls everywhere but his own snobbishness and entitlement, which is slathered all over him like the pancake makeup of that woman in Fellini Satyricon. Also, the translations of Horace are truly terrible: self-indulgent, plodding, and dull. Well, as one of my students said, what would you expect of someone who called his book "Horace and Me"?

[Matt McCormick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't bother. As Sonia forcefully describes in her review, Eyres is a pretentious snob. The book is replete in snobbery. One could move beyond that if there was much in way of insight or illumination into why Horace is either (a) a truly unique poet, or (b) meaningful to a 21st century reader. Don't get me wrong, Horace is just fine. He contributes to the evolution of western literature. I get that. He lived during a unique period in history when the world was changing quickly. But so did his contemporaries such as Virgil. OK, Horace used the Greek meter and spoke from a very personal perspective but Eyres fails woefully in telling us why that really matters.

The author makes much ado about Horace liking wine (this is important because the authors father was a wine merchant and he himself lived a privileges life amongst the wine makers, sellers and reviewers?), what Roman didn't like wine? The author is socially inept and prefers solitude; Horace wanted solitude, heck I want solitude - so what. If any of us lived during the bloodbaths of the Roman civil wars and had a few sestertius in our togas we would want to pull a Rousseau and get to the country. Horace valued friends. Did he really? What he wrote pleased the powerful and the powerful compensated him for what he wrote. That's hardly proof of an Epicurean commitment to friendship. Where are the "life lessons" in all this?

One of the things that rankled me was the authors lack of full throated commitment to just about anything other than sipping a nice glass of wine and translating Latin. Religion - its sorta important but then not really and the author isn't an atheist by god, but not really a believer and the Buddhists are interesting if you have time to think about your breathing. Sigh. Environment - oh yes the author loves song birds and on the family multi-acre farm with an old gardener and cook he spent time in the yard, and he is a "green" but not really a "green" because they are just too green and that whole science thing doesn't really resonate because people first need to love poetry and then they will love the planet and then they will quit getting on Air France jets for Cuba to see a girl who isn't there. It's all just too phony.

I try to find value in everything I read knowing that someone but time, energy and some level of emotion into creating. I have no doubt Eyres is intelligent and well read. Here are a couple of nuggets that, like my dog seeing a squirrel, I chased after just cuz they appeared.

* " 'There are tears for things; the travails of mortals do not go unwept.' This is the most famous line in the Aeneid, or in the whole of Latin literature..." Well, that's quite a statement! So I spent time on "sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangent" which Aeneas speaks in Carthage. Sure enough I found it repeatedly praised (and repeatedly translated differently) with commendations such as, "the most famous of his single lines" and 'wondrous beauty and pathetic dignity". I enjoyed learning a little about how the phrase has been interpreted over the years and was impressed by how much attention has been given to these lines.

* The Ara Pacis or Alter of Peace created by the Roman Senate to honor Augustus. I walked past the building that houses this ancient structure while in Rome but didn't go inside. I now wish I had taken the time. I enjoyed learning how much of it was discovered under an existing building, how someone figured out that disparate fragments in different cities were all part of the same structure, seeing the beauty of the marble carvings - it all made for a very enjoyable detour from the book itself.

So here I end this review. I feel a little bad having taken such a negative view of what someone with infinitely more classical education/knowledge than I possess and who took time to write. However, in the end these reviews are meant to be guides to others with interests more in tune with my own. So, if you are such - don't bother.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having had the great pleasure of meeting Mr Eyres at a reading/lecture promoting this book recently, I was able to tell him that I was new to Horace and that this book re-awakened in me a desire to learn more Latin. He was pleased, and I said I would read more of Horace's poetry. I doubt however that I could get a better overview than this book. Part biography, part poetry, part philosophical commentary, it is warmly written and easily grasped and accessible. Eyres' style of writing is conversational, intelligent, friendly and is best enjoyed with a glass of wine - truly Horatian.

Known to most for his column in the Financial Times (UK), Eyres in this writes about his rekindled relationship with the ancient bard, and how Horace has informed his life choices and his life was parallel in many ways. Born relatively humbly, striving for beauty in literature, learning, language and epicurean delights, and bucking the establishment in many respects, Eyres and Horace appear to have much in common - Eyres is also a writer of books on wine, somewhat an expert, Horace was a vineyard owner at his small Sabine farm and a connoisseur.

The translations that Eyres proffers in this book are bang up to date - mentioning tsunamis, the Taliban and current events - and I am sure are good modern tellings of Horace's poems.

I couldn't put this book down and know I will read it more than once, and now that it is signed as well I'm sure it will continue to be a treasure, opening up new literary vistas to me. I highly recommend it for lovers of classics, literature, gentle humour, language and philosophy.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow--I was surprised to see that Goodreads reviewers were all over the map on this one: quite well-informed reviews gave it one star, others equally informed gave it five. I'd have given it five if it had had an index and notes. Despite the lackluster title, I found it to be an engaging appreciation of Horace, a poet I first met in a deadly and intimidating upper-level course in graduate school. My experience mirrored Rudyard Kipling's as quoted on page 58: "(It) taught me to loathe Horace for two years, to forget him for twenty, and to love him for the rest of my days and through many sleepless nights." Other reviewers found Eyres to be a pretentious snob; I found him to be an engaging raconteur who drops names, for sure, but who also tells good stories and has pulled together a lot of information about wine, Italy, ancient and modern Roman life, Eton-Cambridge education in the '60s and '70s, and much more. His translations are a bit annoying in their freedom and up-to-dateness; but here he is on the carpe of Horace's famous carpe diem: "(It) is one of those complex and subtle words with multiple meanings, both violent and gentle--though one thing the violent and gentle uses have in common is decisiveness. The verb carpere can be used of military columns advancing in battle, but here we are closer to the meaning of gather, harvest, pluck, used of fruits, flowers, kisses....(It) is such a tactile, sensuous word....Picking and plucking are not actions that can be undertaken with too much force or severity; they certainly cannot be rushed. Picking an individual grape means encircling the globe of the fruit with your fingers, so gently that you do not burst it, but with enough decisiveness to remove the fruit from the stem." And, according to Horace, that's the way you should treat this day. In his chapter on wine (Eyres knows a lot about wine: his father was a wine merchant) he advocates for translating carpe as taste. A bit of a stretch, but I get his point. And he's certainly accomplished his goal in writing this appreciation, since I, for one, have gotten my Horace out and have started working my way through the odes again.

[Skye · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible book! You know that feeling when you finish a book and want to tell everyone to read it, even if it's not in a genre or style they usually go for? That's this book for me.

I was shopping for Christmas presents at Barnes and Noble and saw this book, adding it to my stack as a gift to myself. I am a Latin teacher who is embarrassed to have never taken a class on Horace or even read much of his work except for an ode here or there, and after taking a History of Latin Lit class, I still felt like he didn't pique my curiosity. But because I have recently enjoyed the mash-up of memoir/creative nonfiction/biography/lit crit (see my review of My Life in Middlemarch) and since I have always wanted to write essays in that genre about my own fascination with Edna St. Vincent Millay, I decided this would be a good book to explore.

Eyre's writing style is inviting and honest, and I learned as much about myself as I did about Horace. In fact, the book looked pretty ragged by the end, with about as many dog-eared pages as uncreased pages! I loved everything about it, from his musings about Horace's personality, to his visits to archaeological sites, and his personal reflections on moments in his life when Horace's poems helped him understand himself more fully. I didn't mind his wandering plot and personal tangents, because he just came off as such a warm and vivacious person that I was as curious to learn about him as Horace.

As a teacher of high school students, I am always looking for writers like Mary Beard and Harry Eyres who can make history fresh, and who bring the ancients to life. This book is a total gem and one I will be returning to and recommending for many years to come. One of the best books I've read in the past few years, with that feeling at the end that you just want to stare at the last page for a while and treasure the book's wisdom and power.

[forsanolim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't have a great frame of reference to compare this book to, but I did quite enjoy it. The subtitle, "Life Lessons from an Ancient Poet," is I think accurate in a lot of ways: the author, Eyres--a journalist/poet/critic/trained classicist--sort of explores his own past and the Roman author Horace's in view of Horace's poetry.

I found this book in the remaindered book section of my local bookstore several years ago but hadn't gotten around to reading it now; I think that, in many ways, this was the perfect time for me to read it. Like Eyres, I learned Latin growing up (though I didn't go to anywhere near the kind of stuffy grammar school that he did), and I have extremely fond memories of reading a few of Horace's Odes. I also have started, with my current abundance of time due to world events, learning Greek--a language I've wanted to pick up for years to round out the great Classical languages--so I've also been thinking a lot about the Classical world recently. And I made it to Rome a few months ago, so the more travelogue-esque portions of the book (Eyres travels to various places in Italy associated with Horace) also resonated with me in that way.

In all honesty, I'm not sure that I'd recommend this book generally just because it's so extremely niche, but I really enjoyed it a lot. It sometimes leans a little snobbish, but I think that overall the positives outweighed the snobbery.

[Monica Viani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings, as from the title itself I'm uncertain if this is about romanticising and appreciating Horace through his poems or just pure self-indulgence. 'Life Lessons from an Ancient Poet' is a bit misleading as most of the stuff discussed is regarding the author's personal life and his personal journey towards being 'madly' in love Horace. Almost possessive. Regardless, it was a fascinating and kind of a funny read. I find myself chuckling most times at Eyres' choice of words to describe his adoration.

[Yeemay · Rating 3 out of 5]

We were reading Horace in my Greek Class when I serendipitously found this on my bookshelf (must have bought it ages ago second hand). I wasn’t completely taken by the Me bit but it was an Interesting introduction to the different odes and an opportunity to contrast and compare to the Loeb translations. Whatever you think about him, his enthusiasm seemed genuine enough.

[Tarika · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ode to Horace, poetry, travel, wine and appreciation of life. Some slow sections of excessive detail on wine tasting, but had a consistent tone of elegance and walking the line between indulgence and idleness. Reminiscent of my view of the late Republican wine and poetry evenings of Catullus and Horace.

[Vicki Cline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting introduction to the poetry of Horace by a poet and wine critic who studied Horace in school but didn't really appreciate him at the time. Rereading them later in life, he finds many connections to what Horace was saying, and his translations are quite good.

[Casey Akers · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best non-philosophical but philosophical books I have ever read. The relationship between Eyres and Horace is what we should all strive for when we read an author.

[Dominique · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good passages but overall the book didn't live up to its promise of bringing Horace closer or delivering substantial insights into his relevance to modern life.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part memoir, part appreciation of the poetry of Horace—a fine literary journey.

[Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this, a ramble through life with Horace what could be nicer.

[Beatrice Otto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t get Horace until I met Harry. It took one poet to introduce me to another, and ten years after I first read Horace, I have gone back to him with a clearer eye. He feels like a friend and helper, not a remote and august figure. And I hadn’t realized the extent to which some of my own ideals and idylls stem from Horace, including the dreamed of home in Tuscany.

I am interested in timelessness and what endures over millennia, particularly in the fragile media of scrolls and paper, and the intangibles of ideas and memory, together with the poems or other forms bundling them together.

'The epistles are poetry, but poetry of a different kind, more nakedly concerned with the questions of how to live, how to live well, how to conduct relationships with those you depend on for patronage while remaining free; how to be free in your mind.' (p. 25)

These are timeless issues. What is timelessness? More than something which just lasts and lasts, rather something that retains long-range relevance and feels contemporary and alive, even if it uses old words or means. Key here is the quality of transmission – I have stumbled over great works, wondering what the fuss was about, until I found a translation that resonated (whether with the original text, or with me personally, or both). Eyres recognizes this in his note on translation:

The first rule is that the versions have to live, to hold the reader, as contemporary poems, not museum pieces. (xi)

Eyres is also a poet, and he writes warmly and freshly. This is as much a meditation on poetry and poets as it is on life, and what Horace has to teach us about both. I plundered this lovely book for quotations and metaphors to feature on my bright-writing celebration of a website.

For a full review with a mosaic of quotations and metaphors, please visit: https://www.writingredux.com/reading/...

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ah did like it quite much. Not passionately much, but quite much. He does romanticize his own life quite a bit and that is the thing you shouldn't do. You gotta see things clear.

Also not fond of the bit where he goes 'ho ho ho of course some silly fools accuse Horace of frequenting prostitutes, which is just silly considering he had his own slaves at home!' Em, hem. I mean, that's not an exact quote (WHAT REELLY??): but it's the gist, I believe, the nub.

I mean, he doesn't comment further on the issue. That's yer lot. That's the kind of statement up with which I will not put in the absence of further comment, some kind of stance or explanation. I mean ter say, 'well, cripes, I know it's a bit much raping a slave, but them was the times' would have been better than nothing. I would have accepted that: people do all kinds of nasty morally-deformed abusershit when them's the times, when it's not only condoned but applauded and coaxed out of you. (Hello, #fandom!)

Nah. You gotta comment on that mate. You can't just leave that shit lying there with a nonchalant twitch of the eyebrow and think we're cool. That puts you on a level with Arthur Koestler fanboys, who salivate and arselick him, I would say, not in spite of multiple rapes - Koestler, for whom #metoo was invented! - but rather because of them.

[Gregory · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this used on a whim and ultimately got bogged down because I soon grew uninterested in the author's autobiography, which was steeped in privilege and had no "life lessons" connection to Horace that I could see. Eyres is a good writer and knows a lot about Horace but the book is self-indulgent and so I found myself skipping the parts where he discussed himself.

[Andrew Fear · Rating 1 out of 5]

Alas much more about "me" than Horace and the author seems a very dull fellow. Peter Levi's biography of Horace is a much better place to start.

[anna 🪴🪴 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Massively pretentious and I laughed through most of the book … but if you look beyond the writing there are some good thoughts

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this unusual book, a short autobiography set in the context of the author's obsession with Horace.

Harry Eyres is a poet and journalist from an upper-class English background. I found the chapters on his posh upbringing fascinating: trips to the great vineyards of Europe with his wine merchant father; a classical education at Eton, where he says the majority of boys (there are no girls) develop homoerotic desires; Trinity College, Cambridge, and then Christie's and the Spectator, where he worked as a wine specialist and reviewer. He's no snob, and is aware of his privileged background, which he contrasts with that of Horace, the son of a freed slave. That said, I felt the biggest weakness of the book was that some of the 'life lessons' were impossible for people with less money than Eyres. For example, after an unhappy period in young adulthood he jets off to Spain (he's always jetting off somewhere in this book) and rediscovers his joie de vivre by spending a couple of years in Barcelona. Most people simply can't afford that and have to plough on with their mundane lives. To be fair, Eyres does say at one point that he regards boring jobs as the biggest curse of modern society, but you strongly suspect he's never actually had to do one. Similarly, the key insight offered by the book is that we should all slow down and savour the small pleasures of life. I suspect many of us would dearly love more 'time to stand and stare', but that's a privilege bought by money.

Another weakness is that Eyres's depression gives the book a slight pall of melancholy, though he writes interestingly about the therapy he's had. While there's much joy in this book, there's no humour. He's earnest and well-meaning but a trifle introspective and, well, lonely. He talks a lot about the value of friendship but seems to spend a lot of time alone. Yes, this is an autobiography, but it would have been interesting to hear more about his friends. His partner is only unveiled in the final pages of the book, and the best friend with whom he planned the whole project isn't mentioned till the acknowledgements.

For all that, he's likeable and clever and leaves you hungry to discover more about Horace. I'm sure a good proportion of his readers finish this book and then immediately buy the Loeb edition of the Odes and Epodes that Eyres carries around with him. I did, and not only will I read the poems, but I'll try to learn to read them in Latin, to get some appreciation of their music. I'm surprised that several newspaper reviews of 'Horace and Me' criticised Eyres's own translations of the poems, which he slips in from time to time. I thought they were excellent, the book's crowning achievement.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horace And Me is a very unusual book in that it's an appreciation of the Roman poet Horace set within the context of the author's own life. So it's part critical assessment, part autobiography.

Horace, Eyres declares, is the kind of poet that you scorn in your youth and only begin to appreciate when you reach your middle age; and this has certainly been my experience. I studied Horace as a schoolboy and found his point of view peculiarly inaccessible. Only now, as I enter my sixties, do I at last begin to understand what he was talking about.

Partly, it's a question of cultural shift. Horace's poetry, with its emphasis on moderation rather than passion is of a kind that does not immediately find recognition in a world still largely conditioned by the Romantic sensibility. In comparison with a poet like Catullus, whose passionate depiction of his love-hate relationship with his mistress seems so modern, Horace feels sedate and over-controlled.

But Eyres points out that, when you look at the poems more closely you begin to see that Horace is supremely contemporary. His complex verse presents the world that it describes from every angle at the same time. "Cubist" is the word Eyres uses to describe the multi-layered perspective the poems offer us.

The weak link in this otherwise excellent book is the translations that Eyres offers of Horace's poetry. Entertaining and witty, they invariably provide interesting ways into the poems, but they can never capture the musicality and grace of the originals, though, to be fair, Eyres is not trying to do so.

Despite that shortcoming, this is a refreshing and candid appreciation of a poet whose verses have influenced poets down the centuries. At the start of the book Eyres describes Horace as a friend and he invites the reader to share in that friendship. It's an invitation that I found impossible to resist

[The American Conservative]

"In Horace and Me, Harry Eyres—a leisure columnist for the Financial Times and former wine columnist for The Spectator and poetry editor of the Daily Express—juxtaposes his own formative experiences with the life, legacy, and verse of the Roman poet Horace (65-8 BC). Among other minor topics, Eyres discusses Horace in relation to wine, Eton College, and the change he underwent in his literary approach to classical texts while attending Cambridge. Haphazardly going from each topic to the next, the assumption behind the author’s examination is that his varied experiences help him better interpret Horace’s odes—and that he is worthy of Horace’s guidance. On both counts, Eyres is not very convincing."

Andre Archie reviews: http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A charming little book about the influence of a poet who lived 2000 years ago on a man of the modern era! I bought this book on a whim, as I am incredibly fond of Horace, and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Reading it, one gets the image of Eyres and Horace strolling through farmland together, sipping at cool water and enjoying the breeze. Sometimes the random tangential discussions of things like wine- which, in fairness, Horace would probably be delighted by, given how much he loved wine and how often he himself goes on strange tangents- go on just a tad too long, and the pace is not always consistent. But if you're a fan of Horace, you'll appreciate the charming duo of Horace and Harry.

[Eric Durant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great job illuminating many of Horace's writings through original, modern translations and enjoyable, never laborious, analysis of the Latin where needed. Organized as a journey through life, bookended by airport departure lounges. Good coverage of Horace's background role in the transition from republic to empire with copious connections to his contemporary Romans and his predecessors, most notably Lucretius. A joy to read.

[Dorothy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This made me really really want to go back and read Horace in Latin. Although I like Mr. Eyres' column in the Financial Times, there was too much Harry Eyres and not enough Horace in this book. Best chapter I thought was the visit to the supposed site of Horace's farm. More Latin would have been nice. Mr.Eyres' translations are going to quickly seem very dated.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this but decided to stop trying. If you know more about the poet Horace than I do then I think it would be very interesting. The writing style is great.

My rating reflects my lack of interest rather than the authors lack of skill.

[Sam Torode · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meditations on slow living & simple pleasures. I didn't read it cover-to-cover, but enjoyed perusing its pages...

[Yvette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a member of the Slow movement without realizing it. We like to savor life at our own pace. Horace advocated this philosophy a couple of millenia ago. All hail Horace!

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much indeed. A bit fey, perhaps; but nonetheless a great exhibition of the writer's reading and philosophical turn of mind.

[Fazackerly Toast · Rating 3 out of 5]

good for sending you back to Horace