Epodi

Books

• 1
  Book 1

  Horace tells Maecenas he will follow him to war — wherever he goes, even to Actium. A poem of loyalty and friendship at the moment of civil war.

  34 lines
• 2
  Book 2

  The happy farmer. Horace describes the idyllic rural life — then reveals the speaker is a moneylender who daydreams about the country but never leaves the city. One of his sharpest ironies.

  70 lines
• 3
  Book 3

  A savage attack on garlic — Horace curses whoever served it, comparing its effects to every poison he can think of.

  22 lines
• 4
  Book 4

  An attack on a social climber who parades his wealth. Horace uses the freedman's purple stripe as a target for class contempt.

  20 lines
• 5
  Book 5

  The witch Canidia and her coven kidnap a boy to make a love potion from his organs. The most horrifying poem Horace ever wrote — dark, grotesque, and deliberately shocking.

  102 lines
• 6
  Book 6

  A brief, puzzling poem — possibly addressed to a literary critic, asking what he is working on.

  16 lines
• 7
  Book 7

  Horace asks a former lover why she keeps tormenting him. A poem of complaint, self-pity, and residual attraction.

  20 lines
• 8
  Book 8

  An invective against an ageing woman who pursues young men. Horace's most sexually explicit and deliberately offensive poem.

  20 lines
• 9
  Book 9

  Actium. Horace celebrates Octavian's victory — but the triumph is shadowed by anxiety about Rome's violent history and the fear that peace may not last.

  38 lines
• 10
  Book 10

  An attack on the poet Mevius — Horace wishes him a miserable sea voyage with every curse at his disposal.

  24 lines
• 11
  Book 11

  A poem of sexual humiliation and regret. Horace at his most vulnerable and uncomfortable.

  28 lines
• 12
  Book 12

  An invective against a woman named Neaera who has broken a promise of fidelity. Horace threatens that she will regret it.

  26 lines
• 13
  Book 13

  A call to courage in the face of storm. Horace rallies friends during a crisis — probably allegorical, with the storm representing political turmoil.

  18 lines
• 14
  Book 14

  Horace confesses that love is distracting him from his poetry. A disarming admission of weakness from a poet who normally projects control.

  16 lines
• 15
  Book 15

  An attack on a witch — Canidia again, or one of her kind. Horace turns folk superstition into literary invective.

  24 lines
• 16
  Book 16

  The most ambitious epode. Horace despairs of Rome's civil wars and proposes an extraordinary solution: the virtuous should abandon the city entirely and sail to the Blessed Isles.

  66 lines
• 17
  Book 17

  Horace addresses Canidia directly in a dramatic dialogue. She refuses to lift her curse; he refuses to retract his poems against her. A theatrical finale to the collection.

  81 lines