Analysis of Seventh Ode of the Fourth Book of Horace
James Clerk Maxwell 1831 (Edinburgh, Scotland) – 1879 (Cambridge, England)
All the snows have fled, and grass springs up on the meadows,
And there are leaves on the trees;
Earth has changed her looks, and turbulent rivers decreasing,
Slowly meander along;
Now, with the naked nymphs and her own twin sisters, Aglaïa
Gracefully dances in time.
But the Year, and the Hours which hurry along our existence,
Solemnly warn us to die.
Zephyr removes the frost, and Summer, soon destined to perish,
Treads in the footsteps of Spring,
After the joyous reign of Autumn, abounding in apples,
Shivering Winter returns.
Heavenly waste is repaired by the moon in her quick revo-lutions
But when we go to the grave,
Beside the pious Æneas, and rich old Tullus, and Ancus,
We are but dust and a shade.
Who knows if the gods above have determined whether to-morrow
We shall be living or dead.
Nothing will come to the greedy hands of your spendthrift successor
Which you have given away.
When you are gone to the grave, and Minos, sitting in judg-ment,
Utters your terrible doom,
Neither your rank nor your talents will bring you to life, O Torquatus,
Nor will affection avail;
Even the chaste Hippolytus was not released by Diana
From the infernal abyss,
Nor could Theseus break from his friend the rewards of presumption
Which the stern monarch imposed.
Scheme | ABCDEFGHICJKALAMNOPQHRASETUV |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 101110111101 0111101 11101010010010 1001001 11010100111010 1001001 10100101100110010 1001111 100101010110110 100111 100101110010010 1001001 100110110100111 1111101 010101011101 1111001 1110101101010110 1111011 101110101111010 1111001 11111010110011 1011001 101111101111111 1101001 1001010011011010 1001001 11111110011010 101101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,247 |
Words | 221 |
Sentences | 8 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 28 |
Lines Amount | 28 |
Letters per line (avg) | 36 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,006 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 219 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 83 Views
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