Bki:Xi Carpe Diem Comments

As a further comment, while I appreciate the great effort that has been put into these translations of Horace's Odes, still they are unnecessarily loose in places and thereby lose many of Horace's finer points and subtleties.

He didn't say mix the wine, he said strain out the wine (Dryden) , ie to clarify it for drinking. That is, strain it rather than let it stand, which was the better but slower way, because if you let it stand you might not live to drink it, whereas if you strain it you can drink it immediately. This point was made by Professor Robin Nisbet.

Pure lack of liveliness is seen!

original Latin text: Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios temptaris numeros. Vt melius, quidquid erit, pati, seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam, quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare Tyrrhenum! Sapias, uina liques et spatio breui spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit inuida aetas. Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.