Thursday, June 17, 2010

ggrty

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero (Seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as possible)

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

- A Latin poem by Horace.

~ a short rebuke to a woman worrying about the future; it closes with the famous line carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero (seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as possible)

Don't ask (it's forbidden to know) what end
the gods will grant to me or you, Leuconoe. Don't play with Babylonian
fortune-telling either. It is better to endure whatever will be.
Whether Jupiter has allotted to you many more winters or this final one
which even now wears out the Tyrrhenian sea on the rocks placed opposite
— be wise, strain the wine, and scale back your long hopes
to a short period. While we speak, envious time will have {already} fled
Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next.

The ode says that the future is unknowable, and that instead one should scale back one's hopes to a brief future, and drink one's wine.

ggrty

About ggrty -

I'm a typical character as everybody tag me. Learning from life as it presents is my daily activity. Listening to others what life has offered them is my passion. Living life to the fullest is my ambition. A person is a success who gets up in the morning, goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do!

Subscribe to this Blog via Email :