THE ODES AND CARMEN SAECULARE OF HORACE

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE
BY JOHN CONINGTON, M.A.
CORPUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.

THIRD EDITION.






PREFACE.


I scarcely know what excuse I can offer for making public this attempt
to "translate the untranslatable." No one can be more convinced than I
am that a really successful translator must be himself an original
poet; and where the author translated happens to be one whose special
characteristic is incommunicable grace of expression, the demand on the
translator's powers would seem to be indefinitely increased. Yet the
time appears to be gone by when men of great original gifts could find
satisfaction in reproducing the thoughts and words of others; and the
work, if done at all, must now be done by writers of inferior
pretension. Among these, however, there are still degrees; and the
experience which I have gained since I first adventured as a poetical
translator has made me doubt whether I may not be ill-advised in
resuming the experiment under any circumstances. Still, an experiment