Carminum Liber primus, secundus et tertius (also known as "Odes I, II and III") was a collection of poems published in 23BC by Horace. According to the journal Quadrant, it was "unparallelled by any collection of lyric poetry produced before or after in Latin literature." (see External links)

In a 2003 speech, poet Seamus Heaney stated that this poem resonated greatly with him after the events of 9/11, and inspired him to write "Horace and the Thunder".

"After that day, a poem which I had cherished for different reasons took on new strengths and new strangeness - Horace, a poem by Quintus Horatius Flaccus, a Latin poet, of the Augustan age. If anybody’s interested, it’s in Carminum Liber Primus. That’s the first Book of Odes, Number 34. Horace, in this poem, gets a shock. He says, I’m a pretty cool kind of guy. I’m not really gospel greedy. I go with the crowd. But, something happened that really put the wind up me. Oops! And the terms of the poem…it’s really about poetry’s covenant with the irrational, I thought first of all. It’s about thunder in the clear, blue sky. Shock, Jupiter, the thunder god, ba-boom."

Text of poem

The poem begins as follows.

Pastor cum traheret per freta navibus

Idaeis Helenen perfidus hospitam,

Ingrato celeres obruit otio

Ventos ut caneret fera

For the full text, see the External links section.

External links

• Speech by Heaney in praise of Carminum Liber Primus
• Text in Latin
• Quadrant article in praise
• English text at Project Perseus
• ISBN 019283942X