Epode VII: Billy Drowns His Sorrows After the ’51 General Election
(Quo, quo, scelesti ruitis?) [Why this Mad Rush to Join the War?]

Horace

‘The dramatic date of this poem may be after the piracy in 42-39 BC of Sextus Pompeius, who had taken Neptune (line 4) as his patron. In 39 BC Pompeius, Anthony, and Octavian had signed the treaty of Puteoli, but early in 38 Pompeius and Octavian were preparing to resume fighting (lines 1-2). In 40 BC the Parthians had taken advantage of these civil wars to overrun Syria and Cilicia (line 10)’ (1)

Almond Version

It seems to me that here Horace is taking an ironic and satirical anti-war stance. There is absolute despair at the continuing civil war in Rome. I have recontextualised the historical references by attempting to put anti-war feelings of despair and fatalism into the mouth of the trade union leader, Billy. These versions, set in the early 1950’s, (the Second World War having ended in 1945) attempt to capture a similar kind of ‘tiredness’ with war. Although ‘The Horatian original is careful to avoid blaming any particular party for Rome’s sufferings…’ (2) my anti-Churchill material fits in with the context and the character of Billy and captures some of the overheard snippets of conversation heard in my childhood before rationing disappeared and at a time when despite political promises, people were beginning to realise that there would be no such thing as a job for life. It is therefore a twist on the original, but I feel is a legitimate twist given the overall context of the book.

For additional irony see the non-Epode based poem, ‘Now’ which comments on the changes in the geographical area in which ‘The Works’ and surrounding communities is set and observes that there is a commercial block called Churchill House and nearby, the Stockton campus of the University of Durham where we have indeed left our students not only with our political mess but with heavy burdens of debt. (3)

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(1) West, D. (1997) Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes. Oxford University Press,:Oxford (p.135)
(2) Harrison, Professor Stephen, in personal correspondence.
(3) Almond, Maureen (2004), Biscuit Publishing, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, (p.65)

Epode VI: Mams at War (Part II) (Quid immerentis hospites)
[Why Pick on the Harmless]

Horace

According to West ‘It would be wrong to make heavy weather of this cheerful poem, but Horace seems to tell us that he is warning off some critic who has attacked an innocent victim. The critic is seen as a dog barking at passers-by from the safety of a farm. To bribe him into silence, the farmer throws out some scraps of food. In line 5 Horace compares himself to a hunting dog of formidable Greek breed but by lines 11-12 he has become a bull. In the couplet which follows he claims to be like Archilochus, who wooed Lycambes; daughter, was refused, and by his verse drove Lycambes to suicide; or like Hipponax, who had violent words for the sculptor Bupalo, whose statue of the poet displeased the sitter.’(1)

Almond Version

In my poem too, I refer to the ‘innocent victim’ but here Maureen’s mother is fighting with the mother of yet another boy in the community who has been picking on Maureen. This is a notorious family, members of which are always in trouble and who bully other children. Basically, what’s happening here is that Maureen’s mother is pointing out to the boy’s mother, that her son only dare pick on innocent kids and not those who are likely to fight back. She points out that she’s not scared of this notorious family, or the way they shout and throw their weight about. The original Epode (according to West) says, ‘And don’t imagine if you come at me with poison tooth, I’ll burst out weeping like a helpless boy’. Whereas my version says, ‘I’m not scared of your big mouth…. I’ll roll my sleeves up to anybody…’ and ends, ‘so don’t think your reputation scares me one little bit. And we’re not leaving ‘till he says ‘sorry’.

My version of this Epode, like its Horatian equivalent, ends with a rhetorical question, ‘I made mincemeat out of her if you remember’ and ends with a weak demand for an apology.

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(1) West, D. (1997) Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes. Oxford University Press,:Oxford (135)

Epode V: Kenny’s Capture (At, o deorum) [By All the Gods]

Horace

In the original Epode an innocent ‘…free Roman boy is captured by a coven of witches including Canidia, Sagana, Veia, and Folia. As the poem begins they suddenly burst in and strip him naked. He appeals to them all at first, but in line 5 the second person is singular, and he is addressing their leader Canidia.’(1)

‘Canidia’s speech opens with an address to goddesses, but at line 61 she realises that her normal potions have failed to win back her aged lover despite the fact that she has given him magic unguents to put on.’(2) ‘In the original the witches are torturing and then sacrificing the boy to obtain an aphrodisiac, and he will certainly die.’(3)

Almond Verson

As mentioned in my general introduction, The Works is a narrative of life below the railway in Thornaby just after the end of the Second World Ward. It not only tracks the decline and fall of the iron and steel industry on Teesside, but also the decline of the community that surrounds ‘the works’ In the course of the book we are also able to follow the lives of certain individuals and this applies to ‘the girls’(4) who in ‘Kenny’s Capture’ become the witches. Kenny replaces the innocent Roman Boy who, unlike the boy in Epode V, is not innocent, but rascally, which is all part of the change of scene.

Kenny’s assertion that he never ‘laid a finger’ on Maureen suggests some sort of
sexual aggression, which then turns out to be pissing on her. ‘In Latin “piss” can mean “ejaculate”’ (5) In my version Sheila (Canidia) addresses Old Mary (Diana) (6)
and the boy is not killed though he does undergo a kind of torture at the hands of the girls. His sacrifice is implied later by the fact that Kenny has to join up for national service ‘join forces’ The old love (Varus) is represented by Dave in my version and Patricia represents ‘all his other loves’.

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(1) West, D. (1997) Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes. Oxford University Press,:Oxford (134)
(2) ibid
(3) Harrison, Professor Stephen in personal correspondence
(4) See also ‘Girls Below the Railway’ non-Epode version (p.13) and ‘Grown-Up Girls Below the Railway’, Epode version, (p.27) in Almond, The Works, Biscuit Pub. 2004
(5) Harrison, Professor Stephen in personal correspondence. See also ‘Mams at War (The Close Woman) non-Epode version (p.25) and ‘Mams at War (Part II) Epode version (p.33) in Almond, The Works, Biscuit Pub. 2004
(6) See also ‘Old Mary’s Fire’, non-Epode version (p.22) in Almond, The Works, Biscuit Pub. 2004

Epode IV: Landlady and Cleaner (Lupis et agnis) [Wolf & Lamb]

Epode 4 is about a ‘jumped-up arriviste (who is in fact very like Horace himself)’(1)

‘Horace addresses the ex-slave in the first half of the poem. One passer-by speaks to another in the second.’(2) In my version of the poem there are not two speakers, but one and the poem is cast as street-corner gossiping.

In the original Epode ‘…the target of this lampoon has not only been a slave, he had also been a good-for-nothing slave, frequently flogged and chained.’(3) ‘…No doubt Horace’s enemy had amassed enough wealth by a military career not only to buy a prime vineyard in the Falernian country, but also to meet the Knights’ property qualification, but the law seems also to have stipulated that no one who had been born a slave could become an eques.’(4)

In other words, here the speaker of the poem, himself from humble beginnings, but who had improved himself, is objecting to others who have done the same and doesn’t want them to ‘get above their station’ How true is this of us, even now! Very recently a writing colleague of mine, during a conversation we were having about British characteristics said, ‘the worse thing anyone can do to a friend in this country is to be successful’

As ever, what attracts me to the poetry of Horace and what I try to capture here is his wisdom and insight in relation to human interaction and reaction. In my poem, ‘Landlady and Cleaner’, exactly the same message is contained. Here the speaker in the poem, having seen the Landlady gain wealth and status, begins to resent it. She points out the landlady’s humble background as a cleaner and is really saying, she may have acquired a bit of wealth and status, but she’s still no better than me.

All of these versions of the Epodes need to be taken in context with the whole collection and read as a narrative.(5)

(1)Harrison, Stephen (in personal correspondence)
(2)West, D. (1997) Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes. Oxford University Press,: Oxford p.133
(3)ibid
(4)ibid
(5)See Almond, Maureen (2004) The Works, Biscuit Publishing: Washington, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Epode III: Grown-Up Girls Below the Railway (Parentis olim)
[In Olden Days]

This Epode is a curse poem and I confess I had not come across this genre before. Here’s what David West has to say in his explanatory notes:

‘When Jason and the Argonots came to Colcis to win the Golden Fleece, Jason had to yoke fire-breathing bulls. Horace pretends that garlic was the deterrent Medea prescribed against them. Jason took her back to Greece with him, but when he was about to marry Cruesa, daughter of the King Corinth, Medea gave her a poisoned dress which burned on contact with the skin.’ (1)

‘Horace may be mischievously playing with the fact that Publious Canidius Crassus was a loyal supporter of Anthony and led his land forces at the battle of Actium. He was put to death by Octavian in 30 BC’(2)

‘Hercules killed the Centaur Nessus when he attempted to rape Hercules’ wife Deianira. As he died Nessus gave her a shirt impregnated with fire, and told her that she should give it to Hercules if ever she doubted his love.’(3)

This idea of the curse poem seemed like a really good opportunity to use the girls’ friendship group as a place to warn each other off about stealing boyfriends. In my poem the girls we met as youngsters in an earlier, non-Epode based poem, ‘Girls Below the Railway’, have grown up. The girls are loyal friends, but when it comes to men it’s every girl for herself!

Just has Horace replaced the original deterrent with garlic, so in my poem I replace Horace’s garlic with pigs trotters, (regarded as somewhat of a delicacy below the railway in Thornaby just after the Second World War – but you’ll have to take my word for that!)

Horace says, ’If any man with impious hand has broken his aged father’s neck /
let him eat garlic. It is worse than hemlock.’ And he ends by addressing his patron, Maecenas, telling him that if ever he decides to play tricks then may he be cursed like this,
’your lover may put up her hand against your kiss and lie far from you on the bed.’
The speaker in my poem warns her friend, Little Anne:

’Now Anne, if you get any ideas about my bloke,
don’t be surprised if the next day,
when you go to get your best dress from the wardrobe,
it smells like the essence of pig.’

thus reintroducing the idea from the original Jason story about a poisoned dress.

(1)West, D. (1997) Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes. Oxford University Press,:Oxford p.133
(2)ibid
(3)ibid

Epode II: Trafalgar Street Men (Beatus ille) [Happy the Man]

Although not immediately apparent, the speaker of the poem is a man called Alfius. Throughout most of the poem he praises the countryman ‘unencumbered by debt’(1) He praises the simple life and says how much more worthy and glorious it is to lead a simple, sober life. You get the sense throughout the poem that he is rejecting wealth. (It makes me think a bit about that story in the Bible where Jesus says it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.).
The irony is,that Alphius turns out to be a moneylender. It the old, old story really; those who have money can afford to regard it as unimportant.

In my poem the speaker is a landlord/property owner who praises the simple, humble life of those who rent property from him – he tells them how highly he regards them
and how much greater their lives are than his and then in the next breath he puts their rents up.

In other words, this poem is a rejection of wealth and a praise for the simple life, (though not of course, by the actual poor people themselves)

The figure of the landlord occurred to me as a parallel for Alphius quite quickly in this sequence. The fascination for me with Horace is how he captures human traits and how those human traits are still present in the contemporary world.

(1) West, D. (1997) Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes. Oxford University Press,:Oxford p.132

Epode I: Mrs L. (Ibis Liburnis) [In This Light Ship}

‘In the summer of 31 BC Octavian, (in line 3 called Caesar), facing the 500 ships of Anthony and Cleopatra off the north-west coast of Greece, has summoned all Romans of consequence to Brindisi to support him. Maecenas, Horace’s patron, has not included the poet in his entourage.’(1)

Horace is praising Maecenas, speculating about what life would be like if Maecenas were to die and at the same time chiding him gently for not taking him with him.
Horace recognises that Maecenas is an important person, that he has the ear of Octavian. He is pointing out that he (Horace) will be more fearful having been left, than if he had been taken into battle.

In my poem, Mrs. L replaces the figure of Maecenas. She is acknowledged as a community leader, someone more highly connected, someone who organises events and trips for the community – people look up to Mrs. L. She is a shop owner, probably richer than most of the community. Stanza 1 recognises Mrs. L’s higher status. A chara (bus) trip has been organised by Mrs. L. without the writer and family being included. In stanza 4 the writer says, ‘Truth is, we’re better being taken for a ride,/ because if we stay at home we’ll worry/ that tongues will wag and jibe/ or gossip about who we think we are./ They can’t whisper if we’re with them!’/ There is of course a double play on the phrase, ‘being taken for a ride.’

In stanza 2 the writer asks Mrs. L. ‘What would we do without you? We’d not leave the street./ You take over, and you make us forget/ the cheaper cuts of meat; the rent we haven’t paid/…. then we go along with your suggestions/ to learn about the world.

In stanza 5 Mrs. L. is told we would ‘gladly join you on the coach’ and that she needn’t go to any extra trouble to accommodate us, ‘Don’t load any extra brown ale just for us’.

As in the original Epode, the final stanza acknowledges just how much has been given by the patron figure and assurances are given that this won’t be wasted. ’Your ingenuity has given us enough-/We won’t take the experience/ and bury it at the back of our minds/ or treat it like just another day.’

1. West, David (Tr.) Horace: The Complete Odes and Epodes, 1997, p.132