Welcome back to the Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Tuesday, December 8th, 2020.

Today's poem is by a poet whose birthday is today. It's Quintus Horatius Flacchus, also known to

people who speak English as Horace. He was the leading Roman lyric poet.

He lived from December 8th of 65 BC to November 27th of 8 BC.

He was known for his hexameter verse and his iambic poetry.

The end of Horace's life coincided with the beginning of Augustus or Octavian's time as

the first Roman emperor, and he was known for writing poetry that was amusing yet serious

to use the line that one critic, one historian, wrote about him.

He wrote, hexaminer verse, he wrote Iamic poetry, he wrote many kinds of poetry.

He also wrote a famous work called Ars Poetica, which is about the art of poetry,

and is both encouragement and challenges for aspiring poets.

And the poem that I'm going to read today is Ode 1.11.

It's a short little ode.

I'm going to read a translation by Burton Raffell, which you can find at PoetryFoundation.org.

This is only a eight, maybe a, maybe an eight or nine line ode.

It's one of his more famous ones, and so I wanted to share it with you today on his birthday.

I haven't read anything by Horace on this podcast, at least in a long time.

So it seemed like the right time to do it.

Ode 1.11.

Leocon, no one's allowed to know his fate.

Not you, not me.

Don't ask.

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