United States or Uruguay ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Elles se sont facilement evanuies, ne laissant a mes vers qu'une espece d'existence metaphysique." C'etait un air de negligence qu'il se donnait. His immortality through it is his boast. Exegi monumentum aere perennius Regalique situ pyramidum altius * Non omnis moriar. Art is not mere inspiration, the transient expression of private moods, but a work of communication, meant to endure.
Horace, in the ardour of youth, and when his bosom beat high with the raptures of fancy, had, in the pursuit of Grecian literature, drunk largely, at the source, of the delicious springs of Castalia; and it seems to have been ever after his chief ambition, to transplant into the plains of Latium the palm of lyric poetry. Nor did he fail of success: Exegi monumentum aere perennius. Carm. iii. 30.
Horace spoke out of the abundance of his heart, and tells you precisely what he is, as frankly as Montaigne. Trust him in such words; he absolutely means them; knows thoroughly that he cannot sail the Tyrrhene Sea, knows that he cannot float on the winds of Matinum, can only murmur in the sunny hollows of it among the heath. But note, secondly, his pride: "Exegi monumentum sere perennius."
When Horace no model of magnanimity wrote his exegi monumentum, he was not thinking that the pleasure he would continue to give would remind people of his trivial personality, which indeed he never particularly celebrated and which had much better lie buried with his bones.
And although the pope ment by causing such ikons to be erected, to prefer Thomas as a perpetuall saint to all posterities, and thought as he that said of his poems, Exegi monumentum ære perennius, Regalíque situ pyramidum altius, Quod non imber edax non aquilo impotens Possit diruere aut innumerabilis Annorum series & fuga temporum,
Unlike the proud boast of the Roman poet, if he spoke it in earnest, “Exegi monumentum ære perennius,” he did but indulge the hope that one, whose coming had been expected with pleasure, might excite regret when he had departed, and be rewarded by the sympathy and praise of his friends even in the presence of other minstrels.
But that the people should not be without hearing God's word, he preached to them from a stone in the churchyard, which is yet shown. There is said to be also a carved wooden basrelief of him in the church." "He might have said, 'Exegi monumentum ære perennius'" said Hardy. "Such a man exhibits one side of your national character that the world has honoured and will honour.
We had met in Europe some dozen years ago I from Massachusetts, he from Carolina. We both looked grave for an instant as a friend presented us to each other, naming our respective residences, and then both laughed cheerily, and were good friends ever after. We enjoyed Tartuffe and the Mariage de Figaro in company with each other at the Theatre Francois, heard Mario, Grisi, Gratiano and Borghi Mamo in Verdi's Trovatore at the Opéra Italien, danced with les filles de l'Opéra at Cellarius's saloons, and had many a midnight carouse afterward at the Maison Doré. Nor had our time always been unprofitably spent. Toward Easter we journeyed together to Rome, and stood side by side before the masterpieces of Raphael and Domenichino in the Vatican, strolled by moonlight amid the ruins of the Coliseum, and drank out of the same cup from the Fountain of Trevi; often visited Crawford's studio, where then stood the famous group which now adorns the frieze of the Capitol at Washington, and by actual observation agreed in thinking his Indian not unworthy of comparison with the famous statue of the Dying Gladiator. We stood together on the Tarpeian Rock, and, looking down upon the mutilated Column of Trajan and all the ruins of ancient Rome, read out of the same copy of Horace the famous ode beginning, "Exegi monumentum aere perennius." We were both passionately fond of sculpture and of painting, and often sat for hours before the glorious Descent from the Cross of Daniel da Volterra in the Chiesa della Trinit
There is a preface equally unclaimed by signatures or initials, but as it is in the singular number the two hommes de bouche can scarcely have written it; perchance it was M. Barba aforesaid, lord-proprietor of these not-to-be-touched treasures; but anyhow the writer had a very solemn feeling of the debt which he had conferred on society by making the contents public for the twelfth time, and he concludes with a mixture of sentiments, which it is very difficult to define: "Dans la paix de ma conscience, non moins que dans l'orgueil d'avoir si honorablement rempli cette importante mission, je m'ecrierai avec le poete des gourmands et des amoureux: "Exegi monumentum aere perennius Non omnis moriar."
But the sentiment of these last words is substantially the same with the line of Horace: Exegi monumentum aere perennius. The whole peroration of this Biography is one of singular beauty and moral elevation.
Word Of The Day