Carpe Diem

Ancient poets on living and loving

“Do not regret growing older”, wrote Mark Twain, “It is a privilege denied to many.” Some ancient Greek poets were inclined to complain that growing old was no fun, and in particular that life without (sexual) love was not worth living. Mimnermus of Colophon (7th century BC) composed an elegiac poem that begins:

What’s life, what’s happiness, when loving’s done?
    I’d rather die than live without such fun!

τίς δὲ βίος, τί δὲ τερπνὸν ἄτερ χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης; 
     τεθναίην, ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι.

Centuries later, the Epicurean theme carpe diem – ‘Live now, life is short’ – was often expressed in poetry. Palladas, a poet who lived in Alexandria during the 4th century AD, was a pagan Greek of whose work some 150 epigrams survive, some quite amusing and others quite bitter (the 16th-century Swiss classical scholar Isaac Casaubon called him versificator insulsissimus, “a most uncouth poet”). One epigram (5.72) combines the theme with Mimnermus’s sentiment:

Life’s this, just this: Have fun, away harsh cares!
Brief is our span: now relish wine’s allure,
Now dance, weave floral crowns, enjoy affairs.
Let’s live today. Tomorrow nothing’s sure.

τοῦτο βίος, τοῦτ᾽ αὐτό˙ τρυφὴ βίος, ἔρρετ᾽ ἀνῖαι.
ζωῆς ἀνθρώποις ὀλίγος χρόνος˙ ἄρτι Λύαιος,
ἄρτι χοροί, στέφανοί τε φιλανθέες, ἄρτι γυναῖκες.
σήμερον ἐσθλὰ πάθω, τὸ γὰρ αὔριον οὐδενὶ δῆλον.

(Read with 4th-century AD pronunciation)

The theme is found on a stone column (picture above) inscribed around 200AD, the Seikilos Column, which also has musical notation that allows us to hear how it was sung (see https://antigonejournal.com/2021/12/song-of-seikilos/)

While you live, shine bright.
Don’t let sorrow you benight.
Brief is the life that we have to spend,
To everything Time demands an end.

Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ
πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔστι τὸ ζῆν
τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.

The originator of the phrase carpe diem (well known from the film Dead Poets’ Society and often translated ‘Seize the Day’) is Horace’s Ode to Leuconoe (Odes 1.11). ‘Leuconoe’ is a Greek name meaning ‘white-mind’ (i.e. innocent), so I have translated it ‘Bianca’:

Don’t ask, Bianca, for we may not know,
what end the gods decree for me or you:
don't seek to learn the future from the stars.
It’s better to accept whatever comes:
whether we’re bound for many winters more
or whether this one, pounding on the rocks
that shield the Tuscan shore, will be our last.  
Be sensible and strain the wine instead,
and trim down long-term fancies. While we talk, 
ungenerous time runs by. Enjoy today,
and place no trust in what tomorrow holds.

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati,
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Is this a philosophical poem? Or a bid for Leuconoe's favour? Or both?
Andrew Marvell surely heard it as the latter, and modelled on it his poem 'To his coy mistress':  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44688/to-his-coy-mistress