Life is short

Carpe Diem

The Roman poet Catullus bids his Lesbia ‘let us live and love’ because once our brief light is gone there’s just one eternal night to be slept - nox est perpetua una dormienda (poem 5). A generation on and Horace repeats the sentiment with the words omnes una manet nox / et calcanda semel via Leti - “one night awaits us all, and the road to Oblivion must be trod but once.” He also penned, of course, the famous phrase ‘carpe diem’, which is better translated ‘enjoy the moment’ than its more common translation ‘seize the day’.

In 2013 a mosaic was uncovered in Hatay, Turkey, once the city of Antioch. Dating form the 3rd century AD, it shows a skeleton with his elbow on a pillow holding a drink, with the Greek word Euphrosynos - Mr Merry. It’s an invitation to think, in Epicurean style, ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’ (the phrase quoted by St. Paul disapprovingly in Corinthians 1.15.32).

I can’t stop myself thinking in Latin hexameters, and when I saw posted on Twitter the phrase ‘Dum potes, vive’ - while you can, live - I used Horace’s verse (which ends with an emphatic monosyllable ‘night’) and turned into

Vivite dum potis est: nos omnes una manet nox

“Live while you can: one night awaits us all”

A respondent joked ‘drink while you can’ so I wrote a further line (more original):

combibe dum potes est: manet et nos crapula longa.

"Drink while you may, for soon our life is over;
And all we'll have is just a long hangover."

Perhaps it’s the kind of thing Mr Merry from Antioch might be thinking.