Horace: Odes – Book One

This edition of Horace, Odes I, has been prepared on the same principles as previous volumes in the Loeb Classical Library. That is to say, the editors, believing that the annotated classical texts of the past generated give too little practical help in translation, and that the same time have their commentaries overloaded with unnecessary information on points only remotely connected with the text, have sought to write notes that will make it as possible for the school boy of all to ready to produce, in reasonable time, and without the discouragement of being baffled by difficulties, a correct translation of passages set by their teachers for preparation. In their view, such pupils will need a great deal of help which is in the very days of classical teaching defy years ago. They will consider that it need to remember that such help should at first be given repeatedly, until each difficulty of construction has become familiar.

The editors, bearing in mind, as they have tried to do throughout, the difficulties experienced by present day pupils in the study of a subject which even received a much more generous share of the timetable, hope that they have done something in the present edition, to smooth their path.