The Satires of Horace

Translation. Translated by William Matthews. "Horace's satires are not, strictly speaking, satires at all...Horace's intention is to cast light by means of wit and urbanity, analogy and example, fable and simple narrative...His satires are really intimate yet dramatic encounters of dialogue, with the reader as a silent partner...Matthews, in his own poems, is a master of idiom; in Horace he finds honesty with subtlety, directness with irony, earthiness with sophistication...What is special about Matthew's Horatian SATIRES is the immediacy of the idiom, the sense of discovery of the actual moment, the quickness of the turn of the line. If we are fools, wisdom and wise words are our only chance. Horace's words, in Matthews' hands, become alive, just-written, and immortal again because they are so new"--Stanley Plumly.