Returning home, a victor in the great Greek games of the fifth century B.C. could expect an exquisite choral performance in praise of his achievement?that is, if he had the foresight to hire Pindar. Self-conscious and tactful, yet proudly assertive, Pindar's odes delicately balanced praise against the risk of overstepping; evoked past heroes without overshadowing the present; and prayed for a future harmonizing human aspiration with divine aims.
Reading Pindar's poems with their public performance in mind, Hilary Mackie suggests that the poet was forced to tread a precarious path: weighing the interests of various groups of audience members against one another, balancing praise of the victorious athlete with praise of the deeds of mythic heroes, and catering at the same time to an uncertain future. Mackie's new approach illuminates apparent contradictions in the poet's pronouncements by bringing to the fore the variety of messages conveyed in his wishes and prayers. Her innovative examination of the moment-to-moment dynamic between Pindar and his audience shows that the poet's performance often contained one message for the victor and his family, and quite another for the gods.
Graceful Errors significantly changes our perspective on Pindar's work, providing a lucid appreciation of Pindaric poetry that takes into account the oral context of these poems' performance. It will be of interest not only to classicists but also to scholars and students interested in oral performance, the social function of poetry, and the role and status of poets in traditional cultures, whether ancient or modern.
Hilary Mackie is Associate Professor of Classics at Rice University.

The Odes of Horace are a treasure of Western civilization, and this new English translation is a lively rendition by one of the prominent poet-translators of our own time, David R. Slavitt. Horace was one of the great poets of Rome’s Augustan age, benefiting (as did fellow poet Vergil) from the friendship of the powerful statesman and cultural patron Maecenas. These Odes, which take as their formal models Greek poems of the seventh century BCE—especially the work of Sappho and Alcaeus—are the observations of a wry, subtle mind on events and occasions of everyday life. At first reading, they are modest works but build toward a comprehensive attitude that might fairly be called a philosophy. Charming, shrewd, and intimate, the voice of the Odes is that of a sociable wise man talking amusingly but candidly to admiring friends.
            This edition is also notable for Slavitt’s extensive notes and commentary about the art of translation. He presents the problems he encountered in making the translation, discussing possible solutions and the choices he made among them. The effect of the notes is to bring the reader even closer to the original Latin and to understand better how to gauge the distance between the two languages.

The writings of Horace have exerted strong and continuing influence on writers from his day to our own. Sophisticated and intellectual, witty and frank, he speaks to the cultivated and civilized world of today with the same astringent candor and sprightliness that appeared so fresh at the height of Rome's wealthy and glory.

In 23 B.C., when he published the first three books of his lyrics, Horace was 42 years old, secure in the favor of the emperor Augustus, and living in ease and comfort as a country gentleman on his Sabine farm. Serenity is reflected in these lyrics, certainly, but so are other experiences, for Horace had lived through three major political crises in a society that was the center of the world, that was sophisticated, refined—and beginning to decay. A worldly, high-spirited, cultivated man, Horace responds in his poetry to the myriad elements of Roman life he knew so well.

The Odes and Epodes of Horace collects the entirety of his lyric poetry, comprising all 103 odes, the Carmen Saeculare ("Festival Hymn"), and the earlier epodes. Joseph P. Clancy has achieved a mirroring of the originals that is worthy in its own right as English verse, and his introductions to each book of lyrics are both lively and informed.