John Lennon was cruelly murdered today in 1980 in New York, shot with dum-dum bullets by deranged Hawaiian security guard who did not like the sentiments expressed in some of Lennon’s songs and the profligate lifestyle of the ex-Beatle. Not a bad day to die I imagine because today was born in 65 BC a son of a freed slave, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known widely as Horace the Roman poet. John Lennon’s verses and music owe their structure and sentiment to Horace. Horace has influenced our civilization through the centuries through being part of the set work for schooling children.
His Latin poetry was written in a particular poetic style. Later the process of recitation and learning his verse was set to music which developed into our “do-rey-me”….method of learning music, the solfège system.
Horace’s satires and morals cover the entire range of human foibles and are clearly influenced by Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean between two excessive vices; most people, Horace argues, complain about their lot yet do not really want to change it. Our insatiable greed for material wealth is just as silly. Our true basic needs, food and water, are easily satisfied. A person who recognizes the natural limit (modus) set for our desires, the Just Mean between the extremes, will in the end leave the Banquet of Life like a satisfied guest, full and content.
Posted by Douglas Racionzer
– Posted by Douglas Racionzer (serendipiday.blogspot.com)