Way back in 23 BCE, the Roman poet Horace exhorted people to carpe diem. Those two words have been translated by schoolchildren and repeated in pop culture for so long that we all know carpe diem means “seize the day.” Except, it doesn’t. Not exactly.
Seizing is much more sudden and forceful than my days appreciate. I don’t feel called upon to fling myself from bed and stomp through the day taking giant bites of ever more amazing experiences. Yet we live in a culture that admires people who grab what they can, chew it up, and reach for more. As Robin Williams’ character in Dead Poets Society tells his students, “Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
Many of us aren’t quite that driven.
Thankfully, what Horace more likely meant by the word carpe is “pick or pluck.” Those words come across quite differently to me. To pick the day, I’d reach for it as I would a peach on a tree, knowing the ripest fruit nearly falls off at the touch. To pluck the day I’d grasp it gently as I would a daisy, nipping it off low on the stem to keep the flower fresh. This approach has to do with paying attention and carefully harvesting what’s ready. It has to do with cherishing the fullness of the day itself.
This makes more sense in the context of Horace’s poem as well. He was writing, in this passage, about each of us facing an unforeseen future. We may plan for tomorrow but cannot count on tomorrow. As he writes, “In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb’d away.
|
Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi |
Ask not (’tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years, |
Time is a mystery contemplated in every era. It’s also a simple wealth we can enjoy right now. Don’t pressure yourself. Just pluck the day, my friend.
(Translation from Odes 1.11 by John Conington, 1882)
Laura Grace Weldon 
Thank you Laura. That makes good sense!
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And it’s a lot less stressful…
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Plucky is how I feel most days… and pretty lucky to have you as a friend! XOX
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You exemplify pluck, my dear. And I feel just as lucky.
(Now, if we could just bring togas back, They look comfy.)
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ha ha ha
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Like a guitar? Or an eyebrow?
Sorry I couldn’t resist 😉
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You’re on to something here Janey. Live as you would pluck a guitar. That sounds expressive, open, beautiful. I’m not sure about living as you would pluck an eyebrow. I plucked an eyebrow exactly once and it brought tears to my eyes. Never again. I think we should welcome an eyebrow diverse world!
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Haha yes those two are pretty much opposites I think! Let’s go with the guitar, or a harp perhaps. I’m a musician and I have never plucked an eyebrow in my life.
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Here’s to a world free of eyebrow judgment.
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Absolutely!
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My Latin teacher agreed with you. She told me that grasping the day was more like it, holding on but not grabbing “…So inappropriate, my dear, as if Time wouldn’t slip through your fingers like sand. Hold it, cup it in your hands like something precious”. I’ve remembered that all my life!
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Beautiful. The best teachers do stay with us don’t they?
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Oh, and the worst ones too, the scary ones who terrified us. My math teacher. She got my times tables embedded in my skull, but not much else!
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Yes to the worst ones. My first grade teacher was a large, malevolent force. She pulled the shade on the classroom door before meting out the worse punishments, like locking misbehaving children in the cupboard under the sink. She had instructional props to teach us the concept of ones, tens, and hundreds. They were identical stick figures with magnetic hands to hold different numbers in their blank hands. I could not understand how one stick figure was worth so much more than another. Even felt sick about it. I worked up the courage to ask. That was a grave mistake. Math has made me feel vaguely nauseated ever since.
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Wow, she sounds a lot scarier even than mine, who used devastating personal remarks and sarcasm to wither and destroy, as well as a ruler across the palm to reinforce the message…
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Maybe that’s why rulers are called rulers…
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🙂
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Oh, Horace! What a guy. James Wright called him “Quintus Horatio Flaccus, my good secret” because Horace’s father was a slave who bought his son’s freedom to write this great stuff (Just as Wright’s father worked in a rough factory and his son got out to be a poet). And Horace also gave us the idea, verily, the insistence that art should “delight AND instruct.” But this is a lesson of his I have never gotten before. Thanks, Laura.
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