Drink! O friends, stamp wild
Bare feet on the ground.[Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
pulsanda tellus.]Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet and satirist [Quintus Horacius Flaccus]
Odes [Carmina], Book 1, # 37, l. 1ff (1.37.1-2) (23 BC) [tr. Raffel (1983)]
(Source)
A light-hearted opening for a celebration of Caesar's success at the battle of Actium and the defeat and death of Cleopatra (and, not mentioned, Marc Antony).
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
Now let us drink, now dance (Companions) now.
[tr. Sir T. H.; ed. Brome (1666)]
Now now tis time to dance and play,
And drink, and frollick all the Day.
[tr. Creech (1684)]
Now drink we deep, now featly tread
A measure.
[tr. Conington (1872)]
Now, my companions, is the time to carouse, now to beat the ground with a light foot.
[tr. Smart/Buckley (1853)]
Now, comrades, fill each goblet to the brim,
Now, now with bounding footsteps strike the ground.
[tr. Martin (1864)]
Drink, companions, the moment has come for carousal,
And the foot is now free to strike earth in brisk measures.
[tr. Bulwer-Lytton (1870)]
'Tis time we drink, 'tis time we dance.
[tr. Gladstone (1894)]
Now is the time to quaff, and to beat the ground
With foot untrammell'd.
[tr. Phelps (1897)]
Now 'tis to drink: now with free foot
To smite the ground.
[tr. Garnsey (1907)]
Now 'tis the hour for wine, now without check
To trip it gaily.
[tr. Marshall (1908)]
Now is the time to drain the flowing bowl, now with unfettered foot to beat the ground with dancing.
[tr. Bennett (Loeb) (1912)]
Bumpers! Let free foot beat the earth!
To drink, dance ....
[tr. Mills (1924)]
Now drink and dance, my comrades.
[tr. Edgar (1893)]
Today is the day to drink and dance on. Dance, then,
Merrily, friends, till the earth shakes.
[tr. Michie (1963)]
At last the day has come for celebration,
For dancing and for drinking.
[tr. Ferry (1997)]
To drinking now, now all to the nimble foot
that beats the earth.
[tr. Willett (1998)]
Now is the time for drinking, O my friends!
Now with a free foot beating the earth in dance!
[tr. Alexander (1999)]
Now’s the time for drinking deep, and now’s the time
to beat the earth with unfettered feet.
[tr. Kline (2015)]
Now it is time to drink; now with loose feet
it is time for beating the earth.
[tr. Wikisource (2021)]
Quotations about:
toe-tapping
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