ABSTRACT
Among all the ancient Latin poets, I believe Horace maintains the very first position. He is successful in his range of locutions, skillful in his choice of adjectives, bold in his flights of fancy, and these last he depicts with strength and sweetness. In his works style corresponds to matter – amusing and simple in his satires and epistles, lofty and pleasing in his songs, and always rich and edifying in exhortations as well as in examples for the improvement of morals. For this reason his works not only were agreeable to Augustus Caesar and the most distinguished Romans of his time but even seventeen centuries later have earned for themselves great esteem from all educated people in nearly all nations. For this reason I, too, wishing to conduct an experiment in our language by translating Latin poets, felt I could find no one better, and among his works I chose the Epistles because they above all his other works are rich and plentiful in moralization. Almost every line contains some sort of rule which provides a healthy foundation for life. I translated the Epistles into verse without rhyme in order to remain close to the original, from which the need for rhyme would often have forced
