This week, and for three more weeks, I will be covering the long poem Horatius, by Lord Macaulay. I have chosen this poem because it is a tale of heroic resistance to overwhelming odds, and it is easy to draw parallels with the present day. This week’s stanzas tell of the three heroes who volunteer to hold the gate against the Etruscan horde.
As we wax hot in faction,
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Macaulay (1800—1859)
In battle we wax cold:
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old.
Poem 366. Horatius, stanzas XXVII to XXXV (The Three make their stand)
XXVII
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods,
XXVIII
‘And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?
XXIX
‘Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?’
XXX
Then out spake Spurius Lartius;
A Ramnian proud was he:
‘Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,
And keep the bridge with thee.’
And out spake strong Herminius;
Of Titian blood was he:
‘I will abide on thy left side,
And keep the bridge with thee.’
XXXI
‘Horatius,’ quoth the Consul,
‘As thou sayest, so let it be.’
And straight against that great array
Forth went the dauntless Three.
For Romans in Rome’s quarrel
Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life,
In the brave days of old.
XXXII
Then none was for a party;
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great:
Then lands were fairly portioned;
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.
XXXIII
Now Roman is to Roman
More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high,
And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction,
In battle we wax cold:
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old.
XXXIV
Now while the Three were tightening
Their harnesses on their backs,
The Consul was the foremost man
To take in hand an axe:
And Fathers mixed with Commons
Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,
And smote upon the planks above,
And loosed the props below.
XXXV
Meanwhile the Tuscan army,
Right glorious to behold,
Come flashing back the noonday light,
Rank behind rank, like surges bright
Of a broad sea of gold.
Four hundred trumpets sounded
A peal of warlike glee,
As that great host, with measured tread,
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,
Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head,
Where stood the dauntless Three.
Amidst all the panic, confusion and despair of the Roman populace, one man stands forth and offers to defend the bridge against the huge army approaching it if two others will join him. He proposes that they protect the bridge until either it is destroyed or they are, since the entrance is narrow and their foes cannot come at them en masse.
Horatius believes that offering oneself to protect the city’s temples and tombs from pillage and its women from rapists like Sextus is the noblest form of sacrifice; since every man will face death in one way or another, why not die “facing fearful odds”—the stakes could not be higher: his life and the city he loves gambled against the hope that the bridge can be demolished before they are overcome.
His words inspire two heroes to stand alongside him: Spurius Lartius and Herminius the Titian, and the three of them sally forth, urging the citizenry and their leaders to hew down the bridge (incidentally their only means of return to the city). While the heroes adjust their armour and ready themselves for battle, the Consul and city fathers mix with the ordinary people as they seize whatever implements they can and begin the desperate work of destruction with axes and crowbars.
Macaulay purports to be translating the words of a later Roman who indulges in a little editorialising in these stanzas: he suggests that in Horatius’s day all Romans were equal and treated each other equally and with respect with the rich helping the poor with no expectation of reward, the spoils of war being shared fairly since there are no parties, only the state. The unnamed narrator contrasts this utopian existence with his own era, when Romans fight each other as if they were sworn enemies, the lowly satirise the rich and the city fathers exercise their power without caring for the citizens; as hot as the factional strife rages, their ability to fight an invader has waned and there are no heroes to be found like Horatius and his comrades.
Meanwhile, the Etruscans and their allies advance toward the bridgehead, their arms and armour glittering, their banners floating above, and the sound of their boots mixing with the brassy braying of trumpets and horns.
There are a couple of good performances of the poem on YouTube: one by Jake Phillips, and a group reading recorded by A Kindly Voice during the Covid-19 pandemic.
I like it because for all its idealistic imaginings, we see the three heroes volunteering for a hopeless task, uncaring that they may perish in the attempt, and a heroic story needs characters that are willing to sacrifice themselves, whether it is Frodo Baggins taking the Ring to Mount Doom or Sir Gawain accepting the challenge of the Green Knight.
The opening lines are quoted by Brendan Gleeson as Churchill in the 2009 film Into the Storm. Although Churchill was a poor scholar at Harrow, he won a prize for memorising the whole poem and the clip I have seen of the film suggests that he quoted these lines at a Cabinet meeting when the war was won.