Eheu fugaces?

[Ken Knowles]

I've had "eheu fugaces" running through my brain for weeks.

I presume it's Latin.

I'd be grateful to know what it means.

I'd be even more grateful if you could tell me why the dratted thing is
running through my brain in the first place... Or why I think that's how
you spell it...

Thanks

Ken

[Edwin D Floyd]

Hello, The reason you think "eheu fugaces" is spelled that way
is simple: it IS spelled thus. It's from the beginning of
Horace, Odes 2.14, and is a fairly well known quotation - often
quoted in a sort of offhand way, especially in older stuff (nineteenth
century and the like). The Horace poem begins as follows:
Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
labuntur anni...
"Alas, Postumus, Postumus, the fleeting years glide by ..."
(eheu - alas; fugaces - fleeting; labuntur - slip, glide; anni -
years)
Edwin D. Floyd edfl...@pitt.edu

[Larry Rosenwald]

Eheu fugaces are the first two words of Horace's Ode 2/14:
Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
labuntur anni . . . .
"Ah, Postume, the fleeting years slip softly away . . . ."
Best, Larry Rosenwald

[Henry Whyte]

In article <ken-270297...@oriels.demon.co.uk>, Ken Knowles
<k...@oriels.demon.co.uk> writes

Could be intimations of mortality spurring you to echo Horace:

Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
Labuntur anni.
"Ah me, Postumus, Postumus, the fleeting years are slipping by."
- Odes, II, xiv. 1.

A rhyming version is contained in The Ingoldsby Legends (Barham):

"What Horace says is,
Eheu fugaces
Anni labuntur, Postume, Postume!
Years glide away, and are lost to me, lost to me!"
(This information gleaned from the Oxford Book of Quotations.)
--
Henry Whyte, Translation Plus translat...@07000.net
hwh...@translation-plus.co.uk Phone/fax +44 1382 200304
http://www.translation-plus.demon.co.uk/ Mobile +44 802 818180
For translations into English from French, German, Russian and Spanish.

[Michael Woods]

In article <ken-270297...@oriels.demon.co.uk>, Ken Knowles
<k...@oriels.demon.co.uk> writes
>I've had "eheu fugaces" running through my brain for weeks.
>
>I presume it's Latin.
>
>I'd be grateful to know what it means.
>
>I'd be even more grateful if you could tell me why the dratted thing is
>running through my brain in the first place... Or why I think that's how
>you spell it...
>

>Thanks
>
>Ken
It's the start of one of Horace's odes lamenting the swift passage of
time.
Michael

--
Michael Woods