It is forbidden knowledge what our term of years, mine and yours.
Don’t scan the tables of your Babylonian seers.
Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past.
Whether Jupiter has many years yet to give,
Or this one is our last:

This, that makes the Tyrrhene waves spent against the shore.
Strain your wine and strain your wisdom.
Life is short; should we hope for long?
In the moment of our talking, precious time has slipped away.
Seize the day. Trust tomorrow little as you may.

by Horace (23 BC Roman poet) Odes, 1.11

This poem by Horace, 23 BC, is the first appearance of the phrase “carpe diem,” translated as seize the day. I’d decided to look over the poem in translation from Wikipedia, and to correct and update the translation as I saw fit, aiming to extract the meanings better and make the grammar less-clunky. Also, to some extent, to make it rhyme. Seen in context, the whole poem looks romantic, and the intent of the famous phrase reads more like ‘seize the moment’, or ‘enjoy the present’. Either translation is acceptable from the Latin, I’m told, but the phrase has taken of a different meaning in current movies.

Robin Williams quotes the phrase to a class of literature students in the sense of ‘seize the moment’ in this scene of “The Dead Poets Society,” He’s trying to get the boys to appreciate poetry, and the preciousness of their years in prep-school. A very well-done movie, IMHO. The newspaper sellers sing the phrase for different intent in this song in “Newsies.” For them, it’s a call to arms, more like seize the opportunity, or maybe even seize power. This was not Horace’s intent, but by coincidence, it’s sung in front of the statue of Horace Greeley, and it works.

In either context, there is a certain young masculinity. In both movies, the peron expressing the idea is male and young. I don’t think either movie would work as well with women preaching, dancing or singing to this idea.

Robert E. Buxbaum, March 9, 2019. In case you should wonder what happens to Frank Kelly (Sullivan) after the movie ends, I’ve written about that.  Also, a friend of mine notes that the grammar used in these movies is wrong:  “Carpe diem” is singular, for this 3rd declension noun. The equivalent Latin plural is “Carpite diem:” That’s the equivalent of you-all, should seize the moment, so the classics teacher is saying it wrong (who cares?). Unlike in the movies, much of classic education is spent on pedantic, uninspiring, minutia, as in Latin grammar. As it happens, that’s what’s necessary to permit distinction of meaning, but the day is lost. Thank you, David Hoenig for grammar help. Here are some of my thoughts on education.