CARPE DIEM by Horace

Specifocations

Here there are a few photos of sundial with the motto Carpe diem. This motto is, perhaps, the most common one. Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism usually translated to «seize the day», taken from a poem in the Odes (book 1, number 11) in 23 BC by the poet Horace.

Description

Don't ask (it's forbidden to know) what end
the gods have given me or you, Leuconoe. Don't play with Babylonian
numerology either. How much better it is to endure whatever will be!
Whether Jupiter has allotted you many more winters or this one,
which even now wears out the Tyrrhenian sea on the opposing rocks, is the final one
be wise, be truthful, strain the wine, and scale back your long hopes
to a short period. While we speak, envious time will have {already} fled:
seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next day.

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.
Seu pluris hiemes, seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.