Horace’s poem 1.5 is complex, but one simplified interpretation of it is that he is warning a younger male lover about what will happen after the “promises” and “enjoy[ment]” of the young man’s current love of Pyrrha is “betray[ed] [by] the breeze.” Horace warns that the boy is innocent, though he will “often … weep” over his lost lover Pyrrha, after she becomes “busy” or, in other words, stops loving him. Horace, speaking from an aged perspective, is jaded about love. He says, “[t]hey’re fools you dazzle, they haven’t tried you” implying that being in love is foolish and not worth it given the grief that comes after.
I find this to link well to the song “It’s not for me to say” by Mathis, because both talk about a lover enjoying love in the moment and both also have a major theme of time, speaking to how feelings of love can change over time.
Horace looks into the past to predict the future whereas Mathis speaks from an in-the-moment, romantic, yet wary perspective. Mathis is currently in love, trying to enjoy the moment, though he is fully aware that his love is a slave to unknown changes the future might bring.
In a way, Mathis’ song can be thought of as a retort against Horace by the young lover. Mathis says, “it’s not for me to say you’ll always care / but here for the moment I can hold you fast / and press your lips to mine.” In other words, he knows he can’t stop his lover’s feelings from possible change down the road, in fact, he says “it’s not for me to say you love me” implying that he isn’t even sure his ‘lover’ loves him as he sings, but he doesn’t care! He is able to kiss her in that moment and “as far as [he] can see [it’s] heaven.”
Together, these lines from Horace’s poem 1.5 and Mathis’s lyrics from “It’s Not for Me to Say” beg the question: is romantic love worth it if you know you might lose it? Is the old clique right- is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?
“How often he’ll weep
over your promises and the shifting gods,
amazed at the seas rough with black winds,
the innocent
who now enjoys you, believes in your luster,
who thinks you’ll never be busy, always
be ready to love, not knowing the betrayals
of the breeze. They’re fools you dazzle,
they haven’t tried you” (lines 5-13).