Odes 1 , also known by its incipit, Solvitur acris hiems, is an Ode by Horace addressed to Sestius, suffect consul in 23 BC. The poem combines the coming of spring and the cycle of seasonal change with ideas of linear temporality and mortality, with recourse to the consolatory sympotic strategy of carpe diem. Assessing its quality, often relative to Odes 4 —to which it is a "lovely forerunner"—scholars and critics have noted the technical mastery and subtle ambiguities, simple singularity of concept notwithstanding the range and contrasts in emotion, tone, and thought, the 'ground covered' in its twenty-line engagement with the "human condition".