“He gives us the meeting two hours hence, at the Buen Retiro. Peel is to find him the materiel. I’ll post for a brace of assistants, long tired, and niver found wanting. Take a short nap on the sofa, or you may as well scribble any loose memoranda. I’ll attend to them in case of the worst. Day will soon dawn, so carpe noctem.”
1839?, Vassar College, The Vassar Miscellany, page 381
When an equatorial admits a festive band to its sacred precincts, consents to be garlanded, and changes its motto from carpe noctem to carpe diem for our benefit, we may indeed feel honored.
1846, Charles Dickens et alii, Bentley’s Miscellany, page 163
“Ah, well!” sighed Mr. Goitt; “I’ve only a fortnight more to live — in chambers. Let me enjoy my brief span while it lasts, and begin by making a night of it. Carpe diem.” “Carpe noctem, you mean,” suggested Sharples. “Night, not day. It’s all the same, though, with gentlemen who turn one into the other.”
1900–1901?, College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, Massachusetts), The Holy Cross Purple, page 24
We had certain hours for recreation and certain hours for study, and if during study hours we felt a disinclination for Latin and Greek, and closing the pages of Horace, something said to us “Carpe diem” or “carpe noctem” we could not — if we were so inclined — go “down town” to the theatre, or in the effervescence of youthful exuberance paint red the monument on Worcester Common; there were certain bounds — and I knew them well, none here knew them better — beyond which we were not permitted to…
1911, Benjamin Swift, The Old Dance Master, page 82
He considered “Carpe diem” wise advice. But he added slyly and with just a hint of extraordinary knowledge of the world, that youth — if it knows life and Latin — prefers to whisper to itself, “Carpe noctem”. That, within limits, was what Monty Marduke had done.
1931, Arthur Wellington Bell, Cape Cod Color, page 49
The philosophy of their young is more of the carpe noctem school, with an inordinate fondness for moon- and star-gazing from cars paradised on the shore.
1969, Poetry Society, Poetry Review, page 213
They are the Carpe diem and above all the Carpe noctem of the East, the lyra erotica heard by M. Thalasso in the streets of Stamboul.
1971, Peter K. King, Dawn Poetry in the Netherlands, pages 121⁽¹⁾ and 131⁽²⁾
⁽¹⁾ To return to this death-in-life requires more courage than a carpe noctem escape to the high garden beyond life.
⁽²⁾ […] They mate until the morning takes them by surprise. Wood clings to wood, iron clings to iron. A plank flies up, bursting at the joints. Carpe noctem, whatever the cost. […]
1977, Robert Penn Warren, A Place to Come to, page 206
The motto of Stage I of any love affair, licit or illicit, is carpe diem — or carpe noctem, as the case may be. Seize the day — or night — for the moment is all, no past and no future.
1985, Joseph Randolph Orgel, Undying Passion: A Book of Anecdotes about Men, Women, Love, Sex, and the Literary Life, page 285
Everyone at the manor was playing around and Huxley saw a golden opportunity to try a carpe noctem for himself.
1992, Francis Cowley Burnand et alii, Punch, volume CLXXXVII, page 710
So long as his maxim (so to speak) is “Carpe noctem” he is amusing company; but as a real lover, although acting very well, he tires us, and in the last half-hour there is hardly a laugh.
1992, Martin Harry Greenberg, The Further Adventures of Batman: Featuring the Penguin, pages 25,⁽¹⁾ 56,⁽²⁾ and 76⁽³⁾
⁽¹⁾ “Carpe Noctem,” it hissed.
⁽²⁾ “Carpe Noctem!” it screeched.
⁽³⁾ “Carpe Noctem,” Camazotz whispered.
1999, Dean Koontz, Seize the Night, pages 181⁽¹⁾ and 443⁽²⁾
⁽¹⁾ Carpe diem, said the poet Horace, more than two thousand years ago. Seize the day. And trust not in tomorrow. Carpe noctem works as well for me. I seize the night, wringing from it all that it has to offer, and I refuse to dwell on the fact that eventually the darkness of all darknesses will wring the same from me.
⁽²⁾ The waves, however, were too choice to resist. Carpe diem. Carpe noctem. Carpe aestus — seize the surf.
2000, Mary Ann Smart, Siren Songs: Representations of Gender and Sexuality in Opera, page 77
L’Ensoleillad, encouraging her bashful admirer to carpe diem or, more precisely, carpe noctem, teaches Chérubin how to sing a real love song, and here for the first time in the opera we hear the lush harmonies most typical of Massenet, who has until this point represented his eighteenth-century comic subject with a spare, faux-classic musical style.
2000, Abraham R. Nox, Bloodfellow: Transformation, page 253
“I’m a great deal smarter than my brother gives me credit for. Wolf always did underestimate me. Respect me and I shall respect you. Carpe Noctem, and we await your company.”
2001, Thomas N. Corns, A Companion to Milton, page 386
Satan, too, addresses Eve in her troubling dream by urging her to awake, though his is a carpe noctem, a lyric that urges her to seize the night and the fruit of the forbidden…
2003, David Singleton, As Iron Sharpens Iron, page 17
Sherry’s parents were gone for the week skiing in Colorado. So … I took the opportunity … to let love work its magic. “Carpe diem” you’re always saying. It seems like “Carpe noctem” would be more accurate in this case, but you’re the Latin wizard.
2005, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Americus, page 68
My very dearest A — Shall I call you? Just send me a card or write me a real letter. Let me know the real things — Are you happy? Do you think about me ever? — about the two of us? Will we ever be together? … I am still here — You know where I am — carpe diem, carpe noctem! “But to you, without my moving, without seeing you, distant you, Go my blood and my kisses” — Your Annie
2005, Kent M. Chater, AmEuropa™: Love and Betrayal in the Greatest Alliance of Nations, page 58
Knowing, however, that their duo could be terminated at any time, making their love affair virtually impossible, they made a point of it to seize the moment, to enjoy the day and night to its fullest together: they would not only call it carpe diem, but also carpe noctem.
2006, Christopher R. Miller, The Invention of Evening: Perception and Time in Romantic Poetry, page 32
It begins at the time when Virgil’s eclogues end; it responds to Eve’s nocturnal curiosity by pushing beyond the divinely prescribed limit of her day; it transforms a night of insomnia into a reverie of sensory pleasure; and it turns the pastoral carpe diem motif into a carpe noctem.
2006, Frater Nyarlathotep, Ardeth — The Made Vampire, page 10
Remember: there is much more to this Book than meets the idly curious eye. It is up to you to dredge its depths and change yourself in accord with its timeless wisdom. Carpe noctem!
2006, Alexander Kiy, Fear Kindness Love / Earth Ascending 2012, page 138
“‘Carpe noctem’,” Lucy exclaimed in Latin. “savor the action Theo. You wait, 13,000 years and now you want to instantly change my plans. Ella, insist that he gives you the time to enjoy the festivities. Look Ella, there’s ‘JT’ over there. He’s just signed on with Theo’s label for a project … Theo will introduce you to him. I anticipated that you’d be staying in for the night, so I’ve already ordered a special take out meal for the both of you from the: ‘The Fat Duck’.”
2007, Letticia, Body Worship, page 5
My mate Harry asked one day: “So watcha gonna call it, then?” “Quid pro quote.” “You’re ‛avin’ a larf.” “It works on many levels: quid — money; pro — prostitute; quote — talking.” “Nobody understands, let alone bleedin’ talks, Latin any more.” “Carpe Noctem, then. Seize the night.” “It’s still Latin.” “The Real Goddess.”
