Ode I
Pollio, forsaking the tragic stage and the triumphs of the Forum, undertakes the history of our civil wars--setting his feet 'on the thin crust of ashes beneath which the lava is still glowing.' (Macaulay, Hist. Eng. c. 6.) Methinks even now I hear the trumpet's blare. Again 'our Italy shines o'er with civil swords.' Again the tale is told of great captains soiled with noble dust, and all the world subdued save Cato's indomitable soul. Now, Jugurtha, thou art avenged. Our blood has fertilized every field, crimsoned every pool, and the crash of ruin in Italy rejoiced the ears of our enemy the Mede. But hush! my light muse. So high a strain is not for thee. C. Asinius Pollio had been a friend of Cicero and member of the circle of Calvus and Catullus in his youth (Catull. 12.8), had studied at Athens a few years before Horace's sojourn there, and fought under Caesar at Pharsalus. After his consulate B.C. 40 (cf. Verg. Ecl. 4) he was sent against the Parthini, a Dalmatian tribe, by Antony, and celebrated a triumph over them B.C. 39 (cf. l. 15; Verg. Ecl. 8; Dio, 48.41). From the spoils he established the first public library at Rome (Pliny, N. H. 7. 115, 35. 10). Octavian allowed his plea that self-respect required him to be neutral in the conflict with Antony (Vell. 2.86), and the remainder of his life was devoted to letters and oratory. (Verg. Ecl. 8.10; Hor. Sat. 1.10, 43, 85; Quintil. 12.11.28.) As literary critic he detected faults in Cicero (Sen. Suas. 6.15), Livy, and Sallust. His history of the civil wars in seventeen books is mentioned by Tacitus (Ann. 4. 14), Suetonius (Caes. 30), and others. He first introduced at Rome the custom of authors' readings from advance sheets of their own works (recitatio, cf. Sen; Contr. 4 praef.), which became such a nuisance under the empire. (Cf. Mayor on Juv. l. 1-4, 3.9.) The present Ode may well have been suggested by such a reading. It also testifies to Horace's independence, for Pollio had not presented himself at court. Cf. Sellar, p.152.
motum . . . civicum:the turmoil in the State.
motum ex Metello: the war began with Caesar's passage of the Rubicon B.C. 49, but the disturbances date from the consulship of Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer, B.C. 60, when Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus formed the private league known as the first triumvirate: inita potentiae societas, quae urbi orbique terrarum nec minus . . . ipsis exitiabilis fuit (Vell. 2.44). Cf. Suet. Caes. 19, Florus 4.2. civicum: archaic and poetic for civile, cf. civica corona; hosticus, 3.2.6; 3.24.26; Sat. 1.9.31; civica iura (Epp. 1.3.23); civica bella (Ov. Pont. 1.2. 124). But Lucan 1.1, bella per Emathios plus quam civilia campos.
causas: enumerated by Lucan 1.67 sqq., e.g. among the proximate causes the death of Crassus at Carrhae B.C. 53, nam sola futuri| Crassus erat belli medius mora (Lucan 1.99); and the death of Julia, the wife of Pompey and daughter of Caesar (ibid. 112). vitia: blunders, mistakes, vitia ducum, Nep. Att. 16.4, but suggesting more. modos: phases, turns.
ludum: 3.29.50; 1.2.37; 1.34.16; Plato Laws, 709 A; Juv. 3.40, quotiens voluit Fortuna iocari. Lucan moralizing on the death of Pompey invokes Fortuna six times (Phars. 8.686, 701, 708, 730, 767, 793). Cf. also 1.84. Crassus and Caesar were in the end equally conspicuous examples of the sport of fortune.
gravis . . . amicitias: fateful alliances. Cf. Lucan, l. 84--the first triumvirate.
nondum expiatis: cf. 1.2.29; Epode 7.3, 20.-uncta: stained, smeared; a stronger tincta (Epode 5.19). Cf. Silius, 9. 13, unguere . . . tela cruore.-cruoribus: pl. mainly metri causa. Cf. 3.27.76. But cf. Aesch. Suppl. 265, αἱμάτων μιάσμασιν
opus: app. with sentence. Cf. 3.20.7.-aleae: hazard. Alea is frequently used proverbially of war. Cf. Aesch. Sept. 414; Eurip. (?) Rhesus, 183; F. Q. 1.2.36, 'In which his harder fortune was to fall| Under my spear; such is the die of war'; Swinb. Erechth., 'Now the stakes of war are set,| For land or sea to win by throw and wear'; Lucan, 6.7, placet alea fati | alterutrum mersura caput; Petron. 122, 1.174. Caesar's famous iacta alea est, Suet. 32. Cf. Otto, p.12. But Horace is thinking rather of the risks of the historian, ll.7, 8.
per ignis: etc., per, over. Cf. 1.6.7; Propert. 1.5.5, et miser ignotos vestigia ferre per ignis. Cf. Prov. πῦρ ὑπὸ τῇ σποδιᾶ; Callim. Ep. 45.2; Macaulay, supra (Page); Tyrrell, Latin Poetry, p. 203, censures the image.
severae: solemn, stately; Milton's 'gorgeous tragedy in sceptred pall'; Plato's ἡ σεμνὴ αὕτη καὶ θαυμαστή; Gorg. 502 B; Ov. Amor. 3. 1 . 11, ingenti violenta tragoedia passu. But possibly of some new severity of method in Pollio's closet tragedies. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 3. 86, nova carmina, ibid. 8. 10; fidibus . . . severis, A. P. 216.
desit: complimentary--they will be missed. theatris: cf. 2. 17.26. There was but one (permanent), and Pollio's plays may never have been acted, but only read. mox ubi: 3. 27.69, i.e. simul ac.
ordinaris: set forth in order; Luke 1.1 . Cf. componere, συντάττειν, and the usage by which the poet is said to do what he describes. munus: function, task.
repetes: resume, return to, 'And the Cecropian buskin don anew,' Martin. Cecropio . . . cothurno: with the Cecropian buskin, Cecropio = Attico, Cecrops having been the founder of Athens. Cf. 4.12.6; and A. P.275 sqq. for Athens as home of tragedy. cothurno: the cothurnus was the boot worn by the tragic actor. It had a high sole in order to give the tragedian a more imposing appearance. Cf. A. P. 280, nitique cothurno; Milton's 'buskin'd stage' as distinguished from the low sock (soccus) of comedy; Mrs. Browning, Wine of Cyprus: 'How the cothurns trod majestic| Down the deep iambic lines'; Sat. 1.5.64; Mart. 5.30.1; Propert. 3.32.41.
praesidium: eight of the nine titles of his speeches known to us are for the defense. For the turn of the compliment, cf. 4.1.14; Ov. Fast. 1.22, civica pro trepidis cum tulit arma reis; Laus Pisonis, 39, cum tua maestos| defensura reos vocem facundia misit; Cornel. Severus on Cicero, 12: unica sollicitis quondam tutela salusque.
consulenti: i.e. consilianti, 3.3.17, in its counsels, with a complimentary suggestion that it consults him. Curiae: the Senate, the House. Cf. 3.5.7.
Delmatico . . . triumpho: see introduction to ode.
jam nunc, etc., complimentary anticipation of the vividness of Pollio's descriptions of which the poet has perhaps heard a specimen. Cf. Petron. Sat. 120. minaci murmure: 'With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreaded bray'; Shaks. Rich. II.1.3.
perstringis: deafen. Used of anything that dazzles, deafens, or confounds the sense. Cf. acies praestringitur; and gelidai stringor aquai (Lucret. 3.687); Quintil. 10.1.30, qualis est ferri fulgor quo mens simul visusque praestringitur. litui: 1.1.23, like the cornu it was used by cavalry.
The scene is the defeat of Pompey's cavalry by Caesar's foot-soldiers at Pharsalia.
fulgor armorum: cf. on 1.7.19; Homer's χαλκοῦ στεροπή; Shaks. Ant. and C. 1.3, 'shines o'er with civil swords'; Othello, 1.2, 'keep up your bright swords'; Job 29.33, 'the glittering spear and the shield.' fugacis: proleptic.
equos equitumque: 'The horse and rider reel,' Tenn. Sir Gal.; 'While horse and hero fell,' Charge of the Light Brigade.-voltus: we see the fright of battle on their faces as in a picture of Delacroix. But there may be an allusion to Caesar's command, 'miles, faciem feri' (Florus, 4.2.50), or to the principle stated by Tacitus, Ger. 43, primi in omnibus proeliis oculi vincuntur, rendered by Herrick, 291, "Tis a known principle in war, That eies be first, that conquered are'; Plut. Caes. 45, οὐδ᾽ ἐτόλμων ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς τ̀ον σίδηρον ὁρῶντες.
audire: he hears the clamor (1.2.38) and the strepitus (1.15.18), and sees, hears of, or feels as a living reality the rest. Cf. on 1.14.3; 3.10.5. There is a possible reference in audire to the recitations. videor: 3.4.6.
non indecoro: cf. Tenn. Two Voices, 'When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears| His country's war song thrill his ears.' Cf. nigrum, 1.6.15; Verg. Aen. 2.272. Contrast 1.15.20.
cuncta terrarum: cf. VeIl. 2.56, Caesar omnium victor regressus in urbem. For the idiom, cf. on 4.12.19, 4.4.76.
atrocem: here stubborn. So in good sense, Juv. 2.12, Hispida membra . . . promittunt atrocem animum. Ca- tonis: Cato Uticensis. Cf. on 1.12.36. He was the idol of Stoics and declaimers. Cf. Sen. Suas. 6.2, M. Cato solus maximum vivendi moriendique exemplum mon maluit quam rogare. Florus, 4.2.70, and Plut. Cat. 59-70, describe his suicide at Utica on hearing of the defeat of the Pompeians at Thapsus. Cf. Sir Thos. Browne, Urne Burial, 'And Cato, before he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading the Immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the animosity of that attempt'; Lucan, l. 128, victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni; Id. 2.315-320, 380 sqq.; Manil. 4.87, et invicta devictum mente Catonem. 25 sqq. Cato suggests Thapsus. Sallust's Jugurtha had recently been published. Juno, in the legend, was the opponent of Aeneas and the patron of Carthage, and so of Africa against Italy. So Horace says in his complicated way that the gods who had withdrawn from the Africa they were helpless to save or avenge have now (by the terrible slaughter of Thapsus, B.C. 46) offered up the grandsons of the former victors to the shades of Jugurtha. Metellus Scipio, commander of the Pompeians, was the grandson of the Metellus Numidicus who subdued Jugurtha. deorum . . . tellure: all the gods who, although more friendly to the Africans, had withdrawn from the land unavenged, powerless to aid it; literally, whoever of the gods. -amicior: than to the Romans.
cesserat: for the belief that its gods abandoned a doomed city, cf. Verg. Aen. 2.351; Aesch. Sept. 218; Herod. 8.41; Eurip. Tro. 25; Tac. Hist. 5.13. The Romans had rites to draw away the enemies' gods (Macrob. Sat. 3.9, evocatio; Serv. on Verg. Aen. 12.841). The Aztecs shut up in one great temple the gods of conquered tribes to prevent their returning (Réville, Hibb. Lectures, 1884, p.31). impotens: etymologically (cf. on 4.4.65), not in the usual secondary sense of 1.37.10.
rettulit: in turn have offered. Re- in rettulit implies retaliation.
Latino sanguine: Epode 7. 4. pinguior: Shaks. Rich. 11.4.1, 'The blood of English shall manure the ground'; Aesch. Sept. 587. In Persae, 806, cited by editors, πίασμα refers to the river Asopus, and not to the corpses. Verg. G. 1 . 491, bis sanguine nostro |Emathiam et latos Haemi pinguescere campos.
impia: cf. on 1.35.34; Epode 16.9.
Medis: cf.on l.2.22,51. For case, cf. 1.21.4; 3.25.3. So a Frenchman, in 1871, might have spoken of the Germans listening to Versailles bombarding the Commune of Paris.
Hesperiae: western, here Italian. Cf. 3.6.8; 4.5.38; Verg. Aen. 2.781. In 1.36.4, Spain. ruinae: crash, down-fall (of a building, Juv. 3.196). Cf. 1.2.25; 3.3.8. n. See in Florus, 4.2.6, the list of lands over which the civil war raged.
Cf. 3.6.34; 2.12.3; Macaulay, Regillus, 'And how the Lake Regillus| Bubbled with crimson foam,| What time the thirty cities| Came forth to war with Rome'; Tenn. Princ. 'Or by denial flush her babbling wells| With her own people's life.'
Dauniae = Apulian = Italian. Cf. on 1.22.14. Specific, metrically convenient, helps alliteration .
decoloravere: de intensive. Cf. 1.3.13; 1.9.11.
caret: 2.10.7; 3.29.23; 4.9.28.
ne: cf. on 1.6. 10; l. 33. l. The sudden check is Pindaric. Cf. Ol.9.38, 3.3.72. n., 1.6.10; Sellar, p.134.
Ceae: Simonides of Ceos, who wrote the epitaphs on the heroes of Thermopylae and Salamis, was noted for his pathos (Quintil. 10. 1.64). Cf. Catull. 38.8, maestius lacrimis Simonideis; Swinb. 'High from his throne in heaven Simonides| Crowned with mild aureole of perpetual tears'; Words. 'or unroll| One precious tender-hearted scroll| Of pure Simonides.' -neniae: dirge, θρῆνος, possibly with a disparaging suggestion of the droning monotony of the last three strophes. Cf. 3.28.16; Epode 17.29; Epp. 1.1.63.
Dionaeo: Dione was mother of Venus (Hom. Il.5.370; Theoc. 15. 106, κύπρι διωναία). But Dione is used for Venus (Ov. Fast. 2.461, Pervigil. Ven.). Dionaean is a sonorous Greek adj. for Latin poetry. Cf. on 1.17.22-23; Verg. Ecl. 9.47.-sub antro: 1.5.3; 3.4.40.
leviore plectro: cf. on l.26.11; 2.13.27; 4.2.33; Ov. Met. 10. 150. Cecini plectro graviore gigantas, nunc opus est leviore lyra.
Ode II
Silver shines only in use. Generous use of wealth makes Proculeius immortal. He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city. Hydroptic immoderate desire is a disease curable only by removal of its cause. The true king sits not on the throne of Cyrus. 'Tis he who is not the slave of greed. Translated by Cotton in Johnson's Poets, 18, p. 16. For similar 'barren scraps, to say the least, of Stoic commonplaces' (Dobson), cf. 1.16.17; 3.2.17; 4.9.39; Sat. 1.3.125; Epp. 1.1.106.
The parallel: silver has no lustre in the mine, wealth is worthless except for noble uses, is given a personal application by the introduction of the address to Sallustius. The clause nisi. . . splendeat depends upon inimice which thus forms the apodosis of a conditional sentence.
color: brightness; cf. οὐκ ἔστ᾽ ἐν ἄντροις λευκός, ὦ ξέν᾽, ἄργυρος, Anon. apud Plut. περὶ δυσωπίας 10. avaris: either as 1.28. 18; 3.29.61; or by association with miser's greed.
terris: abl., the ore of the mine being meant (cum terra celat, 3.3.50). lamnae: for syncope, cf. 1.36.8; Epode 9.1; Kirkland, p. xv. Bullion, bar silver, with implied contempt for the 'pale and common drudge 'tween man and man.'
Crispe Sallusti: there is, perhaps, a touch of familiarity in putting the family name before the gentile. Cf. Hirpini Quinti, 2.11.2; Fuscus Aristius, Sat. 1.9.61. Sallustius was the grand-nephew and adopted son of the historian, and the fortunate owner of the famous Horti Sallustiani and of rich copper mines. Originally an adherent of Antony, he was in later life a confidant of Augustus and a signal example of his clemency. (Sen. de Clem. 1.10; Tac. Ann. 3.30.) An epigram of the contemporary poet Krinagoras celebrates his liberality, Anth. Pal. 16.40.
usu: that to shine in use is the test of true metal, both in physics and morals, is a favorite commonplace of Greek poetry. Cf. Theog. 417, 449-450; Aeschyl. Ag. 390; Soph. Fr. 780, λάμπει γὰρ ἐν χρείαισιν ὥσπερ ἐκπρεπὴς χαλκός.
vivet: so. the 'life of fame in others' breath.' Cf. Ov. Met. 15.878, perque omnia saecula fama,| siquid habent veri vatum praesagia, vivam. extento aevo: abl. as occulto aevo, 1.12.45. Cf. 3.11.35 and Verg. Aen. 6.806, virtutem extendere factis; 10. 468, famam extendere factis. Proculeius: C. Proculeius, the brother of Maecenas' wife Terentia and of L. Licinius Murena (2.10) shared his estate, Porphyry tells us, with his brothers, who lost their property in the civil wars. Cf. Cotton's naive expansion of the passage, 'Soon as this generous Roman saw| His father's sons proscribed by law,| The knight discharged a parent's part,| They shared his fortune and his heart.| Hence stands consigned a brother's name| To immortality and fame.'
in: toward; cf. 4.4.28. animi: with notus, = propter animum. Page, holding this impossible, construes notus with vivet and animi as gen. of qual. with Proculeius.
aget: bear aloft, upbear, cf. levat, 4.2.25. penna: cf. pinnata fama (Verg. Aen. 9.473). Cf. ibid. 4.181; Spenser, Ruins of Time, 'But Fame with golden wings aloft doth fly,' etc. metuente solvi: unflagging, with a possible glance at the wax-joined wings of Icarus. Indissolubilis would be unpoetical and impracticable here. Periphrasis with metuo ekes out the slender resources of Latin as does periphrasis with careo. Cf. 3.11.10; 3.24.22; 4.5.20; Verg. G. 1.246, arctos . . . metuentes aequore tingui. Cf. also 3.26.10. n.
Cf. Ov. Trist. 3.7.50, me tamen extincto fama superstes erit. 9 sqq. The Stoic paradox, dives qui sapiens est . . . solus formosus et est rex, Sat. 1.3.125. Cf. Cic. Paradox. 6, ὅτι μόνος ὁ σοφὸς πλούσιος, which goes back to Socrates' prayer, πλούσιον δὲ νομίζομαι τὸν σοφόν, Plat. Phaedr. 279 C. regnes: second sing. indefinite, you would reign.-domando contains the condition and so = si domes. Cf. 'Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules| Passions, desires, and fears is more a king' (Milton, P. R. 2).
Tyrrell (Latin Poetry, p.197) says somewhat captiously, 'What is the meaning of to "join Libya to the distant Gades"? Surely to unite Africa to Spain by a bridge.' But cf. the millionaire in Petron. 48, nunc coniungere agellis Siciliam volo ut cum Africam libuerit ire per meos fines navigem. et: and (so). uterque Poenus: sc. of Carthage and of her Spanish colonies, where remnants of the old Phoenician population doubtless still lingered.
serviat: perhaps literally, since the latifundia were cultivated by chain-gangs of slaves. With whole passage cf. 3. 16. 31-41.-uni: sc. tibi.
The dropsy, symbol of greed, is personified and substituted for the thing it signifies. ὕδρωψ is both the sick man and the malady. The image is a commonplace. Cf. Polyb. 13.2; Lucil. 28.27, aquam te in animo habere intercutem; Donne, 'the worst voluptuousness, an hydroptic immoderate desire of human learning and languages.' For thirst of dropsy, of. Ov. Fast. 1.215. indulgens sibi: by self-indulgence.
aquosus . . . languor: lassitude caused by the water. A Greek poet would have had his choice between ὑδατώδης, ὑδερής, ὑδατόχροος, λευκόχροος, and a dozen other convenient derivatives in this connection. The poorer Latin has only the vague aquosus for all these, for ομβροφόρος, Epode 16.54, and Homer's πολυπῖδαξ as well. Cf. on 3. 20. 15. fugerit: cf. Epp. 1.6.29, quaere fugam morbi.
redditum: despite his restoration. Cyri: typical, cf. Plut. Alex. 30, and Milton's 'won Asia and the throne of Cyrus held| At his dispose.' Phraaten: for his restoration to throne of Parthia, cf. on 1.26.5.
beatorum: cf. 2.3.27; 3.29.35, for hypermetron, and 4.9.46, and Epp. 1.16.18-20 for thought.
Virtus: the Stoic sage, spokesman of the Stoic Virtue (3.2.17), uses the porticoes of the people but not their estimates of good and evil (dissidens plebi, of. Epp. 1. 1.71), like Socrates (Plato, Gorg. 470 e) refuses to count even the Great King happy without knowing how he stands in respect of culture and virtue, defines real kingship as 'a truer mental and higher moral state' (Ruskin), and assigns the safer diadem and the inalienable laurel to him who can pass by heaps of treasure with unreverting eye.-populum . . . uti: teaches the people to cease using false terms. Cf. Sal. Cat. 52. iam pridem . . . nos vera vocabula rerum amisimus.
regnum: for sage as king cf. Sat. 1.3.133; Epp. 1.1.59, 1.1.107; Sen. Thyest. 389 sqq. tutum: which the tiara of Phraates was not.
propriam: cf. Sat. 2.6.5, propria haec mihi munera faxis; Verg. Aen. 3.85.
oculo . . . inretorto spectat: passes them with a glance and does not turn to look at them again. Cic. in Cat. 2.1.2 says of Catiline leaving Rome, retorquet oculos profecto saepe ad hanc urbem. For same idea in different image cf. Pers. Sat. v.110-112.
acervos: sc. aeris acervos et auri, Epp. 1.2.47; cf. Sat. 1.1.44; 2.2.105; Epp. 1. 6.35; Tenn. The Golden Year, 'When wealth shall rest no more in mounded heaps.' Milt. Comus, 'unsumm'd heaps| Of miser's treasure.'
Ode III
Temper thy joy and sorrow, Dellius, with the thought of death. Gather the roses of life while you may. For Dives and Lazarus alike is drawn the inevitable lot that dooms us to Charon's bark and everlasting exile from the warm precincts of the cheerful day. Quintus Dellius, the boon companion of Antony, was wittily nicknamed by Messalla desultor bellorum civilium, the desultor being the circus rider who leaps from horse to horse. His last change of front was his desertion of Antony for Octavian through fear of Cleopatra. He stood high in the favor of Augustus, and was the author of memoirs of the Parthian wars and scurrilous letters ostensibly addressed to Cleopatra. VeIl. 2. 84; Sen. Suas. 1.7; Plut. Ant. 59; Sen. de Clem. 1.10. l. aequam . . . arduis: the verbal antithesis faintly suggests a latent image: a level head--a steep and rugged path. For animus aequus cf. Epp. l. 18. 112; 1. 11. 30; Plaut. Rud. 402; Lucret. 5. 1117; Aequanimitas was the last watchword given out by the Emperor Antoninus Pius on the eve of his death; mens aequa in arduis, the motto of Warren Hastings.
non secus . . . laetitia: parenthetic parallel to leading idea. non secus: and likewise, nor less. Cf. 3.25.8.
insolenti: overweening. temperatam: chastened. Cf. 3.4.66, and Sen. de Prov. 4.10: cum omnia quae excesserunt modum noceant, periculosissima felicitatis intemperantia est.
moriture: since thou must die; the inevitable conclusion to the alternative conditions maestus vixeris and bearis. For neat use of future participle to express any future contingency or probability, cf. 1.22.6; 1.28.6; 2.6.1; 3.4.60; 4.3.20; 4.4.16; 4.13.24; 4.2.3. Delli: some Mss. read 'Gelli.'
te. . . bearis: hast made merry.remoto gramine: cf.1.17.17, in reducta valle; Epode 2.23-27; Tennyson's 'banquet in the distant woods,' In Mem. 89. per: distributive, i.e. as the holidays come round. Cf. 2.14.15; 3.22.6; C. S. 21; Epp. 2.1.147.
reclinatum: cf. 2. 11. 14; Tenn. Lucretius: 'No larger feast than under plane or pine| With neighbors laid along the grass to take| Only such cups as left us friendly warm' (Lucret. 5. 1392-93); Milt. P. L., 'as they sat recline| On the soft downy bank damask'd with flowers.'
interiore nota: inner brand for brand of inner- (most), i.e. oldest and best. For nota cf. Sat. 1.10.24; Catull. 68.28, de meliore nota. The names of the consuls of the year were stamped on or attached to the cadus. Cf. 3.8.12; 3.21.l.
Cf. Milton, Comus, 'Wherefore did nature pour her bounties forth| With such a full and unwithdrawing hand?' -quo: why? unless for our enjoyment. Cf. Epp. 1.5.12, quo mihi fortunam si non conceditur uti? This use of quo is made clearer by the following quid. Cf. Ov. Met. 13.516, quo ferrea resto? quidve moror? Cf. quo . . . cur, Verg. Aen. 12.879.
ingens pinus: cf. 2.10.9. The pine is dark by implied contrast with albus, as well as tall. Cf. on 3.13.6-7.
hospitalem: cf. 'Under the hospitable covert nigh| Of trees thick interwoven' (Milt. P.R.); 'But now to form a shade| For thee green alders have together wound| Their foliage' (Words. River Duddon, 5). Cf. Plat. Phaedr. 230 B. and Verg. G. 4.24, obviaque hospitiis teneat frondentibus arbos. -amant wavers between poetic personification and φιλοῦσι, are wont.
Why does the huddling brook strive to bicker down its winding way? Cf. Epp. 1.10.21, quae per pronum trepidat curn murmure rivum; Ov. Met. 1.39, fluminaque obliquis cinxit declivia ripis.
huc: hither bid bring. vina: acc. plur. always in odes, but vini, 1.4.18; vino, 1.27.5.
flores . . . rosae: cf. on 3.29.3. The rose has always been the symbol of the brief 'bloom of beauty in the south' -'Et rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,| L'espace d'un matin.' Cf. breve lilium (1.36. 16); cf. F. Q. 2. 12.74-75; Wailer's 'Go, lovely rose'; Ronsard's 'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose'; Auson. Idyll. 14; Herrick, 208; Anth. Pal. 11.53.
res: thy fortune -aetas: youth. Cf.1.9.17; 4.12.26, dum licet. sororum: sc. Parcarum, the Greek fates. Cf. Lowell, 'Spin, spin, Clotho, spin, Lachesis twist and Atropos sever'; Milton, Arcades, 'those that hold the vital shears'; Lycidas, 'comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears| And slits the thin-spun life'; Plato. Rep. 617 c; F. Q. 4.2.48, . . . most wretched men whose days depend on threads so vain'; Boileau, Epître VI., 'mon esprit tranquille| Met à profit les jours que Ia Parque me file.'
atra: darkened by association with death. Cf. nigrorum (4.12.26); Stamina pulla (Martial, 4.73.4); but aurea in compliment to Domitian (6.3.5); 'whitest wool' (Herrick, 149. 17).
coemptis: bought up on all sides; cf. 1.29.13; and for the laying of field to field, cf. Epp. 2.2.177. saltibus: hill pastures (Epp. 2.2.178); the 'high lawns' of Milton's Lycidas.-domo is the city house.
villa: for villa by Tiber, cf. Propert. l. 14. flavus: cf. 1.2.13. lavit: laves, not lavat, washes, is the form used in the odes.
cedes: thou shalt leave; pathetic anaphora. Cf. 3.3. 18; 4.4. 70, and for sentiment, 2.14.21. exstructis: cf. Epode 2.43; Sat. 2.3.96, divitiis . . . quas qui construxerit.
heres: cf. on 2.14.25.
It matters not whether rich and sprung from ancient Inachus, or poor and of the lowliest lineage, thou lingerest in the light of day, (doomed) victim (that thou art) of unpitying Orcus. -Inacho: first mythical king of Argos, here typical of ancient lineage. Cf. 3.19. l. n.; Verg. Aen. 7.372.
sub divo: cf. l. 18. 13; 3. 2. 5; ὕπ᾽ αἰθέρι, Aesch. Eumen. 368. moreris: life is only a mora mortis, this world, 'this battered caravanserai| Whose portals are alternate night and day,' is, as Epictetus and the Imitation tell us, an inn, not a home. "Tis but a tent where takes his one day's rest| A Sultan to the realm of death addrest' (Omar Khayyám);παρεπιδημία τίς ἐστιν ὁ βίος(Pseudo-Plat. Axiochus, 365 B); Commorandi enim natura deversorium nobis, non habitandi dedit (Cic. Cat. Maior, 23.84); Paulumque morati| serius aut citius sedem properamus ad unam (Ov. Met. 10.32). For commonplace of impartiality of death, cf. 1.4.12; 2.18.32; 4.7.23; Job 3.19; Pind. Nem. 7.19; Simon. Fr. 38.
nil miserantis: νηλεὲς ἦτορ ἔχων (Hes. Theog. 456). Cf. 2.14.6.
cogimur: driven as by a shepherd. So coerces, 1.10.18; compulerit, 1.24.18.
urna: the lots of all men are shaken in an urn by necessity. When a man's lot flies out, he must die. Cf. Verg. Aen. 6.432, quaesitor Minos urnam movet. Cf. 3.1.16 and Sen. Herc. Fur. 193, recipit populos urna citatos. 27-28: 'When our lot leaps out it will put us on board Charon's boat for everlasting exile.' serius ocius: sooner or later.
aeternum: note the suggestive hypermetron. Cf. 3.29. 35.
exsilium: cf. Longfellow, Cemetery at Newport, 'The long mysterious exodus of death'; Dante, Infern. 23. 117, 'disteso in croce| Tanto vilmente nel eterno esilio.' cumbae: cf. Translations from Lucian, Emily J. Smith, p.119; Propert. 4.17.24, torvi publica cumba senis; Verg. Aen. 6.303; Sen. Herc. Fur. 779,cumba populorum capax; Juv. Sat. 2.151.
Ode IV
Horace banters with heroic precedents a gentleman who has fallen in love with a serving-maid. Xanthias of Phocis is as real or unreal as Gyges of Cnidus (2.5. 20); or Hebrus of Lipara (3.12.6); or Calais, the son of Ornytus of Thurium (3.9.14), or the brother of Opuntian Megilla (1.27.10). For theme, of. Ov. Am. 2.8.9. Translations by Duke, Johnson's Poets, 9. 215; by Hamilton, ibid., 15.638. Imitations, by Rowe, ibid., 9.471; by Smart, ibid., 16.76. Cf. also Ronsard's pretty ode, 'Si j'aime depuis naguiere| Une belle chambriere.' l. ne sit: don't blush. Cf. 1.33.1; 4.9. l.
prius: you are not the first. Cf. Theoc. 13.1-3.-insolentem: proud, as portrayed, A. P.122, Iura neget sibi nata nihil non arroget armis. 3. Briseis: Hom. Il. 1.346, 9.343. Cf. Landor, 'and never night or day could be his| Dignity hurt by dear Briseis.' -niveo colore: abl. instr. with movit, Cf. Theoc. 11.20, λευκοτέρα πακτᾶς; supra, 1. 19. 5, Pario marmore purius. νιφόεσσα Ἑλένη is quoted from Ion. Cf. also 'Her brow is like the snawdrift'; Shakspeare's 'Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow'; 'nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow' (Othello, 5.2); and F.Q. 2.1. 11,'Snowy breast'; and 'The daisies . . . looked dark against her feet; the girl was so white' (Aucassin and Nicolette); Anth. Pal. 5. 84.
movit: cf. 1.2.5.--Telamone natum: Τελαμώνιος Αἴας Cf. on 1.7.21 and 1.15.19.
captivae: app. with Tecmessae. Antithetic juxtaposition with dominum. Têcmessae: note Greek prosody. Tecmessa was a Phrygian princess who was captured by the Greeks and given to Ajax, son of Telamon. On her, cf. Soph. Ajax, 211.
Atrides: Agamemnon.
virgine rapta: Cassandra, from altar of Athena, by Ajax Oileus, Verg. Aen. 2.404. The syntax wavers between abl. abs. and that of 3.9.6 and 4.11.33.
barbarae . . . turmae: the Trojans and their allies; so frequently in Euripides and in Latin tragedy. Cf. Epp. 1.2.7, Graecia barbariae lento collisa duello.
Thessalo victore: abl. abs., before their Thessalian conqueror. Achilles, Neoptolemus, or the Thessalians collectively, according to the point of view. Achilles' slaughter of the Trojans, in the later books of the Iliad, is probably meant.- ademptus Hector: the death of Hector. The concrete Latin reserves the noun for the real thing or person, and denotes relations or aspects by limiting adjectives or participles, thus avoiding the abstract verbals of English idiom. Cf. 1.3.29-30, ignem . . . subductum; 1.18.9; 1.36.9; 1.37.13; 2.9.10; 3.7.17; 3.8.14; 4.4.38-39; Hasdrubal devictus, 4.11.7. Cf. also n. on 3.24.42.
leviora tolli: cf. 11.24.243; Anony. Apud Sen. Suas, 2. 19, Ite triumphantes, belli mora concidit Hector, and Verg. Aen. 9.155.
Grais: with both tradidit and leviora tolli (epexegetic).
nescias an: Thou canst not know but that, i.e. very likely. Contra 4.7.17, Quis scit an, who can feel sure that? generum: Horace playfully asks when he is to offer congratulations. beati: well-to-do, rich. Cf. 3.7.3.
flavae: cf. on 1.5.4. The fine lady in Juvenal, Sat. 6. 354 has flavam cui det mandata puellam.
regium: as who should say her sires were kings in the Emerald Isle. genus: with maeret, no need to supply est. She mourns her (lost) royal rank and the unkindness of her household gods.
Rest assured that in her thou hast not chosen a love from the base plebeian throng.
scelesta: cf. the expressions infidum, profanum, malignum, volgus.
dilectam: with dat. 1. 21.4.
aversam: perhaps playful, as the rapacity of her class was proverbial.
pudenda: of. 1.27.15, erubescendis.
teretes: shapely.
integer: heartwhole; Contactus nullis cupidinibus, Propert. 1.1.2. Cf. 3.7. 22. fuge: cf. 1.9.13.
octavum: Horace was forty years old B.C. 25. Cf. 4.1.6, about ten years later, circa lustra decem. The technical phrase suggested and avoided is condere lustrum. Cf. condere diem, 4.5.29. For thought, cf. Thackeray's Age of Reason: 'Then you know the worth of a lass| Once you have come to forty year.' Landor lowers the danger line by eight years: 'I know those ankles small and round| Are standing on forbidden ground;| So fear no rivalry to you| In gentlemen of thirty-two.' trepidavit: has all too quickly reached, i.e. is hovering on the verge of. A favorite word. Cf. 2.11.4; 2.3.12; 2. 19.5; 3.27.17; 3.29.32; 4.11.11.
Ode V
Lalage is not yet ripe for love. Cf. 3.11.9-12. The elaboration of the metaphors of the heifer and the unripe grape is displeasing to modern taste. Cf. Anth. Pal. 5.124. l. valet: with inf., cf. on 1.34.12.
munia comparis aequare: draw even with her yoke-fellow, lit., equal the labors of. Cf. 1.35.28.
circa . . . est: is busy with; cf. l. 18.2; in this sense with animus, first in Horace, G. L. 416.5.
So Silvia's pet deer alternates between the stream and the bank (Verg. Aen. 7.494-495).
iuvencae: for metaphor, cf. Judges 14, 18; Theoc .11.21 Soph. Trach. 529. fluviis: instrumental abl. with solantis.
praegestientis: so praetrepidans (Cat. 46.7). tolle: cf. 1.27.2 and Epp. 1.12.3, tolle querelas.
immitis: introduces a new metaphor. For the meaning, unripe, cf. contra, mitibus pomis, ripe apples (Epode 2. 17). uvae: cf: τέρειν᾽ ὀπώρα δ᾽ εὐφύλακτος οὐδαμῶς (Aeschyl. Suppl. 998); ὄμφαξ (Anth. Pal. 5.20); 'no grape that's kindly ripe could be| So round, so plump, so soft as she' (Sir John Suckling). lividos: dull blue; the curious distinguish three grades of ripeness marked by livor, purpureus color, and niger. Cf. one of the rare poetic lines in Juv. (Sat. 2.81), uvaque conspecta livorem ducit ab uva; Ov. Met. 3.484, ut variis solet uva racemis| ducere purpureum, nondum matura, colorem; Cat. 17. 16, puella . . . adservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis.
distinguet: will streak.
varius: epithet of effect transferred to cause. Cf. Tennyson's 'Autumn laying here and there| A fiery finger on the leaves' (In Mem. 99).
sequetur: sc. Lalage. currit: ἡ δ᾽ ὥρη λαμπάδ᾽ ἔχουσα τρέχει(Auth. Pal. 12.29.2; cf. 10.81.4). ferox: ruthless. Cf. invida aetas (1.11.7).
aetas: time. dempserit: has taken from; cf. Ovid's deme meis annis et demptos adde parenti (Met. 7.168). It is not strictly logical here since the years added to Lalage are not taken from the lover; but they are in a sense taken from his prime as anni recedentes (A. P.176). Cf. Soph. Trach. 547; and Sir Charles Sedley, to Chloris: 'Age from no face took more away| Than youth concealed in thine.'
adponet: cf. 1.9.15 and Persius, Sat. 2.1-2, Hunc, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo| qui tibi labentes apponit candidus annos. proterva: possibly continuing the image of the heifer, but cf. 3.11.11. n.
quantum non: more than. Pholoe: cf. l. 33. 7. fugax: cf. Pope, 'The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green,| She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen'; and inter vina fugam Cinarae maerere protervae (Epp. 1.7.28).
humero nitens: cf. 'Though my arms and shoulders| Dazzle beholders' (Rossetti, A Last Confession). Cf. 1.2.31.
pura: in cloudless sky. Cf. 1.34.7. renidet: 2.18.2; 3.6.12; Epode 2.66.
luna mari: cf. Herrick, 105, 'More white than are the whitest creams,| Or moonlight tinselling the streames.' 'A hand as white as ocean foam in the moon' (Tenn. Maud, 25.2).
mire: with sagacis; cf. mire novus (Sat. 2. 3. 28). Horace has in mind the story of Ulysses and Diomedes who so cleverly detected Achilles hiding among the daughters of Lycomedes. falleret: would escape the notice of; cf. 1.10.16.
obscurum: i.e. obscuratum. solutis crinibus: instrumental abl. with obscurum. Cf. 3.4.62; Epode 11. 28. Cf. long hair of boy in Juv. 15.137.
So Statius, Achill. 1 . 336, of Achilles says, fallitque tuentes| ambiguus tenuique latens discrimine sexus. Cf. l. 8. 16. Lalage is forgotten. Of this pretty picture Tyrrell (Latin Poetry, p.199) severely says, 'The runnel is exquisitely smooth, but its shallow waters flow where they will from their natural channel and end in a puddle.'
Ode VI
Septimius, ready if need be to go with me to the ends of the world, may Tibur be the haven of repose for my old age, or, failing that, Tarentum, loveliest nook of earth, in the land of the olive and the vine. There, when the end comes, thou shalt drop the tear thou owest on the ashes of thy poet friend. Cf. Sellar, p.147. A Septimius is recommended to the good offices of Tiberius (Epist. 1. 9); and the name recurs in a letter of Augustus cited in Suetonius' life. Imitation in Dodsley, vol.4, p.280. l. Gadis: i.e. the pillars of Hercules, the proverbial limit of the known world (2.2.11; Pind. Nem. 4.69, and passim); now Cadiz. Cf. 1.34.11, Atlanteus finis. aditure: who would go; sc. si opus sit. Cf. 4.3.20, donatura . . . si libeat, and 2.3.4. n. 'Where thou goest I will go' was the conventional expression of friendship from the time of Pylades and Orestes. Cf. Cat. 11. 1, Furi et Aureli comites Catulli| sive in extremos penetrabit Indos.
Cantabrum: tribe of N . W. Spain attacked by Romans circa B.C. 29, rebelled and repressed by Augustus 27-25, finally subdued by Agrippa 19. Cf. 3.8.21; 4.14.41; Justin, 44, 5. 8; Flor. 4.12.47. These facts hardly date the ode. iuga: the image is from oxen or horses. Cf. 2.5.1; 1.33.11; Pind. Pyth. 2.93; Soph. Antig. 291. It has become a literary commonplace. Shaks. Henry VI. 3.3.1, 'Yield not thy neck to fortune's yoke'; Macaulay, Proph. of Capys, 22, 'Beneath thy yoke the Volscian| Shall veil his lofty brow'; Lucan, 1.19, sub iuga iam Seres iam barbarus isset Araxes. Perhaps there is a hint, too, of the 'passing the enemy under the yoke,' sub iugum mittere (Caes. B. G. 1.12).
Syrtis: 1.22.5; Verg. Aen. 4.41, inhospita Syrtis. - Maura: is accurate enough for poetry.
Cf. 1.7; 1.18. 2. Argēo: Ἀργείω. Cf. 3.16.12; 3.3.67; 4.6. 25. positum: Verg. Aen. 4.211-212, urbem . . . posuit.colono: colonist, not ruris colono (1.35.6; 2.14.12).
utinam: 'A melancholy utinam of my own,' in Sir T. Browne's phrase. Cf. l. 35. 38. senectae: dative. For sentiment, cf. Martial, 4.25.7, vos eritis nostrae requies portusque senectae.
sit: cf. 1.2.5. n. modus is felt first absolutely and then with the genitives. lasso maris: cf. fessi rerum (Verg. Aen. l. 178); peregrino labore fessi (Cat. 31.8); odio maris atque viarum (Epp. 1. 11.6). ῾αλίκμητος. Cf. Anth. Pal. 9.7.5. With lasso understand mihi from meae senectae.
Tibur and Tarentum similarly coupled Epp. 1.7.45.
unde: sc. Tibure. Parcae . . . iniquae: the unkindness of destiny. Cf. 2.4.10. n., and for iniquae, 2.4.16. prohibent: 1.27.4.
pellitis: covered with skins to protect their fine fleece, ne lana inquinetur (Varro, R. R. 2.2.18). Hence the breed some-times called tectae oves. Cf. Plin. N. H. 8.189. For quality of their wool, cf. Martial, 2.43.3; 5.37.2; 8.28.4. ovibus: dat. with dulce. Galaesi: the river near Tarentum (Verg. G. 4.126). The region was praised already by Archilochus as καλός and ἐφίμερος.
petam: subj. perhaps, putting conclusion as wish.
Phalantho: the Spartan Phalanthus was said to have founded Tarentum circa B.C. 707. Cf. Paus. 10.10.6; Strabo, 6.278. For syntax, cf. 3.29.27, regnata Cyro Bactra, and Verg. Aen. 6.794.
angulus: with terrarum. Cf. angulus iste, of his Sabine farm (Epp. 1.14.23). Sainte-Beuve wrote on the margin of his Horace, "Heureux Horace! quel n'a pas été son destin! quoi! parce qu'il a une fois exprimé en quelques vers charmants son bonheur champêtre et décrit son coin de terre préféré, voilà que les vers faits à plaisir pour lui seul et pour l'ami auquel il les adressait, se sont depuis emparés de toutes les mémoires, et s'y sont si bien logés qu'on n'en concoit plus d'autres, et qu'on ne trouve que ceux-là dès qu'il s'agit pour chacun de célébrer sa propre retraite chérie." ridet: note quantity. Hymetto: a mountain near Athens famed for its honey. Ὑμήττιον μέλι (Suidas) was proverbial (Otto, p. 169). CL 'And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields.' For Hymetto =melli Hymettio (comparatio compendiaria), cf. 2.14.28.
decedunt: personifies, does not yield to, i.e. is not inferior to. viridi: cf. 'Thine olive green as when Minerva smiled' (Byron); 'it is gray-green' (Ruskin); γλαυκόχροος (Pindar).
baca: the olive. Venafro: dat. (1.1.15. n.). Venafrum was a city in the north of Campania, noted for its olives. Cf. Varro, R. R. 1.2.6, quod vinum (conferam) Falerno? quod oleum Venafro? Cf. 3.5.55; Sat. 2.4.69.
Cf. 'Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,| Long springs and tepid winters on the banks| Of delicate Galaesus' (Words. Prelude).
tepidas: cf. Epist. 1.10.15, est ubi plus tepeant hiemes? Pers. Sat. 6.6, mihi nunc Ligus ora |intepet.
Iuppiter: cf. Epode 16. 56. Aulon: probably a mountain slope well adapted for vineyards. amicus: i.e. dilectus. Cf. 1.26.1. Bentley reads apricus, Heinsius amictus, i.e. clad with fertile vines. But for fertilis = giver of fertility, cf. Ov. Met. 5.642, dea fertilis. Cf. also Martial, 13.125, and Statius Silv. 2.2.4, qua Bromio dilectus ager, collesque per altos|uritur et prelis non invidet uva Falernis.
arces: heights (cf. 1.2.3), but with a hint of the Epicurean sapientum templa serena (Lucret. 2.8).. Cf. Wordsworth, 'Students with their pensive citadels.' calentem: cf. Verg. Aen. 6.212-228; Munro on Lucret. 3.906-907; Stat. Silv. 2.1. 2, et adhuc vivente favilla.
debita: cf. Shaks. Julius Caes. 5.3, 'Friends, I owe more tears| To this dead man than you shall see me pay'; Cowper, Loss of Royal George, 'And mingle with the cup| The tear that England owes.'
vatis: cf. 4.6.44; 1.31.2. n.
Ode VII
Welcome home at last, dear old companion of my tent and table, Pompeius! Together we made the campaign of Philippi, when I lost my shield. Then Mercury snatched me away in a Homeric cloud, while the withdrawing wave swept thee back again to war. Come then and share the cask I have kept for thee! I cannot drink too deep to thy home-coming. Pompeius is unknown. The ode tells its own story. l. tempus in ultimum: extremest peril. Cf. Cat. 64.151, 169, supremo in tempore.
deducte . . . duce: note verbal play. Brutus was captain of the war (militiae duce) in the campaign of Philippi, B.C. 43-42.
quis: no answer is needed, but the Jove of l. 17 is meant not without complimentary allusion to the clemency of his vicegerent on earth (1.12.51), Augustus, who says of himself, Mon. Ancyr. 1.14, Victor omnibus superstitibus civibus peperci. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 1.19. redonavit: cf. 3.3.33, where force of re is different. Quiritem: (the plural only, in normal prose) (1) burgher in antithesis to miles; (2) to full citizenship, i.e. not capite deminutus (3. 5. 42. n.). Cf. Ἀργεῖος ἀνηρ αὖθις(Aeschyl. Eum. 727).
Italo: cf. 2.13.18; 3.30.13; 4. 4. 42; 4. 15. 13.
Pompei: dissyllabic. Cf. Epp. 1.7.91. prime: earliest, or perhaps, in the enthusiasm of the hour, first and foremost. So Catullus (9.1) is not thinking of Calvus when he welcomes Veranius back from Spain, Verani omnibus e meis amicis |antistans.
morantem: cf. 'The better part now of the lingering day| They travell'd had' (F. Q. l. 6.34).
fregi: cf. Tenn. ln Mem. 79, 'And break the livelong summer day| With banquet in the distant woods.'
malobathro: a perfume made from the leaf of the fragrant laurel. Construe with nitentis. Syrio: Antioch was the emporium of oriental trade. Cf. 1.31.12; 2.11.16, Assyria; Cat. 6.8, sertis ac Syrio fragrans olivo; Tibull. 3.6.63.
et celerem fugam: recurs 2. 13.17.
sensi: I experienced. Cf. 3.27.22; 3.5.36; 4.4.25;4.6.3. relicta . . . parmula: Alcaeus (fr. 32, Herod. 5.95), Anacreon (fr. 26), and Archilochus (fr. 6). The jest to an ancient lay in the contrast between the awful severity of Spartan feeling towards the ρίψασπις ['return with this or on it,' said the Spartan mother) and the ingenuous avowal of Archilochus, 'Some Thracian strutteth with my shield,| For, being somewhat flurried,| I left it by a wayside bush,| As from the field I hurried;| A right good target, but I got off,| The deuce may take the shield;| I'll get another just as good| When next I go afield.' The kind of folk that have no horror of a joke will decline to discuss Horace's courage in this connection. Cf. De Quincey's amusing diatribe, Works, Masson, Vol. XI., p. 121.
The headlong rout, the loss of the shield, and the downfall of those who were so bold before the battle, are so many indirect compliments to the prowess of Augustus. Horace is 'reconstructed' and can afford to laugh at the 'terrible whipping we got.' fracta virtus: cf. Cic. ad Fam. 7.3.3, integri . . . fractos.
solum: simply, were overthrown, or bit the dust. Cf. Il. 2.418. To take it as an allusion to the pitiful supplications of the defeated (Caes. B. C. 3.98) would make Horace indeed the 'valet-souled varlet of Venusia' of Swinburne.
Mercurius: the guardian of poets, 2.17.29.
denso . . . sustulit aere: bore away in a thick cloud; mock-heroic imitation of those episodes in Homer in which heroes are saved from the perils of battle by the intervention of gods. Cf. Iliad, 20.444; 3.381; Verg. Aen. 1.411.
in bellum: with both resorbens and tulit. Cf. Epp. 2.2. 47, civilisque rudem beth tulit aestus in arma. The image is perhaps primarily that of a shipwrecked sailor. Cf. ἀναροιβδεῖ (Odyss. 12.105). But there is a suggestion of the commonplace wave of war. Cf. Tyrt. 12.22 κῦμα μάχης; Lucret. 5.1288, 1433; Aeschyl. Septem, 64; Arnold, Palladium, "Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight.'
ergo: the conclusion of the whole matter, all's well that ends well. With different force, 1.24.5. obligatam: here of the thing vowed and due, in 2.8.5 of the person bound and due to penalties. dapem: technical for feast accompanying sacrifice. .
longa: B.C. 44-31? latus: part for the whole; cf. 3.27.26 and corpora deponunt for se deponunt (Lucret.).
lauru: a shade tree, 2.15.9. 'Peace has its laurels,' Horace slyly says.
Orders for the imaginary banquet. Cf. 2.3.13; 3. 19.10. On difference of treatment of wine in Greek and Latin poetry, cf. interesting remarks of Sellar, p. 126.
oblivioso: effect as epithet of cause. Cf. Alcaeus, fr. 41,οἶνον. . .λαθικηδέα; Shakspeare's 'insane root'; 'sweet oblivious antidote'; 'all the drowsy syrups of the world'; Milton's 'sleepy drench' and 'oblivious pool'; Chaucer's 'sleepy yerde' (the Caduceus of Mercury); Tennyson's 'The sound of that forgetful shore' (In Mem. 35).
ciboria: in this rare word Bücheler sees an allusion to Pompeius' service with Antony in Aegypt. Cf. τὰ Αἰγύπτια κιβώρια(Ath. 11, p.477). exple: cf. 'Fill high the bowl with Samian wine.' funde: sc. on your hair.
quis: i.e. which slave; rhetorical questions to work up a Bacchanalian frenzy. Cf. 3.19.18; 3.28. 1-4; 2.11.18-21. Mrs. Browning, Wine of Cyprus, 6, 'Who will fetch from garden closes| Some new garlands while I speak,| That the forehead, crowned with roses,| May strike scarlet down the cheek?' udo: soft, lithe, rather than dewy. Cf. ὑγρός and Theoc. 7.68, πολυγνάμπτῳ τε σελίνῳ.
deproperare: prepare with speed. Cf. properet, 3.24.62. For intensifying de, cf. 3.3.55; 1.18.9; 2.1.35.
curatve: sees to; cf. l. 30.6. n. quem: which one of us. Venus arbitrum: cf. 1.4.18. Venus, the best throw of the four tali, showed four faces all different; Canis, the worst, showed all four alike.
Edonis: i.e. Thracians. Cf. 1.27.2. A lost play of Aesch., the Edoni, may have suggested the comparison. recepto: 4.2.47.
furere: cf. 3.19.18. n.
Ode VIII
Fair and faithless I might trust thee yet, had the gods punished thy false oaths by marring one ivory finger nail or tarnishing one tooth of pearl. But at lovers' perjuries they only laugh. Thy beauty and the number of thy victims increase day by day. Cf. Sellar, p.169. For theme, cf. Ov. Amor. 2.8. Tbere is an excellent trapsiation by Sir Charles Sedley. Cf., also, Duke, Johnson's Poets, 9.216. The origin of name Barine is uncertain. Some think it 'the maid of Bari' (Barium). l. juris . . . peierati: perjury; perhaps a new coinage after analogy of ius iurandum. pe is the pejorative per of perperam and peior. 3, dente, ungui: both ablatives of measure of difference with turpior. nigro, uno: both with each noun. For superstition that perjury entailed bodily blemish, cf. Theoc. 9.30; 12.24, and Ovid's ingenious elaboration of the idea (Am. 3.3.1 sqq.).
votis: dative, preferably, cf. Epode 17.67; she has forfeited her head to the penalties (devotiunculis) invoked if she lie. Cf. Tennyson's Vivien, 'May yon just heaven that darkens o'er me send| One flash that, missing all things else, may make| My scheming brain a cinder if I lie.' enitescis: cf. 1.5.13; 1.19.5; Cat. 2.5.
prodis: walkest abroad, the cynosure of all eyes. Cf. 3. 14.6; Tibull. 3. 1.3. So procedere, Propert. 1.2. l. So προιέναι.
cura: technical, in love's vocabulary, of the object of affection. Verg. Ecl. 10.22, tua cura Lycoris. Propert. 3.32.9. Coventry Patmore, Angel in the House, 'And in the records of my breast,| Red-lettered, eminently fair| Stood sixteen who beyond the rest| By turns till then had been my care.'
expedit: it profits thee. matris: cf. Propert. 3.13. 15. Ossa tibi iuro per matris et ossa parentis |Si fallo cinis, heu, sit mihi uterque gravis. opertos: i.e. sepultos (Verg. Aen. 4.34).
fallere: swear falsely by. Cf. Verg. Aen. 6.324. taciturna: the eternal poetic contrast between the severa silentia noctis, 'The silence that is in the starry skies,' and the agitation of the human breast 'wherein no mighty calm can be.' Cf. Theoc. 2.38-39; Epode 15.1; Catull. 7.7, Aut quam sidera multa cum tacet nox | furtivos hominum vident amores; O. W. Holmes, 'But when the patient stars look down| On all their light discovers,| The traitor's smile, the murderer's frown,| The lips of lying lovers ': and Heine: 'Wenn junge Herzen brechen,|So lachen drob die Sterne.'
gelida: 'Death lays his icy hand on kings' (Shirley). 'Barren rage of death's eternal cold' (Shaks. Sonnet 13).
carentis: cf. 3.26.10. n.
ridet: cf. Rom. and Jul. 2.2, 'Yet if thou swear'st| Thou mayst prove false; At lovers' perjuries,| They say Jove laughs'; Pseudo-Tibull. 3.6.49, periuria ridet amantum; Plato, Symp. 183 B; Callim. Epig. 27.3; Anth. Pal. 5.6. inquam: I repeat; ridet resumes the thought of expedit.
simplices: guileless, εὐηθεῖς, faciles (Verg. Ecl. 3. 9).
Cf. the representation in ancient gems of Cupid turning the cos versatilis; the little loves sharpening their darts in the corner of Correggio's Danae, and Thorwaldsen's Vulcan forging arms for Cupid. Cruel Cupid bears πυρίπνοα τόξα, and his shafts are αἱματόφυρτα, dripping with hearts' blood. Cf. Anth. Pal. 5.180.1.
cruenta: is transferred to cote from sagittas.
adde quod: the huc accedit quod of prose. Latin poetry can hardly avoid an occasional prosaically explicit logical juncture. Cf. 2.18.23; 3. 1.41; 3.11.21; Ov. Pont. 2.9.47; Lucret. 4.1121-1122 bis. tibi crescit: cf. Sen. Herc. Fur. 874, tibi (sc. morti) crescit omne | et quod occasus videt et quod ortus.
servitus: to be thy slaves. Cf. Propert. l. 5. 19. Tum grave servitium nostrae cogere puellae |discere. priores: the old lovers.
impiae: not necessarily because of her perjuries, but because 'the slight coquette she cannot love.' Cf. Propert. 2. 9.20; Ov. Met. 13.301. Me pia detinuit coniux, pia mater Achillem. dominae: cf. 2.12.13. n.
minati: the lover's inability to execute such threats was a commonplace of comedy. Cf. Ter. Eunuch. 1.1; Hor. Sat. 2.3.262; Pers. Sat. 5.161; Tibull. 2.6.13; Anth. Pal. 5.254, 256.5.
With this passage cf. Catull. 61.51-55. See Ensor in Hermathena XII (1903). 108.
iuvencis: for their sons, the image of 2.5.6. Cf. Lucret. 5.1073.
miserae: from fear of Barine.
virgines: so puellae (3.14.11).
aura: attraction; cf. Propert. 3.23.15, si modo damnatum revocaverit aura puellae; Ov. Am. 2.9.33, incerta Cupidinis aura; Eurip. Iph. Aul. 69, πνοιαὶ . . . Ἀφροδίτης;; "The young girls that brought an aura of infinity' (James, Psychol. 1.233). There is no need to continue the metaphor of iuvencis with the aid of Verg. G. 3.251.
Ode IX
A poetic 'Consolation.' Nature shows not always her wintry face, but thou, Valgius, art still mourning the loss of thy Mystes. Even Nestor, the father of Antilochus, and the sisters of Troilus were consoled at last. Leave thy womanish laments and let us sing the triumphs of Caesar. There is a translation by Dr. Johnson. Cf. Ronsard, A Mr. Mellin, 'Toujours ne tempeste enragée | Contre ses bords la mer Égée . . . Toujours l'hiver de neiges blanches| Des pins n'enfarine les branches,' etc. C. Valgius Rufus, consul suffectus, B.C. 12, wrote elegies said to be alluded to by Verg. (Ecl. 7.22), medical and rhetorical works, and an epic which Tibullus (?) thought 'Homeric.' Valgius: aeterno propior non alter Homero (Tibull. 4. 1 . 181). Verses 19 and 20 have been thought an allusion to the Eastern embassy of Tiberius, B.C. 20, but may refer to the Oriental envoys sent to Augustus in Spain B.C. 27-25. Mon. Ancyr. 5.51. l. non semper: so 2. 11.9. Cf. Otto, p.113. For sentiment and imagery, cf. Plut. Cons. ad Apoll. 5; Southwell, Time goes by Turns, Ward's Poets, 1. 482; Herrick, Hesper. 726,' Clouds will not ever poure down rain;| A sullen day will cleere again.| First, peales of thunder we must heare,| Then lutes and harpes shall stroke the eare'; Theoc. 4. 43; Sen. Ep. 107, 108. hispidos: squalid, proleptic of the effect of the rain, and suggestive of the neglected beard and hair (hispida facies, cf. 4.10. 5) of grief.
Caspium: a stormy sea. Cf. Milton, P. L. II.: 'As when two black clouds,| With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on| Over the Caspian.' But cf. 1.1.14. n.; 1.26.2.
inaequales procellae: either fitful blasts, Milton's 'gusty flaws,' or on analogy of inaequali tonsore, Epp. 1.1.94, roughening gales. Cf.. Shelley's 'curdling winds,' and Shaks. Sonnet, 6: 'winter's ragged hand.' 'Ruffling winds,' Herrick, 721.
usque: cf. 1.17.4. Armeniis: i.e. on Mount Taurus. Cf. Xen. Anab. 4.4.
stat: cf. 1.9. 1. iners: cf. 3.4.45; 4.7.12; 1.22.17, pigris . . . campis.
Garganus is an exposed sea-girt promontory of Apulia. Cf. Epp. 2.1.202, Garganum mugire putes nemus. laborant: cf. 1.9.3. Arnold, The New Sirens, 'saw the hoarse boughs labor in the wind'; Shaks. M. of V.41, 'forbid the mountain pines | To wag their high tops and to make no noise| When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven' ; Sappho, fr. 42, ἄνεμος κατ᾽ ὄρος δρυσὶν ἐμπεσών.
viduantur: observe the cumulative touches that complete the picture of desolation. Cf. Tenn. Lady of Shalott, Part IV. init.
tu semper: emphasizing his disregard of the lesson of nature, non semper. Cf. 2.18.17; 3.29.25. urges: dwellest on, insistest on. Cf. Propert. 5. 11. 1, desine, Paulle, meum lacrimis urgere sepulcrum.
ademptum: cf. 2.4.10. n.
surgente: of. Verg. G. 1.440; Aen. 4.352; Vesper of course does not' rise,' but becomes visible in the west after sunset. The same planet (Venus) as Phosphorus, the morning star, at other times flees (vanishes in the light of) the swift rising sun. Cf. Cat. 62.35. Cf. Tenn. In Mem. 121, 'Sweet Hesper-Phospher, double name| For what is one, the first, the last.' Cf. Plato's exquisite epigram, Ἀστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζωοῖσιν Ἑῷς,ι ϝῦν δὲ θανὼν λάμπεις Ἕσπερος ἐν φθιμένοις.'Star of the morning shinedst thou,| Ere life was fled,| Star of the evening art thou now,| Among the dead.' decedunt amores: of. Tenn. Mariana, 'Her tears fell with the dews at even,| Her tears fell ere the dews were dried'; Verg. G. 4. 465, te veniente die te decedente canebat; Helvius Cinna's lovely lines: Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous,| et flentem paullo vidit post Hesperus idem; Tasso, G. L. xii. 90, 'Lei nel partir, lel nel torrnar del sole| chiama con voce stanca, e prega e plora.'
rapidum: standing epithet of sol (Verg. G. 1.424; 2. 321; cf. Ecl. 2.10), perhaps from swift hot rays, or his rapid movement among the constellations, or the swift sunsets and sunrises of southern climes where twilight is short. Cf. Homer's θοὴ νύξ, and Coleridge, 'At one stride comes the dark,' Anc. Mar.
ter aevo functus: who lived three generations; Nestor, tertiam iam aetatem hominum vivebat, Cic. Cat. Mai. 31; Il. l. 250; τριγέρων, Odyss. 3.245.
Antilochum: son of Nestor, often mentioned in Iliad. Alluded to in Odyss. 3. 112; 4.187. Saves his father's life, Pind. Pyth. 6.28. Nestor at his funeral pyre, Juv. Sat. 10. 253; Propert. 3.5.46-50.
omnis . . . annos: the Homeric ἤματα πάντα.
impubem . . . Troilon: son of Priam, slain by Achilles. Verg. Aen. 1.475, infelix puer atque impar congressus Achilli. Like Antilochus a stock example in the literature of consolations; Plut. Cons. ad Apoll. 24; Cic. Tusc. 1.93.
sorores: Polyxena, Cassandra, etc. The wailing of Phrygian women was proverbial; yet even they were consoled.
desine: with gen. as λήγειν, παύεσθαι. Cf. 3.27.69. n.; 2.13.38.
cantemus takes four objects, tropaea, Niphaten, flumen . . . volvere, and Gelonos . . . equitare, the last three defining the first. tropaea: for date, cf. Intr. and Sellar, p.143.
rigidum: ice-bound, or rock-bound. Niphates: was a mountain in Armenia. Cf. Verg. G. 3.30, addam urbes Asiae domitas pulsumque Niphaten. Cf. Milton, P. L. III. in fine, 'Nor stay'd till on Niphates' top he lights'; Lucan 3. 245 Juv. Sat. 6.409; Claudian and Silius speak of it as a river. Hence Johnson's translation has, 'Niphates rolls an humbler wave.'
Medum flumen: the Euphrates. Cf. 3.4.36, Scythicus amnis; 4.4.38, Metaurum flumen. Cf. Verg. Aen. 8.726, Euphrates ibat iam mollior undis.
Cf. R. C. Trench, 'Alma, roll thy waters proudly,| Proudly roll them to the sea' (Page).
Gelonos: a Sarmatian or Scythian tribe. Cf. Herod 4.108; Verg. Aen. 8.725; infra, 2.20.19; 3.4.35. praescriptum: the limits set them.
exiguis: narrowed, in comparison with their former liberty. equitare: 1.2.51.
Ode X
Of the mean and sure estate: A string of sententiae in praise of the golden mean and philosophic acceptance of the vicissitudes of fortune, frequently imitated. Cf. Sellar, p. 175; Surrey, Praise of Meane and Constante estate, Tottel's Miscellany. Arber, p.27; ibid. p.157; Cowper, Johnson's Poets, 18.659; Cotton, ibid. 18.17; Beattie, ibid. 18.558. L. Licinius Murena, probably the son of the Murena of Cicero's Pro Murena, was adopted into the Terentian gens by Terentius Varro, and so became the adopted brother of Proculeius (2.2.2) and of Terentia, the wife of Maecenas; 3. 19 is apparently written to celebrate his coöptation into the college of augurs. He appears in the Consular fasti for the year 23. In the same year he was put to death for conspiring against Augustus. Cf. Vell. Patere. 2.91; Dion. Cass. 54.3; Suet. Tib. 8. It seems unlikely that Horace would have published the first three books of the Odes with these poems after that date. Cf. on 1.3 and 2.9. But see Verrall, Studies in Horace, 25 sqq. l-4, 22-24. Life a Voyage. Cf. 1.34.3; 3.29.57; Epist. 2. 2. 201; Plato, Laws, 803 B, διὰ τοῦ πλοῦ τούτου τῆς ζωῆς; Swinb. Prelude to Songs Before Sunrise, 16; T'enn. Crossing the Bar, etc.; Anth. Pal. 10.65; Marc. Aurel. 3.3; Plato, Phaedo, 85 D. l. rectius: i.e. more wisely, sagely.
urgendo: ever making for.
dum . . . horrescis: would be rendered in Greek by pres. part. Cf. Epist. 2.3.465; A. and G. 492.
premendo: hugging. Cf. radere, legere, amare, litus. Cf. Epist. 2.3.28, tutus nimium timidusque procellae.
iniquum: cf. on 1.10.15; 1. 2. 47; 2. 4. 16; 2. 6. 9; 3.1.32.
mediocritatem: cf. Cic. de Off. 1.25, mediocritatem illam . . . quae est inter nimium et parum--the μέσον or μέτριον of the Greek gnomic poets and tragedians, which Plato and Aristotle developed into the formal ethical doctrine that virtue 'is seated in the mean.' Cf. παντὶ μέσῳ τὸ κράτος θεὸς ὤπασεν, Aeschyl. Eumen. 529; Arist. Pol. 4.11, τ́ον μέσον . . . βίον . . . βέλτιστον; Otto, p.216.
tutus caret: is safe and avoids.
sordibus: the squalor of a mean hovel. invidenda: cf. 3.1.45. It suggests the φθόνος of the Greeks (9-12).
ingens, celsae, summos are emphatic. For the sentiment, cf. Herod. 7.10; Lucretius, 5.1126, invidia quoniam ceu fulmine summa vaporant; Ov. Trist. 3.4.6; Otto, 148.352; Dümmler, Academica, p.3 sqq.; Lucillius in Anth. Pal. 10.122, οὐ θρύον οὐ μαλάχην ἄνεμός ποτε τὰς δὲ μεγίστας| ἢ δρύας ἢ πλατάνους οἶδε χαμαὶ κατάγειν; Maecenas apud Sen. Epist. 19.9, ipsa enim altitudo attonat, summa; Wordsworth, The Oak and the Broom; Lord Vaux, of the Mean Estate, 'The higher that the cedar tree| Into the heavens doth grow| The more in danger is the top,| When stormy winds gan blow'; Campion, ed. Bullen, p.32, 'The higher trees the more storms they endure'; Dante, Paradiso, 18, 'come vento| che le più alte cime piu percote'; Shaks. M. for M. 2.2; Herrick, Hesp. 484.3; Spenser, Shep. Cal., July; Victor Hugo, Feuilles d'Automne, 4. The commonplace is often amplified in Seneca's Tragedies (Ag. 93 sqq., etc.); Seneca was imitated by Boethius, and hence, perhaps, rather than from Aristotle's Poetics, arose the notion in mediaeval and renaissance literature that the one theme of tragedy is the sudden fall of the great. Cf. Chaucer, Monke's Tale, 'I will bewail in manner of Tragedie| The harm of them that fell from high degree.' And see the choruses of Gamier, and Ferrex and Porrex passim.
turres: cf. 1.4.14; Juv. 10.105. 13-20: cf. Herrick, Hesp. 726,' In all thy need, be thou possest| Still with a well-prepared brest:| . . . And this for comfort thou must know, |Times that are ill wo'nt still be so.| Clouds will not ever poure down raine (cf. 2.9.1);| A sullen day will deere again.'
infestis . . . secundis: neut. plur. used substantively; dat. rather than the abl. abs.
alteram sortem: a change of lot, i.e. the other of two. Cf. l. 15.29. n.
informis: hideous; beauty was 'form' to the ancients. Cf. Dobson, 'A dream of form in days of thought'; Mimnermus, and Theog. 1021, ἄμορφον γῆρας; Verg. G. 3.354, aggeribus niveis informis terra; Juv. 4. 56, Stridebat deformis hiems; Wither, 'Walks and ways which winter marred'; Shaks. Son. 5, 'For never-resting time leads summer on| To hideous winter and confounds him there'; Lucian, κρόνος 9, οἱ λειμῶνες ἄμορφοι. reducit: for re-, cf. 1.3.7; 3.1.21; 3.8.9.
Iuppiter: cf. on 1.1.25 and Theoc. 4.43; Theog. 25. idem: idiomatic, and likewise; cf. 22; 2.19.27; 3.4.67.
non denies the inference from nunc to olim. male: cf. 3.16.43, bene est; Catull. 38.1, male est, Cornifici, tuo Catullo. et: cf. Munro on Lucret. 3.412. olim: yon time, past or future. Cf. on 4.4.5.
quondam: sometimes; cf. Verg. Aen. 2.367.
suscitat: cf. Gray, Progress of Poesy, 'Awake, Aeolian lyre, awake'; Pind. O .9.51; Nem. 10.21; Lucret. 2.413, expergefacta.
A familiar quotation generally employed in the sense, 'All work and no play,' etc. Here it points the moral of compensations--Apollo who sends the shafts of pestilence (arcum tendit) is also the god of music (cithara suscitat musam). Cf C. S. 33. For a hint of the proverbial use, cf. Cic. de Senect. 11, intentum enim animum tam quam arcum habebat; Plut. de Ed. Puer. 13, καὶ γὰρ τὰ τόξα καὶ τὰς λύρας ἀνίεμεν ἵνα ἐπιτεῖναι δυνηθῶμεν; nec sem per Gnosius arcum Destinat, Laus Pisonis, 142. Cf. the habitual misapplication of Shakspeare's 'One touch of nature.'
rebus angustis: in straitened circumstances; cf. on 3.2. l.
appare: show thyself. sapienter: cf. thou art wise. idem: cf. on 16.
contrahes: a frequent image in Greek drama. Cf. Ar. Ran. 1220, ὑφέσθαι μοι δοκεῖς; Soph. El. 335; Cic. ad Att. 1.16. 2, contraxi vela. Propert. 3.19.30; Ovid. Trist. 3.4.32, pro positique, precor; contrahe vela tui. secundo: from sequi, 'A wind that follows fast'; Homer's ἴκμενος οὖρος. nimium secundo: too favorable.
turgida: cf. Epist. 2. 2. 201, tumidis velis aquilone secundo; Verg. Aen. 3.357, tumido austro; Pind. Pyth. 1.92, ἱστίον ἀνεμόεν; Midsummer Night's Dream3 2. l.
Ode XIII
Humorously exaggerated imprecations on a tree of the Sabine farm that barely missed the owner's head in its fall (1-12). Death comes when least expected, and no man knows the shape he will take (12-20). Narrowly has the poet escaped the dark realm of Proserpina, where Aeacus sits in judgment, and Sappho and Alcaeus sing strains that charm the shades to silence and 'stay the rolling Ixionian wheel, and numb the furies' ringlet snake' (2040). For the incident, cf. 2.17.27; 3.4.27; 3.8.7. The probable date is B.C. 30. Cf. on 1.26. There is a translation by Richard Crashaw.
ille . . . illum: guide the curse. He both planted thee on an unlucky day, whoever (it was that planted thee) in the beginning, and with a wicked hand reared thee for the destruction of posterity and the shame of the village. l. quicunque: sc. posuit. nefasto: technically used of days on which the praetor could not hold court; cf. Festus' remark concerning them, p.165, nefas est praetori, apud quem lege agitur, fari tria verba 'do dico addico'; hence unlawful; from this was developed the popular meaning, exemplified by this passage: unlucky.
sacrilega: in vague abusive sense.
in . . . perniciem: final accusative, expressing the destiny of the tree; cf. 4.2.56.
et . . . et: both . . . and. crediderim: perf. subj. of cautious assertion, I should be inclined to believe.
fregisse cervicem: strangled. Cf. Epode 3.1-2, parentis olim si quis impia manu senile guttur fregerit; Sall. Cat. 55, frangere gulam laqueo.
penetralia . . . nocturno . . . hospitis: aggravate the horror.
Coicha: i.e. Colchica, which some read. We have to choose between an exceptional hiatus, or an exceptional elision. Medea, who came from Colchis, was proverbial for her skill in concocting poisons. Cf. Epode 3.10; 17.35.
tractavit: handled, dealt in (1.37.27). A slight zeugma. Cf. Epode 3.8; Shaks,. As You Like It, 5.1, 'I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel.' statuit: set up.
triste lignum: sorry log. Cf. 3.4.27, devota arbor. caducum: ready or destined to fall. Cf. 3.4.44.
immerentis: cf. on 1.17.28; Epode 6. l.
The special danger he should shun is never sufficiently guarded against for man from hour to hour. quid . . . vitet: represents the direct quid vitem, quisque: by Latin idiom keeps close to the relative.
in horas: from hour to hour; after analogy of in dies. The general proposition is followed by particular examples -the sailor, the soldier, the Parthian. Bosporum: a typical dangerous strait. Cf. 3.4.30; 2.20.14.
Poenus: a typical navigator; but Thoenus =Thynus has been conjectured.
ultra and aliunde: may be loosely pleonastic, or, more probably, we may explicitly distinguish, that passed . . . from any other quarter, i.e. after he has got through the strait, he does not fear danger from any other source. The latter is facilitated by Lachinan's timetve, which removes the irregular quantity timēt, for which see 1.3.36; 2.6.14.
caeca: like caeca saxa, not caeca fortuna. Cf. 3.27.21.
miles: sc. Italus, Romanus. sagittas: cf. Catull. 11.6, sagittiferosve Parthos; Shakspeare's 'darting Parthia.' celerem fugam: cf. 2.7.9, 4.8.15 for the phrase, and 1.19.11 for the thought.
robur: prison, specifically the dungeon of the Tullianum in Rome. sed improvisa: emphatic, but 'tis the unexpected.
The conclusion in general terms.
rapuit rapiet: so it has been and so it will be.
quampaene: cf. Martial, 1.12.6; 6.58.3, O quam paene tibi Stygias ego raptus ad undas. furvae: a transferred epithet. Cf. Propert. 5. 11.5, fuscae deus audiat aulae. regna: cf. 3.4.46. Pr<*>ŏ<*>serpinae: so Sen. Herc. Fur. 549, vidisti Siculae regna Pr<*>ŏ<*>serpinae. Elsewhere Prōserpina. Cf. 1.28.20.
For Aeacus (son of Zeus and Aegina and Eponym of the Aeacidae) as judge of the dead, cf. Plato, Gorg. 524 A.
discriptas: appointed, allotted; others prefer discretas, the blest seclusion of the good. Cf. Verg. Aen. 8.670, secretosque pios. In the following picture of the world below, Horace blends suggestions from many passages in Greek literature from Pindar and Plato (Apol. 41) down.
Aeoliis: the dialect of Lesbos, tbe home of Alcaeus and Sappho. querentem: because her young countrywomen (puellae populares) did not return her affection. Sappho, fr. 41, and Swinburne's Sappho, 'singing| Songs that move the heart of the shaken heaven,| Songs that break the heart of the earth with pity,| Hearing to hear them.'
Sappho: Greek accus.
Cf. Ronsard, 'De l'élection de son Sépulchre;| Là là j'oirray d'Alcée| La lyre courroucée,| Et Sapphon qui sur tous Sonne| plus doux.'
sonantem: so Ovid (?),Heroid. 15.30, quamvis grandius ille sonet.
aureo . . . plectro: Pind. Nem. 5.24, χρυσέῳ πλάκτρῳ; Quintil. 10. 1.63, Alcaeus in parte operis aureo plectro merito donatur. For the plectrum cf. on 1.26.11, and for Alcaeus, l. 32.5. n.
fugae: exile; but Herod. 5.95 mentions his flight from battle.
silentio: cf. Milton's ' Worthy of sacred silence to be heard.' Cf. 3.1.2. utrumque . . . dicere: depending on mirantur; the participle dicentem would be more usual.
magis: the multitude prefers the themes of Alcaeus, his invective against the tyrants' in his στασιωτικά.
exactos: cf. on 2. 4. 10.
densum umeris: shoulder to shoulder, so eager were they to hear. Cf. spissa ramis, 2. 15. 9; spissae . . . coronae ('ring'), A. P.381; Tenn. Morte D'Arthur, 'That all the decks were dense with stately forms'; Tenn. Prin., 'a press| Of snowy shoulders thick as herded ewes.' bibit: cf. Propert. 4.5.8, suspensis auribus ista bibam; Ov. Trist. 3.5.14; and Rosalind's 'I prythee take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings'; Othello, 1.3, 'with a greedy ear| Devour up my discourse'; Verg. Aen. 4.359.
stupens: spell-bound.
demittit: droops. Cf. χαλάξαις of the plumage of the eagle (Pindar, Pyth. 1. 6). centiceps: Cerberus has three heads generally, fifty in Hesiod, one hundred in Pindar. Possibly Horace is thinking of the hundred snakes that enwreathe his head, 3.11.17. See Bloomfield, Cerberus, the Dog of Hades, pp.5 sqq.
intorti . . . angues: cf. Aeschyl. Choeph. 1048; Catull. 64.193; Verg. Georg. 4.481, quin ipsae stupuere domus atque intima Leti | Tartara caeruleosque implexae crinibus anguis| Eumenides, tenuitque inhians tria Cerberus ora; Pope, Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, IV., 'But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;| And see! the tortured ghosts respire!| See shady forms advance!| Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,| Ixion rests upon his wheel,| And the pale spectres dance.| The Furies sink upon their iron beds,| And snakes uncurled hang listening round their heads'; Dryden, 'Hear ye sullen powers below,' 'Music for a while| Shall your cares beguile| . . . Till Alecto free the dead| From their eternal bands;| Till the snakes drop from her head,| And whip from out her hands'; Green: Dyce, Vol.11., p.237. recreantur: are lulled to rest.
quinet: cf. 1.10.13; 3. 11.21. Prometheus: Horace here as in 2.18.35, Epode 17.67, represents Prometheus as detained in Tartarus, contrary to all other versions of the myth. Pelopis parens: Tantalus; cf. 1.28.7; Epode 17.65; Odyss. 11.582; Sat. 1. 1.68.
laborem decipitur: is beguiled (into forgetfulness) of his toil; apparently a passive of decipere, fallere laborem. Many read laborum, beguiled out of, away from, κλέπτεται, Cf. on 2. 9.17
curat: cf. Verg. Aen. 6.654, quae cura nitentes| pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos. Orion: the Greek Nimrod. In Odyss. 11.573 he hunts over the meadow of Asphodel the shades of tbe beasts he slew in the upper world.
lyncas: cf. 4.6.34.
Ode XIV
'For of all gods death only loves not gifts;| Nor with burnt offering nor blood sacrifice| Shalt thou do aught to get thee grace of him;| He will have naught of altar and altar-song,| And from him only of all the lords in heaven| Persuasion turns a sweet averted mouth' (Swinb. after Aesch., fr. Niobe). In vain we shun the battlefield, the storm-tossed Adriatic, and the fever-laden autumn breeze. 'Cocytos named of lamentation loud' we all shall see at last. One day thou must bid farewell to earth and the wife so dear, and of all the trees whose growth thou watchest, only the 'Cypress funeral,' shall go with thee to the grave. Then shall the 'hard heir stride about thy lands,' and the spilth of thy hoarded Caecuban stain thy marble floors. Postumus is unknown: perhaps merely typical. Cf. Martial, 2.23, non dicam, licet usque me rogetis, quis sit Postumus in meo libello; Juv. Sat. 6.28, uxorem, Postume, ducis; Propert. 4. 11 is addressed to a Postumus. This ode with 4.7 is Horace's consummate expression of the eternal commonplace of death. Cf. 1.4.13; 1.9.17; 1. 11.7; 1.24.15; 1.28.15; 2.3.5; 2. 3. 20; 2.13.20; 2.18.31; 3.24.8; 4.7; 4.12.26; 3.2.15. Students may choose between the admiration of Matthew Arnold, who shortly before his death selected this as one of his two favorite poems, and the censure of Buecheler (Rhein. Mus. N. F. 37, p.234), who thinks it is proved a youthful effort by 'den krass mythologischen Ton, die breiten griechischen Reminiscenzen, die Neigung zum Hyperbolischen, einige Sprachliche Härten oder Verwegenheiten' (inlacrimabilis, enaviganda, carebimus, merum potius cenis). One would like to hear his opinion of Gray's Elegy. There is a translation by Edwin Arnold. Imitated by Congreve, Johnson's Poets, 10.278, and by Sir Wm. Jones, ibid. 18. 445. Cf. also Austin Dobson's amusing skit, 'Ah! Postumus, we all must go'; Villon's 'mort, j'appelle de ta rigueur'; Herrick, 337. 1-2, 'Ah Posthumus! our yeares hence flye,| And leave no sound; nor piety,| Or prayers or vow| Can keepe the wrinkle from the brow:| But we must on,' etc.; Locker, To My Old Friend Postumus, 'Ay, all too vainly are we screen'd|From peril day and night;| Those awful rapids must be shot,| Our shallop will be slight,' etc. l. Postume, Postume: emotional repetition. Cf. on 3.3. 18; 4.4.70.
labuntur: Ov. Fast. 6.771, tempora labuntur tacitisque senescimus annis. 'Le temps s'en va, le temps s'en va, ma dame! Las! le temps non; mais nous, nous en allons.' The 'gliding' and the flight of time do not make a mixed metaphor-- 'my days are gliding swiftly by| And I . . . would not detain them as they fly!' pietas, etc.: cf. on 1.24.11; 4.7. 24; Omar Khayyám, 71, 'The moving finger writes; and, having writ,| Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit| Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,| Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.'
instanti: cf. on 3. 3. 3; Mimnermus, 5.6, Γῆρας . . . ὑπερκρέμεται; Sen. Praef. Q. Nat. L. 3, premit a tergo (premat ergo?) senectus; Hamlet, 5.1, 'But age, with his stealing steps,| Hath caught me in his clutch.'
indomitae: i.e. indomabili. Cf. 1.24.7, incorrupta; the ending -bilis is avoided. Αδάμαστος(Il.9. 158), ἄλλιστος(Anth. Pal. 7.643); inexorable, the Conqueror Death. Cf. nemo potest impetrare a Papa bullam numquam moriendi (Imitat. Christi).
The meaning is three hecatombs a day. We need not apply mathematics to the hyperbole. eunt: 4.5.7; Epp. 2. 2.55, anni . . . euntes.
ămice: 2. 9.5. places: conative, shouldst try to appease. inlacrimabilem: active; 4. 9. 26 passive. Cf. δάκρυτος, flebilis, 4.2.21 and 1.24.9; tutela, 4.14.43 and 4.6.33. For thought, cf. Milt. Il Pens., 'drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek'; Sen. Herc. Fur. 582, deflent et lacrimis difficiles dei.
ter amplum: τρισώματον (Eur. Herc. Fur. 423); Lucret. 5.28, tripectora tergemini vis Geryonai; Verg. Aen. 6.289, forma tricorporis umbrae.
Geryonen: Geryon, a giant with three bodies whom Hercules slew; cf. Verg. Aen. 8.201 sqq. Heywood, Love's Mistress, 'Wert thou more strong than Spanish Geryon| That had three heads upon one man.' Tityon; Tityos, who insulted Latona, was slain by her children, Apollo and Diana, and in the lower regions covered nine acres of ground; cf. 3. 4.77; 3.11.21; 4.6.2; Odyss. 11.576; Verg. Aen. 6. 595 sqq.; Tibull. 1. 3. 75, porrectusque novem Tityos per iugera terrae. They were big and burly, but death was stronger. Lucret. 3.1030 sqq. points a similar moral with Xerxes, the Scipios, and Homer. tristi: Verg. G. 4.479, inamabilis unda.
compescit: ἐρύκει Homer Il.21. 63; Verg. G. 4. 480, novies Styx interfusa coercet; Lucan, 9. 2, nec cinis exiguus tantam com- pescuit umbram. unda: 2.20.8; κῦμ᾽ Ἀί[[ξυρρενξψ]]δα, Pind. Nem. 7.31. scilicet: the wave which must in very deed. omnibus: 3.1.16; 1.28.15; 2.3.25.
terrae munere: the bounty of (mother) earth. Cf. Il.6. 142; Simon. fr. 5; 'The gods do not eat grain nor drink the ruddy wine, wherefore also they are immortal,' says Homer. For idea in munus, cf. Comus, 'Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth| With such a full and unwithdrawing hand?'
enaviganda: an Horatian innovation--e, to the further shore.
sive . . . sive: 2. 3. 5, 6.
reges: lords of lands, lords and masters, not necessarily kings. (Cf. 1.4.14; Juv. Sat. 1.135; 7.45.) Contrasted with coloni, tenant farmers (1.35.6). Cf. 2.18. 33-4.
frustra: cf. 2.13.13 sqq.--carebimus: avoid; cf. on 2.1.36; 2.10.7.
fractis: 'the breaking waves dashed high.' rauci: cf. Arnold, 'saw the hoarse boughs labor in the wind.' 'Hoarse torrent.'
autunmos: still dangerous at Rome, 3.23.8; Sat. 2.6.19; Epp. 1.7.5 sqq.; 1.16.16.
corporibus: with both nocentem and metuemus. Austrum: the Sirocco from the Sahara. Cf. Shelley's 'wind-walking pestilence.'
ater: cf. on 2.3.16; 2.13.34; 1.28.13; 4.12.26. flumine languido errans: etc., meandering with sluggish flow. Cf. Verg. G. 4.478; Aen. 6. 131. Pind. fr. 107, βληχριό . . . ποταμοί.
Danai genus: the Danaids, who killed their husbands on their wedding night; cf. on 3.11.23 sqq.
longi: gen. of the sentence. G. L. 378.3. For the word, cf. on 3.11.38; 2.16.30. Eccles. 12.5, 'Man goeth to his long home.'
Sisyphus: Epode 17.68. The crafty king of Corinth, whose punishment in the lower world was to roll up a hill a huge stone which invariably slipped from his hands before he reached the top. Odyss. 11.593 sqq.; F. Q. 1.5.35; 'And Sisyphus an huge round stone did reel |Against an hill, ne might from labor lin'; Longfellow, Masque of Pandora, chorus of Eumenides; Pseudo-Plat. Axiochus, 371 E. Variouisly moralized, Lucret. 3.995 sqq.; Morris, Epic of Hades; Ruskin, Queen of Air, 29. Aeolides: Il.6.154.
linquenda tellus: cf. the exquisite dirge in Lucret. 3.894 sqq.; the Earth Song in Hamatreya, Emerson.--Nero, 4, 7, 'Hither you must and leave your purchased houses,| Your new-made garden and your black-browed wife:| And of the trees thou hast so quaintly set| No one but the displeasant Cypress shall| Go with thee.' Gray, 'Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day.' placens: dear; 3.7.24; Ov. A. A. 1.42, elige cui dicas 'tu mihi sola places.'
colis: Petronius about to end his life changed the position of his funeral pyre that it might not injure a favorite tree (Tac. Ann. 11.3).
invisas: hated, on account of their association with death (1.34.10). Cf. Verg. Aen. 6.216; Epode 5.18; Lucan, 3.442; Ov. Met. 10.141; F. Q. 1.1.8; Browning, Up in a Villa, 'Except yon Cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger.' 'They brought a bier and hung it| With many a Cypress crown' (Macaulay, Virginia).
brevem: short-lived; ὀλιγοχρόνιον, Lucian, Nigr. 33. Cf. 1.36.16; 1.4.15; 2.3.13; Macbeth, 5.5, 'Out, out, brief candle'; Shelley, Liberty, 19, 'As a brief insect dies with dying day'; Tenn. 'Our brief humanities.' Man is 'sick for the stubborn hardihood' of the tree that outlives him. See Tenn. In Mem. 2.
absumet: cf. Epp. 1.15.27. heres: Ecciesiastes, 2.18, 'Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.' For the perpetual moral of the'heir,' cf. on 4.7.19; 3.24.62; 2.3.20; Epp. 1.5.13; 2.2.175; 2.2.191; Pers. Sat. 6.60-65. Caecuba: cf. on 1.20.9. dignior: ironically pointing the Epicurean moral--he knows the use of wealth. Cf 3. 24.61. n.
centum: so 2.16.33; 3.8.14.
tinguet: will stain, Timon of Ath. 2.2, 'when our vaults have wept |With drunken spilth of wine'; Cic. Phil. 2.105, natabant pavimenta vino madebant parietes; Petron. 38.
pontificum: their banquets proverbially splendid, 1.37.2; Martial, 12.48.12. potiore cenis: better than (that served at) the banquets, comparatio compendiaria. Cf. 2.6.14; Il.17.51, 'Locks like the Graces.'
Ode XV
One of those diatribes against luxury which were a standing commonplace in the rhetorical literature of the Romans. Cf. Odes. 3.6; SaIl. Cat. 12, 13 and 20; Petron. Sat. 119; Manilius, 5.374; Gratius Cyneget. 312 sqq.; Lucan. 1.170; Tac. Ann. 3.53; Martial, 3.47.58; Sen. Contr. 5.5, Epist. 95.14. It was a cherished object of Augustus' policy to foster Italian agriculture, ruined by latifundia, slave labor, the decay of the peasantry, and the competition of Sicily and Africa. Cf. Vergil's complaint, squalent abductis arva colonis (G. 1.507), and his alluring picture of the delights of the farmer's life (ibid. 2. 457-510). Horace is less successful in this perfunctory, impersonal ode; but he can do better. Cf. 3.1-6. Palaces and fish ponds, useless shade trees, and flowery parterres are displacing the vine and olive. Our fathers roofed their homes with turf and built their temples of marble. But we have changed all that. l. iam: soon. Cf. 1.4.16. regiae: regales, royal.
moles: piles. Cf. 3.29.10; The Deserted Village, 'Along the lawn where scattered hamlets rose| Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose.'
visentur: cf. 1.37.25; will meet the gaze. vīsĕre is often more convenient metrically than vĭdēre.
stagna: fish ponds, piscinae. Horace says they are larger than the Lucrine Lake (near Baiae) connected with Lake Avernus and converted into an artificial harbor, the Portus Julius, by Agrippa. Cf. A. P.63. So Sen. Controv. 5.5, navigabilium piscinarum freta. Cicero (ad Att. 1.19.6) uses piscinarios as a nickname for the degenerate nobles. platanus: 2.11.13; it was a shade tree, αμφιλαφής. Tennyson's 'thick-leaved platan.' Cf. Nux Elegeia, 17, at postquam platanis sterilem praebentibus umbram |uberior quavis arbore venit honos. Quintus Hortensius was said to water a favorite plane-tree with wine. caelebs: as contrasted with the ulmi maritatae, the 'vine-prop elm' (Epode 2.10). Cf. on 4.5.30, and Martial, 3.58.3, vidua; Ov. Met. 10. 92, 95, 100; Quintil. 8.3.8, sterilem platanum . . . maritam ulmum. Cf. 2.11.13.
Cambridge's version of this strophe (Johns. Poets, 18.244) is a curiosity of literature: 'Now flowers disposed in various groups |Dislodge those honors of your soups,| The tasteful rich legumes.' evincet: will drive out.
copia narium: store of (all that delights) the nostrils. The reference is to the extensive flower gardens. Cf. Aelian's ὀφθαλμῶν πανήγυρις and his ἀνθέων . . . εἰς ἑορτὴν ὄψεως (V. H. 13.1); Wordsworth's 'cups the darlings of the eye'; Juvenal, gustus elementa (11. 14).
olivetis: abl. of place, over the olive grounds. Cf. 3.18.14. The meaning is that flower beds and sweet-smelling plants will take the place of the useful olive groves.
fertilibus: which were productive.
spissa ramis: cf. densum humeris (2. 13. 32); umbrae enormes . . . lauris (Pliny). laurea: sc. arbor = laurus.
ictus: the strokes, darts, rays of the sun. Cf. Lucretius' lucida tela diei; βολαῖς ἡλίου (Eurip. Phoen. 169).
praescriptum: sc. est. intonsi: cf. on 1.12. 41; Tibull. 2. 1. 34, intonsis . . . avis. Catonis: the elder Cato, the Censor, the type of old Roman austerity. Cf. 3.21.11.
auspiciis: i.e. example; lit. chief command, guidance.
Now it is just the reverse. Sall. Cat. 52, publice egestatem, privatim opulentiam.
privatus illis census: the list of their private possessions. brevis: short. Cf. exiguus (Epist. 1. 1.43); tenuis (Epist. 1. 7. 56).
commune: the public wealth.
No private colonnade measured with ten-foot rods received (took, lay in wait for, 3.12.12) the cool (shady) north (ern breeze). Privatis should be construed with decempedis. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 1.52, frigus captabis opacum; Juv. 7. 183, et algentem rapiat cenatio solem. For similar complaints and contrasts, cf. Demosth. Olyn. 3.25; Cic. pro Flacco, 28, pro Murena, 76, odit populus Romanus privatam luxuriam, publicam magnificentiam diligit.
fortuītum: chance, the first that came to hand, die erste beste, προτυχόν (Pind. Pyth. 4. 35). caespitem: cf. Verg. Ecl. 1.68, congestum caespite culmen; or perhaps the reference is to altars. Cf. on 1. 19. 13; Tibull. 2. 5. 100, caespitibus mensas caespitibusque torum.
leges: Horace could hardly have cited chapter and verse. The phrases publico sumptu and novo saxo are divided between the two parts of the sentence oppida (decorare) and templa decorare, to each of which they both belong.
iubentes: the laws which bade.
novo: 3.1.45. Possibly fresh-hewn; more probably of the marble, new and strange then, but familiar to modern luxury. Cf. on 2.18.3. Possibly a compliment to Augustus, the restorer of temples. Cf. on 3.6.2; "'Brickwork I found thee and marble I left thee," their emperor vaunted; |"Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!" the tourist may answer' (Clough); cf. Suet. Aug. 28.
Ode XVI
Peace is the prayer of the storm-tossed sailor and of the Thracian mad with battle--peace whose price is above purple and fine gold. For the consul's lictor cannot dispel the mob of passions that beset the soul. He only lives well who has 'the art to live on little with a cheerful heart.' Vainly we strive to forget 'in action's dizzying eddy whirled, the something that infects the world.' We cannot escape ourselves nor the cares that pursue us swifter than the east wind. When happy, borrow no troubles of to-morrow, and temper adversity with slow, patient smile. There is a law of compensation. Achilles had glory and an early death. Long-lived Tithonus withered slowly in the arms of Aurora. A hundred herds low for thee,-- me fate hath dowered with my Sabine farm, a breath of the inspiration of the Greek, and the poet's scorn of scorn. Translated by Otway, Cowper, Hamilton, Johnson's Poets, 15. 638; imitated by Jenyns, ibid. 17.607, and Hughes, 10.28. Pompeius Grosphus is known only from Epistle 1.12.22-24, a letter of introduction to the Iccius of Odes, 1.29. There was fighting in Thrace about B.C. 30. A plausible date for the ode is 29 or 28.
otium: the Roman world was very tired and ready to accept repose as the chief good in life and politics. Seneca says of Augustus, de Brev. Vit. 5, omnis eius sermo ad hoc semper revolutus est ut speraret otium.--'Deus nobis haec otia fecit,' says the Vergilian shepherd of the firm ruler, qui cuncta discordiis civilibus fessa nomine principis sub imperium accepit; Tac. Ann. 1. 1. Cf. Renan, First Hibbert Lecture, introd. Pax was the sailor's word. Cf. Plaut. Trinum. 837; Lucret. 5.1229, non divum pacem votis adit ac prece quaesit| ventorum pavidus paces animasque secundas? patenti: open.
prensus: i.e. deprensus, caught. Cf. Verg. G. 4. 421; Lucret. 6.429; Catull. 25. 13, deprensa navis in mari vesaniente vento. simul: cf. on 1.9.9.
condidit: so Verg. Aen. 6.271, ubi caelum condidit umbra. certa: with steady light; cf. Tibull. 1.9.10, ducunt instabiles sidera certa rates. Milton, Comus, 'Unmuffle, ye faint stars'; Tenn. Choric Song, 'Eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot stars.'
bello furiosa: ἀρειμανής, δοριμανής. Thrace was Mavortia terra (Verg. Aen. 3. 13). Cf. Gray, Progress of Poesy, 'On Thracia's hills the Lord of War| Has curb'd the fury of his car.'
pharetra: cf. 3. 4. 35, pharetratus. decori: adorned with; 3. 14. 7.
non . . . venale: which cannot be bought; cf. 3.14.2, and for meter, 1.2. 19.
nec: is read for neque to remove the only case of elision in the Adonic verse.
A favorite moral of Latin poetry. Cf. Munro on Lucret. 2.25-50; Lucan, 4.378; Sellar, p.165.
summovet: clear away; technical of a lictor clearing a path through a mob. miseros tumultus mentis: continues the metaphor; the sad riot of the heart.
laqueata: 2.18.2, paneled.
volantis: like bats or obscene birds. Cf. Theog. 729, for wings of care.
vivitur: passive impersonal (cf. thevivere parvo of Sat. 2.2.1), ab eo bene vivitur, he lives well. Cf. Juv. 8.9, coram Lepidis male vivitur.--parvo: cf. Lucret. 5. 1118; Cic. de Fin. 2.28; Lucan, 4.377; Claud. in Rufin. 1.215; Tibull. 1.1.25, contentus vivere parvo.
salinum: almost proverbial. Cf. Pers. 3.25, purum et sine labe salinum; Valer. Max. 4.4.3; Sen. de Tranq. An. l. The family salt-cellar brightly polished is the one piece of silver on the board of the man who knows, 'What and how great the virtue and the art| To live on little with a cheerful heart' (Pope). splendet: cf. Epist. 1.5.23. tenui: frugal; cf. Epist. 1.20.20; Herrick 337.7, 'If we can meet, and so conferre,| Both by a shining salt-seller.'
levis somnos: 2. 11.8, facilem; 3. 1.22, lenis; Gray, Ode on Eton College, 'The slumbers light that fly the approach of morn.' cupido: always mase. in Horace.
For sentiment, cf. Pind. Nem. 11.43; Bion. Idyll. 7.8; Eurip. Bacchae, 395; Arnold, A Southern Night, 'We who pursue| Our business with unslackening stride, . . . and see all sights from pole to pole,| And glance, and nod, and bustle by;| And never once possess our soul| Before we die.' fortes: undaunted. For juxtaposition of brevi fortes cf. on 1.6. 9. iaculamur: aim at, attempt. So τοξεύειν.
sole: cf. Verg. G. 2.513, atque alio quaerunt patriam sub sole iacentem. Tenn. The Brook, 'Katie walks| Far off and holds her head to other stars.' mutamus: sc. patriā; the accusative (terras) with mutamus here expresses what is received in exchange; cf. on 1.17.2. For moralizing on vain restlessness of travel, cf. Sen. de Tranq. An. 2; Emerson. patriae: cf. Ovid Met. 9.409, exul mentisque domusque, and Milton's 'Heaven's fugitives.' Theoc. 24.127, φυγὰς Ἄργεος.
se quoque: cf. Epist. 1.11.27, caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. Sat. 2.7. 112-116; Lucret. 3.1060-1070; Sen. Dial. 9.2.14, sequitur se ipse et urget gravissimus comes. Epist. 28, tecum fugis. Milton, 'nor from hell| One step no more than from himself can fly| By change of place.' Byron, To Inez, 'What exile from himself can flee?' Emerson, Self-Reliance, 'I pack my trunk . . . and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.' fūgit: gnomic.
Cf. 3.1.39; Lucret. 2.48 sqq. vitiosa: carking, fell; strictly, morbid; cf. Epist. 1 . 1.85, vitiosa libido. nec . . . relinquit: i.e. keeps up with.
Cf. Sen. Phaedra, 745, ocior nubes glomerante Coro. Ocior Euro, etc. Proverbial. Cf. Otto, p.366; Burger, Lied vom braven Manne, 'Die Wolken flogen vor ihm her,| Wie wann der Wolf die Herde scheucht.'
laetus in praesens, (when) happy in the present, is, as it were, the condition of oderit, an emphatic nolit. Cf. 3.8.27. --quod ultra est, τὰ πόῤῥωfutura.
amara: in contrast to laetus in praesens. lento: cf. lente ferre, etc., placid, patient.
The commonplace of Emerson's Essay on Compensation, to be illustrated in 29 sqq. ab omni parte: cf. Quintil. 1. 2.15, nam quid fere undique placet? Bacchyl. 5.54.
clarum cita: Achilles says, Il.9.412, 'If I abide here . . . then my returning home is taken from me, but my fame shall be imperishable.' Cf. Il.1.505, ὠκυμορώτατον ἄλλων.
Tithonum: he was made immortal, but not having been given eternal youth withered away in extreme decrepitude; cf. 1.28.8; Mimnermus, fr. 4; Hom. Hymn in Ven. 220. As type of old age, Aristoph. Acharn. 688; Otto, p.349. minuit: cf. Tenn. Tithonus, 'I wither slowly in thine arms.' Gray, 'slow-consuming age.' But longa here = unending, as 3. 11. 38; 2.14.19.
et: and so.
porriget: half personifies the glad hour (πολυγηθής, Il.21.450) 'that in a gracious hand appears to bear a gift for mortals old or young.' Cf. on 3.29.48 and 3.8.27.
greges . . . vaccae: virtually a hendiadys.
tibi tollit hinnitum: picturesque periphrasis for est tibi. Cf. 2.15.15. For elision at end of line, cf. 2.2.18.
equa: mares were preferred for racing. Cf. Pind. Pyth. 2.8; Verg. G. 1.59; and if any one will try to write this strophe with equus, he will find them metrically preferable. te: cf. Martial, 2.43.3, Te Lacedaemonio velat toga lota Galaeso. bis . . . tinctae: twice dipped, δίβαφα Cf. Epode 12.21, muricibus Tyriis iteratae vellera lanae; Epist. 2. 2.181; Spenser, Vergil's Gnat, 'Ne cares lie if the fleece which him arrays| Be not twice steeped in Assyrian dye.' For the murex, cf. Class. Dict. and 2.18.7.n.
parva rura: the Sabine farm. Cf. Bacchylides, fr. 28.
tenuem: as a term of literary criticism would mean refined, delicate (Epist. 2.1.225); but it seems to be used in modest deprecation here: slight. Cf. Burns, Epist. to. James Smith, 'The star that rules my luckless lot| Has fated me the russet coat, | And damned my fortune to the groat;| But in requit,| Has blest me wi' a random shot| O' countra wit.'
non mendax: cf. C. S. 25, vosque veraces cecinisse Parcae. Persius, 5.48, Parca tenax veri. Buecheler fancifully takes it 'rightly named,' because sparing (parca) of her gifts.
spernere: the scorn of scorn. He is invidia maior. Like rura and spiritum, spernere is a direct object of dedit.
Ode XVII
Maecenas, though a valetudinarian tormented by fever and insomnia, clung desperately to life (Pliny, N. H. 7.17; Seneca, Epist. 101). Horace, toying with the astrological superstitions of the age to which Augustus and Maecenas were devoted (Sueton. Aug.94; Dio. 52.36), assures his friend that their horo scopes coincide, and that it is the will of Heaven that they be not divided in their death. The poet's prayer, 'that we may die the selfsame day,' was, in substance, granted. He died B.C. 8, not long after Maecenas, who in his last days wrote to Augustus, Horatii Flacci ut mei memor esto. The allusion to the fall of the tree (27, cf. on 2. 13) makes it probable that the ode was written soon after B.C. 30. Cf. Tennyson's unfulfilled prayer (In Mem. 84): 'Thy spirit should fail from off the globe| What time mine own might also flee,| As linked with thine in love and fate.'
exanimas: so occidis saepe rogando (Epode 14.5); Enicas (Ter. And. 660); ἀποκτείνειν (Eur. Hipp. 1064). Quintil. 8.3. 32 seems to object to the word which is used by Cic. pro Mil. 93. Cf. 'Carcasses exanimate' (F. Q. 2.12.7); 'Be heir to those who are now exanimate' (Sonnets from Port. 33).
amicum: the Homeric φίλον εἶναι--their pleasure, will.
ŏbire: cf. 3.29.11.
decus: cf. 1.1.2. columen: cf. Tenn., 'the pillar of a people's hope'; the 'pillar apostles'; Ter. Phorm. 287, columen vero familiae; Catull. 64.26; Homer's ἕρκος Ἀχαιῶν; Callinus, 20, πύργον; Archil. fr. 17, νάξου . . . κίονας; Alcaeus, fr. 23; Theognis, 233; Pind. O.2.7; Eurip. Alcest. 311, etc.
partem: cf. 1.3.8; Tenii. In Mem. 85, 'I, the divided half of such | A friendship as had master'd time'; Minuc. Felix, 1.3, crederes unam mentem duobus fuisse divisam; Tickell on death of Addison, 'Can I forget the dismal night that gave| My soul's best part forever to the grave?'; and Villon's 'Deux estions et n'avions qu'ung coeur;| S'il est mort, force est que devie.' rapit: 2.13.20.
maturior: premature, untimely. Cf. 1.2.48, ocior. vis: 2.13.20.
carus: Sc. mihi ipsi. Cf. Epist. 1.3.29, si patriae volumus si nobis vivere cari; Plato, Rep. 621 C, ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς φίλοι, wrongly rendered by Jowett, 'dear to one another.' aeque: i.e. as before. So in Greek ὁμοίως. superstes: 3.9. 12, Epode 1. 5, with both carus and integer.
utramque: of both of us.
ducet: not adducet, but dabit, faciet, will cause. Verg. Aen. 2.466, trahere ruinam. non ego: both words are emphatic (ef. 2.7.26), but non goes with perfidum only.
dixi sacramentum: the technical term for soldier's oath (Caes. B. C. 1.23).
utcumque: temporal; cf. on 1. 17.10. supremum: τὴν νεάταν ὁδὸν (Soph. Antig. 807).
carpere: Sat. 1.5.95, carpentes iter; Verg. Georg. 3.142, carpere prata fuga.
Chimaerae: 1.27.24; 4.2.16; Verg. Aen. 6.288. igneae: πυρπνέουσαν (Eurip. Ion, 203). Cf. 1.17.2; 3.3.10.
Si resurgat: were he to rise up to confront me from under the superincumbent mountains. Cf. 3.4.69-73. Gyas: a giant, one of the sons of Heaven and Earth. The spelling of the Mss. varies. Editors generally read Γυής, not Γύγης, in Hes. Theog. 149. Cf. 3.4.69, and Ov. Trist. 4.7.18, centimanumque Gyan.
sic . . . placitum: cf. l. 33. 10.
Iustitiae = Δίκη. Δίκη and Εἴρήνη are sisters of the Fates in Hes. Theog. 902-904. But Horace may be thinking also of Themis and of Sophocles' ξύνοικος τῶν κάτω θεῶν Δίκη(Antig. 451).
whether Libra or the Scorpion, shape of fear, or Capricornus, tyrant of the western wave, be the predominant aspect of my natal hour, the stars of us twain consent in wondrous wise.
Scorpios: the influence of this sign was baleful; fighters were born under it (Manil. 4.220). For Libra, a propitious sign, cf. Manil. 4. 548. adspicit: present, because the in fluence of the constellation under which one is born continues through life. The astrologers seem to have spoken technically of the stars aspecting each other at the birth; but the notion of the star looking down on the birth like a deity was a natural development of this way of speaking. Cf. on 4.3.2.
pars violentior: probably this means simply 'as the predominant,' not 'as the malign' which may be counteracted by the more auspicious stars, such as Libra and Jupiter.
tyrannus: cf. 1.3.15. But here the reference is to the assignment of particular constellations to particular quarters of the globe. Cf. Manil. 4.791, tu, Capricorne, regis quidquid sub sole cadente |expositum; Propert. 5. 1.86.
nostrum: gen. plur. For caesura, cf. on 2.12.25.
consentit: cf. Persius' imitation, 5.45, non equidem hoc dubites amborum foedere certo| consentire dies et ab uno sidere duci; Shaks. Hen. VI. 1, 'the bad revolting stars| That have consented unto Henry's death'; Herrick, Hesp. 106, 'stars consenting with thy fate.' Hence probably, Wordsworth's 'Twice seven consenting years.' astrum: cf. Epist. 2. 2. 187, scit genius natale comes qui temperat astrum. But Horace obviously does not take it seriously.
tutela: of a deity. Cf. on 4.14.43.; Tibull. 2.5.113. Technically of a constellation (Manil. 2.334; 4.698 et passim). Saturno: with both refulgens (cf. 1.12.28) and eripuit. Saturn a malign star; Propert. 5.1.84, et grave Saturni sidus in omne caput. refulgens: shining in opposition, and so counteracting the influence of.
volucris: with alas. Fati: death,
alas: cf. Sat. 2.1.58, seu Mors atris circumvolat alis; Eurip. Alcest. 260, πτερωτός Ἅιδας; Schol. Alc. 843; Gratius, Cyneg. 343; Byron, 'The angel of death spread his wings on the blast'; Matthew Arnold, 'death's winnowing wings'; Lessing, Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet.'
Cf. on 1.20; Propert. 4.9.4, et manibus faustos ter crepuere sonos.
crepuere: cf. on 1.18.5.
truncus: cf. on 2.13. inlapsus: cf. 'The swift illapse| Of accident disastrous' (Thomson, Summer).
Faunus: the god of the woods and country. Cf. 1.17.2. The incident happened on the Sabine farm. Cf. 3.16.3. sustulerat: The indicative is used to show how close he was to actual death. In 3.4.27 it is the Muses, in 3.8.7 Liber, that saves the poet.
Mercurialium: cf. 1.10 and 2.7.13. Horace playfully wrests the word from its meaning of devotees of Mercury, god of gain (Sat. 2.3.25), and uses it of poets, who were under the protection of Mercury as god of eloquence and inventor of the lyre (1.10.3, 6).
reddere: cf. on 2.7.17.
nos humilem: for similar contrast, cf. 4.2.53 and Ov. Trist. 1.10.43, non facit ad nostras hostia maior opes.
Ode XVIII
Rape, congere, aufer, posside: relinquendum est.--Martial, 8.44.9. I have no marble halls and train of prosperous clients. I am content with my kindly poetic vein and my dear little Sabine estate. You, with one foot in the grave, continue to rear your seaside villas and evict your pauper tenants. But there is one 'who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter,' --the builder of the house of death. The impartial earth opens for pauper and prince alike. For the sentiments, cf. 1.31. 2-6; 2.16. 33-40; 3. 1. 40-7; 3.16.17-43; 3.29.9-16; Bacchylides, fr. 28; Verg. Georg. 2.461 sqq.; Tibull. 3.3.12 sqq.; Propert. 4.1.49 sqq., etc. For free imitation of lines 1-8, see Crashaw, Description of a Religious House, Ward's Poets, 2.208. l. ebur: of the eburnum lacunar (cf. 2.16.11), panels (of the ceiling) adorned with ivory, rather than of ivory tables. Cf. Propert. 4. 1.50, nec camera auratas inter eburna trabes; Bacchylides, fr. 27. 8, χρυσῷ δ᾽ ἐλέφαντι τε μαρμαίροισιν οἶκοι; Lucret. 2.27, nec domus argento fulget auroque renidet.
No architraves of bluish-white marble of Mt. Hymettus rest on columns of Numidian giallo antico in my atrium. Cf. Martial, 5. 13.5; 9.75.7-9.
Hymettiae: from Mt. Hymettus in Attica; cf. 'Where with bright marbles big and future pomp,| Hymettus spread, amid the scented sky,| His thymy treasures to the labouring bee' (Thomson, Liberty).
Attali: of an Attalus, i.e. some rich man. Cf. 1.1.12.
ignotus expresses the surprise of the windfall, occupavi the greedy haste of the heir.
Laconicas purpuras: i.e. wool dyed with Laconian purple; cf. 3.1.42. 'Vast heaps of the shells of the murex brandaris in Cythera and on the neighboring Laconian coast . . . demonstrate to this day the importance of the sea to Phoenician industry' (Holm, Hist. of Greece). Cf. on 2.16.36; Aeschyl. Ag. 958; Juv. 8.101, Spartana chlamys.
trahunt: spin, lanam trahere. Trahunt has also been understood of trailing robes (ἱματίων ἕλξεις, σύρειν, traxitque per pulpita vestem, A. P.215). The meaning is, 'I am not so high that my very clients are rich.' honestae: well-born.
at: the other side of the medal. Cf. 3.7.22.
vena: the figure is probably taken from a vein of ore. φλέψ, Xen. Vect. 2. 5. Cf. sine divite vena, Epist. 2.3.409. But the Roman poets also thought of vena aquae. Cf. Ovid, Trist. 3.14.33; Auson. Mosella, 448, ast ego quanta mei dederit se vena liquoris. For benigna, cf. Tenn. Edwin Morris, 'But you can talk, yours is a kindly vein.' Cf.''Ercles' vein,' etc. pauperemque dives: cf. on 1.6. 9; Sellar, p. 176. The Greeks rang the changes on the saying about the wise man going to the doors of the rich. For me petit, cf. on 2.20.6.
amicum: Maecenas. Cf. nil amplius oro; Sat. 2.6.4.
flagito: importune.
satis beatus: cf. Catull. 23.27; Epode 1.31; Odes, 3.7.3. unicis: cf. 3.14. 5. Sabinis: sc. praediis. Cf. 3.4.22. Cf. Martial, 4.77, numquam divitias deos rogavi.
truditur: cf. on proterit, 4.7. 9; urget, Epode 17.25; sic vita truditur, Petron. Sat. 45; Otto, p.112.
And still (pergunt) the new moons only wax to wane. Cf. 4.7.7.
tu: cf. on 2.9.9.
secanda . . . locas: allot to be cut--let the contract for cutting (sc. to the redemptor, 3.1.35). The Romans affected to regard as a reprehensible luxury the use of cut marble slabs for paneling and wainscoting . Cf. Pliny, N. H. 36.50. sub funus: on the verge of death; cf. on 1.8.14.
Bais: a famous Campanian watering-place near Naples. Cf. 3.4.24; Epist. 1.1.83. For villas built out into the water, cf. 3.1.33-38; Martial, 10.30; Hare's Days near Rome. obstrepentis: cf. 3.30.10. 20-21. submovere litora: to push out the shore line.
parum . . . ripa: not rich enough with the shore of the mainland. Cf. Livy, 44.28, continenti litori.
quid quod: nay more, a prosaic transition. Cf. on adde quod, 2.8. 17; 3. 1.41; 3.11. 21. usque: still, with reference to the persistence of the encroachment. Cf. 1.17.4.
revellis: a picturesquely strong moves. The sanctity of landmarks in primitive times is well known. Cf. Proverbs, 22. 10, 11, 'Remove not the old landmarks, and enter not into the field of the fatherless' . Plato, Laws, 843 A. In Roman inscriptions curses are invoked on those who disturb the landmark. Terminus was a god. et ultra: so 4.11.29.
clientium: fraus innexa clienti was the most heinous of crimes in Roman eyes. Patronus si clienti fraudem fecerit, sacer esto (Twelve Tables).'
salis: cf. on revellis, supra.
A picture of an eviction.
in sinu: cf. Tac. Ann. 1.40, incedebat . . . perfuga ducis uxor parvulum sinu filium gerens.
But no hall awaits the rich lord more surely than the appointed bourne of greedy Orcus. Fine (fem. Epode 17.36) is a virtual synonym of aula which could not well be repeated, with the further implication that 'the vasty hall of death' (cf. 3.11.16; Eurip. Alcest. 259) is our final home, mors ultima linea rerum est, Epist. 1. 16.79; θαϝάτοιο τελευτή. It is quite unnecessary to construe destinata with aulă, or with aulā understood, and to interpret fine 'by the limit set by' or 'in the confines of.' For the thought, cf. Butler, 'Our noblest piles and stateliest rooms| Are but outhouses to our tombs'; Longfellow, 'For thee was a house built| Ere thou wast born.'
rapacis: Tibull. 1.3.4; Catull. 3.13, malae tenebrae | Orci quae omnia bella devoratis; Callim. Ep. 2, ἁρπακτήρ.
ultra: cf. 3.29.31, 'beyond the finis Orci'; beyond the little that life requires; more generally, why strive to 'pass beyond the goal or ordinance'? aequa: cf. on 1.4.13.
recluditur: opens; 1.24.17. n.
pueris: the resolution qu<*>ĕ</*> p<*>ŭĕ</*> in lyric iambics has been questioned. Dogmatism is out of place. satelles: 3.16.9, Charon. The force of nec is felt with auro captus as well as with revexit. Cf. Epist. 2.2.178, si metit Orcus|grandia cum parvis non exorabilis auro; Theog. 727-728.
Promethea: cf. on 1. 16. 13; 2.13. 37. callidum: ποικιλομήτην.
revexit: sc. across 'the unpermitted ferry's flow.' hic: Orcus.
Tantali genus: Pelops, Atreus, Agamemnon, etc. Cf. 1.28.7; 1.6.8; 2.14.18, Danai genus.
coercet: cf. 2.14.9; Verg. Aen. 6.439, noviens Styx interfusa coercet. levare: with both vocatus and audit. functum: cf. 2.9.13; 4.15.29; Epist. 2.1.22, suisque temporibus defuncta; abs. Tac. Agric. 1, narraturo vitam defuncti hominis.
For sentiment, cf. Aeschyl. fr. 255; Soph. O. C. 1220; Burns, 'Man was made to mourn': 'O Death, the poor man's dearest friend'; Praed, The Chant of the Brazen Head: 'I think poor beggars court St. Giles| Rich beggars court St. Stephen;| And Death looks down with nods and smiles,| And makes the odds all even'; F. Q. 2.1.59, "'Palmer," quoth he, "death is an equal doom | To good and bad, the common inn of rest."' laboribus: life's labors, with functum.
audit: consents. Cf. Shaks., 'hearkens my brother's suit.'
Ode XIX
Horace pretends to have caught sight of Bacchus and his train on the lonely hillside. He affects the poetic frenzy of the dithyramb, and, with many allusions to Greek poetry and legend, affirms his right and inspiration to sing the attributes and exploits of the God of wine and song. Cf. 3.25; Ovid. Met. 4.17 sqq.; Propert. 4.16; Ovid. Trist. 5.2; and Fletcher's 'God Lyaeus ever young.'
remotis: cf. 2.3.6. Bacchus and his train haunted solitary mountain tops. Cf. Soph. O. T. 1105, Antig. 1126; Dyer, Gods in Greece, pp.112, 113; Anacreon, 2.
docentem: even as Apollo teaches his choir the nine Muses. Cf. Pater, Study of Dionysus, pp. 10-11. credite posteri: Epode 9.11, posteri negabitis.
nymphas: his nurses and playmates in Greek poetry. Cf 1.1.31; Soph. O. C. 678; Anacr. fr. 2.
capripedum: cf. Lucret. 4.580, haec loca capripedes Satyros nymphasque tenere| finitimi fingunt; Tenn. Lucretius, 'Catch her, goatfoot.' Pan is τραγόπους Simon. fr. 133, and the attribute is transferred by Roman poets from the Panisci to the Satyrs. Cf. Pater, Study of Dionysus, pp.9-10. acutas: pointed; cf. Hawthorne's Marble Faun.
euhoe: i.e. εὐοῖ, the cry of the devotees of Baechus. Cf. 1.18.9, euhius; Juv. Sat. 7.62, Satur est cum dicit Horatius euoe; Shelley, Prom., 'Like Maenads who cry loud euoe, euoe'; Verg. Aen. 7.389, euoe Bacche fremens. trepidat: with the excitement of the vision. Cf. Il.20. 131; Verg. Aen. 4.279 sqq.
pleno: cf. 3.25.2; Ovid, Fasti, 6.537. turbidum: τεθολωμένον: adverbial; cf. on 2.12.14; 3.27.67.
parce: the enthusiast at once courted and dreaded the maddening presence of the god. Cf. Catull. 63.91-93; Verg. Aen. 6.77 sqq.
metuende: cf. 1.12.23. thyrso: the thyrsus of Baechus was a pole, the top of which was surmounted with a fir-cone or with vine or ivy leaves. Its touch inspired frenzy. 'And our fingers must beware of the thyrsus, tossed about so wantonly by himself and his chorus. The pine-cone at its top does but cover a spear-point! and the thing is a weapon--the sharp spear of the hunter Zagreus' (Pater, Greek Studies, p.60). Cf. Eurip. Ion, 216. But gravi probably refers to the madness caused by its touch: dread.
fas: the vision brings authentic inspiration. Cf. Ov. Fasti, 6.7, Fas mihi praecipue voltus vidisse deorum, etc. pervicacis: untiring, persistent. Cf. 3.3.70; Epode 17.14. Thyiadas: from θύω, to rave, the Bacchantes, the women who celebrated the orgies of the god. Other synonyms are Maenad, Bassarid, Euiad, etc.
For similar miracles of Bacchus, cf. Eurip. Bacchae, 141, 708; Plato, Ion, 534 A; Propert. 4.16.20 sqq.; Fletcher, 'From thy plenteous hand divine| Let a river run with wine.' Cf. Exod. 3.8; Hesiod, Works, 232; Verg. Eclog. 4.30.
iterare: rehearse, tell, renew the fact in speech.
beatae: deified. coniugis: Ariadne. Cf. Apoll. Rhod. 3.1002, ἀστερόεις στέφανος τόν τε κλείουσ᾽ Ἀριάδνης; Mrs. Browning's How Bacchus comforts Ariadne (from Nonnus), 'But I will wreathe thee, sweet, an astral crown| And as my queen and spouse thou shalt be known'; Ov. Fasti, 3.459; Heroides, 6. 115; Sen. Herc. Fur. 18; Propert. 4.16.8; Ov. Met. 8.176; Verg. G. 1.222.
honorem: her crown, which was transformed into a constellation. Verg. Aen. 7. 814, regius . . . honos. Penthei: the Bacchae of Euripides describes the punishment of King Pentheus of Thebes for his impious resistance to the introduction of the worship of the new god. His palace was thrown down by an earthquake (663), and he was torn in pieces by his mother and sisters in their Baechic frenzy (Theoc. 26). Cf. Pater, Greek Studies, pp.68, 74. Horace moralizes the tale (Epistle 1.16.73). Cf. Ov. Met. 3.511.
non leni: 1.24.17; 1.18.9.
Lycurgi: a king of Thrace who attempted to suppress the worship of Bacchus in his kingdom; of. Homer, Il.6.130 sqq., 'Nay moreover even Dryas' son mighty Lykurgos was not for long when he strove with heavenly gods, he that erst chased through the goodly land of Nysa the nursing-mothers of frenzied Dionysos. . . . Then Dionysos fled and plunged beneath the salt sea-wave. . . . But with Lykurgos the gods that live at ease were wroth, and Kronos' son made him blind, and he was not for long, because he was hated of all the immortal gods.' Cf. Soph. Antig. 955; Propert. 4.16.23. Aeschylus wrote a play on the theme.
flectis: tamest avoids zeugma with mare. amnis: he dried the Hydaspes and the Orontes, by the touch of his thyrsus, in the expedition to India. mare: of. Sen. Herc. Fur. 907, adsit Lycurgi domitor et rubri maris (the Indian Ocean).
separatis = remotis. uvidus: cf. 1. 7. 22; 4. 5. 39; Eurip. El. 326, βρεχθείς.
viperino: of. Catuli. 64.258, pars sese tortis serpentibus incingebant.
Bistonidum: the Bistones were a tribe of Thrace, Bistonides is the plural of the feminine Bistonis. sine fraude . i.e. without harming them. Cf. C. S. 41; an archaism found in Twelve Tables (se fraude) and in Livy (1.24.5), and imitated by Milton several times; e.g. 'To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud.'
His defence of heaven against the giants (a post-Homeric legend), and his descent into hell to fetch his mother Semele.
parentis: Jove; 1.12.13. regna: the plural magnifies (1.4.18; 2.13.21; 3.4.46), but is resorted to largely metri gratia (4.14.26).
scanderet: Pindar, fr. 162, actually speaks of a ladder. Cf. on 2.12.7 and 3.4.42 sqq.
Rhoetum: a giant whose name is selected for alliterative effect. Cf. 3.4.55.
He assumed the form of a lion, as in Hymn. Hom. 7. 44. Cf. also Eurip. Bacch. 1019. Porphyrio refers the words Leonis unguibus horribilique mala to Rhoetum. This is done also by Stier and by Trendelenburg, who emend horribilique to horribilemque. It is true that we have no other reference to Bacchus' transformation into a lion in the battle of the gods and giants, and on the Pergamene frieze a giant is represented with a lion's head and claws.
quamquam: with ferebaris, of which aptior dictus gives the reason. For Liber fit for war, cf. 1.12.21. n.
sed idem: idem is the predicate; construe, but in the midst of peace and of war thou wast the same.
insons: harmless, to thee.
cornu: the reference is rather to the golden horn of wine with which he propitiates Cerberus and the beasts than to the horns often attributed to him by the poets (Tibull. 2.1.3; Propert. 4.16.19; Orphic Hymn 52.2).
atterens caudam: σαίνων, adulans, wagging. Cf. Gildersleeve on Pind. O.4.4; Theoc. 6.30.
trilingui: triple-headed and triple-tongued is all one reckoning, 'save the phrase is a little variations.'
tetigitque: for que, cf, on 1.30.6.
Ode XX
Horace prophesies in a somewhat artificial poetic frenzy his own immortality. He is to be translated into a 'tempest-cleaving swan of' italy, and will be known to all the peoples of the earth. Let no one weep for him or celebrate vain obsequies. For motif, cf. 3.30; 4.3; Alcman, fr. 118. For transformation of poet to swan, cf. Plato's Repub. 620 a; Eurip. fr. 911. For bard = bird, cf. 1.6.2; Pind. Ol.2.96; Theoc. 7.47; Verg. Ecl. 9.35, and 4.2.25. n. Ben Jonson's 'Sweet swan of Avon.'
non usitata: on no common, with reference to his claim of having introduced Greek lyric measures into Rome. Cf. Epode 5. 73. Cf. Milton's 'adventurous song,| That with no middle flight intends to soar.' For the boast of originality, cf.3. 1.2; 3.30.10 sqq. tenui: weak.
biformis: swan and poet is the obvious meaning, but Porphyrio says quod et lyrica scribat et hexametros, and some moderns follow him on the ground that Horace would be wholly transformed into the bird. But this is to consider it too curiously. liquidum: cf. Verg. G. 1.404. Clear as contrasted with udam . . . humum, 3. 2. 23, or yielding as Milton's 'buxom air'; Pind. Nem. 8. 41, πρὸς ὑγρὸν|αἰθέρα.
vates: cf. 1.31.2.
invidia maior: cf. Tac. Agr. 8.3, extra invidiam; Callim. Ep. 23, δρείσσονα βασκανίης. Cf. on 4.3.16 and 3.24.32.
urbis: concretely picturesque. Cf. 1.35. 10; 3.4.46.
pauperum . . . sanguis: Horace never disavows his humble birth. Cf. 2.18.10; 3.30.12; Sat. 1.6.46, quem rodunt omnes libertino patre natum.
vocas: invitest (to thy board, or simply companionship). Cf. Catull. 44.21, qui tum vocat me. If any dignity is lost, it is recovered by dilecte. Cf. Gildersleeve on Pindar's φίλος addressed to Hieron (Pyth. 1.92). In 2.18.11, he says dives me petit. The interpretation of 'dilecte' as direct quotation of Maecenas' words is generally abandoned.
unda: cf. 2.14.9.
Tyrrell, Latin Poetry, p.198, comments on the bad taste of these details.
iam iam: Epode 17.1. He begins to feel the 'feathery change' come over him like Arnold's Philomela. cruribus: usually taken as abl. of place; conceivably dat. Cf. residunt in partem (Verg. Aen. 9.539). asperae: the skin wrinkles and roughens as it shrinks and settles into place.
supern<*>ĕ</*>: so Lucret. 2.1153, 6.544, 597; A. P.4. lēves: antithesis with asperae.
Daedaleo: cf. 1.17.22. n. notior: many Mss. read ocior with harsh hiatus. Cf. Ov. Amor. 1.9.40, notior in caelo fabula nulla fuit. Bentley proposed tutior, which H. doubtless meant, but perhaps did not need to say. Cf. on 4.2.2; cf. Martial, 1.1.2, Toto notus in orbe Martialis.
Cf. Sargeant's lines, 'But on strong wing, through upper air, |Two worlds beneath, the old and new,| The Roman swan is wafted where| The Roman eagles never flew.'
visam: cf. 2.14. 7. gementis: cf. Iliad, 16.391,23. 330; Odyss. 12.97, ἀγάστονος; Aeschyl. Prom. 712; Soph. Ajax, 674, στένοντα πόντον; Tennyson, 'the moanings of the homeless sea' (In Mem.) ; 'The deep| Moans round with many voices' (Ulysses) ; Christina Rossetti, 'Why does the sea moan evermore?' Bospori: 3.4.30.
Syrtis: 1. 22. 5; 2. 6. 3. Gaetulas: African. canorus: of Swan Song, Verg. Aen. 7.700; cf. 4.3.20. n.
Hyperboreos: lit., beyond Boreas, i.e. in the far north; cf. Swinb., 'Beyond the north wind lay the land of old,| Where men dwelt blithe and flawless clothed and fed| With joy's bright raiment and with love's sweet bread,| The happiest flock of earth's maternal fold.' Cf. Pind. Ol.3.16; Pyth. 10. 30-44; Aeschyl. Choeph. 373; Pliny, N. H. 4.89; Bacchyl. 3. 59.
Colchus: the Colchians lived east of the Black Sea. dissimulat: masks his fear.
Marsae: the Marsi were one of the bravest of the Latin peoples.Dacus: cf. on 1.35.9.
Geloni: 2. 9. 23. peritus: the learned Spaniard. Spain had some literary culture even in Horace's time, and the next generation gave the Senecas and Quintilian to Rome. A distinction seems to be drawn between the culture of the provinces (Spain and Gaul) that shall learn the poet, and the outer barbarians (Colchians, Dacians, and Gelonians) that shall come to know of him. Cf. Statius, Theb. 12.814, Iam te (sc. his poem) magnanimus dignatur noscere Caesar,| Itala iam studio discit memoratque iuventus.
potor: vivid for accola, i.e. the Gaul. Cf. 3.10.1; 4. 15.21; Hom. Il.2.825; Pind. Ol.6.85; Verg. Eclog. 1.63.
Cf. Epitaph of Ennius, Cic. Tusc. 1.34, nemo me lacrumis decoret nec funera fletu | faxit ! cur? Volito vivus per ora virum.
inani: a cenotaph--sine corpore funus. neniae: properly the lured mourner's wailing dirge.
turpes: disfiguring: the gashing of cheeks and beating of breast. querimoniae: of friends and kin.
clamorem: the conclamatio or clamor supremus (Lucan, 2.20; Verg. Aen. 4.665, 674).
mitte: 3.8.17. supervacuos: the Ciceronian supervacaneus would be unmanageable in Horace's verse. Maecenas had written cynically, nec tumulum curo, sepelit natura relictos. But Horace means that his monument is his poetry.
