r^ i.i\m-j^^ / 7t{ I THE ODES AND EPODES OF H O R AC E THE ODES AND EPODES HORACE A METRICAL TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARIES BY LORD LYTTON WITH LA TIN TEXT WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDGCCLXIX V CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. ON THE CAUSES OF HORACE'S POPULARITY, PAGE xiii THE ODES. BOOK I. I. DEDICATORY ODE TO MAECENAS, II. TO CESAR, III. ON VIRGIL'S VOYAGE TO ATHENS, IV. TO LUCIUS SESTIUS, V. TO PYRRHA, VI. TO M. VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA, vn. TO PLANCUS, VIII. TO LYDIA, IX. TO THALIARCHUS, X. TO MERCURY, XI. TO LEUCONOfi, . XII. IN CELEBRATION OF THE DEITIE S AND OF ROME, XIII. TO LYDIA, XIV. THE SHIP— AN ALLEGORY, XV. THE PROPHECY OF NEREUS, XVI. RECANTATION, . XVII. INVITATION TO TYNDARIS, XVIII. TO VARUS, XIX. TO GLYCERA, XX. TO MAECENAS, XXI IN PRAISE OF DIANA AND APOl .LO, THE WORTHIES 24 28 32 34 38 42 44 50 52 56 60 64 68 72 74 76 VI CONTENTS. ODE XXII. TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS, XXIII. TO CHLOii, .... XXIV. TO VIRGIL ON THE DEATH OF QUINCTILIUS VARUS XXV. TO LYDIA, .... XXVI. TO L. ^LIUS LAMIA, XXVII. TO BOON COMPANIONS, XXVIII. ARCHYTAS, .... XXIX. TO ICCIUS, .... XXX. VENUS INVOKED TO CxLYCER.\'S FANE, XXXI. PRAYER TO APOLLO, . XXXII. TO HIS LYRE, XXXIIL TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS, XXXIV. TO HIMSELF, XXXV. TO FORTUNE, XXXVI. ON NUMIDA'S RETURN FROM SPAIN, XXXVII. ON THE FALL OF CLEOPATRA, XXXVIII. TO HIS WINE-SERVER, BOOK 11. L TO ASINIUS POLLIO, .... II. TO C SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, GRAND-NEPHEW OF THE HISTORIAN, .... III. TO Q. DELLIUS, .... IV. TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS, V. TO GABINIUS, .... VI. TO SEPTIMIUS, .... VIL TO POMPEIUS VARUS, VIII. TO BARINE, ..... IX. TO C. VALGIUS RUFUS, X. TO LICINIUS, ..... XI. TO QUINTIUS HIRPINUS, XII. TO M.'ECENAS, .... XIIL TO A TREE, ..... XIV. TO POSTUMUS, .... XV. ON THE IMMODERATE LUXURY OF THE AGE, XVI. TO POMPEIUS GROSPHUS, XVII. TO M/ECENAS, .... XVIII. AGAINST THE GRASPING AMBITION OF THE COVETOUS, XIX. IN HONOUR OF BACCHUS, . XX. ON HIS FUTURE FAME, CONTENTS. Vll BOOK III. ODE I. ON THE WISDOM OF CONTENT, II. THE DISCIPLINE OF YOUTH, . III. ON STEADFASTNESS OF PURPOSE, IV. INVOCATION TO CALLIOPE, V. THE SOLDIER FORFEITS HIS COUNTRY WHO SURREN DERS HIMSELF TO THE ENEMY IN BATTLE, VI. ON THE SOCIAL CORRUPTION OF THE TIME, VII. TO ASTERIA, ..... VIII. TO M^CENAS, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HORACE ESCAPE FROM THE FALLING TREE, IX. THE RECONCILIATION, X. TO LYCE, .... XI. TO THE LYRE, XII. NEOBULE'S SOLILOQUY, XIIL TO THE BANDUSIAN FOUNTAIN, XIV. ON THE ANTICIPATED RETURN OF AUGUSTUS FROM THE CANTABRIAN WAR, XV. ON AN OLD WOMAN AFFECTING YOUTH, XVI. GOLD THE CORRUPTOR, XVII. TO L. /ELIUS LAMIA, . XVIIL TO FAUNUS, .... XIX. TO TELEPHUS. — IN HONOUR OF MURENA'S INSTAL LATION IN THE COLLEGE OF AUGURS, XX. (OMITTED.) XXL TO MY CASK, .... XXIL VOTIVE INSCRIPTION TO DIANA, XXIIL TO PHIDYLE, . . . - XXIV. ON THE MONEY-SEEKING TENDENCIES OF THE AGE, XXV. HYMN TO BACCHUS, . XXVL TO VENUS, .... XXVII. TO GALATEA UNDERTAKING A JOURNEY, XXVIII. ON THE FEAST-DAY OF NEPTUNE, XXIX, INVITATION TO M^CENAS, XXX. PREDICTION OF HIS OWN FUTURE TIME, THE SECULAR HYMN, 330 VI 11 CONTENTS. BOOK IV. ODE I. TO VENUS, ...... II. TO lULUS ANTONIUS, . . . . . III. TO MELPOMENE, . . . . . IV. IN PRAISE OF DRUSUS AND THE RACE OF THE NEROS, V. TO AUGUSTUS, THAT HE WOULD HASTEN HIS RETURN TO ROME, ..... VI. TO APOLLO, ..... VII. TO TORQUATUS, .... Vin. TO CENSORINUS, .... IX. TO LOLLIUS, . . . . . X. (OMITTED.) XI. TO PHYLLIS, . . . . . XII. INVITATION TO VIRGIL, XIII. TO LYCE, A FADED BEAUTY, . XIV. TO AUGUSTUS AFTER THE VICTORIES OF TIBERIUS XV. TO AUGUSTUS ON THE RESTORATION OF PEACE, 34^> 354 35s THE EPODES. INTRODUCTION, ..... ErODE I. TO M^CENAS, .... II. ALFIUS. — THE CHARMS OF RURAL LIFE, III. TO M^CENAS IN EXECRATION OF GARLIC, IV. AGAINST AN UPSTART, . V. ON THE WITCH CANIDIA, VI. AGAINST CASSIUS, VII. TO THE ROMANS, VIII. (OMITTED.) IX. TO M^CENAS, .... X. ON M^VIUS SETTING OUT ON A VOYAGE, XT. and XII. (omitted. ) XIII. TO FRIENDS, . . . XIV. TO M^CENAS IN EXCUSE FOR INDOLENCE IN COM PLETING THE VERSES HE HAD PROMISED, XV. TO NEiERA, .... XVI. TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE (OR RATHER TO HIS OWN POLITICAL FRIEND.S), XVII. TO CANIDIA — IN APOLOGY, CANIDIA's REPLY, INTRODUCTION. ERRATA. ! Page 12, line 4 from bottom, for " Eiyx, read Eryx'." j 74, line \o,for " Cales have" read " Cales has." j 80, footnote. In quotation from Shakespeare's 'King John, i lines 2, 3, for ' ' her " read ' ' his. " ] 362, line %for " victory, what time" read " vict'ry, since what , time." \ ,, 367, line 6, for " Inster" read " Instar." 1 taste, of the complex multitude of students in every land and in every age. It is an era in the life of the schoolboy when he first com- mences his acquaintance with Horace. He gets favourite a VIU CONTENTS. BOOK IV. ODE I. TO VENUS, ...... 342 II. TO lULUS ANTONIUS, ..... 346 III. TO MELPOMENE, ..... 354 IV. IN PRAISE OF DRUSUS AND THE RACE OF THE NEROS, 35S V. TO AUGUSTUS, THAT HE WOULD HASTEN HIS RETURN TO ROME, ...... if^f, PLETING THE VERSES HE HAD PROMISED, . 462 XV, TO NEyERA, ...... 464 XVI. TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE (OR RATHER TO HIS OWN POLITICAL friends), .... 468 XVII. TO CANIDIA— IN APOLOGY, .... 476 canidia's reply, ..... 482 INTRODUCTION. ON THE CAUSES OF HORACE'S POPULARITY. No one denies that there are greater poets than Horace ; and much has been said in disparagement even of some of the merits most popularly assigned to him, by scholars who have, nevertheless, devoted years of laborious study to the correction of his text or the elucidation of his meaning. But whatever his faults or deficiencies, he has remained unexcelled in that special gift of genius which critics define by the name of charm. No collection of small poems, ancient or modern, has so universally pleased the taste of all nations as Horace's Odes, or been so steadfastly secure from all the capricious fluctuations of time and fashion. In vain have critics insisted on the superior genius evinced in the scanty relics left to us of the Greek lyrists, and even on the more spontaneous inspiration which they detect in the exquisite delicacy of form that distinguishes the muse of Catullus. Horace still reigns supreme as the lyrical singer most enthroned in the affections, most congenial to the taste, of the complex multitude of students in every land and in every age. It is an era in the life of the schoolboy when he first com- mences his acquaintance with Horace. He gets favourite a XIV THE ODES OF HORACE. passages by heart with a pleasure which (Homer alone ex- cepted) no other ancient poet inspires. Throughout life the lines so learnt remain on his memory, rising up alike in gay and in grave moments, and applying themselves to varieties of incident and circumstance with the felicitous suppleness of proverbs. Perhaps in the interval between boyhood and matured knowledge of the world, the attractive influence of Horace is suspended in favour of some bolder poet adventur- ing far beyond the range of his temperate though sunny genius, into the extremes of heated passion or frigid metaphysics — " Visere gestiens Qua parte debacchentur ignes, Qua nebulae pluviique rores." But as men advance in years they again return to Horace — again feel the young delight in his healthful wisdom, his manly sense, his exquisite combination of playful irony and cordial earnestness. They then discover in him innumer- able beauties before unnoticed, and now enjoyed the more for their general freedom from those very efforts at intense emotion and recondite meaning for which, in the revolution- ary period of youth, they admired the writers v/ho appear to them, when reason and fancy adjust their equilibrium in the sober judgment of maturer years, feverishly exaggerated or tediously speculative. That the charm of Horace is thus general and thus imperishable, is a proposition which needs no proof. It is more interesting and less trite to attempt to analyse the secrets of that charm, and see how far the attempt may suggest hints of art to the numberless writers of those poems which aim at the title of lyrical composition, and are either the trinkets of a transitory fashion, or the ornaments of enduring vogue, according as they fail or succeed in concentrating the rays of poetry into the com- pactness and solidity of imperishable gems. The first pecuhar excellence of Horace is in his personal character and temperament rather than his intellectual capa- INTRODUCTION. / XV cities ; it is in his genial humanity. He touches us on so many sides of our common nature ; he has sympathies with such infinite varieties of men ; he is so equally at home with us in town and country, in our hours of mirth, in our mo- ments of dejection. Are we poor? he disarms our envy of the rich by greeting as a special boon of the Deity the suffisance which He bestows with a thrifty hand ; and, dis- tinguishing poverty from squalor, shows what attainable ele- gance can embellish a home large enough to lodge content. Are we rich ? he inculcates moderation, and restrains us from purse-pride with the kindliness of a spirit free from asceticism, and sensitive to the true enjoyments of life. His very defects and weaknesses of character serve to increase his attraction; he is not too much elevated above our own erring selves. Next to the charm of his humanity is that of his inclina- tion towards the agreeable aspects of our mortal state. He invests the virtues of patience amidst the trials of adversity with the dignity of a serene sweetness, and exalts even the frivolities of worldly pleasure with associations of heartfelt friendship and the refinements of music and song. Garlands entwined with myrtle, and wine-cups perfumed with nard, seem fit emblems of the banqueter who, when he indulges his Genius, invokes the Muse and invites the Grace. With this tender humanity and with this pleasurable temperament is blended a singular manliness of sentiment. In no poet can be found lines that more rouse, or more respond to, the generous impulse of youth towards fortitude and courage, sincerity and honour, devoted patriotism, the superiority of mind over the vicissitudes of fortune, and a healthful reli- ance on the wisdom and goodness of the one divine provi- dential Power, who has no likeness and no second, even ^ in the family of Olympus. Though at times he speaks as the Epicurean, at other times as the Stoic, and sometimes as both in the same poem, he belongs exclusively to neither school. Out of both XVI THE ODES OF HORACE. he has poetised a practical philosophy which, even in its inconsistencies, establishes a harmony with our own incon- sistent natures ; for most men are to this day in part Epi- curean, in part Stoic. Horace is the poet of Eclecticism. From the width of his observation, and the generalising character of his reasoning powers, Horace is more em- phatically the representative of civiHsation than any other extant lyrical poet. Though describing the manners of his own time, he deals in types and pictures, sentiments and opinions, in which every civilised time finds likeness and expression. Hence men of the world claim him as one of their order, and they cheerfully accord to him an admiration which they scarcely concede to any other poet. It is not only the easy good-nature of his philosophy, and his lively wit, that secure to him this distinction, but he owes much also to that undefinable air of good - breeding which is independent of all conventional fashions, and is recognised in every society where the qualities that constitute good- breeding are esteemed. Catullus has quite as much wit, and is at least as lax, where he appears in the character of a man of pleasure — Catullus is equally intimate with the great men of his time, and in grace of diction is by many preferred to Horace ; yet Catullus has never attained to the same oracular eminence as Horace among men of the w^orld, and does not, in their eyes, command the same rank in that high class of gentlemen — thorough-bred authors. For if we rightly interpret genius by ingenmm — viz., the inborn spirit which accommodates all conventional circumstances around it to its own native property of form and growth — there is a genius of gentleman as there is a genius of poet. That which his countrymen called urbanitas, in contradistinction to provincial narrowness of mind or vulgarity of taste, to false finery and affected pretence, is the essential attribute of the son of the Venusian freedman. And with this quality, wiiich needs for brilliant development familiar converse with INTRODUCTION. XVll the types of mind formed by a polished metropolis, Horace preserves, in a degree unknown to those who, like Pope and Boileau, resemble him more or less on the town-bred side of his character, the simple delight in rural nature, which makes him the favourite companion of those whom cool woodlands, peopled with the beings of fable, "set apart from the crowd." He might be as familiar with Sir Philip Sidney in the shades of Penshurst, as with Lord Chesterfield in the saloons of Mayfair. And out of this rare combination of practical wisdom and poetical sentiment there grows that noblest part of his moral teaching which is distinct from schools and sects, and touches at times upon chords more spiritual than those who do not look below the surface would readily detect Hence, in spite of his occasional sins, he has always found indulgent favour with the clergy of every Church. Among the dozen books which form the library of the village awe of France, Horace is sure to be one ; and the greatest dignitaries of our own Church are among his most sedulous critics and his warmest paneg}Tists. With all his melancholy conceptions of the shadow-land beyond the grave, and the half-sportive, half-pathetic injunction, there- fore, to make the most of the passing hour, there lies deep within his heart a consciousness of nobler truths, which ever and anon finds impressive utterance, suggesting pre- cepts and hinting consolations that elude the rod of Mercury, and do not accompany the dark flock to the shores of Styx : " Virtus recludens immeritis mori Coelum negata tentat iter via." Thus we find his thoughts interwoven with Milton's later me- ditations ; * and Condorcet, baffled in aspirations of human perfectibility on earth, dies in his dungeon with Horace by his side, open at the verse which says, by what arts of con- * See Milton's Sonnet xxi. , To Cyriac Skinner. XVlll THE ODES OF HORACE. stancy and fortitude in mortal travail Pollux and Hercules attained to the citadels of light. It is, then, mainly to this large and many-sided nature in the man himself that Horace owes his unrivalled popularity — a popularity which has indeed both widened in its circle and deepened in its degree in proportion to the increase of modern civilisation. And as the popularity is thus so much derived from the qualities in which the man establishes friendly intimacy with all ranks of his species, so it is ac- companied with that degree of personal affection which few writers have the happiness to inspire. We give willing ear to the praise of his merits, and feel a certain displeasure at the criticisms which appear harshly to qualify and restrict them ; we are indulgent to his faults, and rejoice when the diligent research and kindly enthusiasm of Geniian scholars redeem his good name from any aspersions that had been too lightly credited. It pleases us to think that most, per- haps all, among his erotic poems which had left upon our minds a painful impression, and which a decorous translator shuns, are no genuine expressions of the poet's own senti- ment or taste, but merely a Roman artist's translation or paraphrase from the Greek originals.*" We readily grant the absurdity of any imputation upon the personal courage of Brutus's young officer, founded upon the modest confession, * The opinion at which most Horatian scholars have now arrived is well expressed by Estre in his judicious and invakiable work, ' Ho- ratiana Prosopographeia ' : "Credo Horatium prorsus abstinuisse a puerorum amoribus, etiamsi ipse, jocans, aliter de se profiteatur. Dis- tabant, si quid judico, Horatii tempore, puerorum amores tantum a persona sancti castique viri quantum libera venus nostris temporibus abest. Novi autem hodie quoque, quis ignorat, juvenes virosque vel castissimos et sanctissimos, inter amicos, animi causa, ita jocantes, quasi liberam venerem ardentissime sectarentur. Nee Libri iv. carm. I, euro, scriptum, uti egregie observavit, Lessingius, post legem Juliam latam de pudicitia quum nemo amplius amorem in puerum palam cele- brare ausus fuisset." — P. 524. INTRODUCTION. XIX that on the fatal field of Philippi, when those who most vaunted their valour fled in panic or bit the dust, he too had left his shield not too valiantly behind him ; he who, in the same poem, addressed to a brother soldier, tells us that he had gone through the worst extremities in that bloody war. For those panegyrics on Augustus which, in our young days, we regarded as renegade flattery bestowed upon a man who had destroyed the political liberties for which the poet had fought, we accept the rational excuses which are suggested by our own maturer knowledge of life and of the grateful human heart, and our profounder acquaintance with the events and circumstances of the age. We see in the poems themselves, when fairly examined, with what evident sincerity Horace vindicates his enthusiastic admiration of a prince whom he identifies with the establishment of safety to property and life, with the restoration of arts and letters, \vith the reform of manners and the amelioration of laws. We can understand with what genuine horror a patriot so humane must have regarded the fratricide of intestine wars, and with what honest gratitude so ardent a lover of repose and peace would have exclaimed, — *' Custode rerum Csesare, non furor Civilis aut vis e'xii^et otium. " If to the rule of one man this blessed change was to be ascribed, and if public opinion so cordially endorsed that assumption, that the people themselves placed their ruler in the order of Divinities — it scarcely needs even an excuse for the poet that he joined in the general apotheosis of the great prince, who to him was the benignant protector and the sympathising friend. What has passed in our owq time in France renders more clear to us the general state of feeling in Rome. When the population have once tested the security of established order, and, with terrified remem- brance of the bloodshed and havoc of a previous anarchy, XX THE ODES OF HORACE. felt the old liberty rather voluntarily slip than be violently wrenched, from their hands, a benevolent autocracy that con- sults the public opinion which installs it, seems a blessing to the many, and is accepted as a necessity by the few. And if the professed statesmen and political thinkers of the time — the Pollios and the Messalas, the most eminent parti- sans of M. Antony, the noblest companions of Brutus — acquiesced, with the more courtly and consistent Maecenas, in the established government of Augustus, it would indeed be no reproach to a man whose mind habitually shunned gloomy anticipations of the distant future, that he could not foresee the terrible degeneration of manners and the military despotism which were destined to grow out of the clement autocracy of that accomplished prince who had won the title of "father of his country," and who might be seen on summer evenings angling in the Tiber, or stretched upon its banks amidst a ring of laughing children, with whom the Emperor whose word gave law to the Indian and the Mede was playing with nuts and pebbles. What Horace was as man, can, however, furnish but little aid to those v/ho desire to rival him as poet — ^little aid, in- deed, except as it may serve to show how far a genial and cordial temperament, an independent and manly spirit, and a fellowship with mankind in their ordinary pursuits and tastes, contribute to the culture and amenities of the poet who would make his monument more lasting than bronze and more lofty than the pyramids. But in Horace, as artist, we may perhaps, on close examination, discover some peculiari- ties of conception and form sufficiently marked and pervasive to evince that with him they were rules of art ; so successful as to make them worthy of study, and hitherto so little noticed, even by his most elaborate critics, as to justify an attempt to render them more generally intelligible and instructive. In what I am about to say on this head, I confine my remarks to the short lyrical pieces to which commentators INTRODUCTION. XXI after his time gave the name of Odes, and on which his eminence as a poet must mainly rely. Whatever merit be ascribed to his Satires, it is scarcely in the power of genius to raise satire to an elevated rank in poetry. Satire, indeed, is the antipodes of poetry in its essence and its mission. Satire always tends to dwarf, and it cannot fail to caricature ; but poetry does nothing if it does not tend to enlarge and exalt, and if it does not seek rather to beautify than deform. And though such didactic and m.oralising vein as belongs to the Epistles of Horace be in itself much higher than satire, and in him has graces of style that, with his usual consum- mate taste, he rejects for satire, which he regards but as a rhythmical prose, still, the higher atmosphere in which the genius of lyrical song buoys and disports itself is not within the scope of that didactic form of poetry which "walks highest but not flies." Hegel, in his luminous classification of the various kinds 'of poetry, has perhaps somewhat too sharply drawn the line between its several degrees of rank ; yet every one acquainted with the rudimentary principles of criticism must acknowledge, that just as it requires a larger combination of very rare gifts to write an epic or a drama which the judgment of ages allows to be really great, than to write a lyrical poem, so it demands a much finer combi- nation of some of the rarest of those rare gifts to write a lyrical poem which becomes the song of all times and nations, than to write a brilliant sarcasm upon human infir- mities, or an elegant lecture in the style of an Epistle. These last require but talents, however great, which are more or less within the province of prose-writers. The novel of ' Gil Bias ' or the Essays of Montaigne evince qualities of genius equal at least to those displayed in Horace's Satires and Epistles. But if you were to multi- ply Lesages and Montaignes ad infiiiitum^ they could not accomplish a single one of Horace's nobler odes. Now, the first thing that strikes us in examining the XXll THE ODES OF HORACE. secrets of Horace's art in lyrical poetry — and which I ven- ture humbly to think it would be well for modern lyrists to study — is his terseness. Terseness is one of the surest proofs of painstaking. Nothing was ever more truthful in art than the well-known reply of the writer to the friendly critic, who said, "You are too prolix :" "I had not time to be shorter." We know from Horace himself that he bestowed upon his artist-work an artist's labour — " Operosa carmina fingo." He seems to have so meditated upon the subject he chooses as to be able to grasp it readily. There is no wan- dering after ideas — no seeking to prolong and over-adorn the main purpose for which he writes. If it be but a votive inscription to Diana, in which he dedicates a tree to her, he does not let his command of language carry him beyond the simple idea he desires to express. He seems always to consider that he is addressing a very civilised and a very im- patient audience, which has other occupations in life besides that of reading verses ; and nothing in him is more remarkable than his study not to be tedious. Perhaps, indeed, it is to this desire that some of his shortcomings up to the mark which very poetical critics would assign to lyrical rapture are to be ascribed ; but it is a fault on the right side. The next and much more important characteristic of Horace as a lyrical artist is commonly exhibited in his grander odes, and often in his lighter ones ; and to this I do not know if I can give a more expressive word than picturesqueness. His imagination, in his Odes, predomin- ates over all his other qualities, great as those other 'quali- ties are ; and that which he images being clear to himself, he contrives in very few words to render it distinct and vivid to the reader. When Lydia is entreated not to spoil Sybaris ; by enumerating the very sports for which her lover has lost taste, he brings before us the whole picture of an athletic young Roman noble — his achievements in horse- INTRODUCTION. XXlll manship, swimming, gymnastics; when, in the next ode, he calls on the Feastmaster to heap up the fagots, and bring out the wine, and enjoy his youth while he may, he slides into a totally different picture. Here it is the young Roman idler, by whom only the mornings are devoted to the Campus Martius, the afternoons to the public lounge, the twilights to amorous assignations ; and the whole closes still with a picture, the girl hiding herself within the thresh- old, and betrayed by her laugh, while the lover rushes in and snatches away the love-token from the not too reluctant finger. When he invites Tyndaris to his villa, the spot is brought before the eye : the she-goats browsing amid the arbute and wild thyme ; the pebbly slopes of Ustica ; the green nook sheltered from the dog-star; the noon-day entertainment; the light wines and the lute. The place and the figures are before us as clearly as if on the canvas of a painter. He would tell you that he is marked from childhood for the destiny of poet ; and he charms the eye with the picture of the truant infant asleep on the wild mountain-side, safe from the bear and the adder, while the doves cover him with leaves. With a rarer and higher attribute of art Horace intro- duces the dramatic element very largely and prominently into his lyrics. His picture becomes a scene. His ideas take life and form as personations. Does he ^vish to dis- suade his countrymen from the notion of transferring the seat of government from Rome to Asia, or perhaps, rather, from some large emigration and military settlement in the East ? He calls up the image of the Founder of Rome borne to heaven in the chariot of Mars ; ranges the gods in council on Olympus ; and puts into the lips of Juno the warning which he desires to convey. Does he seek to discourage popular impatience for the return of the Parthian prisoners — viz., the soldiers of Crassus who had settled and married in the land of the conqueror? He evokes the XXIV THE ODES OF HORACE. great form of Regulus urging the Senate to refuse to ransom the Roman captives taken by Carthage — places him as on a visible stage — utters his language, describes his looks, and shows him departing to face the tormentors, satisfied and serene. Would he console a girl for the ab- sence of her lover, and hint to herself a friendly caution against an insidious gallant ? In eight short stanzas he con- denses a whole drama in personages and plot. Does he paint the reconcihation of two jealous lovers? He makes them speak for themselves ; and their brief dialogue is among the most delightful of comedies. Would he tell us that he is going to sup with convivial friends? He suddenly transports us into the midst of the scene, regulates the toasts, calls for the flowers and music, babbles out his loves. The scene lives. ^ Not to weary the reader with innumerable instances of this art of picture and of drama, so sedulously cultivated by Horace, I will only observe that the various imitators of Horace have failed to emulate this the most salient char- acteristic of his charm in construction ; and that even his numerous commentators have but slightly noticed it — nay, some have even censured as a desultory episode, that which, according to Horace's system of treating his subject, is the substance of the poem itself For the commencing stanzas sometimes only serve as a frame to the picture which he intends to paint, or a prologue to the scene which he pro- poses to dramatise. Thus he begins a poem by an invocation to Mercury and the lyre to teach him a strain that may soften the coy heart of a young girl ; passes rapidly to the effect of music even upon the phantoms in the shades below ; the Danaides rest their urn, and then, as if the image of the Danaides spontaneously and suddenly suggested the idea, he places on the scene the sister murderesses at night slaughtering their bridegrooms — and the image of Hypermnestra, the sole gentle and tender one, waking her lord and urging him to fly. INTRODUCTION. XXV So again, when his lady friend, Galatea, is about to undertake a voyage, he begins by a playful irony about omens, hastens to the reality of stormy seas — and suddenly we have the picture of Europa borne from the field-flowers to the midst of the ocean. We behold her forlorn and alone on the shores of Crete — hearken to the burst of her despair and repentance — and see the drama conclude with the consolatory appearance of Venus, and Cupid with his loosened bow. To some commentators these vivid pre- sentations of dramatic imagery have appeared exotic to the poem — episodes and interludes. But the more they* are examined as illustrative of Horace's peculiar culture of lyric art, the more (in this respect not unimitative of Pindar) they stand out as the body of his piece, and the developed completion of his purpose. Take them away, and the poems themselves would shrink into elegant vers d' occasion. Horace, in a word, generally studies to secure to each of his finer and more careful poems, however brief it be, that which play-writers call "a backbone." And even where he does not obtain this through direct and elaborate picture or dramatic effect and interest, he achieves it perhaps in a single stanza, embodying some striking truth or maxim of popular application, expressed with a terseness so happy, that all times and all nations adopt it as a proverb. We see, then, how much of his art in construction de- pends on his lavish employ of picture and drama — how much on compression and brevity. We must next notice, as constituent elements of Horace's peculiar charm, his em- ployment of playful irony, and the rapidity of his transitions from sportive to earnest, earnest to sportive ; so that, per- haps, no poet more avails himself of the effect of ''surprise" — yet the surprise is not coarse and glaring, but for the most part singularly subdued and delicate — arising some- times from a single phrase, a single word. He has thus, in his lyrics, more of that combination of tragic and comic XXVI THE ODES OF HORACE. elements to which the critics of a former age objected in Shakespeare, than perhaps any poet extant except Shake- speare himself The consideration of this admirably artistic fidelity to the mingled yarn of life, leads us on to the notice of Horatian style and diction. The character of the audience he more immediately ad- dresses will naturally have a certain effect on the style of an author, and an effect great in proportion to his practical good sense and good taste. No man possessed of what the French call savoir vivi'e, employs exactly the same style even in extempore discourse, whether he address a select audience of scholars or a miscellaneous popular assem^bly. The readers for whom Horace more immediately wrote were the polite and intellectual circles of Rome, wherein a large proportion were too busy, and a large proportion too idle, to allow themselves to be diverted very far, or for long at a stretch, into poetic regions, whether of thought or diction, remote from their ordinary topics and habitual language. Horace does not, therefore, in the larger number of songs composed — some to be popularly sung and all to be popu- larly read — build up a poetic language distinct from that of conversation. On the contrary, with some striking excep- tions, where the occasion is unusually solemn, he starts from the conversational tone, seeks to famiharise himself winning- ly with his readers, and leads them on to loftier senti- ment, uttered in more noble eloquence — just as an orator, beginning very simply, leads on the assembly he addresses. And possibly Horace's manner in this respect — which, though in a less marked degree, is also that of Catullus in most of the few purely lyrical compositions the latter has left to us — may be traced to the influence which oratory exercised over the generation born in the last days of the Repubhc. For in the age of Cicero and Hortensius it may be said that the genius of the Roman language developed itself rather in the beauties which belong to oratory than INTRODUCTION. XXVll those which lie more hidden from popular appreciation in the dells and bosks of song. And as the study of rhetoric and oratory formed an es- sential part of education among the Roman youths contem- porary with Horace, so that study would unconsciously mould the taste of the poet in his selection and arrange- ment of verbal decorations. Be the cause what it may, nothing is more noticeable in Horace's style than its usual conformity with oratorical art, its easy familiarisation with the minds addressed, its avoidance of over-floridity and re- condite mysticism, and its reliance for effects that are to fascinate the imagination, touch the heart, rouse the soul, upon something more than the delicacies of poetic form. His reliance, in short, is upon the sentiment, the idea, which the glow of expression animates and illumes. Thus that curiosa felicitas verborum justly ascribed to Horace, has so much of the masculine, oratorical character — so unites a hardy and compact simplicity of phrase with a sentiment which itself has the nobleness or grace of poetry (as orator- ical expression of the highest degree ever has) — that of all ancient poets Horace is the one who most furnishes the public speaker with quotations sure of striking effect in any public assembly to which the Latin language is familiar. Take one example among many. Mr Pitt is said never to have more carried away the applause of the House of Commons than when, likening England, — then engaged in a war tasking all her resources, — to that image of Rome which Horace has placed in the mouth of Hannibal — he exclaimed : — " Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus Nigrse feraci frondis in Algido, Per damna, per csedes, ab ipso Ducit opes animumque ferro." Now, this passage, when critically examined, does not owe its unmistakable poetry to any form of words, any startling XXVlll THE ODES OF HORACE. epithet, inadmissible in prose, but to an illustration at once very noble and yet very simple ; and, in rapidity of force, in the development and completion of the idea, so akin to oratory, that an impassioned speaker who had his audience in his hands might have uttered the substance of it in prose. I may perhaps enable the general reader to comprehend more clearly what I mean by Horace's art in diction, as starting from the conversational tone, and, save on rare oc- casions, avoiding a style antagonistic to prose, by a reference to the two loveliest, most elaborate, and most perfect lyrics in our own language — 'L' Allegro' and 'II Penseroso.' In these odes Milton takes for representation the two types of temperament under which mankind are more or less divisibly ranged — viz., the cheerful and the pensive. But he treats these two common varieties of all our race as a poet, of a singularly unique temperament himself, addressing that com- paratively small number of persons who are poetically cheer- ful or poetically pensive. And in so addressing them his language is throughout essentially distinct from prose ; it is like most of his youthful poems, the very quintessence of poetic fancy, both in imagery and expression. Perfectly truthful in itself, the poetry in these masterpieces is still not of that kind of truthfulness which comes home to all men's business and bosoms. Like his own soul, it is "a star, and dwells apart." It may be doubted whether Horace, in his very finest odes, ever, in his maturest age, wrote anything so exquisitely poetical, regarded as pure poetry addressed to poets, as these two lyrics written by Milton in his youth. But then the difference between them and Horace's Ode? is, that out of England the former are little known — certainly not appreciated.* Their beauty of form is so delicate, that * It may be said in answer to this, that on the Continent Latin is more read than English. True ; but that does not prevent those EngHsh poets who address themselves to a cosmopoHtan audience, as Shakespeare, INTRODUCTION. - XXIX it is only the eye of a native that can detect it — their truth- fulness to nature so Hmited to a circumscribed range of mind, that, even in England, neither the mirthful nor the melancholy man, unless he be a poet or a student, recog- nises in either poem his own favourite tastes and pleasures. But where Horace describes men's pleasures, every man finds something of himself; the familiar kindliness of his language impresses its poetry upon those who have no pre- tension to be poets. Had Horace wTitten with equal length and with equal care an ' Allegro ' and a ' Penseroso,' not only the poet and the student, not only the man of senti- ment and reflection, but all varieties in our common family — the young lover, the ambitious schemer, the man of plea- sure, the country yeoman, the city clerk, even the rural labourer — would have found lines in which he saw himself as in a mirror. Thus, then, Horace's exquisite felicity of wording is for the most part free from any sustained attempt at a language essentially distinct from that of conversation ; and for that very reason its beauties of poetical expression both please and strike the more, because they have more the air of those spontaneous flashes of genius which delight us in a great orator or a brilliant talker. I cannot pass by without comment a characteristic of Horace's "form" in lyrical poetry, which is too striking to escape the notice of any ordinary critic; but no critic has attempted satisfactorily to define the principles of art to which its peculiar fascination may be traced. It is in the choice of epithets derived from proper names, or rather the names of places, by which "generals" are individualised into " particulars." The sea is not the sea in general — it is and I may add Byron, being as well appreciated on the Continent as any Latin author is ; and I doubt whether even in England there be as many readers of poetry familiar with ' L' Allegro ' and ' II Penseroso ' as there are with the Odes of Horace. XXX THE ODES OF HORACE. the Hadrian, or the Myrtoan, or the Caspian sea ; the ship is not a ship in general — it is the Cyprian or the Bithynian ship ; the oaks, which are not always shaken by the blast, are not the oaks in general — they are the oaks upon Garganus ; the ilex, which thrives by being pruned, is not an ilex in general — it is the ilex upon Algidus ; and so forth, through innumer- able instances. That in this peculiarity there is a charm to the ear and the mind of the reader, no one acquainted with Horace will deny. But whence that charm? Partly be- cause it gives that kind of individuality which belongs to personation — it takes the object out of a boundless common- place, and rivets the attention on a more fixed and definite image ; but principally because, while it thus limits the idea on the prosaic side of the object, it enlarges its scope, by many vague and subtle associations, on the poetic side. When a proper name is thus used — a proper name suggesting of itself almost insensibly to the mind the poetic associations which belong to the name — the idea is enlarged from a simple to a complex idea, adorned with delicate enrichments, and opening into many dim recesses of imagination. The keel of a ship suggests only a keel ; but the Cyprian keel connects itself with dreamy recollections of all the lovely myths about Cyprus. The ilex unparticularised may be but an ilex by a dusty roadside, or in the grounds of a citizen's villa; but the ilex of Algidus evokes, as an accompanying image, the haunted mountain-top sacred to Diana. Hence the frequent recourse to poetic proper names among artistic poets, and to which the verse of Milton is so largely indebted for the delight it occasions, not more by melodious sounds than by complex associations. Walter Scott owes much of the animation of his lyrical narratives to his frequent use of proper names in scenery connected with historic association or romantic legend ; and Macaulay's Roman Lays push the use of them almost to too evidently artificial an extreme, savouring a Httle overmuch of elaborate learning and per- INTRODUCTION. XXXI ceptible imitation. But the study of so exquisite a beauty in lyrical composition may be safely commended to modern poets. It is noticeable that Horace has little or nothing of it in the Epodes (his earliest published poems, except the First Book of the Satires). Perhaps he thought it more espe- cially appropriate to purely lyrical composition, such as the Odes, than to the Epodes, which are not lyrical in form, and, with one exception, Epode xiii., are but partially lyrical in spirit. For it might be wrong to infer that it only oc- curred to him in the riper practice of his general art as poet, since some of the Odes in which it is found, though not published till after the Epodes, must have been composed within the period to which the latter are assigned. The defects or shortcomings of Horace as a poet are, like those of all original Avriters, intimately connected with his peculiar merits. His strong good sense, and that which may be called the practical tendency of his mind in his views both of life and art, w^hile they serve to secure to him so un- rivalled a popularity among men of the world, not only deter him from the metaphysical speculation which would have been not less wearisome to the larger portion of his readers than distasteful to himself, as appertaining to those regions beyond the province of the human mind, " at which Jove laughs to see us outstretch our human cares," — but rarely permit him to plumb very far into the deeps of feeling and passion. Marvellously as he represents the human nature we have all of us in common, each thoughtful man has yet in him a something of human nature peculiar to himself, which, like the goal of the Olympian charioteer, is some- times almost grazed, but ever shunned, by the rapid wheels of the Venusian. It may also be said that his turn for irony, or his defer- ence to the impatient taste of a worldly audience, while serving to keep the attention always pleased, and contributing so largely to his special secrets in art, sometimes shows itself XXXU THE ODES OF HORACE. unseasonably, and detracts from the effect of some noble passage, or interrupts the rush of some animated description. Take but one instance among many. In an ode which is among his grandest — Book IV. Ode iv., " Qualem ministrum fulminis alitem" — when he comes, after imagery of epic splendour, to the victory of Drusus over the Vindelici, he checks himself to say, with a sort of mockery which would have been well in its place at a supper-table, that where the Vindelici learned the use of the Amazonian battle-axe he refrains from inquiring, for it is not possible to know every- thing. No doubt there was some "hit" or point in this parenthetical diversion which is now lost to us ; possibly it was a satirical allusion to some pedantic work or antiquarian speculation which was among the literary topics of the day ; but every reader of critical taste feels the jar of an episodical levity, inharmonious to all that goes before and after it.'"" It is like a sarcasm of Voltaire's thrust into the midst of an ode of Pindar's. From causes the same or similar, Horace's love-poetry has been accused of want of deep feeling, and compared in this respect, disadvantageous^, to the few extant fragments of Sappho. But here it may be observed, that in the whole character of Horace there is one marked idiosyncrasy which influences the general expression of his art. Like many men of our day, who unite to familiar intercourse with fashionable and worldly society an inherent sincerity and a dread of all charlatanic pretences, Horace is even over-studious not to claim any false credit for himself — not to pretend to any- thing which may not be considered justly his due; he will * Some critics have indeed proposed to omit these digressive verses altogether, and consider them an impertinent interpolation by an inferior hand. But this is an audacity of assumption forbidden by the authority of manuscripts, and justly denounced by the editors and critics whose opinions on such a subject Horatian students regard as decisive. INTRODUCTION. xxxiii not pretend to be better born or richer, wiser or more con- sistent, or of a severer temper than he is. In his Satires and Epistles he even goes out of his way to tell us of his faults. In his Odes themselves — with all his intense and candidly uttered convictions of their immortality — he is perpetually throwing in some modest reference to the light and trivial themes to which his lyre and his genius are best suited. A man of this character, and with a very keen susceptibility to ridicule, would perhaps shun the expression of any feeling in love much deeper in its sentiment, or much more devoted in its passion, than would find sympathy with the men of the world for whom he principally wrote. If he ever did com- pose love-poems so earnest and glowing, I think it doubtful whether he would have prevailed on himself to publish them. To a poet who so consistently seeks to inculcate moderation in every passion and desire, there would have seemed some- thing not only inconsistent with his general repute as writer, but perhaps something offensive to his own sense of shame and the manliness of his nature, in that passionate devotion to the chanTis of a Cynthia to which Propertius refers the source of his inspiration and his loftiest pretension to the immortality of renown. And Horace is so far right, both as man and as artist, in the mode in which he celebrates the smiling goddess round whom hovers Mirth as well as Cupid j that, as man, one really would respect him less if any of those young ladies, who seem to have been too large-hearted to confine their affection to a single adorer, had inspired him with one of those rare passions which influence an entire existence. We should feel as much shame as compassion for any wise friend of ours whom Venus linked lastingly in her brazen yoke to a Lydia or a Pyrrha. And as an artist, Horace appears so far right in his mode of dealing with erotic subjects, that, despite all this alleged want of deep feehng and passionate devotion, Horace's love-poetry is still the most popular in the world — the most imitated, the most XXXIV THE ODES OF HORACE. quoted, the most remembered. The reason, perhaps, is, that most men have loved up to the extent that Horace admits the passion, and very few men have loved much beyond that limit. Notwithstanding the amazing pains taken by grave pro- fessors and erudite divines to ascertain the history of Horace's love-affairs — to tell us who and what those young beauties were — whom he loved first and whom he loved last — how many of them are to be reduced to a. select few, one being sung under different names lending their syllables to the same metrical convenience, so that Cinara, Lalage, Lydia, are one and the same person, &c. — the question remains in- soluble. Some scholars have had even the cold-blooded audacity to assert that, w4th the single exception of Cinara, and some strange sort of entanglement with the terrible sorceress to whom he gives the name of Canidia, all these Horatian beauties are myths and figments — as purely dreams as those out of the ivory gate — many of them, no doubt, translations, more or less free, from the Greek. The safest conjecture here, as in most cases of disputed judgment, lies between extremes. It is probable enough that a man like Horace — a man of wit and pleasure — thrown early into gay society, and of a very affectionate nature, as is evinced by the warmth of his friendships — should have been pretty often in what is com- monly called " love " during, say, thirty-nine years out of the fifty-seven in which he led a bachelor's life. And as few poets ever have been more subjective than Horace — ever received the aspect of life more decidedly through the medium of their own personal impressions — or more re- garded poetry as the vehicle of utterance for their opinions and doctrines, their likings and dislikings, their joys and their sorrows — so it may be reasonably presumed that in many of his love-verses he expresses or symbolises his own genuine state of feehng. Nor if in some of these there be detected INTRODUCTION. XXXV imitations from the Greek, does such imitation suffice to prove that the person addressed was imaginary, and the feehng uttered insincere? Nothing is more common among poets than the adaptation of ideas found elsewhere to their own individual circumstances and self-confessions. When Pope paraphrases Horace where Horace most exclu- sively personates himself, Pope still so paraphrases that the lines personate Pope and not Horace ; and one would know very little of the subjective character of Pope's mind and genius who could assert that he did not utter his own gen- uine feelings in describing, for instance, his early life and his early friendships, because the description was imitated from a Latin author. On the other hand, it is impossible to distinguish with any certainty what really does thus illustrate the actual ex- istence of Horace, and does utter the sounds of his own heart, from the purely objective essays of his genius (for, like all poets who have the dramatic faculty strongly developed, he is objective as well as subjective), and were the sportive exercises of art, and the airy embodiments of fancy. It is safest here to leave an acute reader to his own judgment ; and it is one of those matters in which acute readers will perhaps differ the most. Among the faults of Horace may also be mentioned his marked tendency to self- repetition, and especially to the repetition of what one of his most admirable but least en- thusiastic editors bluntly calls his "commonplaces:" viz., the shortness of life ; the wisdom of seizing the present hour ; the folly of anxious research into an unknown future ; the vanity of riches and of restless ambition ; the happiness of a golden mediocrity in fortune, and an equable mind in the vicissitudes of life. But these iterations of ideas, con- stituting the body of his ethics, if faulty — inasmuch as the ultima linea of his range may therein be too sharply defined — are the inseparable consequence of the most beautiful quali- XXXVl THE ODES OF HORACE. ties of his genius. They mark the consistent unity and the sincere convictions of the man — they show how much his favourite precepts are part and parcel of his whole mxOral and intellectual organisation. Whether conversing in his Satires, philosophising in his Epistles, giving free play to invention in his Odes — still he cannot help uttering and reuttering ideas the combination of which constitutes him- self. And as the general effect of these ideas is sooth- ing, so their prevalence in his verse has a charm of repose similar to the prevalence of green in the tints of nature : we greet the constant recurrence of the soft familiar colour wdth a sensation of pleasure even in its quiet monotony. Perhaps in most ™ters who have in a pre-eminent de- gree the gift of charm, there is, indeed, a certain fondness for some peculiar train of thought, the repetition of which gains in them the attraction of association. We should be disappointed, in reading such writers, if we did not find the ideas which characterise them, and for which we have learned to seek and to love them, coming up again and again like a refrain in music. It is so with some of our own poets — Goldsmith, Cowper, and Byron — who, alike in nothing else, are alike in the frequent recurrence of the ideas which constitute the characteristic colourings of their genius, and who, in that recurrence, deepen their spell over their readers. I believe, then, that the attributes thus imperfectly stated are among the principal constituent elements of Horace's indisputable charm, and of a popularity among men of various minds, which extends over a wdder circle than perhaps any other ancient poet commands^ Homer alone excepted. It is a popularity not diminished by the limits imposed on the admiration that accompanies it. Even those critics who deny him certain of the higher qualities of a lyrical poet, do not love him less cordially on account of the other qualities which they are pleased to accord to INTRODUCTION. XXXVll him. It is commonly enough said that, either from his own deficiencies or those of the Latin language, he falls far short of the Greek lyrical poets in fire, in passion, in elevation of style, in varied melodies of versification. Granted : but judg- ing by the scanty remains of those poets which time has spared, we find evidence of no one, — unless it be Alcaeus, and conjecturing what his genius might have been as a whole less by the fragments it has left than by Horace's occasional imitations, — no one who combines so many ex- cellences, be they great or small, as even a very qualified admirer must concede to Horace ; no one who blends so large a knowledge of the practical work-day world with so delicate a fancy, and so graceful a perception of the poetic aspects of human life j no one who has the same alert quick- ness of movement " from gay to grave, from lively to severe ;" no one who unites the same manly and high-spirited enforce- ment of hardy virtues, temperance and fortitude, devotion to friends and to the native land, with so pleasurable and genial a temperament ; no one who adorns so extensive an acquaintance with metropolitan civilisation by so many lovely pictures of rural enjoyment ; or so animates the de- scription of scenery by the introduction of human groups and images, instilling, as it were, into the body of outward nature, the heart and the thought of man. So that where his genius may fail in height as compared with Pindar, or in the intensity of sensuous passion as compared with Sappho, it compensates by the breadth to which it extends its sur- vey, and over which it diffuses its light and its warmth. Of all classical authors Horace is the one who has most attracted the emulation of editors and commentators. Stu- dents, indeed, have some reason to complain of the very attempts made by learning and" ingenuity to determine his text and interpret his meaning. No sooner have they accus- xxxvill THE ODES OF HORACE. tomed themselves to one edition than a new one appears to challenge the authority they had deferred to, and disturb the reading they had accepted. Paraphrases and transla- tions are still more numerous than editions and commen- taries. There is scarcely a man of letters who has not at one time or other versified or imitated some of the odes ; and scarcely a year passes without a new translation of them all. No doubt there is a charm in the proverbial difficulty of dealing with Horace's modes of expression ; but perhaps the true cause which invites translators to encounter that difficulty has been sufficiently intimated in the preceding remarks — viz., the comprehensive range of his sympathy with human beings. He touches so many sides of char- acter, that on one side or the other he is sure to attract us all, and we seek to clothe in his words some cherished feeling or sentiment of our own. Be that as it may, an unusual degree of indulgence has by tacit consent been accorded to new translations from Horace. Readers un- acquainted with the original are disposed to welcome every fresh attempt to make the Venusian Muse express herself in familiar English ; and Horatian scholars feel an interest in examining how each succeeding translator grapples with the difficulties of interpretation which have been, as «iany of them still are, matters of conjecture and dispute to com- mentators the most erudite, and critics the most acute. May a reasonable share of such general indulgence be vouchsafed to that variety in the mode of translation of which I now propose to hazard the experiment. I have long been of opinion that the adoption of other rhymeless measures than that to which we at present con- fine the designation of blank verse would be attended with especial advantage in translations from the classical poets, and, indeed, in poems founded upon Hellenic and Roman myths, and treated in the classical character and spirit. In that beHef I began many years ago these translations from INTRODUCTION. XXXIX Horace, and more recently submitted to the public the experiment of the metres employed in the ' Lost Tales of Miletus.' I will not lengthen this preface by any definition of the general rhythmical principles upon which, in my judg- ment, lyrical measures that, taking the form of strophe or stanza, dispense with rhyme, should be invented and framed. Should any writer be tempted hereafter to repeat and im- prove on my experiments, he will easily detect the laws I have laid down for myself, and adopt, modify, or reject them, according to his own idiosyncrasies of ear and taste. So far as these translations are concerned, it will be seen that I have shunned any attempt to transfer to our own language the exact form of the original metres. I have rather sought to construct measures in accordance with the character of English prosody, akin to the prevalent spirit of the original, and of compass sufiicient to allow a general adherence to the rule of translating line by line, or at least strophe by strophe, without needless amplification on the one hand, or harsh contraction on the other. With regard to the rhythmical form in which a sufficient analogy with the Latin metre can be best obtained by the English, there will always be a difference of taste and opinion. My own plan, when I originally commenced these translations, was in the first instance to attempt a close imitation of the ancient measure, the scansion being of course (as in English or German hexameters and pen- tameters) by accent, not quantity — and then to make such modifications of flow and cadence as seemed to me best to harmonise the rhythm to the English ear, while preserving as much as possible that which has been called '' the type " of the original. But as there are more ways than one by which such modifications may attain the objects required, so it soon appeared to me best to vary the modifications according as the prevalent spirit of the ode demanded lively and sportive, or serious and dignified, expression. xl THE ODES OF HORACE. In the Alcaic stanza I have thus employed two different forms of rhythm ; the one, which is of more frequent recur- rence, as in Ode ix. — the other, as in Odes xxxiv.-xxxv., Book I. ; either of which admits of slight occasional variations without disturbance to the general character or ''type" of the measure. For the Sapphic metre, in which Horace has composed more odes than in any other except the Alcaic, I have avoided, save in one or two of the shorter poems, any imita- tion of the chime rendered sufficiently familiar by Canning's " Knife-grinder," not only because, in the mind of an Eng- lish reader, it is associated with a popular burlesque, but chiefly because an English imitation of the Latin rhythm, with a due observance of the trochee in the first three lines of the stanza, has in itself an unpleasant and monotonous sing-song. In my version of the Sapphic I have chiefly employed two varieties of rhythm : for the statelier odes, our own recognised blank verse in the first three lines, usually, though not always, with a dissyllabic termination ; and, in the fourth line, a metre analogous in length and cadence to the fourth line of the original, though, of course, without any attempt at preserving the Latin quantity of dactyl and spondee. In fact, as Dr Kennedy has truly observed, the spondee is not attainable in our language, except by a very forced effort of pronunciation. That which passes current as an English spondee is really a trochee. For the lighter odes of the Sapphic metre, a more sportive or tripping mea- sure is adopted. I must leave my versions of the other metres which Horace has less frequently employed to speak for them- selves. In the Latin version, placed side by side with the Eng- lish, I have generally adopted the text of Orelli. The rare instances in which I have differed from it for that of another editor are stated in the notes. For the current punctuation INTRODUCTION. xli — which in Orelli, and indeed in Macleane, is so sparse as not unfrequently to render the sense obscure to those not famiHarly intimate with it — I am largely indebted to the admirable edition of Mr Yonge. The modes of spelling pre- ferred by Ritter and Mr MuDro as more faithful transcripts of the ancient MSS., involve questions of great interest to professional scholars, but are as yet too unfamiliar to the general reader for adoption in a text especially designed for his use, and annexed to the English translation for the con- venient facilities of reference and comparison. My objects in the task I have undertaken have compelled me to add in some degree the labour of a critic to those of a translator. The introductions prefixed and the notes appended to the several odes are designed not only to serve for readers unacquainted with the original, but to bring, in a terse and convenient form, before such students of Horace as may not have toiled through the many and often conflict- ing commentaries of the best editors, the opinions of eminent authorities upon difficult or disputed questions of interpreta- tion. In my notes will be seen the extent to which I am indebted not only to Dillenburger, Orelli, Ritter, but to our own recent English editors, Macleane and Yonge — and, on certain points of controverted interpretation, to Mr Munro's erudite and valuable introduction to the beautiful edition illustrated from antique gems, by Mr King. The majority of critics concur in the doctrine that all the Odes in Horace, differing in this respect from the Epodes, consist of stanzas in four lines, as the Alcaic and Sapphic do. This opinion has been ably controverted by Ritter. Munro decfines either to affirm or deny it. But conformably to the general opinion, I have treated, and so translated, the Odes as quatrains, with four exceptions, for which I subjoin my reasons. Odes i. Book L, xxx. Book III., and viii. Book IV., are in the same metre, and the only ones that are ; but Ode viii. xlii THE ODES OF HORACE. Book IV. consists of thirty-four lines, and cannot therefore be reduced to quatrain stanzas ; and the supposition that two verses required for such subdivision have been lost — no evidence of such loss appearing in the oldest MSS. or being intimated by the early commentators — is a hazardous basis on which to rest the theory that the poem must have been originally composed in quatrain. It is also to be observed that Ode i. Book I. so little adapts itself to the division of four-line stanzas with a suitable pause, that Mr Yonge fol- lows Stallbaum in printing the first two lines as prefatory to the rest, and the last two lines as the complement of the stanza. But it is a somewhat bold proceeding, for the sake of establishing an arbitrary system, thus to cut a stanza in half, placing one half at the beginning and the other half at the end of a poem; nor does the arrangement entirely effect the object aimed at, if, as Macleane and Munro contend, a full stop should be placed at the end of the fifth line — '^nobihs." Even the remaining ode in this metre— Ode XXX. Book III. — does not readily flow into quatrain, the pause not occurring at the fourth and eighth lines, but at the fifth and ninth. I have not, therefore, in my translation, divided these three odes into stanzas. Lastly, I have followed Dillenburger, Orelli, Macleane, Munro, in the arrangement of Ode xii. Book III. as a stanza of three lines, instead of adopting the quatrain arrangement of Kirchner, to be found in the excursus of Orelli, and favoured by Mr Yonge. The Secular Hymn I have printed in its proper chronolo- gical place, between Books III. and IV. I concur in the reasons which have led recent editors to reject the headings to the Latin version, which are found in the MSS. ; but I have given headings to the translation, for the convenience of reference which they afford to English readers. It remains for me only gratefully to acknowledge my INTRODUCTION. xliii obligations to the distinguished scholars who have permitted me to consult them in the course of this translation. Many years ago I submitted the earliest specimens of my attempts to my valued friend Dr Kennedy. His encouragement induced me to proceed with my undertaking, while his' advice and suggestions enabled me materially to improve it. With no less liberal a kindness another friend, the Rev. F. W. Farrar, has permitted me to encroach on his time, and profit by his taste and his learning. Much more could I say in gratitude, as to the services so generously rendered me by these eminent scholars, were it not for the fear that I might seem in so doing to shelter my defects and shortcomings under the authority of their names. It is enough for me to acknowledge that to them must be largely ascribed any merit which may be accorded to my labours, and that without their aid my faults would have been much more numerous and grave. Whatever else may be said of the work that I now dis- miss to its fate, let me hope that it will be at least con- sidered, by those best competent to judge, a conscientious and painstaking endeavour to give as faithful an interpreta- tion of the original as the difference of language will permit. This preliminary Introduction, with slight alterations, and a few specimens of the Translation, first appeared in ' Black- wood's Magazine' for April, May, July, and August 1868. THE ODES BOOK I.— ODE I. DEDICATORY ODE TO M^CENAS. It is doubtful whether this ode was composed as a dedi- catory preface to the first three books, or only to Book I. : the former supposition is more generally favoured. The poet condenses a rapid survey of the various objects of desire and ambition, commencing with the competition of the Olympic games, and passing from that reference to the Greeks, to the pursuits of his own countrymen in the emula- tion for power, the acquisition of riches, and so on, through the occupations and tastes of mankind in that busy world from which, at the close, he intimates that he himself is set apart. The punctuation and construction of the fifth and sixth lines of the ode have been a matter of much dispute. Maclean e, sanctioned by Mr George Long — and Munro, sup- ported "by the emphatic advocacy of Dr Kennedy" — adopt the reading which puts an end to the sentence at " nobilis," and joins on "Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos " to what follows. By this reading, the lords of earth, or masters of the world, are neither (according to Orelli and most modern com- mentators) taken in apposition with " Deos," as in Ovid, Ep. ex Ponto, i. 9, 35, sq.— " Nam tua non alio coluit penetralia ritu Terrarum dominos quam colis ipse Deos ; " nor, according to elder commentators, approved by Ritter, is the term applied to regal or lordly competitors in the Greek games, such as Gelo, Hiero, &c. "Terrarum dominos" 4 THE ODES OF HORACE. Macleane understands to signify, with a tinge of irony, the Romans, styled by Virgil, ^n. i. 282, and Martial, xiv. 123, "Eomanos rerum dominos." Fortified in my own judg- ment by authorities of such eminence, I accept this inter- pretation. From these lords of earth Horace immediately passes on to select representatives of the two great orders of proprietors — the senatorial and the equestrian : a mem- ber of the first placing his happiness in the pursuit of the highest honours; a member of the second, which com- prised in its ranks the chiefs of commercial enterprise, in the success of gigantic speculations. "According to the usual punctuation," says Munro, *' verses 7-10 appear to me to have no construction at all; with mine, all is plain, ... In ancient Rome, too, as in Sprung from a race which mounts to kings, Maecenas, Shield and sweet ornament of life to me ; There are whose sovereign joy is dust Olympic Gathered in whirlwind '"^ by the car; the goal Shunned by hot wheels ; and the palm's noble trophy. — Up to the gods it bears the lords of earth, One — if the mob of Rome's electors fickle Through triple honours to exalt him vie ; One — if he harvest, stored in his own garner, Whate'er from Libyan threshing-floors is fanned. Treasures Attalict could not tempt the rustic, Delving with ready hoe paternal glebes, On seas Myrtoan, an affrighted sailor. To indent a furrow with the Cyprian keel. * " Collegisse juvat" To have gathered together or collected the scattered atoms of dust into a whirlwind — "pulvis collectus turbine," Sat. I. iv. 31. t A proverbial phrase for great riches. The rustic here meant is the small peasant proprietor, like those cultivators by spade-labour now so common in France. The "sarculum " was a lighter tool than a spade BOOK I. — ODE I. 5 in modem England, high office and vast wealth, more than aught else, raised men to the sky." For the three odes in this measure I have employed in translation a metre consisting of our ordinary form of blank verse converted into a couplet by alternate terminations in a dissyllable and monosyllable ; and though that is a very simple, and may seem at first a very slight, modification of a famihar rhythm, it will be found to constitute, in the regular recurrence of alternated terminals, a marked difference from the chime of our epic line, and is yet equally in unison with the laws of our prosody. I have adopted the same metre in my version of the more important epodes, and in a few of the other odes. Carm. I. Maecenas atavis edite regibus O et praesidium et dulce decus meum. Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum Collegisse juvat,"^ metaque fervidis Evifata rotis, palmaque nobilis. Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deos, Hunc, si mobilium turba Quiritium Certat tergeminis tollere honoribus ; Ilium, si proprio condidit horreo Quidquid de Libycis verritur areis. Gaudentem patrios findere sarculo Agros, Attalicist condicionibus Nunquam dimoveas, ut trabe Cypria Myrtoum pavidus nauta secet mare. or mattock (with which Forcellini observes that Horace here con- founds it by synecdoche), and was used as a hoe for digging up weeds. The author of the article on "Agriculture" in Smith's 'Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities' says that " it was an implement by which, after covering up the seed, the husbandman loosened the roots of the young blades in order that air and moisture might gain free access." THE ODES O^ HORACE. Seized by dismay, when with Icarian billows Wrestle the blasts of stormy Africus, The merchant sighs for ease and modest homestead Nestled in fields beside his native town ; Soon he refits his shattered barks ; contentment With humble means'^ is lore he cannot learn. Lo, one who scorns not beakers of old Massic, Nor lazy hours cut from the solid day, Now with limbs stretched beneath the verdant arbute, Now by soft well-head of nymph-hallowed streams. Camps delight many; clarion shrill, deep trumpet . Commingling stormy melodies ; and war, Hateful to mothers. His young bride forgetting, In wintry air the hunter stands at watch. If starts the deer in sight of his stanch beagles, Or bursts through close-knit toils the Marsian boar. Me, prize of learned brows, the wreathen ivy, Associates with the gods ; me woodlands cool And the light dance of nymphs with choral satyrs, Set from the many and their world apart ; If with no checked and hesitating utterance Euterpe lends her breath unto her flutes ; And for my touch the harp-strings heard in Lesbos If Polyhymnia scorns not to retune. But amid lyric bards if thou enrol me. With crest uplifted I shall strike the stars. *" "Indocilis pauperiem pati. " " Pauperies " does not here mean what is commonly understood by poverty, but, as Macleane expresses it, " a humble estate. " Macleane, indeed, states "that 'pauperies,' 'pau- pertas,' 'pauper,' are never by Horace taken to signify privation, or anything beyond a humble estate." This assertion is, however, too sweeping. In the lines (Epod. xvii. 47, 48), " Neque in sepulcris pauperum prudens anus Novendiales disslpare pulveres," " pauper" clearly means a person of the very poorest class. May not BOOK L — ODE I. Liictantem Icariis fluctibus Africum Mercator metuens, otium et oppidi Laudat rura sui ; mox reficit rates Quassas, indocilis pauperiem'pati.* Est qui nee veteris pocula Massici, Nee partem solido demere de die Spernit, nunc viridi membra sub arbuto Stratus, nunc ad aquge lene caput sacrae. Multos castra juvant, et lituo tubae Permixtus sonitus, bellaque matribus Detestata. Manet sub Jove frigido Venator, tenerae conjugis immemor, Seu visa est catulis cerva fidelibus, Seu rupit teretes Marsus aper plagas. Me doctarum hederse praemia frontium Dis miscent superis ; me gelidum nemus Nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori Secernunt populo, si neque tibias Euterpe cohibet, nee Polyhymnia Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton. Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseres, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice. the same be said of "Pauperum tabernas" in contradistinction to "Re- gum turres"? Lib. I. Od. iv. 13, 14. The words "pauper," "pau- peries," "paupertas," have, indeed, some of the elastic sense of our own Poor Man, or Poverty, which may imply only comparatively re- stricted means, or sometimes absolute want. The English language has expressions denoting the gradations of stinted circumstances cor- respondent to those in the Latin. The English has poverty, penury, destitution : the Latin, paupertas, inopia, egestas. So also the Greek language has irevia, honourable poverty ; TTTcoxem, discreditable poverty ; ^udeia, destitution. 8 THE ODES OF HORACE. Excursus. " Me doctarum hederse praemia frontium," Wolff, Hare, Tate, and some other commentators, would substitute " Te " for " Me " — applying the line to Maecenas, " Thee the ivy — the prize of learned brows — associates with gods above ; Me the cool woods, &c., set apart from the com- mon crowd." This reading is rejected by the highest critical authorities, including Orelli and Macleane ; but it appears in itself entitled to more respect than is shown by the latter. For there is some force in the remark, that in referring to the various tastes and characteristics of men, Horace would scarcely avoid all complimentary reference to Maecenas him- self; and there is yet more force in another remark that, if Horace says that the ivy wreath associates him with the higher or celestial gods, there is a certain bathos, if not con- tradiction, in immediately afterwards saying that his tastes associate him with the inferior or terrestrial deities — /. e., nymphs and satyrs. It is said in vindication of ^' Me " in- stead of " Te," that " doctus " is a word very appropriate to poets; that the ivy, sacred to Bacchus, was the fit and usual garland for a lyric poet ; and that Horace could never stoop to the absurd flattery of insinuating that Maecenas was a greater poet than himself But, in answer to all this, it may be urged that Horace elsewhere especially applies the word " doctus " to Maecenas ; in Lib. III. Od. viii. line 4, — '* Docte sermones utriusque linguae ; " and again, more emphatically, Epist. xix, line i, — "Prisco si credis, Maecenas docte, Cratino." And though the ivy was appropriate to poets, it was not appropriate to poets alone. Horace (Lib. I. Epist. iii., addressed to Julius Florus) speaks of it as the reward of BOOK I.— ODE I. 9 excellence in forensic eloquence or jurisprudence as well as of song : — " Seu linguam causis acuis seu civica jura, Respondere paras seu condis amabile carmen, Prima feres hedercz yxoXxizxi, prceniia.^'' And if the ivy crown may be won by pleading causes or giving advice to clients, it can be no inappropriate reward to the brows of a statesman so accomplished as Maecenas. Thus, I think, there is much to be said in favour of the construction — "Thee, Maecenas, the ivy wreath — prize of learned or skilled brows — associates with the higher gods {i. e., with those who watch over states and empires) ; me, the love of rural leisure and the dreams that it begets set apart from the crowd." On the other side, Ritter has the best vindication I have seen of the alleged contradiction or bathos in the Poet's boasted association, first, with the higher gods, and next, with the inferior deities. According to him, Horace is speaking of two kinds of lyric poetry — the lofty and the sportive. The first, symbolised by the ivy, associ- ates him with gods in heaven ; the second, connecting him with the pastimes of nymphs and satyrs, separates him from the popular pursuits of men. For the first, he trusts to the aid of Polyhymnia, presiding over the Lesbian lyre (of Alcaeus) j for the second, to the livelier inspiration of Euterpe. 10 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE 11. TO CESAR. The exact date of this ode has been matter of controversy, but most recent authorities concur in assigning it to about A.U.C. 725, after the taking of Alexandria, and at the height of Augustus's popularity on his return to Rome.. Ritter argues strongly in favour of the later date, a.u.c. 732. The prodigies described in the earlier verses are those which fol- lowed the death of Julius Caesar, a.u.c. 710, and Horace therefore, at the opening of the poem, transports himself in imagination to that time. — See OrelH's excursus, Macleane's introduction, and Ritter's prooemium. On the merit of the ode itself opinion differs. By some it is highly praised for its imagery, the delicacy with which it flatters Augustus, and the humane art with which it insinuates that his noblest, revenge for Now of dire hail and snow enough the Sire Has launched on earth, and with a red right hand Smiting the sacred Capitolian heights * Startled the City, Startled the nations, lest the awful age Of Pyrrha, wailing portents new, return, When Proteus up to visit mountain-peaks Drove his whole sea-flock, When fishes meshed in topmost boughs of elms Floundered amidst the doves' familiar haunts, And deer, through plains t above the old plains heapen, Swam panic-stricken. * " Sacras — arces," the sacred buildings on the Capitoline Hill. . t "Et superjecto pavidae natarunt ^quore damas." '*^quor" is a plain or level surface, whether of land or sea. The former appears to have been its original and simple meaning, though the BOOK I.— ODE 11. II for his uncle's murder is in becoming the protector and father of his people. Against this praise it may be said, not without reason, that the poem has blemishes of a kind from which Horace is free in odes of similar importance ; that there is something forced and artificial in the kind of humour admitted into the description of Pyrrha's flood ; that the idea of the uxorious River bursting his banks out of complaisance to the complaints of his wife is little better than a frigid conceit; and that the " extravaganza " contained in the transfiguration of Mercury into the earthly form of Augustus, fails in that man- liness of genuine enthusiasm with which Horace celebrates Augustus in Odes B. III. and IV. Whatever weight may be attached to these objections, they suffice to render the ode one of the most difficult to translate so as to impress an English reader with some sense of the beauties ascribed to it by its admirers. . Carm. II. Jam satis terris nivis atque dirse Grandinis misit Pater, et rubente Dextera sacras jaculatus arces,'' Terruit Urbem, Terruit gentes, grave ne rediret Sseculum PyiThae, nova monstra questae, Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos Visere montes, Piscium et summa genus haesit ulmo, Nota quae sedes fuerat columbis, Et superjecto pavidas natarunt ^quoret damae. poets applied it afterwards to the latter (Cicero, Acad. 2). Though the word here implies "water," the point w^ould be lost in so translating it. There would be no prodigy in deer swimming through water — the prodigy is in their swimming through plains cast over those on which they had been accustomed to range. 12 THE ODES OF HORACE. We have seen the tawny Tiber, with fierce waves i Wrenched violent back from vents in Tuscan seas, \ March on to Numa's hall and Vesta's shrine,"' ' Menacing downfall ; Vaunting himself the avenger of the wrong By Ilia too importunately urged. The uxorious River leftward burst his banks, Braving Jove's anger. t ' Thinned by parental crime, the younger race Shall hear how citizens made sharp the steel By which should rather have been slain the Mede : \ Hear — of what battles ! Who is the god this people shall invoke ' To save a realm that rushes to its fall ? \ By what new prayer shall sacred virgins tire j Vesta to hearken ? \ To whom shall Jove assign the part of guilt's j Blest expiator? Come, at last, we pray, j With shoulder brightening through the stole of cloud, j Augur Apollo ! j Or com'st thou rather, Eryx^ laughing queen. Ringed by the hovering play of Mirth and Love ; \ Or satiate with, alas, too lengthened sport, | Thou, Parent War-god, i * The palace of Numa adjoined the temple of Vesta at the foot of Mount Palatme. Fea says that the Church of Sta Maria Liberatrice occupies this site. + Ilia, mother of Romulus, was, according to legend, thrown into the Tiber by Amulius — hence the fable that she became wife to the god of that river. She complains to her husband of the murder of Julius Csesar, to whom she claims affinity. The special reason for Jove's displeasure BOOK I. — ODE II. 13 Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis Litore Etmsco violenter undis, Ire dejectum monumenta Regis Templaque Vestae.''^ Iliae dum se nimium querenti Jactat ultorem, vagus et sinistra Labitur ripa, Jove non probante, u- xorius amnis.t Audiet cives acuisse ferrum, Quo graves Persse melius perirent ; / Audiet pugnas, vitia-^>a*©etOTir" / Rara, juventus. / Quem vocet Divum populus ruentis Imperi rebus ? prece qua fatigent Virgines sanctae minus audientem Carmina Vestam ? Cui dabit partes scelus expiandi Juppiter ? Tandem venias precamur, Nube candentes humeros amictus, Augur Apollo ; Sive tu mavis, Erycina ridens, Quam Jocus circum volat et Cupido ; Sive neglectum genus et nepotes Respicis, auctor, at the river-god's incursion on the left bank is variously conjectured : it may be either that on that side he threatened the temple of Jove him- self, or that Jove, as supreme guardian of all temples and of Rome itself, resented the outbreak as an offence to himself, or, as Macleane interprets it, " He disapproved the presumption of the river-god, be- cause he had reserved the task of expiation for other hands and happier 14 THE ODES OF HORACE. Joying in battle- clang and glancing helms And the grim aspect of the horseless Moor,* Fixing his death-scowl on the gory foe. Come, if regarding Thine own neglected race, thine offspring, come ! Or thou, mild Maia's winged son, transformed To mortal youth,t submitting to be called Caesar's avenger ; Stay thy return to heaven : long tarry here Well pleased to be this Roman people's guest, Nor with our vices wroth, untimely soar, ^ Rapt by the whirlwind. Here rather in grand triumphs take glad rites. Here love the name of Father and of Prince, No more unpunished let the Parthian ride. Thou our chief — Caesar. J * All recent editors have "Mauri peditis." Munro, though retain- ing that reading in his text, is " not convinced that ' Marsi peditis ' is not far finer and more appropriate." + Mercury in the form of Augustus. Orelli dryly observes that Augustus w^as forty years old at the date vv^hen he is here called "juvenem." No doubt "juvenis" and " adolescens" were v^^ords descriptive of any age between "pueritia" and " senectus," and Cicero called himself "adoles- cens" at the age of forty-four, when he crushed the conspiracy of Cati- line ; but still a ' 'juvenis" of forty, or even of thirty years old, would have little resemblance to the popular effigies of the smooth-faced son of Maia (Mercury) ; and considering the whole space of time which this poem reviews and condenses, starting from the death of Julius Ccesar, is it not probable that Horace here applies the word "juvenis" to August- us in reference to the age in which he first announced himself as *' Csesaris ultor " (Caesar's avenger), and in order to achieve that name and fulfil that object descended from his celestial rank as Mercury, or (to define more clearly the mythical functions of Mercury) as the direct messenger from Jove to man ? Augustus, then, was a youth in every sense of the word. In fact he was barely twenty when he declared it to be his resolve and his mission to avenge the death of his uncle. At that age, judging BOOK I. — ODE II. 15 Heu ! nimis longo satiate ludo, Quem juvat clamor galeseque leves, Acer et Mauri peditis"^ cruentum Voltus in hostem ; Sive mutatat juvenem figura Ales in terris imitaris, alm^ Filius Maiae, patiens vocari Caesaris ultor : Serus in caelum redeas, diuque Lastus intersis populo Quirini, Neve te nostris vitiis iniquum Ocior aura Tollat ; hie magnos potius triumphos, Hie ames dici Pater atque Princeps, Neu sinas Medos equitare inultos, Te duce, Caesar. J by his effigies in gems, the resemblance of the young Octavius to the face of Mercury in the statues is sufficiently striking to have created general remark, and to save from extravagant flattery the lines in the ode. For of the two faces that of the young Octavius is of a higher and more godlike type of beauty than appears in any extant statue of Mercury. X " The way in which he introduces the name of Csesar unexpectedly at the end, has always appeared to me an instance of consummate art." — Macleane. 1 6 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE III. ON VIRGIL'S VOYAGE TO ATHENS. There is a well-known dispute as to the date and the occasion of this ode, and it has been even called in ques- tion whether the Virgil addressed were the poet. It is, no doubt, difficult to reconcile the received chronology of the publication of the first three books of Odes with the sup- position So may the goddess who rules over Cyprus, So may the brothers of Helen, bright stars, So may the Father of Winds, while he fetters All, save lapyx, the Breeze of the West, Speed thee, O Ship, as I pray thee to render * Virgil, a debt duly lent to thy charge. Whole and intact on the Attican borders, Faithfully guarding the half of my soul. Oak and brass triple encircled his bosom. Who first to fierce ocean consigned a frail raft, Fearing not Africus, when, in wild battle, Headlong he charges the blasts of the North ; Fearing no gloom in the face of the Hyads ; Fearing no rage of mad Notus, than whom. Never a despot more absolute wieldeth Hadria, to rouse her or lull at his will. * I side with Dillenburger, Ritter, Munro, and Macleane in rejecting the punctuation of Orelli, who places a comma before " precor," putting the word in parenthesis, for the reason thus ably stated in the following note, for which I am indebted to a friend, than whom there is no higher authority in critical scholarship : ' * It is not commonly observed, but BOOK L— ODE III. 17 position that this ode was addressed to Virgil the poet, on the occasion of the voyage to Athens, from which he only returned to die : but there is no reason why Virgil should not have made or contemplated such a voyage before the last one; and Macleane, here agreeing with Dillenburger, is "inclined to think such must have been the case." — See his introduction to this ode. Carm. III. Sic te Diva potens Cypri, Sic fratres Helenae, lucida sidera, Ventorumque regat pater Obstrictis aliis praeter lapyga, Navis, quae tibi creditum Debes Virgilium finibus Atticis Reddas incolumem precor,"' Et serves animae dimidium me^. lUi robur et aes triplex Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem tnici Commisit pelago rat em Primus, nee timuit praecipitem Africum Decertantem Aquilonibus, Nee tristes Hyadas, nee rabiem Noti, Quo non arbiter Hadri^e Major, toUere seu ponere vult freta. certainly true, that the 2d pars. pres. subj. (reddas), is never used as a mere imperative, = 'redde.' It may be used /r(?(:«/zz/^/;/ in addressing a deity, a superior (or in politeness), as * serves ' in Ode xxxv. 1. 29. Where it is used with ' precor,' the verb is not in parenthesis, but dis- tinctly governs 'reddas,' ' I pray you to render.' There should there- fore be no comma between them ; and this view shows * precor ' to be the true apodosis of the passage." B < 1 8 THE ODES OF HORACE. j What the approach by which Death could have daunted Him who with eyelids unmoistened beheld | Monster forms gliding and mountain waves swelling, \ And the grim Thunder-Crags dismally famed? j Vainly by wastes of dissociable ocean Providence severed the lands from the lands ■ If the plains not to be touched by our footfall : Be, yet, profanely o'er-leapt by our rafts. j Rushes man's race through the evils forbidden. Lawlessly bold to brave all things and bear : Lawlessly bold did the son of the Titan Bring to the nations fire won through a fraud. Fire stolen thus from the Dome Empyrean, Meagre Decay swooped at once on the earth. Leagued with a new-levied army of fevers — Death, until then the slow-comer, far-off, Hurried his stride, and stood facing his victim ; Daedalus, upward, the void realms of air Sounded on wings that to man are not given ; Down, burst the labour Herculean through hell. Nought is too high for the daring of mortals ; Heaven's very self in our folly we storm. Never is Jove, through our guilty aspiring. Suffered to lay down the bolt we provoke. BOOK I. — ODE III. 19 Quern Mortis tirnuit gradum, Qui siccis oculis monstra natantia, Qui vidit mare turgidum et Infames scopulos Acroceraunia ? Nequicquam Deus abscidit Prudens Oceano dissociabili Terras, si tamen impias Xon tangenda rates transiliunt vada. Audax omnia perpeti Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas : Audax lapeti genus Ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit. Post ignem setheria domo Subductum, Macies et nova Febriura Terris incubuit cohors, Semotique prius tarda necessitas Leti corripuit gradum. Expertus vacuum D^dalus aera Pennis non homini datis ; Perrupit Acheronta Herculeus labor. Nil mortalibus ardui est ; Caelum ipsum petimus stultitia, neque Per nostrum patimur scelus Iracunda Jovem ponere fulmina. 20 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE IV. TO LUCIUS SESTIUS. The Lucius Sestius here addressed was the son of the Sestius or Sextius defended by Cicero in an oration still extant. Keen winter melts in glad return of spring and soft Favonius ; And the dry keels the rollers seaward draw ; No more the pens allure the flock, no more the hearth the ploughman ; Nor glint the meadows white with rime-frost hoar — Beneath the overhanging moon, now Venus leads her dances, And comely Graces, linked with jocund Nymphs, Shake with alternate foot the earth, while ardent Vulcan kindles The awful forge in which the Cyclops toils. '"^ Now well becomes anointed brows to wreathe with ver- dant myrtle, Or such rath flowers as swards, relaxing, free ; And well becomes the votive lamb, or kid if more it please him. Offered to Faunus amid shadowy groves. But all tliQ while, with equal step, pale Death strides on unpausing, Knocks at the lowly shed and regal tower. Long hopes commenced we must not add to life's brief sum, glad Sestius; Even now press on thee Night and mythic ghosts. And Pluto's meagre hall, which gained, the wine-king's reign is over — No more the die allots the frolic crown, t * Venus dances — Vulcan toils : i.e., in spring man reawakens both to pleasure and labour. + The Romans chose by cast of the die the symposiarch or king of the feast. BOOK L— ODE IV. 21 extant. Lucius served under Brutus in Macedonia, and after his chieftain's death continued to honour his memory and preserve his images. He did not on that account incur the displeasure of Augustus, who made him Consul Suffectus in his own place, B.C. 23. There is no other ode in this metre, which has its name (Archilochian) from Archilochus of Paros. The difference in rhythm between the first and second verse of the strophe is remarkable, and suggests the idea of being chanted by two voices in alternate lines. Carm. IV. Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni, Trahuntque siccas machinse carinas. Ac neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus, aut arator igni ; Nee prata canis albicant pruinis. Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente Luna, Junctaeque Nymphis Gratise decentes Alterno terram quatiunt pede, dum graves Cyclopum Vulcanus ardens urit officinas.* Nunc decet aut viridi nitidum caput impedire myrto, Aut flore, terrae quem ferunt solutas. Nunc et in umbrosis Fauno decet immolare lucis, Seu poscat agna, sive malit hasdo. Pallida Mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Regumque turres. O beate Sesti, Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. Jam te premet nox, fabulaeque Manes, Et domus exilis Plutonia : quo simul mearis. Nee regnavini sortiere talis t Nee tenerum Lycidan mirabere, quo calet juventus Nunc omnis, et mox virgines tepebunt. 22 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE V. TO PYRRHA. I cannot presume to attempt any rhymeless version of this ode in juxtaposition with Milton's famous translation, which I therefore annex. " Any resemblance between the metre What slender youth, bedewed with liquid odours,'^ Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,t Pyrrha ? for whom bind'st thou In wreaths thy golden hair, Plain in thy neatness ? O, how oft shall he On faith and changed gods complain, and seas Rough with black winds, and storms Unwonted shall admire ! Who now enjoys thee credulous, all gold, Who always vacant, always amiable Hopes thee, of flattering gales Unmindful. Hapless they T' whom thou untried seem'st fair ! Me, in my vowed Picture, the sacred wall declares t' have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the stern god of sea. X * The reader will observe that the first Ime is the only one in the translation which ends with a dissyllable. Whether Milton makes this variation of the rhythm he selects through oversight or intention, the reader can conjecture for himself. Probably Milton regai'ded the two first lines of each strophe simply as heroic blank verse, in which the termination by a monosyllable or dissyllable is optional. + " Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro." "Some pleasant cave" appears scarcely to give the sense of the original. "Antrum " means the grotto attached to the houses of the luxurious, and in which was placed a statue of Venus. Grottoes ai-e still in use among the richer Italians, and it is not some cave to which Horace alludes, but with a certain tenderness of re- proach to l/ie grotto in which Pyrrha had been accustomed to receive him. X " Potenti — maris deo" Milton translates "the stern god of sea,'' BOOK I. — ODE V. 23 metre he selects and that of the original depends," as Mr Conington observes, " rather on the length of the respective lines than on any similarity in the cadences," and his rhythm is perhaps somewhat too cramped to convey the lyrical spirit in lighter and livelier odes of the same measure in the ori- ginal ; — even in this translation such contractions as " T' whom thou untried seem'st fair ! Me, in my vowed Picture, the sacred wall declares t' have hung " — are not without a certain harshness. But all minor defects are amply compensated by the masterly closeness and ele- gance of the general version. The metre is ranked with the Asclepiadeans, and is repeated. Book I. 14, 21, 23 ; III. 7, 13 ; IV. 13. Carm. V. Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa ^" Perfusup liquidis urget odoribus, Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro ? + Cui flavam religas comam. Simplex munditiis ? Heu ! quoties fidem Mutatosque deos flebit, et aspera Nigris asquora ventis Emirabitur insolens, Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea ; Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem Sperat nescius aurae Fallacis. Miseri, quibus Intentata nites ! Me tabula sacer Votiva paries indicat uvida Suspendisse potenti J Vestimenta maris Deo. not observing that "potens" governs "maris" as "potens Cypri. " — Macleane. 24 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE VI. TO M. VIPSANIUS AGRIPPA. . No public man among the partisans of Augustus is more remarkable for the union of extraordinary talents with ex- traordinary fortune than the Vipsanius Agrippa to whom this ode is addressed. Sprung from a very obscure fam- ily, he might have failed in obtaining a fair career for his powers but for the accident of being a fellow-student with the young Octavius at Apollonia. He thus, at the age of twenty, became one of the most intimate associates, and one of the most influential advisers, of the future emperor of the world. While he was yet in youth he had achieved the highest distinctions, and secured the most eminent sta- tion. He had passed through the office of pr^tor and con- sul, and established, by a series of brilliant successes, the fame of a great general. As a naval commander he became yet more illustriously distinguished. He constructed the Roman navy ; defeated Sextus Pompeius, then master of the sea; commanded the fleet against M. Antony; and the victory at Actium was mainly owing to his skill. It was soon after that last victory that this ode is supposed to have been written. All the honours Augustus could confer were heaped on him ; the emperor united him to his own family, first by a marriage with his niece Marcella, subse- quently, yet more closely, by marriage with his daughter Julia. Fortune never deserted Agrippa to the close of his life at the age of fifty-one. His character seems to have been a union of qualities rarely found together, — sagacity of design, rapidity 'Tis by Varius that Song, borne on pinions Homeric, Shall exalt thy renown as the valiant and victor, Whatsoe'er the bold soldier by land or by ocean With thee for his leader achieved. BOOK I.— ODE VI. 25 rapidity of action, a brilliant genius in construction, devoted to practical purposes. When he was forming a fleet he turned the Lucrine Lake into a harbour for a school to the mariners by whom he afterwards defeated the tried sailors of Sextus Pompeius. As «dile his first care was to supply Rom^ with water, restoring the Appian, Marcian, and Anienian aqueducts, and building a new one fifteen miles long from the Tepula to Rome. With this utility of purpose he combined great magnificence in taste, adorning the city with public buildings and statues by the ablest artists he could find. All these daring and splendid qualities were accompanied by a modesty or a prudence which preserved the affection of the people and avoided all chance of exciting the jealousy of Augustus. He twice refused a trium.ph. The reader will observe with what ease Horace avoids all servility in the brief homage he delicately renders to Agrippa, and the playfulness of the concluding stanza would seem to intimate a certain familiarity of intercourse, or at all events that there was nothing in the temper of Agrippa, two years younger than himself, so austere as to be shocked by the poet's favourite subjects for song. Of the poems of Varius, to whose muse Horace refers the due celebration of Agrippa's deeds, only a few fragmentary lines have been preserved. Among these is the description of a hound, which is vigorous and striking. The fragment has been imitated by Virgil, whom he preceded as an epic poet. His tragedy of ' Thy- estes' seems to have survived in repute his epics, since Quintilian does not mention those, while he accords to 'Thyestes' the high praise of saying "that it might have stood comparison with any of the Greek dramatic master- pieces." Carm. VI. Scriberis Vario fortis et hostium Victor Maeonii carm.inis alite, Quam rem cunque ferox navibus aut equis Miles, te duce, gesserit : 26 THE ODES OF HORACE. Themes so lofty we slight ones attempt not, Agrippa, Nor the terrible wrath of unyielding Pelides, Nor the fell house of Pelops, nor seas which Ulysses, The double-tongued hero, explored. While the Muse that presides over lute-strings unwarlike, And my own sense of shame would forbid me to lessen, By the inborn defect of a genius unequal, The glories of Caesar and thee. Who can worthily sing Mars in adamant tunic. Or Merion all grim with the dust-cloud of Ilion, Or Tydides, when, thanks to the favour of Pallas, He stood forth a match for the gods ? We of feasts, we of battles, on youths rashly daring Waged by maids armed with nails too well pared for much slaughter. Sing, devoid of love's flame ; or, if somewhat it scorch us. Still wont to make light of the pain. BOOK I. — ODE VI. 27 Nos, Agrippa, neque haec dicere, nee gravem Pelidae stomachum cedere nescii, Nee cursus duplieis per mare Ulixei, Nee saevam Pelopis domum Conamur, tenues grandia : dum pudor Imbellisque lyr^ Musa potens vetat Laudes egregii Caesaris et tuas Culpa deterere ingeni. Quis Mart em tunica teetum adamantina Digne scripserit ? aut pulvere Troieo Nigrum Merionen, aut ope Palladis Tydiden superis parem ? Nos eonvivia, nos proelia virginum Sectis in juvenes unguibus acrium Cantamus, vaeui, sive quid urimur, Non praeter solitum leves. 28 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE VII. TO PLANCUS. This ode is generally supposed to be addressed to L. Munatius Plancus, than whom those versatile times did not engender a more selfish renegade or a more ungrateful traitor. Estre, loath to grant that Horace condescended to immortalise this person (who, however, contrived to make himself important to all parties, and died safe, wealthy, and honoured at least by Augustus, who even conferred upon him Other bards shall extol brilliant Rhodes, Ephesus, or Mytilene, Or, queen of two seas, stately Corinth, Embattled Thebes, famous through Bacchus, Delphi as famed through Apollo, Or Thessaly's beautiful Tempe. Some are whose sole task is to laud the city of Pallas the spotless Through the length of a measureless Epic,'"' Upon every side plucking a leaf to garland their brows with the olive; And many, in honour of Juno, Tell of Argos, the breeder of steeds, and the rich stores of Mycense ; But me more have stricken with rapture Than patient Laconia's defiles, than fertile Larissa's expanses The grot of Albunea t resounding. The Anio's precipitous rush, the woodlands and orchards of Tibur, All dewy with quick winding waters. * "Carmine perpetuo celebrare." I adopt the interpretation of Orelli, Macleane, and Yonge — a continuous poem, like an epic, culling BOOK L— ODE VII. 29 him the censorship, B.C. 27), thinks that it was some other Plancus, possibly his son, designated as Munatius, Lib. I. Ep. iii. V. 31. Horace, however, in this ode does not ascribe any virtues to the person addressed at variance with the general character of the successful renegade, and only bids him not take grief much to heart, but enjoy himself as much as he could, whether in the camp or at his villa — an admoni- tion which he was not likely to disregard. The measure of the ode takes its name from Alcman. It consists of a com- plete hexameter alternated with a verse made up of the last four feet of a hexameter. Horace only employs this metre twice again. Book I. Ode xxviii., and Epode xii. Carm. VII. Laudabunt alii claram Rhodon, aut Mytilenen, Aut Epheson, bimarisve Corinthi Moenia, vel Baccho Thebas, vel Apolline Delphos Insignes, aut Thessala Tempe. Sunt, quibus unum opus est, intactae Palladis urbem Carmine perpetuo'^ celebrare, et Undique decerptam fronti prseponere olivam. -Plurimus in Junonis honorem, Aptum dicet equis Argos ditesque Mycenas. Me nee tam patiens Lacedaemon, Nee tam Larissse percussit campus opimae, Quam domus Albunese t resonantis, Et pragceps Anio, ac Tiburni lucus et uda Mobilibus pomaria rivis. all the associations and myths connected with Athens, and fomied into a whole like Ovid's Metamorphoses. + Albunea, the Sibyl, who gave her name to a grove and fountain, and apparently to a grotto at Tibur. 30 THE ODES OF HORACE. As the white southern wind often clears clouds from a sky at its darkest, Giving birth to no rain that is lasting, So, Plancus, let those weary hours, when life seems but labour and sorrow. Be lulled to their end in the wine-cup ; Or whether camps blazing with banners hold thee, or haply hereafter The shades of thine own tranquil Tibur. When from Salamis and from his sire, Teucer was passing to exile, 'Tis said that he crowned with the poplar^ Brows first besprinkled with drops from the strength-giving boon of Lyaeus, To friends as they sorrowed thus speaking : " Go WE wheresoever a fate more kind than the heart of a parent May bear us, associates and comrades ; Despair of nought, Teucer your chief — of nought under aus- pice of Teucer, Unerring Apollo predicts us " A Salamis built on new soil, which Fame shall confound with the lost one ; t Brave friends who have borne with me often Worse things as men, let the wine chase to-day every care from the bosom. To-morrow — again the great Sea Plains." * Emblematic of courage and adventure. The poplar was consecrated to Hercules. t "Ambiguani tellure nova Salaminafuturam " — anew Salamis, which might in future be confounded with the old one. The new Salamis was in Cyprus. BOOK I. — ODE VII. 31 Albus ut obscuro deterget nubila caelo Saepe Notus, neque parturit imbres Perpetuo, sic tu sapiens finire memento Tristitiam vitaeque labores Molli, Plance, mero, seu te fulgentia signis Castra tenent, seu densa tenebit Tiburis umbra tui. ; Teucer Salamina patremque Cum fugeret, tamen uda Lyaeo Tempora populea*^ fertur vinxisse corona, Sic tristes afFatus amicos : Quo nos cunque feret melior Fortuna parente, . Ibimus, o socii comitesque. Nil desperandum Teucro duce et auspice Teucro ; Certus enim promisit Apollo, Ambiguam tellure nova Salamina futuram.t / O fortes, pejoraque passi / Mecum s^pe viri, nunc vino pellite curas 1 Cras ingens iterabimus aequor. ^ 12 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE VIII. TO LYDIA. This ode has been paraphrased by Henry Luttrell into that elegant and playful satire upon the manners of his own day, called ' Advice to Julia.' The names are clearly ficti- tious. By all the gods, Lydia, O say, I implore, Why must love hurry Sybaris into perdition ? Why to him once so patient of dust and of sun Has the Campus become so detestably sultry ? Why with those of his age rides that hero no more, Curbing mouths fresh from Gaul'^ with a bit like a wolf- fang? Why afraid yellow Tiber to touch ? W^hy the oil Of the athlete more shunned than the froth of the viper ? Why in triumph no longer displays he that arm Which in black and in blue bore the signs of his prowess ? Ah, how often by disk or by dart beyond bound Has that arm to its owner brought noble distinction ! Where lurks he concealed, as they tell us lurked once, Kept from Troy's tearful funerals, the son of sea-Thetis, Lest to Lycian hosts, slaughter, and doom, hurried off, If the habit of manhood proclaimed him Achilles ? * " Gallica nee lupatis Temperat ora frenis." Gallic mouths — horses from Gaul. These were considered very high mettled, but, when well broken-in, so serviceable in war that they were in great request in the Roman cavalry. *' Lupatis," a bit, jagged like wolves' teeth. BOOK I.— ODE VIII. 33 tious. ^Vhether the persons designated by the names existed is another matter — probably enough : their types are always existing. There is no reason for supposing the various Lydias whom Horace addresses were the same person ; every reason, judging by the internal e\'idence of the several poems, to suppose they were not. There is no other ode in this metre. Carm. VIII. Lydia, die, per omnes Te deos oro, Sybarin cur properes amando Perdere ; cur apricum Oderit campum, patiens pulveris atque solis? Cur neque militaris Inter asquales equitat, Gallica nee lupatis Temperat ora frenis }^ Cur timet flavum Tiberim tangere ? Cur olivum Sanguine viperino Cautius vitat, neque jam livida gestat armis Brachia, saepe disco, Saepe trans finem jaculo nobilis expedite? Quid latet, ut marinse Filium dicunt Thetidis sub lacrimosa Troiae Funera, ne virilis Cultus in caedem et Lycias proriperet catervas ? 34 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE IX. TO THALIARCHUS. Thaliarchus signifies in Greek "arbiter bibendi" — com- monly translated " feastmaster." Some editors, as Dillen- burger and Macleane, refusing to consider it meant to be a proper name, print " thaliarche," " O feastmaster." Orelli and Yonge, however, retain the capital T, and it is perhaps more agreeable to Horace's habit of individualising generals, and is certainly more animated in itself, to consider, with Buttmann, that the word is meant for a proper name, though of course a fictitious one, and invented to signify the official character of the person addressed. I may also add that there is no instance, I believe, in Latin authors, in which the word thaliarchus is used as a feastmaster; and that, therefore, if Horace did not mean it to be considered a pro- per See how white in the deep-fallen snow stands Soracte ! Labouring forests no longer can bear up their burden ; And the rush of the rivers is locked, Halting mute in the gripe of the frost Thaw the cold; more and more on the hearth heap the fagots — More and more bringing bounteously out, Thaliarchus, The good wine that has mellowed four years In the great Sabine two-handled jar. Leave the rest to the gods, who can strike into quiet Angry winds in their war with the turbulent waters, Till the cypress stand calm in the sky — Till there stir not a leaf on the ash. BOOK I. — ODE IX. 35 per name, it would have been unintelligible to those of his readers wl^o did not understand Greek ; and to those who did, would have appeared a pedantic affectation, which was precisely the reproach that a man of Horace's good taste and keen sense of the ridiculous would not voluntarily have incurred. The references to the manner in which Thaliar- chus may spend his day, all belong to the life of a town ; and there is no reason to suppose the scene otherwise than at Rome. Walckenaer says that the isolated and singular form of Soracte strikes the eye on quitting the city by one of the two gates to the north. Though, to judge by a fragment presented in Athenceus, the poem is more or less imitated from an ode by Alcaeus, the scene and manners are altogether Roman ; in fact, the more the fragments left of Greek poets are fairly compared with the verses in which they are imitated by Horace, the more Horace's originality in imitating becomes conspicuous. Carm. IX. Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte, nee jam sustineant onus Silvse laborantes, geluque Flumina constiterint acuto. Dissolve frigus, ligna super foco Large reponens ; atque benignius Deprome quadrimum Sabina, O Thaliarche, merum diota. Permitte divis cetera, qui simul Stravere ventos aequore ferv'ido Deproeliantes, nee cupressi Nee veteres agitantur omi. 36 THE ODES OF HORACE. Shun to seek what is hid in the womb of the morrow ; Count the lot of each day as clear gain in life's ledger ; Spurn not thou, who art young, dulcet loves ; Spurn not, thou, choral dances and song While the hoar-frost morose keeps aloof from thy verdure. Thine the sports of the Campus,"^ the gay public gardens ; Thine at twilight the words whispered low ; Each in turn has its own happy hour : And thine the sweet laugh of the girl — which betrays her Hiding slyly within the dim nook of the threshold. And the love-token snatched from the wrist, Or the finger's not obstinate hold. * " Campus et areae " — the Campus Martius, in which, in the forenoon, athletic sports were practised, and the public promenades (arese) in dif- ferent parts of the city, and especially round the temples, which were the resort of loungers in the afternoon. Orelli thus gi'acefully elucidates the concluding verse. "The scene," he says, "is this : the lover goes at the appointed hour to the door of his mistress, which stands ajar ; he calls upon her with low whispers : the girl keeps silence, having play- fully hid herself behind the threshold, until at last she betrays herself by her laugh. The lover then rushes in, and carries off as a love-pledge her bracelet or ring, after a struggle on her part not too pertinaciously coy," BOOK I. — ODE IX. 37 ] Quid sit futunim eras, fuge quserere, et Quern Fors dierum cunque dabit, lucro Appone, nee dulees araores Sperne, puer, neque tu choreas, Donee virenti canities abest Morosa. Nunc et campus et areae,'^ Lenesque sub noctem susurri Composita repetantur hora ; Nunc et latentis proditor intimo Gratus puellae risus ab angulo, Pignusque dereptum lacertis Aut digito male pertinaci. 38 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE X. TO MERCURY. The scholiast Porphyrion says this ode was taken from Alcaeus, who, he asserts, and Pausanias confirms it, invented the story about Apollo's cows or oxen. The story is cele- brated Mercury, thou eloquent grandson of Atlas, Who didst the rude manners of earth's early races First mould into form, both by graceful Palaestra/^ And by skilled language — Of thee will I sing, to great Jove and Olympus Tight herald ; — sing thee of wreathed lute the inventor, So cunning to hide whatsoe'er the whim took thee Gaily to pilfer. When Phoebus in wrath sought to frighten thy childhood If thou didst not restore the kine tricksomely stolen, While threatening his shafts he was robbed of his quiver ; Laughed out Apollo ! * No English paraphrase can adequately render Palaestra, which was especially attributed to the invention of Hermes. It appears to have been originally distinct from the gymnasia, and appropriated chiefly to the training of the athletse in wrestling and the Pancratium. When towards the decline of the Republic the Romans imitated the Greeks in these and other less manly customs, they attached to their villas places for exercise called indiscriminately Gymnasia or Palaestrae. The meaning of the stanza is that Mercury taught the early races how to discipline body by skilled exercise, and express thought by cultivated language ; and I agree with Orelli in construing " voce " thus, and not as song or music, which is rather the gift of Apollo. BOOK I. — ODE X. 39 brated in the Homeric hymn to Hermes, as well as the invention of the lyre by stringing a tortoise-shell, at whatever date that hymn was written. Horace always ascribes to Mer- cury the characteristics of the Greek Hermes, with whom the Mercurius of the Latins had little in common. Carm. X. Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis, Qui feros cultus hominum recentum Voce formasti catus, et decorae More palaestrae,* Te canam, magni Jovis et Deorum Nuntium, curv^que lyrae parentem ; Callidum, quiquid placuit, jocoso Condere furto. Te, boves olim nisi reddidisses Per dolum amotas, puemm minaci Voce dum terret, viduus pharetra Risit Apollo. 40 THE ODES OF HORACE. So too, led by thee, Priam bearing his treasures From Ilion, eluded the vaunting Atridae,"^ The watchlights of Thessaly and the remorseless Tents of the Argive. Thou placest pure souls in the calm of blest dwellings. With golden staff shepherding ghost-flocks of shadow ; To gods, whether throned in Olympus or Hades, Equally welcome. * "Quin et Atridas." Here Horace abruptly elevates the astute- ness of Mercury from the playful thefts of infancy to the wise caution with which he leads the innocent and helpless through the severest dangers ; and then naturally, and with all his inimitable terseness, the poet represents him as conducting no less safely the souls of the dead. Throughout all those stanzas, from the theft of oxen, when Mercury was an infant in his cradle, to his crowning mission as the conductor of souls departed, the same ruling idea of stealth is preserved and dei- fied. Mercury steals the kine from Apollo, he steals Priam through the Grecian camp, he steals souls through the passage between earth and Hades, — all with a union of guarded secrecy and imperturbable serenity which, throughout the more playful attributes of Hermes, imply the gran- deur and inspire the awe that characterise a supernatural being. No deity can be more exclusively Greek in this combination of open joy- ousness and mystic power. It was a type of divinity as impossible to be conceived by the Latins as by the Germanic and Scandinavian races, though they all worshipped a Mercurius. ' BOOK I. — ODE X. 41 Quin et Atridas/^ duce te, superbos Ilio dives Priamus relicto Thessalosque ignes et iniqua Trojae Castra fefellit. Tu pias laetis animas reponis Sedibus, virgaque levem coerces Aurea turbam, superis deonim Gratus et imis. 42 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XI. TO LEUCONOL The desire to solve the doubts by which man is beset in the present, will, perhaps, so long as the world lasts, give an audience to those who pretend to divine the future ; and of all modes of divination, astrology has been, from time im- memorial, the most imposing, because it arrogates the rank of a science, and asserts that it bases its predictions upon deductions from a vast accumulation of facts. Rome, of course, abounded in astrologers, who called themselves Chal- daeans, Nay, Leuconoe, seek not to fathom what death unto me — unto thee (Lore forbidden) the gods may assign ; nor the schemes of the Chaldee consult.^ How much better it is to learn patience, and that which shall be to endure ! Whether Jove may vouchsafe our existence more winters, or this be the last, Which now breaks Tuscan ocean in spray on the time-eaten rocks that oppose, Be thou wise, strain thy wine, and cut down lengthened hope to the brief span of life. While we talk, grudging Time will be gone, and a part of ourselves be no more. Seize to-day — for the morrow it is in which thy belief should be least. * "Nee Babylonios tentaris numeros" — i.e., the astrological calcu- lations, or, in technical phrase, "schemes," for which the Chaldees were so famous. BOOK I.— ODE XI. 43 dseans, as Cicero calls them ; and were probably as much Chaldseans as the Gypsies of Norwood are Bohemians or Indians. Horace gives his fair friend a brief admonition, which, in proof of the common-sense that keeps him always modern, might be equally given to ladies, and even to the ruder sex, in our own day. For wherever we travel in Eng- land or Europe, it is rare to find a town, however de- ficient in books, in which a prophetic astrological almanac may not be seen in the shop-windows. Carm. XI. Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi Finem Di dederint, Leuconoe, nee Babylonios Tentaris numeros."' Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati ! Seu plures hiemes, seu tribuit Juppiter ultimam, Quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare Tyrrhenum, sapias, vina liques, et spatio brevi Spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida ^tas : carpe diem quam minimum credula postero. 44 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XII. IN CELEBRATION OF THE DEITIES AND THE WORTHIES OF ROME. This poem is commonly inscribed very inappropriately '' De Augusto," and sometimes more accurately '' De laudi- bus What man, what hero, or what god select'st thou. Theme for sweet lyre or fife sonorous, Clio ? Whose honoured name shall that gay sprite-voice, Echo, H)ann back rebounding, Whether on Helicon's umbrageous margent. Whether on heights of Pindus or cold Haemus, Whence woods, at random, vocal Orpheus followed ? He who stayed rivers In their swift course, and winds in their wild hurry By art maternal;*" and with bland enchantment Led the huge oaks at his melodious pleasure List'ning his harp-strings. Whom should I place for wonted rites of homage Before the Father-King of gods and mortals, Who earth, and ocean, and heaven's varying seasons t Orders and tempers, From whom not greater than Himself proceedeth — To whom exists no semblance and no second ? Yet where he hath a nearest, be its honours Sacred to Pallas. * "Arte materna"— the Muse Calliope, mother of Orpheus, t " Qui mare ac terras variisque mundum Temperat horis." " Mundum " here means " coelum," " sky" — i.e., the whole framework of nature, in sea, earth, and heaven, is under the dominion of Jove. BOOK I. — ODE XII. 45 bus Deorum vel hominum." It was certainly composed before the death of the young Marcellus, a.u.c. 731 ; and OrelH and Macleane agree in accepting Franke's date, A.U.C. 729. Carm. XII. Quern virum aut heroa lyra vel acri Tibia sumis celebrare, Clio ? Quern Deum? Cujus recinet jocosa Nomen imago Aut in umbrosis Heliconis oris Aut super Pindo gelidove in Hsemo ? Unde vocalem temere insecutae Orphea silvse, Arte materna* rapidos morantem Fluminum lapsus celeresque ventos, Blandum et auritas fidibus canoris Ducere quercus. Quid prius dicam solitis parentis Laudibus, qui res hominum ac deorum, Qui mare ac terras variisque mundum t Temperat horis ? Unde nil majus generatur ipso, Nee viget quidquam simile aut secundum Proximos illi tamen occupavit Pallas honores. 46 THE ODES OF HORACE. Left not unsung be Liber, bold in battle ; Nor she, the brute-world's foe — virgin Diana ; Nor thou, dread Lord of the unerring arrow, Phoebus Apollo ? Sing let me, too, the demigod Alcides, And Leda's twins, the rider and the athlete — At whose joint star, what time on storm-beat seamen Dawns its white splendour, Back from the rocks recedes the rush of waters, Winds fall — clouds fly — and every threatening billow, Lulled at their will, upon the breast of ocean Sinks into slumber. Should, after these, be Romulus first honoured, Numa's calm reign, or Tarquin's haughty fasces ? I pause in doubt ; or is it rather Cato's Noble self-slaughter? Regulus, and the Scauri,* and ^milius Lavish of his great life when Carthage triumphed, Grateful I name for song's most signal honours ; — Thee, too, Fabricius ; He and rude unkempt Curius and Camillus, — These were the men whom hardy thrift, rude nurture, The ancestral farm, and unluxurious homestead Fitted for warfare. Tree-like grows up through unperceived increases Marcellus't fame. As the moon throned in heaven 'Mid lesser lights, the JuHan constellation Shines out resplendent. * Either the Scauri enjoyed at that time a higher reputation than they have retained in history, or Horace had some special reason, personal or political, now inexplicable, for placing them in the rank of Rome's fore- most worthies, ^milius Paulus, having advised the disastrous battle BOOK I.— ODE XII. 47 Proeliis audax, neque te silebo, Liber, et saevis inimica Virgo Beluis : nee te, metuende certa Phoebe sagitta. Dicam, et Alciden, puerosque Ledae, Hunc equis, ilium superare pugnis Nobilem ; quorum simul alba nautis Stella refulsit, Defluit saxis agitatus humor, Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, Et minax, quod sic voluere, ponto Unda recumbit. Romulum post hos prius, an quietum Pompili regnum memorem, an superbos Tarquini fasces, dubito, an Catonis Nobile letum. Regulum, et Scauros,* animseque magnse Prodigum PauUum, superante Poeno, Gratus insigni referam Camena, Fabriciumque. Hunc et incomptis Curium capillis Utilem bello tulit, et Camillum, Saeva paupertas et avitus apto Cum lare fundus. Crescit, occulto velut arbor sevo, Fama Marcelli;t micat inter omnes Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores. of Cannae, refused the horse offered to him by a tribune of the soldiers, and remained to perish on the field. + *' As the name of Marcellus, whom I understand, with Orelli, to be the Marcellus who took Syracuse, stands for all his family, and particu- larly the young Marcellus, so the star of Julius Caesar, and the lesser lights of that family, are meant by what follows." — Macleane. 48 THE ODES OF HORACE. Father and Guardian of all human races, Saturnian Jove, to thee the Fates have given Charge o'er great Caesar ; mayst thou reign supremely, Next to thee Caesar. Whether the Parthians over Rome impending Grace his full ^ triumph, or the farthest dwellers, Indian and Seric, upon Orient margins Under the sunrise,t Wide earth with justice he shall rule, thy viceroy ; With awful chariot Thou shalt shake Olympus ; Thou through the sacred groves profaned impurely Launch angry lightnings. J * "Justo triumpho." "'Justo,' 'regular, full, complete,' in which sense this adjective is attached to such nouns as exercitus, legio, acies, prselium, victoria." — Yonge. f '* Sive subjectos Orientis orae Seras et Indos." The Seres, whom some conjecture to be the Chinese, represent the na- tions at the farthest east known to the Romans. *' Subjectos orae," " under the edge or extremity of the East." — Yonge. t " Tu gravi curru quaties Olympum, Tu parum castis inimica mittes Fulmina lucis. " The general meaning seems to be, that Jove left the political govern- ment of earth to Augustus, his vicegerent ; but he reserved to himself alone the dominion of heaven, and the task of avenging such crimes as offended the gods, or polluted the sanctity of the temples. BOOK I. — ODE XII. 49 Gentis humanse pater atque custos, Orte Saturno, tibi cura magni Caesaris fatis data : tu secundo Caesare regnes. Ille, seu Parthos Latio imminentes Egerit justo'^ domitos triumpho, Sive subjectos Orientis orae Seras et Indos,t Te minor latum reget aequus orbem ; Tu gravi curru quaties Olympum, Tu parum castis inimica mittes Fulmina lucis.J 50 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XIII. TO LYDIA. In this ode is expressed naturally enough the sort of jeal- ousy which a Lydia would be likely to inspire in a general lover, such as Horace represents himself in his poems — "sive quid urimur non praeter solitum leves." The ode in itself, When thou the rosy neck of Telephus, The waxen arms of Telephus, art praising, Woe is me, Lydia, how my jealous heart Swells with the anguish I would vainly smother. Then in my mind thought has no settled base, To and fro shifts upon my cheek the colour, And tears that glide adown in stealth reveal By what slow fires mine inmost self consumeth. I burn, or whether quarrel o'er his wine. Stain with a bruise dishonouring thy white shoulders. Or whether my boy-rival on thy lips Leave by a scar the mark of his rude kisses. Hope not, if thou wouldst hearken unto me. That one so little kind prove always constant ; Barbarous indeed to wound sweet lips imbued By Venus with a fifth part of her nectar.'^ Thrice happy, ay more than thrice happy, they Whom one soft bond unbroken binds together. Whose love serene from bickering and reproach In life's last moment finds the first that severs. * " Quinta parte sui nectaris." It has been disputed whether Horace means by this expression the Pythagorean quintessence, which is ether. Most modern translators so take it — "an interpretation," says Macleane, " which I am surprised to find Orelli adopts with others, that does not commend itself to my mind at all." Neither does it to mine. I BOOK L— ODE XIII. 5 I itself, whether borrowed or not from a Greek original, is replete with the elegance which characterises Horace's love- poems, and there is a tenderness which seems genuine and heartfelt in the concluding stanza. The metre in Horace is the same as in Ode iii., but no English measure seems to me so well to express the sense and spirit of the ode as the graver and more elegiac form in which the translation is cast. Carm. XIII. Cum tu, Lydia, Telephi Cervicem roseam, cerea Telephi Laudas brachia, vae, meum Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur. Tum nee mens mihi nee color Certa sede manent ; humor et in genas Furtim labitur, arguens Quam lentis penitus macerer ignibus. Uror, seu tibi candidos Turparunt humeros immodicae mero Rixae, sive puer furens Impressit memorem dente labris notam. Non, si me satis audias, Speres perpetuum, dulcia barbare Laedentem oscula, quae Venus Quinta parte sui nectaris imbuit."^ Felices ter et amplius, Quos irrupta tenet copula, nee malis Divulsus querimoniis Suprema citius solvet amor die. think the interpretation rendered by Dillenburger much less pedantic and much more poetical. The ancients supposed that honey contained a ninth or tenth part of nectar, and therefore the lips of Lydia were imbued with double the nectar bestowed on honey. 52 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XIV. THE SHIP AN ALLEGORY. I know not what safer title for this poem can be selected from the many assigned to it in the MSS. All or most critics nowadays are agreed that it is a political allegory, and not, as Graevius, Bentley, and others contended, an ad- dress to the actual ship that brought Horace from Philippi, and in which his friends were about tore-embark. Quinctilian illustrates the meaning of the word "allegory" by a ref- erence to the ode, and the ode itself is an imitation of an allegorical poem by Alcaeus on the political troubles of Mitylene, of which a fragment is extant. Quinctilian's inter- pretation of the allegory, though still popularly received — viz., that the ship means the Commonwealth or Republic — is not without eminent disputants ; and unless there were more assured data as to the time in which the poem was written, and under what political circumstances, the dispute is not likely to be settled. The opinion advanced by Acron and supported with much force by Buttmann is, that the poem is addressed, not to the Commonwealth, but to a remnant of the political party with which Horace had fought under Brutus, and in remonstrance against their launching once more into civil war under Sextus Pompeius. This view has been somewhat rudely assailed, and the generality of critics remain loyal to the good old simile of Ship and State. But of late the argument of a critic at once so acute and so profound as Buttmann has been silently gaining ground with reflective scholars, and has much in its favour. No- thing in itself is more probable than that Horace should have sought to express to his old comrades in an allegori- cal poem his dissuasion from the hazardous junction with BOOK I. — ODE XIV. 53 S. Pompeius, and place on record his own vindication for refusing to put forth in so shattered a vessel, and rest- ing in port — i.e., with the government established under Augustus. The other supposition most favoured as to the date of the poem is that which places it in the year before the battle of Actium, when M. Antony and Augustus were mak- ing their preparations for war. This does not seem so prob- able a date as the other. The images of the poem would ill accord with it. Horace could scarcely have said then that the ship under Augustus was disabled, destitute of rowers and chiefs, and could not last through a storm; and as in that war C^sar went forth against Antony rather than Antony against Csesar, the expostulation to keep in port would have been very ill received by Augustus, and very contrary to the spirit with which Horace always speaks of that war and its results, and to the wiUingness expressed in Epode i. to have taken a share in the enterprise, had Maecenas been appointed to command in it. At the outbreak of the war with Antony, Horace was a decided partisan of the established govern- ment, and this poem is evidently written by a man who has affection and fear for those about to hazard some new enter- prise against the existent order of things. He certainly would not have addressed that warning to Antony's sup- porters. Whether the poem allegorises the entire Repub- lic, or that party belonging to it with which Horace had been so intimately connected, and with whose renewed hazards he declined to associate himself, does not, however, very materially signify ; for a writer who has been a strong party-man generally has his party in his mind whenever he proposes to address the State. But if Horace really de- signed the allegory for his old comrades under Brutus, about to cast their fortunes with Sextus Pompeius, he could not more affectionately part from them, nor more delicately imply his own rational excuses for doing so. 54 THE ODES OF HORACE. O ship, shall new waves drift thee back into ocean ? What wouldst thou ? Make fast, O, make fast for the haven ! Ah ! dost thou not see how thy sides Are all naked of even the rowers ? ^ And thy mast by the south wind in fury is shattered, And loud groan thy mainyards, and scarce,t without cables Undergirding the keel, couldst thou strive With the sway of the tyrannous waters. And thy sails are not whole, and the gods thou wouldst call on Once more in the stress of thy peril have left thee, August Pontic pine, J though thou art, Of a forest illustrious the daughter. All useless the race, and the name that thou vauntest ; Cautious sailors trust nought to the stern's painted colours. Beware, O beware, lest thou owe But a mock to the winds thou wouldst hazard. Thou, lately the cause of my wearisome trouble, Object now of deep care and regretful affection, Mark well where the Cyclades shine, And avoid the waves flowing between them. * I.e., whether the lines apply to the State or to a party in it, men and appliances are wanting to the cause. + " Sine funibus vix durare carinse." The usual interpretation of *'funibus," " girding-ropes," is here adopted, Macleane construes, *' de- prived of her rigging." — See his note. :j: In translating these lines I feel very strongly how much tliey favour Acron's opinion and Buttmann's argument for the application of the allegory to the old Brutus party about to share the fortunes of the great Pompey's son, Sextus. The old gods, or the statues of the tutelary deities niched in the stem were indeed gone ; the cry for Republican liberty or Senatorial rights was hushed in the graves of Brutus and Cassius. Assuming with Acron and Buttmann that by the Pontic pine is symbolised Pompey, whose chief successes were achieved in Pontus as the conqueror of Mithridates, his name and race were indeed idly vaunted by Sextus. Recruits distmsted the colours painted on the BOOK L— ODE XIV. 55 Carm. XIV. O navis, referent in mare te novi Fluctus ! O quid agis ? Fortiter occupa Portum ! Nonne vides, ut Nudum remigio latus,* Et malus celeri saucius Africo Antennagque gemant, ac sine funibust Vix durare carinas Possint imperiosius JEquor? Non tibi sunt integra lintea, ] Non di, quos iterum pressa voces malo : Quamvis Pontica pinus,J Silvae filia nobilis, ] Jactes et genus et nomen inutile ; Nil pictis timidus navita puppibus Fidit. Tu, nisi ventis ' Debes ludibrium, cave. \ Nuper sollicitum quae mihi tsedium, j Nunc desiderium curaque non levis, i Interfusa nitentes i Vites sequora Cycladas. . j battered ship to which they were invited. Applying the lines to the j cause of the old Brutus party, well might Horace exclaim, " Nuper ] sollicitum quse mihi taedium," in reference to the anxieties and to the ■ disgusts with which his share in that cause had subjected him, the j loss of friends and hopes and fortune; and well and tenderly might i he add, in affection for former comrades and deprecation of the perils they were about to risk, " Nunc desiderium curaque non levis." "Desi- • derium" is a word that implies affection, and "a missing of something — a regret." The whole of the poem thus construed seems to me in complete harmony with all the poems in which Horace takes a retro- spective view of hish-connection with Brutus's party, and the attachment J he retained for his old friends, so strongly evinced in his welcome to | Pompeius Varus, Lib. II, Ode vii. > 56 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XV. THE PROPHECY OF NEREUS. This ode is considered by critics to bear the stamp of an early composition. It has certainly the vigour and fire of When the false Shepherd bore through the waters In Idsean ships, Helen his hostess, Nereus buried swift winds in loathed slumber That Fate's fell decrees he might sing. " Woe the day that thou lead'st to thy dwelling Her whom Greece shall ask back by great armies, Sworn in league to dissolve, with thy nuptials, The ancient dominion of Troy. " Ah ! what death-sweat to war-horse and warrior ! Ah ! what funerals that move with thy rowers Bring'st thou home to the race of the Dardan ! Already stern Pallas prepares "Helm, and aegis, and chariot, and fury; Vainly, bold in the safeguard of Venus, Shalt thou trim thy sleek locks and charm women With songs set to chords — not of war; "' "Vainly shun in thy paramour's chamber t Pond'rous spears and the darts of the Cretan, And the roar of the battle ; — and Ajax So swift when he follows a foe ; "Late, alas ! dust shall yet smear thy love-locks. Lo behind thee, thy race's destroyer, Lo Ulysses ! — lo Nestor ! — Thee, Teucer, Thee, Sthenelus skilled in the fight * "Carmina divides" — i.e., accompany your harp with singing. — YONGE. t Horn. II., iii. 381. BOOK I. — ODE XV. 57 of youth, but it is seldom that the poetry of youth is equally terse and condensed. Carm. XV. Pastor cum traheret per freta navibus Idaeis Helenen perfidus hospitam, Ingrato celeres obruit otio Ventos, ut caneret fera Nereus fata : Mala ducis avi domum, Quam multo repetet Graecia milite, Conjurata tuas rumpere nuptias Et regnum Priami vetus. Heu, heu ! quantus equis, quantus adest viris Sudor ! quanta moves funera Dardanse Genti ! Jam galeam Pallas et «gida Currusque et rabiem parat. Nequicquam, Veneris prsesidio ferox, Pectes csesariem, grataque feminis Imbelli cithara carmina divides ; * Nequicquam thalamot graves Hastas et calami spicula Cnosii Vitabis, strepitumque et celerem sequi Ajacem ; tamen heu serus adulteros Crines pulvere coUines. Non Laertiaden, exitium tuse Genti, non Pylium Nestora respicis ? Urgent impavidi te Salaminius Teucer et Sthenelus sciens 58 THE ODES OF HORACE. " Or the chariot-chase, fearlessly follow : Merion, too, thou shalt know, — but look yonder, Through the battle comes raging to find thee Tydides, more dread than his sire ! " Ah ! from him, as a hart in the valley Sees the wolf and forgetteth its pasture, All unnerved and deep-panting thou fliest ; Not such was the pledge to thy love ! " Though the wrath in the fleet of Achilles Bring a respite to Troy and Troy's mothers ; Ilion's domes, after winters predestined, Shall sink in the flames of the Greek ! " BOOK I. — ODE XV. 59 Pugnae, sive opus est imperitare equis, Non auriga piger ; Merionen quoque Nosces. Ecce furit te reperire atrox. Tydides melior patre, Quern tu, cervus uti vallis in altera Visum parte lupum graminis immemor, Sublimi fugies mollis anhelitu, Non hoc pollicitus tuae. Iracunda diem proferet Ilio Matronisque Phrygum classis Achillei ; Post certas hiemes uret Achaicus Ignis Iliacas domos. 6o THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XVI. RECANTATION. There is no ground for safe conjecture as to the person here addressed. The old inscriptions applying it to Tyn- daris, the daughter of Gratidia, celebrated as Canidia in the Epodes, or the assertion in Cruquius that it is Grati- dia herself, are now generally considered to be purely fic- titious. O, of mother so fair thou the yet fairer daughter, To such end as thou wilt put my guilty iambics, Fling them into the flames to consume, Or the ocean of Hadria to drown. Phrygian Cybele, no, nor the Pythian Apollo In the innermost shrines soul-convulsing his priesthood, No, nor Liber, nor Corybants mad When their cymbals redouble the clash, Craze the mind like the woeful disorders of anger. Which are scared from their vent, nor by Norican falchion, Wreckful oceans — untameable fires. Nor ev'n Jove though himself thunder down. It is said that Prometheus to man's primal matter Was compelled to add something from each living creature, And thus from the wild lion he took Rabid virus to place in our gall. Anger shattered in ruins the House of Thyestes ; Anger stands forth the cause by which cities have perished, And the ploughshare of insolent hosts Has passed over the site of their walls. BOOK I. — ODE XVI. 6 1 titious. Horace, no doubt, in his youth wrote a great many satirical or vituperative poems which he had too good taste to repubhsh, and which, happily for his fame, have perished altogether. To some lady so libelled we may well suppose this ode to have been addressed, for it has an air of reality about it. It may have been suggested by the poem in which Stesichorus recanted his slanders on Helen, but to what extent Horace here imitates that poem, there are no means of judging. Carm. XVI. O matre pulchra filia pulchrior, Quem criminosis cunque voles modum Ponis iambis, sive flamma Sive mari libet Hadriano. Non Dindymene, non adytis quatit Mentem sacerdotum incola Pythius, Non Liber seque, non acuta Sic geminant Corybantes asra, Tristes ut ir^, quas neque Noricus Deterret ensis, nee mare naufragum, Nee ssevus ignis, nee tremendo Juppiter ipse ruens tumultu. Fertur Prometheus, addere principi Limo coactus particulam undique Desectam, et insani leonis Vim stomacho apposuisse nostro. Irse Thyesten exitio gravi . Stravere, et altis urbibus ultimo Stetere causae, cur perirent Funditus, imprimeretque muris 62 THE ODES OF HORACE. Be appeased then : that vehement heat of the bosom In the sensitive heyday of youth tempted me too, And it whirled me all frantic away Down the torrent of scurrilous song. Now I seek to exchange rude emotions for soft ones, Provided my penitence move thee to pardon, And my full recantation thus made, O be friends, and restore me thy heart. BOOK I. — ODE XVI. 63 Hostile aratnim exercitus insolens. Compesce mentem : me quoque pectoris Tentavit in dulci juventa Fervor, et in celeres iambos Misit furentem ; nunc ego mitibus Mutare quaero tristia ; dum mihi Fias recantatis arnica Opprobriis, animumque reddas. 64 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XVII. INVITATION TO TYNDARIS. It is impossible to do more than conjecture whether the person addressed under the feigned name of Tyndaris ac- tually existed or not. There are one or two touches in the poem which seem to individualise her as a creature of the earth — such as the selection of one particular song about the rivalry of Penelope and Circe, which is not a theme especially appropriate to the place of invitation, and may well have been the favourite song of some fair lute-player; -and the For Lucretilis oft nimble Faunus exchanges, So delightful its slopes, his Arcadian Lycasus — , From my she-goats still turning aside Rainy winds and the scorch of the sun. All in safety the wives of the strong-scented husband Rove where arbute and thyme lurk in woodlands secreted ; Never green adder daunts them, nor there Martial wolf from Haedilia descends, "Whilesoever, my Tyndaris, round and about us Ring the smooth sheeny lime-rocks of sloping Ustica, And the valleys embosomed below, With the sweet haunting pipe of the god. Over me watch the gods with an aspect of favour. To the gods dear at heart are the muse and my worship. Here our rich rural honours shall flow From a brimmed cornucopia to thee. BOOK I. — ODE XVII. 65 the reference to the jealous violence of Cyrus looks like an allusion to some incident that had previously occurred. On the one hand, nothing is more likely than that Horace should have known, and invited to his villa, some such ac- complished freed-woman as is here addressed. On the other hand, nothing is more consonant to his exquisite art than the invention of attributes and incidents for the pur- pose of giving the interest of reality to a purely imaginary creation. A compliment to the beauty of the person ad- dressed is insinuated by the name of Tyndaris, " as if," says Orelli, " she were another Helen." Carm. XVII. Velox amoenum saepe Lucretilem Mutat Lycseo Faunus, et igneam Defendit aestatem capellis Usque meis pluviosque ventos. Impune tutum per nemus arbutos Quserunt latentes et thyma devise Olentis uxores mariti ; Nee virides metuunt colubras, Nee Martiales Haediliae lupos, Utcunque dulci, Tyndari, fistula Valles et Usticse cubantis Levia personuere saxa. Di me tuentur, dis pietas mea Et Musa cordi est. Hie tibi copia Manabit ad plenum benigno Ruris honorum opulenta comu. E 66 THE ODES OF HORACE. Here, within the deep vale, thou shalt shun the red dog-star, And shalt sing us that tale on the lute-strings of Teos, How Penelope vied with the Sea's Crystal Circe, for one human heart ; Safely here shalt thou quaff, under cool leafy shadows, Sober cups from the innocent vineyards of Lesbos ; 'Tis not here that gay Semele's son '^ Shall with Mars his encounters confound ; Dread not here lest pert Cyrus, suspecting thee vilely. Lay rash hands on that form not a match for rude anger, Rend the garland which clings to thy hair, Or the robe — ^which deserves no such wrong. Bacchus. BOOK I. — ODE XVII. 6^ Hie in reducta valle Caniculae Vitabis sestus, et fide Teia Dices laborantes in uno Penelopen vitreamque Circen ; Hie innoeentis poeula Lesbii Duees sub umbra; nee Semeleius'^ Cum Marte confundet Thyoneus Proelia, nee metues protervum Suspeeta Cyrum, ne male dispari Ineontinentes injieiat manus, Et seindat haerentem eoronam Crinibus immeritamque vestem. 68 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XVIII. TO VARUS. Varus was no uncommon name, and it has been a dispute with commentators what Varus is here addressed. It is generally Of all trees that thou plantest, O Varus, the vine, holy vine be the first, On the soil that surrounds genial Tibur and Catilus' ram- parted walls. To the lips of the dry does the godhead taint all with a taste of the sour, And only by wine are the troubles gnawing into the bosom dispersed. Fresh from wine who complains of the hardships he bears or in want or in war ? Who not more hails thee, Bacchus, as father ; thee, Venus, as linked with the Grace ? But Evius himself has forewarned us by his curse on the Thracians of old. And the battle o'er riotous wine-cups which the Centaurs with Lapithae fought, How the drunkard divides right from wrong by the vanish- ing line of his lust. And not to pass over the limit the Unbinder of Care has imposed. Ne'er will I force thy will, comely Bacchus, shake the thyrsus against thy consent,''^ Nor drag forth to daylight thy symbols covered over with manifold leaves. * ' ' Non ego te, candide Bassareu, Invitum quatiam, nee variis obsita frondibus Sub divum rapiam. " " Quatiam," poetically applied to the god himself, refers to the shaking BOOK L— ODE XVIII. 69 generally believed to be the Quinctilius Varus for whose death Horace seeks to console Virgil, Ode xxiv. of this Book. By the way in which Bacchus and Venus are here ad- dressed, Horace implies a temperate and elegant convivi- ality ; Bacchus is hailed as father, benignant, not cruel ; and Venus as "decens" — that is, accompanied with the Graces, " ipsa decens est, cum comites sint decentes Gra- tiae" (Carm. i.4,6; Dillenburger) ; and the poet proceeds to contrast a Bacchus and a Venus so characterised with the brawl and lust of the Centaurs, who, invited to the marriage- feast of Peirithous, King of the Lapith^, attempted in their drunkenness to carry off the bride and the other women, which of course led to a fight with the Lapithae and with the Sithonians, a people in Thrace, who were afflicted by Bacchus with the curse of never drinking without fighting. Carm. XVIII. Nullam, Vare, sacra, vite prius severis arborem Circa mite solum Tiburis et moenia Catili. Siccis omnia nam dura deus proposuit, neque Mordaces aliter diffugiunt sollicitudines. Quis post vina gravem militiam aut pauperiem crepat ? Quis non te potius, Bacche pater, teque decens Venus ? At, ne quis modici transiliat munera Liberi, Centaurea monet cum Lapithis rixa super mero Debellata, monet Sithoniis non levis Evius, Cum fas atque nefas exiguo fine libidinum Discernunt avidi. Non ego te, candide Bassareu,'^ Invitum quatiam, nee variis obsita frondibus of the thyrsus, cymbals, or images in the wild dance of the Orgies, " Variis obsita frondibus " means the vessels in which the mystical sym- bols of Bacchus were concealed, covered over with various leaves, chiefly of vine and ivy. 70 THE ODES OF HORACE. Silence ! hush, savage horn Berecynthian ! let the clash of the timbrel be hushed, Making music which Self-conceit follows, dull egotist reeling stone-bHnd, Idle Vainglory over-exalting her empty and arrogant head, And a Faith which is lavish of secrets, — with bosom more seen through than glass. BOOK I. — ODE XVIII. 71 Sub divum rapiam. Sseva tene cum Berecyntio Comu tympana, quae subsequitur caecus Amor sui, Et tollens vacuum plus nimio Gloria verticem, Arcanique Fides prodiga, perlucidior vitro. 72 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XIX. TO GLYCERA. Whether Glycera and Cinara be the same person — -whe- ther the Glycera here addressed be the same Glycera as is elsewhere Methought I had finished with love When the mother herself of the Cupids, merciless mother she is, And the Theban boy, Semele's son, And the goddess called Wantonness bade me to love again render my soul. It burns me that smoothness of light. Than the marble of Paros more pure, which is shed over Glycera's face — It burns me that dear saucy charm, And the look slippery- sheen to behold : he who loiters and gazes must fall. All Venus has rushed upon me, Deserting her templei^ in Cyprus. She will not permit me to sing Of the Scyth, and the feints of the steeds Which the Parthians wheel round on the foe, nor of aught which belongs not to love. Hither, slaves, quick ! an altar in haste — Pile it up with the green living sod ; hither vervain and frankincense bring. And wine winters two have matured : By the blood of a victim appeased, more gently the goddess may come. BOOK I. — ODE XIX. 73 elsewhere mentioned — whether she existed anywhere or under any name except in Horace's fancy, — are questions that have been as fiercely debated as if they could be de- cided, or were of the slightest consequence if they could. The poem itself is charmingly pretty, but has much more the air of complimentary gallantry than of real affection. Carm. XIX. Mater saeva Cupidinum, Thebanaeque jubet me Semeles puer, Et lasciva Licentia, Finitus animum reddere amoribus. Urit me Glyceras nitor Splendentis Pario marmore purius ; Urit grata protervitas, Et voltus nimium lubricus adspici. In me tota mens Venus Cyprum deseruit ; nee patitur Scythas, Et versis animosum equis Parthum dicere, nee quae nihil attinent. Hie vivum mihi caespitem, hie Verbenas, pueri, ponite thuraque Bimi cum patera meri : Mactata veniet lenior hostia. 74 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XX. TO M^CENAS. Nothing can be more simple in form and spirit than this ode, in which Horace invites Maecenas to a homely enter- tainment in language equally unostentatious. In this, as in other of Horace's purely occasional odes, one feels, by the abstemious avoidance of the would-be poetical, that only a poet Thou wilt drink but in modest cups Sabine wine humble Which I with mine own hand in Grecian cask hoarded. When the theatre hailed thee with plaudits, beloved. Knightly Maecenas, So loud, as if fain that the gay phantom Echo To thine ear from the heights of the Vatican mountain. To thine ear from the banks of thy river ancestral. Might reapplaud them. Thou mayst drink at thy will the rich Caecuban vintage. Or the milder grapes Gales have tamed in its presses : Formian slopes, vines Falernian, combine not to flavour My simple wine-cups. BOOK I.— ODE XX. 75 poet could have written it. The date of the poem has been variously conjectured. Judging by the reference to the Sabine wine which Maecenas is invited to drink, and which came into use in its second year, reaching its prime in its fourth, the poem would have been written between two and four years after the reception that the audience at the theatre gave to Maecenas on his recovery from his illness. But the date of that event is not determined. Franke and Liibker refer the composition of the ode to a.u.c. 729-730. Macleane favours the latter year. Orelli inclines to Weber's date, from a.u.c. 726-727. Carm. XX. Vile potabis modicis Sabinum Cantharis, Graeca quod ego ipse testa Conditum levi, datus in theatro Cum tibi plausus. Care M^cenas eques, ut patemi Fluminis ripae, simul et jocosa Redderet laudes tibi Vaticani Montis imago. Caecubum et prelo domitam Caleno Tu bibes uvam : mea nee Falemae Temperant vites, neque Formiani Pocula colles. 76 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXI. IN PRAISE OF DIANA AND APOLLO. It was supposed by Franke that this hymn was composed for the first celebration of the quinquennial games — Ludi Actiaci — instituted by Augustus in honour of Apollo and Diana, when he dedicated a temple to Apollo on the Palatine after his return from the taking of Alexandria, a.u.c. 726. There are two objections to this supposition : — the one, observed by Macleane, is in the word " principe," for Augustus did not get that title till the ides of January a.u.c. 727, Hymn ye the praise of Diana, young maidens. Hymn ye, O striplings, the unshorn Apollo, And hymn ye Latona, so dear To the Father Supreme in Olympus. Maidens, sing her who delights in the rivers, And the glad locks on the brow of the forests That nod over Algidus cold. Verdant Cragus and dark Fryman thus. '^ Youths, sing of Tempe with emulous praises, Delos, the fair native isle of Apollo, And sing of the shoulder adorned With the quiver, and shell of the Brother.t Moved by your prayer, may the god in his mercy Save, from war and from pest and from famine. Our people, and Caesar our prince. And direct them on Persia and Britain. * ' ' Nigris aut Erymanthi Silvis, aut viridis Cragi." The epithet "viridis" applied to Cragus is in opposition to "nigris" applied to Erymanthus, from the different kinds of foliage on either moun- BOOK I. — ODE XXI. 'J'J 727, and therefore after the first celebration of the Actian games. The other objection is in the nature of the poem itself, which, as Orelli remarks, is of too light a quill for the ceremonial pomp of solemn games or earnest supplication. The reference to the Persians and Britons at the close would seem to intimate the same date as the 29th Ode of this Book, when Augustus was preparing a military expedi- tion against Briton and the East, viz., a.u.c. 727. The notion of Sanadon, that the ode was an introduction to the Saecular Hymn, has long been exploded. Carm. XXI. Dianam tenerae dicite virgines, Intonsum, pueri, dicite Cynthium ; Latonamque supremo Dilectam penitus Jovi. Vos laetam fluviis et nemorum coma, Quaecunque aut gelido prominet Algido, Nigris aut Erymanthi Silvis, aut viridis Cragi ; * Vos Tempe totidem tollite laudibus, Natalemque, mares, Delon ApoUinis, Insignemque pharetra Fraternaque humerum lyra.t Hie bellum lacrimosum, hie miseram famem Pestemque a populo, et principe Caesare, in Persas atque Britannos Vestra motus aget prece. tain, Cragus being covered with oak and beech, Eiymanthus with pine and fir. + " Fraternaque humerum lyra " — the shell invented by his brother Mercury. yS THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXII. TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS. Of Aristius Fuscus Horace speaks (Epp. i. lo) with parti- cular affection. He says " they were almost twins in their tastes He whose life hath no flaw, pure from guile, need not borrow Or the bow or the darts of the Moor, O my Fuscus ! He relies for defence on no quiver that teems with Poison-steept arrows. Though his path be along sultry African Syrtes, Or Caucasian ravines, where no guest finds a shelter, Or the banks which Hydaspes, the stream weird with fable,'" Licks languid-flowing. For as lately I strayed beyond pathways accustomed, And with heart free from care was of Lalage singing, A wolf in the thick of the deep Sabine forest Met, and straight fled me. All unarmed though I was ; yet so deadly a monster Warlike Daunia ne'er bred in her wide acorned forests, Nor the thirst-raging nurse of the lion — swart Juba's African sand-realm. Place me lone in the sterile wastes, where not a leaflet Ever bursts into bloom in the breezes of summer ; * " Fabulosus lambit Hydaspes." As Horace is here conjuring up images of terror, so it is to the darker legends connected with the Indian river that he alludes in the epithet " fabulosus," a signification which is BOOK I. — ODE XXII. 79 tastes and sentiments." Fuscus appears to have been an author, but there is some doubt as to what he wrote, — Acron says 'Tragedies' — Porphyrion, 'Comedies;' which last supposition seems more in keeping with the humorous joke he plays upon Horace, Sat. i. 9. Cruquius says he was a grammarian. Carm. XXII. Integer vitae scelerisque purus Non eget Mauris jaculis, neque arcu, Nee venenatis gravida sagittis, Fusee, pharetra; Sive per Syrtes iter sestuosas, Sive facturus per inhospitalem Caucasum, vel quse loca fabulosus Lambit Hydaspes.* Nam que me silva lupus in Sabina, Dum meam canto Lalagen, et ultra Terminum curis vagor expeditis, Fugit inermem ; Quale portentum neque militaris Daunias latis alit aesculetis. Nee Jub^ tellus generat, leonum Arida nutrix. Pone me, pigris ubi nulla campis Arbor aestiva recreatur aura- aimed at in the translation " weird with fable." "Lambit" literally means "licks," or "laps up," not "washes," or "laves," as it is com- monly translated. Horace does not wish to convey the pleasing idea of a river with a gentle and placid flow, but rather the still, languid, awe- inspiring motion of the haunted wave upon the sultry banks. 8o THE ODES OF HORACE. Sunless side of the world, which the grim air oppresses, Mist-clad and ice-bound ; Place me lone where the earth is denied to man's dwelling, All so near to its breast glows the car of the day-god ; And I still should love Lalage — her the sweet-smiling, Her the sweet-talking.* * " Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem." If I might have allowed myself to expand the literal words of th original into what seems to me the sense implied by the poet, I shoulu have proposed to translate the lines thus : — " I still should love Lalage — see her, sweet smiling ; Hear her, sweet talking. " For I take it that Horace does not merely mean that he would still love Lalage " sweetly smiling " and " sweetly talking " — an assurance which seems in itself to belong to a school of poetry vulgarly called namby-pamby— -but rather that, however solitary, still, and lifeless be the place to which he might be transported, he would still be so true to her image, that in the solitude he would see her sweetly smiling, and amidst the silence hear her sweetly talking. So Constance, in Shake- speare, says: — " Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in her bed, walks up and down with me, Pttts on her pretty looks, repeats her words." BOOK I.— ODE XXII. 8 1 Quod latus mundi nebulae malusque Juppiter urget ; Pone sub curru nimium propinqui Solis, in terra domibus negata : Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem,* 82 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXIII. TO CHLOE. This ode has the appearance of being imitated, though but sHghtly, from a fragment in Anacreon preserved in ' Athenaeus,' ix. p. 396. But it is not the less an illustration of the native grace with which Horace invests his more trivial compositions. Like a fawn dost thou fly from me, Chloe, Like a fawn that, astray on the hill-tops, Her shy mother misses and seeks, Vaguely scared by the breeze and the forest. Sighs the coming of spring through the leaflets ? Slips the green lizard stirring a bramble ? Her knees knock together with fear. And her heart beats aloud in its tremor. Nay, but not as a merciless tiger, Or an African lion I chase thee ; Ah ! cling to a mother no more, When thy girlhood is ripe for a lover. BOOK I. — ODE XXIII. 83 1 Carm. XXIII. Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloe, Quaerenti pavidam montibus aviis Matrem, non sine vano Aurarum et silus metu. Nam seu mobiiibus veris inhorruit Adventus foliis, seu virides nibum Dimovere lacertae, Et corde et genibus tremit Atqui non ego te, tigris ut aspera Gaetulusve leo, frangere persequor Tandem desine matrem Tempestiva sequi viro. 84 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXIV. TO VIRGIL ON THE DEATH OF QUINCTILIUS VARUS. Quinctilius died a.u.c. 730. Little is known of him be- yond the mention with which he is immortaHsed by Horace. In the Ars Poetica he is spoken of as dead, and as having been a frank and judiciously severe critic, who, if you trusted your What shame or what restraint unto the yearning For one so loved ? Music attuned to sorrow Lead* thou, Melpomene, to whom the Father Gave liquid voice and lyre. So, the eternal slumber clasps Quinctilius, Whose equal when shall shame-faced sense of Honour, Incorrupt Faith, of Justice the twin sister, Or Truth unveiled, find ? By many a good man wept, he died ; — no mourner Wept with tears sadder than thine own, O Virgil ! Pious, alas, in vain ! thou redemandest Quinctilius from the gods ; Not on such terms they lent him ! — Were thy harp-strings Blander than those by which the Thracian Orpheus Charmed listening forests, never flows the life-blood Back to the phantom form Which Hermes, not reopening Fate's closed portal At human prayer, amid the dark flock shepherds With ghastly rod. Hard ! yet still Patience ligh1,ens That which admits no cure. * "Precipe" — "lead."— YoNGE. BOOK I. — ODE XXIV. 85 j ■I i your verses to him, would bid you correct this and that. If j you replied you could not do better — that you had tried twice \ or thrice in vain — he would tell you to strike the lines out 1 altogether, and put them anew on the forge. This character ] as critic is in harmony with the character here assigned to ' him as man (verses 7, 8). 1 Carm. XXIV. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam cari capitis? Praecipe* lugubres Cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam Pater Vocem cum cithara dedit. Ergo Quinctilium perpetuus sopor Urget ! cui Pudor, et Justitise soror, Incorrupta Fides, nudaque Veritas Quando ullum inveniet parem ? Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit ; Nulli flebilior quam tibi, Virgili, Tu frustra pius, heu ! non ita creditum Poscis Quinctilium deos. Quod si Threicio blandius Orpheo Auditam moderere arboribus fidem, Non vanae redeat sanguis imagini, Quam virga semel horrida, Non lenis precibus fata recludere, Nigro compulerit Mercurius gregi. Durum ! Sed levius fit patientia, Quidquid corrigere est nefas. 86 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXV. TO LYDIA. Little need be said about this poem. The reader has been already warned against the assumption that in the appli- cation of names, evidently fictitious, to poems of this kind, the same person is designated by the same name. It is obviously too absurd to suppose that the blooming Lydia of the 13th Ode in this very Book is identical with the faded hag lampooned in the following ode. The poem it- self is, with others of the same kind, only valuable as illus- trative of Horace's character on its urban or town-bred side — its combination of the man of a fashionable world when at Rome, and of the solitary poet wrapped in his fancies, and meditating More rarely now shake thy closed windows With quick knocks of petulant gallants, — They break not thy sleep ; to thy threshold Fondly the door clings Once turning so glib on its hinges. Thou hear'st less and less, " Lydia, sleep'st thou ? 'Tis I — all night long for thee dying — I thine own lover ! " Now thou whin'st that this new generation Likes but young shoots of ivy and myrtle, And dedicates dry leaves to Hebrus,* Winter's cold comrade ? * " Hebro" — a river in Thrace : as we should say, "to the north pole.". BOOK L— ODE XXV. 8/ meditating his art amidst Sabine woods or in the watered valleys of Tibur. In the translation, the third and fourth stanzas of the original are omitted. In these omitted stanzas the taste is sufficiently bad to vitiate the poetry. Horace never writes worse than when he is cynical. Cynicism was in him a spurious affectation, contrary to his genuine nature, which was singularly susceptible to amiable, graceful, gen- erous, and noble impressions of man and of life. Carm. XXV. Parcius junctas quatiunt fenestras Ictibus crebris juvenes protervi, Nee tibi somnos adimunt, amatque Janua limen, Qu^ prius multum facilis movebat Cardines ; audis minus et minus jam, " Me tuo longas pereunte noctes, Lydia, dormis?" Invicem mcechos anus arrogantes Flebis in solo levis angiportu, Thracio bacchante magis sub inter- lunia vento, Cum tibi flagrans amor et libido. Quae solet matres furiare equorum, Saeviet circa jecur ulcerosum : Non sine questu, Laeta quod pubes hedera virente Gaudeat pulla magis atque myrto, Aridas frondes hiemis sodali Dedicet Hebro.* 88 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXVI. TO L. ^LIUS LAMIA. Horace addresses this same Lamia again, Lib. III. Ode xviii. Lamia must have been very young when this ode was written, the date of which is to be guessed from the refer- ence to Tiridates and the Parthian disturbances. Assum- ing with OrelH, Macleane, and others, that it was composed A.U. c. 729, just before Tiridates fled from his kingdom. Lamia survived fifty- seven years, dying a.u.c. 786 (Tac. Ann., vi. 27). I, the friend of the Muses, all fear and all sorrow Will consign to wild winds as a freight for Crete's ocean ; I'm the one man who feels himself safe, Whatever king reigns at the Pole — Whatever the cause that appals Tiridates. Muse, thou sweetener of life, haunting hill-tops Pimpleian, Whose delight is in founts ever pure, Weave the blooms opened most to the sun — O weave for the brows of my Lamia the garland : Nought my praise without thee. Let thyself and thy sisters Make him sacred from Time by the harp Heard at Lesbos ; but new be its strings. BOOK I.— ODE XXVI. 89 Carm. XXVI. Musis amicus, tristitiam et metus Tradam protervis in mare Creticum Portare ventis, quis sub Arcto Rex gelidae metuatur orae, Quid Tiridaten terreat, unice Securus. O, quae fontibus integris Gaudes, apricos necte flores, Necte meo Lamiae coronam, Pimplea dulcis ! Nil sine te mei Prosunt honores : hunc fidibus novis, Hunc Lesbio sacrare plectro Teque tuasque decet sorores. 90 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXVII. TO BOON COMPANIONS. In this poem, as in others of a convivial nature, Horace transports himself as it were into the midst of the company, and imparts an air of reality to an imaginary scene, so that it seems as if actually an impromptu. Brawl and fight over cups which were born but for pleasure * Is the custom in Thrace. Out on manners barbaric, Do not put modest Bacchus to shame By the scandal of bloody affrays. In what strange want of keeping with wine-cups and lustres Are the dirks of the Mede. Hush that infamous clamour, Be quiet ! Companions ! seats — seats ! Lean in peace on prest elbows again ! Do you wish me to share a Falernian so doughty? Well then, let the young brother of Locrian Megilla Reveal by what wound, by what shaft He is smitten and dies — happy boy. What, refuse ? tut ! I drink on no other condition. Come, no matter what Venus may conquer thee — ^blush not, For we know that thy sins in that way Must be always high-bred and refined. Nay, thy secret is safe in these faithful ears whispered, Ha ! indeed luckless wretch ! whirled in what a Charybdis ! How I pity thy struggles, O youth. Thou, so worthy less dismal a flame ! O what witch or, with potions Thessalian, what wizard — Nay, what god could avail from such coils to release thee? From that triple Chimaera's embrace Scarce could Pegasus carry thee off. * ** Natis in usum Isetitise scyphis." *' Natis "— *' born," as if made by nature, and destined exclusively for that purpose. — Orelli. BOOK I. — ODE XXVII. QI Carm. XXVII. Natis* in usum laetitiae scyphis Pugnare Thracum est : tollite barbanim Morem, verecundumque Bacchum Sanguineis prohibete rixis ! j Vino et lucemis Medus acinaces - Immane quantum discrepat : impium j Lenite clamorem, sodales, 1 Et cubito remanete presso ! ! I Voltis severi me quoque sumere Partem Falemi ? Dicat Opuntias Frater Megillae, quo beatus j Vulnere, qua pereat sagitta. Cessat voluntas ? Non alia bibam Mercede. Quse te cunque domat Venus, Non erubescendis adurit ! Ignibus, ingenuoque semper I Amore peccas. Quidquid habes, age, i Depone tutis auribus. Ah miser, Quanta laborabas Charybdi, | Digne puer meliore flamma ! j Quse saga, quis te solvere Thessalis Magus venenis, quis poterit deus ? Vix illigatum te triformi Pegasus expediet Chimsera. 92 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXVIII. ARCHYTAS. No ode in Horace has been more subjected than this one to the erudite ingenuity of conflicting commentators; nor are the questions at issue ever hkely to find a solution in which all critics will be contented to agree. The earlier commentators took for granted that the ode was composed as a dialogue between the ghost of Archytas and a voyager. The voyager, landing on the shore of Msl- tinus, finds there the unburied bones of Archytas, and in- dulges in a sarcastic soliloquy, which ends either at verse 6, verse i6, verse 20, or, as Macleane was once of opinion, in the middle of verse 15 — *' Sed omnes una manet nox." Two other theories have been started, by both of which Archytas is got rid of altogether. According to the first theory, the moralising voyager continues his reflections over the grave of the great geometrician, till (whether at verse 15, 16, or 20) the ghost, not of Archytas, but of another, whose bones are bleaching on the sand, rises up, accosts him, and prays to be sprinkled with the dust that may serve for burial and fit him for the Styx. The second theory, favoured by Macleane, and supported by Mr Long, dispenses not only with Archytas, but with the notion of dialogue. According to this conjecture, the whole poem is assigned to the ghost of a shipwrecked and unburied man, who moralises over Archytas and the certainty of death, &c., till, seeing a living sailor approach, he asks for burial. This supposition, the simplest in itself, and sanctioned by great critical authorities, appears to be gaining a more gene- BOOK I. — ODE XXVIII. 93 ral, if recent, assent with scholars than any other hypothesis — and, after much consideration, I have adopted it in my version. If the poem is, however, to be considered a dia- logue, I should not agree with Macleane in placing the division at verse 15,'^ but at verse 20 — "Me quoque devexi," &c. The very abruptness of the interposition of the ghost at that line, which has been considered by many critics objectionably harsh, appears to me a special merit. The ghost, commencing his appeal at that verse, goes at once to the purpose. He, being dead, has no need to say that all must die ; but, contenting himself with briefly informing the voyager that he has been drowned, hastens to implore the handfuls'of dust which suffice for burial. That it is not Archytas himself who speaks, whether in monologue or dialogue, is, I think, made perfectly apparent by the second and third verses of the ode — " Mensorem cohibent, Archyta, Pulveris exigui prope litus parva Matinum Munera," which I agree with Macleane in considering clearly to intimate that the body of Archytas has already received that which he is supposed so earnestly to pray for. " For," thus continues this judicious scholar, •' though many, I am aware, get over this difficulty by supposing ' cohibent munera ' to * I believe that most critics are now agreed that if the poem be a dialogue the first speaker cannot be interrupted at verse 6, or before verse 15. The lines 14, 15 — " Judice te non sordidus auctor Naturae verique," seem to settle that question. Archytas, if commencing at line 16, could scarcely appeal to the sailor as a judge of the learning of Pytha- goras, while the first speaker would very appropriately say that Archy- tas was a judge of it. The attempt to get over this difficulty by corrupt- ing a text sanctioned by all the MSS., and. substituting "me judice" for *'te judice," is nowadays rejected by rational commentators, who rightly oppose unauthorised amendments of texts supported by the con- currence of MSS. 94 THE ODES OF HORACE. mean that the want of the scanty gift of a little earth was keeping him back from his rest, I do not see how the words will bear that sense; nor can I translate ' cohibent' withDillen- burger and others as if it was meant that his body occupied only a small space on the surface of the ground. The words can only mean that he was under the sand, whether partially or otherwise, and in either case he could not require dust to be cast three times on him." — Macleane, ' Introduction to Ode xxviii. Lib. I.' The conjecture of Liibker and others that Horace is sup- posing himself to be a ghost drowned off Palinurus, is too far-fetched and fantastic for serious refutation. For these and other points in controversy the reader is referred to Orelli's Excursus and Macleane's Introduction to this ode. The poem itself is singularly striking. Though abounding in those observations of the brevity of life and the certainty of death in which Horace so frequently indulges, with the half- sportive melancholy of a nature eminently sensuous, the poem has, on the whole, something almost of a Gothic char- acter. The humour takes the sombre colour of the medie- val Dance of Death, and is not without a touch of the genius which speaks in the grave-diggers of Hamlet. It is impossible to fix a date for its composition \ but I incline to rank it among Horace's earlier odes, from a certain likeness in its tone and treatment to the 5th Epode, which has also some- what of the Gothic character in its gloomy earnestness of description, and its employment of the grotesque as an agency of terror. I concur in the general opinion that the scene is laid at the promontory of Matinus, where Archytas is said to have had his tomb. Macleane sees no occasion for that supposition, and thinks the subject of the ode is more likely to have been suggested at Tarentum than elsewhere. He deems " that the words ' Neptuno custode Tarenti ' seem to fix the scene, and that it does not appear why a person speak- BOOK I. — ODE XXVIII. 95 ing at Matinus should talk of Neptune particularly as the 'custos Tarenti.'" I do not see the force of this objection. Neptune was particularly honoured at Tarentum, where he is said to have had a temple, and of which his son Tarns was the mythical founder. On the coins of Tarentum Neptune is represented as the tutelary deity. It would appear, therefore, quite nat- ural that Neptune should be mentioned as the guardian of Tarentum, as Fortune is elsewhere mentioned as the guardian of Antium, without supposing that the person so referring to the deity was in the neighbourhood of the place specially protected; while the length at which Archytas is addressed at the commencement seems to indicate the scene as that in which the philosopher so emphatically selected was buried. Archytas himself was a Greek of Tarentum, which would render yet more appropriate a reference to that city whoever may be supposed to be speaking — the poem having com- menced with the address to the shade of the great Tarentian. Archytas was amongst the most illustrious of the ancient worthies — a general, a statesman, a philosopher, and espe- cially a mathematician. He belonged to the Pythagorean school, but is supposed to have founded a new sect. The alleged inventor of analytical geometry, he is said to have originated the application of mathematics to mechanics, and constructed a flying dove of wood, which was to the myths of the ancients what Roger Bacon's brazen head is to those of the modems. He is considered to have been a contem- porary of Plato, and Aristotle wrote a life of him which is lost. The metre is the same as in Ode vii., but I have not em- ployed the same measure in the translation, thinking that the spirit of it requires the more elegiac rhythm which I have appropriated to some of the Epodes, and, indeed, to some other of the Odes. 96 THE ODES OF HORACE. Thee, arch-surveyor of the earth and ocean And the innumerous sands, Archytas, thee, Pent in a creeklet margined by Matinus, The scanty boon of trivial dust keeps close. What boots it now into the halls of Heaven To have presumed, and drawn empyreal air, Ranged through the spheres and with thy mind of mortal Swept through creation to arrive at death ? The sire of Pelops with the gods did banquet, And yet he died; — remote into thin air Vanished, if lingering long, at last Tithonus ; Minos shared Jove's high secrets, — yet he died. The son of Panthous, though he called to witness* His ancient buckler and the times of Troy, That to grim death he gave but skin and sinew, Tartarus regains, — and, this time, holds him fast ; Yet he of Truth and Nature, in thy judgment, Was an authority of no mean rank. But one Night waits for all, and one sure pathway Trodden by all, and only trodden once. Some do the Furies to grim Mars exhibit On the red stage in which disports his eye ; The greedy ocean swallows up the sailors ; Old and young huddled swell the funeral throng ; * The shield of Euphorbus, son of Panthous (the valiant Trojan who wounded Patroclus), was preserved with other trophies in the temple of Juno at or near My cense ; and according to a well-known legend, Pythagoras recognised this shield as that which he had borne when he lived in the person of Euphorbus. The son of Panthous, therefore, means Pythagoras, whom the speaker sarcastically compliments as no mean judge of truth and nature in the opinion of Archytas, who belonged to his school. BOOK I. — ODE XXVIII. 97 Carm. XXVIII. Te maris et terrae numeroque carentis arenae Mensorem cohibent, Archyta, Pulveris exigui prope litus parva Matinum Munera, nee quidquam tibi prodest Aerias tentasse domos, animoque rotundum Percurrisse polum, morituro. Occidit et Pelopis genitor, conviva deorum, Tithonusque remotus in auras, Et Jovis arcanis Minos admissus, habentque Tartara Panthoiden iterum Oreo Demissum ; quamvis, elypeo Trojana refixo Tempora testatus, nihil ultra Nervos atque eutem Morti eoncesserat atrae, Judiee te non sordidus auetor Naturae verique. Sed omnes una manet nox, Et ealeanda semel via leti. Dant alios Furiae torvo speetaeula Marti ; Exitio est avidum mare nautis ; 98 THE ODES OF HORACE. Each head ''' must pay to Proserpine the poll-tax. Me also, Notus,t hurrying on to join His comrade setting amidst storm, Orion, Plunged into death amid Illyrian waves. But thou, O sailor, churlishly begrudge not A sand-grain to my graveless bones and skull ; So may whatever the east wind shall threaten To waves Hesperian, pass thee harmless by And waste its wrath upon Venusian forests : So from all-righteous Jove and him who guards Tarentum's consecrated haven, Neptune, Be every profit they can send thee showered. Think'st thou 'tis nought to doom thy guiltless children To dread atonement for their father's wrong ? Nay, on thyself may fall dire retribution And the just laws that give back scorn for scorn. I'll not be left, with prayers disdained, revengeless, No expiation could atone such crime ; Whate'er thy haste, this task not long delays thee — A little dust thrice sprinkled — then away. * "Nullum saeva caput Proserpina fugit " — in allusion to the lock of hair which, according to the popular superstition, Proserpine cut off from the head of the dying. f "Me also, Notus," &c. If the poem be supposed a dialogue, it seems to me that this is the place at which the second speaker, as the ghost of an unburied man, suddenly starts up and interposes. — See Intro- duction. BOOK I. — ODE XXVIII. 99 Mixta senum ac juvenum densentur funera, nullum Sseva caput Proserpina fugit* tMe quoque devexi rapidus comes Ononis Illyricis Notus obruit undis. At tu, nauta, vagae ne parce malignus arense Ossibus et capiti inhumato Particulam dare : sic, quodcunque minabitur Eurus Fluctibus Hesperiis, Venusinae Plectantur silv^, te sospite, multaque merces, Unde potest, tibi defluat aequo Ab Jove, Neptunoque sacri custode Tarenti. Negligis immeritis nocituram Postmodo te natis fraudem committere ? Fors et Debita jura vicesque superbae Te maneant ipsum : precibus non linquar inultis, Teque piacula nulla resolvent. Quamquam festinas, non est mora longa ; licebit Injecto ter pulvere curras. 100 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXIX. TO ICCIUS. In the 1 2th Ode of this Book Horace referred to the expedition into Arabia Felix meditated by Augustus, and which was sent from Egypt, a.u.c. 730, under the com- mand of the Governor of Egypt, ^Hus Gallus. Many Roman youths were attracted to this expedition by love of adventure and hope of spoil ; among others, the Iccius here addressed, who survived to become the peaceful steward to Vipsanius Agrippa's estates in Sicily. The good-natured banter on the warlike ardour conceived by a student of philosophy, was probably quite as much enjoyed by Iccius himself as by any one. They who suppose that so well-bred a man of the world as Horace is always insinu- ating moral reproofs to the friends he publicly addresses, are the only persons likely to agree with the scholiasts that he means gravely to rebuke Iccius for avarice in coveting the wealth of the Arabs. So, Iccius, thou grudgest their wealth to the Arabs, Wouldst war on kings Sheban, as yet never conquered, And art sternly preparing the chains For the arms of the terrible Mede ? What virgin barbaric shall serve thee as handmaid, Her betrothed being laid in the dust by thy falchion ? And what page, born and bred in a court, Nor untaught Seric arrows to launch From a bow-string paternal, with locks sleek and perfumed. Shall attend at thy feasts, and replenish thy goblets ? Who that rivers can flow to their founts, And the Tiber runs back, will deny, If the sage of a promise so rare can surrender All that priceless collection, the works of Pansetius, And the school in which Socrates taught, In exchange for a Spanish coat-mail ? BOOK I. — ODE XXIX. 101 Carm. XXIX. Icci, beatis nunc Arabum invides Gazis, et acrem militiam paras Non ante devictis Sabaes Regibus, horribilique Medo Nectis catenas ? Quae tibi virginum Sponso necato barbara serviet ? Puer quis ex aula capillis Ad cyathum statuetiir unctis, Doctus sagittas tendere Sericas Arcu paterno ? Quis neget arduis Pronos relabi posse rivos Montibus, et Tiberim reverti, Cum tu coemptos undique nobiles Libros Panasti, Socraticam et domum, Mutare loricis Hiberis, PoUicitus meliora, tendis ? 102 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXX. VENUS INVOKED TO GLYCERA's FANE. This ode has the air of a complimentary copy of verses to some fair freed -woman who had fitted up a pretty fane to Venus, probably in the grotto, or antrum, at- tached to her residence. Venus, O queen of Cnidos and of Paphos, Spurn thy loved Cyprus — ^here transfer thy presence : Decked is the fane to which, with incense lavish, Glycera calls thee. Bring with thee, glowing rosy red, the Boy-god, Nymphs and loose-girdled Graces, and — if wanting Thee, wanting charm — bring Youth, nor let persuasive '^ Mercury fail us. * For the addition of this explanatory epithet, see the notes of Orelli and Dillenburger. BOOK I. — ODE XXX. 103 Carm. XXX. O Venus, regina Cnidi Paphique, Sperne dilectam Cypron, et vocantis Thure te multo Glycerae decoram Transfer in aedem. Fervidus tecum Puer, et solutis Gratiae zonis, properentque Nymphse, Et pamm comis sine te Juventas, ^'Mercuriusque. 104 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXXI. PRAYER TO APOLLO. After the battle of Actium, Augustus, in commencing the task of social refortner, restored the ancient temples and built new ones. Amongst the latter, a.u.c. 726, he dedicated to Apollo a temple, with a library attached to it, on the Palatine. This charming poem expresses the poet's private supplication to the god thus newly installed. What demands at Apollo's new temple the poet ? For what prays he outpouring new wine in libation ? Not fertile Sardinia's rich sheaves, Not sunny Calabria's fair herds ; Neither prays he for gold, nor the ivory of Indus, Nor the meadows whose margin the calm-flowing Liris Eats into with murmurless wave. Let those on whom Fortune bestows So luxurious a grape, prune the vine-trees of Cales, And let trade's wealthy magnate exchange for the vintage Spiced cargoes of Syria, and drain Cups ^ sculptured for pontiifs in gold ; Dear, indeed, to the gods must be he who revisits Twice and thrice every year the Atlantic, unpunished : To me for a feast, mallows light. And endives and olives suffice. Give me health in myself to enjoy the things granted, O thou son of Latona ; sound mind in sound body ; Keep mine age free from all that degrades. And let it not fail of the lyre. * " CuluUis," sculptured cups used by the pontiffs and Vestal virgins in the sacred festivals. BOOK I. — ODE XXXI. 1 05 Carm. XXXI. Quid dedicatum poscit Apollinem Vates ? quid orat, de patera novum Fundens liquorem ? Non opim^ Sardinise segetes feraces, Non aestuosae grata Calabrise Armenta, non aurum aut ebur Indicum, Non rura, quas Liris quiesta Mordet aqua tacitumus amnis. Premant Galena falce, quibus dedit Fortuna, vitem ; dives et aureis Mercator exsiccet culullis * Vina Syra reparata merce, Dis cams ipsis, quippe ter et quater Anno revisens aequor Atlanticum Impune. Me pascunt olivae, Me cichorea levesque malvae. Frui paratis et valido mihi, Latoe, dones, et, precor, integra Cum mente ; nee turpem senectam Degere, nee cithara carentem. I06 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXXII. TO HIS LYRE. This short invocation to his lyre has the air of a prelude to some meditated poem of greater importance. Several of the Manuscripts commence " Poscimus," which reading Bentley adopts. The modern editors agree in preferring ''Poscimur," which has more of the outburst of song, and renders the poem more directly an address to the lyre. We are summoned. If e'er, under shadow sequestered, Has sweet dalliance with thee in light moments of leisure Given birth to a something which lives, and may, haply, Live in years later, Rouse thee now, and discourse in the strains of the Roman, Vocal shell, first attuned by the patriot of Lesbos, Wlio, in war though so fierce, yet in battle, or mooring On the wet sea-sand His bark, tempest-tossed, chaunted Liber, the Muses, Smiling Venus, the Boy ever clinging beside her, And, adorned by dark locks and by eyes of dark lustre, Beautiful Lycus.,^ O thou grace of Apollo, O charm in Jove's banquets, Holy shell, dulcet solace of labour and sorrow, O respond to my greeting, when I, with rite solemn, Duly invoke thee. BOOK I. — ODE XXXII. 107 Carm. XXXII. Poscimur. Si quid vacui sub umbra Lusimus tecum, quod et hunc in annum Vivat et plures ; age, die Latinum, Barbite, carmen, Lesbio primum modulate civi. Qui, ferox bello, tamen inter arma, Sive jactatam religarat udo Litore navim, Liberum, et Musas, Veneremque, et illi Semper haerentem Puerum canebat, Et Lycum nigris oculis nigroque Crine decorum. O decus Phoebi, et dapibus supremi Grata testudo Jo vis, O laborum Dulce lenimen, mihi cumque salve Rite vocanti. I08 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXXIII. TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS. This poem is addressed to the most touching of all the Latin elegiac poets, Tibullus. Various but not satisfactory attempts have been made to identify Glycera with one of the two mistresses, Nemesis and Delia, celebrated in TibuUus's extant elegies. Nay, Albius, my friend, set some bounds to thy sorrow. Let not this ruthless Glycera haunt thee for ever. Nor, if in her false eyes a younger outshine thee, Such heart-broken elegies dole. With passion for Cyrus glows low-browed Lycoris,* Cyrus swerving to Pholoe meets with rough usage : When with wolves of Apulia the roe has her consort. With that sinner Pholoe shall sin. 'Tis ever the way thus with Venus — it charms her To mate those that match not in mind nor in person ; In jest to her yoke she compels the wrong couples j Alas ! cruel jest, brazen yoke ! Myself, when a far better love came to woo me, Myrtale the slave-born detained in fond fetters j And Hadria can fret not the bay of Tarentum So sorely as she fretted me. * "Insignem tenui fronte Lycorida." So again, " Nigros angusta fronte capillos" — Epp. I. vii. 26 : a low forehead seems to have long re- mained in fashion. Petronius, c. 126, in describing a beautiful woman, says, "Frons minima et quae apices capillorum retro flexerat." Low foreheads came into fashion again at the close of the last century with the French Republic. Both with men and women the hair was then brought BOOK I.— ODE XXXIII. 1 09 Carm. XXXIII. Albi, ne doleas plus nimio, memor Immitis Glycerse, neu miserabiles Decantes elegos, cur tibi junior Laesa prseniteat fide. Insignem tenui fronte Lycorida * ' Cyri torret amor, Cyrus in asperam Declinat Pholoen ; sed prius Apulis Jungentur capreae lupis, Quam turpi Pholoe peccet adultero. Sic visum Veneri, cui placet impares Formas atque animos sub juga aenea Saevo mittere cum joco. Ipsum me, melior cum peteret Venus, Grata detinuit compede Myrtale Libertina, fretis acrior Hadriae Curvantis Calabros sinus. down to the very eyebrow, as may be seen in the portraits of that time. Yet the Greek sculptors in the purer age of art did not give low fore- heads to their ideal images of beauty, and it is difficult to guess why an intellectual people like the Romans should have admired a peculiarity fatal to all frank and noble expression of the human countenance. The Roman ladies were accustomed to hide their foreheads by a bandage, elegantly called " nimbus" — i.e ., the cloud which accompanied the ap- pearance of the celestials. no THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXXIV. TO HIMSELF. In this poem Horace appears to recant the Epicurean doctrine, which referred to secondary causes, and not to the providential agency of Divine power, the government of the universe, and which he professed. Sat. I. v, loi, and Epp. I. iv. 1 6. But, in fact, he candidly acknowledges his own inconsistency in all such matters, and is Stoic or Epicurean by fits and starts. In this ode he evidently connects the phenomenon of thunder in a serene sky with the sudden re- volutions of fortune. The concluding verses are generally held to refer to the Parthian revolution, in which power was transferred now from Phraates to Tiridates, and again from Tiridates back to Phraates. In the last stanza — " Hinc apicem rapax Fortuna cum stridore acuto Sustulit, hie posuisse gaudet " — it was suggested in the ' Cambridge Philological Museum,' May 1832, that Horace had in his mind the legend of the eagle taking off the cap of Tarquinius. For the conve- nience of the general reader the story may be briefly thus told. Worshipper rare and niggard of the gods, While led astray, in the Fool's wisdom versed, Now back I shift the sail. Forced in the courses left behind to steer : For not, as wont, disparting serried cloud With fiery flash, but through pure azure, drove Of late Diespiter His thundering coursers and his winged car ; BOOK I. — ODE XXXIV. Ill told. Demaratus, one of the Bacchiadae of Corinth, flying from his native city when Cypselus destroyed the power of that aristocratic order, settled at Tarquinii, in Etniria, and married an Etruscan \vife. His son Lucumo succeeded to his wealth, and married Tanaquil, of one of the noblest families in Tarquinii, but being, as a stranger, excluded from state offices, Lucumo, urged by his wife, resolved to remove to Rome. Just as he and his procession reached the Janic- ulum, within sight of Rome, an eagle seized his cap, soared with it to a great height — "cum magno clangore" — and then replaced it on his head. Tanaquil predicted to him the highest honours from this omen, and Lucumo, who assumed the name of Tarquinius Prisons, ultimately obtained the Roman throne. Macleane, in referring to the legend, and to the reference to Phraates, thinks it not probable that Ho- race meant to allude to both these historical facts together, and is therefore inclined to suppose that he intended neither one nor the other. His objection does not impress me. Nothing is more probable than that Horace should exem- plify the sudden act of fortune in the Parthian revolution and render his allusion more lively by a metaphor borrowed from a familiar Roman myth. Carm. XXXIV. Parous deorum cultor et infrequens, Insanientis dum sapientiae Consultus erro, nunc retrorsum Vela dare, atque iterare cursus Cogor relictos : namque Diespiter, Igni corusco nubila dividens Plerumque, per purum tonantes Egit equos volucremque cumim ; 112 THE ODES OF HORACE. Wherewith the fixed earth and the vagrant streams — Wherewith the Styx and horror-breathing realms Of rayless Tasnarus, shook — Shook the world's end on Atlas. A god reigns, Potent the high with low to interchange, Bid bright orbs wane, and those obscure come forth : Shrillingly Fortune swoops — Here snatches, there exultant drops, a crown. BOOK I.— ODE XXXIV. TI3 Quo bmta tellus et vaga flumina, Quo Styx et invisi horrida Taenari Sedes, Atlanteusque finis Concutitur. Valet ima summis Mutare, et insignem attenuat deus, Obscura promens ; hinc apicem rapax Fortuna cum stridore acuto Sustulit, hie posuisse gaudet. 114 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXXV. TO FORTUNE. Macleane places the date of this ode a.u.c. 728, when Augustus was meditating an expedition against the Britons and another against the Arabs. Fortune is here distinguished from Necessity, and recognised as a Divine InteUigence, ra- ther with the attributes of Providence than those of Fate. As Fortune had her oldest temples in Rome, so she seems to have been the last goddess whose worship was deserted by the Roman emperors. Goddess, who o'er thine own loved "^ Antium reignest, Present to lift Man, weighted with his sorrows Down to life's last degree, Or change his haughtiest triumphs into graves; — To thee the earth's poor tiller prays imploring — To thee, Queen-lady of the deeps, whoever Cuts with Bithynian keel A passing furrow in Carpathian seas.t Thee Dacian rude — thee Scythia's vagrant nomad J — Thee states and races — thee Rome's haughty children — Thee purple tyrants dread. And the pale mothers of Barbarian kings. Lest thou spurn down with scornful foot the pillar Whereon rest states ;§ lest all, from arms yet lingering, * " Gratum — Antium." Orelli prefers interpreting **gratum " as "di- lectum," "dear to the goddess," rather than as *'amoenum," or "plea- sant." + /.^., whether man ploughs earth or sea he equally prays to Fortune. X " Profugi Scythise." The epithet "profugi " applies to the nomad character of the Scyth, not to simulated flights as those of the Parthian cavalry. § " Stantem columnam." The standing column was the emblem of BOOK I. — ODE XXXV. II5 Carm. XXXV. O Diva, gratum* quae regis Antium, Praesens vel imo tollere de gradu Mortale corpus, vel superbos Vertere funeribus txiumphos ; Te pauper ambit sollicita prece Ruris colonus ; te dominam ^quoris, Quicunque Bithyna lacessit Carpathium pelagus carina. t Te Dacus asper, te profugi Scythae, J Urbesque gentesque et Latium ferox, Regumque matres barbarorum, et Purpurei metuunt tyranni, Injurioso ne pede proruras Stantem columnam, § neu populus frequens fixity and firmness. " In ancient monuments," says Dillenburger, " the column is thus assigned to images of Peace, Security, Felicity." Horace naturally writes in the spirit of his land and age in deprecating civil tu- mult as the most formidable agency for the overthrow of the column and the destruction of government and order. Il6 THE ODES OF HORACE. To arms some madding crowd Rouse with the shout to which an empire falls. Thee doth untamed Necessity for ever Stalk fierce before ; — the ship nails and the wedges Bearing in grasp of bronze, Which lacks nor molten lead nor steadfast clamp.* But thee Hope follows, and rare Faith, the white-robed, True to thee, even when thou thyself art altered. And from the homes of Power Passest away, in mourning weeds, a foe ; While the false herd, the parasite, the harlot, Shrink back : their love is dried up with the wine-cask. Their lips reject its lees ; Their necks will halve no yoke that Sorrow draws. Guard Caesar, seeking on earth's verge the Briton, — Guard Rome's young swarm of warriors on the wing, Where they alight, to awe The rebel East and Araby's red sea. Shame for the scars, the guilt, the blood of brothers ! What have we shunned — we, the hard Age of Iron ? What of crime left intact ? What youthful hand has fear of heaven restrained ? Where stands an altar sacred from its rapine ? Dread goddess, — steel made blunt in impious battles On anvils new reforge ; And turn its edge on Arab and on Scyth ! * Most recent commentators of authority agree in rejecting the notion of the commentator in Cruquius, adopted by earlier editors, that "uncus " and " pkimbum " are used here as emblems of punishment and crime, and consider them as emblems of tenacity and fixity of purpose. Mac- leane observes that the metaphor of molten lead for strengthening build- ings is employed by Euripides, 'Androm.,' 267. Herder suggests that the whole picture of Necessity and her attributes is taken from some pic- ture in the temple of Fortune at Antium. BOOK I. — ODE XXXV. 117 i * \ Ad arma cessantes, ad arma I Concitet, imperiumque frangat Te semper anteit saeva Necessitas, Clavos trabales et cuneos manu j Gestans aena ; nee sevenis | Uncus abest, liquidumque plumbum.''' ! ■\ Te Spes et albo rara Fides colit : Velata panno, nee comitem abnegat, i Utcunque mutata potentes J Veste domos inimica linquis. ! J At volgus infidum et meretrix retro \ Perjura cedit ; diffugiunt cadis Cum fsece siccatis amici, Ferre jugum pariter dolosi. S Serves iturum Caesarem in ultimos Orbis Britannos, et juvenum recens Examen Eois timendum i Partibus, Oceanoque mbro. \ I Eheu ! cicatricum et sceleris pudet | Fratrumque. Quid nos dura refugimus j ^tas ? quid intactum nefasti \ Liquimus ? unde manum juventus j Metu deorum continuit? quibus Pepercit aris ? O utinam nova Incude diffingas retusum in Massagetas Arabasque ferrum ! \ Il8 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXXVI. ON NUMIDA's return from SPAIN. Horace congratulates Numida on his return from Spain — probably from the army with Augustus, a.u.c. 730. Who Numida was can be only matter of conjecture. Repay both with incense and harp-string, Repay with theheifer's blood due, Numida's guardians divine; Safe back from Hesperia the farthest, Now among loving friends shares he many a brotherly kiss. But the portion of Lamia is largest ; Mindful of childhood subjected to the same monarch's"" control, And how they both, donning the toga. Leapt into manhood together. Let not this happy day lack The registered mark of the Crete stone : Be there no stint to the wine-cask, be there no pause to the feet. Blithe in the bound of such measure Salii on holidays dance to ! Bassus shall gallantly vie With Damalis, queen of she-topers, Toss off his cup with a swallow like the grand drinkers of Thrace ;t And banquets shall want not the roses, Garlands of parsley the long-lived, garlands of lilies the brief. All eyes shall for Damalis languish ; But yet more encircling than ivy, climbing its way as it winds, Shall Damalis, proof to their glances. Turning aside from the old loves, cling root and branch to the new. * *' Memor actas non 'alio rege puertise," Most modem scholars by **rege" understand schoolmaster. + **Threicia amystide." "Amystis" was a deep draught taken without drawing breath. BOOK I. — ODE XXXVI. II9 Caem. XXXVI. Et thure et fidibus juvat Placare et vituli sanguine debito Custodes Numidse deos, Qui nunc, Hesperia sospes ab ultima, Caris multa sodalibus, Nulli plura tamen dividit oscula Quam dulci Lamise, memor Actse non alio rege puertis,'" Mutatseque simul togas. Cressa ne careat pulchra dies nota, Neu promptse modus amphorse_, Neu morem in Salium sit requies pedum, Neu multi Damalis meri Bassum Threicia vincat amystide,t Neu desint epulis ross, Neu vivax apium, neu breve lilium. Omnes in Damalin putres Deponent oculos, nee Damalis novo Divelletur adultero, Lascivis hederis ambitiosior. 120 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXXVII. ON THE FALL OF CLEOPATRA. In this ode Horace conspicuously manifests his unri- valled art of combining terseness and completeness. The animated rapidity with which the images succeed each other does not render them less distinct. The three pic- tures of Cleopatra constitute the action of a drama; her insolent power with its Oriental surroundings, — her flight and fall, — her undaunted death. And while, with his in- herent manliness of sentiment, Horace compels admiration for Drink, companions, the moment has come for carousal, And the foot is now free to strike earth in brisk measures. For Salian* feasts now may be decked The couches of statues divine. Not before was it lawful from time-honoured cellars To draw forth into light the stored Caecuban juices, While ruin and death were prepared For Rome, by the fell madding Queen, With her horde of vile eunuchs and outcasts polluted, Fooled by hope, drunk with sweets in the chalice of Fortune : Soon sobered when slunk from the flames That enveloped her navies — one ship ! * The Salii were the priests of Mars Gradivus, twelve in number. Their habitual festival was in March, when they paraded the city in their official robes, carrying with them the twelve sacred shields of Mars, which they struck with rods, keeping time to the stroke by song and dance. At the conclusion of the festival the Salii partook of a banquet, proverbial for its magnificence, in the temple of Mars. * ' Pulvinaria " are the couches on which the statues were placed, as if the gods them- selves were banqueters. BOOK I. — ODE XXXVII. 121 for the foe who defrauds the victor of his triumph, and dies a queen, that very generosity of his serves more to justify the joyous exultation with which the poem commences, since it impHes the determined nature of the great enemy from whom Rome is delivered. The date of the poem is sufficiently clear. M. TuUius Cicero, son of the orator, brought to Rome the new^s of the taking of Alexandria, and the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, Sept., a.u.c. 724, suggest- ing this exhortation to private and public rejoicings. It will be observed here, as elsewhere, how Horace avoids naming Mark Antony. Two lines from a fragment of Alcseus are cited by commentators to show that the commencement of this ode is imitated from them. They rather serve to show with what sedulous avoidance of servility Horace does imitate, and how thoroughly Roman the whole treatment of his poem is, w^hatever be the lines to which a Greek poem may furnish hint and suggestion. Carm. XXXVII. Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero Pulsanda tellus j nunc Saliaribus* Omare pulvinar deorum Tempus erat dapibus, sodales. Antehac nefas depromere Caecubum Cellis avitis, dum Capitolio Regina dementes ruinas, Funus et imperio parabat Contaminato cum grege turpium Morbo virorum, quidlibet impotens Sperare, fortunaque dulci Ebria. Sed minuit furorem 122 THE ODES OF HORACE. Speeding on to transfix into true forms of terror The visions which fumes Mareotic"^ engender, As falcon that swoops on the dove, As hunter that chases the hare On the snow plains of Hsemus, — from Italy plying Rapid oars on her flight near and nearer comes Caesar, To chain, as the gapeshow of Rome, The fair fatal monster. Too great For such end, she but sought by what death to defy it. She recoiled from the sword with no womanlike shudder. She crowded no sail to far shores Where life might lurk safe and obscure. Brave to gaze with calm look round her desolate palace, Strong to grasp with firm hand and provoke the fierce serpents That, there where she fixed them, her veins Might best the black venom imbibe ; Bolder made in the death thus assured by stern purpose, She begrudged to the savage Liburnianst their captive ; In no insolent triumph was drawn Discrowned, the grand woman-queen. * ' ' Mentemque lymphatam Mareotico. " * ' Lymphatam " denotes panic or visionary terrors (" lymphata somnia "). " Lympha " and " nynipha," as Macleane observes, are the same word. Nympliolepsy was the mad- ness occasioned by the sight of the nymph flashing up from the fountain, scaring the traveller out of his senses ; and ** lymphatus " literally means "driven mad by the glare of water." Horace ascribes this effect to the fumes, or perhaps rather the sparkle, of the Mareotic wine, produced on the banks of Lake Mareotis, in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. + " Liburnians," light swift-sailing vessels, which constituted a chief portion of Augustus's fleet at Actium. BOOK I. — ODE XXXVII. 1 23 Vix una sospes navis ab ignibus ; Mentemque lymphatam Mareotico* Redegit in veros timores Caesar, ab Italia volantem Remis adurgens, accipiter velut Molles columbas, aut leporem citus Venator in Campis nivalis H^monise, daret ut catenis Fatale monstrum : quae generosius Perire quaerens, nee muliebriter Expavit ensem, nee latentes Classe cita reparavit oras. Ausa et jacentem vis ere regiam Voltu sereno, fortis et asperas Tractare serpentes, ut atrum Corpore combiberet venenum ; Deliberata morte ferocior, Saevis Libumist scilicet invidens Privata deduci superbo Non humilis mulier triumpho. 124 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XXXVIII. TO HIS WINE-SERVER. Boy, I detest the pomp of Persic fashions — Coronals wreathed with Hnden rind"^ displease me; Cease to explore each nook for some belated Rose of the autumn. Weave with plain myrtle nothing else, I bid thee ; Thee not, in serving, misbecomes the myrtle, Me not, in drinking, underneath the trellised Bowery vine-leaves.t * *' Philyra," the rind of the lime-tree used in elaborate garlands. + "Sub arta vite" — "arta," "close," "embowering;" as in the trellised vine-arbours still common in Italy and parts of Germany. BOOK I. — ODE XXXVIII. 12$ Carm. XXXVIII. Persicos odi, puer, apparatus, Displicent nexae philyra* coronae ; Mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum Sera moretur. Simplici myrto nihil allabores Sedulus euro : neque te ministrum Dedecet myrtus neque me sub arta Vite bibentem.t 126 THE ODES OF HORACE. BOOK IL— ODE I. TO ASINIUS POLLIO. Pollio was among Caesar's generals when he crossed the Rubicon, and at the battle of Pharsalia. After Caesar's death he joined M. Antony, and sided with him in the Pem- sian war. He remained neutral after the battle of Actium. Indeed he retired from an active share in public life after his victorious expedition against the Parthini, an Illyrian people bordering on Dalmatia, and it is to that victory which Horace refers as the " Dalmatian triumph." He then gave himself The civil feuds which from Metellus date. The causes, errors, conduct of the war. Fortune's capricious sport, The fatal friendships of august allies, And arms yet crusted with in expiate blood; — Such work is risked upon a perilous die : Thou tread'st on smouldering fires. By the false lava heaped on them concealed. Let for a while the tragic Muse forsake Her stage, till thou set forth the tale of Rome, Then the grand gift of song. With the Cecropian buskin, reassume, Pollio, in forum and in senate famed, Grief's bold defender, counsel's thoughtful guide, For whom the laurel, won In fields Dalmatian, blooms forth ever green. BOOK II. — ODE I. 127 himself up to literature. His tragedies, of which there are no remains, are highly praised by Virgil, who says they were worthy of Sophocles. Porphyrion says he was the only one of his time who could write tragedy well. But the author of the ' Dialog, de Oratoribus ' asserts that both as a tragic writer and an orator his style was hard and dry. His history appears to have been in seventeen books; and it is after having heard him read a part of it (he is said to have introduced at Rome the custom of such readings to assemblies, more or less familiar, before publication) that we may suppose Horace to have written the ode, of which the date is uncertain. Pollio appears to have been one of the most truly illustrious, and certainly one of the most accomplished, personages of the Augustan era. Carm I. Motum ex Metello consule civicum, Bellique causas et vitia et modos, Ludumque Fortunse, gravesque Principum amicitias, et arma jSTondum expiatis uncta cruoribus, Periculosse plenum opus ale^, Tractas et incedis per ignes Suppositos cineri doloso. PauUum severae Musa tragcediae Desit theatris : mox ubi publicas Res ordinaris, grande munus Cecropio repetes cothurno, Insigne maestis prsesidium reis Et consulenti, Pollio, curiae, Cui laurus astemos honores Delmatico peperit triumpho. 128 THE ODES OF HORACE. j Now, now, thou strik'st the ear with murmurous threat From choral horns — now the loud clarions blare ; ^ Lightnings from armour flashed, | Daunt charging war-steeds '^ and the looks of men I i Now, now, I seem to hear the mighty chiefs, ! Soiled with the dust which ornaments the brave, ; And see all earth subdued. Save the intrepid soul of Cato. Foiled Of her revenge, Juno, with all the gods, Quitting the Afric they had loved in vain, ' Back to Jugurtha's shade Brought funeral victims in his conqueror's sons. What field, made fertile by the Roman's gore. Attests not impious wars by ghastly mounds, j And by the crash, borne far | To Median ears, of falling Italy ? i What gulf, what stream, has boomed not with the wail Of dismal battle-storms ? What sea has hues : From Daunian carnage pure. What land has lacked the tribute of our blood ? Hush, wayward Muse, nor, playful strains laid by, Strive to recast the C can's t dirge-like hymn : ' In Dionaean grot, ' With me, seek measures tuned to lighter quill. A * "Fugaces terret equos." "Fugaces" here does not mean steeds in flight, but rather in charge — it applies to their swiftness. — POR- PHYRION. Orelli adopts that interpretation. + "Cese — nenise." Horace does not confine this word to the usual sense of. a dirge ; but it suits the quahty of Simonides's poetry, which was of a severe and melancholy cast. — Macleane. BOOK 11. — ODE I. 129 Jam nunc minaci murmure cornuum Perstringis aures, jam litui strepunt, Jam fulgor armorum fugaces Tenet equos'^ equitumque voltus. Audire magnos jam videor duces Non indecoro pulvere sordidos, Et cuncta terrarum subacta Praeter atrocem animum Catonis. Juno et deorum quisquis amicior Afris inulta cesserat impotens Tellure victorum nepotes Rettulit inferias Jugurthae. Quis non Latino sanguine pinguior Campus sepulcris impia proelia Testatur, auditumque Medis Hesperiae sonitum ruinae ? Qui gurges aut quae flumina lugubris Ignara belli ? quod mare Dauniag Non decoloravere c^des ? Quae caret ora cruore nostro ? Sed ne relictis, Musa procax, jocis, Ceae retractes munera neniae :t Mecum Dionaeo sub antro Quaere modos leviore plectro. 130 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE II. TO C. SALLUSTIUS CRISPUS, GRAND-NEPHEW OF THE HISTORIAN. Many years before this ode, which is assigned to a.u.c. 730, Horace satirises the frailties of this personage, who was then a young man (Sat. I. ii. 48). He was now second only to Maecenas in the favour of Augustus, to whom he subse- quently became the chief adviser. Tacitus gives a vigorous sketch of his character. He died a.d. 20. Yes-, Sallust, scorn the mere inactive metal ; There is no lustre of itself in silver, While niggard earth conceals ; from temperate usage Comes its sm.ooth polish. Known by the heart of father for his brethren, Time's latest age shall hear of Proculeius.* Him shall uplift, and on no waxen pinion, Fame, the survivor. Wider thy realm, a greedy soul subjected, Than if to Libya joined the farthest Gades, And either Carthage t to thy single service Ministered riches. The direful dropsy feeds itself, increasing ; To expel the thirst we must expel the causes, And healthier blood must chase the watery languor From the wan body. * Proculeius, a friend and near connection of Maecenas, with whom he is coupled by Juvenal (S. vii. 94) as a patron of letters, is said by the scholiasts to have divided his fortune with his brothers Licinius Murena, and Fannius Caepio, whose property had been despoiled in the civil wars. It is doubted, however, whether Licinius was his brother or cousin, and BOOK II. — ODE II. 131 Carm. II. Nullus argento color est avaris Abdito terris, inimice lamnae Crispe Sallusti, nisi temperato Splendeat usu. Vivet extento Proculeius* sevo, Notus in fratres animi patemi ; Ilium aget penna metuente solvi Fama superstes. Latius regnes avidum domando Spiritum, quam si Libyam remotis Gadibus jungas, et uterque Poenust Serviat uni Crescit indulgens sibi dims hydrops, Nee sitim pellit, nisi causa morbi Fugerit venis, et aquosus albo Corpore languor. whether Csepio was related to him. Proculeius was among the Roman ■ knights on whom Augustus thought of bestowing Julia in marriage. t " Either Carthage" — viz., the African Carthage and her colonies in Spain. \ 132 THE ODES OF HORACE. Virtue, dissentient from the vulgar judgment, Strikes from the hst .of happy men Phraates, Even when restored to the great throne of Cyrus ; Virtue unteaches Faith in false doctrines mouthed out by the many. Holding safe only his realm, crown, and laurel, Whose sight nor blinks, nor swerves, though, heaped before it. Shine the world's treasures. BOOK 11. — ODE II. 133 Readijtum Cyri solio Phraaten Dissidens plebi nunfero beatonim Eximit Virtus, populumque falsis Dedocet uti Vocibus; regnum et diadema tutum Deferens uni propriamque laurum, Quisquis ingentes oculo inretorto Spectat acervos. ^ 134 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE III. TO Q. DELLIUS. The commentator in Cruquius has GelHus for DeUius, assuming the person addressed to be L. Gellius Pophcola, brother of Messalla, the famous orator. But the common supposition is that the poem is addressed to Q. DelHus, to whose changeful and adventurous Hfe its admonitions would be very appropriate. Dellius sided first with Dolabella, then went over to Cassius, then to M. Antony and Cleo- patra. To Cleopatra he is said to have dictated the advice that With a mind undisturbed take life's good and life's evil, Temper grief from despair, temper joy from vainglory; For, through each mortal change, equal mind, O my Dellius, befits mortal-born. Whether all that is left thee of life be but trouble, Or, reclined at thine ease amid grassy recesses. Thy Falernian, the choicest, records How serenely the holidays glide. Say, for what do vast pine and pale poplar commingle Friendly boughs that invite to their welcoming shadow ? * Wherefore struggles and murmurs the rill Stayed from flight by a curve in the shore ?t Thither, lo, bid them bring thee the wine and the perfumes, And the blooms of the pleasant rose dying too swiftly ; * "The oldest and best MSS. have 'quo,' which signifies * to what purpose;' as, * Quo mihi fortunam, si non conceditur uti?' (Epp. I. v. 12.) He seems to mean, 'What were the stream and the cool shade given for? Bring out the wine and let us drink.' "—Macleane. BOOK IL— ODE III. 135 that she should rather subjugate M. Antony than be subju- gated by him. Not long before the battle of Actium, he gave some offence to Cleopatra, probably more serious than that which has been assigned — viz., a sarcasm on the meagreness of her entertainments — and deserted Antony for Augustus, by whom he was cordially received. Like so many other public men of his time he cultivated literature, and wTote a history (now lost) of the war against the Par- thians, in which he served under Antony. A terse sketch of his versatile career will be found in Estre, Pros. Horat., 314. Carm. III. ^quam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem, non secus in bonis, Ab insolenti temperatam Laetitia, moriture Delli, Seu msestus omni tempore vixeris, Seu te in remoto gramine per dies Festos reclinatum bearis Interiore nota Falemi. Quo pinus ingens albaque populus Umbram hospitalem consociare amant Ramis?* Quid obliquo laborat Lympha fugax trepidare rivo ? 1 Hue vina et unguenta et nimium breves Flores amoenas ferre jube rosae. Yonge, in his notes, cites parallels from English poets with the elegance of taste which characterises his edition. + "Laborat — trepidare." " The stream struggles or labours to hurrj' on (trepidare), being obstructed by the curve in the bank (obliquo rivo), from which delay comes its pleasant murmur." — Orelli. 136 THE ODES OF HORACE. 1 While thy fortune, and youth,* and the woof j Of the Three Fatal Sisters allow. Woodlands dearly amassedt round the home proudly builded, ] Stately villa with walls laved by Tiber's dun waters,, \ Thou must quit ; and the wealth piled on high i Shall become the delight of thine heir.. For no victim has death either preference or pity, \ Be thy race from the king who first reigned o'er the Argive, j Or thy father a beggar, thy roof Yonder sky, — 'tis the same to the Grave. , Driven all to that fold ; J in one fatal urn shaken, ] Soon or late must leap forth the sure lot for an exile ) In the dark passage-boat which comes back To the sweet native land never more. ' * " ^tas," which Acron translates "youth," an interpretation ap- proved byEstre and Macleane. It more accurately, however, means "the time of life," including every period before that in which old age dead- ens the sense of such holiday enjoyments. Dellius was not young at the date of this poem ; but, at years more advanced, M. Antony was young enough to enjoy the present hour rather too much. f ** Coemptis saltibus." "Bought up," "extensive properties added together. " — Yonge. X *' Cogimur." " Gregis instar compellimur " — " we are driven like sheep." — Orelli. BOOK 11. — ODE III. 137 Dum res et setas * et Sororum Fila trium patiuntur atra. Cedes coemptis saltibus,t et domo, Villaque, flavus quam Tiberis lavit, Cedes, et exstmctis in altum Divitiis potietur heres. Divesne prisco natus ab Inacho, Nil interest, an pauper et infima De gente sub divo moreris, Victima nil miserantis Orci. Omnes eodem cogimur;J omnium Versatur urna serius ocius Sors exitura, et nos in aetemum Exilium impositura cumbse. 138 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE IV. ; TO XANTHIAS PHOCEUS. Xanthias Phoceus is evidently a fictitious designation. i Xanthias is a Greek name, and given by Aristophanes to I slaves; and Phoceus characterises the person named as a Phocian. Nay, if thou lov'st thy handmaid, Xanthias, blush not : ^ Long since the slave Briseis, with white beauty, O'ermastering him who ne'er before had yielded,* Conquered Achilles ; l So, too, the captive form of fair Tecmessa | Conquered her captor Telamonian Ajax ; And a wronged maiden, in the midst of triumph. Fired Agamemnon, What time had fallen the barbarian forces ] Before the might of the Thessalian victor, ] And Hector's loss made easy to worn Hellas i Troy's mighty ruin. \ How dost thou know but what thy fair-haired Phyllis ' May make thee son-in-law to splendid parents ? 1 Doubtless she mourns the wrong to race and hearth-gods 1 Injured, but regal. Believe not thy beloved of birth plebeian ; 1 A girl so faithful, so averse from lucre, ; Could not be born of an ignoble mother t Whom thou wouldst blush for. \ That lovely face, those arms, those tapering ankles — j Nay, in my praises never doubt mine honour : i The virtuous man, who rounds the age of forty. Hold unsuspected. * * * Insolentem — Achillem." I agree with Yonge in his suggestion i that " insolentem" means *' not wont to be moved." ! BOOK II. — ODE IV. 139 Phocian. The date of the ode is clearly a.u.c. 729, or the beginning of 730, when Horace, bom a.u.c. 689, was just concluding his eighth lustre. Carm. IV. Ne sit ancillae tibi amor pudori, Xanthia Phoceu ! Prius insolentem''" Serva Briseis niveo colore Movit Achillem ; Movit Ajacem Telamone natum Forma captivae dominum Tecmessae ; Arsit Atrides medio in triumpho Virgine rapta, Barbarae postquam cecidere tumiae Thessalo victore, et ademptus Hector Tradidit fessis leviora toUi Pergama Grais. Nescias, an te generum beati Phyllidis flavae decorent parentes : Regium certe genus et Penates Maeret iniquos. Crede non illam tibi de scelesta Plebe dilectam ; neque sic fidelem, Sic lucro aversam, potuisse nasci Matre pudenda. Brachia et voltum teretesque suras Integer laudo ; fuge suspicari, Cujus octavum trepidavit aetas Claudere lustrum. 140 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE V. TO GABINIUS. This poem is designated variously in theMSS.as "Lalage," " To the Lover of Lalage," &c. According to one early MS. (the Zurich), it is inscribed to Gabinius. But even Estre cannot tell us who Gabinius was, though Orelli conjectures him to have been son or grandson to A. Gabinius, Cicero's enemy. The poem is of very general application, and the leading idea is expressed with great elegance and spirit. Not yet can she bear, with neck supple, the yoke, Not yet with another submit to be paired ; Immature for the duties of mate, And the fiery embrace of the bull. Thine heifer confines all her heart to green fields ; Now pausing to slake summer heats in the stream, Now with steerlings yet younger at play Midst the sallows that drip on the shore. Till ripe, do not long for the fruit of the grape ; Anon varied Autumn shall deepen its hues, And empurple the clusters that now Do but pallidly peep from the leaf : Anon, 'tis thyself she will seek ; fervent Time Speeds on, adding quick to her youth's crowning flower Blooming seasons subtracted from thine ; Then shall Lalage glow for a spouse ; And then not so lovely the coy Pholoe, Nor Chloris resplendent with shoulders of snow, As a moon in the stillness of night Shining pure on the calm of a sea; BOOK II. — ODE V. 141 Carm. V. Nondum subacta ferre jugum valet Cervice, nondum munia comparis yEquare, nee tauri ruentis In venerem tolerare pondus. Circa virentes est animus tuse Campos juvencse, nunc fluviis gravem Solantis aestum, nunc in udo Ludere cum vitulis salicto Praegestientis. Tolle cupidinem Immitis uvse : jam tibi lividos Distinguet Auctumnus racemos Purpureo varius colore. Jam te sequetur : currit enim ferox ^tas, et illi, quos tibi dempserit, Apponet annos ; jam proterva Fronte petet Lalage maritum : Dilecta, quantum non Pholoe fugax, Non Chloris albo sic humero nitens, Ut pura nocturno renidet Luna mari, Cnidiusve Gyges, 142 THE ODES OF HORACE. Nor even Cnidian Gyges, whom, placed amid girls, No guest the most shrewd could distinguish from them, So redundant the flow of his locks, And his face so ambiguously fair. BOOK II. — ODE V. 143 Quem si puellanim insereres choro, Mire sagaces falleret hospites Discrimen obscurum solutis Crinibus ambiguoque voltu. 144 THE ODES OF HORACE. I i ODE VI. I TO SEPTIMIUS. ' 1 It is a reasonable conjecture, though nothing more, that this is the same Septimius whom Horace introduces to Tiberius, Ep. 1. ix., and whom Augustus mentions in a letter to Horace, preserved in the life attributed to Suetonius. . The scholiast in Cruquius says that he was a Roman knight, i and To the world's end thou'dst go with me, Septimius, \ View tribes Cantabrian, for our yoke too savage ; And barbarous Syrtes, where the Moorish billow j Whirls, ever-seething ; \ No, my Septimius, may mine age close calmly I In that mild Tibur by the Argive founded ; | There, tired of ranging lands and seas, and warfare, "\ Reach my last limit. i Or if such haven the hard Fates deny me, Thee will I seek, Galaesus, gentle river, j Dear to flocks skin-clad;^ and thy rural kingdom, i Spartan Phalanthus.t Out of all earth most smiles to me that corner. Where the balmed honey yields not to Hymettus, [ Where olives vie with those whose silvery verdure \ Gladdens Venafnim ; j * " Pellitis ovibus." " Pellitis" is supposed by Orelli and others to refer to the hides with which the fleeces of the sheep were protected from thorns and brambles and atmospheric changes. + Tarentum, of which Phalanthus, the leader of the emigrant Par- theniae, after the first Messenian war, got possession. , BOOK 11. — ODE VI. 145 and had been fellow - soldier with Horace ; that a Titius Septimius wrote lyrics and tragedies in the time of Augustus; and there are those who make the Septimius of the ode identical with the Titius of whom Horace speaks in his Epistle to Julius Florus, lib. i. 3, v. 9 et seq. All this is uncertain : not less uncertain is the date at which the ode was composed. Carm. VI. Septimi, Gades aditure mecum et Cantabrum indoctum juga ferre nostra, et Barbaras Syrtes, ubi Maura semper ^stuat unda, Tibur Argeo positum colono Sit meas sedes utinam senectae, Sit modus lasso maris et viarum Militiseque. Unde si Parcse prohibent iniquse,. Dulce pellitis* ovibus Galaesi Flumen et regnata petam Laconi Rura Phalantho.t Ille terrarum mihi prseter omnes Angulus ridet, ubi non Hymetto Mella decedunt, viridique certat Baca Venafro ; 146 THE ODES OF HORACE. Where Jove bestows long springs and genial winters, And Anion's mount, friend to a fertile Bacchus,. Never has cause the purple of Falemian Clusters to envy. Both thee and me that place, those blessed hill-tops. Invite; thy tear shall there bedew the relics - Of thy lost poet-friend, while yet there lingers Warmth in the ashes. BOOK II. — ODE VI. 147 Ver ubi longum tepidasque praebet Juppiter bnimas, et amicus Aulon Fertili Baccho minimum Falernis Invidet uvis. Ille te mecum locus et beatae Postulant arces ; ibi tu calentem Debita sparges lacrima favillam Vatis amici. 148 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE VII. TO POMPEIUS VARUS. The person addressed in this charming ode must not be confounded with the rich Pompeius Grosphus, to whom the 1 6th Ode, Book 11. , is inscribed. O Pompeius, thou chiefest and first of my comrades, Fellow-soldier with me, when our leader was Brutus, In danger's last deadly extreme ;* Who, back to thine own country gods. To thine own Tuscan skies and the rights of the Roman Hath restored thee, old friend ? Ah, how often Have we whiled loitering days o'er gay cups. Our wreathed locks bright with Araby's balms ? With thee did I share field and flight of Philippi, Where I left, not too bravely, behind me, my buckler, t When valour was broken, and tongues That threatened so loudly, licked dust. . Swiftly me the god Mercury J bore through the foemen, Buoyed aloft in thick cloud — all secure, yet all trembling- Thee the whirlpool of battle again Dragged back in the roar of its surge. * " Tempus in ultimum " — " in summum vitae discrimen" (in extremest danger of life). See Catullus, 64, 151 — " Supremo in tempore ; " et v. 169 — " Extremo tempore sseva fors," &c. — Orelli. + " Relicta non bene parmula ; Cum fracta virtus, et minaces Turpe solum tetigere mento." Horace's modest confession of having left his shield behind him at Philippi has been very harshly perverted into a proof of cowardice — BOOK II. — ODE VII. 149 Carm. VII. O saepe mecum tempus in ultimum'^ Deducte, Bruto militia duce, Quis te redonavit Quiritem Dis patriis Italoque cselo, Pompei meorum prime sodalium ? Cum quo morantem ssepe diem mero Fregi coronatus nitentes Malobathro Syrio capillos. Tecum Philippos et celerem fugam Sensi, relicta non bene parmula ; Cum fracta virtus, et minaces Turpe solum tetigere mento.f Sed me per hostes Mercurius t celer Denso paventem sustulit acre ; Te rursus in bellum resorbens Unda fretis tulit sestuosis. probably the last accusation to which a soldier who had shared with his friend the extremest dangers of Brutus would be fairly subjected. The accusation derived from his own playful reference is confuted by the lines that immediately follow : — When valour was broken, and those who had most menaced touched ground with their chins — t.e., as Orelli construes it, begged for quarter, than which flight itself was more honourable. In fact, Brutus himself advised flight. . We much prefer this interpretation to that which would make Horace sneer at those haughty boasters for being slain. Horace was the last man to sneer at the soldier who fell bravely in battle, while he has specially singled for contempt the soldier who asks for quarter — (Lib. III. Ode V. i. 36.) X Mercury was the tutelary god of poets, whom, according to astro- logers, his planet still favours. In C. iii. 4, 26, Horace ascribes his preservation, not to Mercury, but to the Muses. I50 THE ODES OF HORACE. Give to Jove, then, the feast that thou ow'st to his mercy; Worn with warfare so lengthened rest under my laurel, Nor will I allow thee to spare The casks I have destined for thee. Ho, slaves, brim the cups,* Egypt's cups smooth and wide- lipped. With the soft Massic wine which lulls care in oblivion ; Pour sweets from large shells. AVho the first Fresh parsley or myrtle will twine ? Whom will Venus t befriend in the cast for our wine-king? — As for me, I'm prepared to out-tipple a Thracian : Ah, how sweet to drown reason in joy. For the friend whom I welcome once more ! * "Ciboria," cups shaped like the pod of the Egyptian bean. **Ore superius lato, inferius angusto." — Orelli. t " Quern Venus arbitrum dicet bibendi." Venus was the highest throw on the dice, Canis the lowest. BOOK II. — ODE VII. 151 Ergo obligatam redde Jovi dapem Longaque fessum militia latus Depone sub launi mea, nee Parce cadis tibi destinatis. Oblivioso levia Massico Ciboria * exple ; funde capacibus Unguenta de conchis. Quis udo Deproperare apio coronas Curatve myrto? quem Venus f arbitrum Dicet bibendi ? Non ego sanius Bacchabor Edonis : recepto Dulce mihi furere est amico. 152 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE VIII. TO BARINE. Some of the MSS., upon what authority is unknown, pre- fix Julia to Barine. Bentley objects to the name as being neither Greek nor Latin. Orehi shrewdly suggests that there were plenty of gay ladies at Rome who were of other nations besides Greece and Rome. The name, however, is very If for thy vows forsworn the least infliction Came from the gods ; were one white tooth less pearl-like, One very nail less rosy, then, Barine, I might believe thee. But in proportion as that head perfidious Thou doom'st to Orcus, brighter shines thy beauty, And grows still more the universal theme of Youthful adorers. Clearly with thee it prospers to be perjured : Oaths " by a mother's urn," " night's starry silence," " All heaven," " the deathless gods," obtain thee blessings Only when broken. At all this treason Venus laughs, then ? laugh out The very nymphs,'^ so truthful, and fierce Cupid, Sharpening his fiery arrows on a whetstone, Red with men's heart-blood. .. * " Simplices Nymphse " — "ab omni fraude aliense." — Orelli. BOOK 11. — ODE VIII. 153 very likely invented by Horace himself — as no doubt Cinara was — and may possibly be an adaptation from Ba^mg^ a kind of fish. There is not a line in the poem to justify the wild assumption of some commentators that Horace himself was in love with Barine, whoever she was. Judging by internal evidence, it seems to me that a real person was certainly thus addressed, and in a tone which to such a person would have been the most exquisite flattery ; and as certainly that the person is not so addressed by a lover. Carm. VIII. \ Ulla si juris tibi pejerati Poena, Barine, nocuisset unquam, ; Dente si nigro fieres vel uno ' Turpior ungui, ^ i Crederem. Sed tu, simul obligasti j Perfidum votis caput, enitescis i Pulchrior multo, juvenumque prodis \ Publica cura. Expedit matris cineres opertos ' Fallere, et toto taciturna noctis < Signa cum caelo, gelidaque divos ' Morte carentes. I Ridet hoc, inquam, Venus ipsa, rident | Simplices Nymphae,* ferus et Cupido \ Semper ardentes acuens sagittas j Cote cruenta. 1 j I 154 THE ODES OF HORACE. ' Meanwhile, new youths grow up beneath thy thraldom ; Grow up new slaveries ; and the earlier lovers Threaten each day to quit thy faithless threshold — 1 Threaten, and throng there. j For their raw striplings tremble all the mothers, And all the fathers of a thrifty temper ; And, as a gale retarding home-bound husbands,* Weeping brides fear thee. * * ' Tua ne retardet Aura maritos." There are many conjectures as to the sense of the word "aura" in this passage, for which see Orelli's note. Yonge interprets it '* a metaphor for influence." BOOK II. — ODE VIII. 155 Adde, quod pubes tibi crescit omnis, I Servitus crescit nova, nee priores Impiae tectum dominae relinquunt i Saepe minati. i Te suis matres metuunt juvencis, i Te senes parci miserseque nuper Virgines nuptse, tua ne retardet j Aura* maritos. 1 156 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE IX. TO C. VALGIUS RUFUS. (yin Consolation }j This Valgius, of consular rank, appears to have been much esteemed in his time as a poet. He wrote elegies and epigrams, and had even a high claim to the pretensions of an epic poet, according to the author of the ' Panegyric on Messala' — " Est tibi, qui posset magnis se accingere rebus, Valgius, setemo propior non alter Homero." Horace might therefore well call upon him to lay aside his elegiac complaints and sing the triumphs of Augustus. He is 'Tis not always the fields are made rough by the rains, 'Tis not always the Caspian is harried by storm ; j Neither is it each month in the year j That the ice stands inert on the shores of Armenia ; i Nor on lofty Garganus the loud-groaning oaks . Wrestle, rocked to and fro with the blasts of the north, \ Nor the ash-trees droop widowed of leaves. 1 O my friend, O my Valgius, shall grief last for ever ? j Yet thy heart in its yearning for ever pursues j The loved and lost Mystes ; the star of the eve, | And the sunrise which chases the star, 1 Find thy love still lamenting the loss of thy Mystes. ] But the old man, who three generations lived through, ' Did not for Antilochus mourn all his years : i Nor for Troilus, nipped in his bloom, \ Flowed for ever the tears of his parents and sisters. , BOOK 11. — ODE IX. 157 is said also to have written in prose on the nature of plants, &c. Torrentius endeavours, " nullo argumento," to distin- guish between C. Valgius Rufus the consul and prose-writer, and T. Valgius Rufus the poet. The Mystes whose loss Valgius deplores must have been a slave, or of servile origin, as the name denotes — not, as Dacier and Sanadon suppose, the son of Valgius. — See Estre, p. 457. Carm. IX. Non semper imbres nubibus hispidos Manant in agros, aut mare Caspium Vexant inaequales procellae Usque ; nee Armeniis in oris. Amice Valgi, stat glacies iners Menses per omnes, aut Aquilonibus Querceta Gargani laborant, Et foliis viduantur orni : Tu semper urges flebilibus modis Mysten ademptum, nee tibi Vespero Surgente decedunt amores Nee rapidum fugiente Solem. At non ter aevo functus amabilem Ploravit omnes Antilochum senex Annos, nee impubem parentes Troilon aut Phrygiae sorores 158 THE ODES OF HORACE. Wean thy heart then at last from these memories too soft, Let us chant the fresh trophies our Caesar has won, Linking on, to the nations subdued. Bleak Niphates"^ all ice-locked, the Mede's haughty river, Now submissively humbling the crest of its waves ; While the edict of Rome has imprisoned the Scyths, In the narrow domain of their steppes, And the steed of each rider halts reined at the borders. * " Rigidum Niphaten, Medumque flumen." That Niphates was the name of a mountain-range east of the Tigris is certain ; whether there was also a river of that name is much disputed, though Lucan and Juvenal take it for granted. Possibly the Tigris, which, according to Strabo, rises on the mountain-range of Niphates, may be the river here meant. There was a small river called Medus which flowed into the Araxes, but this was too insignificant for the mention Horace makes of the '* Medum flumen," even if he knew of its existence ; and most of the later commentators concur in thinking the river thus designated was the Euphrates. BOOK II. — ODE IX. 159 Flevere semper. Desine mollium Tandem querellarum, et potius nova Cantemus August! tropaea Caesaris, et rigidum Niphaten,''^ Medumque flumen, gentibus additura Victis, minores volvere vertices, Intraque praescriptum Gelonos Exiguis equitare campis. l6o THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE X. TO LICINIUS. Licinius Murena was the son of the Murena whom Cicero defended, subsequently adopted by A. Terentius Varro. He was then called A. Terentius Varro Murena. Maecenas married his sister ; and Horace speaks of him subsequently (C. iii. 19) as one of the College of Augurs. . The caution to discretion and moderation contained in this ode has a melancholy Licinius, wouldst thou steer life's wiser voyage, Neither launch always into deep mid-waters, Nor hug the shores, and, shrinking from the tempest, Hazard the quicksand. He who elects the golden mean of fortune. Nor where dull squalor rots the time-worn hovel. Nor where fierce envy storms the new-built palace, Makes his safe dwelling. The wildest winds rock most the loftiest pine-trees, The heaviest crash is that of falling towers. The spots on earth most stricken by the lightning Are its high places. The mind well trained to cope with either fortune. Takes hope in adverse things and fear in prosperous. Deforming winters are restored or banished By the same Father. If to-day frown, not therefore frowns to-morrow. His deadly bow not always bends Apollo, His hand at times the silent muse awakens With the sweet harpstring. BOOK II. — ODE X. l6l melancholy interest as that of a foreboding. He was put to death despite the intercession of Maecenas and Proculeius, on the charge, whether true or false, of having entered with Fannius Coepio and others into a conspiracy against Au- gustus. As his death occurred a.u.c. 732, this ode must have been composed before that date. Dio speaks of the unrestrained licence he allowed to his tongue, and his words may have incriminated him more than his actions, the guilt of which Dio leaves doubtful. Carm. X. Rectius vives, Licini, neque altum Semper urgendo, neque, dum procellas Cautus horrescis, nimium premendo Litus iniquum. Auream quisquis mediocritatem Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda Sobrius aula. Saepius ventis agitatur ingens Pinus, et celsae graviore casu Decidunt turres, feriuntque summos Fulgura montes. Sperat infestis, metuit secundis Alteram sortem bene praeparatum Pectus. Informes hiemes reducit Juppiter, idem Summovet. Non, si male nunc, et olim Sic erit : quondam cithara tacentem Suscitat Musam, neque semper arcum Tendit Apollo. L l62 THE ODES OF HORACE. In life's sore straits brace and display thy courage.* Boldness is wisdom then : as wisely timid When thy sails swell with winds too strongly fav'ring, Heed, and contract them. * *' Animosus atque fortis appare" — not only be^ but show thyself, courageous. BOOK 11. — ODE X. 163 Rebus angustis animosus atque Fortis appare f sapienter idem Contrahes vento nimium secundo Turgida vela: 1 64 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XL TO QUINTIUS HIRPINUS. Who this Hirpinus was we do not know. Orelli con- siders it probable that he is the Quintius to whom Ep. I. xvi. is addressed. But Macleane observes " that the latter appears to have been younger than the former, whom Horace addresses (v. 15) as if he were a contemporary." But the question is immaterial ; for we know no more about the Quintius of the Epistle than the Hirpinus of the Ode. What the warlike Cantabrian or Scythian, From ourselves by an ocean disparted, Take it into their heads to devise, Do not class with the questions that press. Be not over-much anxious, Hirpinus, For the things of a hfe that needs little ; See how Beauty recedes from our side With her beardless "^ twin playfellow Youth. Grizzled Age, dry and sapless, conies chasing Frolic Loves and the balm of light Slumbers ; Not the same glory lasts to the flower. Not the same glowing face to the moon : Why to fathom the counsels eternal Strain the Mind without strength for such labour ? Why not rather, yon plane-tree beneath. Or this pine, fling us carelessly down, While we may j letting locks whiten under Syrian nard and the fragrance of roses. Drink ! Evius dispels eating cares. Ho ! which of you, boys, will assuage This Falernian in yon running waters ? Which entice that sequestered jade, Lyde,t With her iv'ry lute, and with her locks, Like a Spartan maid's, simply knit back. BOOK II. — ODE XL 1 65 Carm. XI. Quid bellicosus Cantaber et Scythes, Hirpine Quinti, cogitet Hadria Divisus objecto, remittas Qu^rere : nee trepides in usum Poscentis s&vi pauca. Fugit retro Levis * Juventas, et Decor ; arida Pellente lascivos Amores Canitie facikmque Somnum. Non semper idem floribus est honor Vernis ; neque uno Luna rubens nitet Voltu : quid aetemis minorem Consiliis animum fatigas ? Cur non sub aha vel platano vel hac Pinu jacentes sic temere, et rosa Canos odorati capiUos, Dum hcet, Ass}Tiaque nardo Potamus uncti ? Dissipat Evius Curas edaces. Quis puer ocius Restinguet ardentis Falemi Pocula praetereunte lympha ? Quis devium scortum eHciet domo Lyden ? t Eburna, die age, cum lyra ^ Maturet, in comptum Lacsense IMore comas reUgata nodum. * ** Levis" here means " beardless, " as in " Levis Agyieu, " Book IV. Ode vi. 28. + " Quis devium scortum ehciet domo Lyden ? " It need scarcely be said the word "scortum" is not used here in its most uncomplimentary sense. " Devium " — ** one who lives out of the way," as Ovid, Heroid., iu 118, *' Et cecinit maestum devia carmen avis." — Orelli, Macleane. 1 66 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XII. TO M^CENAS. The Licymnia (or, as the schoHasts spell it, Licinia) cele- brated in this ode was most probably Terentia, the wife of Maecenas ; and if so, the poem was evidently Avritten within a few years after their marriage. It is not pleasant to think that the wedded happiness so charmingly described was of brief duration, and that the faults laid to the charge of the lady embittered the life of Maecenas at its close. Some of the Ask no high-sounding themes from this lute's relaxed num- bers. Suited neither to strains of long wars with Numantia, Nor of Hannibal dire, nor of waters Sicilian Which Carthage made red with her blood ; Nor of Lapithae fierce, and the great drunken Centaur ; Nor of Earth's giant sons, overborne by Alcides, Threat'ning perils that shook to its starry foundations Old Saturn's refulgent abode. And far better thy prose than my verse, O Maecenas, hall record, in grave story, the battles of Caesar, And the necks of the kings who have loftily threatened His Rome, to pass under her yoke. Me the Muse has enjoined for the theme of my praises, Thy lady Licymnia — ^her dulcet-voiced singings. And the sunshine of eyes that illumine her beauty. And the loving heart true to thine own. Graced alike, whether joining at home in the dances, Or contesting the palm in gay wit's playful skirmish, Or amid holy sports on the feast-day of Dian, With virgins entwining the arm. BOOK II. — ODE XII. 167 the commentators have, however, doubted whether Horace could have ventured to speak so freely, as in the concluding lines, of a Roman matron of rank so illustrious as Terentia, and would therefore assume Licymnia to have been rather the mistress than the wife of Maecenas. This supposition is incompatible with the description of Licymnia joining in the festivals of Diana; and probably Horace sufficiently preserved such respect to the wife of his patron as the manners of the time required by substituting a feigned name for her own. Carm. XII. Nolis longa ferae bella Numantiae, Nee dirum Hannibalem, nee Siculum mare Poeno purpureum sanguine, mollibus Aptari citharae modis, Nee ssevos Lapithas, et nimium mero Hylaeum, domitosque Herculea manu Telluris juvenes, unde periculum Fulgens contremuit domus Saturni veteris ; tuque pedestribus Dices historiis proelia Caesaris, Maecenas, melius ductaque per vias Regum colla minacium. Me dulces dominae Musa LicjTnniae Cantus, me voluit dicere lucidum Fulgentes oculos et bene mutuis Fidum pectus amoribus ; Quam nee ferre pedem dedecuit choris, Nee certare joco, nee dare brachia Ludentem nitidis virginibus, sacro Dianae Celebris die. 1 68 THE ODES OF HORACE. Say, for all that Achaemenes boasted of treasure, All the wealth which Mygdonia gave Phrygia in tribute. All the stores of all Araby — say, wouldst thou barter One lock of Licymnia's bright hair ? — When at moments she bends down her neck to thy kisses, Or declines them with coy but not cruel denial ; . Rather pleased if the prize be snatched oif by the spoiler, Nor slow in reprisal sometimes. BOOK II. — ODE XII. 169 Num tu, quae tenuit dives Achaemenes, Aut pinguis Phrygis Mygdonias opes Permutare velis crine Licymniae, Plenas aut Arabum domos ? — Dum flagrantia detorquet ad oscula Cervicem, aut facili saevitia negat, Quae poscente magis gaudeat eripi, Interdum rapere occupet. I/O THE ODES OF HORACE. I O D E XIII. ! TO A TREE. : I Few of the odes are more remarkable than this for the ; wonderful ease with which Horace rises from humorous pleasantry into the higher regions of poetic imagination. < His escape from the falling tree seems to have made a deep and lasting impression on him. The more probable date of ' the poem is a.u.c. 728, or perhaps 729. Evil-omened the day whosoever first planted, Sacrilegious his hand whosoever first raised thee, To become the perdition of races unborn, j And a stain on the country, thou infamous tree. i Ah ! I well may believe that the man was a monster, j Had at night stabbed his hearth-guest, and strangled his ■ father, | Dealt in poisons of Colchis — committed, in short, | Every crime the most fell which the thought can con- 1 ceive ; — , He, the wretch, who thus set thee malign in my meadow, ' Felon-traitor of wood, arboretal assassin, ' With remorseless design coming down unawares On the head of an innocent master like me. ^ i Who can hope to be safe ? who sufficiently cautious ? 1 Guard himself as he may, every moment's an ambush. ] Thus the sailor of Carthage alarmed at a squall J In the Euxine, may find his least danger at sea. ^ i Thus the soldier of Rome mails his breast to the Parthian, ' And believes himself safe if secure from an arrow ; And the Parthian, in flying Rome's dungeon ""' and chains, Fondly thinks that in flight he escapes from the grave ! i BOOK 11. — ODE XIII. 171 Carm. XIII. Ille et nefasto te posuit die, Quicunque primum, et sacrilega manu Produxit, arbos, in nepotum Pemiciem opprobriumque pagi; Ilium et parentis crediderim sui Fregisse cervicem, et penetralia Sparsisse nocturno cruore Hospitis ; ille venena Colclia Et quidquid usquam concipitur nefas Tractavit, agro qui statuit meo Te triste lignum, te caducum In domini caput immerentis. Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis Cautum est in horas : navita Bosporum Pcenus perhorrescit, neque ultra Caeca timet aliunde fata ; Miles sagittas et celerem fugam Parthi, catenas Parthus et Italum Robur ; * sed improvisa leti Vis rapuit rapietque gentes. * " Italum robur." Orelli gives the weight of his authority in favour of interpreting "robur" as the Roman prison ("Tullianum "), an inner cell in which malefactors were placed, and in which the State captives, as Jugurtha, were also sometimes immured. Yonge adopts the same in- terpretation. Dillenburger translates it in the simple sense of the strength or power of Italy, which Macleane also favours. 172 THE ODES OF HORACE. But the death most to fear is the death we least look for- Ah ! how near was I seeing dark Proserpine's kingdom, And the Judge of the Dead and the Seats of the Blest, Sappho wailing melodious of loves unretumed Ay, and thee, too, with strains sounding larger, Alcaeus, To thy golden shell chanting of hardships in shipwreck. And of hardships in exile, and hardships in war. While the Shadows admiringly hearken to both ; Due to either is silence as hushed as in temples, But more presses the phantom mob, shoulder on shoulder, Drinking into rapt ears the grand song, when it swells With the burthen of battles and tyrants o'erthrown. What wonder ? since, spelled by the voice of the charmer. The dark hell-dog his hundred heads fawningly crouches. And the serpents that writhe interweaved in the locks Of the Furies, repose upon terrible brows ; And Prometheus himself and the Father of Pelops, By the dulcet delight are beguiled from their torture. While the hand of Orion the arrow lets fall. And the spectres of Hons unheeded flit on. BOOK II. — ODE XIII. 173 Quam pasne furvae regna Proserpinae, Et judicantem vidimus ^acum, Sedesque discretas piorum, et Aeoliis fidibus querentem Sappho puellis de popularibus f Et te sonantem plenius aureo, Alcaee, plectro dura navis, Dura fugse mala, dura belli ! Utrumque sacro digna silentio Mirantur Umbrae die ere ; sed magis Pugnas et exactos tyrannos Densum humeris bibit aure volgus. Quid mirum ? ubi illis carminibus stupens Demittit atras belua centiceps Aures, et intorti capillis Eumenidum recreantur angues ; Quin et Prometheus et Pelopis parens Dulci laborum decipitur sono ; Nee curat Orion leones Aut timidos agitare lyncas. * " Querentem Sappho puellis de popularibus." " Incertum autem est quid quereretur." — Estre, Horat. Prosop., 26. Estre cites the various interpretations, and inclines to that of the com- mentators in Cruquius — viz., Sappho complained of the girls of her country that they loved Phaon whom she loved. This is, at all events, the most agreeable conjecture. Welcker has written with ingenious eloquence in vindication of Sappho's memory from the scandal, "quod nimis diu ei adhoesit." 1/4 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XIV. TO -POSTUMUS. Who this Postumus may have been is, in spite of the various conjectures of various commentators, as uncertain as, happily, it is immaterial. It is, at all events, an agree- able supposition that he may be identical with the Postumus whom Postumus, Postumus, the years glide by us, Alas ! no piety delays the wrinkles, Nor old age imminent. Nor the indomitable hand of Death. Though thrice each day a hecatomb were offered, Friend, thou couldst soften not the tearless Pluto, Encoiling Tityus vast, And Geryon, triple giant, with sad waves — Waves over which we all of us must voyage. All whosoe'er the fruits of earth have tasted ; Whether that earth we ruled As kings, or served as drudges of its soil. Vainly we shun Mars and the gory battle. Vainly the Hadrian hoarse with stormy breakers, Vainly, each autumn's fall. The sicklied airs through which the south wind sails.* Still the dull-winding ooze of slow Cocytus, The ill-famed Danaids, and, to task that ends not Sentenced, bolides ; These are the sights on which we all must gaze. * "Auster," "the sirocco." BOOK II. — ODE XIV. 175 whom Propertius (Lib. iii. Eleg. 10) reproached for leaving his wife Galba to join a military expedition, possibly that of ^lius Gallus against the Arabians. This supposition would give a more pathetic significance to the " placens uxor " of the ode. Carm. XIV. Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni, nee pietas moram Rugis et instanti senect^ AfFeret indomitseque Morti, — Non, si trecenis, quotquot eunt dies, Amice, places illacrimabilem Plutona tauris ; qui ter amplum Geryonen Tityonque tristi Compescit unda, scilicet omnibus, Quicunque terrae munere vescimur, Enaviganda, sive reges Sive inopes erimus coloni. Frustra cruento Marte carebimus, Fractisque rauci fluctibus Hadrias, Frustra per auctumnos nocentem Corporibus metuemus Austrum : Visendus ater flumine languido Cocytos errans, et Danai genus Infame, damnatusque longi Sisyphus bolides laboris. 1/6 THE ODES OF HORACE. Lands, home, and wife, in whom thy soul delighteth. Left; and one tree alone of all thy woodlands, Loathed cypress, faithful found, Shall follow to the last the brief-lived lord. The worthier heir thy Caecuban shall squander. Bursting the hundred locks that guard its treasure. And wines more rare than those Sipped at high feast by pontiffs, '"^ dye thy floors. * As the English say, "A dinner fit for an alderman," so the Romans said, *'A banquet fit for a pontiff." " Pontificum dapes, Saliares coenae." BOOK II. — ODE XIV. 177 Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens Uxor j neque harum, quas colis, arborum Te, pr^eter invisas cupressos, Ulla brevem dominum sequetur. Absumet heres Caecuba dignior Servata centum clavibus, et mero Tinget pavimentum superbo, Pontificum potiore coenis. M 178 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XV. ON THE IMMODERATE LUXURY OF THE AGE. This ode is generally considered to be among those written to assist Augustus in his social reforms, and, as Macleane observes, it should be read in connection with the earlier odes of Book III. Dillenburger assigns the date to A.U.C. 726, in which year Octavius, then Censor, restored and adorned the public temples fallen into decay. Mac- leane Lo, those regal piles rising ! methinks, to the harrow They will leave but few acres; on every side round us Vasty stewponds for fishes extend Wider bounds than the Lake of Lucrinus. Yield the vine-wedded elms to that Calebs the plane-tree ; And, where olives sufficed for the wealth of the master, The violet and myrtle encamp. With the whole languid army of odours ; Every sunstroke shut out by thick screen-works of laurel. Ah ! not such the decrees left by Rome's hardy Founder, Nor the auspice of Cato unshorn, Nor the customs bequeathed by our fathers. Petty then was to each man the selfish possession, Mighty then was all to men the Commonwealth's treasure ; No one sought the cool shade of the North Under peristyles planned out for temples ;* The chance turf next at hand roofed the citizen's dwelling, But the State, at its charge, rarest marble devoted To the State's sacred heirlooms ; — the shrines Of the gods, and the courts of a people. BOOK II.— ODE XV. 179 ' 1 leane favours that date. But the poem alludes also to the i sumptuary laws passed by Augustus at various periods, as ] ineffectively as sumptuary laws always must be in rich communities. Carm. XV. j Jam pauca aratro jugera regiae | Moles relinquent : undique latius | Extenta visentur Lucrino < Stagna lacu : platanusque caelebs, I i Evincet ulmos : tum violaria et '. Myrtus et omnis copia narium, Spargent olivetis odorem j Fertilibus domino priori ; \ Tum spissa ramis laurea fervidos j Excludet ictus. Non ita Romuli l Prsescriptum et intonsi Catonis | Auspiciis, veterumque norma. Privatus illis census erat brevis, Commune magnum : nulla decempedis Metata privatis opacam . i Porticus excipiebat Arcton ;* ' Nee fortuitum spernere csespitem. Leges sinebant, oppida publico Sumptu jubentes et deorum ; Templa nova decorare saxo. ; * "Nulla decempedis ' Metata privatis opacam Porticus excipiebat Arcton." , No private man had porticoes measured by a ten-feet rule, which appears j to have been a measurement for temples and public buildings. The \ peristyles at Pompeii, which form an inner court to the house, give I sufficient idea of these corridors, opening to the north for coolness | in summer, and to the south for sunshine in winter. i l8o THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XVL TO POMPEIUS GROSPHUS. According to the scholiast in Cruquius, this Pompeius Grosphus, a Sicilian by origin, was of the Equestrian order. Cicero (in Cic. Verr. II. iii. 23) speaks of Eubulides Gros- phus Centuripinus, as a man of eminent worth, noble birth, and princely wealth. Estre conj ectures that this Grosphus was made For ease prays he who in the wide ^gsean Storm-seized, looks up on clouds that heap their darkness O'er the lost moon, while dim the constellations Fade from the sailor. Ease, still for ease, sighs Thracia fierce in battle. Still for ease sighs the quivered Mede. Ah, Grosphus ! Nor gems nor purple, no, nor gold can buy it ; Ease is not venal. Bribed by no king,* dispersed before no lictor, Throng the wild tumults of a soul in trouble, And the cares circling round a sleepless pillow, Under ceiled fretwork.t He lives on little well who, for all splendour, Decks his plain board with some prized silver heirloom.:}: From him no greed of gain, of loss no terror. Snatch the light slumbers. Why, briefly strong, with space in time thus bounded, Launch we so many arrows into distance ? * "Non enim gazoe." "Gazas," from a Persian word, means "the king's treasury," " the royal coffers." + " Laqueata tecta," "non totius domus sed cubiculorum et tricli- niarum. " — Dillenburger. + "Paternum salinum" — "the paternal or hereditary salt-cellar." BOOK 11. — ODE XVI. l8l made a Roman citizen by Pompey, and took his name, which descended to the Grosphus of the ode as son or grandson. In Epist. i. 12, Horace commends him to Iccius, then acting as superintendent or steward to Vipsanius Agrippa's estates in Sicily, as one whom Iccius might wilHngly obHge, for he would never ask anything not honest and just. Carm. XVI. Otium divos rogat in patenti Prensus ^gseo, simul atra nubes Condidit Lunam, neque certa fulgent Sidera nautis ; Otium bello furiosa Thrace, Otium Medi pharetra decori, Grosphe, non gemmis neque purpura ve- nale neque auro. Non enim gazae '^ neque consularis Summovet lictor miseros tumultus Mentis, et Curas laqueata circum Tectat volantes. Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternum Splendet in mensa tenui salinum : J Nee leves somnos timor aut cupido Sordidus aufert. Quid brevi fortes jaculamur gevo Multa ? Quid terras alio calentes Horace here, as elsewhere, distinguishes the comparative poverty of a small independence from absolute neediness and squalor. The poverty he praises is not without its own modest refinements. The hoard may be simple, but still it can display the old family salt-cellar, kept with religious care. If the owner has not increased the paternal fortune, he has not diminished it. 1 82 THE ODES OF HORACE. Why crave new suns ? What exile from his country Flies himself also ? Diseased Care'^ ascends the brazen galley, And rides amidst the armed men to the battle,t Fleeter than stag, and fleeter than, when driving Rain-clouds, the east wind. The mind, which now is glad, should hate to carry Its care beyond the Present ; what is bitter With easy smile should sweeten : nought was ever Happy on all sides. Untimely death snatched off renowned Achilles ; Tithonus lived to dwindle into shadow ; And haply what the Hour to thee refuses Me it will proffer, if Around thine home a hundred flocks are bleating, Low the Sicilian heifers, neighs the courser Trained to the race-car ; woofs in Afric purple Twice-tinged array thee : To me the Fate, that cannot err,§ hath given Some roods of land, some breathings, lowly murmured, Of Grecian Muse, and power to scorn the malice Of the mean vulgar. * "Vitiosa cura." In the translation, Orelli's interpretation of "vitiosa," "morbosa" — z.^., morbid or diseased, from the vice of the mind whence it springs — is adopted. But this hardly gives the full force of the vi^ord. Horace means that Care, which spoils or infects every- thing, ascends the galley, &c. + "Turmas equitum." " This properly refers to the horsemen rid- ing to battle made anxious by the hope of booty or the fear of death." — Orelli. " With ' turmas equitum' is usually compared ' post equi- tem sedet atra cura,' but the sense there is a little different. Here he speaks of care following a man to the field of battle ; there he refers to the rich man ambling on his horse." — Macleane. X '* Et mihi forsan, tibi quod negarit, Porriget Hora." I think, with Orelli, that this simply means, *' Fortune, or the Hour, BOOK II.— ODE XVI. vi83 Sole mutamus ? Patriae quis exsul Se quoque fugit ? Scandit aeratas vitiosa naves Cura,"^ nee turmas equitum relinquit,t Ocior cervis, et agente nimbos Ocior Euro. Laetus in praesens animus quod ultra est Oderit curare, et amara lento Temperet risu ; nihil est ab omni Parte beatum. Abstulit clarum cita mors Achillem, Longa Tithonum minuit senectus, Et mihi forsan, tibi quod negarit, Porriget Hora.J Te greges centum Siculaeque circum Mugiunt vaccae, tibi tollit hinnitum Apta quadrigis equa, te bis Afro Murice tinctae Vestiunt lanae : mihi parva rura, et Spiritum Graiae tenuem Camenae Parca non mendax § dedit, et malignum Spernere volgus. will perhaps give something of good to me which she denies to you ;" and I dissent altogether from the usual interpretation — viz., "Time may perhaps give me a longer life than it concedes to you." That in- terpretation would be very little in keeping with Horace's general polite- ness in addressing a friend. Nothing can well be worse-bred than tell- ing a man that perhaps you will live longer than he will. Besides, Horace immediately proceeds to define that which is granted peculiarly to himself in opposition to the riches bestowed upon Grosphus. § " Parca non mendax" — " sure," "unfailing in the fulfilment of their decrees." Compare "veraces," C. wSsecul. 25, and Persius, v. 42, " Parca tenax veri." — So Orelli. " Genius is represented as the gift of Fate in Pind. Od. ix. 26, 28 ; also in Nem. iv. 41-43, where the poet infers from it his own eventual triumph over detraction ; as Horace may be said to do here." — Yonge. 184 / / THE ODES OF HORACE. E XVII. -^O MAECENAS. This ode is addressed te)<\l8ecenas in illness, ]A\. the date of the illness is necessarily uncertain in the life of a vale- tudinarian like Maecenas. Though, as Macleane observes, the last two lines of this ode, showing that Horace had not yet paid the sacrifice he had vowed to Faunus for his preservation from death, makes it most probable that it was written not long after C. 13 of this book, the composition of which has been assigned, with some hesitation, to a.u.c. 728. Maecenas was subject to what appears to have been a low nervous fever, attended with loss of sleep. According to the verses attributed to him, and censured with a stoic's lofty disdain by Seneca (Epp. loi), Maecenas had a passionate and clinging desire for life, very uncommon in a Roman, deeming that, under any suffering or infirmity, life was still dear — " Vita Why destroyest thou me with the groan of thy sufferings ? Neither I nor the gods will let thee die before me, O Maecenas, the glory and grace And the column itself, of my life. Ah ! if some fatal force, prematurely bereaving. Wrenched from me the one half of my soul, could the other Linger on, with its dearer part lost. And the fragment of what was a whole ? No ! in thy life is mine ; both, the same day shall shatter. I have made no false vow ; where thou lead'st me I follow ; Fellow-travellers, the same solemn road We will take, we will take, side by side. BOOK II. — ODE XVII. ^ 185 *' Vita dum superest bene est : Hanc mihi vel acuta Si sedeam cruce sustine." * If this sentiment was sincerely expressed, the pathos of the poem is increased. A man so dreading death may well desire a companion in the last journey. And it is not un- likely that the melancholy view which Horace habitually takes of the next world, and his exhortations to make the best of this one, may have been coloured, perhaps insensi- bly to himself, by his conversations and intercourse with Maecenas. Carm. XVII. Cur me querelis exanimas tuis ? Nee dis amicum est nee mihi te prius Obire, Maecenas, mearum Grande decus columenque rerum. Ah ! te meae si partem animae rapit Maturior vis, quid moror altera, Nee carus aeque nee superstes Integer? Ille dies utramque Ducet ruinam. Non ego perfidum Dixi sacramentum : ibimus, ibimus, Utcunque praecedes, supremum Carpere iter comites parati. * The fragment is thus very happily rendered into English by Mr Farrar in the biographical essay on Seneca, which forms the larger por- tion of his impressive and eloquent work, 'The Seekers after God': — '* Numb my hands with palsy, Rack my feet with gout, Hunch my back and shoulder, Let my teeth fall out ; Still, if life be granted, I prefer the loss — Save my life and give me Anguish on the cross." 1 86 THE ODES OF HORACE. Me, no flames bursting forth from the jaws of Chimaera, Me, no Gyas once more rising up hundred-handed, Could dispart from thyself, — such the will Of omnipotent Justice and Fate. Whether Libra, or Scorpio with aspect* malignant, In mine horoscope, ruled o'er the Houses of Danger, Or moist Capricorn, lord of the west ; It is strange how our stars have agreed. Thee, thine own native Jupiter snatched from fell Saturn, And outshining his beam, stayed the wings of the Parcae, When the theatre hailed thee restored. And the multitude thrice shouted joy. Me the fall of the tree would have brained, had not Faunus, To men born under Mercury, guardian benignant. O'er my head stretched the saving right hand. And made lighter the death-dealing blow. Then forget not to render to Jove, the Preserver Of a life so august, votive chapel and victims, While I, to mine own sylvan god. Offer grateful mine own humble lamb. * "Adspicit," "aspected," is still the technical term in use among astrologers, according to whom the native star may be evilly aspected in various ways. But "pars violentior" would apply to the hostile influences affecting "the Lord of life," chiefly found in the significa- tions of the 8th and 12th House. By his allusion to Capricorn, Horace clearly refers to his dangers by sea — "Sicula unda." To astrology (a science then so much in fashion) Horace often refers — sometimes with scorn, sometimes with a seeming credulity — always as a man who knew very little about it. But where he speaks of it with scorn, as in addressing Leuconoe, Book I. Ode xi., it is less to denounce astro- logy itself as an imposture, than to dissuade from all attempts to divine the future — "better that the future should remain unknown BOOK 11. — ODE XVII. 1 8; Me nee Chimaeras spiritus igneae, Nee, si resurgat, centimanus Gyas Divellet unquam : sic potenti Justitiae placitumque Parcis. Seu Libra, seu me Scorpios adspicit '^ Formidolosus, pars violentior Natalis horae, seu tyrannus Hesperiae Capricornis undae, Utrumque nostrum incredibili modo Consentit astrum. Te Jovis impio Tutela Satumo refulgens Eripuit, volucrisque Fati Tardavit alas, cum populus frequens Laetum theatris ter crepuit sonum : Me truncus illapsus cerebro Sustulerat, nisi Faunus ictum Dextra levasset, Mercurialium Gustos virorum. Reddere victimas ^demque votivam memento : Nos humilem feriemus agnam. and unconjectured." On the other hand, where, as in this ode, he seems to affect credulity, it is only for a playful purpose. He regarded it, as he did most of the popular beliefs affecting the future, without serious examination of its truth or falsehood, as a question of specu- lative philosophy, but to be freely used, whether in sport or in earnest, for the purposes of poetic art. 1 88 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XVIII. AGAINST THE GRASPING AMBITION OF THE COVETOUS. This ode is in a metre of which there is no other example in Horace. It is said to have been invented by Hipponax of Ephesus, and is called generally by his name ; though sometimes Euripidean, because often used by Euripides. It To me nor gold nor ivory lends Its shine to fret my ceiling ; Nor shafts, in farthest Afric hewn, Prop architraves Hymettian.* I do not claim, an unknown heir. The spoils of Orient kingdoms,t No wives J of honest clients weave For me Laconian purples. Yet mine is truth and mine some vein Of inborn genius kindly ; Though poor, I do not court the rich, But by the rich am courted. I do not weary heaven for more ; I tax no kindly patron ; Content with all I own on earth. Some rural acres Sabine. * The Numidian or Libyan marble, known to us as the Giallo antico. The ** architraves Hymettian" (" trabes Hymettias") are the wh;te marble of Hymettus. t "Neque Attali Ignotus hei-es regiam occupavi." Attains the third made by will the Romans his heirs ; the older com- mentators suppose that the lines satirically imply the will to have been fraudulently obtained. But the word '* ignotus " does not necessarily bear that signification. As Orelli observes, the irony consists in the fact that BOOK II. — ODE XVIII. 189 It abounds in trochees. I can only attempt to give a general idea of its trippingness and brevity of sound. It treats, with more than usual beauty, Horace's favourite thesis of declamation against the grasping nature of avarice ; and, as Dillenburger observes, it takes up and expands the senti- ment with which he had closed Ode xvi. , Carm. XVIII. Non ebur neque aureum Mea renidet in domo lacunar ; Non trabes Hymettiae* Premunt columnas ultima recisas Africa ; neque Attalit Ignotus heres regiam occupavi ; Nee Laconicas mihi Trahunt honestae purpuras clientae.J At fides et ingeni Benigna vena est, pauperemque dives Me petit ; nihil supra Deos lacesso, nee potentem amicum Largiora flagito, Satis beatus unicis Sabinis. Truditur dies die, Novaeque pergunt interire Lunse : Attalus did not know the persons he enriched. Torrentius supposes the lines to refer to Aristonicus, who, after the death of Attalus, seized on the throne by false pretences, defeated Licinius Crassus, was after- wards conquered by Perpenna, carried to Rome, and strangled in prison by orders of the Senate. The former interpretation is preferable. + " 'Honestae clientse.' I have seen no satisfactory explanation of the words * honestae clientae.' Mr Long has suggested to me that they may refer to the rustic women on a man's farms — the wives of the Coloni. " — Maclean E. 190 THE ODES OF HORACE. Day treads upon the heels of day, New moons wane on to perish ; Thou on the brink of death dost make Vain contracts for new marble ; Building proud homes, and of thy last — The sepulchre — forgetful ; As if the earth itself too small Thou robb'st new earth from ocean, And, urging on a length of shore Upon the deep's foundation. Thou thrustest back the angry wave That wars in vain on Baiae.* What, must thou also, greeding still. Remove thy neighbour's landmark — Must ruthless avarice overleap Each fence of humble clients ? And man and wailing wife, expelled The dear paternal dwelling, Clasp ragged babes and exiled gods To wandering homeless bosoms ? And yet no surer hall awaits The wealthy tyrant master. Than that which yields yet ampler room In yet more greedy Orcus. Where farther tend ? Impartial earth Opes both for prince and peasant ; No gold bribed Charon to row back The crafty-souled Prometheus. Death holds the haughty Tantalus ; Death holds his children haughty: Invoked or not. Death hears the poor, And He gives rest to labour. BOOK II.— ODE XVIII. 191 Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum funus ; et sepulcri Immemor struis domos, Marisque Bails obstrepentis urges Summovere litora, Parum locuples continente ripa.''^ Quid, quod usque proximos Revellis agri terminos, et ultra Limites clientium Salis avarus ? Pellitur paternos In sinu ferens deos Et uxor, et vir, sordidosque natos. Nulla certior tamen Rapacis Orci fine destinata Aula divitem manet Herum. Quid ultra tendis ? ^qua tellus Pauperi recluditur Regumque pueris, nee satelles Orci Callidum Promethea Revexit auro captus. Hie superbum Tantalum atque Tantali Genus coercet, hie levare fun,ctum Pauperem laboribus Vocatus atque non vocatus audit. * In allusion to the practice of the wealthy Romans in building villas out into the sea, on artificial foundations — as, long afterwards, rose the whole city of Venice. 192 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XIX. IN HONOUR OF BACCHUS. Macleane appears to me greatly to underrate the beauty of this poem, in which he says the Greek fire is wanting. This is not the opinion of the earHer critics, nor of readers in general. It has as much of the character of the dithyramb as the taste of a Roman audience would sanction and the character of the Latin language allow. The date of the poem Amid sequestered rocky glens, — ye future times beUeve it!— Bacchus I saw, in mystic verse his pupil nymphs instruct- ing— Instructing pricked ears intent Of circling goat-hoofed Satyrs. CEvoe, with the recent awe is trembling yet my spirit, Filled with the god, my breast still heaves beneath the stormy rapture. CEvoe ! spare me ; Liber, spare, Dread with the solemn thyrsus ! Vouchsafed to me the glorious right to chant the head- strong Thyads, The wine that from the fountain welled, the rills with milk o'erflowing, And, from the trunks of charmed trees. The lapse of golden honey. Vouchsafed to sing thy consort's crown which adds a star to heaven,* Or that just wrath which overwhelmed the house of Theban Pentheus, * Ariadne. BOOK 11. — ODE XIX. 193 poem is uncertain. Macleane suggests that it was perhaps composed at the time of the LiberaHa, though in what year there are no means of determining. From its dithyrambic character, Orelli conjectures it to have been a copy from some Greek poem. The metre in this and the translation immediately follomng has some slight deviations from the preceding versions of the Alcaic, but not such as to affect the general character and form of the rhythm. Carm. XIX. Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus Vidi docentem, (credite posteri ! ) Nymphasque discentes, et aures Capripedum Satyrorum acutas. Euoe, recenti mens trepidat metu, Plenoque Bacchi pectore turbidum Laetatur. Euoe, parce, Liber, Parce, gravi metuende thyrso ! Fas pervicaces est mihi Thyiadas, Vinique fontem, lactis et uberes Cantare rivos, atque truncis Lapsa cavis iterare mella ; Fas et beatae conjugis additum Stellis honorem, tectaque Penthei N 194 THE ODES OF HORACE. And doomed to so disastrous end The frantic king Lycurgus.* * Thou bow'st the rivers to thy will, barbarian ocean rulest j t I Bedewed with wine in secret hills, thy charm compels the ; serpents To interweave, in guileless coil. The locks of Thracian Maenads. ; j Thou, when aloft through arduous heaven the impious host ; of giants Scaled to the Father's realm, didst hurl again to earth huge i Rhoetus — j Fronting his might with lion-fangs. And jaws of yawning horror ; j Albeit thou wert deemed a god more fit for choral dances, For jest and sport the readiest Power, of slenderer use in battle ; ^ Yet peace and war found thee the same, ] Of both the soul and centre. j When flashed the golden horn that decks thy front through Stygian shadows, Harmless the Hell-dog wagged his tail to greet thy glorious coming. And gently licked with triple tongue Thine hallowed feet receding.:}: * Lycurgus, the King of the Edones, persecuted Bacchus on his passage through Thrace, and imprisoned his train of Satyrs. The mythologists vary as to the details of his punishment for this offence, but he was first inflicted with madness, and finally torn to pieces by horses. + *'Tu flectis amnes, tu mare barbarum." "Flectis amnes" does not mean, as it is usually translated, "thou turnest aside the course BOOK II. — ODE XIX. 195 Disjecta non leni mina, Thracis et exitium Lycurgi. Tu flectis amnes, tu mare barbarum,t Tu separatis uvidus in jugis Nodo coerces viperino Bistonidum sine fraude crines. Tu, cum parentis regna per arduum Cohors Gigantum scanderet impia, Rhoetum retorsisti leonis Unguibus horribilique mala ; Quamquam, choreis aptior et jocis Ludoque dictus, non sat idoneus Pugnae ferebaris : sed idem Pacis eras mediusque belli. Te vidit insons Cerberus aureo Cornu decorum, leniter atterens Caudam, et recedentis trilingui Ore pedes tetigitque crura. + of the rivers;" the reference is to the Hydaspes and Orontes, over which Bacchus is said to have w^alked dryshod ; and "flecto" here must be taken either in the sense of "to bow" or "direct," or, in its more metaphorical sense, "to appease." By "mare barbarum" is meant the Indian Ocean. + OrelH observes that in this stanza there are two images, — one at the entrance of Liber into Hades, when Cerberus gently wags his tail to greet him — the other when Liber is leaving and the Hell-dog licks his feet. The poet thus expresses the security with which the god passes through the terrors of the nether world. 196 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE XX. ON HIS FUTURE FAME. y Horace has no ode more remarkable than this for liveli- ness of fancy and fervour of animal spirits. It is composed half in sport, half in earnest, though I cannot agree with Macleane that it has in its style anything of "the mock heroic," properly so called, still less that it was written im- promptu. Its rapid vivacity is no proof of want of artistic care. Dillenburger (in his Qu. Hor.) conjectures the ode to have been written in youth, and on the occasion of Maecenas's first invitation (recorded Sat. I. vi), so interpret- ing " quem vocas, dilecte Maecenas." But, as Macleane observes, "the epithet 'dilecte,' implying a familiarity of some I shall soar through the liquid air buoyed on a pinion Not familiar, not slight ; I will tarry no longer On this earth ; but victorious o'er envy, two-formed. Bard and bird, I abandon the cities of men. Born of parents obscure though I be, O Maecenas, I who still from thy mouth hear the title " Beloved," * I shall pass not away through the portals of death, I shall not be hemmed round by the waters of Styx. Now, now on my nether limbs rougher skin settles ; Now above to the form of white bird I am changing ; t Swiftly now from the hands and the shoulders behold Smooth and smoother the down of the plumes springing forth ! * "Quem vocas dilecte." I agree with Mr Conington in accept- ing Ritter's interpretation that "dilecte" is Maecenas's address to Horace. Upon this disputed point a very ilhistrious scholar, to whom, indeed, I am indebted for line 6 in the translation, writes to me thus : — " I rather doubt the naked use of * vocas ' in the sense of * invite to your BOOK IL— ODE XX. 1 97 some standing, is opposed to this view ;" to which I may add the remark, that it is scarcely probable that Horace would have spoken with such confidence of his future fame till his claims as a lyrical poet were acknowledged by competent judges, to whom most of the odes in the first two, or per- haps the first three, books, if not yet collected into one pub- lication, were familiarly known. It was probably enough written in some moment of joyous excitement occasioned by a success more signal than any private invitation from Maecenas could confer ; but we know too little of the various stepping-stones in Horace's poetical career to form any rea- sonable conjecture as to its date and occasion. It is enough that the poem itself so wonderfully vindicates the pretension of the poet to be also the prophet. Carm. XX. Non usitata nee tenui ferar Penna biformis per liquidum sethera Vates ; neque in terris morabor Longius j invidiaque major Urbes relinquam. Non ego, pauperum Sanguis parentum, non ego, quem vocas Dilecte,"^ Maecenas, obibo, Nee Stygia cohibebor unda. Jam jam residunt cruribus asperae Pelles ; et album mutor in alitem Superne ;t nascunturque leves Per digitos humerosque plumae. society' ('revocas' is used Sat. I. vi. 6i,but then of a particular repeated invitation, not of a general one) ; I therefore incline to prefer the inter- pretation 'Quem Maecenas, vocas "dilecte," ' though I admit the bold- ness of this construction." + " Album mutor in alitem superne." The white bird is, of course, the swan — "Multa Dircasum levat aura cycnum." — Lib. IV. Od. ii. 25. 198 THE ODES OF HORACE. Than the swift son of Dasdalus swifter I travel. I shall visit shores loud with the boom of the Euxine, And fields Hyperborean and African sands, And wherever I wander shall sing as a bird. Me the Colchians shall know, me the Dacian* dissembling His dismay at the might of his victor the Roman ; Me Scythia's far son ; — learned students in me Shall be Spain's rugged child and the drinker of Rhone, t Not for me raise the death-dirge, mine urn shall be empty;:}: Hush the vain ceremonial of groans that degrade me. And waste not the honours ye pay to the dead On a tomb in whose silence I shall not repose. * " Et qui dissimulat metum Marsse cohortis Dacus." The Marsian infantry was the flower of the Roman armies, and the Mar- sian here represents the might of Rome. Either the interruption to the rapidity of the verse by the allusion to the Dacian's haughty dissimula- tion of the terror with which he regards the Roman arms must be con- sidered, as it has been considered by critics, one of those "impertinences," for the sake of a popular hit, which is noticed in the preliminary essay as a defect in Horace ; or it may possibly escape that reproach, and, per- tinently to the purpose of the poem, mean that whatever the disguised terror in which the Dacian holds the Roman soldier, he will welcome the Roman poet. + "Me peritus Discet Hiber, Rhodanique potor." "Peritus Hiber" does not mean "the learned Spaniard," as it is com- monly translated. The adjective applies, as in similar cases is habitual with Horace, both to " Hiber " and " Rhodani potor ;" and as Dillen- burger, Orelli, and Macleane agree, the meaning is, "that these barbaric nations will becojue \QrsQ.d in me." Macleane thinks that by "Hiber" is probably meant the Caucasian people of that name ; I follow, how- ever, the interpretation popularly accepted — and sanctioned by Orelli —that "Hiber " means "the Spaniard." The "Drinker of Rhone " is the Gaul. BOOK IL— ODE XX. 1 99 Jam Dsedaleo ocior Icaro Visam gementis litora Bospori, Syrtesque Gaetulas canorus Ales Hyperboreosque campos. Me Colchus, et qui dissimulat metum Marsae cohortis Dacus,* et ultimi Noscent Geloni ; me peritus Discet Hiber, Rhodanique potor.t Absint inani funere neniae, J Luctusque turpes et querimoni^ ; Compesce clamorem, ac sepulcri Mitte supervacuos honores. + "Absint inani funere neniae." "Inani funere," because the body- is not there. — Orelli. 200 THE ODES OF HORACE. BOOK III.— ODE I. ON THE WISDOM OF CONTENT. This ode opens with a stanza which modern critics gene- rally consider to be an introduction not only to the ode itself, but also to the five following — all six constituting, as it were, serial parts of one varied poem, written about the same time and for the same object — viz., to aid in the refor- mation of manners which Augustus undertook at the close of the civil wars. The date of these and other odes con- ceived in the same spirit (as Lib. II. Od. xv. and xviii.) would therefore be referable to the period from a.u.c. 725 to A.u.c. 728. The first line of the introductory stanza to this ode imitates the formal exhortation of the priest at the Mysteries, warning away the profane. The conclusion of the stanza, " Virginibus puerisque canto," if, as recent inter- preters I hate the uninitiate crowd — I drive it hence away; Silence, while I, the Muses' priest, chant hymns unheard before ; I chant to virgins and to youths, I chaunt to listeners pure. Dread kings control their subject flocks; o'er kings them- selves reigns Jove, Glorious for triumph won in war when giants stormed his heaven, ' And moving with almighty brow * The universe of things. * " Cuncta supercilio moventis." With his usual felicity of wording, Horace avoids the commonplace expression of "the Olympian nod," though the line implies that and something more ; it implies the Deity's intellectual government of all things, and explains the connection with the stanzas that immediately follow, — the nod of Jove confirms the law of Fate to which all men are subjected. BOOK III. — ODE I. 201 preters assume, addressed to the chorus of boys and girls surrounding the priests and singing the praises of the gods, has also, according to the scholiasts, a much wider signi- ficance, and is a special address to the rising generation. "Horace," says Macleane, "speaks as if he despaired of impressing his precepts on any but the young, and bids the rest stand aside, as incapable of being initiated in the true wisdom of life." It is not easy to assign an appropriate heading to this ode. That which I select appears, on the whole, better than any other in use, though not quite satis- factory. The whole ode, which ranks high among the noblest attempts of a poet to embody didactic purpose in lyrical form, consists in a succession of brilHant images or pictures, seemingly detached, but constituting a moral whole. I St, The solemn recognition of the supreme God triumphant over brute force (" Clari Giganteo triumpho"), and governing the universe; 2dly, The impartiality of Fate, and the certainty of death ; sdly. The misery of the guilty conscience not to be soothed by sensual or artistic enjoy- ments. At line 25, " Desiderantem quod satis est," the main object of the poem — viz., in the inculcation of that msdom of contentment by which Horace contrives to unite Epicurean with Stoic philosophy — develops itself, and is continued to the close. Carm. I. i Odi profanum vulgus et arceo ; Favete Unguis : carmina non prius Audita Musarum sacerdos Virginibus puerisque canto. Regum timendonim in proprios greges, Reges in ipsos imperium est Jovis, Clari Giganteo triumpho, Cuncta supercilio moventis.* 202 THE ODES OF HORACE. Man vies with man — 'tis so ordained ; this, wider sets his vines,* That, nobler-born, the Campus t seeks, competitor for power With one who boasts of purer hfe. And one of clients more : Necessity with equal law assorts the varying lots ; Though this may bear the lofty name and that may bear the low, Each in her ample urn she shakes. And casts the die for all.J To him above whose guilty neck hangs down the naked sword, Sicilian arts elaborate not the sweets that flavour food. Nor song of bird nor chord of lute Charms back the truant sleep. § Yet sleep is meek, nor scorns the cots that shelter rural toil, Nor banks that find their pall of state in shadowy summer boughs. Nor vales in Tempe never vexed Save by the Zephyr's wing. * ' ' Est ut viro vir latius ordinet Arbusta sulcis." " Est ut," "it is the case, it is ordained that men shovild vary in wealth and condition." — Yonge. " Latius ordinet arbusta sulcis" — viz., one man may compete vi^ith another man in extent of possessions : literally, that he may marshal trees — chiefly, but not exclusively, vines — in par- allel lines, or in the shape of the quincunx, to a greater extent than another. + " Descendat in Campum." It v^^as on the Campus Martins that the Comitia Centuriata, at which the election of magistrates took place, were held. The Campus was on low gi-ound ; but Yonge observes that "descendat" is the exact word to express a contest, to descend into the arena. BOOK III. — ODE I. 203 Est ut* viro vir latius ordinet Arbusta sulcis, hie generosior Descendat in Campumt petitor, Moribus hie meliorque fama Contendat, illi turba clientium Sit major : aequa lege Neeessitas Sortitur insignes et imos ; Omne eapax movet uma nomen.J Destrietus ensis cui super impia Cerviee pendet, non Sieulae dapes Dulcem elaborabunt saporem, Non avium citharaeque eantus § Somnum redueent. Somnus agrestium Lenis virorum non humiles domos Fastidit, umbrosamque ripam, Non Zephyris agitata Tempe. t "Omne capax movet uma nomen." .The image is taken from the use of the dice, so familiar to the Romans. Fate is represented as hold- ing the urn which contains the lots of all men. This she keeps shaking (as we shake or rattle the dice-box), and casts out the lots indifferently. § "Non avium citharaeque eantus." It must not be supposed that the natural song of the wild bird out of doors is here meant. Horace is speaking of artificial luxuries in contradistinction to the banks and vales of the following stanza, to which the song of the wild bird would apply. Here he means the singing-birds which the Romans kept in aviaries within their houses. Their notes, and the sound of distant music, and the trickling of water, were among the artificial means for soothing the nerves and inducing sleep, practised by the luxurious. Maecenas, who suffered from insomnia during that kind of nervous depression which saddened his later years, is said by Seneca to have endeavoured to lull himself to sleep by the aid of distant music. It is not to Maecenas, how- ever, that Horace here alludes, for such an allusion in this place would have been an unfeeling affront. 204 THE ODES OF HORACE. To him who curbs desire within the bounds of ^The \ Enough,' ! The wildest blasts that heave the sea awake no fear of wreck ; i He quails not though Arcturus set, Or Haedus rise, in storm ; Though reel the vines beneath the hail, though crops belie j the hope, i Though trees despoiled of fruit accuse now spring's corrod- ing showers, Now summer's scorch and fiery stars, ] Now winter's crowning wrongs. ' Lo, where the mighty moles extend new lands into the deep. The scaled races feel their sea shrink round the invading ; piles ; As many a builder's burly gang Heaves the huge rubble down,* I Obedient to a lord who scorns so small a bound as earth ; \ Yet Conscience, whispering fears and threats, ascends with him the tower, i Black Care sits by him in the bark, j Behind him, on the steed, t i Since Phrygian marble:|: nought avails to soothe a mind diseased. And nought the pomp of purple robes albeit outshining stars, . And nought the Achsemenian balm, I Nought the Falernian vine ; i * "Hue frequens Caementa demittit redemptor Cum famulis.' "* Coementa," the rough mixture of large and small stones, mortar, &c. (rubble), which served for foundations. "Redemptor," literally the " contractor" or "architect." BOOK III. — ODE I. 205 Desiderantem quod satis est neque Tumultuosum sollicitat mare, Nee saevus Arcturi cadentis Impetus, aut orientis Hsedi ; Non verberatae grandine vineae, Fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas Culpante, nunc torrentia agros Sidera, nunc hiemes iniquas. Contracta pisces aequora sentiunt Jactis in altum molibus ; hue frequens Caementa demittit redemptor Cum famulis,* dominusque terrae Fastidiosus. Sed Timor et Minae Scandunt eodem, quo dominus ; neque Decedit aerata triremi, et Post equitem sedet atra Cura.t Quodsi dolentem nee Phrygius lapis J Nee purpurarum sidere clarior Delenit usus, nee Falema Vitis, Achaemeniumque costum ; t *' Sed Timor et Minae Scandunt eodem, quo dominus ; neque Decedit aerata triremi, et Post equitem sedet atra Cura." "Minae intemae propter facinora commissa." — Orelli. "Threats of conscience." " Scandunt," ascend the lofty tower or belvidere, which was then the fashionable appendage to the villas of the wealthy. ' ' The * aerata triremis' was the rich man's private yacht." — Macleane. The distinction between "Post equitem sedet atra Cura," and "Cura nee turmas equitum relinquit," Lib, 11. Od. xvi. 22, has been noticed in the note to the line last mentioned. t " Phrygius lapis," a costly marble from Synnada in Phrygia, white, with red spots, in great esteem for columns, &c. 206 THE ODES OF HORACE. Why should I rear some hall sublime to Rome's last taste refined, With pillared doors "^ which never ope but envy enters in ? Oh, why for riches, wearier far, Exchange my Sabine vale ? * "Postibus 'invidendis." "Postes" were the jambs, columns, or pilasters that flanked the entrance door, and the word is often used for the door itself I do not know of any authority for interpreting "postes" as the rows of pillars within the "atrium" itself, which some commentators are inclined to do. BOOK III.— ODE I. 207 Cur invidendis postibus * et novo Sublime ritu moliar atrium ? Cur valle permutem Sabina Divitias operosiores ? 208 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE II. THE DISCIPLINE OF YOUTH. As in the preceding ode the virtue of contentment is en- forced, so this commences with enjoining that early training in simple and hardy habits which engenders the spirit of content, because it forms the mind betimes to disdain luxury. To bear privation'^ as a friend — to love its wholesome stint, Train the youth nerved by hardy sports which form the school of war, A rider dread, with practised spear, To harry Parthian foes. Inured to danger and to days beneath unsheltered skies. On him from high embattled walls of kings at war with Rome, Matron and ripening maid shall gaze, And inly sigh, " Alas ! " O never may our princely lord in arms unskilled, provoke Yon lion whom 'twere death to touch ; by the fell rage for blood. Where most the slaughters thicken round. Hurried, in rapture, on ! " Glorious and sweet it is to die for the dear native land ; t Even him who runs away from Death, Death follows fast behind — Death does not spare the recreant back, And hamstrings limbs that flee. * '* Pauperiem." It is difficult here, as elsewhere, to find an English word that correctly renders the sense of "pauperies." In this passage I can think of no better word than "privation," interpreted as tlie BOOK III.— ODE II. 209 luxury. Discipline of this kind is the foundation of courage, love of country', the independence of character which loves virtue for its own sake, and the self-restraint which is essen- tial to social good faith and honour. Carm. II. Angustam amice pauperiem* pati Robustus acri militia puer Condiscat, et Parthos feroces Vexet eques metuendus hasta, Vitamque sub divo et trepidis agat In rebus. Ilium ex moenibus hosticis Matrona bellantis tyranni Prospiciens et adulta virgo Suspiret, Eheu, ne rudis agminum Sponsus lacessat regius asperum Tactu leonem, quem cruenta Per medias rapit ira csedes. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori : + Mors et fugacem persequitur virum, Nee parcit imbellis juventae Poplitibus timidoque tergo. privation of luxuries. Poverty would be here wholly inapplicable, this ode being addressed, with the one that precedes and the three that fol- low it, to youths quite as much of the richer classes as of the poorer. "Robustus acri militia puer:" I take "robustus" with "militia" — the boy made robust by martial exercise and discipline. Among the Romans, the age for military exercise began at seventeen. + "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." "In Horace's mind there was a close connection between the virtue of frugal contentment and devotion to one's country." — Macleane. O 210 THE ODES OF HORACE. Virtue ne'er knows of a defeat which brings with it disgrace; J The blazon of her honours ne'er the breath of men can stain ; Her fasces she nor takes nor quits As veers the popular gale. Virtue essays her flight through ways to all but her denied ; To those who do not merit death she opes the gates of heaven, And, spurning vulgar mobs and mire, Soars with escaping wing. There is a silence unto which a safe reward is due. With him whose tongue the sacred rites of Ceres blabs abroad, May I ne'er sit beneath a roof, Nor launch a shallop frail ! For Jove neglected oft confounds the good man with the bad ; And though avenging Punishment is lame indeed of foot. Yet rarely lags she long behind The swiftest flight of Crime. + ** Virtus, repulsse nescia sordidje, Intaminatis fulget honoribus," The meaning of these lines has been much disputed, but seems to me sufficiently clear. The point is in the epithets, "sordidae," " intamina- tis." It cannot be truly said that Virtue is ignorant or unconscious of a defeat or rejection ("repulsae" applies to the defeat at a popular elec-- tion {a), but it is said truly that Virtue knows not any such defeat as can disgrace her (sordidae). The honours that Virtue seeks are distinguished from civil honours, insomuch as the latter, being conceded by the people or the state, are by the people or the state to be reversed or sullied ; but (a) Thus, in the Epistles, I. i. 42, Horace says, — ^ " Vides, quae maxima credis ^ Esse mala, exiguum censum turpemque repulsam ; " ] which Macleane, referring to "repulsae — sordidae" of this ode, interprets quaintly, | " He who would secure an election must have a command of money." BOOK III. — ODE II. 211 Virtus, repulsae nescia sordidae, if Intaminatis fulget honoribus ; Nee sumit aiit ponit secures Arbitrio popularis aurae. Virtus, recludens immeritis mori C^lum, negata tentat iter via, Coetusque volgares et udam Spernit humum fugiente penna. Est et fideli tuta silentio Merces : vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum Volgarit arcanae, sub isdem Sit trabibus fragilemve mecum Solvat phaselon ; sspe Diespiter Neglectus incesto addidit inte.grum : Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede Poena claudo. the honours which Virtue seeks being acquired by herself alone, cannot by others be stained or touched (intaminatis). Cicero has exactly the same sentiment (Pro Sestio, 28, 60), and Horace almost literally versifies the passage, " Virtus lucet in tenebris — splendetque per sese semper, • neque alienis unquam sordibus obsolescit." — See Orelli's note, vol, i. p. 345- 212 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE III. ON STEADFASTNESS OF PURPOSE. The two preceding odes, addressed to youth, inculcate the formation of private character ; this ode and the two that follow have a political intention and bearing. In this ode Horace commences with his famous picture of the steadfast man not turned aside from that which his reason and conscience hold to be right, either by the excitement of a populace or the threat of a tyrant. Among the mortals which the exercise of this virtue has raised to the gods he places Augustus, who certainly did not want firmness of pur- pose in founding and cementing his authority, and to whom the Senate had already decreed the honours habitually paid only to the divine powers. The poet's mention of Romulus amongst those thus promoted to the rank of immortals, leads on to what in itself appears, at first sight, a somewhat prolix and irrelevant digression — viz., the speech of Juno predicting the glories of Rome, and prohibiting the resto- ration of Troy. Closely examined, the digression is not purely episodical, but in harmony with the preceding verses, and a development of the purpose of the whole poem ; for it is in the nature of the steadfast man, unswayed by the fickle passions of the time, to adhere firmly to the interests of his country, and cherish the memory of its glories and heroes. We are told by Suetonius ('Life of Julius Caesar,' ' c. 79), that it was a current report that Julius Caesar medi- tated a design of transferring the seat of empire from Rome to Alexandria, or to Ilium. Lucan, ix. 997, ascribes to him the same intention. But we are not to suppose, with some, that Augustus entertained any such notion : this ode in itself Not the rage of the million commanding things evil, Not the doom frowning near in the brows of the tyrant, BOOK III. — ODE III. 213 itself is a proof to the contrary ; for Horace would certainly not have volunteered a direct opposition to the wish of Augustus in poems intended to praise and support his policy, and, no doubt, composed with his entire approval. But it is possible enough that, when Augustus commenced his work of reformation, there were many among the broken remains of the old political parties who, whether from the dilapidation of their fortune, the distaste for Roman institu- tions, the supremacy of Augustus himself and aversion to his reforms, the animosities of faction — which, if crushed down, were still sore and rankling — or the restless love of change and adventure, might have entertained and pro- claimed a desire for establishing a settlement in the East, for which the ancestral site of Troy would have been a popular selection. If Julius Caesar really did entertain, or was commonly supposed to have entertained, the design imputed to him by Suetonius and Lucan, many of his fol- lowers and disbanded soldiers may have shared in this project, and rendered it a troublesome subject for Augustus to deal with. The idea is not likely to have gone to the extent of a transfer of the seat of empire from Rome to Troy (nor does Horace intimate that notion in this ode). More probably it was confined to establishing at Troy, or in its neighbourhood, a colonial or branch government, with special privileges and powers. Nor would there have been wanting plausible political reasons for thus planting a military Roman settlement to guard the empire acquired in the East. Upon the assumption that such an idea had favourers sufficiently numerous to raise it to importance, and that Augustus wished to discourage it, the intention of Horace, in the speech he ascribes to Juno, becomes clear. Carm. III. Justum et tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor prava jubentium. 214 THE ODES OF HORACE. Shakes the upright and resolute man In his soHd completeness of soul ; No, not Auster, the Storm-King of Hadria's wild waters, No, not Jove's mighty hand when it launches the thunder ; If in fragments were shattered the world, Him its ruins would strike undismayed. By this virtue* did Pollux and wandering Alcides Scale, with toil, starry ramparts, and enter on heaven. Whom between, now Augustus reclined. Quaffs the nectar that purples his lip ; t By this virtue deservedly, thee. Father Bacchus Did the fierce tigers draw J with necks tamed by no mortal ; By this virtue Quirinus escaped. Rapt on coursers of Mars — Acheron : Juno having thus spoken words heard with approval By the gods met in council, § ' Troy, Troy lies in ruins — By a fatal and criminal judge || And the false foreign woman o'erthrown ; Condemned from the day when LaomedonlT cheated Vengeful gods of the guerdon agreed ; — forfeit debtor With its people and fraudulent king Unto me and Minerva the pure. * " Hac arte," "dpexT?," "by the vh-tue of this constancy, unwearied by labours, unswerving in purpose, men, becoming the heroes and benefactors of the human race, attain to the glory of immortals." — See Orelli, note 9 to this ode. + " Purpureo bibit ore nectar." Horace speaks in the present tense, and no doubt with reference to the decree of the Senate after the battle of Actium — viz., that libations should be offered to Octavian in private as well as in public tables, and his name should be inserted in the hymns of praise equally with those of the gods. — Dio. 51, 19. Compare Lib. IV, Od. v. 33 et seq., and Lib. II. Ep. i. 15. X " Vexere tigres" — i.e., to the seats of the gods, to Olympus. The BOOK III. — ODE III. 215 Non voltus instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida, neque Auster, Dux inquieti turbidus Hadriae, Nee fulminantis magna manus Jo vis ; Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruinse. Hae arte* Pollux et vagus Hercules Enisus arces attigit igneas : Quos intef Augustus recumbens Purpureo bibit ore nectar.t Hae te merentem, Bacche pater, tuae Vexere tigres^ indocili jugum Collo trahentes. Hae Quirinus Martis equis Acheronta fugit, Gratum elocuta consiliantibus Junone divis : § ' Ilion, Ilion Fatalis incestusque judex || Et mulier peregrina vertit In pulverem ; ex quo destituit deos Mercede pacta Laomedon,^ mihi Castseque damnatum Minervae Cum populo et duce fraudulento. tigers are the symbols of the savage ferocity tamed by Bacchus. — Orelli. Bacchus is here represented as the civiliser of life. § Met in council to deliberate whether Romulus should be admitted among the gods. 11 Paris adjudging the golden apple to Venus. ^ " Ex quo destituit deos Mercede pacta Laomedon." Troy is here represented as doomed by the crime of its founder Laome- don, who, according to legend, defrauded Neptune and Apollo of the reward promised them for building the walls of the city. It is Laome- don who is meant by " the fraudulent king," "duce fraudulento" — not Priam, on whom, innocent himself, the fraud of his ancestor is visited. 2l6 THE ODES OF HORACE. But now the vile guest of the Spartan adult'ress Glitters forth nevermore ; — the forsworn race of Priam i By the aid of its Hector, no more | Breaks in fragments the. force of the Greek ; Sunk to rest is the war so prolonged by our discords, i Ever henceforth to Mars I give up my resentment. And my grudge to the grandson^ who springs ■ From the womb of a priestess of Troy. \ I admit him to enter the luminous dwellings j i I admit him to sipt of the juices of nectar, ^ And, enrolled in the order serene ' Of the gods, to partake of their calm. \ While between Rome and Ilion there rage the wide ocean. May the exiles be blest wheresoe'er their dominion ; So long as the wild herd shall range. And the wild beast shall litter her cubs ] i Undisturbed, 'mid the barrows of Priam and Paris, ] May the Capitol stand, brightening earth with its glory, : And dauntless Rome issue her laws ] To the Mede she subdues by her arms. Wide and far may the awe of her name be extended ■ To the uttermost shores, where the girdle of ocean 1 Doth from Africa Europe divide, ) And where Nile floods the lands with his swell. ^ Be she stronger in leaving disdainfully buried i In the caverns of earth the gold — better so hidden, ] * Romulus being Juno's grandson, born of Mars her son, and Ilia the Trojan priestess. + "Ducere nectaris succos." " Ducere, " z>. , **sorbillere," to sip. BOOK III. — ODE III. 217 Jam nee Lacsenae splendet adulterae Famosus hospes, nee Priami domus Perjura pugnaees Aehivos Heetoreis opibus refringit ; Nostrisque duetum seditionibus Bellum resedit. Protinus et graves Iras, et invisum nepotem, Troica quern peperit sacerdos, Marti redonabo f ilium ego lucidas Inire sedes, ducere nectaris SuceoSjt et adscribi quietis Ordinibus patiar deorum. Dum longus inter saeviat Ilion Romamque pontus, qualibet exsules In parte regnanto beati ; Dum Priami Paridisque busto Insultet armentum, et catulos ferae Celent inultae, stet Capitolium Fulgens, triumphatisque possit Roma ferox dare jura Medis. Horrenda late nomen in ultimas Extendat oras, qua medius liquor Seeernit Europen ab Afro, Qua tumidus rigat arva Nilus : Aurum irrepertum, et sic melius situm Cum terra celat, spemere fortior — Orelli. Several MS S. have "discere," which reading is favoured by Dillenburger, Orelli and Macleane prefer "ducere," "which," as the latter observes, *' is in very common use in the sense of ' quaffing.'" 2l8 THE ODES OF HORACE. Than in wringing its uses to men, With a hand that would plunder the gods/"' What limit soe'er may obstruct her in nature Let her reach by her arms ; bounding blithely to visit t Either pole, where the mist or the sun Holds the orgies of water or fire. I to Rome's warlike race speak such fates, on condition That they never, too pious to antique forefathers, Nor confiding too far in their power, Even wish Trojan roofs to restore. What though Troy could revive under auspices fatal — All her fortunes should be repetition of carnage ; I myself leading hosts to her doom — I the consort and sister of Jove ! Rose her brazen wall thrice, with Apollo for founder,:}: Still her brazen wall thrice should be razed by my Argives ; Thrice the captive wife mourn for her lord, Thrice the mother her children deplore. Ah, this strain does not chime to my lute's lively measures ! Whither tendest thou. Muse? Cease, presumptuous, to mimic The discourses of gods ; nor let down To a music low-pitched, lofty themes. * " Quam cogere humanos in usus Omne sacrum rapiente dextra." The point here, as Orelli observes, is in the antithesis between " hu- manos" and " sacrum." Macleane paraphrases the general meaning of the passage thus, — " Let Rome extend her arms as she will, only let her not, as her possessions increase, learn to prize gold above virtue." The more literal meaning, according to Dillenburger and Orelli, is, that in the lust of gold the hand of rapine sacrilegiously despoils the sacred vessels dedicated to gods in their shrines and temples. BOOK III. — ODE III. 219 Quam cogere human os in usus. Omne sacrum rapiente dextra. Quicunque mundo terminus obstitit, Hunc tanget armis, visere gestiens,t | Qua parte debacchentur ignes, j Qua nebulae pluviique rores. j Sed bellicosis fata Quiritibus \ Hac lege dico ; ne nimium pii , 1 Rebusque fidentes avitae \ Tecta velint reparare Trojse. j i i Trojse renascens alite lugubri j Fortuna tristi clade iterabitur, -j Ducente victrices catervas j Conjuge me Jovis et sorore. i Ter si resurgat murus aeneus j Auctore Phoebo,J ter pereat meis . Excisus Argivis ; ter uxor j Capta virum puerosque ploret. ; Non hoc jocosae conveniet lyrae : : Quo, Musa, tendis ? Desine pervicax ' Referre sermones deorum et j Magna modis tenuare parvis. j + "Visere gestiens." I do not think the commentators or the \ translators have sufficiently seized the notion conveyed by "gestiens," I which means something more than " delighted" — it means, "showing 1 delight by active movement," "bounding" or "leaping." " Laetitia gestiens," Cic. Tusc. iv, 6. < J "Auctore Phoebo," the founder of the first Troy. j 220 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE IV. INVOCATION TO CALLIOPE. It is observable that in this ode as well as in the last, and in Odes v. and vi., composed for political purposes, Horace indulges much more in the flights and fancies and seeming digressions proper to poetry purely lyrical than in Odes i. and ii., in which, inculcating moral or noble sentiments applicable to men of all parties, he is earnestly didactic. But treating political subjects, on which men's minds were divided, he shows wonderful delicacy of art in conveying his purpose through forms of poetry least likely to offend. In Ode iii., dissuading from the project of a setdement in Troy, it is not he that speaks, it is Juno. In Ode iv., desiring to imply that the ascendancy of Augustus is the intellectual and godlike mastery over irrational force, he begins Descend, O Queen Calliope, from heaven. And on thy fife discourse in lengthened music ; '* Or lov'st thou more the lyre By Phoebus strung ; or thrill of vocal song ? Hear ye, or doth the sweet delirium fool me ? I seem to hear her, and with her to wander Where gentle winds and waves . Steal their soft entrance into hallowed groves. Me, when a child, upon the slopes of Vultur Strayed, truant, from my nurse Apulia's threshold,t And tired with play and sleep. Did mythic doves with budding leaves bestrew ; * " Longum — melos." " In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness, long drawn out." — Milton. Macleane says "longum" means a sustained and stately song. Yonge observes, that though it may be so translated, it is enough to understand BOOK III. — ODE IV. 221 begins by an invocation to Calliope, intimating his ambition to accomplish a majestic or sustained poem without reveal- ing its purport ; passes on to the lovely stanzas descriptive of his own devotion to poetry from childhood; links this description with inimitable subtlety of touch to Augustus's culture of the humanising arts (v. 37, "Vos Caesarem," &c.); implies the union of such literary tastes with the policy of peace ("militia simul Fessas cohortes addidit oppidis," &c.), and with conciliatory and clement disposi- tions (" lene consilium," &c). ; and then, with a lyrical sud- denness, bursts into the theme for which he had invoked the muse at the commencement, — " Scimus ut impios ; " insinuating, in the myth of the victory obtained over brute force by the gods that represent wisdom (Pallas), industry (Vulcan), social and domestic order (Juno), the ennobling arts (Apollo), not only the victory of Augustus, but the social and civilising influences to which the victory is ascribed, and by which it is lastingly maintained. Carm. IV. Descende caelo, et die age tibia Regina longum Calliope melos,*" Seu voce nunc mavis acuta, Seu fidibus citharaque Phcebi. Auditis, an me ludit amabilis Insania ? Audire et videor pios Errare per lucos, amoense Quos et aquae subeunt et aurse. ' Me fabulosae Volture in Apulo Altricis extra limen Apuliae t Ludo fatigatumque somno Fronde nova puerum palumbes it, with Orelli, as a mode of saying " Come, and leave me not hastily or soon. " + See Excursus at the end of the ode. 222 THE ODES OF HORACE. A miracle to all who hold their eyrie In beetling Acherontia, or whom forests Embower in Bantian glens, Or rich Forentum's lowland glebes enclose, That, safe from prowling bear and baleful adder — That, heaped with myrtle and the hallowing laurel, Calm I should slumber on. Infant courageous under ward divine. Yours, yours am I, O Muses, whether lifted To Sabine hills — or whether cool Praeneste, Or Tibur's sunny slopes, Or limpid Baias '^ more my steps allure. The lines arrayed and routed at Philippi, The accursed tree, the rock of PaHnurus,t Stormed by Sicilian waves. Spared me, the lover of your choirs and founts. Where ye be with me I would go undaunted ; Tempt, a glad mariner, the madding Euxine ; Or, a blithe traveller, brave The sands that burn upon Assyrian shores ; Visit the Briton, terrible to strangers, Concanian hordes, drunk with the blood of horses, And, safe from every harm. Quivered Geloni and the Scythian stream. * " Liquidse Baiae." The epithet applies either to the salubrity and purity of the waters, or to the clearness of the air at Baias. — Schol. Cruq. Orelli prefers the latter interpretation. *' Limpid" appears the best translation of " liquidas," being applicable equally to either air or water, which " liquid," in our sense of the word, would not be. BOOK III. — ODE IV. 223 Texere, mirum quod foret omnibus, Quicunque celsae nidum Acherontiae, Saltusque Bantinos, et arvum Pingue tenent humilis Forenti ; Ut tuto ab atris corpora viperis Dormirem et ursis ; ut premerer sacra Lauroque coUataque myrto, Non sine dis animosus infans. Vester, Camenae, vester in arduos Tollor Sabinos ; seu mihi frigidum Praeneste, seu Tibur supinum, Seu liquidae placuere Baise.^ Vestris amicum fontibus et choris, Non me Philippis versa acies retro, Devota non exstinxit arbos. Nee Sicula Palinurus unda.t Utcunque mecum vos eritis, libens Insanientera navita Bosporum Tentabo, et urentes arenas Litoris Assyrii viator j Visam Britannos hospitibus feros Et laetum equino sanguine Concanum ; Visam pharetratos Gelonos Et Scythicum inviolatus amnem. t *' Nee Sicula Palinuras unda," Cape Palinurus, a promontory on the western coast of Lucania. All attempts to ascertain at what period of his life, or on what occasion, Horace escaped shipwreck off Palinurus, are but mere conjectures. 224 THE ODES OF HORACE. High Csesar. seeking to conclude his labours, Settling in peaceful towns war-wearied cohorts,* Ye solace and refresh In the Pierian grotto's placid shade. Ye are the natural givers of mild counsel, Your joy to give it, ye yourselves so gentle ! + X We know how He, whose law Tempers the sluggish earth and windy sea, He who, the Sole One, rules with tranquil justice The 'stablished states — the varying crowd of mortals, Gods, and the Ghastly Realms — Smote with prone bolt the Titans' impious crew, And banded giants towering into battle : That horrid youth in strength of arm confiding — Brethren who sought to pile Pelion on dun Olympus, and to Jove * " Militia simul Fessas cohortes addidit oppidis." The MSS. vary in the reading — "addidit," "abdidit," and "reddidit." Dillenburger prefers "abdidit," which the scholiasts explain as being sent to winter quarters. Orelli powerfully contends for " addidit," as significant of new towns or colonies, in favour of which he cites Tacitus, Ann. xiii. 31, " Colonise Capua atque Nuceria additis veteranis firmatse sunt." After the conquest of the Salassi, a people of the Gaulish Alps (a.u.C. 729), Augvistus assigned their territory to the Praetorian troops, who built Augusta Praetoria (Aosta). To other troops were assigned lands in Lusitania, Augusta Emerita (Merida). Macleane agrees with Orelli. The true reading being, however, vincertain, I have left it equally vague in the translation. I may observe, however, that as Macleane, in common with other eminent commentators, considers this ode written between A.u.C. 725 and 728, the line cannot refer to the new towns in the territory taken from the Salassi, A.u.C. 729. + * ' Vos lene consilium et datis, et dato Gaudetis, almas." , * Ye give peaceful counsel, and rejoice in giving it because ye are gentle." — Macleane. BOOK III.— ODE IV. 225 Vos Caesarem altum, militia simul Fessas cohortes addidit oppidis,"^ Finire quaerentem labores, Pierio recreatis antro. Vos lene consilium et datis, et dato Gaudetis, almae.t JScimus, ut impios Titanas immanemque turmam Fulmine sustulerit caduco, Qui terram inertem, qui mare temperat Ventosum, et urbes regnaque tristia, Divosque, mortalesque turbas Imperio regit unus aequo. Magnum ilia terrorem intulerat Jovi Fidens juventus horrida brachiis, Fratresque tendentes opaco Pelion imposuisse Olympo. + Here Horace, starting from the picture of Augustus cultivating the Muses, and taking from them humane counsels, proceeds with poetic abruptness to symbolise the victory of Augustus over the violent and irrational forces hostile to the great social interests of man. The reader must not suppose (as some critics have inconsiderately done) that Horace signifies Augustus himself in the attributes he assigns to Jove. He would very imperfectly understand Horace who could con- ceive him thus to abase to the level of an earthly vicegerent that supreme divinity, to whom there is no likeness and no second. Horace does but imply that the same Divine Powers who defeated the brute forces of the Titans and giants were on the side of Augustus in the civil wars. 226 THE ODES OF HORACE. Himself sent fear. But what availed Typhoeus, What Mimas or Porphyrion's stand of menace,* What Rhoetus, or the bold Hurler of trees uptom, Enceladus, Rushing against Minerva's sounding aegis ? Here, keen, stood Vulcan — here the matron Juno, And he, who never more Will from his shoulders lay aside the bow, Who in the pure dew of Castalia's fountain Laves loosened hair,t who holds the Lycian thicket And his own native wood, Apollo, Delian and Patarean king. By its own weight sinks force, when void of counsel. 'Tis the force tempered which the gods make greater ; But they abhor the force Which gives blind movement to all springs of crime. Witness this truth, the hundred-handed Gyas — Witness the doom of Dian's vast assailer, Lustful Orion, quelled By the chaste conqueror with the virgin shaft. * "Aut quid minaci Porphyrion statu." As more poetic and ex- ] pressive, I have adopted the literal translation of "status" — i.e., "ai standing still," as opposed to motion — rather than that of "attitude,' in which sense Forcellini interprets the word in these lines, — an inter- \ pretation commended by Yonge. + Every reader of taste will be struck by the exquisite grace with : which Horace lingers on this lovely picture of Apollo (Augustus's favourite deity), in contrast, as Orelli observes, to the monstrous images to which he is opposed. " Delius et Patareus :" Apollo is mythically ; said to have resided (or given oracles) at Patara, in Lycia, for six i months in the year — the other six at Delos, his native isle. Macleane remarks that, ' ' Tn enumerating the principal gods who assisted Zeus in BOOK III. — ODE IV. 227 Sed quid Typhoeus et validus Mimas, Aut quid minaci Porphyrion statu, "^ Quid Rhoetus, evulsisque truncis Enceladus jaculator audax, Contra sonantem Palladis aegida Possent ruentes ? Hinc avidus stetit Vulcanus, hinc matrona Juno, et Nunquam humeris positurus arcum, Qui rore puro Castalise lavit Crines solutos,t qui Lyci^ tenet Dumeta, natalemque silvam, Delius et Patareus Apollo. Vis consili expers mole ruit sua : Vim temperatam di quoque provehunt In majus ; idem odere vires Omne nefas animo moventes. Testis mearum centimanus Gyas Sententiarum, notus et integrae Tentator Orion Dianae, Virginea domitus sagitta. the battle, Horace means to say, that although they were present, it was Pallas to whom the victory is mainly owing, otherwise the force of his argument is lost. " But, as is said in the introduction, Horace appears to me to have desired emphatically, though symbolically, to intimate the nature of the Powers that v/ere ranged on the side of Pallas, i.c.^ in the cause of Augustus — Vulcan, the representative of industry — Juno, of social order and marriage — x'Vpollo, of arts and letters. This sup- position is in accordance with the social or political objects to which these odes are devoted, and with the special benefits which Horace else- where ascribes to the reign of Augustus. 228 THE ODES OF HORACE. Earth heaped above them mourns her buried monsters, And wails her offspring, into lurid Orcus Hurled by the heavenly bolt ; The swiftest fires consume not ^tna, piled Over the struggling giant ;"' the winged jailer t Of lustful Tityus never quits its captive ; Three hundred fetters hold The ravisher Pirithous fast in hell. ^ Excursus. *'Me fabulosse Volture in Apulo Altricis extra limen Apuliae Ludo fatigatumque somno." I omit in the translation the adjective Apulian (Apulo) applied to Vultur, because, as between Apulo in one line and Apuliae in the next, the text is generally supposed to be corrupt. Apu(lo) in the first line, is Apu(lias) in the second; and * "Necperedit Impositam celer ignis ^tnam." The fires of ^tna, however swiftly they burst forth, cannot consume the heap piled above Enceladus, so as ever to free him, — Orelli. Horace does not say who was the giant crushed under .■Etna. Calli- machus says it was Enceladus, and also Briareus ; Pindar and -^schylus say it was Typhoeus. I have left this question in the translation as vague as Horace leaves it, though I have been compelled to take the licence of adding the words, "the struggling giant," in order to pre- vent a misconception of the meaning, — such as occurs, for instance, in Smart, "Nor does the active fire consume ^Etna, that is placed over it. " + The vulture. BOOK III. — ODE IV. 229 Injecta monstrls Terra dolet suis, Mseretque partus fulmine luridum Missos ad Orcum ; nee peredit Impositam celer ignis ^Etnam ; * Incontinentis nee Tityi jeeur Reliquit ales, nequitiae additus Gustos jt amatorem treeentae Pirithoum cohibent eatense. and though there are suffieient instanees of variation of quantity in proper names — sueh as Priamus, Priamides, Sicanus, Sicania, Italus, &e. — yet it is thought improbable that in so elaborate a poem Horace would have varied the quantity in two eonseeutive lines. Passing by the proso- diaeal objeetion, a graver diffieulty has been found in the construetion, " Me in Apulian Vultur beyond the threshold of my nurse Apulia." The Apennine range, still ealled " Monte Vulture," was partly in Apulia, partly in Lueania. And Horace, Satire ii. i, says it is doubtful whether he was a Lucanian or an Apulian, for the farmers of Venusia (his birthplace) ploughed the boundaries of both these provinces. Had he said " Lucanian Vultur," " beyond the threshold of Apulia," the passage, therefore, would have been clear ; but " in Apulian Vultur, out of Apulia," is a puzzle for com- mentators. It is not to be wondered at that Bentley, ever ready upon slighter ground to disturb a text and hazard an invention, should vehemently repudiate this reading ; and, getting rid of Apulia and poetry altogether, boldly pro- pose to read, " Nutricis extra limina sedulse," " beyond the threshold of my careful nurse." Another critic, still more ingenious, not contented with taking " altrix" or -'nutrix" literally as Horace's nurse in flesh and blood, has discovered 230 THE ODES OF HORACE. her name to be Pulia, " extra limina Puliae ; " in which case the Hnes might be imitated thus : — *' Me on the slope of Brighton Downs, Beyond the threshold of nurse Downie." The most recent and the most plausible conjecture will be found in the preface to Mr Yonge's edition, p. vi., " Altricis extra limina villulse," " beyond the precincts of my native homestead." Mr Yonge suggests, p. vii., a yet bolder, but, we think, a less acceptable emendation, "Nutricis extra limina villicae," observing, that the " villica" was an impor- tant person in a plain country-house — the responsible manager for every part of the household arrangements. The construction would then be, " beyond the threshold of my nurse the bailiff's wife." As the obscurity of this passage has tasked the subtlest critics, I feel that I shall gratify all Horatian scholars by subjecting the following communication from a very high authority : — " I cannot see any difficulty about the Apuliae and Apulo ; the adjective and substantive often differ in accent, as gallant and gallant. Horace claims Vultur as an Apulian mountain, but says that he has strayed beyond its Apulian side ; just as a child at Macugnaga might say that he had strayed on the * Pied- montese Monte Moro ' beyond the limits of Piedmont." ODE V. THE SOLDIER FORFEITS HIS COUNTRY WHO SURRENDERS HIMSELF TO THE ENEMY IN BATTLE. In this ode the political object of Horace is to stigmatise the Roman soldiers, who, being made prisoners — or, to use an appropriate French word, detejws — after the defeat of Crassus, had accustomed themselves to the country in which they were detained, married into barbarian families, BOOK III. — ODE V. 231 and accepted military service under the conqueror; and in thus energetically representing the moral disgrace of these men, Horace is very evidently opposing some propo- sition then afloat for demanding their restoration from the Parthians. Such demand, which would no doubt be urged by the relatives of the ^ detenus, and perhaps by many old fellow-soldiers in the Roman army, might easily have ac- quired the importance of what we call a party question. And if Horace here opposes it, it is pretty certain that Augustus opposed it also at that time. Hence the ode would have been written before Augustus redemanded (a.u.c. 731) the Roman captives and standards from Phraates. And the date a.u.c. 728 or 729, assigned to the ode by Orelli, is probably the true one. A demand which circum- stances rendered reasonable and politic in 731, might have been very inopportune and unwise two or three years be- fore. In aiming at his political object, Horace skilfully eludes its exact definition. He begins by saying, that as it is by his thunder we believe in Jove, so the power of Augustus will be recognised when he shall have added the Britons and Parthians to his empire. Thus, agreeably with the oratorical character of his poetry, on which I have ob- served in the preliminary essay, his exordium propitiates the ear of the party he is about to oppose — viz., those clamorous for the restoration of the Parthian prisoners. He follows this exordium with a rapid outburst on the ignominy of these very prisoners, and then, with admirable boldness, places the argument against their restoration in the mouth of the national hero Regulus. It is in these and similar passages that Horace not only soars immeasurably above the level of didactic poetry properly so called, but justifies his claim to a far higher rank even in lyrical poetry than many of his modem critics are disposed to accord to him. He attains to that region of the sublime which be- longs to heroic sentiment, and which is the rarest variety of the sublime even in the tragic drama. 232 THE ODES OF HORACE. 'Tis by his thunder we believe Jove reigns In heaven : on earth,* as a presiding god, When to his realm annexed Briton and Persian,t Csesar shall be held ! What ! hath the soldier who with Crassus served, Lived the vile spouse of a barbarian wife ? Shame to Rome's Senate ! J shame On manners that invert the Rome of old. Marsian, Apulian, sons-in-law to foes Of their own sires ! grown grey in hireling mail Beneath a Median king ! Oblivious of the sacred shields of Mars, Oblivious both of toga and of name, And Vesta's unextinguishable fire, § - While yet live Jove and Rome ! || Ah ! this the provident mind of Regulus Foresaw, when arguing that to buy from Death Captives unworthy pity, on vile terms. Would serve in after days, As the sure precedent of doom to Rome. ''I," thus he said, "have with these eyes beheld The Roman standards nailed to Punic shrines ; From Roman soldiers seen The bloodless weapons wrenched without a blow ; * " ' Praesens divus' is obviously 'prsesens in terris,' as opposed to ' caslo.' " — Macleane. f Persian for Parthian, as Lib. I. Od. ii. 22. t "Pro Curia," &c. — viz., "Shame to the Senate for the scandal to its dignity in having so long endured a disgrace so ignominious." — Orelli. § " Horace collects the most distinguished objects of a Roman's rev- erence — his name, his citizenship (togse), the shield of Mars only to be lost, and the fire of Vesta only to be extinguished, when Rome should perish. " — M ACLEANE. BOOK III. — ODE V. 233 Carm. V. Caelo tonantem credidimus Jovem Regnare : praesens divus ^ habebitur Augustus, adjectis Britannis Imperio gravibusque Persis.t Milesne Crassi conjuge barbara Turpis maritus vixit ? et hostium — Pro Curia inversique mores ! J — Consenuit socerorum in armis, Sub rege Medo, Marsus et Apulus, Anciliorum et nominis et togse Oblitus, aeternaeque Vestae, § Incolumi Jove et urbe Roma ? Hoc caverat mens provida Reguli Dissentientis conditionibus Foedis, et exemplo trahentis Perniciem veniens in sevum, Si non periret immiserabilis Captiva pubes. ' Signa ego Punicis Adfixa delubris et arma Militibus sine caede,' dixit, II "Incolumi Jove." "Salvo CapitoHo," Schol. — viz., the Capitol in which stood the temple of Capitoline Jove. 234 THE ODES OF HORACE. " Seen the stout arms of Roman citizens Twisted, all slave-like, behind free-born backs, While foes retilled safe fields. And left expanded portals sentryless. " Think ye, forsooth, the soldier whom your gold Ransoms from bonds, comes back a braver man ! No, you in this but swell By a fresh damage, "^ the account of shame. " Never the wool drugged by the sea-weed's dye Regains the colours lost j never, once fled, True valour cares to find In the degenerate heart its former place. " If, when set free from toils, the dove will fight, He will be brave, He trample Carthage down In some new battle-field, Who hath confided his own recreant self " To faithless foes, — felt passive on his wrists The gall of thongs, and known the fear of death ; Mingling his country's war With terms of peace for his own recreant self; *' Not even conscious of the only way By which in battle soldiers guard their lives.t O shame ! great Carthage hail, Throned on the ruins of a Rome disgraced ! " * " Flagitio additis Damnum." Orelli, Dillenburger, and Macleane agree in considering that "damnum" does not refer, as some suppose, to the loss of the ransom, but to the damage done by the example of ransoming captives who had evinced so httle courage. + * ' Hie, unde vitam sumeret inscius, Pacem duello miscuit." That is, such a man, not comprehending that it is only by his Qiwsx BOOK III. — ODE V. 235 * Derepta vidi ; vidi ego civium Retorta tergo brachia libero, Portasque non clausas, et arva Marte coli populata nostro. Auro repensus scilicet acrior Miles redibit ! Flagitio additis Damnum.^ Neque amissos colores Lana refert medicata fuco, Nee vera virtus, cum semel excidit, Curat reponi deterioribus. Si pugnat extricata densis Cerva plagis, erit ille fortis, Qui perfidis se credidit hostibus ; Et Marte Poenos proteret altero, Qui lora restrictis lacertis Sensit iners, timuitque mortem. Hie, unde vitam sumeret inscius, Pacem duello miscuit.t O pudor ! O magna Carthago, probrosis Altior Italic ruinis ! ' unyielding valour that he should save his life, confounds peace and war by making peace for himself on the field of battle. Conditions of peace belong to the state, not to the individual soldier, upon whom the state imposes the duty to fight at any hazard of life. — See Orelli's note. ^- K 236 THE ODES OF HORACE. Then, it is said, he turned from the embrace Of his chaste wife and children, as a man Of social rites bereft,^ A citizen no more, and bent to earth In stern humility his manly face, Till his inflexible persistence fixed The Senate's wavering will ; And forth, bewept, the glorious exile passed. Albeit he knew what the barbarian skill Of the tormentor for himself prepared. He motioned from his path The opposing kindred, the retarding crowd, ^ Calmly as if, some client's tedious suit Closed by his judgment,t to Venafrian plains Or mild Tarentum, built By antique Spartans, went his pleasant way. * *' Capitis minor." The expression signifies the man who has lost his civil rights, as did the Roman citizen taken prisoner by the enemy. + The patrons were accustomed to settle the dispute between their clients. BOOK III. — ODE V. 237 Fertur pudicae conjugis osculum, Parvosque natos, ut ca^itisjnciinor,^ Ab se removisse, et virilem Torvus humi posuisse voltum : Donee labantes consilio patres Firmaret auctor nunquam alias dato, Interque maerentes amicos Egregius properaret exsul. Atqui sciebat qus sibi barbanis Tortor pararet; non aliter tamen Dimovit obstantes propinquos, Et populum reditus morantem, Quam si clientum longa negotia Dijudicata lite relinqueret,t Tendens Venafranos in agros, Aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum. 238 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE VL ON THE SOCIAL CORRUPTION OF THE TIME. Macleane observes that, ''As the former (five) odes are addressed more to qualities of young men, this refers more especially to the vices of young women, and so Horace dis- charges the promise with which this series of odes begins." To me, on the contrary, it is precisely because of the lines which so freely describe the vices of young women, single and married, that I hesitate to class this ode among those to which the introductory verse of the first ode applies. Let any man consider if a poet, as the Muse's priest, could have addressed, Roman, the sins thy fathers have committed. From thee, though guiltless, shall exact atonement, Till tottering fanes "'' and temples be restored, And smoke-grimed t statues of neglected gods. Thou rul'st by being to the gods subjected, To this each deed's conception and completion Refer ; full many an ill the gods contemned Have showered upon this sorrowing Italy. Twice have Monaeses J and the Parthian riders Of Pacorus crushed our evil-omened onslaught, And to their puny torques smiled to add The spoils of armour stripped from Roman breasts. * The restoration of the temples and fanes decayed by time, or burned down in the civil wars, was among the chief reforms of Augustus. — Suet, Oct. XXX, + " Smoke-grimed," — partly by conflagrations commemorated by Tacitus and Suetonius, partly by the fumes from the sacrifices. Stated times for the washing of the statues, with solemn riteS; v/ere appointed. J Pacorus, son of the Parthian king Arsaces XIV., defeated Decidius BOOK III. — ODE VI. 239 addressed, in the original, lines from 21 to 32, not to freed- women and singing-girls, but to the well-born maidens and brides of Rome. That the poem was written about the same time as the others is a reasonable conjecture, and probably with the same intention of assisting the reforms of Augustus, among which Horace subsequently celebrates the stricter laws regulating and affecting marriage. But I do not think the poem was or could be one of those specially addressed to the young ; and, independently of the lines I have referred to, the concluding stanza, in fierce condemnation of them- selves and their immediate parents, would be very unlike the skilful way in which Horace "admissus circum praecordia ludit." Carm. VI. Delicta majorum immeritus lues, Romane, donee templa''^ refeceris, ^desque labentes deorum, et Foe da nigro simulacra fumo.t Dis te minorem quod geris, imperas : Hinc omne principium, hue refer exitum. Di multa neglecti dederunt Hesperiae mala luctuos^. Jam bis Monaeses J et Pacori manus ]^on auspicatos contudit impetus Nostros, et adjecisse praedam Torquibus exiguis renidet. Saxa, legate to M. Antony. Four years later, when Pacorus was dead, the Parthians defeated Antony commanding in person. It is not known who is meant by Monaeses. Plutarch mentions a Parthian of that name who fled to Antony, but it nowhere appears that he bore arms against the Romans. Orelli and Macleane favour the conjecture that by Mon- seses is meant Surenas, who defeated Crassus, A.u.c. 701 — supposing Surenas to be merely an Oriental title of dignity, and Monoeses to have been the proper name of Crassus's conqueror. 240 THE ODES OF HORACE. Dacian and Ethiopian,* dread-inspiring — One with his archers, with his fleets the other — Well-nigh destroyed this very Rome herself, While all her thought was on her own fierce brawls. This age, crime-bearing, first polluted wedlock, Hence race adulterate, and hence homes dishallowed ; t And firom this fountain flowed a poisoned stream. Pest-spreading through the people and the land. The ripening virgin, blushless, learns delighted Ionic dances ; in the art of wantons Studiously fashioned ; even in the bud. Tingles, within her, meditated sin.:}: Later, a wife — her consort in his cups. She courts some younger gallant, whom, no matter, Snatching the moment from the board to slip. And hide the lover from the tell-tale lights. § Prompt at the beck (her venal spouse conniving) Of some man-milliner II or rude sea-captain Of trade-ship fresh from marts of pilfered Spain, Buying full dearly the disgrace she sells. * This is an allusion to the threats of Antony and Cleopatra against Rome — "Dum Capitolio Regina dementes ruinas, Funus et imperio parabat." — Lib. I. Od. xxxvii. The Dacian archers were auxiliaries in Antony's army at Actium. By the Ethiopians is meant the Egyptian fleet. The ode must therefore have been written after the battle of Actium. + Here Horace, tracing the corruption of the times to the contempt of the marriage-tie, whether by adultery or the excess to which the licence of divorce was carried, aids Augustus in the reforms he effected in the law of marriage. X " Jam nunc et incestos amores De tenero meditatur ungui." I have adhered to the received and simplest interpretation of " de BOOK III.— ODE VL 24I Pgene occupatam seditionibus \ Delevit Urbem Dacus et ^thiops ; j Hie classe formidatus, ille j Missilibus melior sagittis. I Fecunda culpas saecula nuptias , Primum inquinavere, et genus, et domos ; t Hoc fonte derivata clades , In patriam popiilumque fluxit. j Motus doceri gaudet lonicos Matura virgo, et fingitur artibus ; j Jam nunc et incestos amores - De tenero meditatur unguijj Mox juniores quaerit adulteros Inter mariti vina ; neque eligit, Cui donet impermissa raptim Gaudia, luminibus remotis ; § Sed jussa coram non sine conscio Surgit marito, seu vocat institor, 1| Seu navis Hispanae magister, Dedecorum pretiosus emptor. terpretation, which OrelU considers very ingenious and appears to ap- prove, will be found in his note to the passage, *'penitus ex intimis nervis" — as we say in English, " tingling to the finger-ends;" or, as the French say, clever or wicked, " au bout des ongles." § " Impermissa raptim Gaudia, luminibus remotis." ** Raptim non est *furtim ' sed ' celeriter,' ita est statim post venerem in triclinium redeat," &c. — Orelli. II "'Institor,' *an agent, a trader in articles of dress or for the toilet.'" — YoNGE. I have translated this " man -milliner," for there seems some kind of antithesis intended between the effeminate occupa- tions of the "institor" and the rough manners of the shipmaster. Q 1 242 THE ODES OF HORACE. j Not from such parents sprang that race undaunted, Who reddened ocean with the gore of Carthage, Beat down stout Pyrrhus, great Antiochus, And broke the might of direful Hannibal. That manly race was born of warriors rustic, : Tutored to cleave with Sabine spades the furrow, ' And, at some rigid mother's bluff command, Shouldering the logs their lusty right hands hewed, ; What time the sun reversed the mountain shadows. And from the yoke released the wearied oxen, ] As his own chariot slowly passed away, ] Leaving on earth the friendly hour of rest. - i AVhat does time dwarf not and deform, corrupting ! Our father's age ignobler than our grandsires' Bore us yet more depraved ; and we in turn i Shall leave a race more vicious than ourselves. BOOK III. — ODE VI. 243 Non his juventus orta parentibus Infecit aequor sanguine Punico, Pyrrhumque et ingentem cecidit Antiochum, Hannibalemque dirum ; Sed msticomm mascula militum Proles, Sabellis docta ligonibus Versare glebas, et severe Matris ad arbitrium recisos Portare fustes, sol ubi montium Mutaret umbras et juga demeret Bobus fatigatis, amicum Tempus agens abeunte curru. Damnosa quid non imminuit dies ! JEtSiS parentum, pejor avis, tulit Nos nequiores, mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem. 244 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE VIL TO ASTERIA. This poem tells its own tale. It has that peculiar grace in which Horace is inimitable. Orelli says, " On account of its elegant pleasantry, and the mode in which the action is brought out into evidence — although the whole scene, and the Nay, Asteria, why weep'st thou for Gyges, Whom, enriched with Bithynia's rich cargoes, The first sparkling zephyrs of spring Shall waft back to thee, constant as ever? By the south wind on Oricus driven, At the rise of the turbulent goat-star, Unsleeping, he weeps, through the night, The dull chill of his partnerless pillow. But the agent of Chloe, his hostess, Tells the youth that in her he has kindled A flame no less ardent than thine. In a thousand ways craftily tempting :» Warns him how the false consort of Proetus Duped her credulous lord, by feigned charges. Into plotting Bellerophon's death, For too chastely regarding his hostess.* Tells how Peleus, Hippolytet slighted, And was all but consigned to dark Hades ; * Proetus, believing the story of his wife Anteia, that Bellerophon had attempted to seduce her, but unwilling himself to slay his guest, sent him to his father-in-law lobates, king in Lycia, with sealed letters, in which lobates was requested to destroy the bearer. + This lady, otherwise called Astydamia, made the same charge against Peleus to her husband Acastor that Anteia did to Prd^tus against BOOK III. — ODE VII. 245 the three persons who play their part in it, are pure poetic inventions — it may be classed among Horace's happiest poems." It is indeed a miniature lyrical comedy, and, slight though it be in substance, may be cited as an example of the skill with which Horace can give to a few stanzas the lively effect of a drama. The date is unknown, but is referred by some to a.u.c. 729. Carm. VII. Quid fles, Asterie, quem tibi candidi Primo restituent vere Favonii Thyna merce beatum, Constantis juvenem fide, Gygen? Ille Notis actus ad Oricum Post insana Caprae sidera, frigidas Noctes non sine multis Insomnis lacrimis agit. Atqui sollicitae nuntius hospitae, Suspirare Chloen, et miseram tuis Dicens ignibus uri, Tentat mille vafer modis. Ut Proetum mulier perfida credulum Falsis impulerit criminibus nimis Casto Bellerophonti Maturare necem, refert* Narrat psene datum Pelea Tartaro, Magnessam Hippolytent dum fugit abstinens; Bellerophon, and for the same reason. Acastor, like Proetus, having scruples of conscience which forbade him to slay his guest with his own hand, invited Peleus to hunt wild beasts in Mount Pelion ; and when Peleus, overcome with fatigue, fell asleep on the mountain, Acastor con- cealed his sword, and left him alone and unarmed to be devoured by the beasts. Peleus on waking and searching for his sword was attacked by Centaurs, but saved by Chiron. 246 THE ODES OF HORACE. Then seeks to allure him by tales Teaching lessons for sinning in safety : All in vain ! To his words is thy true-love Deaf as rocks to the breakers Icarian ; But keep sharp look-out on thyself, Lest too charmed with thy neighbour Enipeus ; Though no rider so skilled and so noticed Wheels a steed on the turf of the Campus ; * No swimmer so lustily cleaves Rapid way down the stream of the Tuscan. Make thy door fast at eve, never looking Down the street if shrill fifes serenade thee ; And be but more rigidly cold Whensoe'er he complains of thy coldness. * " Flectere equum." This was to wheel the horse round in a small circle. — Macleane. BOOK III. — ODE VII. 247 Et peccare docentes Fallax historias movet : Frustra : nam scopulis surdior Icari Voces audit adhuc integer. At tibi Ne vicinus Enipeus Plus justo placeat, cave ; Quamvis non alius flectere equum^ sciens ^que conspicitur gramine Martio, Nee quisquam citus seque Tusco denatat alveo. Prima nocte domum claude ; neque in vias Sub cantu querul^ despice tibiae : Et te saepe vocanti Duram difficilis mane. 248 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE VIII. TO MiECENAS, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HORACE'S ESCAPE FROM THE FALLING TREE. According to Franke, Horace's escape from the tree was in A.U.C. 728. Ritter places it in 724. This poem com- memorates the anniversary of that accident. Learned as thou art in lore of either language,* Thou marvellest why these hymeneal Kalends Of March t I keep — I, solitary Caelebs, "Wherefore these flowerets ? " This censer full of incense ? this heaped fuel On the live sod ? Know that, escaped the death-blow Of the dire tree, I a white goat to Bacchus Vowed, and feast-offerings. The day, thus sacred, with the year returning, Shall free from cork and all its pitch-sealed fastenings That jar J which first imbibed the smoke-reek under Tullus the Consul. In honour of thy friend thus saved, Maecenas, Quaff brimming cups — a hundred be the number ; Let the gay lights watch with us for the morning, Noise and brawl banished. Cast off the burden of a statesman's trouble, Routed are Cotiso's fierce Dacian armies, Mede wroth with Mede, upon fraternal slaughter, Wastes his wild fury.§ * Viz., Greek and Latin, which, as the commentators observe, com- prehended all the learning a Roman could well acquire. + The Matronalia, in honour of Juno Lucina, were held in the March Kalends. BOOK III.— ODE VIII. 249 Carm. VIII. Martiis cselebs quid agam Kalendis,t Quid velint flores et acerra thuris Plena, miraris, positusque carbo in Cespite vivo, Docte sermones utriusque linguae ? * Voveram dulces epulas et album Libero caprum, prope funeratus Arboris ictu. Hie dies anno redeunte festus Corticem adstrictum pice dimovebit Amphorae fumum :|: bib ere institutae Consule Tullo. Sume, Maecenas, cyathos amici Sospitis centum, et vigiles lucernas Perfer in lucem : procul omnis esto Clamor et ira. Mitte civiles super Urbe curas : Occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen; Medus infestus sibi luctuosis Dissidet armis : § + '* Amphorae fumum." The jar, or amphora, was kept in the apotheca, and ripened by the smoke from the bath below it. The pitch and cork which fastened it protected the wine itself from being smoked. The wine in the amphora now to be broached, dating back to Tullus the Consul, A.U.C. 683, would have been a year older than Horace himself § The precise dates of these historical allusions are matters of contro- versy, and not possible to determine. By the Mede is meant the Par- thian, distracted by the civil feuds between Phraates and Tiridates. 250 THE ODES OF HORACE. Subject to Rome, and curbed in tardy fetters, The old Cantabrian foe on shores Hispanian ; Lo ! the grim Scythians meditate retreating — Lax are their bow-strings. As one who takes in private life his leisure, A while forego the over-care for nations ; Leave things severe ; life offers one glad moment- Seize it with gladness. BOOK III. — ODE VIII. 251 Servit Hispanse vetus hostis orae Cantaber sera domitus catena : Jam Scythae laxo meditantur arcu Cedere campis. Neglegens, ne qua populus laboret, Parce privatus nimium cavere : Dona praesentis cape laetus horse, et Linque severa. 252 THE ODES OF HORACE. ODE IX. THE RECONCILIATION. " One of Buttmann's remarks with reference to this Ode is well worth quoting : ' The ancients had the skill to con- struct such poems so that each speech tells us by whom it is spoken ; but we let the editors treat us all our lives as schoolboys, and interline such dialogues after the fashion of our plays with the names. To their sedulity we are in- debted He. " While I yet to thee was pleasing, While no dearer youth bestowed lavish arms round thy white neck, Happy then, indeed, I flourished. Never Persian king * was blest with such riches as were mine." She. " While no other more inflamed thee, And below no Chloe's rank Lydia in thy heart was placed. Glorious then did Lydia flourish, Roman Ilia's lofty name not so honoured as was mine." t He. " O'er me now reigns Thracian Chloe, Skilled in notes of dulcet song and the science of the lute ; * ** Persarum vigui rege beatior." The opposition between the lover's comparison in this stanza and the girl's in the next (*' Romana vigui BOOK III. — ODE IX. 253 debted for the alternation of the lyrical name Lydia with the name Horatius in this exquisite work of art ; and yet even in an English poem we should be offended by seeing Collins at the side of Phyllis." — Macleane. The poem itself is, perhaps, an imitation from the Greek. Macleane observes, " It is just such a subject as one might expect to find among the erotic poetry of the Greeks." Carm. IX. * Donee gratus eram tibi, Nee quisquam potior brachia candid^ Cervici juvenis dabat, Persarum vigui rege beatior.' ''^ * Donee non alia magis Arsisti, neque erat Lydia post Chloen, Multi Lydia nominis E-omana vigui clarior Ilia.'t * Me nunc Thressa Chloe regit, Dulces docta modos, et citharse sciens ; clarior Ilia") is this : The lover means that he was richer in her love than the wealthiest king ; the girl that she (the humble freed-woman) was more honoured in his love than the most illustrious matron. t Ilia, as the mother of Romulus, queen and priestess, stands here as the noblest type of Roman matrons, " Romanorum nobilissima." 254 THE ODES OF HORACE. I If my death her life could lengthen, ! So that Fate my darling spared, I without a fear could : die."* I She. : I " From a mutual torchlight kindled \ Is my flame for Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus,+ If my death his life could lengthen, So that Fate would spare the boy, I a double death would die ! " He. " What if Venus fled — returning, Forced us two, dissevered now, back into her brazen j yoke; ! If I shook off auburn Chloe, I And to Lydia, now shut out, opened once again the \ door?" I 1 She. i " Than a star though he be fairer. Lighter thou than drifted cork — rougher thou than Hadrian wave, J Yet how willingly I answer, ^ 'Tis with thee that I would live — gladly I with thee ] would die." ' * "Si parcent animse fata superstiti." "Animae mese" denotes a familiar expression of endearment, as in Cicero, ad. Fam. xiv. 14 ; and as the Italians still call their mistress, ' ' Anima mia." f "Thurini Calais — Thressa Chloe." The alliteration between the names here selected seems studied. In making Chloe a Thracian and Calais the son of a Sybarite (Thurium, a town of Lucania, near the site of the ancient Sybaris), the poet perhaps insinuates that the lady who had replaced Lydia was somewhat too rude or masculine — the gentle- BOOK III. — ODE IX. 255 Pro qua non metuam mori, Si parcent animae fata superstiti.' ^ * Me torret face mutua Thurini Calais filius Omytijf Pro quo bis patiar mori, Si parcent puero fata superstiti.' ' Quid, si prisca redit Venus Diductosque jugo cogit aeneo? Si flava excutitur Chloe, Rejectaeque patet janua Lydiae?' * Quamquam sidere pulchrior lUe est, tu levior cortice et improbo Iracundior Hadria,t Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.' man who had replaced the lover of the dialogue somewhat too soft and effeminate. X "Improbo — Hadria." Orelli interprets " improbo " by " /» + ** Pater vSilvane, tutor finium." Silvanus, whose more usual attribute is the care of corn-fields and cattle, is here made to un- dertake the protection of boundaries, which properly belonged to Terminus. 424 THE EPODES OF HORACE. Of brisk Apulian, in the cares of household And of sweet children bears her joyous part ; Who on the sacred hearth the oldest fagots Piles 'gainst the coming of her wearied lord ; And in the wattled close the milch-kine penning, Drains the distended udders of their load ; From the sweet cask draws forth the year's new vintage, And spreads the luxuries of an unbought feast : Such fare would charm me more than rarest dainties — Than delicate oyster of the Lucrine lake. Or (if from eastern floods loud-booming winter Drive to our seas) the turbot or the scar. Not softer sinks ad own the grateful palate The Nubian pullet or the Ionian snipe, ""^ Than olives chosen where they hang the thickest ; Or sorrel, lusty lover of green fields ; Or mallows, wholesome for the laden body, Or lambkin slain on Terminus' high feast, Or kidling rescued from the wolf's fierce hunger. How sweet, amid such feasts, to view the sheep Flock blithe from field to fold, see the tired oxen With languid neck draw back the inverted share. And home-born t labourers round the shining Lares Gathered — the faithful swarm of the rich hive !" Thus said the usurer Alfius, and all moneys Lent till the mid-month at that date calls in, And, hot for rural pleasures, that day fortnight Our would-be farmer — lends them out again.J * "Afira avis" — "attagen lonicus." What bird is meant by the ** Afra avis" is a matter of uncertainty. Yonge says it is the guinea- fowl — Macleane inclines to the same opinion ; but we know little more of it than that it was speckled. The " attagen " is variously interpreted woodcock, snipe, and, more commonly, moorfowl. The Ionian snipe is to this day so incomparably the best of the snipe race, that I venture to think it is the veritable "attagen lonicus." i* " Positosque venias, ditis examen domus." This is a picture of the primitive rustic life, in which the labourers, familiarly with the master, ep6de II. 425 Sabina qualis, aut pemsta solibus Pemicis uxor Apuli, Sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum Lassi sub adventum viri ; Claudensque textis cratibus Isetum pecus Distenta siccet ubera ; Et homa dulci vina promens dolio Dapes inemptas apparet : Non me Lucrina juverint conchylia, Magisve rhombus, aut scari, Si quos Eois intonata fluctibus Hiems ad hoc vertat mare ; Non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum, Non attagen lonicus * Jucundior, quam lecta de pinguissimis OHva ramis arborum, Aut herba lapathi prata amantis, et gravi Malvse salubres corpori, Vel agna festis csesa TerminaHbus, Vel haedus ereptus lupo. Has inter epulas, ut juvat pastas oves Videre properantes domum, Videre fessos vomerem inversum boves Collo trahentes languido, Positosque vernas, ditis examen domus,t Circum renidentes Lares ! ' Haec ubi locutus fenerator Alfius, Jam jam futurus rusticus, Omnem redegit Idibus pecuniam, — Quaerit Kalendis ponere. J gathered at supper round the Lares. — Colum. xi. i, 19. " The home- bom slaves cluster round the master, as the bees round the queen-bee," — RiTTER. X " Omnem redegit Idibus pecuniam, — Quserit Kalendis ponere." The ides, nones, and kalends were the settling days of Rome. 426 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE III. TO MAECENAS IN EXECRATION OF GARLIC. Horace appears to have been tempted to eat, when dining with Maecenas, some dish over-seasoned with garHc, unaware of the prevalence of that ingredient, or unprescient of its effects. Some commentators, whom Dillenburger fpllows, suppose this to have been a kind of compound salad called " moretum," in which cheese, oil, milk, and wine contributed their motley aid to the garlic. This, however, was a primi- tive rustic comestible not likely to have been found at the table of Maecenas. Whatever the dish might have been, Horace seems to have considered the recommendation of it If e'er a parricide with hand accursed Hath cut a father's venerable throat, Hemlock's too mild a poison — give him garlic ; O the strong stomachs of your country clowns ! What deadly drug is raging in my vitals ? Was viper's venom in those fraudful herbs ? Or was Canidia, armed with all her poisons. The awful cook of that infernal feast ? Surely Medea, wonderstruck with Jason, As of all Argonauts the comeliest chief,''' Smeared him with this soul-sickening preparation, Which quelled the bulls to the unwonted yoke. In this she steeped her present to the rival. From whom, avenging, soared her dragon-car. * " Ut Argonautas praeter omnes candidum Medea mirata est ducem." " Posteaquam Medea Jasonis ceteris omnibus Argonautis pulchrioris forma capta est, sic constinie, ' non vero Jasonem candidum mirata est EPODE III. 427 it a bad joke, and he takes revenge upon the chief criminal, garHc, in the following humorous anathema. The commentators in general assume that Horace could not have taken the liberty to refer to Terentia in the con- cluding lines, " Manum puella," &c., and that the poem was therefore written before Maecenas's marriage, probably a.u.c. 719 or 720. Ritter, on the contrary, denounces with much indignation the idea that Horace could impute the inde- corum of so familiar an intercourse with a freedwoman to a man of the grave occupations and dignified position of M^cenas, and insists on applying '• puella " to Terentia, in which case the poem would be written shortly after the marriage of Maecenas, which Ritter chooses to date, a.u.c. 725 {i.e., a year after Franke's date for the publication of the Epodes). Carm. III. Parentis olim si quis impia manu Senile guttur fregerit, Edit cicutis allium nocentius. O dura messorum ilia ! Quid hoc veneni saevit in prascordiis ? Num viperinus his cruor Incoctus herbis me fefellit? an malas Canidia tractavit dapes ? Ut Argonautas praeter omnes candidum''' Medea mirata est ducem, Ignota tauris illigaturum juga Perunxit hoc Jasonem ; Hoc delibutis ulta donis pellicem. Serpente fugit alite. przeter omnes Argonautas.' " — Orelli. Macleane prefers the con- struction which Orelli prohibits, but I like Orelli's the best. 428 THE EPODES OF HORACE. Never such heat from pestilential comets Parched dry Apulia, thirsting for a shower ; Less hot that gift which, through the massive shoulders Of sturdy Hercules, burned life away. Jocose Maecenas, 'tis no laughing matter : If e'er thou try it, may thy sweetheart's hand Ward off thy kiss ; and sacred be her refuge In the remotest borders of the bed. EPODE in. 429 Nee tantus unquam siderum insedit vapor Siticulosae Apulise, Nee munus humeris efficaeis Herculis Inarsit sestuosius. At, si quid unquam tale concupiveris, Joeose Maecenas, precor Manum puella savio opponat tuo, Extrema et in sponda cubet. 430 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE IV. AGAINST AN UPSTART. All the scholiasts agree in considering that the person satirised in this ode was the freedman Menas, lieutenant to Sextus Pompeius, who deserted to Augustus a.u.c. 716. Modern critics have objected to this assumption, and their objections are tersely summed up and answered by Mac- leane As tow'rds the wolf the lamb's inborn repugnance Nature makes my antipathy to thee, Thou on whose flank still burns the Iberian whipcord,"' Thou on whose limbs still galls the bruise of chains, Strut as thou wilt in arrogance of purse-pride, Fortune can change not the man's native breed. Mark, as along the Sacred Wayt thou flauntest, Puffing thy toga, twice three cubits wide J — Mark with what frankness indignation loathes thee, Seen in the looks of every passer-by !§ " He, by Triumvirs so inured to lashes, As tired the pubHc crier to proclaim, || Now ploughs some thousand fat Falernian acres. And wears the Appian Road out with his nags; * " Ibericis fimibus." These were cords made of " spartum," usually- said to be the Spanish broom. It was made into ropes, especially for ships' rigging. " It may be added, in favour of the theory which makes Menas the hero, that the mention of Spanish ropes seems to imply that the person had suffered on board ship, if not in the country itself, since, as Pliny tells us, ropes of spartum were especially used in ships ; and the only way to give point to the epithet is to suppose it had reference to Spain itself, or to the fleet." — Macleane. + The Saci-ed Way, leading to the Capitol, was the favourite lounge of the idlers. EPODE IV. 431 leane in his prefatory comment on the ode. In some in- scriptions Vedius Rufus has been named instead of Menas. Ritter maintains the accuracy of this identification, and affirms that it was no other than Vedius PolHo, a Roman knight, who had been originally a freedman, mentioned by Seneca, Pliny, and others. — See Ritter's note. Carm. IV. Lupis et agnis quanta sortito obtigit. Tecum mihi discordia est, Hibericis peruste funibus'"" latus, Et crura dura compede. Licet superbus ambules pecunia, Fortuna non mutat genus. Videsne, Sacram metiente te Viam t Cum bis trium ulnarum toga, J Ut ora vertat hue et hue euntium Liberrima indignatio ? § ' Sectus flagelhs hie triumviralibus Prasconis ad fastidium || Arat Falerni mille fundi jugera Et Appiam mannis terit. + "Cum bis trium ulnarum toga." According to Macleane, this applies to the width of the toga, not the length, as commonly trans- lated ; I follow his interpretation, but it is disputed. § " Ut ora vertat hue et hue euntium Liberrima indignatio." I think with Macleane that this appears rather to mean the open in- dignation which made the passengers turn their looks tmvards him, than turn away in disgust, which is the construction of the scholiasts. Yonge suggests a totally different interpretation: "See how a free" {i.e., unreserved, undisguised) "scorn alters the cotinte7tance^^ (ora vertat) "of all who pass along." II The Triumviri Capitales had the power of inflicting summary chas- tisement on slaves. When the scourge was inflicted, a public crier stood by and proclaimed the nature of the crime. 432 THE EPODES OF HORACE. In public shows, despite the law of Otho,* He takes a foremost place and sits — a knight. What boots the equipment of yon floating bulwarks, Yon vast array of ponderous brazen prores ? What ! against slaves and pirates launch an army, t Which has for officer, — that man — that man ! " * Fourteen rows in the theatre and amphitheatre, immediately over the orchestra, were by the law of L. Roscius Otho, A.U.c. 686, appro- priated to the knights. As the tribunes of the soldiers had equestrian rank, if the person satirised were one of them, he could therefore take his seat in one of the fourteen rows, despite the intention of Otho, which was to reserve the front seats for persons of genuine rank. t The slaves and pirates are supposed to refer to the fleet of Sextus Pompeius. EPODE IV. 433 Sedilibusque magnus in primis eques, Othone contempto, sedet !* Quid attinet tot ora navium gravi Rostrata duci pondere Contra latrones atque servilemt manum, Hoc, hoc tribuno militum ? ' 2 E 434 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE V. ON THE WITCH CANIDIA. None of Horace's poems excels this in point of power — and the power herein exhibited is of the highest kind ; it is power over the passions of pity and terror. The degree of humour admitted is just sufficient to heighten the effect of the more tragic element. The scene is brought before the eye of the reader with a marvellous distinctness. A boy of good birth, as is shown by the toga prcetexta and bulla which he wears, has been decoyed or stolen from his home, and carried at night to some house — probably Canidia's. The poem opens with his terrified exclamations, as Canidia and her three associate witches stand around him. He is stripped, buried chin-deep in a pit, and tantalised with the sight of food which he is not permitted to taste, till, thus wasted away, his liver and marrow may form the crowning ingre- dient of the caldron in which the other materials for a philter have been placed. That it is for an old profligate, whom Canidia ^' But O,'^ whatever Power divine in heaven, O'er earth and o'er the human race presideth,t What means this gathering ? why on me alone. Fixed in fierce stare, those ominous dread faces? By thine own children, if, indeed, for thee % Lucina brought to light true fleshly children — * "At, O deorum," &c. The word "at," thus commencing the ode, is significant of the commotion and hurry of the speaker, and also brings the whole scene more vividly before the reader. The poem begins, as it were, in the middle of the boy's address to the witches, omitting what had gone before. EPODE V. 435 Canidia is resolved to charm back to her, that the philter is prepared, adds to the vileness which the poet ascribes to the hag. This epode was probably composed about the same time as the 8th Satire of the First Book, in which Canidia and Sagana are represented seeking the ghastly materials of their witchcraft, and invoking Hecate and Tisiphone in the Esquilinian burial-ground. The poem has little of the graces of expression which characterise Horace's maturer odes, and in one or two passages the construction is faultily ob- scure ; but the grandeur of the whole conception, and the vigour of the execution, need no comment, and compensate for all defects. The scholiasts say that Canidia's real name was Gratidia, and that she was a Neapolitan perfume-vender. That she was ever a mistress of Horace's is a conjecture founded upon no evidence, and nothing extant in Horace justifies the assumption. This poem was written when Horace was young, and he could scarcely have remembered, except in his childhood, Canidia more lovely than he invariably repre- sents her. Carm. V. ' At,'^ O deorum quidquid in caelo regit t Terras et humanum genus ! Quid iste fert tumultus ? aut quid omnium Voltus in unum me truces ? Per liberos te,J si vocata partubus Lucina veris affuit,§ + "Regit," not "regis" — "presides," not " presidest. " The boy does not invoke the gods ; he is addressing Canidia. It is but a dis- ordered exclamation. + Here he addresses Canidia. § Ritter, Yonge, and Munro have ^^ adfuity 43^ THE EPODES OF HORACE. By this vain purple's childish ornament *^ — By Jove's sure wrath — why are thy looks as deadly As the stepmother's on the babe she loathes, Or wounded wild beast's, glaring on the hunter ? " As the boy pleaded thus, with tremulous lip. From him fierce hands rent childhood's robe and bulla, And naked stood that form which might have moved, With its young innocence, a Thracian's pity. Canidia, all her tangled tresses crisped By the contracted folds of angry vipers. Spake, and bade mandrakes, torn from dead men's graves,^ Bade dismal branches of funereal cypress. And eggs and plumes of the night screech-owl, smeared With the toad's loathsome and malignant venom, Herbs which lolcos and Hiberia send, J From soils whose richest harvest-crops are poison. And bones, from jaw of famished wild-bitch snatched, § — Bade them all simmer in the Colchian caldron. || Meanwhile, bare-legged, fell Sagana bedews The whole abode with hell-drops from Avernus,f Her locks erect as some sea-urchin barbed. Or wild boar bristling as he runs. Then Veia, * "Per hoc inane purpurse decus precor." This is the "toga prae- texta" which was worn by free Roman children, together with the "bulla," a small round plate of gold suspended from the neck. Both were relinquished on the adoption of the "toga virilis," about the age of fifteen. + " Sepulcris caprificos erutas," the wild fig rooted up from graves. t Hiberia here does not, as elsewhere, mean Spain, but a region, now part of Georgia, east of Colchis, lolcos was a seaport of Thessaly. § Why bones snatched from the jaws of a hungry bitch should have the virtue that fits them for ingredients in the witches' caldron is not clearly explained by the commentators. It is not only the angry slaver of the famishing bitch robbed of her food that gives the bone its necro* EPODE V. 437 Per hoc inane purpurse decus precor/^ Per improbaturum hsec Jovem, Quid ut noverca me intueris, aut uti Petita ferro belua ? ' Ut hsec trementi questus ore constitit Insignibus raptis puer, Impube corpus, quale posset impia Mollire Thracum pectora ; Canidia, brevibus implicata viperis Crines et incomptum caput, Jubet sepulcris caprificos erutas,t Jubet cupressus funebres, Et uncta turpis ova ranse sanguine Plumamque nocturnae strigis, Herbasque, quas lolcos atque Hiberia J Mittit venenorum ferax, Et ossa ab ore rapta jejunae canis, § Flammis aduri Colchicis. || At expedita Sagana, per totam domum Spargens Avernales aquas, IF Horret capillis ut marinus asperis Echinus, aut currens aper. mantic value — there is virtue in the bone itself. The dog meant is one of the ownerless wild dogs' that prowled at night for food, and haunted burial-grounds such as the Esquiline, where the lowest class of the poor were buried so near the surface of the ground that their remains could be easily scratched up, and the bone adapted for the caldron would be a human bone. vSo, in the " Siege of Corinth " — "And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall Hold o'er the dead their carnival, Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb," &c. 11 "Flammis aduri Colchicis." The materials thus collected by the witches are not burned as fuel in the magic (Colchian) flames, but are boiled as materials for the philter, of which the marrow and liver of the unhappy child are the completing ingredients. IT From the fount Avemus. 438 THE EPODES OF HORACE. Remorseless crone, loud grunting o'er the toil, With her fell spade the yawning death-pit hollows, Wherein they bury the yet living child, And twice and thrice each long day mock his famine.''^ Chin-deep (as waters on their brim suspend The swimmer) plunged, lingering he lives in dying, To gaze upon the food denied his lips, Till the parched liver and the shrivelled marrow Shall into philters for vile love consume, When once, yet staring on the food forbidden. The glazing eyeballs waste themselves away. If idle Naples and each neighbouring city Rightly believe, the Ariminian hag. Unnatural Folia, failed not that grim conclave, She who could draw the moon and subject stars. With her Thessalian witch-song, down from heaven. To them, with thumb-nail pressed to livid tooth. Which gnawed and mumbled it, spake dire Canidia. What said she, or what horror left untold ? "Ye of my deeds sure arbiters and faithful, O Night, O Hecate, who o'er silence reign In darksome hours to rites mysterious sacred. Now, now be present ; now on hostile homes Turn wrath invoked, and demon power revengeful ; Now, while amid the horror-breathing woods Lurk the wild beasts, couched languid in soft slumber, Dogs of Subura,+ up ! bark loud ; let all Mock the old lechen with a nard anointed * ' ' Longo die bis terque mutatse dapis Inemori spectaculo." " Longo " belongs to "die," and not to " spectaculo." " Inemori " is not found anywhere else ; the ordinary form is "immori." — Macleane. f " Subura," one of the most populous and one of the most profligate streets of Rome. Canidia prays that the barking of the dogs may rouse the street to mock the old man, skulking to other mistresses than herself, EPODE V. . 439 Abacta nulla Veia conscientia Ligonibus duris humum Exhauriebat, ingemens laboribus ; Quo posset infossus puer Longo die bis terque mutatse dapis Inemori spectaculo ; "^ Cum promineret ore, quantum exstant aqua Suspensa mento corpora ; Exsucta uti medulla et aridum jecur Amoris esset poculum, Interminato cum semel fixae cibo Intabuissent pupulae. Non defuisse masculae libidinis Ariminensem Foliam, Et otiosa credidit ^eapolis, Et omne vicinum oppidum ; Quae sidera excantata voce Thessala Lunamque caelo deripit. Hie irresectum saeva dente livido Canidia rodens pollicem Quid dixit aut quid tacuit ? ' O rebus meis Non infideles arbitrae, Nox et Diana, quae silentium regis, Arcana cum fiunt sacra, Nunc, nunc adeste : nunc in hostiles domos Irani atque numen vertite ! Formidolosis dum latent silvis ferae, Dulci sopore languidae, Senem, quod omnes rideant, adulterum Latrent Suburanae t canes and thus scare him back to her. It seems clear from what follows that the nard or unguent was composed by Canidia, though that is disputed bj^ commentators, and the construction itself is obscure. It is this magical unguent that is to cause the dogs to bark — see Orelli's note. Absurdly enough it has been assumed, on the authority of this passage (for what other authority is there?) that Canidia was by profession a vender of perfumes. 440 THE EPODES OF HORACE. Than which none subtler could these hands complete. But how? '^ what's this? Have they, then, lost their virtue? The barbarous Medea's direful drugs, Wherewith she wreaked her wrongs on that proud rival, Great Creon's daughter, yea, consumed the bride By venom steeped into the murderous mantle, And soared away destroying : — Me, nor herb Nor root hath failed to render its dark secrets Latent in inaccessible ravines. The beds he sleeps on are by me besprinkled + With Lethe of all other loves than mine. Ho ! ho ! yet struts he free, — at large, — protected By charm of witch more learned than myself. Ah, Varus, ah ! by no trite hackneyed philters Ill-fated wretch, shalt thou rush back to me, Thy truant heart no Marsian charms recover J — A mightier spell I weave ; a direr bowl Now will I brim, to tame thy scornful bosom. Sooner the sky shall sink below the sea. And over both the earth shall be extended, Than thou not burn for me, as in the smoke Of these black flames now burns this dull bitumen." Then the child spoke, not seeking, as before. Those impious hell-hags with mild words to soften, * "Quid accidit?" The spell fails — the dogs do not bark. Varus does not go forth into Subura, nor come to Canidia. " Do the drugs of Medea fail?" &c. " She speaks," says Macleane, "as if she had been actually using the drugs of Medea. " + " Indormit unctis omnium cubilibus Oblivione pellicum." The sense of this passage is exceedingly obscure, and has been subjected to various interpretations. I adopt that of Orelli, viz. — Canidia had smeared the couch on which Varus slept with drugs to make him for- getful of all women but herself; taking "unctis" with "oblivione," anointed with oblivion — "omnium pellicum/' " of all wantons." Still this construction is not satisfactory, because, just before, Canidia sup- poses that Varus was out on his rambles, from which the barking dogs EPODE V. 441 Nardo pemnctum, quale non perfectius Meae laborarint manus. — Quid accidit ? '^ Cur dira barbarae minus Venena Medeae valent, Quibus superbam fugit ulta pellicem, Magni Creontis filiam, Cum palla, tabo munus imbutum, novam Incendio nuptam abstulit ? Atqui nee herba, nee latens in asperis Radix fefellit me locis. Indormit unctis omnium cubilibus Oblivione pellicum.t — Ah ! ah ! solutus ambulat veneficse Scientioris carmine. Non usitatis, Vare, potionibus, , O multa fleturum caput, Ad me recurres ; nee vocata mens tua Marsis redibit vocibus : J Majus parabo, majus infundam tibi Fastidienti poculum. Priusque caelum sidet inferius mari, Tellure porrecta super, Quam non amore sic meo flagres, uti Bitumen atris ignibus.' — Sub haec puer, jam non, ut ante, mollibus Lenire verbis impias ; were to scare him to her, and she is surprised to find that he is quietly asleep. + " Ad me recurres ; nee vocata mens tua Marsis redibit vocibus." The Marsian vi^itchcrafts were those in vogue with the populace. The sense is not, as commonly translated, that his mind or reason (mens), maddened by Canidia's spell, shall not be restored to him by the counter- charms of the Marsian witchcraft ; but that he shall run back to her, and that his mind or heart will not be thus restored to her by her em- ployment of any common vulgar incantations. No, she is now preparing a mightier bowl (referring to the victim present), &c. 442 THE EPODES OF HORACE. But pausing long, now in his last despair, Launched the full wrath of Thyestean curses.* " Witchcrafts invert not the great laws divine Of right and wrong as they invert things human ; t So to those laws my dooming curse appeals. And draws down wrath too dire for expiation. Mark where thus foully murdered I expire, With every night I haunt you as a Fury, % Mangle your cheeks, a ghost with bird-like claws ; For such the power of those dread gods the Manes. On your unquiet bosoms I shall sit An incubus, and murder sleep with horror ; And at the last, as through the streets ye slink, Street after street the crowd shall rise against you, Hither and thither hounded, till to death Stoned by fierce mobs, vile hags obscene, ye perish ; * "Thyesteas preces." Curses such as Thyestes might have invoked on Atreus, who slaughtered and served up at the banquet his brother's children. + ' ' Venena magnum fas nefasque non valent Convertere humanam vicem ; Diris agam. vos." Of all the obscure passages in the poem this is the most obscure. The contradictory interpretations of various commentators have not served to render it less so. The translation most in vogue is that suggested by Lambinus : "Witchcraft (venena) can invert the great principle of wrong and right, but cannot invert the condition or fate (or vicissitude in the fate) of men," "valent" being understood in the first clause. Munro, Introduction, p. xxviii, adopts the arrangement of Lambinus, with one point of difference. " I do not think," he says, *' ' Magnum ' can be joined with 'fas nefasque.' I have therefore made it parenthet- ical where it seems to me to have much force. The meaning is, ' venena (id quod magnum est) fas nefasque valent Convertere, humanam vicem non valent. ' " Ritter takes ' ' venena " as poisons which may be ben- eficial as medicaments, or deadly, used with malignant purposes, and are thus "magnum fas nefasque;" and takes "humanam vicem" as the retri- bution due to human deeds. Orelli, in an excursus, gives, with his usual EPODE V. 443 Sed dubius unde rumperet silentium, Misit Thyesteas preces : '" ' Venena magnum fas nefasque non valent Convertere humanam vicem ; Diris agam vos ; t dira detestatio Nulla expiatur victima. Quin, ubi perire jussus exspiravero, Nocturnus occurram Furor, J Petamque voltus umbra curvis unguibus, Quae vis deorum est Manium ; Et inquietis assidens praecordiis, Pavore somnos auferam. Vos turba vicatim hinc et hinc saxis petens Contundet obscoenas anus ; candour, not less than nine various interpretations, but very decidedly pronounces himself in favour of that which I believe he originates, and which is certainly a bold one. He assumes "magnum fas nefasque" to be the subject, and that the sense is, "the great law of wrong and right (divinse leges), according to human sense (humanam vicem), cannot con- vert (soften and bend) witchcraft or the hearts of witches." Macleane says, I think correctly, "that if this view of the construction were adopted, it would be better to render ' humanam vicem ' ' on behalf of men or of humanity. ' " Macleane suggests two other interpretations {see his note), which appear to me more open to objection. Yonge, following Orelli in the main points, asks whether it may not be better to reverse the order, and take "venena" for the nominative case — thus, "sorceries (and those who use them) cannot change [i.e., turn aside or defeat) the divine law, as they can men and men's law ; therefore I appeal to them : such an appeal will draw down a wrath implacable. " He renders "humanam vicem" "inhuman fashion," "after the man- ner of men." I have adopted the sense of this interpretation. Witch- crafts is a better word here than sorceries, which properly signify divina- tion by lot. Two other interpretations have been suggested to me by eminent scholars : ist. Witchcraft cannot distort (or overthrow) the great rules of right and wrong in the interest of men (taking * ' human- am vicem " in the sense, "hominum causa"). 2d, Witchcraft cannot overthrow the great law of wrong and right — human retribution. X "Furor"— literally, " a personified madness." 444 THE EPODES OF HORACE. By wolves and Esquilinian birds of prey Your limbs unburied shall be rent and scattered. Nor shall my parents, who alas ! survive To mourn me, lose this spectacle of vengeance." I 1 EPODE V. 445 \ Post insepulta membra different lupi Et Esquilinae alites ; Neque hoc parentes, heu mihi superstites, Effugerit spectaculum.' 44^ I'HE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE VI. AGAINST CASSIUS. It is by no means clear who is the unlucky object of these verses. Acron says he was a satirical poet of the name of Cassius, upon the strength of which the scholiast in Cruquius assumes him to have been the not uncelebrated orator Cassius Severus, who was banished by Augustus, and died in poverty and exile about sixty-three years after the date Why snap at the guests who do nobody harm, Turning tail at the sight of a wolf? O cur ! thy vain threats why not venture on me, Who can give back a bite for a bite ? Like mastiff Molossian or Sparta's dun hound, Kindly friend to the shepherd am I ; But I prick up my ears, and away through the snows, If a wild beast of prey nm before ; But thou, if thou fillest the woods with thy bark, Art struck dumb at the sniff of a bone. Ah, beware ! I am rough when I come upon knaves. Ah, beware of a toss from my horns ! I'm as sharp as the wit whom Lycambes deceived. Or the bitter foe Bupalus roused ; "' Dost thou think, when a cur shows the grin of his teeth. That Til weep, unavenged, like a child ? * Archilochus, to whom Lycambes refused his daughter Neobule, after having first promised her to him. The poet avenged himself in verses so stinging, that Lycambes is said to have hanged himself. Bu- palus was a sculptor, who, with his brother artist Athenis, ridiculed or caricatured the uncomely features of Hipponax, and his verses are said (though not truly) to have had the same fatal effect on the sculptor that those of Archilochus had upon Lycambes. EPODE fi% 447 date of this ode. This supposition is not tenable, for Cassius Sevems, as Orelli remarks, must have been a boy, or a youth of about twenty, when the ode was composed ; nor is there any authority on record that Cassius Severus was a poet. Other commentators have supposed the person meant was M^vius or Bavius. If the right name be Cassius, nothing is known about him ; nor is it of any importance. Horace's invective, for what we know to the contrary, might have been as unjust and inappropriate as the lampoons of irritable young poets generally are. Ritter conjectures the person there satirised to have been Furius Bibaculus, notorious for the bitterness of his iambics, and who included Octavian Caesar in his attacks. Carm. VI. Quid immerentes hospites vexas, canis, Ignavus adversum lupos? Quin hue inanes, si potes, vertis minas, Et me remorsurum petis ? Nam, qualis aut Molossus, aut fulvus Lacon, Amica vis pastoribus, Agam per altas aure sublata nives, Quaecunque prsecedet fera : Tu, cum timenda voce complesti nemus, Projectum odoraris cibum. Cave, cave : namque in malos asperrimus Parata tollo cornua; Qualis Lycambae spretus infido gener, Aut acer hostis Bupalo.^' An, si quis atro dente me petiverit, Inultus ut flebo puer ? 448 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE VII. TO THE ROMANS. This poem is referred by Orelli (who rightly considers it composed at a comparatively early age) to the beginning of the war of Perusia, a.u.c. 713-14, to which period the i6th Epode is ascribed. Others refer it to a.u.c. 716, the expe- dition O guilty ! whither, whither would ye run ? Why swords just sheathed to those right hands refitted ? Is there too little of the Latian blood Shed on the land or wasted on the ocean, Not that the Roman may consign to flames The haughty battlements of envious Carthage ; Not that the intact Briton may be seen In captive chains the Sacred Slope descending ; But that, compliant to the Parthian's prayer, By her own right hand this great Rome shall perish? Not so with wolves ; lions not lions rend ; The wild beast preys not on his own wild kindred. Is it blind frenzy, or some demon Power, '^ Or wilful crime that hurries you thus headlong ? Reply ! All silent ; pallor on all cheeks, And on all minds dumb conscience-stricken stupor. So is it then ! so rest on Roman heads Doom, and the guilt of fratricidal murder, Ever since t Remus shed upon this soil The innocent blood atoned for by descendants. * "Vis acrior," "a fatal necessity;" equivalent to 6eov ^lav. — /| Orelli, Macleane. i* "Ut immerentis," &c. *'Ut" here has the signification of **ex quo," ever since. — Orelli, Macleane. EPODE VII. 449 dition of Augustus against Sextus Pompeius, which is not very probable ; others, again, including Franke, to the much later date of 722, the last war between Augustus and Mark Antony. Ritter contends that it relates to the war against Brutus and Cassius. Carm. VII. Quo, quo scelesti ruitis ? aut cur dexteris Aptantur enses conditi? Parumne campis atque Neptuno super Fusum est Latini sanguinis, Non, ut superbas invidae Carthaginis Romanus arces ureret ; Intactus aut Britannus ut descenderet Sacra catenatus Via, Sed ut, secundum vota Parthorum, sua Urbs haec periret dextera ? Neque hie lupis mos, nee fuit leonibus Unquam, nisi in dispar, feris. Furorne caecus, an rapit vis acrior ? * An culpa ? Responsum date ! Tacent ; et albus ora pallor inficit, Mentesque perculsae stupent. Sic est : acerba fata Romanos agunt, Scelusque fraternse necis, Ut t immerentis fluxit in terram Remi Sacer nepotibus cruor. Epode VIII. Omitted. 2 F 450 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPOD E IX. To M^CENAS. The date of this ode is not to be mistaken. It "was written when the news of Actium was fresh, in September A.u.c. 723. It was addressed to Maecenas, and it is impos- sible to read it and suppose he had just arrived from Actium, where some will have it he was engaged." — Macleane. The fine ode, Book I. 37, "Nunc est bibendum," was writ- ten a year later, after the news of the taking of Alexandria and the death of Cleopatra. In both these odes it will be observable that Horace avoids naming Mark Antony — some say from his friendship to the Triumvir's son lulus, to whom he addresses Ode ii. Lib. IV.; but at the battle of Actium lulus was a mere boy, and it is not possible to conceive how Horace When (may Jove grant it !) shall I quaff with thee Under thy lofty dome, my glad Maecenas,^ Cups of that Caecuban reserved for feasts — Quaff in rejoicing for victorious Caesar, While with the hymn symphonious music swells — Here Dorian lyre, there Phrygian fifes commingling ? As late we feasted, when from ocean chased. The Son of Neptune fled his burning navies,t He who did threaten to impose on Rome That which he took from slaves, his friends — the fetter. A Roman (ah ! deny it after times), J Sold into bondage to a female master, Empales her camp-works, § and parades her arms. And serves, her soldier, under wrinkled eunuchs. * "Beate Maecenas." The epithet "beate" seems here to apply to the gladness of Maecenas at the good news, rather than to his general opulence or felicitous fortunes. + "Neptunius dux," Sextus Pompeius, who boasted himself to be EPODE IX. 451 Horace was even acquainted with him at that time. There must have been some other reason for this reticence, and it is quite as hkely to have been one of artistic taste as one founded on personal or pohtical considerations ; for Horace does not mention by name Cleopatra, nor even Sextus Pompeius. It is consistent with the dignity of lyric song to avoid the direct mention of the name of our national enemy, especially if conquered. In an English lyrical poem on the Crimean war, we should scarcely think it strange if the poet did not obtrude on us the name of Nicholas. Carm. IX. Quando repostum C^cubum ad festas dapes, Victore l^tus Cassare, Tecum sub alta, sic Jovi gratum, domo, Beate Maecenas,"^ bibam, Sonante mixtum tibiis carmen lyra, Hac Dorium, ihis barbarum ? Ut nuper, actus cum freto Neptunius Dux t fugit, ustis navibus, Minatus Urbi vincla, quae detraxerat Servis amicus perfidis. Romanus, t eheu, posteri negabitis, Emancipatus feminae, Fert vallum § et arma miles, et spadonibus Servire rugosis potest. the Son of Neptune. Though Horace speaks of the rejoicing at the defeat of Sextus Pompeius as if it were of late ( " ut nuper "), it occurred between five and six years before (a.u.c. 718). Fugitive slaves formed a large part of the force of Sextus Pompeius. + This does not refer to Mark Antony himself, but to the Roman soldiers under him. The singular number is used poetically. § "Fert vallum." The Roman soldier carried palisades ("vallum") for an empaled camp. 452 THE EPODES OF HORACE. Shaming war's standards, in their midst, the sun Beholds a tent lawn-draped against mosquitoes.* Hitherwards,t then, Gaul's manly riders wheeled Two thousand fretting steeds, and shouted " Caesar." And all along the hostile fleet swift prores Backed from the fight, and slunk into the haven. J Hail, God of Triumph ! why delay so long The golden cars and sacrificial heifers ? Hail, God of Triumph ! from Jugurthine wars Thou brought'st not back to Rome an equal chieftain ; Not Africanus,§ to whom Valour built A sepulchre on ground which once was Carthage. Routed by sea, by land, the Foe hath changed For weeds of mourning his imperial purple ; Or spreading sails to unpropitious winds For Crete, ennobled by her hundred cities ; Or by the south blast dashed on Afric's sands. Or, drifting shoreless, lost in doubtful seas. Ho there, good fellow ! out with larger bowls, And delicate Chian wines, or those of Lesbos ; Or rather, mix us lusty Caecuban, A juice austere, which puts restraint on sickness ; The Care-Unbinder well may free us now From every doubt that fortune smiles on Caesar. * " Conopium." The mosquito net or curtain in use in Egypt, and still common in Italy and hot climates, placed in the midst of the "signa militaria" — i.e., the rising ground on which the military stand- ards were grouped round the prsetorium or imperial tent. t "At hue." The reading in the MSS. varies. Orelli has "at hoc," and takes "hoc" with " frementes Galli." I prefer Macleane's reading, "at hue," taking " frementes " with " equos ; " "hue" thus means ' hither," ^' to our side." Ritter has " ad hunc," contending that "ad" has the force of " adversus " — i. e., against Antonius, who is signi- fied, though not named. Munro has also "ad hunc," observing that " it has most authority ; but what Horace did here write it is impossible to EPODE IX. 453 Interque signa turpe militaria Sol adspicit conopium.* At hue t frementes verterunt bis mille equos Galli, canentes Caesarem, Hostiliumque navium portu latent Puppes sinistrorsum cit^. % lo Triumphe, tu moraris aureos Currus, et intaetas boves ? lo Triumphe, nee Jugurthino parem Bello reportasti dueem, Neque Afrieanum, § eui super Carthaglnem Virtus sepulcrum condidit. Terra marique victus hostis punico Lugubre mutavit sagum ; Aut ille centum nobilem Cretam urbibus, Ventis iturus non suis, Exercitatas aut petit Syrtes Noto, Aut fertur incerto mari. Capaciores affer hue, puer, scyphos, Et Chia vina aut Lesbia. Vel, quod fluentem nauseam coerceat, Metire nobis Caecubum : Curam metumque Caesaris rerum juvat Dulci Lyseo solvere. say, * Ad hunc' may = 'ad solem.' " As the line refers to the desertion to Cgesar of the Gauls, or cavalry of Galatia, under their king Deiotarus, "at hue" seems the simplest interpretation. t ' ' Hostiliumque navium portu latent Puppes sinistrorsum citae." Macleane considers the meaning of the words impenetrably obscure, from our ignorance of the Roman nautical phrases. He inclines to favour Bentley's supposition, that " sinistrorsum citae " may be equiva- lent to TTvfiv'nvKpva-aa-Oai, " to back water ;" adding, " something of that sort, connected with flight, I have no doubt it means," § "Neque Africanum," not, as some would have it, "Africano," as referring to the African war. 454 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE X. ON Mi^VIUS SETTING OUT ON A VOYAGE. The name of Msevius has become proverbially identified with the ideal of a bad poet ; but, after all, the justice of this very unpleasant immortality rests upon no satisfactory evidence. Virgil, with laconic disdain, dismisses him and Bavius to obloquy, and this poem is a specimen of Horace's mode, in his hot youth, of treating a person to whom he owed a grudge. But poets are very untrustworthy judges of the merits of a contemporary poet, whom, for some reason or other, they dislike. If nothing of Southey be left to remote posterity, and he is only then to be judged by what Byron has said of him, Southey would appear a sort of Masvius. On the other hand, what would Byron seem if nothing were left of his works, and, one or two thousand years hence, he were to be judged by the opinions of his verse which Southey and Wordsworth and Coleridge have left on record ? As to the severest things said of Msevius by writers of a later generation, and who had probably never read a line of him, they are but echoes of the old lampoons, " Give a dog a bad name," &c. If it be true, as the commentator in Cruquius says, that Maevius was " a detractor of all learned men," and a cultivator of archaisms, or an elder school of expression, "sectator vocum antiqua- rum," Under ill-boding auspices puts forth the vessel Which has Msevius — a rank-smelling cargo — on board ; Either side of that vessel, with surges the roughest, O be mindful, I pray thee, wild Auster, to scourge ! On an ocean upheaved from its inmost foundations, May the dark frowning Eurus snap cables and oars ; EPODE X. 455 mm/' it is probable enough that he incurred the resentment of Horace and the scorn of Virgil by his attacks on their modem style, and that his adherence to the elder forms of Latin poetry was uncongenial to their own taste. For Virgil's contemptuous mention, indeed, there might be some cause less general, if Maevius and Bavius ^Tote the Anti-Bucolica ascribed to them — i.e., two pastorals in parody of the Eclogues ; and especially if Msevius were the author of a very ready and a very ^vitty attempt to turn him into ridicule. Virgil, reciting the First Book of his Georgics, after the words, " Nudus ara, sere nudus," came to a dead halt, when some one, said to be either Msevius or Bavius, finished the line by calling out, "habebis frigore febrem." AVhoever made that joke must have been clever enough to be a disagreeable antagonist. One thing, at all events, seems pretty evident — viz., that Maevius must have had power of some kind to excite the muse of Horace to so angry an excess. Had he been a man wholly without mark or following, he could scarcely have stung to such wrath even a youthful poet. Be that as it may, this ode has all the vigour of a good hater, and there is much of the gusto of true humour in its extravagance. The exact date of its composition is unknown, but it bears the trace of very early youth. Grotefend assigns it to A.u.c. 716, when Horace was twenty-seven. Carm. X. Mala soluta navis exit alite, Ferens olentem Maevium : Ut horridis utrumque verberes latus, Auster, memento fluctibus ! Niger rudentes Eurus, inverso mari, Fractosque remos differat ; 4S6 THE EPODES OF HORACE. And may Aquilo rise in his might as when rending Upon hill-peaks the holm-oaks that rock to his blast ! On the blackness of night let no friendly star ghmmer Save the baleful Orion, whose setting is storm ; Nor the deep know a billow more calm than the breakers Which o'erwhelmed the victorious armada of Greece, When, from Ilion consumed, to the vessel of Ajax Pallas '" turned the wrath due to her temple profaned ! Ha, what sweat-drops will run from the brows of thy sailors. And how palely thy puddle-blood ooze from thy cheeks ; As thou call'st out for aid — with that shriek which shames manhood t — On the Jove who disdains such a caitiff to hear ; When thy keel strains and cracks in the deep gulf Ionic, Howling back the grim howl of the stormy south-blast. But O ! if in some desolate creek thou shalt furnish To the maw of the sea-gulls a banquet superb, ,. To the Tempests a lamb and lewd goat shall be offered As a tribute of thanks for deliverance from thee. * It is cleverly said by one of the critics, that Pallas is appropriately enough referred to here as the avenger of the bad poetry with which Msevius had insulted her, t *'///a non virilis ejulatio." He speaks as though he heard the man crying. — Macleane. EPODE X. 457 Insurgat Aquilo, quantus altis montibus Frangit trementes ilices ; Nee sidus atra nocte amicum appareat, Qua tristis Orion cadit ; Quietiore nee feratur aequore, Quam Graia victorum manus, Cum Pallas ^ usto vertit iram ab Ilio In impiam Ajacis ratem ! O quantus instat navitis sudor tuis, Tibique pallor luteus, Et ilia non virilis ejulatio, t Preees et aversum ad Jovem, lonius udo cum remugiens sinus Noto carinam ruperit ! Opima quod si praeda curvo litore Porrecta mergos juveris, Libidinosus immolabitur caper Et agna Tempestatibus. Epodes XI. AND XII. Omitted. 458 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE XIII. TO FRIENDS. Of all the Epodes, this, of which the metre consists of a hexameter verse, with one made up of a dimeter iambic and half a pentameter, appears to have most of the lyrical spirit and character of the Odes. The poem, addressed to a party of friends in winter, suggests comparison with the 9th Ode of the First Book, "Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum," also a winter song; but the occasion is very different, and the spirit that pervades it not less so. Ode ix. Lib. I. has no reference to public troubles; unless, indeed, a reader should indorse the very far-fetched sup- position that verse 7, " Permitte divis caetera," has a poli- tical allusion. Its main image is in the picture of an individual, and the happy mode in which, while yet young, that individual may pass his day. Its tone is cheerful, and with no insinuation of pathos. This epode, on the other hand, is evidently addressed to friends excited by anxieties and Frowning storm has contracted the face of the heaven. Rains and snows draw the upper air heavily down ; Now the sea, now the forests, resound with the roar Of wild Aquilo rushing from hill-tops on Thrace. Seize, my friends, on To-day — foul or fair it is ours — While yet firm are the knees, nor unseemly is joy; And let Gravity loosen his hold on the brows* Which he now overcasts with the cloud of his scowl. * "Obducta solvatur fronte senectus." "Obducta," as if clouded with care and sadness. — Orelli, Orelli interprets "senectus" in the sense of " morositas," " taedium," to which the word "senium " is more frequently applied. Maclearie renders it "melancholy," in which sense, however, he allows it is used nowhere else. I think the right meaning is "gravity" or "austerity," in which sense it is employed by Cicero, De Clar. Orat. 76, "Plena litteratae senectutis oratio." EPODE XIII. 459 and apprehensions in common. If it be allowable to draw a conjecture from the touching illustration of the fate of Achilles, doomed in the land of Assaracus to a stormy life and an early death, the poem might have been written be- tween the date of Horace's departure into Asia Minor, in the service of Brutus, and that of the trials and dangers which closed at the field of Philippi, a.u.c. 712. Ritter, indeed, places its date in the interval between the death of Cassius and the battle of Philippi. It may, however, be observed, that if the invitation to the feastmaster to bring forth the wine stored in the consulship of Torquatus is to be taken literally, wine of that age could scarcely have been found in the commissariat of Brutus. If not written while in the camp of Brutus, it was probably composed between a.u.c. 712 and 716, soon after Horace's return to Rome, before the fortunes of his life, and perhaps his political views, were changed by the favour of Maecenas, and while his chief associates would naturally have been among the remnants of the party with whom he had fought, and to whose minds (if there be any- thing peculiarly appropriate in the reference to Achilles) mihtary dangers in a foreign land might still be the salient apprehension. It is evidently written some years before Ode ix. Lib. I. Horace here classes himself emphatically with the young. In Ode ix. he addresses Thaliarchus, or the feasttnaster, with the half-envious sentiment of a man w^ho points out the pleasures of youth to another — who yet sympathises with those pleasures, but is somewhat receding from them himself. Carm. XIII. Horrida tempestas caelum contraxit, et imbres Nivesque deducunt Jovem ; nunc mare, nunc siluse Threicio Aquilone sonant : rapiamus, amici, Occasionem de die, dumque virent genua, Et decet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus.* 4^0 THE EPODES OF HORACE. Broach the cask which was born with myself in the year Of the Consul Torquatus.* All else be unsaid ; For, perchance, by some turn in our fortunes, a god May all else to their place in times brighter restore. Now let nard Achgemenian aiford us its balm ; Doubt and dread let the chords of Cyllenet dispel; Listen all to the song which the Centaur renowned Sang of old to the ears of his great foster-son : — "Boy invincible, goddess-born, mortal thyself, J The domain of Assaracus waits thee afar ; There the petty § Seaman der's cold streams cut their way, And there slidingly lapses the smooth Simois. From that land, by the certain decree of their woof, Have the Weavers of Doom broken off thy return, And thy mother, the blue-eyed, shall never again Bear thee back o'er the path of her seas to thy home. But when there, let each burden of evils ordained. From thy bosom be lifted by wine and by song ; Soothers they of a converse so sweet, it can charm All the cares which deform our existence away." * *' Tu vina Torquato," &c. Here he addresses himself to the master of the feast. Sextus Manhus Torquatus was consul A.U.C. 689, the year of Horace's birth — "O nata mecum consule Manlio," Lib. III. xxi., i. t "Fide Cyllenea," — viz., the lyre, invented by Mercury, bom on Mount Cyllene, in Arcadia. There seems to me much beauty in the choice of the word, which introduces an image of Arcadian freedom from care — the ideal holiday life. + Achilles. § Ritter supposes that the Scamander is here emphatically called small (parvi Scamandri flumina) antithetically to " grandi alumno" — the great hero who found the scene of his actions by a stream so small. Should this conjecture, exquisitely critical, if not too refined, be ad- mitted, then "lubricus et Simois" must form a part of the antithesis insinuated ; /. e. , actions so great beside a stream so small — actions so vehement and of renown so loud, beside a stream so smooth. EPODE XIII. 461 Tu vina Torquato move Consule pressa meo.'' Cetera mitte loqui : deus haec fortasse benigna Reducet in sedem vice. Nunc et Achaemenio Perfundi nardo juvat, et fide Cyllenea t Levare diris pectora sollicitudinibus ; Nobilis ut grandi cecinit Centaurus alumno : * Invicte, mortalis dea nate puer Thetide, J Te manet Assaraci tellus, quam fi-igida parvi § Findunt Scamandri flumina lubricus et Simois, Unde tibi reditum certo subtemine Parcse Rupere ; nee mater domum caemla te revehet. Illic omne malum vino cantuque levato, Deformis segrimoniae dulcibus alloquiis.' 462 THE EPODES OF HORACE. \ \ J EPODE XIV. ; TO MAECENAS IN EXCUSE FOR INDOLENCE IN COMPLETING THE VERSES HE HAD PROMISED. It is impossible to say whether the verses thus promised j and deferred were, as commonly supposed, the collection , composed in this Book of Epodes, or some single iambic poem. The context seems to favour the latter supposition. ! The " Wily this soft sloth, through inmost sense diffusing 1 Oblivion as complete I As if with parched lip I had drained from Lethe ] Whole beakers brimmed with sleep ? — j Thou kill'st me with that question oft -repeated — 1 Maecenas, truthful man,*" j A song I promised thee ; to keep my promise ' A god, a god forbids — Forbids the iambics, for I have begun them, [ To shape themselves to close. t | Thus it is said, by love inflamed, the Teian \ Lost his diviner art : And on the shell to which he wailed his sorrow. Music imperfect died. Thou too art scorched; enjoy thy lot; no fairer \ Flame, shot from Helen's eyes, Fired Troy : — me Phryne burns — a wench too glowing To stint her warmth to one. * " Candide Maecenas." "Candide" here has the signification of honourable or trnthful. You kill me — you, a man of honour — asking me so often why I do not fulfil my promise. t "Ad umbilicum adducere," is to bring a volume to the last sheet. r— Maclean E. EPODE XIV. 463 The beauty who inflames Maecenas, so gracefully mentioned at the close of the poem, is, according to the scholiasts, certainly Terentia, whom M^cenas was then either married to or courting. And that assumption is generally adopted by modern critics. Still it scarcely seems consistent with Roman manners, or with Horace's good breeding and knov/- ledge of the world, that he should im.ply a comparison be- tween his passing caprice for a public wanton, and the honourable love of a man of the highest station to the lady he had married, or was wooing in marriage. Carm. XIV. Mollis inertia cur tantam diffuderit imis Oblivionem sensibus, Pocula Lethseos ut si ducentia somnos Arente fauce traxerim, Candide Maecenas,* occidis s^pe rogando : Deus, deus nam me vetat Inceptos, olim promissum carmen, iambos Ad umbilicum adducere.t Non aliter Samio dicunt arsisse Bathyllo Anacreonta Teium, Qui persaepe cava testudine flevit amorem, Non elaboratum ad pedem. Ureris ipse miser : quod si non pulchrior ignis Accendit obsessam Ilion, Gaude sorte tua ; me libertina, neque uno Contenta, Phryne macerat. 464 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE XV. TO NEiERA. This poem may have been an imitation of the Greek, but as Horace pointedly introduces his own name as that of the complainant, it must be inferred that, at all events, he meant to be understood as speaking in his own person. The pro- bability 'Twas night — the moon shone forth in cloudless heaven Amid the lesser stars, When thou didst mock, in vows myself had taught thee, The great presiding gods ; Closer than round the ilex clings the ivy, Clasping me with twined arms : " Long as the wolf shall prey upon the sheepfold — Long as the seaman's foe, Baleful Orion, rouse the wintry billows — Or the caressing breeze Ripple the unshorn ringlets of Apollo, Our mutual love shall be ! " Ah ! thou shalt mourn to find me firm, Neaera ; For if in Flaccus aught Of man be left, he brooks not halved embraces ; Stooped to no second rank, His love shall leave thee, and explore its equal. The heart, in which the pang Of the last treason once makes sure its entry. Is ever henceforth proof To charms which perfidy has rendered hateful. And thou, O happier one ! Whoe'er thou art, in my defeat exulting. Be rich in herds and lands ; EPODE XV. 465 babillty is in favour of the supposition that it was the ex- pression of a genuine sentiment, and addressed to a real per- son. Macleane pushes too far his sceptical theory that Horace's love-poems are merely artistic exercises, like those of Cowley. Carm. XV. Nox erat, et cselo fulgebat Luna sereno Inter minora sidera, Cum tu, magnorum numen Isesura deorum, In verba jurabas mea, Artius atque hedera procera adstringitur ilex, Lentis adhaerens brachiis : Dum pecori lupus, et nautis infestus Orion Turbaret hibernum mare, Intonsosque agitaret ApoUinis aura capillos, . Fore hunc amorem mutuum. O dolitura mea multum virtute Nesera ! Nam, si quid in Flacco viri est, Non feret assiduas potiori te dare noctes, Et quaeret iratus parem. Nee ^emel offensae cedet constantia formae, Si certus intrarit dolor. Et tu, quicunque es felicior atque meo nunc Superbus incedis malo, 2 G 466 THE EPODES OF HORACE. And as for gold, I give thee all Pactolus ; Know all the lore occult Stored by Pythagoras re-born ; in beauty Nireus himself excel ; And yet, alas! in store for thee my sorrow, Thou too wilt mourn Loves with such ease made over to another- My turn for mockery then ! EPODE XV. 467 Sis pecore et multa dives tellure licebit, Tibique Pactolus fluat, Nee te Pythagorae fallant arcana renati, Formaque vincas Nirea ; Eheu ! translates alio maerebis amores : Ast ego vicissim risero. 468 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE XVI. TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE (OR RATHER TO HIS OWN POLITICAL friends). This poem is generally supposed to have been composed at the commencement of the Perusian war, a.u.c. 713 — the year following the battle of Philippi, when the state of Italy was indeed deplorable, and the fortunes of Horace himself at the worst. He had forfeited his patrimony, and it was two years before he was even introduced to Maecenas. At that time he would have been twenty-four. The poem has Another age worn out in civil wars,* And Rome sinks weighed down by her own sheer forces, Whom nor the bordering Marsians could destroy ; Nor Porsena, threatening with Etruscan armies ; Nor rival Capua,t nor fierce Spartacus, Nor Allobroge J in all revolts a traitor ; Nor fierce Germania's blue-eyed giant sons ; Nor Hannibal, abhorred by Roman mothers, § — That is the Rome which we, this race, destroy ; We, impious victims by ourselves devoted, And to the wild beast and the wilderness Restoring soil which Romans called their country. Woe ! on the ashes of Imperial Rome Shall the barbarian halt his march, a victor ; And the wild horseman with a clanging hoof Trample the site which was the world's great city. And — horrid sight — in scorn to winds and sun Scatter the shrouded bones of Rome's first founder. 11 * "Altera aetas," the preceding age being that of Sulla. t ''^mula nee virtus Capuse." Capua, after the battle of Cannae, aspired to the 'imperium' of Italy. — Liv. 23, 2. X "Novisque rebus infidelis Allobrox." This line is generally sup- posed to refer to the Allobrogian ambassadors, who, at the time of EPODE XVI. 469 has the character of youth in its defects and its beauties. The redundance of its descriptive passages is in marked contrast to the terseness of description which Horace studies in his odes ; and there is something declamatory in its gen- eral tone which is at variance with the simpler utterance of lyrical art. On the other hand, it has all the warmth of genuine passion; and in sheer vigour of composition Horace has rarely excelled it. Carm. XVI. Altera jam teritur bellis civilibus setas,'"' Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit : Quam neque finitimi valuerunt perdere Marsi, Minacis aut Etrusca Porsense manus, yEmula nee virtus Capuae,t nee Spartacus acer, Novisque rebus infideHs Allobrox, J Nee fera cserulea domuit Germania pube, Parentibusque abominatus Hannibal, § Impia perdemus devoti sanguinis astas, Ferisque rursus occupabitur solum. Barbarus, heu ! cineres insistet victor, et Urbem Eques'^sonante verberabit ungula, Qugeque carent ventis et solibus ossa Quirini, \\ Nefas videre ! dissipabit insolens. Catiline's conspiracy, promised to aid it, but afterwards betrayed the conspirators, and became the chief witnesses against them. The Allo- broges, a Gallic people on the left bank of the Rhone, two years later broke out in war, and, invading Gallia Narbonensis, were defeated by the governor of that province, C. Pomptinius. The line may, however, be intended to designate the general character of this people, without any special reference to the conduct of their ambassadors in the con- spiracy of Catiline. § "Parentibusque abominatus Hannibal." Orelli and Dillenburger interpret "parentibus" as "our fathers," "the former generation." Doering, Ritter, and Macleane, interpret the word in the sense of "bella matribus detestata," c. i. i, 24, in which latter sense the line is translated. II "Quaeque carent ventis et solibus ossa Quirini." I have rendered 4/0 THE EPODES OF HORACE. If haply all, or those amongst you all, Who be of nobler nature, ask for counsel How to escape the endurance of such ills, I know none better than this old example : Leaving their lands, their Lares, and their shrines. To wolf and wild boar, went forth the Phocaeans,* One State entire, accursing the return ; — Go we wherever a free foot may lead us, No matter what the billow or the blast, Welcome alike be Africus or Notus. Are ye agreed ? t Who can this vote amend ? Why pause ? To sea ! accept the favouring auspice. Yet ere we part thus swear : When the firm rocks, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried, J Rise to the light and float along the wave, Then, nor till then, return for us be lawful ! Back unrepentant we will veer the sail When Po shall lave the summits of Matinus ; When into ocean juts the Apennine ; When herds no longer fear the tawny lions ; When nature's self becomes unnatural. And, love reversing all its old conditions. Tigers woo does, the kite pairs with the dove ; When into scales the he-goat smooths his fleeces. And quits the hill-top for the briny seas. So swear, swear aught that cuts us off for ever From the old homes, and go, one State entire, Accursing the return. If all not willing, the simple meaning of the line, but the literal construction is, that he shall scatter the bones of Romulus, hitherto free, in their secret place, from wind and sun. Elsewhere (Car. iii. 3, 16) Horace speaks of Romulus as rapt to heaven, according to the popular belief. Varro, according to Porphyrion, says the tomb of Romulus was behind the Rostra. Orelli suggests that Romulus (Quirinus) is not literally signified in the verse, but rather symbolically, as the ideal representative {der EPODE XVI. 471 Forte quid expediat communiter aut melior pars Malis carere quaeritis laboribus ; Nulla sit hac potior sententia : Phocaeorum Velut profugit exsecrata civitas * Agros atque Lares patrios, habitandaque fana Apris reliquit et rapacibus lupis ; Ire pedes quocunque ferent, quocunque per undas Notus vocabit, aut protervus Africus. Sic placet ? t an melius quis habet suadere ? Secunda Ratem occupare quid moramur alite ? Sed juremus in hsec : — Simul imis saxa renarint Vadis levata, ne redire sit nefas ; Neu conversa domum pigeat dare lintea, quando Padus Matina laverit cacumina, In mare seu celsus procurrerit Appenninus, Novaque monstra junxerit libidine Minis amor, juvet ut tigres subsidere cervis, Adulteretur et columba miluo, Credula nee ravos timeant armenta leones, Ametque salsa levis hircus ^quora. — Hsec, et quae poterunt reditus abscindere dulces, Eamus omnis exsecrata civitas. ideale representatit) of the other Roman citizens, whose bones shall be scattered to wind and sun. * *'Phoc3eorum — exsecrata civitas." ** Exsecrata" is used in a double sense, "binding themselves under a curse." — Macleane. The oath of the Phocseans, who left their city when besieged by Hai-pagus (Herod, i. 165) never to return till an iron bar they threw into the sea should float on the surface, is amplified in the oath which Horace sug- gests to his political friends. + "Sic placet" — "placetne," the usual formula. The poet fancies himself addressing a meeting of the citizens. — Macleane. X " In the deep bosom of the ocean buried."— Shakespeare. 472 THE EPODES OF HORACE. At least that part which is of nobler mind Than the unteachable herd. To beds ill-omened Let those nought hoping, those nought daring, cling. Ye in whom manhood lives, cease woman wailings, Wing the sail far beyond Etruscan shores. Lo ! where awaits an all-circumfluent ocean — Fields, the Blest Fields we seek, the Golden Isles Where teems a land that never knows the ploughshare — Where, never needing pruner, laughs the vine — Where the dusk fig adorns the stem it springs from,* And the glad olive ne'er its pledge belies t — There from the creviced ilex wells the honey ; There, down the hillside bounding light, the rills Dance with free foot, whose fall is heard in music ; There, without call, the she-goat yields her milk, And back to browse, with unexhausted udders, Wanders the friendly flock ; no hungry bear Growls round the sheepfold in the starry gloaming, J Nor high with rippling vipers heaves the soil. § These, and yet more of marvel, shall we witness, We, for felicity reserved ; how ne'er Dank Eurus sweeps the fields with flooding rain-storm, * Viz., ungrafted. + "Nunquam fallentis termes olivas." The olive crop is still as fickle as the English hop crop — one good year for two bad ones is the accredited average. The olive crop, like the hop, was and still is often ruinous, from the speculative gambling which its uncertainty tends to stimulate. Horace says that which came home to every olive-grower when he speaks of an olive-tree that never deceived its cultivator. J " Vespertinus ursus. " § "Neque intumescit alta viperis humus." Orelli, in one of those notes, exquisite for accuracy of perception, in which his edition is so rich, objects to the common translation of "alta humus" — mountainous or rising ground, in which vipers are not found. He suggests, on various Greek authorities, that "alta," in its sense of "deep," not "high," has the signification of "fertile" (we say a deep rich soil, in antithesis to a thin poor one) ; and to those who dissent from that EPODE XVI. 473 Aut pars indocili melior grege ; mollis et exspes Inominata perprimat cubilia ! Vos, quibus est virtus, muliebrem tollite luctum, Etrusca prseter et volate litora. Nos manet Oceanus circumvagus : arva, beata Petamus arva divites et insulas ; Reddit ubi Cererem tellus inarata quotannis, Et imputata floret usque vinea, Germinat et nunquam fallentis termes olivae, f Suamque pulla ficus ornat arborem, Mella cava manant ex ilice, montibus altis Levis crepante lympha desilit pede. Illic injussae veniunt ad mulctra capellae, Refertque tenta grex amicus ubera -, Nee vespertinus circumgemit ursus ovile, % Neque intumescit alta viperis humus. § Pluraque felices mirabimur : ut neque largis Aquosus Eurus arva radat imbribus, || interpretation, Orelli commends Jahn's proposed construction to take "alta" with "intumescit" — "swells high." Macleane indorses it. Orelli refers "tumescit" not to the sweltering venom, but to the undulous movement of the reptile, alternately rising and falling, so that the ground literally seems to heave, as the commentator in Orelli says he has himself noticed, in his solitary walks along the meadows and water-banks of Italy, which, but for the vipers, would have been exceedingly pleasant. In the translation it is sought to render this idea, drawn from the critic's personal observation, and which, as a friend suggests, is in curious accordance with a passage in Humboldt's ' Aspects of Nature,' where he describes the reptiles, snakes, breaking their way through the clay soil left by the inundations of the Orinoco, and lifting the ground into little heaps. Ritter finds fault with Orel- li's interpretation, and contends that "alta" denotes the high grass and herbage of the soil. il "Aquosus Eurus arva radat imbribus." The literal and vemacular meaning of "rado" is "to shave, " as " radere caput;" " radere lit- tora " (generally construed " to coast along ") is better interpreted by the phrase familiar enough to our English sailor, " to shave the shore." Orelli here construes "radat" "deluges," or "lays waste." 474 THE EPODES OF HORACE. Nor rich seeds parch within the sweltering glebe. Either extreme the King of Heaven has tempered. Thither ne'er rowed the oar of Argonaut, The impure Colchian never there had footing. There Sidon's trader brought no lust of gain ; No weary toil there anchored with Ulysses ; Sickness is known not ; on the tender lamb No ray falls baneful from one star in heaven. When Jove's decree alloyed the golden age, He kept these shores for one pure race secreted ; For ail beside the golden age grew brass Till the last centuries hardened to the iron, Whence to the pure in heart a glad escape,* By favour of my prophet-strain is given.t * "Quoram" depends on "fuga" — flight from the iron ages. " Piis " has the signification of "pure from crime." t It has been supposed by some that the description of these happy islands, and the idea of migrating thither, is taken from the account ot the Western Islands, which almost tempted Sertorius to seek in them a refuge from the cares of his life, and the harassment of unceasing wars. This story, which is told by Plutarch in his life of Sertorius, is said by Acron to have been given by Sallust. But the general tradi- tion of a happy land separated from the rest of the world was popular among the ancients from the earliest time, and Horace might have got the notion from Hesiod or Pindar. The poem, however, would assume a much deeper and more earnest character if we could suppose that the passage in question has a symbolical signification, and refers to the isle of happy souls in which Achilles was wed to Helen. In that case the latent meaning would apply to another world beyond this, and its moral would be, " Rather than submit to the ills and ignominy in store for us, let us take our chance of those seats in Elysium reserved for the pure." EPODE XVI. 475 Pinguia nee siccis urantur semina glebis ; Utmmque rege temperante caelitum. Non hue Argoo eontendit remige pinus, Neque impudiea Colchis intuUt pedem ; Non hue Sidonii torserunt eornua nautae, Laboriosa nee eohors UHxei. Nulla noeent peeori eontagia, nuUius astri Gregem sestuosa torret impotentia. Jupiter ilia pi^ seerevit litora genti, Ut inquinavit sere tempus aureum ; ^re, dehine ferro duravit ssecula ; quorum * Piis secunda, vate me, datur fuga. 476 THE EPODES OF HORACE. EPODE XVII. j 1 .] TO CANIDIA — IN APOLOGY. This poem completes Horace's attacks on Canidia by an ' ironical pretence of submission and apology. I state in i a note my conjecture that he was really suffering from an , illness when it was written. There is no reason to infer with 1 Now, O now, I submit to the might of thy science ; i Now behold, as a suppliant, I lift up my hands ! j I adjure thee by Proserpine, and by great Hecate — | I adjure thee by all the most pitiless Powers — > I adjure thee by all thy weird black-books of magic, Strong in charms to call down loosened stars from the sky — i Dread Canidia, O spare me thy grim incantations ! i And O slacken, O slacken, thy swift- whirling wheel ! * : Even Telephus moved the fierce grandson of Nereus,+ < Against whom he had marshalled, in insolent pride, ! The host of his Mysians, and levelled his arrows ; — I Even Hector the homicide (sternly consigned ! To the maw of the dog and the beak of the vulture) Weeping matrons of Troy were allowed to embalm, | After Priam, alas (his stout walls left behind him) ] At the feet of the stubborn Achilles knelt down. So the rowers of toil-worn Ulysses, witch Circe I Released from the force of enchantment, at will, ' * " Citumque retro solve, solve turbinem." All the MSS. have "solve." Lambinus has "volve" v^ithout authority. "Turbo" is a wheel of some sort used by sorceresses ; " rhombos" is the Greek name for it. Ovid, Propertius, and Martial mention it. — Macleane. This critic considers that "retro solvere" means to relax the onward motion of the wheel, which will then of itself roll back. I may observe that EPODE XVII. 477 with some, that, because he says his hair was turning grey, the verses were written in later Hfe. " But now at thirty years my hair is grey," says Byron. At what age Horace detected his first grey hair — and he became grey early — no one can guess. The poem has all the character of the early. ones comprised in this book. It is the only epode in which the same metre (trimeter iambic) is adopted. Carm. XVII. Jam jam efficaci do manus scientise, Supplex, et oro regna per Proserpinae, Per et Dianae non movenda numina. Per atque libros carminum valentium Refixa caelo devocare sidera, Canidia, parce vocibus tandem sacris, Citumque retro solve, solve turbinem.^ Movit nepotem Telephus ]^ereium,t In quem superbus ordinarat agmina Mysorum, et in quem tela acuta torserat. Unxere matres Ilise addictum feris Alitibus atque canibus homicidam Hectorem, Postquam relictis moenibus rex procidit Heu ! pervicacis ad pedes Achillei. Setosa duris exuere pellibus Laboriosi remiges Ulixei, "turbo," which means both a whirlwind and a spinning-top, probably implies the shape of the witch's wheel, as being wide at its upper part (the hoop), and spiral at the bottom. Party-coloured threads attached to it formed a web to entangle the victim operated upon. + Telephus, king of Mysia, opposed the Greeks on their expedition to Troy, was wounded by Achilles, grandson of Nereus, and son of Thetis. Achilles cured him by the scrapings of the spear with which he was wounded. 478. THE EPODES OF HORACE. Giving back to limbs bristled"'^ the voice and the reason, And the glory that dwells in the aspect of Man. Enough, and much more than enough, for all penance Thy wrath has inflicted, O greatly beloved — O greatly beloved both by huckster and sailor ! t Fled away from my form is the vigour of youth. And the blush-rose of health from my cheeks has departed, Leaving nought but pale bones scantly covered with skin. And my hair is grown grey with, the spell of thy perfumes ; From my suffering I snatch not a moment's repose. Still the night vexes day, and still day the night vexes ; I can free not the lungs strained with gaspings for breath. J Wherefore, wretch that I am, I confess myself conquered; I acknowledge the truth I had dared to deny ; Yes, the chant of a Samnite can rattle a bosom. And the Marsian's witch-ditty can split up a head ! What more wouldst thou have ? Earth and Sea ! I am hotter Than Alcides in fell Nessian venom imbued. Or than Sicily's flame budding fresh in fierce ^tna.§ Dost thou mean, then, for ever to keep up this fire — * Previously transformed to swine. Bentley's reading of Circ<3; in- stead of Circ