Ode XXII
Dedication of a pine, at the poet's villa, to Diana Nemorensis.
For Diana, Queen of the Woods, etc., cf. on 1.21.5; Catull. 34.9.
In this function, Ἄρτεμις--Diana--was identified with Juno Lucina. Cf. Catull. 34.9, Tu Lucina dolentibus| Iuno dicta puerperis,| tu potens trivia et notho es| dicta lumine luna. puellas: here used of young married women; so Ov. Am. 2.13.19, tuque laborantis utero miserata puellas.
ter: 1.28.36.
Diva triformis: as Luna, Diana, Hecate. Cf. Catull., supra; Verg. Aen. 4.511, tergeminamque Hecaten, tria virginis ora Dianae; Ov. Met. 7.94, per sacra triformis |ille deae. Her image at the crossways had three faces. Ov. Fast. 1.141, ora vides Hecates in tres vertentia partes,| servet ut in ternas compita secta vias. Modern poetry variously symbolizes it: 'Goddess whom all gods love with threefold heart,| Being treble in thy divided deity' (Swinb. Atalanta, mit.) ; 'Thro' Heaven I roll my lucid moon along;| I shed in Hell o'er my pale people peace,| On Earth,' etc. (Browning, Artemis Prologuizes); 'Goddess triform I own thy triple spell: | Queen of my earth, Queen too of my heaven and hell' (Lowell); 'With borrowed light her countenance triform| Hence fills,' etc. (Milton). Cf. the quaint old Latin distich, Terret, lustrat, agit, Proserpina, luna, Diana,| ima, suprema, feras, sceptro, fulgore, sagitta.
imminens . . . esto: let the pine that overhangs my villa be sacred to thee. With tua cf. Verg. Aen. 10.423, tua quercus.
quam verris sanguine donem: to which I may make offering with the blood of a boar.
per exactos annos: at the close of each year, 3.18. 5; Verg. Aen. 5.46, annuus exactis completur mensibus orbis. laetus: the libens merito of votive inscriptions.
obliquum: on account of the position of its tusks the boar strikes sidewise; Homer's λικριφὶς ἀίξας (Od. 19. 451; Il. 12. 148). Cf. Ov. Her. 4.104, obliquo dente timendus aper; Met. 8. 344, et obliquo latrantis (the dogs) dissipat ictu. For the periphrastic description of the victim, cf. 3.13.4; 4. 2.54.-- meditantis: that the victim was to be a domesticated boar has been shown by Heinze. The picture, however, obliquum meditantis ictum, is borrowed from a boar hunt in which the animal is killed just as he is making ready to strike. There is no indication of age in meditantis.
