Ode XXXIII.
Albius, do not ever be chanting doleful elegies for Glycera's faithlessness. 'Tis the cruel sport of love to make us all follow her that flees and flee her that follows, and mismate us strangely.Trans., Hamilton, Johnson's Poets, 15, p. 637. Cf. Dobson, A Story from a Dictionary, 'Love mocks us all, as Horace said of old: | From sheer perversity that arch offender | Still yokes unequally the hot and cold | The short and tall, the hardened and the tender.'
Albi: Albius Tibullus, the elegiac poet (cf. Epp. 1. 4), but no Glycera is mentioned in his extant elegies, the tender sentimentality of which might well seem lachrymose to Horace. Cf. e.g. 1. 5. 38, Saepe ego temptavi curas depellere vino; | At dolor in lacrimas verterat omne merum, for which the 'Shepherd' in Pickwick offers the only parallel.—ne doleas: do not grieve; cf. 1. 11. 1. n. It is also taken as a clause of purpose with the following statements. Cf. 4. 9. 1.—plus nimio: cf. 1. 18. 15.
immitis: litotes with slight oxymoron, since Glycera = sweet.
decantes: drone out.—elegos: A. P. 75-78; Jebb, Greek Poetry, p.95.—cur: (asking) why; suggests the querulous direct question more vividly than quod. Cf. Epp. 1. 8. 10; Fronton. et Aur. Epist., p.116, Naber, equidem multum fratrem meum obiurgavi cur me non revocavit (revocarit). See Hale, Cum Constr., p.106.—tibi . . . praeniteat: outshines thee.—iunior: Tibullus was probably about thirty. He died B.C. 19.
tenui fronte: a low forehead was thought a mark of youth and beauty; Epp. 1. 7. 26, nigros angusta fronte capillos. The beauty in Petron. Sat. 126 has frons minima et quae radices capillorum retro fiexerat.—Lycorida: Lycoris, like Cyrus and Phobe, is a fictitious name. For Cyrus, cf. 1. 17. 25; Pholoë, 2. 5. 17; 3. 15. 7.
torret amor: recurs 3. 19. 28. Cf. also 4. 1. 12; 3. 9. 13;Sappho, fr. 115, ὄπταις ἄμμι—asperam: probably proleptic, 'and to him she'll have nothing to say' (Martin). But cf. Tibull. 1. 5. 1, asper eram, 'I was cross, ill-natured, petulant.'
declinat: turns aside, i.e. from Lycoris; declinat cursus aurumque volubile tollit, says Ovid of Atalanta, swerving to pick up the golden apple.
Cf. Epode 16. 30; Verg. Ed. 8. 27, iungentur iam grypes equis.
turpi: ugly.—peccet: 3. 7. 19. n.—adultero = paramour. Cf. 1. 36. 19; 3. 16. 4, and for the use of the ablative, 1. 27. 17; 3. 9. 5-6.
sic visum: cf. Ov. Met. 1. 366, sic visum superis.11 iuga aënea: cf. 3. 9. 18. n.; 3. 16. 1. n.; Otto, p.6.
saevo: 1. 19. 1.—ioco: Soph. Antig. 799, ἐμπαίζει θεὸς Ἀφροδίτα. Cf. 3. 27. 69.
melior: i.e. higher in the world.—Venus: love. 1. 27. 14.
grata . . . compede: recurs 4. 11. 23. The singular first ill Horace, perhaps metri causa. Cf. Epode 4. 4; Epp. 1. 3. 3; 1. 16. 77 (plural). Cf.' Willing chains and sweet captivity' (Milt.).
libertina: Epode 14. 15.—fretis acrior Hadriae: cf. 3. 9. 23; Tam. of Shrew, 1. 2, 'Were she as rough | As are the swelling Adriatic seas'; Victor Hugo, Apropos d'Horace, 'Tu courtisais ta belle esclave quelquefois | Myrtale aux blonds cheveux, qui s'irrite et se cabre | Comme la mer creusant les golfes deCalabre'; Tenn. Audley Court, 'I woo'd a woman once, | But she was sharper than an eastern wind.'
curvantis . . . sinus: which makes Calabria's winding bays, i.e. by the force of its waves breaks the coast of Calabria into bays. Cf. 4. 5. 14; Ov. Met. 11. 229, sinus . . . falcatus in arcus.
