Ode IX
Winter and snow reign without. Let us enjoy a heaped hearth and a jar of Sabine within. Permit the rest to heaven, and rejoice, young man, in thy youth while thou mayest.Cf. Epod. 13; Alcaeus, fr. 34: Ὕει μὲν ὁ Ζεὺς, ἐκ δ¹ ὀρανῶ μέγας | χειμών, πεπάγασιν δ¹ ὑδάτων ῥοαί. . . κάββαλλε τὸν χειμῶν¹, ἐπὶ μὲν τιθεὶς | πῦρ, ἐν δὲ κιρναὶς οἶνον ἀφειδέως, etc.Tenn. In Memoriam, 107: 'Fiercely flies | The blast of North and East, and ice | Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves | . . . But fetch the wine, | Arrange the board and brim the glass; | Bring in great logs and let them lie, | To make a solid core of heat; | Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat | Of all things ev'n as he were by' (Trans. by Dryden and by Cowper, omitting the last stanza.) Cf. also Byron, Childe Harold, 4. 77; Victor Hugo, Apropos d' Horace; Congreve, Johnson's Poets, 10. 278, 'Bless me, 'tis cold, how chill the air'; ibid. 10. 421; Allan Ramsay's paraphrase, 'Look up to Pentland's tow'ring tap.'
stet: stands out, looms up, conspicuous in its robe of white through the clear winter air. Cf. 3. 3. 42; Munro on Lucret. 3. 181; Verg. Ec. 7. 53, Stant et iuniperi et castaneae hirsutae; Aen. 6. 471.—nive candidum: cf. 3. 25. 10.
Soracte: a mountain in Etruria, twenty-six miles north of Rome, and visible from it. Byron, Childe Harold, 4. 76, 'the lone Soracte's height, displayed | Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid | For our remembrance, and from out the plain | Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break.'
laborantes: cf. 2. 9. 7; there in the wind, here with the load of snow.—gelu . . . acuto: i.e. on account of the piercing cold. Cf. Georg. 1. 93, penetrabile frigus; Pind. Pyth. 1. 20, χιόνος ὀξείας.
constiterint: i.e. have been frozen; cf. Epist. 1. 3. 3, nivali compede vinctus; Thomson, Winter, 'An icy gale . . . arrests the bickering stream'; Shelley, Sens. Plant. 3. 24; Ov. Trist.5. 10. 1, Ut sumus in Ponto ter frigore constitit Ister. It was cold in the Sabine hills, but the Tiber rarely froze (Livy, 5. 13), and Horace is probably merely following his Greek model.
dissolve: dispel; cf. 1. 4. 1, solvitur.—foco: Epod. 2. 43. The common fireplace in the atrium, perhaps in the country (for the scene of this ode is apparently a country villa) something like an Adirondack bonfire place.
reponens: piling; re- points to frequent renewals of the fire-logs.—benignius: ἀφειδέως, unstintingly. Contra, malignus, 1. 28. 23.
deprome: draw; 1. 37. 5. Here from the jar rather than the apotheca.—quadrimum: four-year-old, about the right age for a cheap wine. Cf. 1. 20. 1; Theoc. 14. 16.
Thaliarche: Master of the revels; coined by Horace. It suggests θαλίας τὸν ἄρχοντα or συμποσίαρχος. Cf. 1. 4. 18.
permitte: cf. Milton's, 'Live well, how long or short permit to heaven'; Archil. fr. 51, τοῖς θεοῖς τιθεῖ (ν) ἅπαντα.—cetera: cf. 3. 29. 33; Epod. 13. 7.—simul (ac): so always in Odes, as soon as. Cf. 1. 4. 17; 1. 12. 27. In Satires and Epistles both simul and simul ac occur.
stravere: have stilled. Literally, sternere means to spread out, then to strew. Cf. Tenn. Freedom, 'How long thine ever-growing mind | Hath stilled the blast and strown the wave.' So in Greek, στορέννυμι (Od. 3. 158), etc.
deproeliantis: with one another. Cf. 1. 3. 13; Verg. G. 1. 318, Omnia ventorum concurrere proelia vidi; Aesch. Prom. 1086.
Epicurean and Anacreontic commonplace: τὸ σήμερον μέλει μοι, | τὸ δ¹ αὔριον τίς οἷδεν; 'To-day is my care. Who knows the morrow?' Cf. 1. 11. 8; 2. 16. 25; 3. 29. 42; 4. 7. 17; Anth. Pal. 5. 72.—fuge: i.e. noli. Cf. 2. 4. 22.
fors: Fortune.
lucro adpone: set down to profit; the language of bookkeeping. Cf. 2. 5. 15; Plautus, Mercator, 3. 2. 10, id iam lucrost quod vivis; Cat. 28. 8, refero datum lucello; Ov. Trist. 1. 3. 68, in lucro est quae datur hora mihi; and for thought, Epist. 1. 4. 13, Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum; | Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora.
puer: in thy youth.—neque tu: recurs 4. 8. 4. Here tu emphatic = σύγε. Epist. 1. 2. 63; Tenn. Love and Duty, 'Should n~y shadow cross thy thoughts . . . remand it thou.'
virenti: sc. tibi, from thy bloom. Cf. 4. 13. 6; Epod. 13. 4; Theoc. 14. 70, 27. 66; Ronsard, 'Antres, je me suis veu chez vous | Avoir jadis verds les genous.'—canities . . . morosa: crabbed age. Cf. 2. 11. 8.
campus et areae: the Campus Martius and the open squares around temples and public buildings. Cf. Pater, Marius, Chap. Xl. sub fin., 'And, as the rich, fresh evening came on, there was heard all over Rome, far above a whisper, the whole town seeming hushed to catch it distinctly, the lively reckless call to "play" from the sons and daughters of foolishness, to those in whom their life was still green'—Donec virenti canities abest!19. sub noctem: at nightfall. See on 1. 8. 14.—susurri: cf. νυχίοις ἠιθέων ὀάροις (Anth. Pal. 16. 202. 2); Tennyson's 'low replies'; Blandos audire susurros (Propert. 1. 11. 13).
composita: of tryst, lit., appointed.
proditor: in apposition with risus. Construe risus ab intimo angulo.
risus: sc. repetatur, but the consciousness of the verb need not be explicit. Cf. Pope, 'But feigns a laugh to see me search around, | And by that laugh the willing fair is found.'
pignus: pledge, perhaps a bracelet or a ring. 'Frae her fair finger whop a ring, | As taiken of a future bliss' (Allan Ramsay).—lacertis: dat.
male: said to intensify words of bad sense, and nullify those of good sense. Cf. 1. 17. 25; Sat. 1. 4. 66; Cat. 10. 33. Here faintly resisting.
