Ode XVI
Peace is the prayer of the storm-tossed sailor and of the Thracian mad with battle--peace whose price is above purple and fine gold. For the consul's lictor cannot dispel the mob of passions that beset the soul. He only lives well who has 'the art to live on little with a cheerful heart.' Vainly we strive to forget 'in action's dizzying eddy whirled, the something that infects the world.' We cannot escape ourselves nor the cares that pursue us swifter than the east wind. When happy, borrow no troubles of to-morrow, and temper adversity with slow, patient smile. There is a law of compensation. Achilles had glory and an early death. Long-lived Tithonus withered slowly in the arms of Aurora. A hundred herds low for thee,-- me fate hath dowered with my Sabine farm, a breath of the inspiration of the Greek, and the poet's scorn of scorn. Translated by Otway, Cowper, Hamilton, Johnson's Poets, 15. 638; imitated by Jenyns, ibid. 17.607, and Hughes, 10.28. Pompeius Grosphus is known only from Epistle 1.12.22-24, a letter of introduction to the Iccius of Odes, 1.29. There was fighting in Thrace about B.C. 30. A plausible date for the ode is 29 or 28.
otium: the Roman world was very tired and ready to accept repose as the chief good in life and politics. Seneca says of Augustus, de Brev. Vit. 5, omnis eius sermo ad hoc semper revolutus est ut speraret otium.--'Deus nobis haec otia fecit,' says the Vergilian shepherd of the firm ruler, qui cuncta discordiis civilibus fessa nomine principis sub imperium accepit; Tac. Ann. 1. 1. Cf. Renan, First Hibbert Lecture, introd. Pax was the sailor's word. Cf. Plaut. Trinum. 837; Lucret. 5.1229, non divum pacem votis adit ac prece quaesit| ventorum pavidus paces animasque secundas? patenti: open.
prensus: i.e. deprensus, caught. Cf. Verg. G. 4. 421; Lucret. 6.429; Catull. 25. 13, deprensa navis in mari vesaniente vento. simul: cf. on 1.9.9.
condidit: so Verg. Aen. 6.271, ubi caelum condidit umbra. certa: with steady light; cf. Tibull. 1.9.10, ducunt instabiles sidera certa rates. Milton, Comus, 'Unmuffle, ye faint stars'; Tenn. Choric Song, 'Eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot stars.'
bello furiosa: ἀρειμανής, δοριμανής. Thrace was Mavortia terra (Verg. Aen. 3. 13). Cf. Gray, Progress of Poesy, 'On Thracia's hills the Lord of War| Has curb'd the fury of his car.'
pharetra: cf. 3. 4. 35, pharetratus. decori: adorned with; 3. 14. 7.
non . . . venale: which cannot be bought; cf. 3.14.2, and for meter, 1.2. 19.
nec: is read for neque to remove the only case of elision in the Adonic verse.
A favorite moral of Latin poetry. Cf. Munro on Lucret. 2.25-50; Lucan, 4.378; Sellar, p.165.
summovet: clear away; technical of a lictor clearing a path through a mob. miseros tumultus mentis: continues the metaphor; the sad riot of the heart.
laqueata: 2.18.2, paneled.
volantis: like bats or obscene birds. Cf. Theog. 729, for wings of care.
vivitur: passive impersonal (cf. thevivere parvo of Sat. 2.2.1), ab eo bene vivitur, he lives well. Cf. Juv. 8.9, coram Lepidis male vivitur.--parvo: cf. Lucret. 5. 1118; Cic. de Fin. 2.28; Lucan, 4.377; Claud. in Rufin. 1.215; Tibull. 1.1.25, contentus vivere parvo.
salinum: almost proverbial. Cf. Pers. 3.25, purum et sine labe salinum; Valer. Max. 4.4.3; Sen. de Tranq. An. l. The family salt-cellar brightly polished is the one piece of silver on the board of the man who knows, 'What and how great the virtue and the art| To live on little with a cheerful heart' (Pope). splendet: cf. Epist. 1.5.23. tenui: frugal; cf. Epist. 1.20.20; Herrick 337.7, 'If we can meet, and so conferre,| Both by a shining salt-seller.'
levis somnos: 2. 11.8, facilem; 3. 1.22, lenis; Gray, Ode on Eton College, 'The slumbers light that fly the approach of morn.' cupido: always mase. in Horace.
For sentiment, cf. Pind. Nem. 11.43; Bion. Idyll. 7.8; Eurip. Bacchae, 395; Arnold, A Southern Night, 'We who pursue| Our business with unslackening stride, . . . and see all sights from pole to pole,| And glance, and nod, and bustle by;| And never once possess our soul| Before we die.' fortes: undaunted. For juxtaposition of brevi fortes cf. on 1.6. 9. iaculamur: aim at, attempt. So τοξεύειν.
sole: cf. Verg. G. 2.513, atque alio quaerunt patriam sub sole iacentem. Tenn. The Brook, 'Katie walks| Far off and holds her head to other stars.' mutamus: sc. patriā; the accusative (terras) with mutamus here expresses what is received in exchange; cf. on 1.17.2. For moralizing on vain restlessness of travel, cf. Sen. de Tranq. An. 2; Emerson. patriae: cf. Ovid Met. 9.409, exul mentisque domusque, and Milton's 'Heaven's fugitives.' Theoc. 24.127, φυγὰς Ἄργεος.
se quoque: cf. Epist. 1.11.27, caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. Sat. 2.7. 112-116; Lucret. 3.1060-1070; Sen. Dial. 9.2.14, sequitur se ipse et urget gravissimus comes. Epist. 28, tecum fugis. Milton, 'nor from hell| One step no more than from himself can fly| By change of place.' Byron, To Inez, 'What exile from himself can flee?' Emerson, Self-Reliance, 'I pack my trunk . . . and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.' fūgit: gnomic.
Cf. 3.1.39; Lucret. 2.48 sqq. vitiosa: carking, fell; strictly, morbid; cf. Epist. 1 . 1.85, vitiosa libido. nec . . . relinquit: i.e. keeps up with.
Cf. Sen. Phaedra, 745, ocior nubes glomerante Coro. Ocior Euro, etc. Proverbial. Cf. Otto, p.366; Burger, Lied vom braven Manne, 'Die Wolken flogen vor ihm her,| Wie wann der Wolf die Herde scheucht.'
laetus in praesens, (when) happy in the present, is, as it were, the condition of oderit, an emphatic nolit. Cf. 3.8.27. --quod ultra est, τὰ πόῤῥωfutura.
amara: in contrast to laetus in praesens. lento: cf. lente ferre, etc., placid, patient.
The commonplace of Emerson's Essay on Compensation, to be illustrated in 29 sqq. ab omni parte: cf. Quintil. 1. 2.15, nam quid fere undique placet? Bacchyl. 5.54.
clarum cita: Achilles says, Il.9.412, 'If I abide here . . . then my returning home is taken from me, but my fame shall be imperishable.' Cf. Il.1.505, ὠκυμορώτατον ἄλλων.
Tithonum: he was made immortal, but not having been given eternal youth withered away in extreme decrepitude; cf. 1.28.8; Mimnermus, fr. 4; Hom. Hymn in Ven. 220. As type of old age, Aristoph. Acharn. 688; Otto, p.349. minuit: cf. Tenn. Tithonus, 'I wither slowly in thine arms.' Gray, 'slow-consuming age.' But longa here = unending, as 3. 11. 38; 2.14.19.
et: and so.
porriget: half personifies the glad hour (πολυγηθής, Il.21.450) 'that in a gracious hand appears to bear a gift for mortals old or young.' Cf. on 3.29.48 and 3.8.27.
greges . . . vaccae: virtually a hendiadys.
tibi tollit hinnitum: picturesque periphrasis for est tibi. Cf. 2.15.15. For elision at end of line, cf. 2.2.18.
equa: mares were preferred for racing. Cf. Pind. Pyth. 2.8; Verg. G. 1.59; and if any one will try to write this strophe with equus, he will find them metrically preferable. te: cf. Martial, 2.43.3, Te Lacedaemonio velat toga lota Galaeso. bis . . . tinctae: twice dipped, δίβαφα Cf. Epode 12.21, muricibus Tyriis iteratae vellera lanae; Epist. 2. 2.181; Spenser, Vergil's Gnat, 'Ne cares lie if the fleece which him arrays| Be not twice steeped in Assyrian dye.' For the murex, cf. Class. Dict. and 2.18.7.n.
parva rura: the Sabine farm. Cf. Bacchylides, fr. 28.
tenuem: as a term of literary criticism would mean refined, delicate (Epist. 2.1.225); but it seems to be used in modest deprecation here: slight. Cf. Burns, Epist. to. James Smith, 'The star that rules my luckless lot| Has fated me the russet coat, | And damned my fortune to the groat;| But in requit,| Has blest me wi' a random shot| O' countra wit.'
non mendax: cf. C. S. 25, vosque veraces cecinisse Parcae. Persius, 5.48, Parca tenax veri. Buecheler fancifully takes it 'rightly named,' because sparing (parca) of her gifts.
spernere: the scorn of scorn. He is invidia maior. Like rura and spiritum, spernere is a direct object of dedit.
