Ode V
Lalage is not yet ripe for love. Cf. 3.11.9-12. The elaboration of the metaphors of the heifer and the unripe grape is displeasing to modern taste. Cf. Anth. Pal. 5.124. l. valet: with inf., cf. on 1.34.12.
munia comparis aequare: draw even with her yoke-fellow, lit., equal the labors of. Cf. 1.35.28.
circa . . . est: is busy with; cf. l. 18.2; in this sense with animus, first in Horace, G. L. 416.5.
So Silvia's pet deer alternates between the stream and the bank (Verg. Aen. 7.494-495).
iuvencae: for metaphor, cf. Judges 14, 18; Theoc .11.21 Soph. Trach. 529. fluviis: instrumental abl. with solantis.
praegestientis: so praetrepidans (Cat. 46.7). tolle: cf. 1.27.2 and Epp. 1.12.3, tolle querelas.
immitis: introduces a new metaphor. For the meaning, unripe, cf. contra, mitibus pomis, ripe apples (Epode 2. 17). uvae: cf: τέρειν᾽ ὀπώρα δ᾽ εὐφύλακτος οὐδαμῶς (Aeschyl. Suppl. 998); ὄμφαξ (Anth. Pal. 5.20); 'no grape that's kindly ripe could be| So round, so plump, so soft as she' (Sir John Suckling). lividos: dull blue; the curious distinguish three grades of ripeness marked by livor, purpureus color, and niger. Cf. one of the rare poetic lines in Juv. (Sat. 2.81), uvaque conspecta livorem ducit ab uva; Ov. Met. 3.484, ut variis solet uva racemis| ducere purpureum, nondum matura, colorem; Cat. 17. 16, puella . . . adservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis.
distinguet: will streak.
varius: epithet of effect transferred to cause. Cf. Tennyson's 'Autumn laying here and there| A fiery finger on the leaves' (In Mem. 99).
sequetur: sc. Lalage. currit: ἡ δ᾽ ὥρη λαμπάδ᾽ ἔχουσα τρέχει(Auth. Pal. 12.29.2; cf. 10.81.4). ferox: ruthless. Cf. invida aetas (1.11.7).
aetas: time. dempserit: has taken from; cf. Ovid's deme meis annis et demptos adde parenti (Met. 7.168). It is not strictly logical here since the years added to Lalage are not taken from the lover; but they are in a sense taken from his prime as anni recedentes (A. P.176). Cf. Soph. Trach. 547; and Sir Charles Sedley, to Chloris: 'Age from no face took more away| Than youth concealed in thine.'
adponet: cf. 1.9.15 and Persius, Sat. 2.1-2, Hunc, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo| qui tibi labentes apponit candidus annos. proterva: possibly continuing the image of the heifer, but cf. 3.11.11. n.
quantum non: more than. Pholoe: cf. l. 33. 7. fugax: cf. Pope, 'The sprightly Sylvia trips along the green,| She runs, but hopes she does not run unseen'; and inter vina fugam Cinarae maerere protervae (Epp. 1.7.28).
humero nitens: cf. 'Though my arms and shoulders| Dazzle beholders' (Rossetti, A Last Confession). Cf. 1.2.31.
pura: in cloudless sky. Cf. 1.34.7. renidet: 2.18.2; 3.6.12; Epode 2.66.
luna mari: cf. Herrick, 105, 'More white than are the whitest creams,| Or moonlight tinselling the streames.' 'A hand as white as ocean foam in the moon' (Tenn. Maud, 25.2).
mire: with sagacis; cf. mire novus (Sat. 2. 3. 28). Horace has in mind the story of Ulysses and Diomedes who so cleverly detected Achilles hiding among the daughters of Lycomedes. falleret: would escape the notice of; cf. 1.10.16.
obscurum: i.e. obscuratum. solutis crinibus: instrumental abl. with obscurum. Cf. 3.4.62; Epode 11. 28. Cf. long hair of boy in Juv. 15.137.
So Statius, Achill. 1 . 336, of Achilles says, fallitque tuentes| ambiguus tenuique latens discrimine sexus. Cf. l. 8. 16. Lalage is forgotten. Of this pretty picture Tyrrell (Latin Poetry, p.199) severely says, 'The runnel is exquisitely smooth, but its shallow waters flow where they will from their natural channel and end in a puddle.'
