Ode VII
Welcome home at last, dear old companion of my tent and table, Pompeius! Together we made the campaign of Philippi, when I lost my shield. Then Mercury snatched me away in a Homeric cloud, while the withdrawing wave swept thee back again to war. Come then and share the cask I have kept for thee! I cannot drink too deep to thy home-coming. Pompeius is unknown. The ode tells its own story. l. tempus in ultimum: extremest peril. Cf. Cat. 64.151, 169, supremo in tempore.
deducte . . . duce: note verbal play. Brutus was captain of the war (militiae duce) in the campaign of Philippi, B.C. 43-42.
quis: no answer is needed, but the Jove of l. 17 is meant not without complimentary allusion to the clemency of his vicegerent on earth (1.12.51), Augustus, who says of himself, Mon. Ancyr. 1.14, Victor omnibus superstitibus civibus peperci. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 1.19. redonavit: cf. 3.3.33, where force of re is different. Quiritem: (the plural only, in normal prose) (1) burgher in antithesis to miles; (2) to full citizenship, i.e. not capite deminutus (3. 5. 42. n.). Cf. Ἀργεῖος ἀνηρ αὖθις(Aeschyl. Eum. 727).
Italo: cf. 2.13.18; 3.30.13; 4. 4. 42; 4. 15. 13.
Pompei: dissyllabic. Cf. Epp. 1.7.91. prime: earliest, or perhaps, in the enthusiasm of the hour, first and foremost. So Catullus (9.1) is not thinking of Calvus when he welcomes Veranius back from Spain, Verani omnibus e meis amicis |antistans.
morantem: cf. 'The better part now of the lingering day| They travell'd had' (F. Q. l. 6.34).
fregi: cf. Tenn. ln Mem. 79, 'And break the livelong summer day| With banquet in the distant woods.'
malobathro: a perfume made from the leaf of the fragrant laurel. Construe with nitentis. Syrio: Antioch was the emporium of oriental trade. Cf. 1.31.12; 2.11.16, Assyria; Cat. 6.8, sertis ac Syrio fragrans olivo; Tibull. 3.6.63.
et celerem fugam: recurs 2. 13.17.
sensi: I experienced. Cf. 3.27.22; 3.5.36; 4.4.25;4.6.3. relicta . . . parmula: Alcaeus (fr. 32, Herod. 5.95), Anacreon (fr. 26), and Archilochus (fr. 6). The jest to an ancient lay in the contrast between the awful severity of Spartan feeling towards the ρίψασπις ['return with this or on it,' said the Spartan mother) and the ingenuous avowal of Archilochus, 'Some Thracian strutteth with my shield,| For, being somewhat flurried,| I left it by a wayside bush,| As from the field I hurried;| A right good target, but I got off,| The deuce may take the shield;| I'll get another just as good| When next I go afield.' The kind of folk that have no horror of a joke will decline to discuss Horace's courage in this connection. Cf. De Quincey's amusing diatribe, Works, Masson, Vol. XI., p. 121.
The headlong rout, the loss of the shield, and the downfall of those who were so bold before the battle, are so many indirect compliments to the prowess of Augustus. Horace is 'reconstructed' and can afford to laugh at the 'terrible whipping we got.' fracta virtus: cf. Cic. ad Fam. 7.3.3, integri . . . fractos.
solum: simply, were overthrown, or bit the dust. Cf. Il. 2.418. To take it as an allusion to the pitiful supplications of the defeated (Caes. B. C. 3.98) would make Horace indeed the 'valet-souled varlet of Venusia' of Swinburne.
Mercurius: the guardian of poets, 2.17.29.
denso . . . sustulit aere: bore away in a thick cloud; mock-heroic imitation of those episodes in Homer in which heroes are saved from the perils of battle by the intervention of gods. Cf. Iliad, 20.444; 3.381; Verg. Aen. 1.411.
in bellum: with both resorbens and tulit. Cf. Epp. 2.2. 47, civilisque rudem beth tulit aestus in arma. The image is perhaps primarily that of a shipwrecked sailor. Cf. ἀναροιβδεῖ (Odyss. 12.105). But there is a suggestion of the commonplace wave of war. Cf. Tyrt. 12.22 κῦμα μάχης; Lucret. 5.1288, 1433; Aeschyl. Septem, 64; Arnold, Palladium, "Backward and forward roll'd the waves of fight.'
ergo: the conclusion of the whole matter, all's well that ends well. With different force, 1.24.5. obligatam: here of the thing vowed and due, in 2.8.5 of the person bound and due to penalties. dapem: technical for feast accompanying sacrifice. .
longa: B.C. 44-31? latus: part for the whole; cf. 3.27.26 and corpora deponunt for se deponunt (Lucret.).
lauru: a shade tree, 2.15.9. 'Peace has its laurels,' Horace slyly says.
Orders for the imaginary banquet. Cf. 2.3.13; 3. 19.10. On difference of treatment of wine in Greek and Latin poetry, cf. interesting remarks of Sellar, p. 126.
oblivioso: effect as epithet of cause. Cf. Alcaeus, fr. 41,οἶνον. . .λαθικηδέα; Shakspeare's 'insane root'; 'sweet oblivious antidote'; 'all the drowsy syrups of the world'; Milton's 'sleepy drench' and 'oblivious pool'; Chaucer's 'sleepy yerde' (the Caduceus of Mercury); Tennyson's 'The sound of that forgetful shore' (In Mem. 35).
ciboria: in this rare word Bücheler sees an allusion to Pompeius' service with Antony in Aegypt. Cf. τὰ Αἰγύπτια κιβώρια(Ath. 11, p.477). exple: cf. 'Fill high the bowl with Samian wine.' funde: sc. on your hair.
quis: i.e. which slave; rhetorical questions to work up a Bacchanalian frenzy. Cf. 3.19.18; 3.28. 1-4; 2.11.18-21. Mrs. Browning, Wine of Cyprus, 6, 'Who will fetch from garden closes| Some new garlands while I speak,| That the forehead, crowned with roses,| May strike scarlet down the cheek?' udo: soft, lithe, rather than dewy. Cf. ὑγρός and Theoc. 7.68, πολυγνάμπτῳ τε σελίνῳ.
deproperare: prepare with speed. Cf. properet, 3.24.62. For intensifying de, cf. 3.3.55; 1.18.9; 2.1.35.
curatve: sees to; cf. l. 30.6. n. quem: which one of us. Venus arbitrum: cf. 1.4.18. Venus, the best throw of the four tali, showed four faces all different; Canis, the worst, showed all four alike.
Edonis: i.e. Thracians. Cf. 1.27.2. A lost play of Aesch., the Edoni, may have suggested the comparison. recepto: 4.2.47.
furere: cf. 3.19.18. n.
