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Book 4

Ode 1

Collecting at the age of fifty this little aftermath of occasional poems, the chief of which were written in the quasi-official capacity of poet laureate at the request of Augustus, Horace in phrases reminiscent of the earlier odes gracefully warns the friendly reader that he must no longer be regarded as the light singer of the loves. Cruel Venus shall spare him. He is too old for Cupid's wars. Paulus Maximus, young, handsome, eloquent, all accomplished, will grace her service more. Horace has ceased to dream that 'two human hearts can blend in one.' And yet . . .

For the main occasion of the book, see the introductions to 4, 5, 14, and 15. Ode 2 is a second deprecatory preface--Horace does not claim to be a Pindar. Odes 3,6,8, 9 proclaim the poet's proud consciousness of his own fame and the power of poetry. Ode 11 shows him still loyal to the old friendship for Maecenas. Odes 10 and 13 recall old erotic motifs. Ode 7 is an exquisite summary of his gentle Epicureanism tinged with poetic melancholy.

There is a translation of this ode by Jonson, Works, 3.385; by Rowe, Johnson's Poets 9.472; by Hamilton, ibid. 15.639. It is imitated by Pope and by Prior (Cantata).

intermissa: with bella. Again ! after so long a respite.

bella: cf. on 3.26. 2.--moves: cf. on 1.15.10.--parce: 2.19. 7.--non sum qualis eram: I am not the man I was; cf. 3.14.27; Epp. 1.1.4.

regno: metaphorical. Cf. regit, 3. 9. 9.--Cinarae: apparently the only creature of flesh and blood among all Horace's Lydes and Lydias. Cf. on 4.13.21; Epp. 1.14.33, 1.7.28.

= 1.19.1. The love Leitmotiv is faintly heard again.

dulcium . . . saeva: cf. Sappho's γλυκύπικρον, and Catull. 68. A. 17, dea . . . quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem; Theog. 1353; cf. 1.27.11. n.

circa: the prepositional phrase without pronoun (me) or participle is somewhat harsh. Latin has no definite article or pres. part. of sum.--lustra decem: Horace was 50, B.C. 15. Cf. on 2.4.24.--flectere: to try to sway; 3.7.25.--mollibus: antithesis with durum.

imperiis: dat. with durum rather than abl. with flectere. So durus ad and durus with complementary inf.

tempestivius: cf. tempestiva, 3.19.27.

Paulus Fabius Maximus, consul B.C. 11, a friend of Ovid (ex Ponto, 1.2; 2.3.75) and of Augustus (Tac. Ann. 1.5). --purpureis: little more than bright. Cf. El. in Maec. 62, Bracchia purpurea candidiora nive; Vergil's lumen que iuventae purpureum (Aen. 1.590); Gray's 'purple light of love,' etc.--ales: winged, i.e. charioted by. Venus' chariot was drawn by swans. --oloribus: cf. on 3.28.15.

comissabere: κωμάζειν hie with joyous revelry. Hence in domum, like κ. εἰς or ποτί.

torrere: 1.33.6, 3.19. 28.--iecur: 1.13.4.-quaeris with inf., 3.24.27.

13 sqq. et . . . et: the polysyndeton draws out the list of his qualities. Cf. 2.1.1-5; 3.11.25 sqq.; 1.36.11 sqq., neu. --nobilis: Ov. ex Ponto, 1.2.1, Maxime qui tanti mensuram nominis imples.

Cf. 2.1.13; Ov. Pont. 1.2.118. non tacitus: cf. Intr.

centum: 2. 14. 26.--artium: accomplishments. cf. Catull. 12, 8, est enim leporum disertus puer ac facetiarum.

signa feret: cf. Merry Wives, 3.4, 'I must advance the colors of my love.'

And when by the grace of Venus he shall have smiled in triumph over the gifts of a lavish rival, he will dedicate her marble image in a shrine (possibly at his villa), by the lovely lakes of the Alban Hills.--quandoque: cf. 4.2.34; A. P.359.

muneribus: 3. 10. 13. Abl. comp. with potentior.--riserit . . . potentior: like risit . . . viduus, 1.10.12.

See description of the Lago d' Albano and the Lago di Nemi in Hare's Days Near Rome.

ponet: cf. Sat. 2.3.183, aëneus ut stes; Verg. Ecl. 7.31. So in Gk. ἱστάναι.--citrea: cedar. The Romans misapplied the name citrus (Vergil's Medic apple) to the African cedar. Cf. Hehn, Kultur Pflanzen, p.431. Milt. P.R. 4, 'Their sumptuous gluttonies and gorgeous feasts | On citron tables.'

The worship of Venus in the temple of the Poet's imagination. Cf. the Temple of Augustus, Verg. G.3.13; of Venus, Chaucer, Knightes Tale, 1939 sqq.; of Pysche in Keats' Ode.

duces: so ducere aerem, spiritum.--tura: 1. 19. 14, 1.30.3.--lyrae . . . tibiae: gen. with carminibus (strains). --Berecyntiae: 1.18.13; 3.19.18.

fistula: 1.17.10; 3.19.20.

At morning song and even song. teneris: 1.21.1.

candido: the naked foot gleams white in the dance, as in Homer. Cf. on 3.20. 11.

Salium: 1.36. 12.--ter: 3.18. 16.--humum: 1. 4.7, 1.37. 2.--me: cf. on 1.1.29.

30 sqq. Cf. Sellar, p.173.--credula: 1.5.9. --mutui: 3.9. 13. Cf. Arnold, To Marguerite, 'And love, if love, of happier men.| Of happier men, for they at least| Have dreamed two human hearts might blend |In one, and were through faith released |From isolation without end.'

certare: like femima, puer, spes and vincire, subject of iuvat; 2.12.18; certare mero, Epp. 1.19.11. Cf. 1.36.13.

vincire: 1.7.23; 1.4. 9.--novis: of spring, 1.4.10; or fresh-plucked, 3.4.12. Cf. 3.27.43, recentes,

The playful inconsistency of 3.26.11.

Ligurine: the imaginary personage of 4.10.

rara: cf. 1.13. 6, furtim; contrast plurima lacrima (Epp. 1.17.59). Or can it be, as a German editor suggests, that years have dried the source? Cf. Tenn. The Grandmother, 'Nor can I weep for the rest;| Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best.'

Cf. Epode 11.9; Catull. 51.9, lingua sed torpet; Dido in Verg. Aen. 4.76, incipit effari, mediaque in voce resistit. --decora . . . inter: synapheia. Cf. 3.29.35.

aquas: cf. on 3.7.26.--volubilis: cf. Epp. 1.2.43, labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.

Ode II

To vie with Pindar is to essay an Icarus flight. Like a river in flood his lawless verse rushes on through Dithyramb, Paean, Epilnikian, or Dirge. He is the tempest-cleaving swan of Dirce. I am the laborious bee that gathers honey from flower to flower. 'Tis thou, friend Julius, that must sing in lofty strain the pomp that shall wind down the Sacred Way and the people's joy at Caesar's vouchsafed return. Thou wilt sacrifice ten bulls in honor of the glad day. A young calf will be a fit offering for me.

Apparently composed, like 5, about B.C. 14 in anticipation of Augustus' return from the west, whither he had gone in B.C. 16 after the defeat of M. Lollius (cf. on 9) by the Sygambri. Jullus Antonius may have suggested that Horace should celebrate the achievements of the emperor in Pindaric strain. Or the ode may be a deprecatory preface to 4 and 14. The failure to mention the victories of Drusus, does not prove that it was written later.

Jullus Antonius, the son of the triumvir and Fulvia, was brought up by his stepmother Octavia and treated as a member of the Julian house by Augustus, who married him to Marcelia the daughter of Octavia, and raised him to the consulship B.C. 10. He was the author of an Epic in twelve books,--the Diomedea. On the discovery of his intrigue with the emperor's daughter, Julia, he was put to death, B.C. 2. Cf. Veil. 2.100; Dio. 35.10.

For the influence of Pindar upon Horace, see Arnold, Griechischen Studien des Horaz, p.102 sqq; cf. also notes on 1.12. 1; 2.1.37; 3.3; 3.4.69; 3.11; 3.27; 4.4.18 and73.

On the technical conformity of this ode with the type of the recusatio see Lucas, Festschrift f. Joh. Vahlen, 3234; and Reitzenstein, Neue Jahrbücher 21 (1908). 84.

Cowley's Praise of Pindar (Johnson's Poets, 7.129) is an imitation of this ode.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the 'Pindaric Ode' was a recognized and very quaint literary type. Cf. Gosse, English Odes, Intr.; Garnett, Ital. Lit., p.278.

Cf Quintil. 10.1.61, Horatius eum [Pindarum] merito credidit nemini imitabilem, Yet he smilingly encourages (Epist. . 1.3.9) his young literary friend Titius,| Pindarici fontis qui non expalluit haustus.--aemulari: rival.

Iulle: found in inscriptions as a praenomen. See Rhein. Mus. 44.317 ; and Mommsen, Hermes 24, 155. The use of the praenomen is familiar, but 'Julian' is always complimentary in the Augustan poets. Iulius a magno demissum nomen Iulo (Verg. Aen. 1.288). 'Valerius smote down Julius| Of Rome's great Julian line' (Macaulay, Reg.).--ceratis: wax-joined. -ope: 1.6. 15.-Daedalea: cf. on 1.3.34; Ov. Met. 8.189.

nititur: soars; cf. nisus (4.4.8); Verg. Aen. 4.252, paribus nitens Cyllenius alis.--vitreo: cf. on 3.13.1; and Wordsworth's 'glassy sea'; Arnold's 'clear, green sea'; Milton, 'On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea.'--daturus: cf. on 2.3.4.

nomina: cf. 3.27.76; Ov. Trist. 1.1.90, Icarus aequoreis nomina fecit aquis; Stat. Theb. 12.625, casurum in nomina ponti. That the plural is merely for metrical convenience appears from Trist. 3.4.22, Icarus immensas nomine signet aquas.

5 sqq. Cf. Cowley, Praise of Pindar, 'So Pindar does new words and figures roll |Down his impetuous dithyrambic tide,| Which in no channel deigns to abide,| Which neither banks nor dikes control.'--decurrens: cf. Lucret. 5. 946, montibus e magnis decursus aquai.--amnis: Cicero has flumen ingenii, flumen orationis. Cf. Tenn. 'full-flowing river of speech'; Dante, 'quella fonte,| che spande di parlar sì largo flume.'

Cf. King John, 3.1, 'Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds'; Mids. Night's Dr. 2.1, 'Have every pelting river made so proud,| That they have overborne their continents.'--notas . cf. 1.2.10; Ov. Met. 1.370, ut nondum liquidas sic iam vada mota secantes; Milt. Il Pens., 'while Cynthia checks her dragon yoke| Gently o'er the accustomed oak.'--aluere: cf. Tenn., 'full-fed river'; Homer, Il.15, 621, κύματά τε τροφόεντα.

fervet: cf. Sat. 1.10.62, rapido ferventius amni ingenium. --immensus ruit: like πολυ]ς ῥεῖ. The language of the image is retained in the application to the poet. The whole expresses thee beatissima rerum verborumque copia of Quintilian (10.1.61).

profundo . . . ore: i.e. deep-mouthed. Not the mouth of the river, but the os magnum (Ov. Pont. 4.16.5); the os magna sonaturum (Sat. 1.4.43); the os rotundum (A. P.323) of the poet.

laurea: 3.30. 16.--donandus: worthy to be presented with; the conclusion of seu . . . seu . . . sive, etc. The 'fut. pass.' part is only less convenient than the fut. act. (cf. on 2.3.4). Horace employs it with special frequency in this book: Cf. 45; 47; 4.68; 9.4, 9.21, 11.3, 11.14, 11.34, 14.17. Cf. also on 11.30. --Apollinari: cf. 3.30.15. n.; Ov. Met. 1.357-565.

audacis: bold metaphors and compounds were characteristic of dithyrambic poetry. Cf. Cope, on Aristotle's Rhet. 3.3. Boileau in his Discours Sur L'Ode, prefixed to his Ode sur la Prise de Namur, naively says, 'A l'exemple des anciens poëtes dithyrambiques j'y ai employé les figures les plus audacieuses, jusqu'à y faire un astre de la plume blanche que le roi porte ordinairement à son chapeau.'

devolvit: cf. volventis, 3.29.38; Tenn. A Character, 'devolved his rounded periods'; 'Devolving through the maze of eloquence | A roll of periods' (Thomson, Autumn).

lege solutis: soluta oratio normally means prose. One is legibus solutus who is not bound by a law. Pindar's difficult measures may have seemed lawless to Horace, or he may mean merely poems not composed in strophes. Cf. Klopfstock (Nauck), 'Willst du zu Strophen werden, O Haingesang? WilIst du gesetzlos?' etc. ; Cowley, Liberty, 6, 'The more heroic strain let others take,| Mine the Pindaric way I'll make: | The matter shall be grave,| the numbers loose and free.' On the error of this view of Pindar's poetry, cf. Jebb, Greek Class. Poetry, p.141. It is as old in Greek lit. as Himerius (Orat. 3. 1). But in the school of Statius' father the boys were taught qua lege recurrat | Pindaricae vox flexa lyrae (Silv. 5.3.151).

The hymns and Paeans.

reges: not the historical kings, Hieron, Theron, etc., celebrated in the Epinikian odes, but the legendary heroes, Pirithous, Theseus, Bellerophon.

sanguinem: cf. 3.27.65.--quos: the reference is to Theseus and Pirithous.

Centauri: cf. on 1.18.8; Pind, fr. 143.--tremendae: 4.6.7; 4.14.12.--Chimaerae: killed by Bellerophon; 1. 27.24; 2.17.13.

The Epinikian hymns.

Elea . . . palma: Olympia was in Elis; the palm of Elis is typical of the four great games. Cf. on 4.3.3. For palma see note on 1. 1.5.

domum . . . caelestis: the triumphant home-bringing of the victor is everywhere emphasized by Pindar, who warns him that he must not strive to become as a god and that he cannot scale the brazen heavens. Cf. 1.1.5.

pugilemve equumve: in partitive apposition with quos; the boxing and riding here stand for all athletic contests. Cf. Epp. 2.3.83. Pindar does not forget the horse (O.1.18), but equum here is probably used for metrical convenience.

centum potiore signis: better than a hundred statues; cf. the expansion of the thought 4.8; also, Pind. Nem .4.81; Agathias, Anth. Pal. 4.4.9.

The lost Dirges (θρηνοι). Horace seems to have a particular poem in mind.

flebili: cf. on 1.24.9.

Note hypermetra. Cf. 3.29.35.

aureos: cf. 'golden lads' (1.5.9. n.). --astra: 3.25.6. --nigro: cf. on 1.24.18.

invidit Orco: cf. 3.2.21; 4.8.27, caelo musa beat.

Cf. Denham, On death of Cowley, 'On a stiff gale (as Flaccus sings)| The Theban swan extends his wings,| When through th' ethereal clouds he flies;| To the same pitch our swan doth rise.' Dircaeum: for fountain Dirce, cf. Lex.--cycnum: cf. on 4.3.20; 2.20. Gray, Progress of Poesy, describes Pindar as the Theban eagle 'sailing with supreme dominion |Through the azure deep of air.'

apis: cf. Epp. 1.3.21; 1.19.44; Pind. fr. 152; Pyth. 10. 54; Bacchyl. 10.10; Plat. Ion, 534. A; Aristoph. Birds, 749; Erinna, Anth. Pal. 7.13. 1.--Matinae: 1.28.3.

more modoque: mere alliterative formula. Cf. A. G. 412. b.

per laborem: cf. per dolum (1.10.10); per vim (3.14.15).

plurimum: with laborem rather than with nemus. Cf. De Quincey (Masson, 11.379), 'There are single odes of Horace that must have cost him a six weeks' seclusion from the wickedness of Rome'; Tenn. In Mem. 65, 'And in that solace can I sing, |Till out of painful phases (phrases?) wrought |There flutters up a happy thought |Self-balanced on a lightsome wing.'--circa: 1.18. 2 --uvidi: 1.7.13.

operosa: cf. Ruskin's Queen of the Air, 48, 'I, little thing that I am, weave my laborious songs as earnestly as the bee among the bells of thyme on the Matin mountains.' See the whole passage. Cf. 3.1.48; 3.12.5; and Philips' 'operose Dr. Bentley.'

concines: the transition is abrupt, but pronouns and adversative particles were not easy to manage in Latin Sapphics. Cf. 1.20. 10.--maiore poeta plectro: thou a poet of loftier style. Cf. on 2.1.40; 2.13.26.

quandoque: cf. on 4. 1. 17.--trahet: will drag (in triumph). This is the natural phrase. Cf. Epp. 2.1.191. But in the order of the triumph the captives preceded. Cf. 1.12.54.

sacrum clivum: the part of the Sacred Way from the Arch of Titus to the Forum. Cf. Epode 7.8; Martial, 1.70.5, sacro . . . clivo; Macaulay, Proph. of Capys, 30, 'Blest and thrice blest the Roman |Who sees Rome's brightest day,| Who sees that long victorious pomp |Wind down the Sacred Way |And through the bellowing Forum,| And round the Suppliants' Grove, |Up to the everlasting gates| Of Capitolian Jove.'--decorus: cf. 3.14.7; 2.16.6.

fronde: the wreath of laurel.--Sygambros: they had defeated the legate Lollius (cf. Intr.), but hastened to make peace with Augustus. Cf. 4.14.51.

Augustus is heaven's last best gift to man. The phrase suggests Cic. Acad. Post. 1.7, and Plato, Tim. 47, b. For the flattery, cf. Epp. 2.1.17; Ov. ex Pont. 1.2.98; Sellar, p.157, 'In the odes of the 4th book the ideal is supposed to be realized; but there is less perhaps of the ring of genuine sincerity in the celebration of its triumph. The tone of the poet is more distinctly imperial than national. . . . The adulation which was the bane of the next century begins to be heard.' Cf. on 4.15.4; 3.3.16.

boni: cf. 4.5.1.

aurum: i.e. tempus aureum (Epode 16.64).

priscum: cf. Epode 2.2.--laetos: festos.

ludum: the technical phrase is ludos, but Horace prefers to vary familiar formulas, and, like Tennyson, would almost rather sacrifice the sense than bring two s's together, though, like Tennyson, he sometimes does, e.g. 1.2.27; 1.25.19; 3.18.6; 4.7. 17; 4.9.10. Cf. on 3.5.52.--super: on account of.--impetrato: vouchsafed in answer to our prayers. There are coins of B.C. 16 inscribed S. P. Q. R. V. S. (vota suscepta) Pro S. (salute) ET RED. AVG. Cf. also Dio, 54.19.

litibus orbum: the closing of the courts, iustitium. For orbum, cf. Lucret. 5.840, orba pedum; Pind. Isth. 3.26, ὄρφανοι ὕβριος.

45 sqq. The Augustan poets frequently describe themselves as humble spectators of the emperor's triumphs. Cf. Proper. 4.3; Cons. ad Liv. 273 sqq. In this case Augustus declined the triumph and entered the city by night. The ludi took place in the year 14 (Dio, 54.27). --audiendum: worth hearing.

bona pars: i.e. my voice shall freely swell the acclaim.

Sol pulcher: cf. 4.4.39.--recepto: 2.7.27.

teque: with dicemus; personifies the Triumph itself, as in Epode 9.21. But see Ensor, Hermathena 12 (1903). 108.

civitas omnis: in apposition with the subject of dicemus.--dabimus: at the totam delubra per urbem (Verg. Aen. 8. 716).--tura: 4. 1.22.

te (i.e. Antonius) . . . me: cf. 2.17.30-32.

solvet: will release, i.e. from his vow.--relicta . . . matre: weaned.

Quiet, homely or idyllic ending. Cf. 2.19.29-32; 3.5.53-56. So Tennyson closes Walking to the Mail, Edwin Morris, and The Golden Year.

iuvenescit: is growing up.--herbis: cf. 3.23.11.

in: i.e. to pay.

The phrasing is suggested by the familiar expression, cornua lunae. Cf. C. S. 35; Claudian de Rapt. Pros. 1.129, (vitula) nec nova lunatae curvavit germina frontis.--tertium . . . ortum: of the moon at her third rising, lit., bringing back her third rising. Cf. 3.29.20. The new moon shows a slight sickle, or crescent, on the third evening. Shelley, Hellas, 'The young moon has fed| Her exhausted horn.'

Cf. Hom. Il.23.454, 'A chestnut all the rest of him, but in the forehead marked with a white star.' Cf. λευκομέτωπος. Cf. Moschus, 2.84. Cf. 'The glory of the herd, a bull | Snow-white, save 'twixt his horns one spot there grew; | Save that one stain, he was of milky hue.' (?)

notam duxit: is marked; so ducere . . . colorem (Ov. Met. 3.484); Juv. 2.81, uvaque conspecta livorem ducit ab uva; Verg. Ecl. 9.49.

Ode III

The propitious eye of Melpomene upon the natal hour makes of the poet a dedicated spirit who has no part in the labors, ambitions, and rewards of ordinary men. Such a spirit Rome now recognizes in Horace, the voice of Envy is silenced, and the poet thanks the sweet Muse to whom he owes his inspiration and power to please.

The poem celebrates the realization of the aspirations of 1.1.

Cf. Sellar, p.190; Andrew Lang's pretty Ballade of the Muse; Ronsard, A sa Lyre. There is a good translation by Bishop Atterbury. Cf. also Pitt, Johnson's Poets, 12.388.

Quem . . . videris: him upon whose birth thou, Melpomene, once hast looked with eyes of favor.--Melpomene: Cf. 3.30.16. n.--semel: 1. 24.16; C. S. 26. nascentem . . . videris: not astrological, as adspicit (2. 17. 17). Cf. Hes. Theog. 82; Pind. O.7.11; Boileau, A. P.1; Lessing, To his brother, 'Auch dich hat, da du wardst geboren, Die Muse lächelnd angeblickt.'

Isthmius: typical, as Olympicum (1.1.3), Elea (4.2.17). --labor: πόνος (Pind. O.5.15, et passim). Cf. 4.2.18.

pugilem: as a pugilist.

Achaico: simply Greek. The glory of the Greek chariot race is compared with the grandeur of a Roman triumph.

res bellica: achievement in war; cf. res ludicra, comedy Epp. 2.1.180).--Deliis: of Apollo. Cf. 4.2.9; 3.30.15. A branch of laurel was borne by the triumphator. Cf. F. Q. 1.1.9.

regum . . . minas: cf. 2.12.12.--tumidas: Sat. 1.7.7. contuderit: has crushed; cf. 3.6.10; Verg. Aen. 1.263 ; Cons. ad Liv. 17, Ille genus Suevos acre indomitosque Sicambros |contudit inque fugam barbara terga dedit.

ostendet Capitolio: cf. on 4.2.35, and Propert. 4.3.13.

Tibur: his own favorite retirement put typically for the Muse's 'green retreats.' Cf. on 1.1.30; 1.7.13 sqq. --praefluunt: flow past; so 4.14.26 for praeterfluunt.

spissae: 3.19. 25.--nemorum comae: cf. on 1.21. 5; 4.7.2.--fingent . . . nobilem: will make him famous. --Aeolio: 3.30.13.

Cf. 4.14.44; Epp. 1.7.44, regia Roma.

suboles: the children, i.e. the people.

ponere: cf. inserere (1.1.35); ponetur (Epp. 2. 1.43).

dente: cf. Epode 6.15; Sat. 1.6.46, quem rodunt omnes; Sat. 2.1.77; Epist. 2.1.151; Pindar, Pyth. 2.53; Ov. Trist. 4. 10.123; ex Ponto, 3.4.74; Phaedr. Prol. 5; Martial, 5.28.7: Anth. Pal. 9.356; 16.265. 5; Shaks. Jul. Caes. 2.3. 'My heart laments that virtue cannot live | Out of the teeth of emulation'; Gray, Eton College, 'Or jealousy with rankling tooth.'

testudinis: 3.11.3; 1.32.14. --aurea: cf. on 2.13.26; Pind. Pyth. 1.1, χρυσέα φόρμιγξ.

dulcem: with strepitum, a slight oxymoron. Or it is conceivably proleptic.--strepitum: Epp. 1.2.31; βοάν, Pind. O. 3.8; Pyth. 1.13; Nem. 5.38; Homer, Il.18.495; γλυκὺν αὐλῶν ὄτοβον (Soph. Ajax, 1202); 'How they seemed to fill the sea and air |With their sweet jargoning' (Col. Anc. Mar.) ; 'La noise du rossignol' (Ronsard) ; 'That melodious noise' (Milton, At a Solemn Music) ; 'For all their groves, which with the heavenly noises |Of their sweet instruments were wont to sound' (Spenser, Tears of the Muses).--Pieri: Muse of Pieria. A Muse is called Pieris as here, and more frequently the Muses are called Pierides, from Pieria, a region of Macedonia connected with their cult.--temperas: dost govern, modulate. Cf. on 1.24. 14, moderere; Propert. 3.32.80.

mutis: traditional epithet. Cf. ἔλλοπες, ἐλλοί, ἄναυδοι, in Greek Lex. The scarus was thought the only exception. Cf. Anth. Pal. 10.16.13; Oppian, Hal. 1.134. But the trout of the river Aroanius in Arcadia were believed to sing (Pausan. 8. 21.2). ἰχθύων ἀφων́τεροιwas a proverb. Cf. Troilus and Cress. 3.3, 'He is grown a very land-fish, languageless'; Shelley, Helias, 'Joy waked the voiceless people of the sea'; Swinb. Erech,, 'tongueless waterherds.' After Aeschyl. Persae; 577. --quoque: even.

donatura: who couldst give; cf. on 2.3.4.cycni: cȳcnum (4.2.25). For swan's song, cf. 2.20.15; Plato, Phaedo, 84. E; Aeschyl. Ag. 1445; Ov. Her. 7.1; Callim. Hymn. Del. 252; Wordsworth's Sonnet, 'I heard (alas! 'twas only in a dream)'; Byron, 'There, swan-like, let me sing and die' (Don Juan, 3.86.16); Shaks. Merch. of V.3.2; King John, 5.7; Othello, 5.2; Hale's Folia Literaria, p.231 sqq . Ael . Var. Hist. 1. 14, ἐγὼ δὲ ᾁδοντος κύκνου οὐκ ἄκουσα, ἴσως δὲ οὐδὲ ἄλλος. πεπίστευται δ᾽ οὖν ὅτι ᾀδει Frazer, Paus. 2.395.

totum . . tuist: this is wholly thy gift, predicative genitive. Cf. Ov. (Trist. 1.6.6) to his wife, siquid adhuc ego sum, muneris omne tui est.

Proverbial. Cf. Pers. 1.28; Lucian, Herod. 1, Somnium 11; Aeschyl. Ag. 1332; Tac. Dial, 7; Martial, 9.97.3; Cic. Tusc. 5.36, etc. Sometimes it signifies finger of scorn (Ov. Am, 3.1.19).

fidicen is Latin (cf. Epp. 1.19.32); lyrae: Greek (cf. 4. 6.25-27).

quod spiro: that I have inspiration; cf. 2.16.38,4,6.29 ; Epp. 2.1.166; Pind. O.13.22, Μοῖσ᾽ ἁδύπνοος; Ronsard, A Ba Lyre, 'Par toy je plais, et par toy je suis leu: c'est toy qui fais que Ronsard soit esleu Harpeur Francois, et quand on le rencontre, Qu'avec le doigt par la rue on le monstre,' etc. --tuum est: but cf. 4.6.29, Apollo; 2.16.39, Parca; 3.30.15, meritis.

Ode IV

Like a new-fledged eagle swooping down on its quarry, like a fresh-weaned lion rending its first victim, -insuch guise have the Vindelici beheld young Drusus waging war beneath theRaetian Alps. Subdued at last, those fierce tribes have been taught what the sons of the Neros, bred at the hearth of Augustus, can achieve. What Rome owes to the house of Nero let the battle of the river Metaurus bear witness, the overthrow of Hasdrubal, and the first day of hope that dawned on Italy after all the years in which Hannibal rode like a storm wind or forest fire over her fields. That was the beginning of the end. Hannibal knew it, and said: 'We are like deer that madly turn upon their natural pursuers. The indomitable race that issued from burning Troy grows stron- ger through hardship and defeat, and renews itself like the hydra of Hercules. Never again shall I send proud heralds of victory to Carthage. All is lost with the fall of Hasdrubal.' Such were the deeds of the Claudians. And what may they not do, guarded by Jupiter and guided by sagacious counsels?

The campaign celebrated in this ode was undertaken in order to give Rome control of the eastern passes of the Alps and put a stop to the incursions of the unruly Alpine tribes. "P. Silius engaged these tribes in 738, and worsted them. The year following . . . Drusus, the emperor's younger stepson, now in his twenty-third year, took the command of the legions from Silius, overthrew the Rhaetians in the Tridentine Alps, traversed the Brenner pass, and defeated the Breuni and Genauni in the valley of the Inn. It is . . . probable that he turned westward to effect a junction with his brother Tiberius, who had been dispatched at the same time to attack the Vindelicians in the rear. . . . Tiberius penetrated the gorges of the Upper Rhine and Inn in every direction; and at the conclusion of a brilliant and rapid campaign, the two brothers had effected the complete subjugation of the country of the Grisons and the Tyrol," which with adjacent territory were constituted the province of Rhaetia. "The free tribes of the Eastern Alps appear then for the first time in history, only to disappear again for a thousand years." (Abridged from Merivale, 4. 160. Cf. Dio, 54.22; Strabo, 4, p.206; Ferrero, 5.117.)

Tiberius (afterwards emperor), born 713, and Drusus, born 716, sons of the empress Livia by her divorced husband Tiberius Claudius Nero, were adopted by Augustus. Drusus was the emperor's favorite (Suet. Claud. 1), and is, with some partiality, celebrated not only in this ode, but in the fourteenth, which treats of the exploits of Tiberius.

Horace often professes that he is unapt to sing of war. Cf. 1. 6.5, 4.2.30 sqq.; Sat. 2.1.12 sqq. This ode, and indeed the fourth book generally, was written, Suetonius tells us, at the express command of the emperor. Scripta quidem eius usque adeo probavit mansuraque perpetua opinatus est, ut non modo Seculare carmen componendum iniunxerit sed et Vindelicam victoriam Tiberii Drusique, privignorum suorum, eumque coegerit propter hoc tribus carminum libris ex longo intervallo quartum addere. Horace evades the difficulty by a Pindaric treatment, the long historical digression 37-73 representing the myth.

Translation by Lyttleton, Johnson's Poets, 14.182. Prior's Ode to the Queen (1706) is a feeble imitation.

The construction is qualem . . . propulit (6). . . vernique . . . docuere (8)... mox . . . demisit (10)... nunc . . . egit (12) . . . qualemve . . . vidit (13. 16) . . . (talem) videre (17). In translating follow the Latin order: like the, etc. --ministrum: flammigerum, Iovis armiger (Verg. Aen. 5.255); in apposition with alitem, which is the object of propulit, but we translate winged minister. The eagle clasping the thunderbolt is found on coins.

regnum: οἰωνῶν βασιλέα (Pind. Ol.13.21). Cf. Pyth. 1.7; Isth. 5.50. Bacchyl. 5.17 sqq. 'Sailing with supreme dominion through the azure deep of air.' --in. cf. on 3.1.5.--vagas: ἠεροφοίτους Cf. 3.27.16, vaga cornix,

permisit: Lex. s.v. II. B. 2.--expertus: etc., having found him faithful in (the case of).

4. Ganymede: cf. 3.20.16; Verg. Aen. 5.255; Tenn Pal. of Art, 'Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh| Half-buried in the eagle's down, | Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky | Above the pillar'd town.' The eagle is post-Homeric. Cf. Il.20.233-235.--flavo: cf. on 1.5.4.

olim: once. Olim, mox, nunc (11), mark the stages in the growth of the young eagle, which is, of course, no longer the particular bird that carried off Ganymede. First it essays its wings, then swoops down on the folds, then does battle with serpents.

propulit: 'gnomic' aorist of simile.

vernique: the fact that eagles are hatched in late spring and are not full-fledged till autumn need trouble us no more than Pindar's golden-horned doe, Keats' 'Stout Cortez' on Darien or his 'warm gules' in the moonlight, or the singing of Tennyson's female nightingale. Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, 1460. b. 31-33.--nimbis: storm-clouds (of winter).

nisus: sc. pennarum= labores, efforts. Cf. 4.2.3, nititur pennis, and Lucretius, 5.911, pedum nisus.

mox: 1.1.17; 2.1.10; 4.14.14.

vividus impetus: vigorous swoop.

dracones: snakes; serpentes would not fit the meter, and the poetical Greek word suggests the combat of eagle and snake in Homer (Il.12.200 sqq.). Cf. Verg. Aen. 11.751; Shelley, Revolt of Islam, 1.8.

laetis: luxuriant; 'laetas segetes' etiam rustici dicunt (Cic. de Or. 3.38). But there is a suggestion of the joy of the new-born flocks, as in Lucretius' pabula laeta (1.257).

fulvae matris ab ubere: from his tawny mother's udder, referring to the lion. For eagle and lamb, cf. Macaulay, Regillus, 15.

iam lacte depulsum: just weaned; the technical term. Cf. Verg. Ed. 7, 15; ἄθηλος.

peritura: it looks up . . . into the jaws of death. Cf. on 2.3.4.--Raetis: i.e. Raeticis. So Heinsius for Raeti of Mss. 'The Vindelici saw . . . at foot of Raetian Alps' is equivalent to 'the Vindelici and Raeti saw.'

quibus . . . omnia: I have deferred inquiring from what source （is) derived the immemorial (per omne tempus) custom (which) arms their right hands with Amazonian axe, lit., whence derived the custom . . . arms, deductus being a participle and unde mos obarmet a dependent question. This inopportune archaeological digression has been much discussed. It may be a mere failure of Horace's art, an attempted Pindarism, or, as has been conjectured, a sly allusion to some contemporaneous pedantry, e.g. in the Amazonis of Domitius Marsus. The scholiast is ready with a theory to accolint for the Amazonian battle ax in the hands of the Vindelici. Ovid calls Amazons securigeras puellas (Her. 4.117). Cf. Class. Dict. s,v. securis, and Xen. Anab. 4.4.16.

obarmet: coined by Horace.--sed: ~' o~", re sumptive.

consilus: Cicero renders στρατήγημα by consilium imperatorium,--revictae: long victrices, now defeated in their turn But cf. refringit, 3.3.28.

sensere: 2.7.10; 4.6.3.

rite . . . nutrita: go with both mens and indoles, mind and heart.

sub: cf. sub lare, 3.29.14.--penetralibus: cf. Velleius 2.94, innutritus (se. Tiberius) caelestium praeceptorum disciplinis.'

in: cf. 2.2.6. -Nerones: Neron's . . . quo sigrnficatur lingua Sabina fortis ac strenuus (Suet. Tib. 1).

Brave are the offspring of the brave and good. Not the brave are born of sires brave and good. Cf. Shaks. Cymbeline, 4.2, 'Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base'; Pindar, Pyth. 8.44; Plato, Menex. 237 A; Theog. 537. Fortis et bonus is a formula, cf. Epp. 1.9.13.

'Even the homely farm can teach us there is some-thing in descent' (Tenn. Locksley Hall Sixty Years After).

imbellem feroces: cf. on 1.6.9.

sed: concede what we will to nature, nurture too plays its part. Cf. Pind. 01.10.20; Eurip. Iph. Aul. 557; Cic. Tusc. 2. 5.13; Poet Archias, 15; Quintil. 2.19.2.

cultus: cf. Bacon's Georgics of the Mind; and Cic. Tusc. 2.5.13. -roborant: we say 'hearts of oak' but 'steel the breast.'

utcumque: when once. Cf. 1.17.10; 1.35.23; 2.17. 11.--mores: i.e. recta morum disciplina.

indecorant: Some editors read dedecorant; so Epist. 2. 1.245.--bene nata: what is good by nature; the neuter generalizes (ef. 1.34.12), but metrical conveulence may determine its use.

quid debeas: From this point on Horace celebrates the praises of the Claudian princes by recalling the famous achievement of their ancestor, C. Claudius Nero, to whose audacity the defeat of Hasdrubal at the river Metaurus B.C. 207 was mainly due. He, leaving half his army in camp before Hannibal in southern Italy, marched with the remainder the whole length of the peninsula to reinforce his colleague, M. Livius Salinator (ancestor of Drusus on the mother's side) to whom the northern province had been assigned, and returned victorious with the head of Hasdrubal before Hannibal had discovered his absence. See the spirited account in Livy, 27.43 sqq. ; Polyb. 11.1.

testis: cf. Catull. 64.357.--Metaurum flumen: somewhat differently, 2.9.21, Medum flumen.

Hasdrubal devictus: cf. on 2.4.10.

pulcher: cf. 4.2.47.

Latio: abl. with fugatis rather than dat. with risit.

risit: cf. 4. 11. 6. n.--adorea: victory; an archaic, metrically convenient, and sonorous synonym of victoria.

dirus: cf. 2. 12.2; 3.6.36.--ut: since. Cf. Epode, 7, 19. Ov. Trist. 4. 6. 19, ut patria careo bis frugibus area trita est.

ceu: only here in Horace.

equitavit: cf. 1.2.51. Afer is the grammatical, flamma or, rather, Eurus, the felt, subject. Cf. Eurip. Phoen. 211, Σικελίας Ζεφύρου πνοαῖς ἱππεύσαντος.

post hoc: Cicero (Brutus, 3) dates the turn of fortune from the battle of Nola, posteaquepros perae res deinceps multae consecutae sunt.--usque: cf. on. 1.17.4; 3.30.7.--secundis . . . laboribus: prosperous enterprises. For labor, cf. 4.3.3; and the Greek πόνος = battle; Il.6.77; Theog. 987.

pubes: 3.5.18.--crevit: waxed strong. Cf. 3.30.8. --impio: they pillaged the temples.

tumultu: of the distress and confusion of a home or border war. Horace slightly extends the technical force of the word as seen in tumultus Italicus, tumultus Gallicus. Cf. Cic. Phil. 8.1.

rectos: upright, and righted. Cf. deiecta simulacra; 1 Sam. 5.3, 'Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth . . . And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again.'

perfidus: perfidia plus quam Punica, Livy, 21.4.9. Cf. on 3.5.33; Livy, 9.3, Romano in perfidum Samnitem pugnanti; Martial, 4.14.4.

50 sqq. Cf. Livy, 27.51, Hannibal . . . agnoscere se fortunam Karthaginis fertur dixisse.--cervi: cf. Il.13.101 sqq.--lupo- rum: Macaulay, Horatius, 43, 'Quoth he, "The she-wolf's litter |Stands savagely at bay."'

ultro: beyond what is reasonable or natural, actually. Cf. Verg. Ecl. 8.52, nunc et ovis ultro fugiat lupus.--opimus suggests the technical spolia opima.

Slight oxymoron, as also is 53.--fallere: 1.10.16; 3. 11.40.

53 sqq. The central idea of the Aeneid, which everybody had been reading. Cf. Juno's complaint, 7.295, Num capti potuere capi, num incensa cremavit Troia viros? medias acies mediosque per ignes,| invenere viam. Cf. 3. 3. 40.--cremato fortis ab Ilio: bravely from the ashes of Ilium.

iactata: preferably with sacra. Gens is sufficiently described. Cf. iactatus, Aen. 1.3; Victosque Penatis, ibid. 1.67.

Cf. Thomson, Liberty, 'This firm Republic, that against the blast| Of opposition rose; that (like an oak,| Nursed on feracious Algidum, whose boughs| Still stronger shoot beneath the rigid axe) | By loss, by slaughter, from the steel itself |Even force and spirit drew.' He uses the same image in Rule Britannia, 'Still more majestic shalt thou rise,| More dreadful from each foreign stroke; |As the loud blast that tears the skies |Serves but to root thy native oak.'

nigrae: cf. on 1.21.7; Verg. Eclog. 6.54, ilice sub nigra. --Algido: 1.21.6; 3.23.9.

caedis is equally applicable to lopping a tree and cutting up an army.

This image applied to Rome is attributed to Cineas, the counselor of Pyrrhus, in Plutarch, Pyrrh. 19. Cf. also Flor. Epit. 1.18; Ov. Met. 9.74, crescentemque malo domui; Verg. Aen. 8. 300; Eurip. Here. Fur. 1274. The first symbolic literary use of the image is Plato, Repub. 426. E.

submisere: put forth; the Roman soldiers spring up like the fabled brood of the dragon's teeth sown by Jason at Colchi or Cadmus at Thebes. Cf. Lucret. 1.7, daedala tellus submittit flores.

Echioniae: (city) of Echion. Echion was one of the survivors of the Theban Dragon brood, and, by marriage with the daughter of Cadmus, ancestor of the Theban kings. Any person associated with a place in Greek mythology may supply tho Latin poet with a sonorous epithet for the place. Cf. 1.17.22, 23. n.

merses: hortatory (imperative) subj. as virtual protasis to evenit. For the word, cf. 3.16.13; Verg. Aen. 6.512; Lucan, 1.159, quae populos sem per mersere potentes.--profundo: abl. --evenit: used here in its primary etymological, not in its secondary sense. Cf. on 1.5.8; 3.11.27, pereuntis; 1.36.20, ambitiosior; 2. 1.26, impotens; 3.24. 18, innocens; Epode 17.67, obligatus; 3.3.51, cogere; 3.7.30, despice; 4.2.7, immensus? Epode 2.14, feliciores.

luctere: so Aristophanes boasts of the Athenians, that if they ever chanced to take a fall they wiped off the dust and denied it. Eq. 571-572.

multa . . . cum laude: amid loud acclaim. But cf. Catull. 64.112.

integrum: the victor would be unscathed, ἀκραιφνής,. --proruet: the shift to the fut. need trouble nobody.

coniugibus: either those Roman wives of the enemy, cf. Catull. 64.349, illius . . . claraque facta| Saepe fatebuntur gnatorum in funere matres; Il.8.157), or in fireside talks. Cf. Macaulay, Horatius, 70. For Roman constancy in defeat, cf. Livy, 9.3, ea est Romana gens quae victa quiescere nesciat; Livy, 27.14; Justin, 31.6.

Cf. the story in Livy, 23.12, of the three bushels of gold rings, taken from Roman knights, poured out on the floor of the Carthaginian senate.

Cf. Isaiah, 20.9, 'and he answered and said: "Babylon is fallen, is fallen" '; Dryden, Alexander's Feast, 'He sang Darius great and good | By too severe a fate| Fallen, fallen fallen, fallen, |Fallen from his high estate'; Tenn. Princess, 'Our enemies have fallen, have fallen.'

Closing reflections after the myth in Pindaric manner.

numine Iuppiter: 3.10.8.

curae: possibly, their own sagacity; more probably, that of Augustus balancing Jupiter, as often in the Augustan poets. Cf. also 4.14.33, te consilium.

expediunt: bring safely through; disengage. Cf. Verg. Aen. 2.633.--acuta belli: possibly metaphorically of dangerous rocks. But cf. subita belli, Livy, 6.32 ; 33.11, aspera belli; Tac. Hist. 2.77, 4.23, proeliorum incerta, fortuita belli; Homer, Il.4.352, ὀξὺν Ἄρηα. Also, Lucan, 7.684, prospera bellorum; Catull. 63.16, truculentaque pelagi.

Ode V

Too long absent, great guardian of the race of Romulus, restore the light of thy countenance to thy people, who yearn for thee as a mother longs for a son detained beyond seas by contrary winds. Bounteous harvests, seas freed from pirates, faith, chastity, justice at home, the barbarian cowed abroad,- such are the blessings of thy reign. After a busy day amo'ng his vines the husbandman pours his after-dinner libation to thee as to his household gods, and invokes thy name as grateful Greece invokes her mythic benefactors.

The three years following the defeat of Lollius by the Sygambri (B.C. 16; cf. 4. 2.36), Augustus spent in the West, partly with a view to restoring order in Gaul and Spain, partly, as was said (Dio, 55.19), in order, like Solon, to escape by absence the odium aroused by his measures of reform. In this care-fully polished official utterance the Poet Laureate expresses the loyalty of the growing class who gratefully recognized that 'l'empire c'est la paix.' Cf. Sellar, p.189, and Velleius, 2.89. The ode follows the praise of Drusus in 4, as 15 follows the praise of Tiberius in 14.

divis . . . bonis: abl. abs. (cf. Sat. 2.3.8, iratis natus dis); when the gods were kind. The birth of Augustus was a gift of boni divi (4. 2. 38).--Romulae: as adj. Cf. C. S. 47. But Catull. 34.22 has Romuli . . . gentem. The oblique cases of Rōmŭlus have to be replaced by those of Remus in hexameters, but he comes to his own in lyric.

custos: 1.12.49; 4.15.17.

sancto: august; a standing epithet of Senatus. Cf. Verg. Aen. 1.426.

lucem: the Homeric φάος. Cf. Aeschyl. Persae, 300; Verg. Aen. 2.281.--tuae: emphatic.--dux bone: cf. 37, and 3.14.7. He is the war-lord and captain to whom allegiance is due.

instar: usually of quantity, as in Vergil's instar montis equum.--veris: cf. Shelley, Revolt of Is. Ded. 7.2, 'Thou friend, whose presence on my wintry heart |Fell like bright spring upon some herbless plain.'

it dies: cf. 2.14.5, quotquot eunt dies.

soles: for poetry, as for Heracleitus, the sun is νέος ἐπ᾽ ἡμέρῃ. Cf. 4.2.46.

Editors cite, for the image, Oppian, Hal. 4.335. Kiessling suspects that the mother is substituted here for some lovelorn heroine (of Callimachus) waiting like Asterie (3.7) for her lover.

mater iuvenem: note juxtaposition ; the details may follow.--invido: so the river that keeps Ovid's lover from his tryst is 'invidious,' and the first rays of the dawn that is to sever Romeo and Juliet are 'envious streaks.'--Carpathii:1.35.8.

longius annuo: navigation has closed, and he must pass the winter in the East, as Gyges (3.7.5) in Oricum.

Cf. Livy, Pref. 13, cum bonis potius ominibus votisque et precationibus, etc. She makes vows, consults the omens, and offers prayers in her impatience.

curvo: winding, a standing epithet. Cf. Epode 10.21; Verg. Aen. 3.223, etc.

icta: ἱμέρῳ πεπληγμένος. Cf. Lucret. 2.360, desiderio perfixa iuvenci.--desideriis: pl. mainly metri causa.

quaerit: cf. 3.24.32. --patri Caesarem: cf. 9. 17 sqq. Cf. Ov. Fast., 1.701-704, Gratia dis domuique tuae, religata catenis| Iampridem vestro sub pede bella iacent.| Sub iuga bos veniat, sub terras semen aratas, |Pax Cererem nutrit, pacis alumna Ceres; Germanicus, Aratea, 9, Si non parta quies te praeside puppibus aequor| cultorique daret terras.

tutus: cf. 1.17.5.--perambulat: grazing in conscious security. Others, walks before the plough.

rura: the fields which. Horace repeats and dwells on the image with complacency. The contrast with the picture in Verg. G. 1.506-508 would flatter Augustus.--Faustitas: found only here. There was a Fausta Felicitas. Cf. Αὐξησία (Hdt. 5.82), Αὐξώ, and Θαλλώ.

pacatum: from pirates by defeat of Sextus Pompey, B.C. 36. Cf. Ant. and Cleop. 1.4, 'Menecrates and Menas famous pirates |make the sea serve them.' Augustus boasts (Mon. Ancyr. 5.1), mare pacavi a praedonibus. Cf. also Suet. Oct. 98; Epode 4. 19.--volitant: cf. Vergil's pelagoque volamus (Aen. 3. 124); Epode 16. 40; Catull. 4.5; Homer, Odyss. 11.125, 23.272; Hes. Op. 626; Verg. Aen. 1.224, mare velivolum; Lucret. 5.1442; Eurip. Tro. 1086; Hippol. 752; Aeschyl. Pers. 565; Prom. 468; Tenn In Mem. 9 ; Merchant of Ven. 1.1, 'As they fly by them with their woven wings,' etc.

metuit: cf. 3.11.10; 2.2.7.--fides: commercial, as in 3.24.59.

mos et lex: 3.24.35.--lex: the leges Iuliae de adulteriis et pudicitia (B. C. 18). Cf. C. S. 18-20.--edomuit: e, completely. 'The publication of the Ars Amandi a few years later, and the career of the two Julias, afford an impressive commentary on these lines' (Sellar, p. 155).

simili prole: for, or rather by, the resemblance of the child (to the father). Cf. Hes. Op. 235; Catull. 61.226, sit suo similis patri, etc.; Martial, 6.27.3; Shaks. Winter's Tale, 1.2; Pater, Marius, chap. 13.

premit: follows close upon. Punishment no longer limps with tardy foot (3.2.32). For premit comes, cf. Sat. 2.7.115.

Cf. 3.14.15; 4.15.17; and the fine epigram of Crinagoras (Anth. Pal. 9.291).

horrida: suggests Germany silvis horrida, Tac. Ger. 5 Cf. Verg. Aen. 9.382.

quos . . . fetus: the brood which; German fecundity. Cf. Milton's 'A multitude like which the populous North| Poured never, from her frozen loins to pass | Rhene or the Danau'; οὐδ᾽ ἢν Γερμανίη Ῥῆνον ἅπαντ᾽ ἐφίῃ (Crinagoras). --incolumi: 3.5.12.

Hiberiae: cf. on 2.6.2; 4.14.50.

condit: passes; cf. cantando . . . condere soles (Verg. Eclog. 9.52); Georg. 1.458; Munro on Lucret. 3.1088, condere saecla.--collibus: 1.20.12; Verg. Georg. 2.521-522, et alte mitis in apricis coquitur vindemia saxis.--suis: emphatic; his own vine and fig tree, as it were.

viduas: i.e. unwedded. Cf. on 2.15.4; Epode 2.10. --ducit: cf. 'or they led the vine| To wed her elm ; she spoused about him twines |Her marriageable arms' (Milton, P. L. 5); Catull. 62.49; Shaks. Corn. of Err. 2.2,' Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine'; F. Q. 1. 1.8, 'The vine-prop elm'; Gray's letters from Italy, 'Very public and scandalous doings between the vine and the elm trees, and how the olive trees are shocked thereat'; Juv. 8.78; Martial, 3.58.3, etc.--redit: sc. domum.

alteris . . . mensis: at dessert; 'across the walnuts and the wine.' This second course, mensae . . . secundae (Verg. Georg. 2.101), was prefaced by libations to the household Lares, with whom, by popular feeling and express decree of the Senate, Augustus' name was associated. Cf. Merivale, chap. 33; Dio, 51.19; Kirkland on Epist. 2.1.16; Ov. Fast. 2.633.

adhibet: cf. Verg. Aen. 5.62, adhibete Penatis . . . epulis.

te: for stylistic effect of the repetition, cf. 4.14.41 sqq. --prosequitur: honors.

defuso: cf. 1.31.2-3, de . . . fundens. For Latin concreteness here, cf. on 2.4.10.

miscet: unites.

The genitives are construed with numen, but felt also with memor. For the popular feeling towards Augustus, cf. further Epist. 2.1.16; Renan, Hibbert Lectures, p.15; Boissier, Religion Romaine, 1.141; Ov. Fast., 2.633 sqq.

o utinam: 1.35.38.--ferias: 'vacation' is peace.

Hesperiae: cf. on 2.1.32.--integro: when the day is still intact and wholly ours. Cf. Pater, 'Marius,' p.132, 'that youth the days of which he had already begun to count jealously in entire possession.'

sicci: 1.18.3.--uvidi: 1.7.22; 2.19.18; 3.21.9; Sat 2.6.70, uvescit; Sat. 2.1.9, irriguum.

Quiet close; cf. 4.2. 55-60. n.

Ode VI

A prelude addressed to the chorus of noble youths and maidens who were to sing the carmen saeculare (q.v.).

Apollo that didst punish Niobe and Tityos and overthrow even Achilles (4-12), who else would have left alive no child of Troy to found Rome under happier auspices (12-24), thou inspirer of the Grecian muse, uphold to-day the honor of Latin song. And you, noble maids, mark well the measure of this sacred chant. Happy matrons, one day you will boast that on the great festival day you learned and sang the strains of Horace the Bard.

Dive: lines 5-23 are a digression suggested by Achilles ; and the verb of the prayer is defende (line 27). Apollo slew Achilles and so made possible the escape of Aeneas and the founding of Rome.--proles Niobea: the children of Niobe; cf. Tenn. 'a Niobean daughter'; Il.24.608, 'for that Niobe matched herself against fair-checked Leto, saying that the goddess bare but twain, but herself many children: so they, though they (Apollo and Diana) were but twain, destroyed the others all'; Ovid, Met. 6. 135; Jebb on Soph. Antig. 823; Landor's Niobe; and the famous group of statues at Florence.

linguae: a big tongue is Greek for boastful tongue. Cf. Soph. Antig. 127; Verg. Aen. 10.547; Swinburne, Erechtheus; Dante (Purg. 12) cites Niobe among the examples of punita superbia. This moral significance of the myth was first emphasized in a lost play of Aeschylus. It was also represented in the reliefs carved on the throne of the Olympian Zeus. Horace had seen a Niobe group at Rome. Cf. Plin. N. H. 36.28, Par haesitatio est in templo Apollinis Sosiani Niobae liberos morientes Scopas an Praxiteles fecerit. The relation of this group to the one now at Florence is uncertain. Cf. Anth. Pal. 16.129-134. --Tityos: cf. on 2.14.8; 3.11.21; 3.4.77; Ody. 11.576; Pind. Pyth. 4.90. ---raptor: sc. Latonae. Cf. Λητὼ γὰρ ἥλκησε.

sensit: cf. 4.4.25.--prope victor: by slaying Hector (cf. on 2.4.11), who dying prophesies his death by the hand of Apollo (Il.22.359). Cf. Quint. Smyrn. 3.62.--altae: cf. 1. 16.18; Il.13.773, Ἵλιος αἰπεινή; Verg. Aen. 1.7; 1.95; 10. 469.

impar: cf. Verg. Aen. 1.475, impar congressus Achilli.

filius quamvis Thetidis . . . quateret: son of Thetis though he (was and) shook.--marinae: cf. 1.8.13; Pind. Nem. 3.35, ποντίαν Θέτιν.

tremenda: see its description, Il.16.140-144.

pugnax: participial effect of adj. Cf. Livy, 22.37.8, pugnacisque alias missili telo gentes; Simonides, αἰχμηταὶ πρὸ πόληος.

mordaci: cf. Macaulay, Regillus, 8, 'Camerium knows how deeply the sword of Aulus bites' ; Arnold, Strayed Reveller, 'They feel the biting spears |Of the grim Lapithae '; Shaks. Merry Wives, 2. 1, 'I have a sword and it shall bite upon my necessity'; Aeschyl. Sept. 399; Eurip. CycI. 395, πελέκεων ηνάθοις.--icta: Verg. Aen. 6.180, icta securibus ilex.

Cf. Il.5.560; 16.483; Macaulay, Horatius, 46,' And the great Lord of Luna| Fell at that deadly stroke |As falls on Mount Alvernus |A thunder-smitten oak' ; Catull. 64.105-109

impulsa: cf. Juv. Sat. 10.107, et impulsae praeceps immane ruinae.

late: Homer's μέγας μεγαλωστί(Od. 24.40); but the fallen tree is still present to the mind. Cf Verg. Aen. 2.466, Danaum super agmina late incidit; Macaulay, ut supra, 'Far o'er the crashing forest| The giant arms lie spread.'

ille non: cf. non ille (4.9.51). The stratagem of the Wooden Horse is familiar from Verg. Aen. 2.--Minervae: perhaps with both equo and sacra.

sacra mentito: which pretended to be an offering; Verg. Aen. 2.17, votum pro reditu simulant.--male feriatos: it was a luckless holiday for them. Cf. Aen. 2.248; Eurip. Tro. 516; Lang, Helen of Troy, 6.8 sqq.

falleret: virtually = the metrically inconvenient fefellisset.

palam: with captis, antithesis to falleret. He would have taken his enemies openly, not by stratagem .--gravis:βαρύς.--heu: 1.15.9, 19. --heu nefas: 3.24.30.

nescios fari: infantes; νήπια τέκνα(Il.22.63).

latentem, etc.: cf. Il.6.58.

ni: freely used in the Satires and by Vergil (Aen. 1.58). Elsewhere in odes, nisi.

vocibus: by the entreaties. --pater: cf. 1.2.2; 1.12.13; Verg. Aen. 1.254, 10.2.--adnuisset: vouchsafed; cf. on 3.1.8. Horace by this time knew the scene in Verg. Aen. 1.257.

rebus Aeneae: to the fortunes of Aeneas; cf. rerum (2. 17.4) and Vergil's res Troiae (Aen. 8.471).

potiore . . . alite: melioribus auspiciis. Cf. on 1. 15.5; and for thought, C. S. 41-44.

ductos: traced rather than built up. Cf. Verg. Aen. 1.423, ducere muros, and ducere vallum, etc.

Argivae: some read argutae, λιγείας Cf. on 3.14.21. The reading Argivae brings out more clearly the antithesis between the Greek Thalia and the Italian Camena. Horace is Romanae fidicen lyrae (4.3.23).

Cf. on 3.4.61. The Lycian Xanthus is meant.

Note alliteration.--Dauniae: 2.1.34.

lēvis: unshorn. Cf. on 1.21.2; Callim. Hymn Apoll. 36. --Agyieu: an epithet of Apollo, guardian of the ways (Aesehyl. Ag. 1081), used more for its pretty Greek sound than for the sense.

spiritum: cf. on 2.16.38.

poetae: elsewhere in Odes vates, etc.

He addresses the boys and girls who made up the chorus.

orti: 4.5.1.

tutela: wards; maids are Dianae . . . in fide (Catull. 34. 1). The word is passive here as in Ovid, Trist. 1.10. 1, flavae tutela Minervae. For active use, cf. 4.14.43; Juv. Sat. 14.112; Dekker's Lullaby, 'Care is heavy, therefore sleep you,| You are care, and care must keep you.'--fugacis: 2.1.19.

cohibentis: her shafts stay their flight. Diana has "a hand |To all things fierce and fleet that roar and range |Mortal, with gentler shafts than snow or sleep" (Swinburne). Callim. Hymn Dian. 16.

Lesbium: Sapphic. Cf. on 1.1.34.

pollicis: marking time or, perhaps, assuming the time described by Lesbium pedem, touching the lyre to guide the melody like Greek χοροδιδάσκαλος, to whom, in imagination, Horace likens himself.

rite: duly, meetly. It was a solemn function performed ex ritu maiorum.

crescentem: not of shape. Cf. Milton's 'Astarte, queen of heaven with crescent horns.'--face: light; Orph. Hymn, 9. 3, δᾳδοῦχε.--Noctilucam: ϝυκτιφαής. The archaic word hasa hieratic effect. Luna had a temple on the Palatine under the name. Cf. Varro, L. L. v.68.

prosperam: bringing prosperity to. Cf. C. S. 29, fertilis frugum. Connected with spes, as spero and old form speres show. Cf. spem mentita seges; Tennyson's 'lead through prosperous floods his holy urn' (In Mem. 9); and the 'prosperous flight' of Jeremy Taylor's lark.--pronos: swift; cf. 1.29.11; Tennyson's 'cherish my prone year' and his 'I heard the watchman peal the sliding season.'

volvere: cf. Verg. Aen. 9.7, volvenda dies; 1.269, volvendis mensibus.--mensis: cf. Shelley, Witch of Atlas, 4, 'the mother of the months' the moon; Hymn Orph. 9.5 (δῖα σελήνη）χρόνου μήτηρ φερέκαρπε; Catull. 34.17.

nupta: one, as often, represents the chorus, and the old teacher naturally addresses the girls of the class.--iam: with nupta, idiomatically; presently, i.e. you will soon find yourself already married and looking back on your girlhood. Not 'many years hence.' Cf. on iam, 4.4.14.

saeculo . . . luces: when the century brought back the festal days; cf. C. S. Introd.--referente: of. 3.29.20; C. S. 22.--luces: so 4. 16.25.

reddidi: rendered; cf. 4. 11. 35.--modorum: cf. on 1.15.24-25; 3.9.10.--docilis: trained in.

vatis: cf. on 2.6.24.

Ode VII

Spring is here once more. The seasons come and go, and come again; but man goes, and comes again no more.

For sentiment, of. 1.4. For Torquatus, of. Epp. 1.5. The date is not known.

There is a translation by Johnson.

diffugere: of. Verg. Aen. 2.399; and for expansion of metaphor, Wordsworth, 'Like an army defeated |The snow has retreated | And now doth fare ill| On the top of the bare hill.'--campis: 'whither' and 'for whom' dative blended.

comae: of. on 1.21.5; 4.3.11.

mutat . . . vices: undergoes her annual changes, -'the season's difference.' Mutat may be intransitive. For vices, cf. 1.4.1; Epode 13.8; and the imitations of later Latin poets in Orelli. Cf. Milton's 'rule the day in their vicissitude' and Gray's Ode on Vicissitude. Cf. also Rossetti, House of Life, 83, 'Once more the changed year's turning wheel returns'; Tenn., 'Once more the HeavenIy Power| Makes all things new.' --terra: tersa, the dry land.--decrescentia: subsiding, no longer nive turgidi (4.12.4).

praetereunt: not as in 1.2.19 or 4.2.6. So Jonson, Underwoods, 'The rivers in their shores do run,| The clouds rack clear before the sun.'

The three Graces. Cf. on 3.19.16 and 1.4.6. Spenser, Shepherd's Cal. 6.25.

immortalia: neuter plural for English abstract. So also in Homer.--monet: is the warning of; 1.18.8:--annus: the revolving year, περιπλόμενος ἐνιαυτός.--almum: kindly, cheerful. Cf. C. s.9; Verg. Aen. 5.64.

hora: cf. on 3.29.48.

The March of the Seasons is a favorite motif of Poetry. Cf. Lucret. 5.737; Ov. Met. 15.206; Claudian, 1. 269; Spenser, Mutability, 7.28; Shelley, Revolt of Islam, 9. 21; Tenn. In Mem 85; Herrick, 70, 'The Succession of the Foure Sweet Months'; Burns, Bonnie Bell, 'The flowery spring leads sunny summer,| And yellow autumn presses near,| Then in his turn comes gloomy winter, |Till smiling spring again appear.' Dobson, A Song of the Four Seasons.

Zephyris: of. on Favoni, 1. 4. 1.--proterit: tramples down; the heat destroys the vegetation of spring. Others translate, treads on the heels of; of. Romeo and Juliet, 1. 2, 'Such comfort as do lusty young men feel |When well-apparelled April on the heel| Of limping winter treads'; Tenn. Poets and Cities, 'Year will graze the heel of year'; supra. 2.18.15, truditur dies die.

interitura: cf. on 2.3.4.

pomifer: cf. 3.23.8; Epode 2.17. Keats' Autumn conspfres with the maturing sun 'To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees.'--effuderit: suggests the horn of plenty (Epist. 1.12.29, aurea fruges | Italiae pleno defundit Copia cornu. But fundo is regularly used by Lucretius of the production of crops. Cf. Verg. Georg. 2.460.

iners: cf. on 1.22.17; 2.9.5.

Cf. Arnold on Translating Homer, p.207, "'The losses of the heavens," says Horace, "fresh moons speedily repair; we, when we have gone down where the pious Aeneas, where the rich Tullus and Ancus are,--pulvis et umbra sumus." He never actually says where we go to; he only indicates it by saying that it is that place where Aeneas, Tullus, and Ancus are. But Homer, when he has to speak of going down to the grave, says definitely, "The immortals shall send thee to the Elysian plain."'

reparant: cf. Milton, Lycidas, 'So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, |And yet anon repairs his drooping head'; P. L., 'roses which the morn repaired'; Ov. Met. 1.11; Lucret. 5.666, solis reparare nitorem.

decidimus: cf. Epist. 2.1.36; Ov. Met. 10.18, where the word suggests the falling into the pit, abysm, or δασπλὴς Χάρυβδις (Simonides), of death.

quo pius Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus. Pius: his usual epithet in the recently published Aeneid. All his piety could not save him.--dives Tullus: for King Tullus' glory and wealth, cf. Livy, 1.31.--Ancus: a consecrated example. Cf. Epp. 1.6.27; Lucret. 3. 1023=Ennius, Ann. 151, lumina sis (suis) oculis etiam bonus Ancus reliquit.

pulvis: 'Two handfuls of white dust shut in an urn of brass' (Tenn.) ; Ἀίδα τὰν ὀλίγαν σποδιάν(Erinna).--umbra: in lower world, Verg. Aen. 6.264; Soph. Electra, 1159, σποδόν τε δαὶ σκιὰν ἀνωφελῆ; Anth. Pal. 5.85, ὀστέα καὶ σποδιή Herond. fr. 1.

quis scit: cf. on nescias an, 2.4.13; also 1.9.13; and for thought, Eurip. Alcest. 783; Sen. Thyest. 619; Herrick, 170. --summae: cf. 1.4.15.

So in Epist. 1.5.15, Horace tells Torquatus that it is folly to stint yourself for your heir. Cf. Persius, Sat. 6.60 sqq. For the 'heir' as a poetical memento mori, cf. on 3.24.62; 2.14.25. Horace was a bachelor.--amico animo: dat. Horace speaks as if the animus had an individuality distinct from that of the person to whom it belongs; it is represented here as being made friendly and contented by indulgence. Cf. indulgere genio, genio bona facere, φίλῃ ψυχῇ χαρίζεσθαι; Simon. fr. 85. 11; Aeschyl. Pers. 840. Cf. on 3.17.14.

semel: cf. on 1.24.16.--splendida: transferred from Minos, whose state is described Odyss. 11.568, to his august decrees. For Minos, cf. note on 1.28.9. --occideris: so Catull. 5.4, in Jonson's imitation, 'Suns that set may rise again| But if once (semel) we lose this light |'Tis with us perpetual night.' For sentiment here and supra (10-15), cf. also Ronsard, A Sa Maitresse, 'La lune est coustumiere |De nestre tous les mois: |Mais quand nostre lumiere | Est esteinte une fois,| Sans nos yeux reveiller |Faut long temps sommeiller'; Herrick, 337.3, 'We see the seas,| And moons to wain;| But they fill up their ebbs again: | But vanisht, man |Like to a Lilly-lost, nere can, |Nere can repullulate, or bring |His dayes to see a second spring,' etc. ; El. in Maecen. 113, redditur arboribus florens revirentibus| aetas et ver non homini quod fuit ante redit; Moschus, Epitaph. Bion. 109 sqq. ; Herrick, 185.

Cf. Martial, 7.96.5, quid species, quid lingua mihi quid profuit aetas; Landor, Rose Aylmer, 'Ah! what avails the sceptred race,| Ah! what the form divine!'

facundia: the lawyer's eloquence (Epist. 1.5.15) avails nothing at that bar. --pietas: cf. on 2.14.2; 1.24.11.

Hippolytus was the son of Theseus. His death was caused by the fury of a woman scorned,--his step-mother Phaedra, who, when repulsed, denounced him to his father. During his life he had been devoted to the service of Diana. --neque . . . liberat: this is the form of the myth in the Hippolytus of Euripides. In the legend followed by Vergil (Aen. 7.761 sqq.), Ovid (Met. 15.533 sqq.), and Browning (in Artemis Prologuizes), Diana restores him to life, and transfers him, under the name of Virbius, to her grove at Aricia.

valet: cf. on 1.34.12; 3.25.15.

Pirithoo: cf. on 3.4.80. Theseus, who shared P.'s punishment, was freed by Hercules, but could not free his friend. There were other versions of the legend. Cf. Frazer, Paus. 5. 381. Cf. Chaucer, Knightes Tale, 'So well they loved as olde bokes sain | That when the one was dead, sothely to tell | His felawe went and sought him down in hell.' These mythological examples merely exemplify the general truth, non te restituet.

Ode VIII

Marbles and bronzes are not mine to give, friend Censorinus, nor do you want them. In song thou delightest, and my present is a song.

'Who will not honor noble numbers when Verses out-live the bravest deeds of men?'

-Herrick.

C. Marcius Censorinus, consul B.C. 8, is known only by this poem--which thus fulfils its boast--and by Velleius' mention of him (2.102) as virum demerendis hominibus genitum.

Imitations by Jenyns, Johnson's Poets, 17.608, and by Mason, ibid. 18.418.

For the theme, cf. on 3.30 and 4.9; Cowley, Praise of Poetry; Martial, 10.2.9-12; Eleg. in Maecen. 37. Statius, Silvae, 5.1.1-10, expands the first few lines. Cf. also Propert. 4.1.57.

A great deal of literature has accumulated about this ode. The chief points which have appeared in the controversy are the following: (1) the apparent identification in ll.15-19 of Scipio Africanus Maior, who conquered Hannibal at Zama in 202 B.c., with Scipio Africanus Minor, who destroyed Carthage (incendia Karthaginis) at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 B.C. ; (2) the absence of caesura in the line non incendia Karthaginis impiae; and (3) the fact that the ode, which contains thirty-four lines, does not conform to "Meineke's canon," according to which the number of lines in all of Horace's odes is a multiple of four. Measures more or less heroic have been adopted by editors to remove these difficulties. For incendia the emendations impendia and stipendia have been suggested. Various omissions have also been proposed; e.g. ll.15 non-19 rediit and ll.28 and 33 by Lachmann and Haupt; 14-17 by Peerlkamp; 15-20 by Verrall. Bentley rejected l.17, in which he has been followed by some modern scholars (cf. Heinze in Berl. Phil. Wochen., XXVIII (1908), 1341). Lehrs rejected the whole ode, as does Gow. See Postgate's Corpus, Vol.1, p.227; Earle, Rev. de Philol. 29 (1905), 3O6 sqq. The results of Elter's elaborate treatise (Donarem Pateras, Bonn, 1907), so far as the interpretation of the poem is concerned, are negligible. The difficulties of the ode have indeed been much exaggerated. It is certainly unreasonable to omit verses in order to bring about conformity with a law of such doubtful validity as Meineke's alleged canon; and even in regard to the historical difficulty we may assume that Horace mingled the glories of the two Scipios and meant the phrase, eius qui domita nomen ab Africa, etc., to apply to both, as it conceivably may, regardless of the fact that Ennius did not live to sing the younger.

donarem: probably as presents on the occasion of the Saturnalia (Dec. 17-19).--commodus: if the gifts are grata, the giver is complaisant, préenant. Cf. Epp. 2.1.227; 1.9.9, Odes 3.19.12.

aera: vasa Corinthia, bronzes.

tripodas: cf. Pind. Isth. 1.18, 'And at the games they entered oftenest for the strife, and with tripods and caldrons and cups of gold they made fair their houses' (Myers); Hesiod, Works, 656; Homer, Odyss. 13.13.

ferres: i.e. auferres.--divite me scilicet: that is, if I were rich, protasis to donarem.--artium: works of art; so τέχνη frequently in Pausanias.

Parrhasius: the great painter of the close of the fifth century B.C. In an epigram in Athenaeus (12.543. C) he boasts that he had attained the limits of art.--Scopas: the great sculptor of the first half of the fourth century. protulit: created, invented. Cf. Tibull. 1.10.1, quis fuit horrendos primus qui protulit enses?

liquidis: suggests as complement the hard stone. Cf. 3.13.6. n.

ponere: represent; used both of painting and sculpture.

vis: i.e. I have not the power (to give them). Hederae vis (4.11.4), a quantity of, is not parallel.

egens: with res, he is rich and could buy them; with animus, his desires are not set on such 'curios.'

pretium dicere: tell the worth; a slight variation on pretium ponere or statuere, set a price, Sat. 2.3.23.

Not inscribed marbles, nor all the deeds of Scipio, confer so sure an immortality of fame as the Calabrian muse (of Ennius). For discussion of the passage, see last paragraph of the introduction to the ode.

'The marbles cut by the letters' is more plastic than the 'letters cut in or into the marbles' would be. There is a possible allusion to Augustus' design of setting up, in the portico of his Forum, statues of the great Roman generals, with inscriptions recounting their deeds. Cf. Suet. Octav. 31; Gell. N. A. 9. 11,

spiritus et vita: cf. Verg. Aen. 6.847, imitated in Macaulay's 'The stone that breathes and struggles, |The brass that seems to speak' (Proph. of Capys, 28).

celeres fugae: the abandonment of Italy or the flight from the field of Zama, or both. Editors query the force of the plural. The nom. sing. would not give the rhythm. Cf. celerem fugam (2.13.17; 2.7.9).

minae: cf. 4.3.8. The threats of ' Hannibal at the gates' of Rome were hurled back at Carthage by Scipio after Zama.

impiae: cf. 4.4.46.

Cf. Sat. 2. 1.66, qui duxit ab oppressa meritum Karthagine nomen; Milton, P. R., 'How he surnamed of Africa dismissed |In his prime youth the fair Iberian maid.'--eius: cf. on 3.11.18.

luc atus: a purposely low word. In Val. Max. 3.8.1, Scipio boasts that he has gained nothing from the subjugation of all Africa but a cognomen.

Calabrae Pierides: the Muse of Ennius, who was a native of Rudiae in Calabria. Nos sumus Romani qui fuvimus ante Rudini, he boasts. He had celebrated Scipio, both in his Annals and in a special poem.

chartae: so 4. 9.31.--sileant: transitive, cf 3. 19. 8 n

Iliae: cf. on 1.2.17.

puer: cf. 4.6.37.--invida: cf. on 4.9.33; 4.5.9.

Aeacum: cf. on 2.13.22.

virtus: his virtue. Cf. 3.2.21, and Pind. Isth. 8.24.--favor: popular acclaim. potentium: the power of which Corneille boasts when he cries to a young beauty, 'Vous ne passerez pour belle |Qu'autant que je l'aurai dit.' Cf. Shaks. Sonnet 55, 'Not marble, not the gilded monuments,| Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme.'

divitibus=beatis. Cf. 1.4.14. insulis: loc. abl. For Islands of Blessed, cf. on Epode 16.42.

Cf. Sellar, p.181. Horace is not careful to distinguish the immortality of mythical or imperial apotheosis, that of the 'choir invisible,' and that conferred by poetry. Cf. on 3.3. 9-12.

Cf. Bacchyl. 3.92. sic: i.e. by the power of song. Cf. hac arte, resuming what precedes, 3.3.9.

optatis: it was the goal of his striving. Cf. Epp. 2.3 412. So Hercules frequently points the moral in Pindar.

Cf. 1.3.2; 1.12.27.

quassas: cf. 1.1. 18.--33. Cf. 3.25.20.

vota . . . ducit: like interest and eripiunt is a concrete expression of the general idea of deification. Cf. Verg. Eclog. 5.79.

Ode IX

Scorn not the lyre! The Greek lyrists have their place after Homer. The heroes of Troy were not the first who loved and fought. Brave men were living before Agamemnon, but their fame is lost in the dark backward and abysm of time because they lacked the sacred bard. But my song shall guard thee, friend Lollius, from the iniquity of oblivion. Thine is a statesman's soul,--sagacious, steadfast, upright. Thou art the Stoic sage, consul not for one year only, but whenever the right prevails. Happy lie who uses wisely the gifts of heaven, and fears not poverty, or death for friends and fatherland.

M. Lollius, a trusted minister of Augustus, was consul in B.C 21, and governor of Gaul, where he was defeated by the Sygambri, B.C. 16. He died in the East, B.C. 1, while acting as tutor and adviser of the Emperor's grandson, Gaius Caesar. Velleius (2.97; 2.102) accuses him of cupidity and hypocrisy. There seems a note of loyal defiance in Horace's defense of his friend. But a man is not on oath in an ode any more than, according to Dr. Johnson, in a lapidary inscription. Velleius was possibly prejudiced by the dislike of his patron Tiberius for Lollius (Tac. Ann. 3.48; Sueton. Tib. 12.13).

The ode is partly translated by Pope. There is a deliciously naive imitation by Ronsard. Lines 35 to end are freely rendered by Swift, 'To Archbishop King.'

Cf. also Stepney, Johnson's Poets, 8.361; Somerville, ibid. 11. 192.

ne . . . credas: the purpose of the statements, non . . . latent, etc. Cf. on 1.33.1; 2.4.1.

longe sonantem: cf. 3.30.10; 4.14.25; Catull. 34.12, amniumque sonantum; Hes. Theog. 367; Aristoph. Clouds, 283; Lucret. 5.946; Il.18.576.

Cf. on 3.30. 13. There is a suggestion also of 3. 1.1-4.

socianda chordis: lyric, as distinguished from the ψιλά of epic poetry. Cf. Ronsard, A Sa Lyre, 'de marier aux cordes les victoires'; Epp. 2.2.86, verba lyrae motura sonum; ibid. 143, verba sequi fidibus modulanda Latinis.

non, si: cf. 3.15.7; 2.10. 17.--Maeonius: 1.6.2.

Ceae: 2.1. 38.--Alcaei: cf. on 1.32.5; 2.13.30. --minaces: 'what new Alcaeus fancy-blest |Shall sing the sword in myrtles drest?' (Collins, Ode to Liberty) ; 'Nor such the spirit-stirring note |When the live chords Alcaeus smote,| Inflamed by sense of wrong' (Wordsworth) ; 'L'audacieuse encre d'Alcée' (Ronsard).

Stesichori: a Greek poet of Himera in Sicily; a contemporary of Alcaeus; cf. on 1.16.- graves: epici carminis onera lyra sustinentem (Quintil. 10. 1.62). He treated long myths in lyric form, and is an important link, in the develop- ment of Greek legends, between Homer and Pindar.--Camenae: 2.16.38.

lusit: cf. on 1.32.2.--Anacreon: a Greek lyric poet, born at Teos, one of the lonian cities of Asia Minor; cf. 1.17. 18; Epode 14.10. Horace may be thinking of the Anacreontea, --pretty trifles bearing Anacreon's name but belonging to the Alexandrian period. They are known to English readers in Moore's version.

spirat adhuc amor: cf. her words in Swinburne's Anactoria, 'I, Sappho, shall be one with all these things, |With all high things forever . . . and . . . my songs once heard . . . cieave to men's lives.'

vivunt: cf. spiritus et vita (4.8.14).--commissi: i.e. 'with this key' Sappho unlocked her heart. Cf. Sat. 2.1.31, credebat libris.

Aeoliae puellae: Sappho; cf. on 2.13.24. Construe with fidibus.

Cf. on 3.3.25 and 1.15.20.

arsit probably governs crines directly; but we forget this flash of passion in the long admiring gaze that follows, and feel mirata with crines as well as with the other three accusations.

crinis: cf. 1.15.20.--illitum: cf. oblitus (Epp. 2.1. 204); Verg. Aen. 3.483, picturatos auri subtemine vestis; Milton, 'grooms besmear'd with gold.'

cultus: 1.8.16.

Helene Lacaena: i.e. the 'Heaven-born Helen, Sparta's Queen,' of song and story. Cf. Verg. Aen. 2.601; Ronsard, Au Sieur Bertrand, 'Hèléne Grecque estant gaignée,|D'une perruque bien peignée'; and, for the sentiment, Landor, 'Past ruined Ilion Helen lives, | Alcestis rises from the shades: |Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives |Immortal youth to mortal maids.'

Teucer: cf. 1.7.21. The best archer of the Achaeans (Il. 13.313). Cydonio: Cydonian, Cretan. Cydonia was a city of Crete. The Cretans were famous for their archery; cf. 1. 15.17.

non semel Ilios vexata (est): to be interpreted generically: not once only has a Troy been harassed. The reference is not to the various legendary sieges of Troy, but to the infinite possibilities of the unknown past. Many cities have been besieged and destroyed, but their stories are unknown to us because no poet has celebrated them. Cf. Plato, Laws, 676 B, 'and have not thousands upon thousands of cities come into being in this (boundless) time, and as many been destroyed?' Shelley, Queen Mab, II.; the final Chorus in Hellas; and Verg. Ecl. 4. 36.

ingens: 1. 7. 32. n.

pugnavit . . . proelia: cf. pugnata bella (3. 19. 4).

Idomeneus: leader of the Cretans in Homer. -- Sthene- lus: 1. 15. 24.

vel: = ve. Mainly metri gratia.

Cf. Andromache's lament for Hector (Il. 24. 729). Deiphobus was brother of Hector. Cf., Verg. Aen. 6. 494; Ronsard, naively, `Hector le premier des gendarmes.'

excepit: sustained. -- pudicis: 3. 5. 41; αἰδοίῃς (Il. 6. 250).

25. A familiar quotation. Cf. Byron, Don Juan, 1. 5, `Brave men were living before Agamemnon. . . . But then they shone not on the poets' page.' Cf. also, Ben Jonson's elaborate imitation, The Forest, 12; Boilean, Épître, 1; and, for the general idea, Sat. 1. 3. 107; Pind. Nem. 7. 12. For immortality of poetry, cf. further on 3. 30; 4. 8; Theognis, 237; Tibull. 1. 4. 65; Propert. 4. 1. 23; Theocr. 16. 48; Sappho, fr. 68, `Thou shalt die and be laid low in the grave, hidden from mortal ken | Unremembered, and no song of the muse waken thy name again. | No Pierian rose brightens thy brow, lost in the nameless throng, | Thy dark spirit shall flit forth like a dream, bodiless ghosts among.'

inlacrimabiles: passive here; active, 2. 14. 6. Cf. Wordsworth's `incommunicable sleep.'

urgentur: cf.on 1.24. 6; 1.4. 16.--longa: cf.3. 11.38; Propert. 3. 7. 24, nox tibi longa venit nec reditura dies.

sacro: cf. on 3. 1. 3; Lucan, 9. 980, O sacer et magnus vatum labor, omnia fato | Eripis, et populis donas mortalibus aevum.

Cf. Herrick, 460, `Vertue conceal'd (with Horace you'l confesse,) Differs not much from drowzie slothfulnesse.' Cf. also iners (3. 5. 36). Sepultae and celata are felt with both nouns.

non ego te: cf. on 1. 18. 11.

chartis: 4.8.21; Sat. 1.4. 36; 1.4. 139.--inornatum: proleptic.

labores is taken by some editors as a hint that his efforts were not achievements.

carpere suggests tooth of envy. Cf. 4. 3. 16.-- lividas: cf. 4. 8. 24; Shaks. `envious and calumniating time'; Temporum iniuria; `Soon | Oblivion will steal silently the remnant of its fame,' Shelley, Queen Mab; `The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy,' Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial.

est animus: for the turn of phrase, cf. Verg. Aen. 9. 205, est hic, est animus lucis contemptor, etc.

rerum prudens: cf. rerum inscitia (Epp. 1. 3. 33); rerum . . . prudentia (Verg. G. 1. 416).

dubiis: virtually adversis. -- rectus connotes both firm and upright. Cf. mentes rectae quae stare solebant (Ennius, Ann. 208).

He punishes cupidity in others and is abstinent himself. abstinens . . . pecuniae: cf. on 3. 27. 69 n.

ducentis ad se: the irresistible attraction of money. Cf. on 3. 16. 9; Epist. 1. 1. 52; and Vergil's auri sacra fames. --cuncta: 2. 1. 23; 3. 1. 8.

The Stoic sage was pedantically affirmed to be the only true consul or king. His judgment is supreme, not for one year only but always. Cf. on 2. 2. 21; 3. 2. 17. Popular etymology may help here, qui recte consulat, consul cluat. Cf. Martial, 4. 40. 4, pauper eras et eques sed mihi consul eras. `John Brad- shaw,' says Milton, `appears like a consul from whom the fasces are not to depart with the year; so that not on the tribunal only, but throughout his life, you would regard him as sitting in judgment upon kings.'

Confused lines, variously interpreted. Horace is shifting from animus to Lollius and from Lollius to the ideal sage, whose authority is displayed whenever he prefers the right and triumphs over wrong. Rendering iudex as a judge, we refer it explicitly to Lollius, who may have been a iudex selectus or may have exercised judicial functions in the senate. It seems best to make explicuit . . . victor the apodosis of quotiens praetulit (et) reiecit.

honestum . . . utili: honor . . . to expediency; the καλόν and συμφέρον of Greek ethics.--dona nocentium: i.e. bribes of the guilty.

The language is metaphorical. The upright man is represented as fighting his way like a soldier through bands of evil-doers. Cf. 3.5.51.--explicuit: cf. expediunt (4.4.76).

non . . . vocaveris: you would not rightly call blessed. The thought of 2.2.17-20. Cf. SeIlar, p.167; Epist. 1.16.20.

occupat: cf. on 1.14.2; 4.11.21.

callet: cf. on 1.10.7. --pauperiem pati: 1.1.18.

peiusque leto: cf. on 1.8.9; Epp. 1.17.30, cane peius et angui.

non ille: cf. 3.21.9; Verg. Aen. 5.334, 6.593; ille non (4.6.13).

Cf. 3.19.2; 3.2.13.

Ode X

To the beautiful boy Ligurinus (cf. 4.1.33). Youth's a stuff will not endure.

For the vein of sentiment, cf. Anth. Pal. 12.186, 12.35, and Shakspere's Sonnet, 'When forty winters shall besiege thy brow.' and his 'Look in thy glass and tell that face thou viewest.' Old translation in Musarum Deliciae, Vol. I. p.181.

muneribus: Homer's gifts of Aphrodite (Il.3.54).

insperata: unexpected.--pluma: apparently down, of the first beard. Bentley's bruma would be prettily illustrated by Heine's 'Es liegt der heisse Sommer Auf deinen Wängelein; Es liegt der Winter, der kalte, In deinem Herzchen Klein. Das wird sich bei dir ändern, Du Vielgeliebte meins! Der Winter wird auf den Wangen, Der Sommer in Herzen sein' (Nauck).

umeris involitant: the long hair usualiy shorn on the assumption of the toga virilis (cf. Juv. 3.186). Cf. 3.20.14; 2.5.23; Epode 11.28; and Pindar's Jason, Pyth. 4.82, 'nor were the bright locks of his hair shorn from him, but over all his back ran rippling down.'--deciderint: i.e. under the scissors.

flore . . . rosae: cf. on 3. 29. 3.--est . . . prior: outvies.

Some editors read Ligurine, taking verterit as intransitive. --hispidam: cf. on 2.9.1; the opposite of lēvis, 4.6.28.

speculo: by means of=in. Cf. Lais' 'dedication of her mirror,' Anth. Pal. 6. 1.--alterum: changed; cf. Ronsard, 'Jeune beaué, mais trop outrecuidée| Des presens de Venus,| Quand tu voirras ta peau toute ridée| Et tes cheveaux chenus,|Contre le temps et contre toy rebelle, Diras en te tançant:| Que ne pensois-je alors que j'estois belle |Ce que je vay pensant?' Cf. also Auson. Ep. 13.5; Herrick, 62, 164.

incolumes: fresh, unwrinkled. Cf. Shaks. Son. 68, 'Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.'

Ode XI

Come, Phyllis, and help me keep Maecenas' birthday, dearer than my own. Telephus is a youth out of thy star. Fling away ambition; by that sin fell--Phaethon and Bellerophon. Come, last of my loves, and learn a song to drive dull care away.

Cf. the motif of 3.28.

Maecenas was out of favor at court, during the last years of his life, and is not elsewhere mentioned in this book devoted especially to Augustus.

Albani: in Sat. 2.8.16, Maecenas is given his choice of Albanian or Falernian. Cf. Juv. 13.214, Albani veteris pretiosa senectus.

nectendis: dat. of purpose. Cf. gerundive in legal expressions (A. G. 505. b; G. L. 429).--apium: cf. 1.36.16; 2. 7.24. But see Sargeaunt, Class. Rev. 16.121.

vis=copia is Ciceronian. Nauck doubts multa vis, and construes multa with fulges.

qua: with fulges only.--religata: cf. 2. 11. 24. --fulges: present of fulgeo rather than future of fulgo.

ridet: cf. Il.19.362; Hes. Theog. 40; Lucret. 2.326, aere renidescit tellus, Catull. 64. 284; Milton's 'pleased with the grateful smell, old ocean smiles'; splendet (Epist. 1.5.7). --ara: of turf, caespite vivo.

verbenis: cf. on 1.19.14.--avet: faint personification.

spargier: archaic inf. pass. only here in odes. In Sat. 1. 2.35, 78; 2.8.67; Epist. 2.1.94; 2.2.148.

manus: band; as Verg. Aen. 6.660. Cf. 3.6.9. Cf. the bustle of preparation for the guest in Juv. 14.59.

cursitant: developing festinat.--pueris: dat.

sordidum: sooty, αἰθαλόεντα.--trepidant: bicker, quiver with eagerness; personifying, as avet.

rotantes vertice: whirling in eddies. Cf. Homer's ἑλισσομένη περὶ καπνῶ (Il.1.317); Apoll. Rhod. 1.438, λιγνὺν|πορφυρέαις ἑλίκεσσιν ἐναίσιμον ἀίσσουσαν Lucret. 6.202; Milt. P. L. 6, 'smoke to roll | In dusky wreaths reluctant flames;' Herrick, 871.18, 'And (while we the gods invoke), |Reade acceptance by the smoake.'

ut tamen noris: cf. Epp. 1. 12.25, ne tamen ignores.

Idus: thought to be derived from iduare, to divide; cf. findit.

Veneris marinae: cf. 1.4.5; 3.26.5.

Aprilem: perhaps, because of false etymology, ἀφρός, Ἀφροδίτη.

sollemnis=anno redeunte festus (3.8.9).--mihi: more closely with sanctior. Cf. Tibull. 4.5.1, qui mihi te, Cerinthe, dies dedit hic mihi sanctus| atque inter festos semper habendus erit.

"'This is the birthday of Maecenas,' is expressed by words which should mean "from this day forth Maecenas revises the calendar,"' says Tyrrell captiously (Latin Poetry, p. 197).

adfluentis: the years that flow to us on the stream of time; not quite the venientes anni of A. P.175. Cf. Tennyson's 'There's somewhat flows to us in life'; Persius, Sat. 2. 1-2, Hunc, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo| qui tibi labentis apponit candidus annos. Or it may be the rich or bounteous years.

Telephum: cf. 1.13.1; 3.19.26.--occupavit: cf. on 1.14.2.

non tuae sortis: of a higher station in life, with juvenem.

grata compede: cf. 1.33.14.

The tone is mock heroic.

ambustus Phaethon: cf. ἡμιδαὴς Φαέθων (Apoll. Rhod. 4.598); Catull. 64.291, flammati Phaethontis. Shakspere also uses the myth to symbolize a too ambitious love: 'Why, Phaeton (for thou art Merop's son), Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car, And with thy daring folly burn the world? Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?' (Two Gent.3.1). Cf. Rich. II.3.3, 'Down? Down I come; like glistering Phaeton Wanting the manage of unruly jades'; Marlowe, 'Clymene's brain-sick son |That almost brent the axle-tree of heaven'; Ov. Met. 2.1-328.

Bellerophonten: cf. on 3.12.8; 3.7.15. Pindar first made the myth a symbol of vaulting ambition (Isth. 6. 44): 'Thus did winged Pegasus throw his lord Bellerophon, when he would fain enter into the heavenly habitations and mix among the company of Zeus. Unrighteous joyance a bitter end awaiteth.' Pegasus opened the fountain Hippocrene with his hoof, and is called Πειρηναῖς Πῶλος by Eurip. (El. 475). This and Persius' Prologue would readily suggest the conception of him as the poet's steed. It has not been traced back of the Spanish poet Juan del Enzina, who uses it in a poem of the year 1497. See Mustard, Modern Language Notes, 23 (1908), p.32. Spenser has it (Ruins of Time): 'Then who so will with virtuous deeds assay |To mount to heaven on Pegasus must ride,|And with sweet poets' verse be glorified.'

semper ut . . . vites: this is pure prose, with all the logical links exposed. Exemplum praebet=monet . . . ut sequare . . . et putando=putans . . . (ut) vites. For the form, cf. Pindar, Pyth. 4.90, 'Yea, and the swift shaft of Artemis made Tityos its prey in order that men may set their desires on permitted loves.' For the general sentiment disparem vites, ef. the proverbial κηδεῦσαι καθ᾽ ἑαυτόν of the Greek (Aesehyl. Prom. 890).

putando: for this use of the abl. of gerund, cf. A. G. 507; G. L. 431. n. 3; Cf. also Propert. 1.1.9; 1.4.1.

finis: cf. Propert. 1.12.20, Cynthia prima fuit, Cynthia finis erit.

calebo: cf. 3.9.6; 1.4.19.

condisce: cf. on 3.2.3.--modos: this ode, or any other song.

reddas: of. 4.6. 43.--atrae: cf. 3.1.40; 3.14.13.

Ode XII

The swallow and the spring zephyrs are here again. 'Tis a thirsty season. Come, Vergilius, and quaff a cup with me. But you must pay for your wine. An alabaster box of your precious nard will lure forth a cask from the Sulpician cellars. Come, let be the pursuit of gain, forget the funeral pyre. 'Tis sweet to relax in season.

The phrases juvenum nobilium cliens and studium lucri hardly fit Vergil the poet, who, for the rest, had been dead six years when this book was published. The scholiasts sagely conjecture that an unguentarius, a mercator, or medicus is meant. A physician dispensed his own drugs and would charge well for the precious nard.

There is a translation by Lord Thurlow. For the spring motif, cf. 1.4 and 4.7. For the jocose invitation, cf. Catull. 13. Cf. also Herrick, Hesperides, 643, 'Fled are the frosts and now the fields appear| Reclothed in fresh and verdant Diaper.| Thaw'd are the snowes and now the lusty spring |Gives to each Mead a neat enameling.| The palms put forth their Gemmes, and every Tree |Now swaggers in her Leavy gallantry.| The while the Daulian Minstrell sweetly sings With warbling rotes, her Tyrrean (qy. Terean?) sufferings'; Anth. Pal. 9. 363, 10.5, 10.14, and passim; Sellar, p.197.

Iam: cf. Catull. 46.1, Iam ver egelidos refert tepores; Anth. Pal. 9.363.9, ἤδη δὲ πλώουσιν ἐπ᾽ εὐρέα κύματα ναῦται|πνοιῇ ἀπημάντῳ Ζεφύρου λίνα κολπώσαντος.--temperant: soothe, calm. Cf. on 1.12.16; 2.16.27; 3.4.45,

impellunt: of. Tenn. Maud, 'when the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a softer clime'; Seneca, Thyest. 126, nives . . . aestas veliferis solvit Etesiis.--Thraciae: of. 1.25. 11; Epode 13.3. Probably the Zephyrs are meant, Homer (Il.9.5) makes both Zephyr and Boreas blow from Thrace and Zephyrus, as the parallel passages show, is the conventional spring wind. Cf. Lucret. 1.11; 5.737-738; Chaucer, Prologue, 5, .

prata: cf. 1.4.4,--rigent: rigidum Niphaten, 2.9.20. fluvii:4.7.3-4 --strepunt: cf. on 3.30.10.

Cf. on 4.7.34,

Itys was the son of Tereus, a Thracian king and Procne, an Athenian princess, Pretending that Procne was dead Tereus betrayed Philomela, her sister, When Procne heard this, she killed Itys and served him up at Tereus' table. Procne and Philomela then fled and were only saved from' Tereus' vengeance by transformation into birds. According to one form of the myth Procne became a nightingale, Philomela a swallow; according to another, Procne became a swallow and Philomela a nightingale, Tereus himself was changed into a hoopoe, Ovid, Met. 6.424 sqq. ; Matthew Arnold's Philomela; Swinburne's Itylus; and the allusive summary of the tale in the spring chorus in 'Atalanta,' 'And the brown bright nightingale amorous |Is half assuaged for Itylus| For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, |The tongueless vigil and all the pain.'

It is probable that Horace adopts the second form of the legend and that the bird which moans for Itys is the swallow. For though Sappho calls the nightingale, in Ben Jonson's paraphrase, 'the dear good angel of the spring' (ἦρος ἄγγελος ἱμεροφωνος ἀηδών), the swallow is the regular poetical harbinger of spring. Cf. Homeric(?) Εἰρεσιώνη; Hes. Works 564; Simon. fr. 74; Aristoph. Eq. 419; the popular song; ἦλθε, ἦλθε, χελιδών; Hor. Epist. 1. 7. 13, cum zephyris . . . et hirundine prima ; the proverb, 'one swallow does not make a spring,' Aristotle, Eth. 1.7.16; Ovid, Fasti, 2.853, veris praenuntia ; Anth, Pal, 10.14, 5, οἱ ζέφυροι πνείουσι ἐπιτρύζει δὲ χελιδών|κάρφεσι κολλητὸν πηξαμένη θάλαμον; Verg. Georg. 4.306; in Gray's Ode to Spring, 'The Attic warbler pours her throat'; Cicero's λαλαγεῦσαν ad Att. 9.18.

et connects infelix and opprobrium.--Cecropiae: Attic; cf. on 2.1.12. Procne and Philomela were the daughters of Pandion, the third mythical king of Athens.

male: i.e. with excessive cruelty.

regum: the plural generalizes. Cf. on 3.27. 38.

dicunt: sing. Cf. on 1.6.5.--tenero: it is early spring 'when all the wood stands in a mist of green | And nothing perfect' (Tenn.). Later it would be in tenaci gramine (Epode 2.24).

fistula: cf. on 1.17.10; abl. instr.

deum: Pan; cf. Verg. Ed. 10.26, Pan deus Arcadiae; ibid. 2.33, Pan curat oves oviumque magistros.--nigri: cf. on 1.21.7.

placent: cf. C. S.7.

pressum Calibus: cf. on 1.20.9; 1.31. 9.--ducere: cf. 1.17.22.

iuvenum nobilium: patrons with whom Vergil sometimes dined.

merebere: fut.=colloquial imperative.--nardo: cf. on 2.11. 16.--vina: cf. on 1.18.5.

eliciet: suggests personification. Cf. 2. 11. 21 and descende (3.21.7).

We can only guess whether Horace bought or stored his wine at the Sulpician vaults or storehouses, which later scholiasts and inscriptions place at foot of the Aventine ; see Platner, Topography of Ancient Rome, 397.

donare . . . largus: cf. Intr., p. xv, note b.

amara . . . curarum: cf. on 4.4.76. For thought, cf. 3.21.17.

gaudia: cf. 4.11.14.--properas: not physical hurry. Cf. Sat. 1.9.40; Epp. 1.3.28.

merce continues the jest of merebere, if it is a jest.--non ego te: cf. 1.18.11; 4.9.30; 1.23.9.

immunem: ἀσύμβολον, 'without paying your scot.' Cf. Ter. Phorm. 339; Epist. 1.14.33, immunem Cinarae placuisse rapaci.

tinguere: soak; cf. Alcaeus' τέγγε πνεύμονας οἴνῳ, madidus, irriguus mero, 'a wet night,' and similar phrases. --plena: cf. 2.12.24.

verum: only here in odes.--pone moras: cf. 3.29. 5, eripe te morae.

Cf. Lucretius, 3.913-915; and Tennyson, Maud, '0, why should Love, like men in drinking songs, |Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death?'--nigrorum . . . ignium: the fires of the funeral pyre are conventionally 'dark.' Cf. Verg. Aen. 11.186; 2.3. 16, fila atra; Lucretius, 2. 580, funeris atri.--memor: cf. Sat. 2.6.97; Martial, 2.59.4.--dum licet: cf. Sat. 2.6.96; Epist. 1.11.20; also, Odes, 2.3.15-16; 2.11.16.

consiliis: dat. For thought, cf. 3.28.4.

A familiar quotation, 'A little nonsense now and then |Is relished by the wisest men.'--in loco: in season; e)n kairw=|. Cf. Ter. Adelph. 216, pecuniam in loco neglegere.

Ode XIII

The old age of the wanton. The unpleasant theme of 1. 25 and 3.15. For the motif, cf. Anth. Pal. 5.21, 5.27, 5.271, 5. 273; and Swinburne, 'The Complaint of the Fair Armouress,' after Villon

There is an imitation by Gilbert West in Dodsley's Poems, 2, p.318.

Lyce: perhaps meant for the Lyce of 3.10, though line 21 is against it. For anaphora, cf. 3.5.18; 3.11.30; 4.6.37.

vota: i.e. devotiones, imprecations, as 2. 8.6.

ludis: cf. on 2:12.19; 3.15.5.

pota: cf. 3.15.16 n.

virentis: cf. 1.9.17; and, for contrast with aridas (9), cf. on 1.25.17-19.--et: cf. 3.11.15.

doctae: cf. 3.9.10--Chiae: cf. Delia and Lesbia, like-wise named from places.

excubat: keeps watch; cf. 3.16.3.--in genis: cf. Jebb on Soph. Antig. 783; Rom. and Jul. 5.3, 'beauty's ensign yet| Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks.'

importunus: a vague word; not conducive, distressful, ruthless. Cf. 3.16.37, and F. Q. 2.6.29, 'And with importune outrage him assailed.'--aridas: cf. on 2.11.6.--transvolet: Ἔρως . . . παρπέταται (Callim. Ep. 32).

luridi: cf. livido dente (Epode 5.47).

te: with turpant.

capitis nives: Quintil. 8.6.17, censures the image as far-fetched, sunt et durae, id est a longinqua similitudine ductae translationes ut capitis nives. Cf. Anth. Pal. 6.198, πολιῷ γήραι νιφόμενον; Catull. 64.309, niveo . . . vertice; Ronsard, 'Ja cinquante et six ans ont neigé sur ma teste ' ; Carew, 'or if that golden fleece must grow | Forever free from aged snow'; Donne, 'Ride ten thousand days and nights |Till age snow white hairs on thee'; Tenn. Pal. of Art, 'A hundred winters snowed upon his breast| From cheek and throat and chin' ; Herrick, 164, 'And time will come when you shall weare |Such frost and snow upon your haire.'

Coae: a costly gauzy silk affected by the demi-monde and often alluded to by Roman poets. Cf. Sat. 1.2. 101; Tibull. 2.3.56.

cari lapides: Sc. gems. Cf. Ovid, A. A. 3.129, cans aures onerata lapillis. Others read clari.--semel: cf. on 1.24.16. --notis: known and accessible to all.--condita: laid away, recorded.

volucris dies: cf. 3.28.6; and Eurip. Troad. 847, τᾶς λευκοπτέρου ἁμέρας.

venus: charm, grace.

illius: of her; for the repetition, cf. 3.26.6.

spirabat: cf. on 4.9.10.

surpuerat: surripuerat, syncope. Cf. on 1.36.8 and Sat. 2.3.283. For thought, cf. Catull. 51.6, eripit sensus mihi; and, on a higher plane, Tennyson's 'Smote the chord of self that trembling passed in music out of sight.'

The meaning seems to be, happy (as a reigning belle) next to Cinara (cf. on 4.1.4) and a face (beauty, aspect, "vision of delight") well known, too, for arts of pleasing. For genitive, cf. on 2.2.6.

servatura: cf. on 2.3.4.

cornicis: cf. on 3.17.13.--ut: we need not distinguish purpose and result.--fervidi: 'Let temple burn or flax: an equal light |Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed: | And love is fire' (Sonnets from the Portuguese, 10). But Lyce is a burned-out torch, δαλός(Anth. Pal. 12.41). Cf. Tenn. Mer- lin and Vivien, 'the lists of such a beard |As youth gone out had left in ashes'; Shaks. Rom. and Jul. 4.1, 'The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade| To paly ashes.'

non sine: cf. on 1.23.3

dilapsam: crumbled to; delapsam would mean fallen into the ashes.--in cineres: cf. Vergil's considere in ignis (Aen. 2. 624; 9.145).

Ode XIV

Augustus, first in war. Under thy auspices Drusus has overthrown the fierce tribes of the Alps, and Tiberius descended upon the Raeti as Auster descends on the storm waves or Aufidus in flood time on the fertile fields. For three lustres, since the day when Alexandria opened to thee her harbor and her deserted palaces, fortune has crowned with success all they campaigns. All the peoples of the earth bow beneath thy yoke, from India to Britain, from the Nile to the Tigris and the Danube.

For the events alluded to, cf. 4.4. Intr and Sellar, pp.156-157. There is an imitation, in the form of an ode to Queen Anne, in Dodsley's Poems, 1, p.69.

Poetic variation of the official formula, Senatus populusque Romanus.

plenis: iustis, adequate.--honorum: magistracies.

in aevum: forever; cf. on 3.11.35-36; Epist. 1.3.8.--Auguste: cf. on 1.2.52; 3.3.11; 3.5.3.

titulos: inscriptions. Cf. notis publicis (4.8.13).--memoresque fastos: recording annals; cf. on 3.17.4; Claudian, 1.279, Longaque perpetui ducent in saecula fasti.

aeternet: perpetuate; ae(vi)ternet (with aevum as ludum ludere, 3.29.50), a rare archaic word. Cf. F. Q. 1.10.59, 'in the immortal book of fame to be eternized'; Milton, 'their names eternize here on earth'; Dante, 'Come l' uom si eterna.'

habltabilis . . . oras: ἡ οἰκουμένη.

maxime principum: i.e. maxime princeps. Cf. on 1.2.50.

quem . . . didicere . . . quod . . . posses: the Greek construction, 'I know thee who thou art.' Cf. Tennyson's 'Hast thou heard the butterflies, |What they say between their wings?'

legis expertes: i.e. as yet unsubdued.

didicere: cf. 4.4.25, sensere.

Drusus: son of Livia and step-son of Augustus. -- Genaunos: one of the tribes of the Raeti. They lived in the valley of the Inn.--implacidum: first found here.--genus: cf. Verg. Aen. 4.40, Hinc Gaetulae urbes, genus insuperabile bello.

Breuni: a Raetian tribe. Their name survives in the "Brenner Pass."

Cf. Crinagoras, Anth. Pal. 9.283.

impositas: 3.13.14; Sat. 1.5.26; Epist. 2.1.253.

deiecit: a slight zeugma with Breunos and arcis. Cf. Epist. 2.2.30, praesidium regale loco deiecit.--plus vice simplici: with more than simple requital, i.e. inflicting heavier loss than he suffered. For plus, cf. Lex. s.v. multus II. A. δ. for vice, cf. on 1.28.32.

maior Neronum: Tiberius, brother of Drusus and afterwards emperor (A.D 14-37.). His name is not mentioned here because it is a nomen, 'quod versu dicere non est.' Cf. on 4.4.28; Cons. ad Liviam, 149, Nec quom victorem referetur adesse Neronem, |Dicere iam potero 'maior an alter adest' ? --mox: the attack of Tiberius from the north came a little later. Cf. the description of the campaign in Vell. 2.95, and Dio, 54. 22.

immanis: cf. 3.4.43; 3.11.15. For their cruelty, cf. Strabo, 4.6.8.

spectandus . . . fatigaret: cf. on 7-10.

Note absence of normal caesura. Cf. 1.37.14.

devota: cf. 3.4.27; 3.23.10; Wordsworth, 'the guardian Pass, | Where stood, sublime, Leonidas |Devoted to the tomb.'--morti . . . liberae: death in freedom's cause.

indomitas: slightly personifies the waves. Literally, the Raeti were not 'unsubdued,' but their tempers were as tameless as the waves.--prope seems a rather prosaic limitation. Cf. Sat. 2.3.268; Epist. 2.2.61 (?). Perhaps Horace is trying to reproduce the Greek σχεδόν τι.--qualis . . . Auster: like Auster when.

exercet: frets; cf. Epod. 9.31; Milt. P. L. 2, 'Pain of unextinguishable fire |Must exercise us without hope of end.'--Auster: cf. 3.3.4.--choro: cf. Propert. 4.5.36, Pleiadum spisso cur coit igne chorus.

scindente nubis: cf. Tennyson's 'When |Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades | Vext the dim sea.'

impiger . . . vexare: cf. on 4.12.19,

vexare: cf. 3.2.4.--turmas: cf. 2.16.22.

per ignis: the fires of the burning villages, if the fire of battle is thought too sudden a plunge into metaphor. Bentley read per ensis, Cf. Silius, 14.175, per medios ignis mediosque per ensis.

Cf. Macaulay, Regillus, 36, 'So comes the Po in flood-time |Upon the Celtic plain'; Iliad, 5.87 sqq.

tauriformis: ταυρόμορφος. Cf. triformis (3.22.5). For the most part Horace avoids the picturesque compounds of Greek and early Latin poetry. Diespiter (1. 34. 5), noctilucam (4.6.38), homicidam (Ep. 17. 12) are archaic or legal. Naufragus, locuples, and sacrilegus were in common use. Otherwise he does not often venture beyond compounds with numerals or prepositions, e.g. centimanus (2.17.14). Greek art and poetry represent the genii of rivers with head and horns of a bull,symbolizing, perhaps, the roar of the rushing stream. Cf. Il.21.237, μεμυκὼς ἠύτε ταῦρος; Verg. Georg. 4.371; Jebb on Soph. Trach. 507.--Aufidus: cf. 3.30.10; 4.9.2.

Dauni: cf. 1.22. 14; 3.30. 11.--praefluit: cf. on 4.3.10. It is on the boundary.

diluviem: cf. 3.29.40.--meditatur: plans; some Mss,, minitatur.

Claudius: Tiberius. Cf. on 14, supra, and Epist. 1. 3.2.

Cf. Homer's ἔρρηξε φάλαγγας and Tennyson's 'clad in iron burst the ranks of war,'

ferrata probably refers to the use of mail (cf. Tac. Ann 3.43.3).

metendo: cf on 4. 11.30. For image, cf. Il.11.67, 19.223; Catull. 64.353-355; Verg. Aen. 10.513; Aeschyl. Suppl. 637; Gray, The Bard, 'And thro' the kindred squadrons mow their way' ; Macaulay, Regillus, 23, 'Like corn before the sickle | The stout Lavinians fell'; Swinburne, Erectheus, 'Sickles of man-slaughtering edge| Ground for no hopeful harvest of live grain'; Shaks. Tro. and Cress. 5.5, 'And there the strawy Greeks ripe for his edge |Fall down before him like the mower's swath.'

stravit: cf. 3.17.12.--sine clade: maiore cum periculo quam damno Romani exercitus (Vell. 2.95.2). Cf. Shaks. Much Ado, 1.1, 'A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home fuil numbers.'

I.e. (ductu) atque auspiciis tuis. Cf. on 1.7.27.

quo die: from the day when, rather than on the anniversary of the day. Alexandria was taken and the civil wars ended B.C. 30, in the month Sextilis, to which the name Augustus was given by decree of the Senate B.C. 8.

vacuam: cf. on 1.37.25. Abandoned by Cleopatra.

lustro . . . tertio: through three lustrums, perhaps, rather than at the expiration of the third lustrum. This effect is helped by the position of prospera between lustro and tertio. The continued favor of fortune through fifteen years is the point.--prospera: cf. on 4.6.39.

laudem . . adrogavit: and has associated with the accomplishment of thy imperial commands the glory and honor that was coveted. With optatum cf. 4.8.30; Epp. 2.3.412. Imperiis is dat. with arrogavit, which is virtually equivalent to addidit.

The subject nations, victae longo ordine gentes (Verg. Aen. 8.722). For a similar imperial theme, cf. Oscar Wilde's Ave Imperatrix, 'The brazen-throated clarion blows |Across the Pathan's reedy fen, |And the high steeps of Indian snows |Shake to the tread of armed men. . . . The fleet-foot Marri scout who comes |To tell how he hath heard afar |The measured roli of English drums |Beat at the gates of Kandahar.'

Cantaber: cf. 2.6.2; 3.8.22.--non ante: 1.29.3.

profugus: cf. 1.35.9; 3.24 9.--Medus: cf. on 1.2.22. --Indus: cf. Suet. Aug.21; Mon. Ancyr. 5.5.

Cf; Cons. ad Liv. 473; Martial, 5.1.7 (of Domitian) O rerum felix tutela salusque As Lucan says, 5.385, Namque omnes voces per quas iam tempore tanto |mentimur dominis haec primum repperit aetas. Cf. on 3.3.11.

tutela: cf. 2.17.23; 4.6.33. --praesens: Cf. 1.35,2; 3.5.2.

dominae: cf. on 4.3. 13, and Martial, 1.3. 3; 10. 103.9.

A commonplace of classical poetry. Tibull. 1.7, 23; Lucan, 10.193. Cf. Swift, Apollo's Edict, 'No simile shall be begun |With rising or with setting sun,| And let the secret head of Nile | Be ever banished from your isle.'

Nilus: the Aethiopians (Mon. Ancyr. 108). --Hister: the Dacians (4.15.21; Verg. Georg. 2. 497). --Tigris: cf. on 2.9.21.

beluosus: cf. on 1.3.18; 3.27.26; Milton, Lycidas, 'Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide| Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world.' Cf. Homer's μεγακήτης (Od. 3.158), commonly interpreted 'monster-teeming.'

obstrepit: 2.18, 20; 3.30.10.--Britannis: cf. on 1. 35.30.

The Romans imagined that the teaching of the Druids kept the Gauls from fearing death. Cf. Caesar, B.G. 6.14.5; Lucan, 1.459; Arnold on Celtic Lit., p.38.

Sygambri: cf. on 4.2.36.

Resembles, in metrical structure, 1.9.20.

Ode XV

Augustus, first in peace and first in the hearts of his country men. When I would sing of wars, Phoebus rebuked me (But I may tell how) thy age, O Caesar, has brought back the harvests to our fields, recovered our standards from the Parthians, curbed licentious wickedness, and renewed the old Roman virtue that built up the empire. No fear of civic strife or external foe disturbs us now. But lingering over the wine with wife and child, after due prayer to the gods we will sing in old time fashion the great captains of the past and the scion of Venus and Anchises.

The poem has been read as a continuation of the preceding. It is, in any case, its complementary antithesis. It is 'l'envoi' to Augustus, and affirms the fulfillment of the hopes expressed in 1.2 and elsewhere, as 3.24, 3.1-6.

Cf. Verg. Eclog. 6.3; Propert. 3.3.25. Lyra is probably to be construed with increpuit, rebuked me with his lyre. The god is represented as sounding his lyre in warning. The position of the word is in favor of this interpretation, which is supported also by Ovid, A. A. 2.493, Haec ego cum canerem subito manifestus Apollo |movit inauratae pollice fila lyrae. Some editors, however, following the scholiasts, construe loqui lyra. For thought, cf. on 1.6.5; 3.3.70; Epp. 2.1. 251 sqq.

For the metaphor, cf. Propert. 4.2.22; 4.8.4, quid me scribendi tam vastum mittis in aequor? |Non sunt apta meae grandia vela rati; Verg. Georg. 2.41; Ovid, Trist. 2.329; Shaks. Sonnet, 86, 'Was it the proud full sail of his great verse?' Dante's 'la navicella del mio ingegno '; and Cowley's quaint Pindarique Ode to Mr. Hobbes, 'The Baltic, Euxine, and the Caspian, |And slender-limbed Mediterranean |Seemed narrow creeks to thee and only fit | For the poor wretched fisher-boats of wit. |Thy nobler vessel the vast ocean tried'; Boileau, Épitre I., Au Roi, 'Cette mer où tu cours est célèbre en naufrages,' etc. --Tyrrhenum: cf. on 1.16.4.

Cf. on 4.5.17-18. Observe polysyndeton of et, corresponding to anaphora of non in lines 19-24.

The recovery, by Augustus' diplomacy in B.C. 20, of the standards lost to the Parthians by Crassus at Carrhae (cf. 3.5. 5; 3.6.9) was regarded as a triumph by the court poets. Cf. August. in Mon. Ancyr. 40; Epp. 1.18.56, 1.12.27; Verg. Aen. 7.606, Parthosque reposcere signa; Propert. 4.4.48; Ferrero, Greatness and Decline of Rome, 5.34.--nostro . . . Iovi: i.e. Jupiter Capitolinus, in whose temple on the Capitol the standards seem to have been first deposited. They were afterwards placed in the temple of Mars Ultor, dedicated B.C. 2. Cf. Mon. Ancyr. 5.40, and supra on 1.2.44.

vacuum: proleptic.--duellis: cf. on 3.5.38.

Ianum Quirini: the Gateway of Quirinus, the Sabine war-god identified with Mars. The usual phrase seems to have been lanum Quirinum. Cf. Mon. Ancyr. II.42, where the probable reading is (Ianum) Quirin(um), and where the Greek translation has πύλη Ἐνυάλιος; and Suet. Oct.22, Ianum Quirinum semel atque iterum a condita urbe clausum. The gates of the covered arcade passage in the Forum, commonly called the temple of Janus, were closed only in time of peace by the institution of Numa. Cf. Livy, 1.19.2. They were shut once in the reign of Numa, once at the end of the first Punic war, and thrice by Augustus, in 725, 729, 746. Verg. Aen. 7.607, 1.294; Ovid, Epist. Ex Ponto, 1.2.126, clausit et aeterna civica bella sera.--ordinem rectum evaganti: swerving from the straight course.

frena: cf. on 3.24.29, and Sat. 2.7.74, Iam vaga prosiliet frenis natura remotis.

artis: cf. on 3.3.9; and, for thought, Verg. Georg. 2. 532-535, and Gratian, Cyneget. 320 sqq.

Note the three stages of the growth of the empire.

nomen: cf. on 3.3.45.

imperi: cf. on 1.2.26.

maiestas: sovereign power. ortus: some read ortum. Cf. 3.27.12.

Cf. Sall. Cat. 36; Dion, Chrysost. orat. 1, p.13, ἀπ᾽ ἀνισχοντος ἡλιου μέχρι δυομένου πάσης ἦρχε γῆς.

Cf. on 3.14,15,

custode: cf. 4.5.2.

exiget: used normally of persons (cf. 2.13.31), slightly personifies. Some read eximet. For personification in procudit, cf. Aeschyl. Choeph. 647; Soph. Ajax, 1034.

ira: cf. 1.16.

miseras: proleptic, to their sorrow.--inimicat: new coinage of Horace, as apprecati, 28.

qul . . . bibunt: cf. on 2.20.20; Crinagoras, Anth. Pal. 16. 61. 5, οἶδεν Ἀράξης|καὶ Ῥῆνος, δούλοις ἔθνεσι πινόμενοι.

Cf. C. S. 51-56.

edicta . . . Iulia: the ordinances of Augustus; not to be taken technically, though it suggests the leges Iuliae. --Getae: cf, 3.24.11,

Seres: cf. 1.12. 56.--Persae: cf. 1.2. 22.--infidi: cf. perfide Albion, Graecia mendax, Punica fides, Parthis mendacior (Epp. 2.1.112), perfidus Hannibal (4.4.49), and similar international amenities.

The Scythians.

nosque: emphatic.--profestis: cf. Sat. 2.2.116, profesta luce; working days plus holidays are all days.

Cf. on 4.5.31-32. --munera Liberi: cf. 1. 18.7. --iocosi: cf. 3.21.15.

It was the policy of Augustus to foster the sentiment of historic patriotism. Cf. Suet. Aug.31, and supra on 3. 1-6.

virtute functos: whose valorous deeds are over, a variation on vita functus, laboribus functus (2.18.38). Cf. aevo functus (2.9.13).--more patrum: with canemus, cf. Cic. Tusc. 1.3, est in Originibus (Cato's Origins) solitos esse in epulis canere convivas ad tibicinem de clarorum hominum virtutibus.

Lydis: perhaps 'soft Lydian airs' suited the wine (cf. Plato, Rep. 398 E), perhaps the epithet is used merely for poetic specification.--remixto: a rare word. Cf. A. P.151, veris falsa remiscet.

almae: cf. 4.5.18; Lucretius, 1.2, alma Venus.

progeniem: sc. Augustus. Cf. 4.5.1, and C. S. 50.


Horace. Odes and Epodes. Edited with commentary by. Paul Shorey. revised by. Paul Shorey and Gordon J. Laing. New York. Benj. H. Sanborn and Co. 1910.

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