Quin etiam canet indoctum, sed dulce bibenti. Si tamen attentas? Quereris super hoc etiam, quod Luculli miles collecta viatica multis Aerumnis, lassus dum noctu stertit, ad assem Perdiderat; post hoc vehemens lupus, et sibi et hosti Praesidium regale loco dejecit, ut aiunt, 6 pared to clay, such as that of which a statuary makes figures. We use the same metaphor.-9. Indoctum, without being an artist,' but yet so that his singing shall please thee while drinking.-10. Levant = minuunt. If I say more you will not believe me.-12. Meo sum pauper in aere, opposed to in aere alieno. Hence: I am poor, it is true, but have no debts, so that I am not forced to sell this boy.-13. No other dealer would sell you the boy so cheap, and I should not give him so cheap to every purchaser.-14. The seller of a slave was bound by law to state to the purchaser, before the bargain was concluded, whether the slave had certain faults. If he did not do this, the bargain was void. The chief fault that had to be mentioned was a disposition to run away. Here the mango says that the slave had once absconded, but he expresses it very gently. He says semel cessavit, he was once negligent in his duty,' and, metuens habenae pendentis, fearing the thong which hangs in the house,' in scalis latuit, he hid himself about the stairs.-16. Nihil laedat, does not trouble thee.'-17. Poenae securus, because he has given thee the lex mentioned in the following line, 'the notification of faults required by law.'-19. The sense is: yet, when the slave runs away, you prosecute the seller.-21. Talibus-mancum, 'who scarcely practise such courtesies as letter-writing. Connect mea epistola nulla.-23. Mecum facientia jura, the right, which is on my side.' We say facere cum aliquo and stare ab aliquo in this sense.24. Super hoc, as in line 33, super alone = praeterea.-28. Velut is wanting before vehemens.-30. Regale; that is, of King Mithridates. 6 Summe munito et multarum divite rerum. Ut versus facerem; sed, quod non desit, habentem = He took a castle in which the king had laid up his treasures.-36. Mentem animos.-40. The soldiers used to keep their money in their girdles. 42. Horace, when at school, had read the Iliad, which was the first book in a liberal education.-43. See the Introduction.-44. Curvo dignoscere rectum, to distinguish right from wrong,' to know moral philosophy.-46. Dura tempora, the war between the triumvirs and the republican party.-47. Connect aestus civilis belli.-48. The sense is: which were to yield to Caesar Augustus.-52. Sed-versus. The sense is one who has enough to live upon does not write verses, unless he is quite incurable. Quod non desit = quod satis sit.-53. Cicuta is hemlock. Its seed was used, particularly in cases of fever, as a cooling medicine and purgative.-54. Dormire. Compare Satires ii. 1, 7.-57. Quid faciam vis, what can I do, pray?' I cannot resist age.-59. Carmine, scil. lyrico, such as the odes. As to the iambi, see i. 19, 23. Ille Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro. 60 Tres mihi convivae prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palato. Quid dem ? quid non dem ? renuis quod tu, jubet alter; Quod petis, id sane est invisum acidumque duobus. Verum 65 70 Purae sunt plateae, nihil ut meditantibus obstet.' Torquet nunc lapidem nunc ingens machina tignum, Hac rabiosa fugit canis, hac lutulenta ruit sus: 75 I nunc et versus tecum meditare canoros. Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbes, 80 60. Bion Borysthenites, a disciple of Theophrastus, but who afterwards belonged to the Cynic school, flourished about 256 B. C., and wrote treatises in which he lashed unmercifully the follies of mankind. Horace alludes here to his satires. Sale nigro. See Satires i. 10, 3, and ii. 4, 74.-65. Praeter cetera, but besides these other considerations." What comes is to be considered as of greatest importance.-67. Sponsum and auditum, supines. Sponsum, to be a sponsor.' See i. 16, 43. -68. Officiis, here 'visits,' which I should be engaged during the whole day in paying. Cubat, 'lies sick.' The Collis Quirini or Quirinalis was at the extreme north of Rome, the Aventine at the extreme south.— 70. Vides, scil. esse. Humane commoda, ironical, = admodum incommoda. Verum obstet is a remark supposed to be made by Julius Florus: you may think about your poems when you are on your way to visit people. -72. Redemptor. See Carm. iii. 1, 35. Calidus, zealous.' We have here a description of scenes in the streets. -74. Long funeral processions (Sat. i. 6, 43) meet carts in the street, and before they can disentangle themselves there is not only great noise, but danger to passengers.-78. Rite. The poet is said to be with justice' a protégé of Bacchus, because he loves the quiet of the country. See Carm. iii. 25, 1. -80. Contracta = arta. It needs quiet and study to keep within the narrow path of true poetry.-81. A poet who has studied long in solitude often after all produces nothing but what is ridiculous: and am I to write good poems amid the bustle of Rome? Ingenium = homo Libris et curis, statua taciturnius exit Plerumque et risu populum quatit; hic ego rerum Verba lyrae motura sonum connectere digner? Mox etiam, si forte vacas, sequere et procul audi, 6 = ingeniosus. Vacuas, empty of men;' hence quiet.'-83. Curis meditatione.-84. Connect hic rerum, in such circumstances.'-86. Digner, shall I be deemed worthy?' Taken in a passive sense, as properly. -87. A new point. Poets praise one another in a fashion which annoys Horace. Consulti juris consulti.-88. Meros honores; that is, nihil nisi honores, nothing but compliments.' The lawyer called his brother as good an orator as C. Gracchus, and the rhetorician said that the lawyer's learning was as great as that of any of the Mucii, a family celebrated as jurists.-91. Mirabile visu, etc. Thus the one poet praises the work of the other.-92. Caelatum novem Musis (dative for a Musis), and consequently perfect.-93. Circumspectemus, etc. Horace imagines that the two poets who compliment each other, and of whom he, the lyrist, is one, an elegist the other, go together to the Palatine Hill, to the temple of Apollo, in which there was a public library. They look round the library for their own works, and, not finding them there, form the consolatory opinion that there are no true Roman poets there. -96. Ferat = proferat, brings forward, says.'-97. Horace compares himself and the other poet to two gladiators (called Samnites, from their kind of armour), who fight on, striking each other, till dusk. So the poets give and receive praises.-98. Lumina prima, the time when the lamps are lighted.-99. Puncto, by the vote, decision.' In the Comitia the ballots were counted by persons appointed for the purpose (diribitores), who insured accuracy by making a point on a tablet for each vote. Hence such expressions as omnia puncta ferre, to gain every vote.' As to Alcaeus, see Carm. ii. 13, 27.— 100. Callimachus, who lived at Alexandria about 280 B. C., was celebrated as an elegist, but more for his art than his genius.-101. Mim = Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum, 6 105 110 115 120 125 nermus, the greatest elegiac amatory poet. See i. 6, 65.-103. Quum, so long as.-105. Impune, because I do not punish them by reading something in return.-108. Beati, in the very doing of it.-110. Censoris honesti, a censor who looks to morals and behaviour.-112. Sine pondere inania. 113. Movere loco, as the censor used to remove unworthy persons from the senate or from their tribe (senatu, tribu movere.) 114. The penetralia are the inmost parts of the house, where the hearth stands, sacred to Vesta. Hence versari intra penetralia, to be in the inmost part of the house,' and consequently difficult to expel.-115. Connect bonus eruet (populo) speciosa vocabula rerum, obscurata diu populo, good words and expressions which have gradually gone out of use.-117. M. Cornelius Cethegus was consul in 204 B. C. As to the attachment of the Cethegi to everything old, compare Ars poët. 48, and following.-120. Read vehemens as deest in i. 12, 24.-123. Levabit expoliet.-124. Ut qui-movetur, like a player in a pantomime, who represents characters by mere gesticulations and movements of his body: here, for instance, the characters of the drunken Satyr and the rude Cyclops. Moveri is construed with the accusative, because it = |