23. lituo: for litui sonitu; lituo is probably ablative; B. L. L.1 § 337. The lituus was a curved instrument; the tuba was straight. The former was used in the cavalry, the latter in the infantry.

24. matribus: dative of agency, a construction occurring with some frequency, even in prose, in connection with the perfect passive participle. 25. detestata: here used passively; other instances of perfect passive participles of deponent verbs so used are i. 32. 5, modulate, 'tuned'; Epod. 16. 8, abominatus, 'detested.' Iove: here equivalent to caelo. Jupiter was originally the god of the sky; hence his functions as thunderer and wielder of the lightning. The root Iov(Indo-European djev-) originally meant 'sky,' 'light.' Latin dies, 'day,' is the same word; cf. Diespiter (archaic and poetical) = Iupiter. B. L. L. 180. 4.

27. catulis: hounds; dative, like matribus above in line 24.

=

28. Marsus: poetical for Marsicus. The Marsi inhabited a mountainous district of central Italy, about fifty miles to the east of Rome. aper: the wild boar was highly prized by the Roman epicures, and in consequence was much hunted.

29. me: in emphatic position, introducing the climax of the ode, Horace's own aspiration. doctarum frontium: this is practically equivalent to the poet's brow'; doctus was applied to any one who had achieved distinction in philosophy, art, or letters. hederae : poetic plural; the ivy was sacred to Bacchus, one of the patron divinities of poets.

30. dis miscent: the idea is the same as that found above in line 5, palma evehit ad deos; for the case of dis, see note on line 23, lituo. gelidum nemus, etc.: i.e. the cool grove with its bands of nymphs and satyrs.

31. leves: light-footed, lightly tripping.

32. secernunt populo: i.e. distinguish from the people, raise me above the common herd. tibias not the poetic plural; two tibiae were regularly played together; they were fastened to a single mouthpiece, one tibia being held in each hand.

:

33. Euterpe the muse of music, including lyric poetry, which was originally composed for singing to a musical accompaniment. In works of art, Euterpe is represented with flutes in her hands. hibet: withhold. Polyhymnia: another muse of poetry, often defined as 'the muse of the sublime hymn.'

1 Bennett's Latin Language.

CO

23

34. Lesboum barbiton: i.e. the lyre of the Lesbian poets, Sappho and Alcaeus (600 B.C.). These were Horace's chief models in the composition of his lyric poems. He imitated not merely their poetic

form, but also very largely their themes and their poetic phraseology. Introd. § 18. tendere: tune, lit. stretch (i.e. the strings); the infinitive with refugere is poetical.

35. lyricis vatibus inseris : i.e. acknowledge my claim to rank as a lyric poet. The first meaning of vates apparently was 'seer,' 'soothsayer,' 'prophet.' Virgil and Horace, however, apply it to poets as a loftier and more honorable designation than poeta. Some think that yates originally meant 'poet,' 'bard,' and that Virgil and Horace simply revived the early usage; but this view is not well supported. Note the poetical employment of the present tense with the force of a future. The subject of inseris is emphatic; we should have expected tu to be expressed.

36. sublimi feriam sidera vertice: i.e. my pride and joy will be complete.

ODE II.

1. terris: the dative is best explained as equivalent to in terras. nivis: snow is not unusual in central Italy in the winter months, though it rarely lies long.

2. Pater: i.e. Jupiter.

rubente: referring to the lightning.

3. sacras arces: probably the two summits of the Capitoline, on which stood temples, one sacred to Juno, the other to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva in common.

4. terruit, terruit: such repetition of the same word without an 'intervening conjunction is a favorite device of Horace.

5. gentis: i.e. all the races of the earth. The storm had doubtless been local, but Horace conceives it as widely prevalent. grave ne rediret the clause depends upon the idea of fearing involved in terruit, 'made to fear,'' inspired with terror.' Note that in poetry words which ordinarily stand first in their clause are frequently 'postponed' (placed after); so here ne; cf. line 7, omne cum; line 9, piscium et.

6. Pyrrhae: wife of Deucalion. According to the myth, all mankind, except Deucalion and Pyrrha, had been destroyed by a flood. They renewed the human race by casting stones behind them; the stones hurled by Deucalion became men; those hurled by Pyrrha became women. nova monstra: explained by the following clauses.

7. Proteus: the prophetic old man of the sea'; he tended the seals of Poseidon (Neptune). pecus: i.e. the herd of seals.

8. visere the use of the infinitive to denote purpose is poetical. 10. columbis: the columba did not ordinarily nest in trees; but Horace was hardly a scientific observer.

11. superiecto: i.e. spread over the surface of the earth. The emphasis of the clause rests upon this word. Note also the interlocked order of the words, superiecto pavidae aequore dammae, a favorite arrangement in Horace.

13. flavom: Horace seems to have followed the earlier spelling in -vos, -vom; -quos, -quom; -uos, -uom, etc. The spellings -vus, -vum; -cus, -cum; -uus, -uum, had become well established in ordinary usage before his day, but poets naturally cling tenaciously to the old style. Cf. B. L. L. § 57. 1. As applied to the Tiber, flavom is a poetical designation for its turbid stream.

14. litore Etrusco: litus is here used for ripa. The Etruscan bank is the right bank of the Tiber. Just at the city the river makes a sharp turn, so that the water, hurled on by the current (and perhaps by the wind), seemed to come directly from the bank opposite the city.

15. deiectum: the supine. monumenta regis: the 'memorial of the king' is the Regia, or official residence of the pontifex maximus, situated at the southeastern end of the Roman Forum. Some remains of its foundations have been brought to light in recent years. The building was called monumenta regis, because it was popularly thought to date from the time of King Numa, whose great interest in the religious ceremonials of his time is well attested in the traditions that cluster about his name. Since the Roman Forum was on low land, the Tiber not infrequently rose high enough to flood the ground on which the Regia stood. Such inundations occur periodically to-day.

16. templaque Vestae: probably we have not here an instance of the poetic plural. There were two temples of Vesta, one called aedes Vestae, the other aedicula Vestae. They were situated adjacent to the Regia.

17. Iliae: Ilia is another name for Rhea Silvia, the mother of Romulus and Remus; according to the common legend, she was thrown by Amulius's order into the Tiber, and the river god came to be looked upon as her spouse. Hence the flood is represented by the poet as intended to avenge the wrongs of Ilia. For another view, see below on querenti. iactat: shows; the dum-clause is explicative of the preceding ire deiectum, i.e. the Tiber advances to hurl down the

nimium: to be joined

querenti: i.e. of

temples of the city in his quest of vengeance. with ultorem; the god is too eager an avenger. her own wrongs. Others refer it to complaints at the assassination of Caesar (her descendant, according to the familiar tradition); in that × case, the Tiber must be thought of as aiming to avenge the crime of Caesar's murder.

18. sinistra: i.e. the bank on which the greater part of the city of Rome was built.

19. ripa: i.e. over the bank; ablative of place. ux-orius amnis: the Aeolic lyric poets, whom Horace imitates, very frequently broke a word in this way at the end of the line. Horace rarely follows them in this; only two or three other instances occur in the Odes. Cf. i. 25. 11, inter-lunia.

21. audiet: the subject is iuventus. i.e. against each other, in civil war.

civis acuisse ferrum:

22. Persae: a common designation in Horace for the Parthians, a warlike nation dwelling southeast of the Caspian. The poets of the Augustan age allude to them indifferently as Parthi, Medi (see line 51 below), or Persae. The Romans had first come into definite collision with this people in 53 B.C., the year of Crassus's disastrous defeat at Carrhae. Though subsequently twice defeated in battle (39 and 38 B.C.), the Parthians had not been crushed, and recently had gained some signal successes over the Roman arms. melius perirent : had better perished, i.e. it would have been better had the Parthians perished by the swords which had been drawn in civil strife; the subjunctive is used to express the conclusion of a past conditional sentence of the contrary-to-fact type, the imperfect being irregularly used for the pluperfect.

6

23. audiet repetition of the verb without conjunction, as terruit above in line 5. pugnas: i.e. civil conflicts. vitio: to be taken with rara, which here has the force of thinned out,' 'decimated.' parentum: both parentum and parentium occur as the genitive plural of parens.

24. iuventus: i.e. our descendants, posterity.

25. Having touched upon the existing distress, and having briefly indicated its cause, the poet now proceeds to suggest the remedy: Some one of the gods must vouchsafe help. divom accusative singular.

26. rebus: in behalf of the fortunes; dative of interest, a construction used of persons, or things personified, and only slightly less strong than pro with the ablative. prece: this word is rarely used in the

singular. qua: for the post-position, see above on line 5. gent: i.e. importune.

27. virgines sanctae: i.e. the Vestal Virgins.

fati

minus parum.

28. carmina: litanies; their prayers were couched in some traditional liturgical verse-form.

29. partis: rôle, duty; in this sense the word is confined to the plural.

31. candentis: i.e. fair white; cf. the Homeric paldiμos &μos; participles and adjectives in -ns regularly form the accusative plural in is in Horace. umeros: object of amictus, which is here used as a middle; see note on i. 1. 21.

32. augur Apollo: according to Suetonius (Aug. 94), Augustus was declared by his mother to be the son of Apollo; and the god is said to have assisted him visibly at the battle of Actium; hence the special appropriateness of the present invocation. Even before the date of this ode, Augustus had done much to increase and extend the worship of Apollo; in 28 B.C. he had erected to him the magnificent temple on the Palatine referred to in i. 31. Apollo receives the epithet augur as the god of prophecy.

33. sive tu vel tu si. Erycina ridens: blithe Erycina, i.e. Venus, who received this designation from the temple dedicated to her on Mt. Eryx in Sicily; she is naturally invoked here as the ancestress (genetrix) of the Roman people, and especially of the Julian gens. 34. quam circum: anastrophe; not uncommon with dissyllabic prepositions.

36. auctor: our founder, i.e. Mars, the father of Romulus. 37. heu: to be joined closely in thought with nimis longo. satiate vocative by attraction to auctor, though logically in agreement with the subject of respicis. ludo: i.e. the sport or game of

war.

38. clamor the battle-cry.

leves: polished.

39. acer voltus: i.e. the fierce glance of triumph. Marsi: the Marsians were among the flower of the Roman infantry; cf. ii. 20. 18; iii. 5. 9. There is added point in this reference to the Marsian soldiery, since their name obviously designates them as connected with the god.

iuvenem

41. mutata figura: i.e. changing thy form of god. imitaris poetic for assumest the form of a youth'; the poet wishes to suggest that Mercury may even now be present on earth in the person of Octavian. This conception of Octavian as a god embodied