credas innare revolsas Cycladas aut montes concurrere montibus altos: Tanta mole viri turritis puppibus instant.'

6

4. tuo, sc. periculo'; 'at your own peril.'

5. si superstite. This was read by Porph., who notices the difficulty of construction, and gives the true explanation, viz. that 'sit' has to be understood both with 'te superstite' and with contra,' 'if it be spent in thy lifetime.' It is not harder than 'ni tecum simul' just below. A few MSS. omit 'si,' leaving the verse unmetrical, and some of the old editions have 'sit.' Ritter ex conj. 'si est.'

7. utrumne.. an. Cicero has (pro Quint. 30) ' utrum possitne se.. defendere.. an.. addicatur,' where the usage is logically correct, which of the two things? this? or that?' The coalescing of the two words is poetical, and does not appear in prose writers till the silver age. Horace uses 'ne' with interrogatives more freely than other writers, e. g. 'uterne,' Sat. 2. 2. 107, 'quone,' Sat. 2. 3. 295, 'quantane,' Sat. 2. 3. 317.

iussi, 'as you bid us.'

9. Best taken with Nauck, ‘An hunc laborem [persequemur], laturi [eum] mente,' &c. He points out that Feremus' answers the question of 'laturi,' 'sequemur' (v. 14) of‘persequemur.' Others make 'laturi' ='laturi sumus,' the verb of the sentence.

12. inhospitalem Caucasum, Od. 1. 22. 6.

13. sinum, Virg. G. 2. 123 'extremi sinus orbis,' where see Conington. It would seem here to mean the last winding of the shore as it trends westward towards the Atlantic, so that it is the equivalent of ' Gades' in Od. 2. 6. 1.

16. See on Od. 2. 7. 10.

19. assidens, of the general time that she has a callow brood, for at the moment, ex hypothesi, she has left them.

21. ut adsit, 'even supposing she were present,' Madvig. L. G. § 440 a, obs. 4, so Cic. pro Mil. 17, ‘Ut enim neminem alium nisi T. Patinam familiarissimum suum rogasset, scire potuit,' &c., and so also, if the subjunctive be read there, Mur. 34 'si ut suffragentur nihil valent gratia.' Bentley, objecting to the tautology of 'ut adsit,' 'praesentibus,' would adopt 'uti sit,' 'non uti' being='non quo,' ' not that she could give,' &c. This was the reading of one (it is not said the oldest) of Cruquius' MSS., and he draws support for it from the unmetrical 'ut sit' which is found in several MSS., amongst which are , 4, π, U. The vulg. was interpreted by Porph. Orelli suggests that the tautology is of a kind rather affected by Latin writers, e. g. Ter. Ad. 4. 5. 34 'cum hanc sibi videbit praesens praesenti eripi.'

23. militabitur bellum, as 'pugnata bella,' Od. 3. 19. 4, Epp. 1. 16. 25.

24. in spem, 'to further my hope,' as 'in honorem,' Od. 1. 7. 8. gratiae is opposed to the more sordid objects which are repudiated in the following lines.

25-28. Compare the imagined objects of prayer in Od. 1. 31. 3 foll. 'Non opimae Sardiniae segetes feraces Non aestuosae grata Calabriae Armenta.' Cp. Epp. 2. 2. 177, in a similar connection,

Saltibus adiecti Lucani.'

Calabris

26. nitantur, 'struggle'; 'aratris nisus poëtice tribuitur qui proprie boum est,' Orelli.

mea. The best MSS. have 'meis,' but the copyists seem to have got into confusion between the terminations of 26, 28, and 30; 'pascua' dividing the older MSS. pretty equally with 'pascuis.' Sound and the balance of the adjective between 'iuvencis' and 'aratra' are in favour of the nominative, which is given by Orelli, Dill., and Munro.

27. Orelli quotes Varro R. R. 2. 1. 16 'greges ovium longe abiguntur ex Apulia in Samnium aestivatum,' and ib. 2. 2. 9 'mihi greges in Apulia hibernabant qui in Reatinis montibus aestivabant.' For the construction of 'mutet' see Od. 1. 17. 2.

29. Nor that I may have a country house on the outskirts of Tusculum.'

superni describes its situation, crowning the Eastern summit of the Alban hills above the modern Frascati.

30. Circaea, as he calls the same hill in Od. 3. 29. 8 Telegoni iuga parricidae,' q. v.

31. Cp. Od. 2. 18. 12, 3. 16. 38.

33. Chremes, apparently a miser of comedy, like the Euclio of the Aulularia, but the play or author is not known.

34. discinctus. The word is used literally or with no sense further than 'at one's ease,' in Sat. 2. 1. 73. It has got here, and in later authors, the sense of careless, loose, profligate-partly through the association of this mode of dress with idle and luxurious habits, partly through the metaphorical colour borrowed from the already established use of dissolutus.' The MSS. are divided between 'nepos' and 'ut nepos.' Ritter thinks the repetition of the 'ut' forcible, quoting Epod.

5. 9. 10.

EPODE II.

Horace gives a point to his praises of country life by putting them into the mouth of a money-lender notorious for his keenness in his trade. Cp. the saying attributed apparently to the same person, the 'fenerator Alfius,' by Columella (1.7), 'vel optima nomina non appel

lando fieri mala,' 'that the best debtors become bad ones if you let them alone.' There does not seem to be any attempt to make the usurer speak in character through the poem; the pleasures named are those which any Roman poet would have named, cp. Virg. G. 2. 493 foll., Tibull. 1. I foll. It is the irony of the conclusion which turns an Idyll into an Epode. Its point is rather the strength of the 'ruling passion' (cp. the 'mercator' of Od. 1. 1. 16, who in the storm otium et oppidi Laudat rura sui: mox reficit rates Quassas') than, as has been suggested, the elaborate hypocrisy of a money-lender who makes his panegyric on a rustic life an excuse for pressing his debtors for repayment, while he means all the time to put the money out to interest again at the next settlement-day.

The diction of the Epode reminds us constantly of the Georgics.

Line 3. exercet, of continuous labour at anything, Virg. G. 1. 99 'Exercetque frequens tellurem.'

4. solutus omni fenore. He has nothing to do with usurers; his land came to him from his father; his bullocks were bred on his farm. 5, 6. He is not a soldier to have his sleep broken by the bugle, nor a trader to fear storms at sea.

7, 8. Cp. Virg. G. 2. 502 'nec ferrea iura Insanumque forum vidit,' and ib. 504 alii. . penetrant aulas et limina regum.'

6

9. ergo. And so,'—

-as he is free from these preoccupations, he can enjoy the simple tasks and pleasures of the country.

propagine, the technical name for the young vine-plant grown from a layer, Virg. G. 2. 26 and 63.

9-13. aut.. aut.. que. Compare vv. 15, 16, 17 ‘aut,' 'aut,' 'vel.' The first triplet of alternatives describes the pleasant tasks of preparation, the second those of gathering the fruits. In each case the last of the three is marked by a change of the conjunction, cp. vv. 31, 33, 35 aut,' aut,'' que,' Od. 1. 12. 5. 6 aut,'aut,' 've.' Several editors have followed Fabricius in transposing vv. 11, 12 and 13, 14, on the ground that the pasturing of cattle seems out of place between the mole cognate operations of transplanting vines and grafting fruit-trees. But it is scarcely possible that the mistake should have vitiated every existing MS. Bentley points out that the two operations are, after all, very distinct, and belong to different times of the year. The feeling of the passage is the great choice of pleasant tasks which the countryman' enjoys, and the sense of this would perhaps be diminished rather than increased by sorting them too nicely.

10. altas answers to 'adulta'; the plants are now (in three years, Col. de Arb. 7) grown large enough to clamber a tree, which would

have been too tall for them before. Ritter points out that 'altas' appeals to the eye, as does 'prospectat' in the next couplet. His labour is associated with pleasant sights and sounds. For the metaphor of maritat' cp. Od. 2. 15. 4, 4. 5. 30.

13. que. It is better to take 'que' as disjunctive (see on Od. 1. 3. 9 and 3. 11. 49), than with Bentley to alter it here and in v. 63 to 've.' 14. feliciores, as Virgil, of the grafted tree, G. 2. 81 ‘Exiit ad caelum ramis felicibus.'

16. infirmas. The Scholiast interprets 'unable to bear the weight of their wool'; but it is probably no more than an habitual epithet 'molle pecus,' and only in point as helping the general idea of peacefulness, the unresisting sheep.'

17. vel, see on v. 9-12. Macl. rightly points out that the uses of 'vel cum,' in an elliptical construction with no apodosis (as in Virg. Aen. 11. 406), although quoted by Orelli and others, are not relevant. Sat. 2. 7. 95 is a real parallel. The apodosis here is 'ut gaudet,' 'how he rejoices!' cp. v. 61 ut iuvat.'

19. gaudet decerpens, a Greek use of the participle, dera dpéwav. 20. certantem purpurae, 'rivalling the purple dye': for dative p. 1. 1. 15 'luctantem fluctibus,' &c.

21. Priapus is to be paid as the protector of gardens. Virg. E. 7. 33, Catull. 20. Silvanus is not only, as in Od. 3. 29. 23, the wild forest-god, but also a patron of country life and pursuits,avorum pecorisque deus,' Virg. Aen. 8. 601, and specially under the title of 'Silvanus orientalis,' like Terminus, a protector of the sacred landmark,' the symbol of property, Dict. Biog. s. v.

23. Some good MSS. (not B, nor, as far as appears, V) begin a new Epode here, and Acron supports them, writing at v. I 'Laus vitae rusticae,' and here 'Introducit quendam feneratorem loquentem et laudantem vitam quietam nec tamen suum propositum deserentem.' Porph. gives no indication. See Introd. to Od. 1. 7.

24. tenaci seems to mean 'soft and deep,' that makes a couch from which you do not slip.

25. rivis, the reading of V and B; though corrected in the latter by a second hand to 'ripis,' the reading of the majority of MSS. Compare, against Orelli's objections to 'rivis,' Od. 2. 3. 11. 'Altis rivis' must apparently mean 'in brimming watercourses': 'altis ripis' has been variously rendered; Bentley, who prefers it on the ground that we are speaking of summer or autumn when streams are low, interprets 'with' their banks high,' i.e. 'deep between their banks.' Orelli thinks it is not meant as a peculiarity of the time of year, but as a general characteristic of the streams which adds to their beauty and pleasantness, 'between high banks,' i.e. of foliage, rocks, &c. But a comparison of

Lucr. 2. 362 (in the same connection as this) 'summis labentia ripis,' and Quint. 12. 2 'Ut vis amnium maior est altis ripis multoque gurgitis tractu fluentium quam tenuis aquae et obiectu lapillorum resultantis' would suggest that if Horace wrote 'altis ripis' he meant rather 'high up its banks,' so that it comes to the same as 'rivis.'

27. obstrepunt, sc. audientibus,' see Od. 3. 30. 10. Markland founded on Prop. 4. 4. 4 'Multaque nativis obstrepit arbor aquis,' an ingenious conj. ‘frondes' for ‘fontes,' 'lymphis' being then the dative. 28. quod, sc. 'murmur quod.'

29-36. We pass to winter amusements.

29. tonantis, an epithet of the god which has become almost a part of his name; but it serves to recall his influence on the weather and responsibility for storms, although thunder is rather an accessory of

summer storms.

annus hibernus, the wintry part of the year, as 'frigidus annus,' Virg. Aen. 6. 311. 'Jove's winter' is the winter which in its season Jove brings round again, C. S. 32 'Iovis aurae.'

32. obstantes, 'set to stop them.'

33. levi, prob. smooth,' though as 'ames' does not occur elsewhere in poetry, it is not possible to pronounce certainly on the quantity of its first syllable.

rara, 'open,' 'wide-meshed,' see Con. on Virg. Aen. 4. 131. The epithets, though, as has been remarked, more abundant than Horace's maturer taste would have admitted, serve, by recalling the circumstances, to recall the pleasures of the sport.

35. laqueo, a dissyllable, not an anapaest, cp. Epod. 5. 79, 11. 23, and see Index of Metres.

37 foll. The 'malae amoris curae,' its follies and fancies and jealousies, are left for the idle and luxurious life of the city. The 'pudica uxor' and the pleasures of home are more likely to be found in the country. Virg. G. 2. 523 'dulces pendent circum oscula nati; Casta pudicitiam servat domus.' For the attraction which makes curas' agree with the relative, and leaves malarum' without a subst., cp. Sat. 1. 4. 2 'alii quorum comedia prisca virorum est,' Virg. Aen. 1. 573 'urbem quam statuo vestra est.'

39. quodsi. The apodosis begins at v. 49 'non me.' If I can have all these home pleasures I do not care for the less luxurious diet. Haupt's alteration, 'quid si,' impairs the antithesis between the pudica uxor,' &c., and vv. 37, 38.

in partem, iv μépei, 'for her share.'

iuvet, with a zeugma. It is the appropriate verb only with 'domum,' 'graces,' 'helps.' By uniting closely the two substantives, the home with its blooming children,' we can bring dulces liberos' into some re