ODE XVI.

'Fair daughter of a mother fair, though not so fair as you, burn and forget my scurrilous iambics. Passion is as resistless as the afflatus of Cybele, or Apollo, or Bacchus. We are all liable to it, we all have our share of the lion's heart. You may read its your passion; I too was led astray by it. palinode and be my friend.

effect in all story. Curb

Forgive me, accept my

'Tyndaridi satisfacit. . Imitatus est Stesichorum poetam Siculum qui vituperationem Helenae scribens caecatus est et postea responso Apollinis laudem eius scripsit et oculorum aspectum recepit, cuius rei et in Epodo poeta idem meminit :

'Infamis Helenae Castor offensus vice

Fraterque magni Castoris victi prece

Adempta vati reddidere lumina.' Acron.

'Hac ode naλivadíav repromittit ei in quam probrosum carmen scripserat Tyndaridi amicae suae.' Porph.

In accordance with this the Ode is headed in the MSS. B and A' ad Tyndariden.'

'Cantat palinodiam, i. e. cantando revocat quae scripserat iratus in amicam Gratidiam,' Comm. Cruq. And so some MSS. head it 'Palinodia Gratidiae. Others unite the two views, and identify 'Tyndaris' with Gratidia' or 'Canidia'; 'Palinodia Gratidiae vel Tyndaridis.'

For the first view, which identifies the unknown object of this palinode with the Tyndaris of the following Ode, there seems to be no external argument. There was the temptation to connect the two Odes, to make the invitation of that the complement of the reconciliation in this; and the connection of the name of Helen on the one side with the name of Tyndaris, and on the other with the original 'palinode,' would easily suggest to ingenious Scholiasts the desired link.

With respect to the second view the case is not so clear. If the 'criminosi iambi' here recanted are to be looked for among Horace's extant poems, they can hardly be other than his attacks on Canidia in Epodes 5 and 17. To our ideas it is a slight recantation for such a libel, so much so that it might seem to force us to give both to the Epodes and to Sat. 1. 8 less reality than we should naturally;give. There is no bitterness in this Ode, nothing which would justify us in holding

(for this is one suggestion) that it is a continuation of the libel, the 'tu pudica, tu proba' which he offered to sing, 'mendaci lyra,'' tuning his harp to falsehood,' in Epod. 17. 39; but yet the tone of the palinode is barely serious. There is a mock heroic air in the 'urbes altae,' ‘Thyestes,' 'Prometheus' (comp. Od. 2. 4, 4. 11. 25 foll., and Epod. 3). It is intended, as Newman says, to make the occasion slightly ridiculous, to represent both himself and the lady as having made too much of it.

The naλivadia of Stesichorus, which added to the legend of Troy the famous variation that it was only a phantom in Helen's shape that Paris carried from Mycenae, is mentioned by Plato, Phaedr. 243 A, who quotes the first three lines :

οὐκ ἐστ ̓ ἔτυμος λόγος οὗτος

οὐδ ̓ ἔβας ἐν νηυσὶν εὐσέλμοις
οὐδ ̓ ἵκες Πέργαμα Τροίας.

Acron's statement, 'Stesichorum imitatur,' can barely mean more than that Horace took from him the idea of a 'palinode.' Ritter suggests that the first line may be an echo of some line in which Stesichorus addressed Helen as fairer than her mother Leda.

Line 2. modum pones, 'modum ponere,' 'to set bounds,'' cupidinibus, orationi,' are common expressions, cp. Od. 3. 15. 2 'nequitiae fige modum.' There is a play in its extension here to mean simply 'to put an end to,' i.e.' destroy.' The verses have been intemperate, the lady shall put bounds to them in the only possible way. Compare Ovid's trope, Emendaturis ignibus,' Trist. 4. 10. 62.

6

3. pones, the permissive future, you shall if you wish,' see on Od. 1. 6. 1.

4. Hadriano, see on Od. 1. 1. 14.

5-9. Ira furor brevis est.' 'No divine afflatus makes those it possesses so reckless as the passion of anger.'

5. Dindymene, 'Dea Dindymi,' Catull. 62. 91, a mountain in Phrygia where Cybele was worshipped.

non adytis. . incola Pythius. It seems best to take this as a slight inversion, after Horace's manner, for 'adytis Pythiis incola,'' not in his shrine at Pytho the god who dwells there'; comp. Epod. 10. 12 'Graia victorum manus' for the more usual 'Graiorum.' For the mode of describing the god, comp. Virg. Aen. 3. 111 'mater cultrix Cybelae.' Possibly incola' may have a stronger force, and represent Pindar's our åñódaμos тνɣáv (Pyth. 4. 7), 'when his presence is there'; with reference to the migrations of gods from one shrine to another. Dillenburger's interpretation is less likely. He takes 'sacerdotum,' ånd nowoû, with

'incola' as well as with 'mentem,' 'his priests' hearts when he possesses them,' quoting Plutarch de Orac. Def. p. 414 е, Tòv Oedv auTov ἐνδυόμενον εἰς τὰ σώματα τῶν προφητῶν ὑποφθέγγεσθαι.

adytis is opposed to the more widely diffused afilatus, ἐνθουσιασμός, of Cybele or Bacchus.

7-8. non acuta sic. . aera, 'the Corybantes do not clash again their cymbals with such fury.' Grammatically, these words are in a parenthesis, putting in another form what we have already had of the priests of Cybele: and the main construction harmonizes not with them but with the other clauses. Non Dindymene . . non Apollo.. non Liber aeque quatiunt mentem. . tristes ut irae.' Bentley, offended at the anacoluthon, proposed to read 'si' for 'sic,' constructing as Od. 2. 17. 13 'Me nec Chimaerae spiritus igneae Nec si resurgat centimanus Gyas Divellet unquam.' 'Not the Corybantes if they clash again,' &c. His reading is accepted by Keller, Dill'. and others, but in addition to the fact that only the slightest MS. authority can be obtained for it, there is the objection that it will introduce an entirely new idea, viz. the effect of the Corybantian cymbals on the hearers, instead of what we have in the rest of the stanza, the effect of the divine afflatus on the evoco themselves; and as the second-hand inspiration will be the weaker, the result is an anticlimax.

9. tristes, ill-omened,'' odious.'

irae bursts of passion.'

Noricus, Epod. 17. 71.

Noricum, the modern Tyrol, Styria,

Carinthia, was famous for its iron, Plin. N. H. 34. 41.

10. deterret, frightens from their purpose.

naufragum, actively, as Virg. Aen. 3. 553 navifragum Scyla

ceum.'

12. Iuppiter ipse ruens, cp. Od. 3. 3. 7 'Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae.' The expression here contains a remembrance of Zeus Kaтaßarηs, though the thought is not so much, as it is in the Greek, of the thunderbolt, as of the vault of heaven cracking, 'ruit arduus aether,' Virg. G. 1. 324, of the lightning, thunder, and rain; for 'Iuppiter' of the sky, cp. Od. 1. 1. 25.

13 foll. The legend of Prometheus does not appear in this form in extant Greek literature, see on Od. 1. 7. 21 and Epod. 13 introd. He is the creator of man in the myth of Plato's Protagoras.

13-16. The simplest construction is to take addere' after 'coactus,' ' apposuisse' after 'fertur,' giving to 'et' the sense of 'etiam,' 'also,' ' among the rest.' Two other ways are proposed: (1) to take both infinitives after 'fertur,' 'et' coupling them together. It would be hard to justify the change of tense, for which there is no reason as there obviously is in Od. 3. 20. 11, the passage usually quoted in illustration;

(2) to supply' esse' with 'coactus,' 'fertur coactus esse. . et apposuisse'; cp. Tac. Ann. 1. 65 visus est . . obsecutus. . et repulisse.'

14. undique, from every animal; A.P. 3 Undique collatis membris.' The Schol. Cruq. adds (possibly from an older commentator, and so conceivably from some fuller version of the legend), 'Sic timorem deprompsit a lepore, a volpe astutiam.'

16. vim, to be taken closely with 'insani,' which defines its meaning, 'the force of the lion's fury.'

stomacho, the seat of anger, see on Od. 1. 6. 6.

17. Thyesten. Thyestes stands as the representative of the crimes of passionate revenge in Greek Tragedy. Cp. Od. 1. 6. 8 Saevam Pelopis domum.'

18. ultimae, the furthest off, the first link of the chain. Ritter quotes Virg. Aen. 7. 49 'tu sanguinis ultimus auctor.'

19. stetere. By the variation from the usual exstitere,' Horace clearly wishes to feel again something of a living metaphor in the verb, though it is not quite evident what the metaphor is. Cp. Virg. Aen. 7. 553 'stant belli causae.' There it seems to be 'they are on foot, in full life and strength, there is no need to use any more efforts to arouse them.' Here perhaps the verb cannot be altogether separated from 'ultimae.' 'They have been the primary and sufficient cause,' that which stands of its own strength, leans on no other.

20. imprimeret muris aratrum; to plough the site of a conquered city was a token (or a metaphor) of its total destruction. Prop. 4. 9. 41 'Moenia cum Graio Neptunia pressit aratro Victor Palladiae ligneus artis equus.' Cp. Aesch. Ag. 526.

22. me quoque, as well as the rest of the world, as it may you. Take care you are not as bad as I was in your revengefulness.

23. temptavit, of a disease; Epp. 1. 6. 28 Si latus aut renes morbo temptantur'; Virg. G. 3. 441 Turpis oves temptat scabies.'

dulci iuventa, 'so sweet,' says Dill., that one can think of nothing else, its pleasures make one careless'; cp. Od. 1. 37. 11 ‘dulci fortuna ebria.' Orelli thinks it is only the fondness with which a man, as he grows old, looks back on his youth, and pleads for it even while he recounts its errors.

24. celeres, 'hasty,' 'impetuous'; cp. Epp. 1. 18. 89 'oderunt .. sedatum celeres'; but there is some force in giving the epithet to the 'iambi' rather than to himself. He would suggest that his Pegasus ran away with him.

26. tristia, perhaps with reference to v. 9. Here, as contrasted with 'mitibus,' it carries more distinctly a metaphor of taste, as Virg. G. 2. 126 'tristes suci'; G. 1. 75 'triste lupinum.'

ODE XVII.

An invitation to Tyndaris to visit the poet at his Sabine farm, 'a very haunt of Faunus, a heaven-blest spot, where she will find all country pleasures, and be able to sing her favourite songs and sip Lesbian in the shade without the brawls of a city merrymaking or the tipsy violence of Cyrus' love and jealousy.

Line 1. Lucretilem. This name probably covers the whole mass of mountain between the Licenza valley and the Campagna, the highest point of which is now called Monte Gennaro. See Burn's Rome and the Campagna, p. 431.

2. mutat. It is more usual to put the thing taken in exchange in the abl., as in the last Ode, v. 26 mutare tristia mitibus'; but Horace often inverts them as here and in Od. 3. 1. 47 Cur valle permutem Sabina Divitias operosiores'; cp. Od. 2. 12. 21, Epod. 9. 27, Sat. 2. 7. 109. The abl. in either case is analogous to the abl. of price, the transaction being regarded from the side, in the first case, of the seller, in the second of the buyer.

Lycaeo Faunus. Horace identifies (see on Od. 2. 17. 28) the Latin Faunus, the legendary son of Picus, and giver of oracles (Virg. Aen. 7. 48, 81), the god of agriculture and cattle (Hor. Od. 3. 18), with the Arcadian Pan, ope‹ßárns, the inventor of the pipe (see v. 10). Cp. Ovid, Fast. 2. 267 foll., and esp. v. 424 'Faunus in Arcadia templa Lycaeus habet.' 'Lycaeus' is a mountain in Arcadia.

3. defendit, Virg. E. 7. 47 'Solstitium pecori defendite.'

4. usque. The 'frequent visits of Faunus have conferred 'perpetual' salubrity on Lucretilis.

5. tutum, pred., 'without risk, for it is safe in his guardianship.' Bentley is needlessly offended at the repetition, and would read 'totum.' Ritter points out that stress is laid on the quiet and security of the place; there are no vipers nor wolves for the goats, no tipsy Cyrus for Tyndaris.

arbutos, the bushes, not the berries, for it was the leaves that the kids liked, Virg. G. 3. 300 frondentia capris Arbuta sufficere.'

6. latentes. . deviae. The two adj. are correlative, and so really belong each to both clauses. The arbutus may be hidden in a thicket of other shrubs, the thyme may grow only in nooks, but the goats may stray safely to search for both.

7. uxores, Virg. E. 7. 7 'Vir gregis ipse caper'; G. 3. 125 pecori maritum.'