HORACE HIS LIFE, EXPERIENCES AND VIEWS, AS TOLD BY HIMSELF. "The man Horace is more interesting than his writings, or, to speak more correctly, the main interest of his writings is in himself. We might call his works "Horace's Autobiography." To use his own expression about Lucilius, his whole life stands out before us as in a picture. Of none of the ancients do we know so much, not of Socrates, or Cicero, or St. Paul. Almost what Boswell is to Johnson, Horace is to himself. We can see him, as he really was, both body and soul. Everything about him is familiar to us. His faults are known to us, his very foibles and awkwardnesses * * * He seems almost as a personal friend * * * What would we not give to spend one evening with him, to take a walk over his Sabine farm with him, to sit by his fountain to hear him tell a tale or discuss a point."-(Preface to James Lonsdale's and Samuel Lee's "Works of Horace," etc.) Lives of Horace are as the leaves of Vallombrosa, at least in sufficiency of number. They may readily be found in any considerable library collection of general literature, and in any considerable editions of his translated works. But wherever found they still present only the somewhat meagre facts with which the world is already familiar —those, namely, to be gathered from the poems themselves; from Suetonius, and from a few other equally well-known sources. Hence it is of no particular avail to again work-over the old material; to further marshal our scanty assets from these depositaries, however much one may be tempted thereby to seek an additional interest or profit. And yet Horace's story as he himself tells it, even in the fragmentary condition in which this must be sought for throughout his works, is ever fresh and remunerative as well as reasonably sufficient: a Human Document, indeed, of the highest value, and of perennial significance. In this view, it may be worth while to bring the scat more con tered fragments into orderly sequence for more venient enjoyment-much as other detached gems might be assorted and strung together-with only such thread or slender setting (in the way of connection and extraneous comment) as may be essential to preserve a suitable continuity for present use. Especially if the, as yet, apparently novel experiment, can be tried without greater sacrifice of original luster than that-however considerable-which in any case is inevitable under the blurred refraction of translation lenses. Nor, indeed, is there need of much intrusion in the way of comment: merely a few collateral notes on the chief, or more salient features of the poet's career should suffice. Thus, by way of introduction, one may remember that the famous Latin poet, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, the son of a freedman-and of a mother concerning whom, unhappily, no record is preserved-was born about the year B. C. 65, at Venusium, between the provinces of Apulia and Lucania, in the Apennine mountains of Italy, and died, at about the age of fifty seven, some eight years before the Christian era; having thus lived from the great days of the Roman Republic, throughout the Civil Wars, and well into the Golden Age of the Emperor Augustus. Also, that after an education at Rome and Athens; a brief career as a Military Tribune under the disastrous leadership of Brutus, and a consequent period of poverty and neglect, he rose from an obscure clerkship in the treasury, to become one of the protegés of the powerful Minister Maecenas, and later enjoy the favor of the Emperor, with a sufficient quiet and competence to complete his literary labors, and to pursue an incidental purpose of therein adapting the more perfect Grecian models of metrical composition to Latin verse. With these bare outlines, as a reminder, we may proceed at once to the chief bits of autobiography, and to some of the collateral or internal evidence afforded by the present selections from a considerably wider range of the poet's works: 5 SAT. I. VI. NON quia, Maecenas, Lydorum quidquid Etruscos Nec quod avus tibi maternus fuit atque paternus Ut plerique solent, naso suspendis adunco Cum referre negas quali sit quisque parente * * * 20 45 Nos facere a vulgo longe longeque remotos? Non minus ignotos generosis. * * * Nunc ad me redeo libertino patre natum, Quem rodunt omnes libertino patre natum, Dissimile hoc illi est; quia non ut forsit honorem . FROM SATIRE I. VI. (A conversation with Maecenas and Tullius. Incidents of the Poet's career: Tribute to his Father; His relations with Maecenas; Home-life, etc.) You, never, Maecenas, because of all Lydians that may have Who formerly legions the greatest commanded, will offer; 5 But what here, then, may best it behoove us 17 To do, who aloof and afar from the vulgar removed are: E'en granting the people would rather Laevinus, their honors Than Decius, the upstart, bestow on; that I'd be erased too, 20 By Appius, the Censor, as not of a father illustrious: Or whether-more justly-because my own skin I'd not stay'd in? True, Glory e'er drags in the chains of her chariot-resplendent No less the obscure than the high-born. But back to myself! From a father-enfranchised de- 45 scended; By all thus reproached with this freedman descent too : That subject to me, as a Tribune, a Legion of Rome was. 50 55 60 65 70 Jure mihi invideat quivis ita te quoque amicum, Infans namque pudor prohibebat plura profari, Sed quod eram narro. Respondes ut tuus est mos |