ODE XXXVI. ON NUMIDA'S RETURN FROM SPAIN. Who Horace congratulates Numida on his return from Spainprobably from the army with Augustus, A.U.C. 730. Numida was can be only matter of conjecture. Repay both with incense and harp-string, Repay with the heifer's blood due, Numida's guardians divine ; Safe back from Hesperia the farthest, Now among loving friends shares he many a brotherly kiss, But the portion of Lamia is largest ; Mindful of childhood subjected to the same monarch's1 control, And how they both, donning the toga, Leapt into manhood together. Let not this happy day lack Its record of white by the Crete stone: Be there no stint to the wine-cask, be there no pause to the feet, Blithe in the bound of such measure Salii on holidays dance to! Bassus shall gallantly vie With Damalis, queen of she-topers, Toss off his cup with a swallow like the grand drinkers of Thrace ; 2 And banquets shall want not the roses, Garlands of parsley the long-lived,garlands of lilies the brief. All eyes shall for Damalis languish ; But yet more encircling than ivy, climbing its way as it winds, Shall Damalis, proof to their glances, Turning aside from the old loves, cling root and branch to the new. Memor actæ non alio rege puertiæ.' Most modern scholars by ' rege' understand schoolmaster. 2 Threïcia amystide.' 'Amystis' was a deep draught taken without drawing breath. CARM. XXXVI. Et thure et fidibus juvat Placare et vituli sanguine debito Custodes Numidæ deos, Qui nunc, Hesperia sospes ab ultima, Caris multa sodalibus, Nulli plura tamen dividit oscula Quam dulci Lamiæ, memor Actæ non alio rege puertiæ,1 Mutatæque simul togæ. Cressa ne careat pulchra dies nota, Neu promptæ modus amphora, Neu morem in Salium sit requies pedum, Neu multi Damalis meri Bassum Threïcia vincat amystide," Neu desint epulis rosæ, Neu vivax apium, neu breve lilium. Omnes in Damalin putres Deponent oculos, nec Damalis novo Divelletur adultero, Lascivis hederis ambitiosior. ODE XXXVII. ON THE FALL OF CLEOPATRA. In this ode Horace conspicuously manifests his unrivalled art of combining terseness and completeness. The animated rapidity with which the images succeed each other does not render them less distinct. The three pictures of Cleopatra constitute the action of a drama; her insolent power with its Oriental surroundings,-her flight and fall,-her undaunted death. And while, with his inherent manliness of sentiment, Horace compels admiration for Now is the time, companions, for carousal, Deckt be the couches on which gods repose. Sinful before were Cæcuban wines time-mellowed, While for the life of Rome Funereal fates, the madding Queen prepared, Girt with a herd obscene of tainted outcasts, Fooled by false hope and drunken with sweet Fortune; When from the flames slunk, scarcely slunk, one ship! The Salii were the priests of Mars Gradivus, twelve in number. Their habitual festival was in March, when they paraded the city in their official robes, carrying with them the twelve sacred shields of Mars, which they struck with rods, keeping time to the stroke by song and dance. At the conclusion of the festival the Salii partook of a banquet, proverbial for its magnificence, in the temple of Mars. 'Pulvinaria' are the couches on which the statues were placed, as if the gods themselves were banqueters. for the foe who defrauds the victor of his triumph, and dies a queen, that very generosity of his serves more to justify the joyous exultation with which the poem commences, since it implies the determined nature of the great enemy from whom Rome is delivered. The date of the poem is sufficiently clear. M. Tullius Cicero, son of the orator, brought to Rome the news of the taking of Alexandria, and the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, Sept., A. U.C. 724, suggest ing this exhortation to private and public rejoicings. It will be observed here, as elsewhere, how Horace avoids naming Mark Antony. Two lines from a fragment of Alcæus are cited by commentators to show that the commencement of this ode is imitated from them. They rather serve to show with what sedulous avoidance of servility Horace does imitate, and how thoroughly Roman the whole treatment of his poem is, whatever be the lines to which a Greek poem may furnish hint and suggestion. CARM. XXXVII. Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero Ornare pulvinar deorum Tempus erat dapibus, sodales. Antehac nefas depromere Cæcubum Regina dementes ruinas, Funus et imperio parabat Contaminato cum grege turpium Ebria. Sed minuit furorem Speeding to change to real forms of terror From Latian coasts press Cæsar's rapid oars. As on the cowering dove descends the falcon, To bind in chains this fatal Prodigy. For chains too nobly born, she dies and spurns them,— She from no sword recoils with woman shudder,— She crowds no sail to shores Where life might save itself and lurk obscure. Brave to face fallen grandeur and void palace Her form might readiest drink the poison in; Sterner thro' death deliberate, she defrauded No, the grand woman to the last was Queen! ''Mentemque lymphatam Mareotico.'' Lymphatam' denotes panic or visionary terrors (' lymphata somnia'). 'Lympha' and ' nympha,' Nympholepsy was the mad as Macleane observes, are the same word. ness occasioned by the sight of the nymph flashing up from the fountain, scaring the traveller out of his senses; and lymphatus' literally means 'driven mad by the glare of water.' Horace ascribes this effect to the fumes, or perhaps rather the sparkle, of the Mareotic wine, produced on the banks of Lake Mareotis, in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. 'Liburnians,' light swift-sailing vessels, which constituted a chief portion of Augustus's fleet at Actium. |