ODE X. TO LYCE. This humorous ode belongs to a kind of serenade common enough with the Greeks, and is probably imitated from a Greek original. There is no reason for supposing the Lyce whose cruelty is here complained of, to be identical with the Lyce who is lampooned in Book IV. Ode xiii. Didst thou drink at the uttermost waters of Don, Still, thy heart with compassion might think of me stretched Hark! the hinge of thy gate; hark! the plants in thy hall,' Renders crisper the snows that are heapen below! Lay the haughtiness hateful to Venus aside, Lest the wheel should run back and the rope should be snapped,2 Thy gay parent Tyrrhenian ne'er meant to produce Ah! although thou art proof against presents and prayers, 1 'Nemus Inter pulchra satum tecta.' Small trees were sometimes planted round the impluvium of a Roman house. This is the interpretation adopted by Orelli. Ritter contends that the line refers to one of the two sacred groves situated between the two heights of the Capitoline. CARM. X. Extremum Tanain si biberes, Lyce, Audis quo strepit janua, quo nemus Ingratam Veneri pone superbiam, O quamvis neque te munera, nec preces, Nec vir Pieria pellice saucius 2 Ne currente retro funis eat rota.' This line has been tortured to many interpretations. Lest the wheel turn back and the rope with it,' is Orelli's, accepted by Macleane, who observes, the metaphor in that case is taken from a rope wound round a cylinder, which, being allowed to run back, the rope runs down, and the weight or thing attached goes with it. The rope may break and the wheel run back,' is the construction Macleane gives in his argument to the ode. ''Pieria pellice,' Macedonian lady of pleasure.-Orelli, Ritter. There is some humour as well as wit in coupling pellice' with an epithet so suggestive of an opposite idea. Yet, while granting thy heart is not softer than oak, And can bear not for ever this porch and that sleet.' Aquæ Cælestis patiens.' The expression can scarcely apply to rain, since the night has been described as one of wind and frost :'Glaciet nives Puro numine Juppiter;' 'puro' being, as Macleane observes, an epithet well suited to a clear, frosty night.' The wind would keep off the snow, but there might be gusty showers of sleety hail. Horace, however, no doubt, uses the expression in a general sense, such as the 'floods of heaven,' whether they be snow, rain, or sleet. Parcas, nec rigida mollior æsculo ODE XI. TO THE LYRE. 'The common inscription, "Ad Mercurium" (To Mercury), adopted by Bentley and others, is plainly wrong, and calculated to mislead. The inscription should be 'Ad testudinem' Mercury (for, tutored in thy lore, Amphion Albeit once, unmusical, unheeded,' Now welcome both in banquet-halls and temples, Lyde to listen. Wild as the filly in its third year, frisking Through the wide meadows, the least touch dismays her; But thou hast power to lead away the tigers, Yielded to thy bland voice his hundred strongholds Nec loquax,' i.e., 'canora,'-DILLENBURGER, ORELLI. Horace, though a born poet, if ever there was one-and telling us that even as an infant, when the doves covered him with bay and myrtle, he was marked out for the service of the Muses-does not disdain, here and else |