A.D. 32, Præfectus Urbi,' and died the following year. Mitscherlich says: "His own good sense will easily show any well-bred gentleman (urbanum) that Horace here, in a well-bred, gentlemanlike way, offers himself as a guest; in plain words, hints that Lamia should ask him to dine.' On which the commentator in Orelli observes, with much feeling asperity In the whole poem there is not a vestige of this sort of gentlemanlike good-breeding, if gentlemanlike good-breeding it be, which it is permitted vehemently to doubt.' Evidently the commentator is an Italian. A gentleman of that country would certainly dispute the goodbreeding of any friend offering to drop in at dinner.

CARM. XVII.

Æli, vetusto nobilis ab Lamo,

Quando et priores hinc Lamias ferunt
Denominatos, et nepotum

Per memores genus omne fastos ;1

Auctore ab illo ducis originem,
Qui Formiarum moenia dicitur
Princeps et innantem Maricæ
Litoribus tenuisse Lirim,2

Late tyrannus: cras foliis nemus
Multis et alga litus inutili

Demissa tempestas ab Euro

Sternet, aquæ nisi fallit augur

Annosa cornix. Dum potis, aridum
Compone lignum: cras Genium mero
Curabis et porco bimestri,

Cum famulis operum solutis.

Faunus was not a stationary divinity. He was supposed to come in the spring, and depart after the celebration of his festival in December. From 'parvis alumnis' (translated 'young weanlings '), we may suppose this ode was written in spring.-MACLEANE. Ritter denies that by 'parvis alumnis' young animals are meant ; and contends that the words refer to young plants, transferred from the nursery to fields or orchards. Ritter also dissents from the general interpretation, which I have followed, that 'Veneris sodali' is to be coupled with crateræ.' According to him, the companion of Venus is Faunus, the lover of the Nymphs, and not the wine-bowl.

Faunus, thou lover of coy nymphs who fly thee,
Enter my bounds, and fields that slope to sunlight ;
Enter them gently; and depart, propitious

To my young weanlings,

If tender kid, when the year rounds, be offered;
If to the bowl, Venus's boon companion,
Fail not libation due !1-With ample incense
Steams thine old altar,

Loose strays the herd on grassy meads disporting,
What time December's Nones bring back thy feast-day;
Blithe, o'er the fields, streams forth the idling hamlet,
Freed-with its oxen.

Fearless the lambs behold the wolf prowl near them;
The woodland strews its leaves before thy footstep;
And on his hard task-mistress Earth, exulting,
Thrice stamps the delver !2

'Si tener pleno cadit hædus anno,
Larga nec desunt Veneris sodali
Vina crateræ. Vetus ara multo

Fumat odore,' &c.

As I have here adopted a novelty in the punctuation, suggested by Macleane, it is well to subjoin his reasons for the innovation. 'I have not

CARM. XVIII.

Faune, Nympharum fugientum amator,
Per meos fines et aprica rura
Lenis incedas abeasque parvis
Equus alumnis ;

Si tener pleno cadit hædus anno,
Larga nec desunt Veneris sodali

Ludit herboso pecus omne campo,
Cum tibi Nonæ redeunt Decembres;
Festus in pratis vacat otioso

Cum bove pagus ;

Inter audaces lupus errat agnos;
Spargit agrestes tibi silva frondes ;
Gaudet invisam pepulisse fossor
Ter pede terram.2

followed the usual punctuation, which makes "fumat" depend upon "si," with a comma at "crateræ," and a period at "odore." Horace claims the protection of Faunus for his lambs in the spring on the ground of his due observance of the rites of December, which he then goes on to describe. "Pleno anno" means at the end of the year when the Faunalia took place.' Therefore the division in the poem at which, after the invitation to Faunus in the spring, Horace passes on to describe the festival in the winter, is more intelligible, and far less abrupt, by commencing it with the sacrifice on the altar.

2 'Gaudet invisam pepulisse fossor

Ter pede terram.'

"Fossor" is put generally, I imagine, for a labouring husbandman, who may be supposed to have no love for the earth that he digs for another.'-MACLEANE. This triple stamp is a dancing measure, which is likened to the anapest, where two feet are short and one long. Macleane quotes Sir John Davies's poem (Orchestra) in explanation of this

measure

'And still their feet an anapæst do sound,' &c. But it is perhaps best understood by anyone who happens to have learned, in the old-fashioned hornpipe, that step familiarly called 'toe, heel, and cloe,'-touching the ground lightly with the toe, next with the heel, and then bringing down the whole sole of the foot with a stamp. I have seen that step, or something very like it, performed in a village dance in the south of Italy.

ODE XIX.

TO TELEPHUS.-IN HONOUR OF MURENA'S INSTALLATION IN THE COLLEGE OF AUGURS.

A. Terentius Varro Murena, adopted by A. Terentius Varro, whose name he took, according to custom, subdued the Salassi, an Alpine tribe, and divided their territory among Prætorian soldiers, who founded the town of Augusta, now Aosta. He was named Consul Suffectus for

You inform us how long after Inachus flourished
Royal Codrus, who feared not to die for his country;
What noble descendants from Æacus sprung,

d;

B.C.

What battles were fought under Ilion the sacred But you say not a word upon things more important— What the price one must pay for a cask of old Chian? Baths,' rooms-where and whose? What the moment to thaw

These frost-bitten limbs in the sunshine of supper?

Hillo, boy, there, a cup !2

Brim it full for the New Moon! Brim it full for the Midnight!

Hillo, boy, there, a cup!
And, boy, there, a cup!

Brim it full-to the health

Of him we would honour !-Murena the Augur.

Let the bowls be proportioned to three or nine measures,
As each comrade likes best ;3 the true poet will ever
Suit his to the odd-numbered Muses, and quaff

Thrice three in the rapture the Nine give to brimmers.

Quis aquam temperet ignibus.' Orelli considers this refers to the water to be warmed for the baths; Ritter, to the water to be warmed for admixture with wine. I have adopted the former interpretation, though I think it doubtful.

2 Here, in a kind of phantasy, the poet transports himself with Telephus into the midst of the entertainment.'-ORELLI.

"The "

3 Tribus aut novem

Miscentur cyathis pocula commodis.'

cyathus" was a ladle with which the drink was passed from the

B.C. 23. In B.C. 22 he was involved in the conspiracy of Fannius Cæpio against the life of Augustus, and, though his guilt seems doubtful, executed. This is the same person whom Horace addresses under the name Licinius, Book II. Ode x., 'Rectius vives Licini,' &c. The metre in the original is the second Asclepiadean; but I have found it easier to preserve fidelity to the sense and spirit of the poem by employing one of the varieties of rhythm which I have appropriated to the Alcaic.

CARM. XIX.

Quantum distet ab Inacho

Codrus, pro patria non timidus mori,
Narras, et genus Æaci,

Et pugnata sacro bella sub Ilio:

Quo Chium pretio cadum

Mercemur, quis aquam temperet ignibus,'
Quo præbente domum et quota

Pelignis caream frigoribus, taces.

2 Da Lunæ propere novæ,

Da Noctis media, da, puer, auguris
Murenæ tribus aut novem

Miscentur cyathis pocula commodis.3

Qui Musas amat impares,

Ternos ter cyathos attonitus petet

Vates; tres prohibet supra

Rixarum metuens tangere Gratia,

mixing-bowl to the drinking-cup. The ladle was of certain capacity, and twelve "cyathi" went to the Sextarius. Horace says, in effect, "Let the wine be mixed in the proportion of three cyathi of wine to nine of water, or of nine of wine to three of water.' "Commodis,"

"fit

The

and proper,”—“cyathi," that is, "bumpers."-MACLEANE. above seems the best and most intelligible interpretation of a passage in which, if conjectures were cyathi, the commentators would have greatly exceeded the number allowed to the nine Muses.