And may Aquilo rise in his might as when rending Upon hill-peaks the holm-oaks that rock to his blast! On the blackness of night let no friendly star glimmer Save the baleful Orion, whose setting is storm; Nor the deep know a billow more calm than the breakers Which o'erwhelmed the victorious armada of Greece, When, from Ilion consumed, to the vessel of Ajax Pallas turned the wrath due to her temple profaned! Ha, what sweat-drops will run from the brows of thy sailors, And how palely thy puddle-blood ooze from thy cheeks; As thou call'st out for aid-with that shriek which shames manhood 2 On the Jove who disdains such a caitiff to hear; When thy keel strains and cracks in the deep gulf Ionic, Howling back the grim howl of the stormy south-blast. But O! if in some desolate creek thou shalt furnish To the maw of the sea-gulls a banquet superb, 1 It is cleverly said by one of the critics, that Pallas is appropriately enough referred to here as the avenger of the bad poetry with which Mævius had insulted her. 2 'Illa non virilis ejulatio.' He speaks as though he heard the man crying.-MACLEANE. Insurgat Aquilo, quantus altis montibus Nec sidus atra nocte amicum appareat, Quam Graia victorum manus, O quantus instat navitis sudor tuis, Et illa non virilis ejulatio," Preces et aversum ad Jovem, EPODES XI. AND XII. OMITTED. EPODE XIII. TO FRIENDS. Of all the Epodes, this, of which the metre consists of a hexameter verse, with one made up of a dimeter iambic and half a pentameter, appears to have most of the lyrical spirit and character of the Odes. The poem, addressed to a party of friends in winter, suggests comparison with the 9th Ode of the First Book, 'Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum,' also a winter song; but the occasion is very different, and the spirit that pervades it not less so. Ode ix. Lib. I. has no reference to public troubles; unless, indeed, a reader should indorse the very far-fetched supposition that verse 7, 'Permitte divis cætera,' has a political allusion. Its main image is in the picture of an individual, and the happy mode in which, while yet young, that individual may pass his day. Its tone is cheerful, and with no insinuation of pathos. This epode, on the other hand, is evidently addressed to friends excited by anxieties Frowning storm has contracted the face of the heaven, Rains and snows draw the upper air heavily down; Now the sea, now the forests, resound with the roar Of wild Aquilo rushing from hill-tops on Thrace. Seize, my friends, on To-day-foul or fair it is oursWhile yet firm are the knees, nor unseemly is joy; And let Gravity loosen his hold on the brows1 Which he now overcasts with the cloud of his scowl. and 1 Obducta solvatur fronte senectus.' 'Obducta,' as if clouded with care and sadness.-ORELLI. Orelli interprets senectus' in the sense of morositas,' 'tædium,' to which the word 'senium' is more frequently applied. Macleane renders it 'melancholy,' in which sense, however, he allows it is used nowhere else. I think the right meaning is 'gravity' or 'austerity,' in which sense it is employed by Cicero, De Clar. Orat. 76, Plena litteratæ senectutis oratio,' and apprehensions in common. If it be allowable to draw a conjecture from the touching illustration of the fate of Achilles, doomed in the land of Assaracus to a stormy life and an early death, the poem might have been written between the date of Horace's departure into Asia Minor, in the service of Brutus, and that of the trials and dangers which closed at the field of Philippi, A.U.C. 712. Ritter, indeed, places its date in the interval between the death of Cassius and the battle of Philippi. It may, however, be observed, that if the invitation to the feastmaster to bring forth the wine stored in the consulship of Torquatus is to be taken literally, wine of that age could scarcely have been found in the commissariat of Brutus. If not written while in the camp of Brutus, it was probably composed between A.U.C. 712 and 716, soon after Horace's return to Rome, before the fortunes of his life, and perhaps his political views, were changed by the favour of Maecenas, and while his chief associates would naturally have been among the remnants of the party with whom he had fought, and to whose minds (if there be anything peculiarly appropriate in the reference to Achilles) military dangers in a foreign land might still be the salient apprehension. It is evidently written some years before Horace here classes himself emphatically with the young. In Ode ix. he addresses Thaliarchus, or the feastmaster, with the half-envious sentiment of a man who points out the pleasures of youth to another—who yet sympathises with those pleasures, but is somewhat receding from them himself. Ode ix. Lib. I. CARM. XIII. Horrida tempestas cælum contraxit, et imbres Nivesque deducunt Jovem; nunc mare, nunc siluæ Threicio Aquilone sonant: rapiamus, amici, Occasionem de die, dumque virent genua, Et decet, obducta solvatur fronte senectus,1 Broach the cask which was born with myself in the year Doubt and dread let the chords of Cyllene dispel ; 4 There the petty Scamander's cold streams cut their way, From that land, by the certain decree of their woof, Tu vina Torquato,' &c. Here he addresses himself to the master of the feast. Sextus Manlius Torquatus was consul A. U.C. 689, the year of Horace's birth-‘O nata mecum consule Manlio,' Lib. III. xxi. 1. 2 Fide Cyllenea,'-viz., the lyre, invented by Mercury, born on Mount Cyllene, in Arcadia. There seems to me much beauty in the choice of the word, which introduces an image of Arcadian freedom from care-the ideal holiday life. 3 Achilles. Ritter supposes that the Scamander is here emphatically called small (parvi Scamandri flumina) antithetically to 'grandi alumno '— the great hero who found the scene of his actions by a stream so small. Should this conjecture, exquisitely critical, if not too refined, be admitted, then 'lubricus et Simoïs' must form a part of the antithesis insinuated; i.e., actions so great beside a stream so small-actions so vehement, and of renown so loud, beside a stream so smooth. |