15 that pass and repass turns their looks on thee? This fellow, [say they,] cut with the triumvir's whips," even till the beadle was sick of his office, plows a thousand acres of Falernian land, and wears out the Appian road with his nags; and, in despite of Otho," sits in the first rows [of the circus] as a knight of distinction. To what purpose is it, that so many brazen-beaked ships of immense bulk should be led out against pirates and a band of slaves, while this fellow, this is a military tribune? ODE V. THE WITCHES MANGLING A BOY. Bur oh, by all the gods in heaven, who rule the earth and human race, what means this tumult? And what the hideous looks of all these [hags, fixed] upon me alone? I conjure thee by thy children (if invoked Lucina was ever present at any real birth of thine), I [conjure] thee by this empty honor of my purple," by Jupiter, who must disapprove these 14 Sectus flagellis triumviralibus. There were three judges in Rome, who took cognizance of all petty crimes, and who ordered slaves and thieves to be chastised in their presence. The person against whom this ode was written had gone through this discipline, until the beadle, who used to proclaim the fault for which the criminals were punished, was tired of his office. Præconis ad fastidium. 15 Arat Falerni, etc. Here are two reasons for this popular indignation, that this fellow should possess a thousand acres of land, when the ancient laws allowed the Roman citizen no more than seven; and that these thousand acres should lie in such a country as Campania; a country so fertile, that Bacchus and Ceres were said to have disputed the possession of it. TORR. DAC. 16 According to the law of L. Roscius Otho, passed a. U. c. 686, fourteen rows of benches, immediately over the orchestra, a place where the senate sat, were appropriated in the theater and amphitheater for the accommodation of the knights. As the tribunes of the soldiers had an equal right with the Equites, they were entitled to seats in this same quarter; and hence the individual to whom the poet alludes, though of servile origin, boldly takes his place on the foremost of the equestrian benches, nor fears the law of Otho. ANTHON. 17 Tumultus. This word, in a moral sense, carries always an idea of a criminal conspiracy. The boy sees a sentence of death in the eyes of the witches. TORR. 18 Per hoc inane purpuræ decus. Children of quality wore a robe bor proceedings, why dost thou look at me as a step-mother, or as a wild beast stricken with a dart? While the boy made these complaints with a faltering voice, he stood with his bandages1 of distinction taken from him, a tender frame, such as might soften the impious breasts of the cruel Thracians; Canidia, having interwoven her hair and uncombed head with little vipers, orders wild20 fig-trees torn up from graves, orders funeral cypresses and eggs besmeared with the gore of a loathsome toad, and feathers of the nocturnal screech-owl, and those herbs, which Iölchos, and Spain, fruitful in poisons, transmits, and bones snatched from the mouth of a hungry bitch, to be burned in Colchian flames. But Sagana, tucked up for expedition, sprinkling the waters of Avernus all over the house, bristles up with her rough hair like a sea-urchin, or a boar in the chase. Veia, deterred by no remorse of conscience, groaning with the toil, dug up the ground with the sharp spade; where the boy, fixed in, might long be tormented to death at the sight of food varied two or three times in a day : while he stood out with his face, just as much as bodies suspended by the chin [in swimming] project from the water, that his parched marrow and dried liver might be a charm for love; when once the pupils of his had wasted away, fixed on the forbidden food. Both the idle Naples, and every neighboring town believed, that Folia of Ariminum, [a witch] of masculine lust, was not absent: she, who with her Thessalian incantations forces the charmed stars and the moon from heaven." Here the fell Canidia, gnawing her unpaired dered with purple, until they were fifteen years of age. The boy, therefore, conjures Canidia by this robe, which showed his youth and quality, which was in itself esteemed sacred, and should therefore protect him from danger. The Romans, with regard to this robe, used the expression majestas pueritia, the majesty of childhood. TORR. DAC. eyes 19 Constitit insignibus raptis. His robe and bulla (which was hung round his neck, and made of gold or silver in form of a heart) are by the poet called insignia. 20 Jubet sepulcris caprificos erutas. Here Canidia calls for the drugs that witches were supposed to use in composing their philters. She commands the wild fig-tree to be brought, because it bears neither fruit nor flower, and is esteemed unlucky and ill-omened. To make the charm more powerful, it must grow in a burying-place, and be torn up by the roots. DAC. 21 That the moon could be brought down by magic was a common superstition among the ancients, and the Thessalians were thought to be possessed of this art more than any other people. ANTHON. thumb with her livid teeth, what said she? or what did she not say? O ye faithful witnesses to my proceedings, Night and Diana, who presidest over silence, when the secret rites are celebrated: now, now be present, now turn your anger and power against the houses of our enemies, while the savage wild beasts lie hid in the woods, dissolved in sweet repose; let the dogs of Suburra (which may be matter of ridicule for every body) bark at the aged profligate, bedaubed with ointment, such as my hands never made any more exquisite. What is the matter? Why are these compositions less efficacious than those of the barbarian Medea? by means of which she made her escape, after having revenged herself on [Jason's] haughty mistress, the daughter of the mighty Creon; when the garment, a gift that was infected with venom, took off his new bride by its inflammatory power. And yet no herb, nor root hidden in inaccessible places, ever escaped my notice. [Nevertheless,] he sleeps in the perfumed bed of every harlot, from his forgetfulness [of me]. Ah! ah! he walks free [from my power] by the charms of some more knowing witch. Varus, (oh you that will shortly have much to lament!) you shall come back to me by means of unusual spells; nor shall you return to yourself by all the power of Marsian enchantments.22 I will prepare a stronger philter: I will pour in a stronger philter for you, disdainful as you are; and the heaven shall subside below the sea, with the earth extended over it, sooner than you shall not burn with love for me, in the same manner as this pitch [burns] in the sooty flames. At these words, the boy no longer [attempted], as before, to move the impious hags by soothing expressions; but, doubtful in what manner he should break silence, uttered Thyestean imprecations. Potions [said he] have a great efficacy in confounding right and wrong, but are not able to invert the condition of human nature; I will persecute you with curses; and execrating detestation is not to be expiated by any victim. Moreover, when doomed to death I shall have expired, I will attend you as a nocturnal fury; and, a ghost, I will attack your faces with my hooked talons (for such is 22 Marsis vocibus. The Marsi had the same character of witchcraft in Italy, as the Thessalians had in Greece. But they particularly owed their reputation to Marsus, the founder of their nation, who was the son of Circe. the power of those divinities, the Manes), and, brooding upon your restless breasts, I will deprive you of repose by terror. The mob, from village to village, assaulting you on every side with stones, shall demolish you filthy hags. Finally, the wolves and Esquiline" vultures shall scatter abroad your unburied limbs. Nor shall this spectacle escape the observation of my parents, who, alas! must survive me. ODE VI. AGAINST CASSIUS SEVERUS. O CUR, thou coward against wolves, why dost thou persecute innocent strangers? Why do you not, if you can, turn your empty yelpings hither, and attack me, who will bite again? For, like a Molossian," or tawny Laconian dog, that is a friendly assistant to shepherds, I will drive with erected ears through the deep snows every brute that shall go before me. You, when you have filled the grove with your fearful barking, you smell at the food that is thrown to you. Have a care, have a care; for, very bitter against bad men, I exert my ready horns uplift; like him that was rejected as a sonin-law by the perfidious Lycambes, or the sharp enemy of Bupalus. What, if any cur attack me with malignant tooth, shall I, without revenge, blubber like a boy? 23 Esquilino alites. The Esquilian Hill was a place of public executions, and the poor of Rome were buried there, in ditches called puticuli. The birds, which came to this hill, to prey upon carcasses of criminals, are called Esquilina alites. CRUQ. 24 The Molossian and Laconian dogs were of a robust make, and valuable as well in hunting wild beasts, as in defending the flocks from nocturnal thieves, and from the attacks of wolves. The Molossi occupied the north-eastern part of Epirus. Virgil (Geor. iii. 405) characterizes both species, "Veloces Spartæ catulos acremque Molossum Pasce sero pingui." Shakespeare praises the former. M. N. D. iv. 11: My hounds are bred out of the Spartan breed. ANTHON. ODE VII. TO THE ROMAN PEOPLE. 27 26 WHITHER, Whither, impious men are you rushing? Or why are the swords drawn," that were [so lately] sheathed? Is there too little of Roman blood spilled upon land and sea? [And this,] not that the Romans might burn the proud towers of envious Carthage, or that the Britons, hitherto unassailed, might go down the sacred way bound in chains :28 but that, agreeably to the wishes of the Parthians, this city may fall by its own might. This custom [of warfare] never obtained even among either wolves or savage lions, unless against a different species. Does blind phrenzy, or your superior valor, or some crime, hurry you on at this rate? Give answer. They are silent: and wan paleness infects their countenances, and their stricken souls are stupefied. This is the case: a cruel fatality and the crime of fratricide 25 After the defeat of Brutus and Cassius, the death of Sextus Pompeius, and the resignation of Lepidus, Octavius and Antony alone remained in a condition of disputing the sovereign power. Sometimes Octavia, sometimes their common friends reconciled them; but, at length, they came to an open rupture, in the year 722, when all the forces of the republic were armed to give the last stroke to Roman liberty. During these preparations, Horace composed five or six odes on this subject. His design here is, to represent to both parties the horrors of their criminal dissensions, which threatened their common country with total ruin. SAN. 26 Enses conditi. Peace had sheathed their swords ever since the death of Sextus Pompeius, that is, for more than two years. SAN, 27 Descenderet. From the top of the sacred street they went downward to the forum, and the way from thence ascended to the Capitol. This ascent was called Clivus Capitolinus. LAMB. 28 Intactus Britannus. Julius Cæsar was the first of the Romans who carried his arms into Britain; and, although Suetonius tells us that he obliged the Britons to give hostages, and imposed tributes upon them, yet we may say that he rather opened a way for his successors into the island, than that he conquered it; or perhaps it was never totally subdued by the Romans. In the time of Horace, the reduction of this people was considered as a new conquest, reserved for the arms of Augustus, from whence the poet here calls them intacti, as he always mentions them with epithets of terror, which represent them as a nation formidable to the Romans, even in the highest strength and glory of their republic. ED. DUBLIN. |