The ode clearly suggested to Tennyson the lines, In Memor. 107, 'Fiercely flies | The blast of North and East, and ice | Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves, . . . But fetch the wine, | Arrange the board and brim the glass, || Bring in great logs and let them lie, | To make a solid core of heat; | Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat | Of all things ev'n as he were by.' Thaliarchus (v. 8) is only a person of Horace's fancy, although the name was in actual use, as is shown by inscriptions. The ode is evidently a study and not an occasional poem; while it probably belongs to Horace's earlier attempts at lyric verse, the skill with which it is written has won admiration from all critics. Metre, 68. 5 Vides ut alta stet nive candidum flumina constiterint acuto. Dissolve frigus ligna super foco 1. The point of view is apparently the neighborhood of Tivoli, from which Soracte can be seen some twenty miles to the west of north; while Soracte is the highest peak (2000 feet) visible from this vicinity, it is not ordinarily the most conspicuous mountain. Snow is seldom seen on it, and so Horace seems to choose this rare phenomenon to suggest extreme cold weather. ut: interrogative. nive candidum: cf. Macaulay, Regillus, 'White as Mount Soracte | When winter nights are long.' 3 f. laborantes: with the burden of the snow; cf. 2, 9, 7 f. where the high wind is the cause of the wood's distress, Aquilonibus | querqueta Gargani laborant. - flumina constiterint: this degree of cold is not known to the Campagna. Horace here follows Alcaeus πεπάγασιν δ ̓ ἐδάτων ῥόαι. — acuto : biting, sharp. Cf. Pind. P. 1, 38 f. νιφόεσσ' Αἴτνα, πανέτης | χιόνος ogcías Tilýva, 'nurse of the biting snow the whole year through.' 5. dissolve frigus: cf. I, 4, I solvitur acris hiems, and n. foco the common hearth in the middle of the atrium. 6. reponens: 'keeping up' the supply of wood; re- implying a duty to replace what the fire consumes; cf. reddere. - benignius: without stint, apadéws; the comparative is not opposed to the positive large in any sense, but is simply emphatic. deprome quadrimum Sabina, o Thaliarche, merum diota. Permitte divis cetera; qui simul stravere ventos aequore fervido deproeliantis, nec cupressi nec veteres agitantur orni. Quid sit futurum cras fuge quaerere, et quem fors dierum cumque dabit lucro f. 7. deprome: broach. Sabine wine was but ordinary 'vin de pays' which would be well aged in four years. Horace means 'a roaring fire and good vin ordinaire will give us warmth and cheer.' Yet the age four years—may have been a commonplace of poets; cf. Theoc. 7, 147 τετράενες δὲ πίθων ἀπελύετο κρατὸς ἄλειφαρ. ‘And it was a four-year-old seal that was loosened from the mouth of the wine jars.' Likewise 14, 15 ἀνῷξα δὲ βίβλινον αὐτοῖς | εὐώδη, τετόρων ἐτέων, σχεδὸν ὡς ἀπὸ Xav@. And I opened for them Bibline wine, four years old, fragrant almost as when it came from the wine press.' Thaliarche : Dalíapyos; this suggests the master of the drinking bout, arbiter convivii. Cf. n. to I, 4, 18.. diota: Síwros; the two-handled amphora in which the wine was stored in the apotheca. 9 f. cetera: all else, in contrast to the present moment and its joys. Cf. Epod. 13, 7 f. cetera mitte loqui; deus haec fortasse benigna reducet in sedem vice, and Theog. 1047 f. vûv μèv πívOVTES τερπώμεθα, καλὰ λέγοντες· [ ἄσσα δ ̓ ἔπειτ ̓ ἔσται, ταῦτα θεοῖσι μέλει. 'Now let us take our delight in drinking, speaking words of fair omen; whatever shall come tomorrow is only Heaven's care.' Cf. also the passages quoted on v. 13 below. — qui simul, etc.: the following illustrates the power of the gods. — simul: i.e. simul ac; cf. I, 4, 17, and n.- - stravere: so στορέννυμι, in the same connection Od. 3, 158 ἐστόρεσεν δὲ θεὸς μεγακήτεα πόντον. 11 f. The cypresses of the garden are contrasted with the ash trees of the mountains. 13 ff. Common Epicurean sentiments. Cf. the Anacreontic Tò σήμερον μέλει μοι | τὸ δ' αὔριον Tís ofdev; and Philet. Frg. 7 K. Tí δεῖ γὰρ ὄντα θνητόν, ἱκετεύω, ποιεῖν | πλὴν ἡδέως ζῆν τὸν βίον καθ ̓ ἡμέ ραν | εἰς αὔριον δὲ μηδὲ φροντί ζειν ὅ τι | ἔσται; ‘For what should I who am mortal do, I pray thee, save live pleasantly day by day, 1, 6, 3. lucro appone in origin a commercial expression; 'carrying to the profit account.' Cf. Ovid, Trist. 1, 3, 68 in lucro est quae datur hora mihi. 16. puer: ' while thou art young.'-tu: in disjunctive sentences the subject pronoun is often reserved for the second member as here, giving emphasis to the charge. Cf. Epist. I, 2, 63 hunc frenis, hunc tu compesce catena; and Iuv. 6, 172 parce precor, Paean, et tu depone sagit tas. 17. virenti canities: notice the forceful juxtaposition; cf. n. to I, 5, 9. — virenti: sc. tibi. Cf. Epod. 13, 4 dum virent genua. Martius and the public squares (areae) were natural trysting places. In our climate we have little idea of the way in which Italian life, from business to lovemaking, is still carried on in the squares (piazze) of the towns and cities. - lenes susurri: cf. Prop. I, II, 13 blandos audire susurros. 21 ff. nunc et: the anaphora weakens the violence of the zeugma by which this strophe is connected with repetantur, be claimed; the opposite of reddere. cf. n. on reponens, v. 6, above. The skillful arrangement of the verses is striking and cannot be reproduced in an uninflected language; like an artist, Horace adds to his picture stroke after stroke, until it is complete. Each idea in the first verse has its complement in the second: latentis 18 ff. morosa: crabbed. nunc: 'while thou art young,' repeating puellae donec virenti, etc. The Campus proditor risus intimo ab angulo Intr. 21. . pignusque dereptum lacertis 23 f. The girl is coquettish. Porphyrio quotes Verg. E. 3, 65 et fugit (sc. puella) ad salices et se cupit ante videri. Cf. also Maximian's verses written in the sixth century A.D. Eleg. 1, 67 ff. et modo subridens latebras fugitiva petebat, non tamen effugiens tota latere volens, | sed magis ex IO The Italian Mercury was early identified with the Greek Hermes, but was chiefly worshiped by the Romans as the god of trade. This ode is a hymn to Mercury with the varied attributes of his Greek parallel: he is celebrated as the god of eloquence (λóyɩos), of athletic contests (åyóvios), the divine messenger (diákтopos), the inventor of the lyre (μovσikós), the god of thieves (кλÉπτηs), the helper (épiovvios), and the shepherd of the shades (νуожоμπós), who restrains them with his golden wand (xpvσóɔ̃paπis). That this ode is based on a similar ode by Alcaeus is expressly stated by Porphyrio, hymnus est in Mercurium ab Alcaeo lyrico poeta, who adds on v. 9 fabula haec autem ab Alcaeo ficta ; furthermore Pausanias (7, 20, 5) informs us that Alcaeus treated in a hymn the theft of cattle from Apollo, but Menander (de encom. 7) says that the chief theme of the hymn was the birth of the god, so that we may safely conclude that Horace's treatment of his original was free. Unfortunately but three verses of Alcaeus' hymn are preserved, Frg. 5 χαῖρε Κυλλάνας ὃ μέδεις, σὲ γάρ μοι | θύμος ὕμνην, τὸν κορυφαῖς ἐν αὔταις | Μαῖα γέννατο Κρονίδα μιγεῖσα. Metre, 69. Mercuri, facunde nepos Atlantis, 1 ff. facunde: as λoyos, god of speech, expanded in the following qui . . . voce formasti; cf. Mart. 7, 74, Cyllenes caelique decus, fa cunde minister, and also Acts 14, 12 And they called. . . Paul, Mercury, because he was the chief speaker.' nepos Atlantis: cf. 5 10 voce formasti catus et decorae te canam, magni Iovis et deorum Te boves olim nisi reddidisses Ovid's appeal, Fast. 5, 663 clare nepos Atlantis, ades, and Eurip. Ion I ff., where Hermes speaks, "Arλas 6 ἔφυσε Μαῖαν, ἣ μ' ἐγείνατο | Ἑρμῆν μεγίστῳ Ζηνί. — cultus : manners.— - recentum: newly created'; i.e. mankind in its infancy, described by Horace, S. 1, 3, 100 as mutum et turpe pecus. By the gift of language (voce) and the institution (more) of grace-giving athletic sports Mercury raised men out of their early brute condition. An inscription (Orelli 1417) in his honor reads sermonis dator infans palaestram protulit Cyllenius.— catus: an archaic word defined by Varro L. L. 7, 46 as acutus, the opposite of stultus. 7 f. callidum: with the dependent infinitive condere. Intr. 108. Hermes is called Eurip. Rhes. 217 φηλητῶν ἄναξ. —iocoso: sportive. 9 ff. According to the Homeric hymn to Mercury 22 ff. it was on the very day of the god's birth that he perpetrated this theft as well as invented the lyre. The Scholiast to Il. 15, 256 tells the same story Ἑρμῆς ὁ Διὸς καὶ Μαίας τῆς ̓́Ατλαν τος εὗρε λύραν καὶ τοὺς ̓Απόλλωνος βόας κλέψας εὑρέθη ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ διὰ τῆς μαντικῆς· ἀπειλοῦντος δὲ τοῦ ̓Απόλλωνος ἔκλεψεν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῶν ὤμων τόξα· μειδιάσας δὲ ὁ θεὸς ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ τὴν μαντικὴν ῥάβδον, ἀφ ̓ ἧς καὶ χροσόῤῥαπις ὁ Ἑρμῆς προσηγορεύθη, ἔλαβε δὲ παρ ̓ αὐτοῦ τὴν λύραν. — olim : long ago in thy childhood.'-nisi reddidisses: the sentence stands in 'informal' indirect discourse, the apodosis being contained in minaci voce: Apollo sid. threateningly, "if you do not give back my |