But you say not a word upon things more important-
What 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?

Ho, boy, there, a cup!

*

Brim it full for the New Moon!
Ho, boy, there, a cup! Brim it full for the Midnight!
Ho, boy, there, a cup! Brim it full-to the health

Óf him we would honour!-Murena the Augur.

Let the bowls be proportioned to three or nine measures,
As each man likes best; † the true poet will ever

Suit his to the odd-numbered Muses, and quaff

Thrice three in the rapture the Nine give to brimmers.
But the grace, with her twin naked sisters, shuns quarrel,
And to more than three measures refuses her sanction.
Ho! ho! what a joy to go mad for a time.

Why on earth stops the breath of that fife Berecynthian ?

And why is that harp so unsocially silent,
And the lively Pandean pipe idly suspended?

Quick, roses and more! Let it rain with the rose!
There is nothing I hate like the hand of a niggard.

Let the noise of our mirth split the ears of old Lycus.
He is envious-our riot shall gorge him with envy.

The ears of our neighbour, his wife, let it reach.
No wife could suit less the grey hairs of old Lycus.‡

Quo Chium pretio cadum

Mercemur, quis aquam temperet ignibus,
Quo præbente domum et quota
Pelignis caream frigoribus, taces.

Da lunæ propere novæ,

Da noctis media, da, puer, auguris Murena: tribus aut novem

Miscentur cyathis pocula commodis.

Qui Musas amat impares

Ternos ter cyathos attonitus petet

Vates; tres prohibet supra
Rixarum metuens tangere Gratia
Nudis juncta sororibus.

Insanire juvat: cur Berecyntio
Cessant flamina tibi?

Cur pendet tacita fistula cum lyra?

Parcentes ego dexteras

Odi: sparge rosas; audiat invidus
Dementem strepitum Lycus

Et vicina seni non habilis Lyco.

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

+"Tribus aut novem

Miscentur cyathis pocula commodis."

"The cyathus' was a ladle with which the drink was passed from the 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 cyati of wine to nine of water, or of nine of wine to three of water.' Commodis,' 'fit and proper,'-'cyathi,' that is, 'bumpers.'"-MACLEANE. The 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.

The graduated process of a drinking bout is most naturally simulated in these verses. First stage, the amiable expansion of heart in the friendly toast-the toleration of differing tastes;-each man may drink as much as he likes. Secondly, the consciousness of getting drunk, and thinking it a fine thing;-joy to go mad. Thirdly, the craving for noise ;-let the band strike up. Fourthly, a desire for something cool;-roses in ancient Rome-soda-water in modern England. Fifthly, the combative stage ;-aggressive insult to poor old Lycus. Sixthly, the maudlin stage, soft and tender;-complimentary to Telephus, and confidingly pathetic as to his own less fortunate love affairs.

*Commentators have endeavoured to create a puzzle even here, where the meaning appears very obvious. Rhode runs after you (petit), who are so handsome-Glycera does not run after me, but keeps me languishing; the sense is consistent with the tone, half envious, half sarcastic, with which the poet always speaks of Telephus, the beauty-man and lady-killer.

Such my rapture, wandering guideless,*

Now where river-margents open, now where forest-shadows close.com Lord of Naiads, lord of Mænads,

Who with hands divinely strengthened, from the mountain heave the ash, Nothing little, nothing lowly,

Nothing mortal, will I utter! Oh, how perilously sweet

'Tis to follow thee, Lenæus,

Thee the god who wreathes his temples with the vine-leaf for his crown.

Ripas et vacuum nemus

Mirari libet. O Naiadum potens Baccharumque valentium

Proceras manibus vertere fraxinos,

Nil parvum aut humili modo,

Nil mortale loquar. Dulce periculum est, O Lenæe, sequi deum

Cingentem viridi tempora pampino.

ODE XXIX.

INVITATION TO MECENAS.

Introduction.

No ode of Horace specially addressed to Mæcenas exceeds this in dignity of sentiment and sustained beauty of treatment. Horace's descriptions of summer are always charming, and though he rejects the prosaic minuteness by which modern poets, when describing external nature, make an inventory of scenic details as tediously careful as if they were cataloguing articles for auction, he succeeds in bringing a complete picture before the eye, and elevates the subject of still life by the grace of the figures he places, whether in the fore

or the back ground. But he has seldom surpassed the beautiful image of summer in its sultry glow and in its languid repose which adorns this ode, in contrast with the statesman, intent on public cares, and gazing on Rome and the hills beyond from his lofty tower. It is unnecessary to point out the nobleness of the comparison between the course of the river and the mutability of human affairs, or the simple grandeur of the lines on Fortune so finely, though so loosely, paraphrased by Dryden, and so applicable to public men that it

"Ut mihi devio Rias et vacuum nemus Mirari libet."

Some of the MSS. have "rupes" instead of "ripas," and that reading is adopted by Lambinus and Muretus.-Dillenburger, Macleane, and Orelli agree in preferring "ripas," as having the authority of the best MSS. Assuming this latter reading to be right, it renders more appropriate the previous description of the Bacchante's amaze in seeing all the landscape expand before her. The poet then comes on the river bank as he emerges from the forest, the country thus opening upon him, and again closed in. So in Schiller's 'Der Spaziergang' the poet plunges into the wood, and following a winding path, suddenly the veil is rent. The passage is well translated by a lamented friend, Dr. Whewell:

"Lost is the landscape at once in the dark wood's secret recesses,
Where a mysterious path leads up the winding ascent;

Suddenly rent is the veil; all startled, I view with amazement,
Through the wood's opening glade, blazing in splendour the day."

We cannot help thinking that Horace had in his mind an actual scene, as Schiller had in the Walk-that it was in some ramble amidst rocks, woods, and water, that the idea of this dithyramb occurred to him. We have his own authority for believing that, like most other poets, he composed a good deal in his rural walks. "Circa nemus uvidique Tiburis ripas operosa parvus carmina fingo," "I wander through the woods and along the banks of Tibur, studying my verses.'

The lofty tower or belvidere of the palace built by Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill, whence Nero looked down on the conflagration of Rome.

This fixes the season to the beginning of July, when Cepheus, a northern star below Ursa Minor, rises. Cepheus was mythically King of Ethiopia, and father of Andromeda. Procyon rises about the same time, and is followed, eleven days afterwards, by Sirius. Leo completes the picture of summer heat.

"Ne semper udum Tibur." We interpret "udum" as referring to the cascades of Anio; it may mean the rills meandering through the orchards of Tibur.

* Orelli has "æquore "-most of the MSS. "alveo,"-which last reading is adopted by Yonge. See his note on the subject.

+Cui licet in diem Dixisse Vixi."

See Orelli's note against the usual interpretation of this passage. The meaning is,-"Happy the man who at the end of each day can say, 'I have lived.'"