A few of the inscriptions that appear in the MSS. will show the diversity of opinion that has always existed as to the application of this ode. I give them exactly as I find them. Per allegoriam, i. e. inversionem M. Brutum alloquitur. Contra Navem. Allegoricos (i. e. ȧλλŋyopɩkŵs). Ad rem publicam. Ad rem publicam bellum civile reparantem. In M. Brutum bellum civile praeparantem. Ad Brutum amicum. Ad Navim Bruto reparanti bellum (Bruti reparantis). Thou art drifting to sea again, thou ship; oh! haste and make for the harbour; oars lost, mast split, yards crippled, and rigging gone, how canst thou weather the wide waves? Thy sails are torn, thy gods are gone, and noble hull though thou be, there is no strength in thy beauty. If thou be not fated to destruction avoid the rocks, thou who wert but late my grief and art now my anxious care. O NAVIS, referent in mare te novi Fluctus! O quid agis? Fortiter occupa Nudum remigio latus, Et malus celeri saucius Africo Antennaeque gemant ac sine funibus Vix durare carinae Possint imperiosius Aequor? Non tibi sunt integra lintea, Quamvis Pontica pinus, Silvae filia nobilis, Jactes et genus et nomen inutile, [4. remigio latus] Ritter properly puts a comma after 'latus,' and does not connect it with 'gemant.' As to 'remigium,' compare Epp. i. 6. 63.] 6. sine funibus] I have rendered this 'deprived of her rigging.' Some understand it to mean without girding ropes,' referring to St. Luke's description of their undergirding the ship in which St. Paul was sailing to Rome: μónis ioxboauer περικρατείς γενέσθαι τῆς σκάφης· ὴν ἄραντες βοηθείαις ἐχρῶντο ὑποζώννυντες τὸ πλοῖον (Acts xxvii. 16, 17). This process is not unknown in modern times, and is called 'frapping' a ship, by the French 'ceintrer un vaisseau.' Captain Back, in the account of his return from the Arctic regions in 1837, thus describes the undergirding of his ship: "A length of the stream chain-cable was past under the bottom of 5 10 15 the ship four feet before the mizen-mast, hove tight by the capstan, and finally immovably fixed to six ring-bolts on the quarter-deck. The effect was at once manifested by a great diminution in the working of the parts already mentioned, and in a less agreeable way by impeding her rate of sailing." (See Smith's excellent Dissertation on the Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, p. 66.) I doubt whether Horace meant any allusion to this practice. 10. Non di] Accipit et pictos puppis adunca deos" (Ov. Heroid. xvi. 112). "Jacet ipse in litore et una Ingentes de puppe dei" (Pers. vi. 29). There was usually a niche in the stern of a ship where the image of the tutelary god was kept. 66 11. Pontica pinus] The best ship timber was got from Pontus. See Introduction. 15. nisi-Debes ludibrium] Orelli takes Nuper sollicitum quae mihi taedium, Vites aequora Cycladas. 'nisi debes as if it were 'ne debeas,' and 'debes ludibrium' for the Greek pλOKÁVEIS VÉXWTα. I do not see how nisi debes' can stand for 'ne debeas,' and agree rather with Dillenbr. ['cave' means 'take care of yourself.'] 17. Nuper sollicitum] This is the most obscure part of the ode. It would be very intelligible as spoken by Alcaeus, who having gone through the long and anxious struggle between the democratical party and the nobles, and seen the triumph of the former, and the settlement of a tyranny which he abhorred in his native city, may be supposed to have felt for her the anxious affection these words imply. Horace may have 20 found something of this sort in Alcaeus' ode. How the words are reconciled with Buttmann's theory will be seen in the Introduction. Taking the ode as an address to the state, we can only understand Horace to mean, that while he was attached to Brutus, or before he had secured his pardon, he had no other feelings than fear for his own safety and disgust with the state of the country, but now under Augustus he watches its fate with the affection and anxiety of a friend. 19. nitentes] This is like fulgentes' (C. iii. 28. 14), shining in the sun. The Cyclades abounded in white marble. CARMEN XV. This is probably an early composition of Horace, made up of materials from the Greek, and written merely to exercise his pen. The Scholiasts found a political allusion in the ode: Paris being M. Antonius, and Helen Cleopatra ; and Baxter, d diλoyíørns, has seized upon the notion, which others also have adopted. The judicious reader will see that there is no probability of such being the drift of the ode. Nereus is made to speak because the sea-gods were endowed with the gift of prophecy. Porphyrion on this ode says it is an imitation of Bacchylides, who makes Cassandra foretell the destruction of Troy as Horace does Nereus. There is a fragment (29 Bergk) which is supposed to belong to the poem referred to by this Scholiast, but it bears no resemblance to Horace's ode. ARGUMENT. Paris is carrying off Helen, when Nereus causes a calm and thus prophesies their fate. With dark omen art thou carrying home her whom Greece hath sworn to recover. Alas! for the sweating of horse and rider, and the deaths thou art bringing upon Troy. Pallas prepareth her arms and her fury. Under Venus' shelter comb thy locks and strike thy lyre, and hide thyself in thy chamber: but it shall not avail thee. Seest thou not Laertes' son, Nestor of Pylos, Teucer of Salamis, and Sthenelus the fighter and bold charioteer? Merion too and the son of Tydeus, from whom thou shalt flee panting as the stag fleeth from the wolf, thou who didst boast better things to thy fair one. Achilles' wrath may put off the evil day, but the fire of the Greek shall consume the homes of Troy. PASTOR Cum traheret per freta navibus Idaeis Helenen perfidus 2. Helenen] Horace uses the Greek inflexions in his odes, and the Latin in his iambic verses, satires, and epistles (Bentley). hospitam, This might be expected, especially when, as in this instance, the imitation of Greek writers is obvious. Ingrato celeres obruit otio Ventos ut caneret fera Nereus fata: Mala ducis avi domum Quam multo repetet Graecia milite, Et regnum Priami vetus. Heu heu quantus equis, quantus adest viris Currusque et rabiem parat. Vitabis strepitumque et celerem sequi Gentis, non Pylium Nestora respicis? Pugnae, sive opus est imperitare equis. Tydides melior patre, Quem tu cervus uti vallis in altera Non hoc pollicitus tuae. 7. Conjurata-rumpere] This is a legitimate prose construction. "Conjuravere patriam incendere" (Sal. Cat. 52. See Liv. 22. 38). 13. Veneris praesidio] See Hom. Il. iii. 54, and on v. 16 sce II. iii. 380; vi. 321. Horace's description of Paris is drawn, not from Homer, who makes him brave, but from later writers who altered the Homeric characters. See Heyne, Exc. i. Aen. ii. See also Aen. iv. 215 sq. 36, Horace has introduced a trochee in the first foot, contrary to his own custom, but in accordance with the practice of the Greeks. Here que' has been added to "Teucer,' or 'te substituted for 'et,' by way of sustaining the metre. [Ritter has 'te' on the authority of some MSS.] 'Sciens pugnae is Homer's πολέμου εὖ εἰδώς, and Tydides melior patre' is taken from Sthenelus' vaunt, Il. iv. 405 μeîs Toι πατέρων μέγ' ἀμείνονες εὐχόμεθ ̓ εἶναι. [31. Sublimi] "μεтEŃρW TνEÚμатi, cum spiritus ex pectore ductus per os prorumpit," Ritter. But it is hard to find a word for 'sublimi.' Perhaps 'panting,' 'heaving' may do. High panting,' Conington. Iracunda diem proferet Ilio 33. diem] For 'diem supremum.' In this form the expression is like the Hebrew which we meet with frequently in the Scriptures: Remember the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem" (Ps. xxxvii. 7), and "they that come after him shall be astonished at his day as they that went before were astonished" (Job xviii. 20). [36. Iliacas] Glareanus says that he found Pergameas' in some MSS. Keller has Pergameas.'] CARMEN XVI. The poet Stesichorus, as the story goes, lost his eyesight as a punishment for a poem in which he appears to have repeated the ordinary stories against Helen, and did not recover it till he had written another poem recanting his opprobrious verses. Of this waλivadía, which is referred to in Epod. xvii. 42, and which was very familiar to the ancients, Plato has preserved the opening verses in the Phaedrus, p. 243, A. It begins thus: οὐκ ἔστ ̓ ἔτυμος λόγος οὗτος· οὐδ ̓ ἔβας ἐν νηυσὶν εὐσέλμοις, οὐδ ̓ ἵκεο Πέργαμα Τροίας. (29 Bergk.) This poem had a plain purpose with which the ode before us has nothing in common. Nevertheless it has been generally supposed till of late years to be an imitation of Stesichorus, and some of the grammarians have prefixed to the ode the title "Ad Tyndaridem,” no doubt under the same impression. The foundation of this opinion appears to have been the statement of Acron: "Hanc oden in satisfactionem facit amicae suae, imitatus Stesichorum poëtam Siculum qui vituperationem scribens Helenae caecatus est et postea responso Apollinis laudem ejus scripsit et oculorum aspectum recepit." He does not therefore say that Horace imitated the ode of Stesichorus, but only his example. It is very probable, as Buttmann suggests, they got the name from the next ode and put it before this, which contains no name nor any clue to the person addressed. Some MSS. have the inscription "Palinodia Gratidiae ad Tyndaridem," and whoever invented this inscription must have supposed the ode to have been addressed to the daughter of that woman, whom he lampoons in his Epodes. Cruquius' Scholiast affirms that it is addressed to that person herself, and there are many who follow this view of the case, among others Heindorf on S. i. 8. Franke is decidedly of that opinion, and supposes this ode to have been written about the same time with Epod. xvii., and for the same mock purpose. I think there can be little doubt in the mind of any one who reads this poem, that it was composed (though not in seriousness) with reference to some verses Horace had actually written, and that it is not a mere translation of Stesichorus' or any other poem, while at the same time there are Greek ideas in it, which he borrowed from that or some other source. Beyond this I am not bold enough to go. ARGUMENT. Lovely daughter of a lovely mother, destroy those libellous verses how thou wilt. Cybele, Apollo, Liber agitate not their votaries' hearts as anger does, which is stopped neither by sword, nor by waves, nor fire, nor by the falling of the skies themselves. When Prometheus was bidden to take a part from every animal to give to man, he implanted in our hearts the lion's fury. Wrath laid Thyestes low, and hath brought proud cities to the dust. Be appeased. In the sweet season of youth I was tempted by hot blood to write those rash verses. I would now lay aside all unkindness, if thou wilt but let me recall my libel and give me back thy heart. O MATRE pulchra filia pulchrior, Sive mari libet Hadriano. Non Dindymene, non adytis quatit Sic geminant Corybantes aera Vim stomacho apposuisse nostro. Irae Thyesten exitio gravi Stetere causae cur perirent Funditus imprimeretque muris Hostile aratrum exercitus insolens. Fervor et in celeres iambos Misit furentem; nunc ego mitibus Fias recantatis amica Opprobriis animumque reddas. 8. Sic geminant] So all the MSS. [except three]. Bentley conjectures 'si geminant' in the sense of cum,' and he is followed by Mitsch., Jahn, and Fea [and Keller]. But the received reading is intelligible. 13. Fertur Prometheus] This story is not found elsewhere. Whether Horace got the foundation of it from the story told by Plato, Protag. 30 sqq.; or whether he found it in this form in Stesichorus' palinode or some other Greek poem, or invented it to suit his own purpose, cannot be determined. Principi limo' corre 5 10 15 20 20 25 sponds to прŵтov арxov nλóv in Soph. Frag. (432 Dind.), kaÌ прŵтоν арxоν #nλdv opуážeir xepoîv. 18. ultimae Stetere causae] Liv. vii. 9: "Ea ultima fuit causa... cur bellum Tiburti populo indiceretur." The final or proximate cause: that which immediately leads to a thing. See Virg. Aen. vii. 553: "Stant causae belli." 24. celeres] A. P. 251: "iambus pes citus." The quality of the measure is mentioned as some palliation perhaps of the severity of the verses. |