and in lofty verse he sings the illustrious achievements of the heroes of old: Quid debeas, O Roma, Neronibus, Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal Ille dies Latio tenebris, Qui primus alma risit adorea, Dirus per urbis Afer ut Italas Ceu flamma per taedas vel Eurus Gens quae cremato fortis ab Ilio Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus Per damna, per caedis, ab ipso Ducit opes animumque ferro.1 Nor do the present glories of Rome less excite his pride. He writes concerning the 'golden age' of Augustus: Iam mari terraque manus potentis Medus Albanasque timet securis, Iam Fides et Pax et Honor Pudorque Audet, adparetque beata pleno His second method of showing patriotism is very different; for here he appears as the censor, who sees and deplores the evils that threaten his beloved city. The old Roman virtues are no more, he says: Di multa neglecti dederunt 1 What thou owest, O Rome, to the house of Nero the river Metaurus bears witness, and the vanquished Hasdrubal, and the day made beautiful by the driving of darkness from Latium, the first day that smiled with sweet victory since the dread African rode through the cities of Italy as fire goes through pitch-pine or the east wind through the Sicilian waves. The race which bravely bore from the ashes of Ilium to the Ausonian cities its shrines, storm-tossed on Tuscan waters, and its children and old fathers, like an ilex-tree shorn of its branches by cruel axes in Algidus the bearer of dark leaves, draws strength and courage, through losses and wounds, from the sword itself. (Carm. 4.4.37-60.) 2 Now on sea and land the Mede fears our powerful bands and our Alban axes; now the Scythians, but lately so arrogant, and the Indians, beg to know our wishes. Now Faith and Peace and Honor and old-time Modesty and neglected Virtue dare to return, and happy Plenty appears with full horn. (Carm. Saec. 53-60.) Iam bis Monaeses et Pacori manus Paene occupatam seditionibus Fecunda culpae saecula nuptias In patriam populumque fluxit. Non his iuventus orta parentibus Infecit aequor sanguine Punico Antiochum Hannibalemque dirum.1 Not once, but many times, does he sound this note. He foresaw only too well whither the growing luxury and laxity of the empire were tending, and did his best to warn his fellow countrymen. His patriotism, then, was not superficial, but a real part of him, serious and concerned for the future. The friends of Horace were many, and we may judge from his poems that friendship was no meaningless word to him. His own greatest friend is the powerful minister, Maecenas; and though possibly much of Horace's adulation of him is due to the memory of 1 The neglected gods have showered many evils upon sorrowful Italy. Already Monaeses and the band of Pacorus have twice crushed our unlucky attacks, and rejoice in having added to their slender necklaces our booty. The Dacian and the Ethiop have nearly destroyed our city racked by rebellion. The age, steeped in guilt, has first polluted wedlock and the race and the home. Calamity, sprung from this source, has overflowed the country and the people. It was not a young manhood born of parents like these that dyed the sea with the blood of Carthage and killed Pyrrhus and great Antiochus and dread Hannibal. (Carm. 3. 6. 7-36.) 2 He who does not defend his friend against another's blame is evil; beware of him, Roman. (Serm. 1. 4. 81-85.) 3 Just as in the case of a father and his son, we ought not to despise a friend because he has some fault. (Serm. 1. 3. 43-44.) benefits conferred, and also to a natural enough pleasure in showing himself to be upon terms of intimacy with so influential a man, we need not deny all sincerity to his protestations of affection for his patron. The beautiful lines, Non ego perfidum Dixi sacramentum: ibimus, ibimus, Carpere iter comites parati,1 ring true. And there are humbler friends-humbler, that is, at the time, though nowadays one of them at least is ranked above Augustus himself. This is Virgil, in whose honor Horace wrote his fine proempticon, two lines of which serve to express the esteem in which the younger poet held the elder: Reddas incolumem precor Et serves animae dimidium meae.2 Then there are Pompeius, whom our. poet addresses as meorum prime sodalium, and Septimius, Gadis aditure mecum, and a score or more of others, many of them only names to us, but to Horace dear and intimate friends. No portrait of Horace would be complete without some mention of his delightful sense of humor. It shows itself again and again—now in the description of his brief military experience, now in his account of his meeting with the bore, now in the inimitable bit of dialogue between Lydia and her lover. The humor is generally delicate; yet we cannot use a popular figure and compare it to a rapier-thrust, for it is almost always good-natured. Rarely does Horace approach sarcasm; when he does, it is as likely to be directed against himself as another, for he possesses the happy faculty of laughing at himself. Here, then, is the Roman poet as he shows himself to us—a genial man and of a kindly disposition, moderate in his life, simple in his tastes, with an artist's eye and feeling for the beauties of external nature, and an artist's interest in humanity; a lover of his country and of his friends; at times giving himself over to mirth and enjoyment, at other times yielding to melancholy; serious withal, and sincerely concerned about what he deemed the great things of life; indeed, a figure to command affection and admiration. 1 I have sworn no false oath: we shall go, whenever you lead the way, we shall go ready to take our last journey as comrades. (Carm. 2. 17. 9-12.) 2 Return him safe, I pray, and preserve the half of my soul. (Carm. 1. 3. 7-8.) When we turn to Horace the artist, we find that all critics, whatever may be their feeling about the matter of Characteristics his poetry, agree that he is a master-craftsman. of Horace's Poetry. It is evident to the merest novice that his advice about the use of the file was drawn from his own practice. As a result, whatever he has to say is said in so felicitous a manner as to make us feel it could be altered only for the worse. Especially is this true of the Odes, where almost every sentence is an exquisitely cut gem. He has an astonishing power of compression-the faculty of making one or two words imply a dozen ideas. This is what makes it absolutely impossible to translate Horace adequately; yet, by a curious sort of irony, it is perhaps this very perfection that attracts so many would-be translators-men so diverse as Milton and Eugene Field, Cowper and Gladstone. The poet himself evidently realized his own mastery of technique. He speaks of his work as operosa. he boasts; Parios ego primus iambos, Ostendi Latio, numeros animosque secutus and even in the lofty Exegi monumentum he rests his chief claim to renown on the fact that he was the first to adapt Aeolian verse to Italian measures. But, as Horace realizes, and as he more than once tells us, poetry consists not alone in technical skill. Non satis est, he says, puris versum perscribere verbis, Quem si dissolvas, quivis stomachetur eodem Quo personatus pacto pater.2 Ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior atque os Magna sonaturum, des nominis [poetae] huius honorem.3 In his Satires and Epistles, accordingly, he disclaims the honor: Neque, siqui scribat uti nos Sermoni propiora, putes hunc esse poetam.* 1I was the first to import Parian iambics into Italy, imitating the numbers and the spirit of Archilochus. (Epist. 1. 19. 23-25.) 2 It is not enough to write a verse in correct language, when if you take it to pieces you find that anybody might storm like the father in the play. (Serm. 1. 4. 54-56.) 3 To him who has genius, to him who has a more godlike mind and a tongue made to speak lofty things, give the honor of this name [poet]. (Serm. 1. 4. 43-44.) * If anybody writes, as I do, things more like ordinary talk, don't think he is a poet. (Serm. 1. 4. 41-42.) We prefer to take his valuation of himself in the Odes: Non omnis moriar. Mihi Delphica Lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.1 The poetry of Horace is far from being the superficial, trivial verse that some critics would have us believe. It is true that he wrote many odes upon conventional themes, treating these themes in such fashion as to make them memorable; it is true that he wrote delicately-finished bits of verse on trifles-Quis multa gracilis, Persicos odi, Vides ut alta, and many others; it is also true that he wrote noble poems, such as Caelo tonantem, Ne forte credas, and the triumphant Exegi monumentum, the first few lines of which are among the finest utterances on the immortality conferred on a poet by his work. As must be the case with every real artist, Horace rated his calling high. In his opinion, as we have seen (p. 17), the poet must possess ingenium, mens divinior, os magna sonaturum. When we find him speaking in a slighting way of poetry, it always proves to be the work of the uninspired, untrained poetaster that he has in mind; for he believed that the poet must be made as well as born. The Ars Poetica is a witness to the value he set on his vocation. Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseris, he tells us in a well-known ode, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.2 Throughout his works we find evidence of his high esteem for his instrument-perhaps none more satisfying than that in Carm. 4. 8: Non incisa notis marmora publicis, clarius indicant Laudes quam Calabrae Pierides; neque Si chartae sileant quod bene feceris Mercedem tuleris.3 And for his own writings his prophecy is true: Maecenas the statesman is a shadow; Maecenas the friend and patron of Horace is known to every lover of the poet. 1 1 I shall not wholly die. Gladly, Melpomene, wreathe my locks with the Delphic laurel. (Carm. 3. 30. 6-16.) 2 But if you rank me with the lyric poets, with my proud head I shall strike the stars. (Carm. 1. 1. 35-36.) 3 Not marbles graven with deeds of public renown, by which breath and life come back to worthy captains after death, show forth praises more clearly than do the Muses of Calabria; and if the written word were stilled you would not bear away the guerdon of what you have done. (Carm. 13-22.) |