Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

Neither will I pass thee by in silence, O Bacchus, bold in combat; nor thee, O Virgin, who art an enemy to the savage beasts; nor thee, O Phœbus, formidable for thy unerring dart.

I will sing also of Hercules, and the sons of Leda, the one illustrious for his achievements on horseback, the other on foot; whose clear-shining 59 constellation as soon as it has shone forth to the sailors, the troubled surge falls down from the rocks, the winds cease, the clouds vanish, and the threatening waves subside in the sea-because it was their will. After these, I am in doubt whom I shall first commemorate, whether Romulus, or the peaceful reign of Numa, or the splendid ensigns of Tarquinius, 60 or the glorious death of Cato. I will celebrate, out of gratitude, with the choicest verses, Regulus,61 and the Scauri, and Paulus, prodigal of his mighty soul, when Carthage conquered, and Fabricius.62

Severe poverty, and an hereditary farm, with a dwelling suited to it, formed this hero useful in war; as it did also Curius 63 with his rough locks, and Camillus.64 The fame of Marcellus 65 increases, as a tree does in the insensible progress

59"Lucida atque simul cœlo serenitatem reducens," ut Od. i. 7, 13; albus notus. ORELLI.

60 Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, the son of Demaratus, a Corinthian, but born at Tarquinium in Etruria, and called Lucumo, till by the persuasion of his wife Tanaquil, an ambitious woman, and skilful in augury and other kinds of divination, to which the Etrurians were very much addicted, he came to Rome, where by his money and good address he grew popular, and so insinuated himself into the favour of Ancus Martius, that when he died he left him guardian to his children, whom he defrauded, usurping the kingdom. WATSON.

61 Marcus Attilius Regulus, a consul of Rome in the first Punic war, in the year of the city 420, a great example of strict honour in observing his engagements even with enemies. WATSON.

62 Fabricius, the name of a Roman family, of which this Caius Fabricius Luscinus was a consul, who conquered Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, the best soldier of his time. WATSON.

63 Curius, a nobleman of Rome, surnamed Dentatus; he was thrice consul, and was noted for his courage, singular honesty, and frugality. WATSON.

64 Camillus, a noble Roman; he, though banished from Rome, out of love to the welfare of his distressed country, saved Rome from its final ruin by the Gauls. WATSON.

65 Marcellus is a diminutive from Marcus, Marculus, Marcellus: there were several Roman knights of this name. Claudius Marcellus is meant here, a valiant commander, called Ensis Romanorum, the Roman sword, who first proved it was not impossible to conquer Hannibal, as Victor expresseth it After a long siege he took Syracuse. WATSON.

C

[ocr errors]

ge

One

of time. But the Julian constellation shines amidst them all, as the moon among the smaller stars. O thou son of Saturn, author and preserver of the human race, the protection of Cæsar is committed to thy charge by the Fates: thou shalt ΟΙ reign supreme, with Cæsar for thy second. Whether he shall subdue with a just victory the Parthians making inroads upon Italy, or shall render subject the Seres and Indians on the Eastern coasts: he shall rule the wide world with equity, in subordination to thee. Thou shalt shake Olympus with thy tremendous car; thou shalt hurl thy hostile thunderbolts against the polluted 66 groves.

at

te

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

ODE XIII.

TO LYDIA.

O LYDIA, when you commend Telephus's rosy neck, and the waxen arms of Telephus, alas! my inflamed liver swells with bile difficult to be repressed. Then neither is my mind firm,67 nor does my colour maintain a certain situation: and the involuntary tears glide down my cheek, proving with what lingering flames I am inwardly consumed. I am on fire, whether quarrels rendered immoderate by wine have stained your fair shoulders; or whether the youth, in his fury, has impressed with his teeth a memorial on your lips. If you will give due attention to my advice, never expect that he will be constant, who inhumanly wounds those sweet kisses, which Venus has imbued with the fifth part of all 68 her nectar. O thrice and

[ocr errors]

66 "Custus is a religious epithet. Thus Festus has castum Cereris for sacrum. These woods, therefore, were polluted by incest or homicide, for such only, according to Acro, were stricken by lightning.' ORELLI. 67"The plural is here employed as equivalent to the double manet.” ANTHON.

68 "Each god," observes Porson, "was supposed to have a given quantity of nectar at disposal; and to bestow the fifth, or the tenth part of this on any individual was a special favour." The common, but incorrect, interpretation of quinta parte is, "with the quintessence.” ANTHON. Yet the common opinion appears to be the correct one. allusion is to the fifth essence of the Pythagoreans, i. e. the æther. schoolmen of the fifteenth century revived the term quinta essentia

The

The

more than thrice happy those, whom an indissoluble con nexion binds together; and whose love, undivided by impiou complainings, does not separate them sooner than the last day

ODE XIV.69

TO THE ROMAN STATE.

O SHIP, new waves will bear you back again to sea. O what are you doing? Bravely seize the port. Do you not perceive that your sides are destitute of oars, and your mast wounded by the violent south-wind, and your main-yards groan, and your keel 70 can scarcely support the impetuosity of the waves, without the help of cordage? You have not entire sails; nor gods,71 whom you may again invoke, pressed with distress: notwithstanding you are made of the pines of Pontus,72 and, as the daughter of an illustrious wood, boast your race, and a fame now of no service to you. The timorous sailor has no dependence on a painted stern.73 Look to yourself, unless

(quintessenz)," using the word to denote the most subtle flavours and refined essences. For quinta, quanta was proposed by Ramirez de Prado, and received by Scaliger and Pine. M'CAUL.

[ocr errors]

69 In the year 725 u. c. Augustus consulted his favourites, Mæcenas and Agrippa, whether he should resign the sovereign authority. We have: in Dion a speech of Mæcenas upon that occasion, in which the allegory of a ship and the republic is so strongly maintained, and hath something so extremely like this ode, that probably the poet took his design from thence, as a compliment to his illustrious patron.

In the year 727 Augustus began his seventh consulship, with a request to the senate that they would discharge him from an office which his infirmities could no longer support. In the interval of these two events, (the consultation of Octavius with his favourites, and his declaration to the senate,) Horace wrote this ode, in which he endeavours to persuade the Romans not to suffer that prince to abandon the government of the empire. SAN.

So

70 "Of one ship, as limina, tecta, are often used of one house. Dulichias rates is used by Virg. Ecl. vi. 76, for the one ship of Ulysses.' ORELLI.

[ocr errors]

"These were the gods whose statues were placed on the stern of the ship, which, being broken by tempests, had lost its tutelary divinities. 72 A Pontic pine tree. "Ex familia in Ponto," of a family in Pontus, a country in Asia Minor, where Horace's father was born. WATSON.

73 Besides the statues of the gods, the sterns of their ships were adorned with paintings and other ornaments, which the Greeks called in general Acrostolia, and the Latins Aplustria. Dac.

= CO

piq

day

ou are destined to be the sport of the winds. O thou, so tely my trouble and fatigue,74 but now an object of tenderess and solicitude, mayest thou escape those dangerous seas, hich flow among the shining Cyclades.75

ODE XV.76

wh

ceiv

nde

ave

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

TO PARIS.

WHEN the perfidious shepherd" (Paris) carried off by sea in Trojan ships his hostess Helen, Nereus 78 suppressed the swift

74 The poet expresses by solicitum tædium that sorrow and anxiety hich he felt, when he was engaged in the party of Brutus. Torr. 75 Cyclades, isles in the Ægean Sea: they are in number fifty-three, and re now called, Isole del Archipelago. WATSON.

and 76 In the year 722 u. c. Antony set sail, with a numerous fleet, from and gypt to Peloponnesus, intending to pass over into Italy with Cleopatra, snd make his country the scene of a second civil war. Inflamed with a

iolent passion for that princess, aspiring to nothing less than making her lemistress of the universe, and supported by the forces of the East, he declared war against Octavius. Horace therefore, in a noble and poetical allegory, represents to Antony the fatal effects of such conduct, by proraposing to him the example of Paris, and the ruinous consequences which attended his passion for Helen.

cer We are assured by Torrentius, that the best and most ancient manuhascript which he had seen gave this title to the Ode, "Ad Alexandrum Paridem, sub cujus personâ exponit imminentia bella;" from whence it thappears that the allegorical manner of explaining it, is at least of an francient date. SAN.

"The treacherous shepherd, Paris, otherwise called Alexander, the est son of Priam and Hecuba, king and queen of Troy. Once upon a time there fell out a controversy betwixt Juno, Pallas, and Venus, about ena golden apple that the goddess Discord had given them at Peleus' wedding, on which it was written, "Let it be given to the fairest :" They could not age among themselves, but every one thought herself the fairest. At last they made Paris judge; and when he had seen them naked, (but they offered him bribes besides; Venus, that if he would judge it to her, he should have the most beautiful woman in the world; ses Juno promised him a kingdom; Pallas, the excellency of wisdom,) he adjudged it to Venus. After this he came to be owned at court, and after some time, pretending business, he took ship for Greece, where he became acquainted with Helen, the famed beauty of that country, and, in the 15 absence of her husband, carried her home with him; which proved the occasion of making good the former dream of Hecuba, and setting all Troy in flames.

[ocr errors]

er

WATSON.

78 Nereus, a god of the sea, the son of Oceanus and Tethys, and father of the Nereides. Orpheus calls him the most ancient of the gods, whence

с

winds in an unpleasant calm, that he might sing 79 the dire fates. "With unlucky omen art thou conveying home her, whom Greece with a numerous army shall demand back again, having entered into a confederacy to dissolve your nuptials, and the ancient kingdom of Priam. Alas! what sweat to horses, what to men, is just at hand! What a destruction art thou preparing for the Trojan nation! Even now Pallas is fitting her helmet, and her shield, and her chariot, and her fury. In vain, looking fierce through the patronage of Venus, will you comb your hair, and run divisions 80 upon the effemi

In vain will you

nate lyre with songs pleasing to women. escape the spears that disturb the nuptial bed, and the point of the Cretan dart,81 and the din [of battle], and Ajax swift in the pursuit. Nevertheless, alas! the time will come, though late, when thou shalt defile thine adulterous hairs in the dust. Dost thou not see the son of Laërtes, fatal to thy nation, and Pylian Nestor, Salaminian Teucer, and Sthenelus 82 skilled in fight, (or if there be occasion to manage horses, no tardy by Virgil he is called Grandævus. Nereus is also sometimes taken for the sea. WATSON. is commonly used of uttering predictions.

79" Canere ""

80 The expression carmina dividere feminis, according to Anthon, means nothing more than to execute different airs for different females, in succession; but Paris would hardly do this in the presence of Helen. Orelli's view is, "that the whole piece consists of two parts, the vocal and the instrumental. The symphony of the lyre breaks (dividit) the continuity of the song. The song divides the symphony," i. e. you sing, and alternately play upon your amorous lyre, strains, &c. "We should, I think, construe divides with carmina, and grata with feminis, as expressive of their effeminacy. The phrase means simply to execute various soft airs upon the lyre. The word "division" in our own language, aerived, of course, from the Latin dividere, was used in the sixteenth century, technically, for musical compositions. Thus Shakspeare, Romeo and Juliet:

Again,

Some say the lark makes sweet division,
This is not so.

And all the while sweet music did divide
Her looser strains with Lydian harmonies."

SPENC. F. Q., quoted by Howell.—M'Caul. 81 Calami spicula Gnossii. It is probable, from this expression, that the Cretans, who were excellent archers, instead of arrows, made use of a kind of hard, slender, pointed reed, which grew in the sands of their island. Thus Ovid; "Nec Gortiniaco calamus levis exit ab arcu." SAN.

82 Sthenelus, the son of Capaneus and Evadne, one of the Greek captains that was at Troy, and was also shut up in the wooden horse. Watson.

« PoprzedniaDalej »