which is succeeded by a poem rich in the dazzling creations of genius. - 145. Autiphaten; king of the Laestryones, in Od. x., 80; Scylla and Charybdis, in Od. xii., 85 seqq., and the Cyclops in Od. ix., 187 seqq. 145, 146. Horace alludes to two instances of a far-fetched and tedious introduction; the first (as is generally supposed) that of the Thebaïs of Antimachus, which professing to treat of the return of Diomedes to Aetolia after the second sicge of Thebes, began with recounting the wonderful death of Diomed's uncle Meleager. The story was that Meleager wasted away and died, when Althaea threw into the fire the billet, on which, as announced by the Fates, soon after his birth, his life depended. See Class Dict. The second poem was on the Trojan war, and started with the fable of Jupiter and Leda, and the birth of Helen and of Castor and Pollux from the two eggs of the swan. -148. Ad eventum; i. e. the conclusion, or what is called the catastrophe of a piece. This rule of the poet (see above n. 136-152) may be illustrated in all the great epics, both ancient and modern; e. g. the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and the Paradise Lost; so too in the master-pieces both of the ancient and the modern drama. The rule applies also to all fictitious writings in prose, such as novels and romances. 151. Mentitur; invents; veris falsa; truth with fiction. With Orelli and Dillenburger, it is better to connect ita and sic with the following ne, rather than with what has gone before; notwithstanding the contrary opinion of Hand, in Turs. 3, p. 468. Orelli adduces Terence Heaut. iv., 5, 35; "ita tu istaec tua misceto, ne me admisceas." II. 153-284. Rules and historical notices of the drama. The principal points are these: The manners, characteristic of the several ages of human life (156–178); Propriety and probability to be consulted in actions to be represented on the stage (179–188); The number of acts and of actors in a play, the duties of the chorus, and the music of the theatre, in earlier and later times (189-219); The origin and conduct of the Satyric drama (220-250); The laws of Iambic verse (251-258), these often violated by Roman poets, Greek writers models for study and imitation (258–274); Historical notices of Greek Tragedy―Thespis―Aeschylus (275–280), and of the Old Comedy (281–284).· 154. Aulaca. See n. Epist. ii., 1, 89. 155. Cantor; i. e. histrio, the actor; so called, because the declamation, in a Roman play, was accompanied by music, generally the flute; the last actor addressed the audience with Vos plaudite; hence these words are metaphorical for finis; comp. Cic. de Senec. c. 19. 156. Aetatismores. With this whole passage, comp. Aristotle on the same subject, in Rhetor. ii., 12, 13, 14; and Shakspeare, in As you like it, Act 2, sc. 7. 160. In horas; same expression in Sat. ii., 7, 10. Comp. similar ones above 1. 60, and O. iii., 29, 42. imberbus, to avoid the repetition of is. 31. 162. Campl. See n . i., 8, 4. 161. Imberbis. Orelli prefers Custode. See n. Sat. i., 6, 165. Sublimis; Aristotle 66 nas μeyaλówʊxos: "high-spirited;" Moore. 168. Commisisse. See n. O. i., 1, 4. 172. Spe longus; literally, long in hope; i. e. indulging in distant expectations. This seems the true meaning. With it agrees spem-longam in O. i., 4, 15, where see n. In this meaning, too, the expression well follows dilator.-Comp. Cic de Senec. 7. Nemo enim tam senex, qui annum non putet posse vivere.-Others follow Forcellini, who explains, tardus et difficilis ad sperandum;" and they cite Aristotle's δυσέλπιδες. -Avidus. This is the reading of all the MSS. Pavidus is a conjecture of Bentley, as also lentus in this line. -173. Difficilis. So Cic. de Senec. 18: At sunt morosi-difficiles senes. -176. Ne-mandentur. Not to be translated as an imperative; ne means here that not, and in this sense must he closely connected with morabimur. - 179–188. Things acted upon the stage have a livelier effect than things narrated; yet such things as are horrible and incredible are better suited to the narrative than the action of a play. 184. Facundia praesens; literally a present eloquence; that is, the eloquent narrative of one who was present, viz., at the scene which he relates. So in Cic. Ep. ad Quint., cetera praesenti sermoni reserventur. 185. Ne pueros, etc. Horace proceeds to give two instances of the horrible, Medea, Atreus, and of the incredible, Progne, Cadmus. 185. Coram populo; as in the tragedy of Medea ascribed to Seneca; but in Euripides the action takes place elsewhere, and is related by the уyeλos or messenger; and so in general, in the Greek tragedies, such scenes are narrated, not acted. The modern drama, on the contrary, is not always in accordance with the precept of Horace; as, for instance, Shakspeare's plays, in which deaths and murders are so often represented. - — 189. Quinto actu. The rule to have just five acts was strictly observed by the Roman dramatists. The Greek tragedies had three parts, the πρόλογος, the ἐπεισόδια, and the ἔξοδος. Where the episodes were three in number, the play thus had five parts, corresponding to the five Roman actus; but there was no fixed number of episodes.Orelli. Without doubt (as Orelli suggests) the Roman actus were modelled upon those parts of the Greek tragedy. In modern literature, the French and the Italian drama each observes Horace's rule; so, too, in their master-pieces, the English and the German. - -191. Dignus vindice nodus. Nodus, literally knot, is the complicated difficulty of a play, the intrigue; vindex, avenger, rescuer, here one who can develop or unravel the intrigue, bring about the dénouement. A writer, lacking invention, would be apt, in the catastrophe of the play, to have recourse to the supernatural, and rescue his hero by the interposition of a god; hence the necessity of this rule of Horace. Euripides often availed himself of such means in the dénouement of his plots.--Comp. Cicero, de Nat. D. i., 20: ut tragici poetae, cum explicare argumenti exitum non potestis, confugitis ad deum. 192. Nee quarta persona, i. e. there must always be only three actors. After the introduction, by Sophocles, of a third actor, the number of actors in the Greek tragedies was always three. There might be more persons upon the stage, but only three took part in the dialogue. The actors were called, from the importance of their respective part, πрwтaywvioths, actor primarum partium, devrepaywviorhs, actor secundarum partium, TρITAYWviσths, actor tertiarum partium. -193-201. Horace describes, in these lines, the duties of the tragic chorus, in accordance with the practice of the Greek tragic writers. These duties were two: 1, to take the part of an actor (actoris-defendat). This was done through the medium of the coryphaeus, or leader of the chorus, who ascended the Thymele (which was in the middle of the orchestra, and was the central point of all the movements of the chorus), and from this place joined in the dialogue with the actors on the stage; 2, to sing songs between the acts (medios intercinat actus). In the following lines (195–201), the poet gives the rules for these songs: a, that they be suited to the main design of the play (1. 195), b, that they exert a salutary moral influence. The chorus, the lyric element of the Greek Tragedy, was no less essential to it than the dialogue or dramatic element. Indeed the chorus was the early and original element. The origin of the Greek Tragedy is found in the solemn dithyrambic odes, descriptive of the sufferings of Dionysus or Bacchus, which were sung at the Attic festivals, held in honor of that deity, and called the Dionysia. In process of time, the songs described other subjects than the adventures of Bacchus ; actors were introduced, distinct from the chorus, the parts given to the actors constituted the dialogue, and thus was gradually developed the form of the regular Attic Tragedy.-Comp. below, notes on 1. 276, and 1. 279.— On the significance, the number, and other points, in detail, of the Chorus, see Dict. Antiqq.; also Theatre of the Greeks, Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, and Witzchell's Athenian Stage, translated by R. B. Paul, and edited by T. K. Arnold. 193. Officiumque virile defendat; i. e. "pro virili parte adjuvet, hoc est, pro eo, quod officii ejus est;" (Lambinus) and vigorously maintain it. -198. Mensae brevis. Comp. O. ii., 16, 14. 199. Otia portis. Comp. O. iii., 5, 23.—202–219. The music of the theatre, in earlier and in later times. 202. Tibia. In the Greek, and in the Roman, Drama, the flute and, at a later period, the lyre was used as an accompaniment; in the Greek, to the lyric parts, in the Roman, also to the dialogue. See above, n. on 1. 155; also, see illustrations of Tibia on pp. 115, and 139. The comedies of Terence were accompanied by two pipes (see n. O. iv., 15, 30); e. g. the Eunuchus by tibiae dextrae, and the Andria by a double set, tibiae pares dextrae et sinistrae.. - Orichalco; "from pos and xaλkós, that is, mountain-bronze, so called, probably, because it was obtained by fusing copper with an ore (metal as found in the mountain), and not with an already reduced metal." There is some uncertainty, however, in the name mountain-bronze, owing to its being uncertain what the ore was, with which it was mixed. If it was zinc ore (as the ancients seem not to have known zinc as a metal) then the composition was akin to brass. But if it was tin, as is the case with most of the ancient specimens of xaλkós or aes, then the composition was, of course, bronze. See Dict. Antiqq., under the word. - Vineta; bound; as probably the later flute was long, and therefore composed of parts. like our flute, and bound at the joints with brass or bronze. 203. Tenuis; this seems to be opposed to tubae aemula, and hence to refer to the sound; of slender tone. - - 204. Adesse; accompany; see n. above on Tibia. -208. Victor; sc. populus; applied to the Greeks, the word may refer to the period after the Persian war; to the Romans, the time after the Punic wars. 209. Vino diurno; i. e. "conviviis tempestivus" (Dillenb.); comp. n. Sat. ii., 8, 3. 210. Placari Genius. Comp. n. O. iii., 17, 14. -211. Numerisque modisque; the numbers (of the poetry) and the measures (of the music). — 212-13. Indoctus quid enim, etc. These two lines seem intended to explain the one that immediately precedes, and assign, as the reason of the departure from the simplicity of the early music, and of the adoption of a freer style, the promiscuous character of the audience. Such a mixed crowd wanted louder and more varied music.-Still there is much difficulty in the passage, as in the earliest times the audience, though not large, yet must have been promiscuous, and certainly not more cultivated than the audience of later times. Besides, we can hardly suppose that the poet means to censure the later music, as really inferior to the earlier.-It is an ingenious conjecture of Engel, that these two lines do not belong here, but rather below, immediately after 1. 224.. -Laborum; the genitive by a poetic construction; comp. n. O. iii., 17, 16.215. Per pulpita. The pulpitum, in Gr. λoyeîov, was the stage proper, from which the actors spoke. (See Dict. Antiqq. Theatrum.) This line applies to the Roman theatre, as in the Greek, the chorus and the musicians were in the orchestra. - 215. Sie etiam fidibus. He now describes a similar change in the music of the lyre, and, along with it, a change in the choral poetry. · -217. Tulit; genuit, produced. Eloquium ; genus dicendi; style; insolitum, because so far removed from that of ordinary life. Facundia praeceps; bold language. -219. Sententia; this word designates the contents of the choral odes, the precepts or moral lessons, which it conveyed, or as the mention of Delphis suggests, its utterances.-Orelli thinks, that, in this allusion to the Delphic oracles, the poet, with a mixture of praise with something of irony, intended to indicate at once the sublimity and the obscurity of the Greek choral odes. The choruses of Aeschylus may, in particular, have been present to the mind of Horace. 220-250. From the regular Tragedy Horace now passes to the Satyric drama, or Satyr-play, mentioning the reason for its introduction (222– 224), and prescribing the rules for its conduct (225-250). It was the peculiarity of the Satyric drama, that it combined with the materials and characters of the regular Tragedy a chorus of Satyrs. Its invention belongs to Pratinas, a contemporary of Aeschylus; afterwards, during the golden period of Attic tragedy, illustrated by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, it was a constituent part of the dramatic exhibitions, forming an after-piece to the trilogies or series of three tragedies which were always brought out at the Dionysia by those celebrated tragic composers. This conjunction of the trilogy with a Satyr-play was called a tetralogy. — 220. Hireum; hence the name of tragedy, (Tрaywdía, Tрáyos and won) goat song; either because (as here) a goat was the prize, or because a goat was sacrificed on the altar round which the chorus sang; or the song of the goats or Satyrs, as the Satyrs were called payot, from their goat-like appearance (see n. O. ii., 19, 4). · 221. Asper; may be translated as an adv.; rudely; in allusion to the rustic satyrs. 222. Gravitate; i. e. of tragedy, of its gods and heroes; literally dignity being unimpaired, without loss of dignity.— Eo, quod, etc. It thus appears, that the Satyr-play, like a modern farce or after-piece, was intended to divert and amuse the people. 225. Ita risores, etc. From what has been said above, it appears that this Satyric drama was partly tragic, as it represented gods and heroes in its dialogue, and partly comic, as it had a chorus of Satyrs. Now the rule of Horace for such a play, in respect to its characters (227-233), its diction (234–243), and the language of the Satyrs (244– 250), is substantially this: that it preserve a due medium between tragedy and comedy, neither rising to the loftier tone of the one, nor sinking to the Lower tone of the other. 227. Ne. Joined with the preceding ita, this word seems to denote result, that-not, and to be used for ut non. 228. Nuper; need not be taken in the limited sense of lately, as if the line referred to the very same personages who had appeared in a tragedy just before acted, because the pieces of a trilogy had different plots and character; but at some former time: the sense is, as Orelli gives it, thus: "iidem dii atque heroës, qui, in tragoediis saepe conspecti, notissimi nobis sunt."- · 232. Ut—matrona; join with tragoedia, which is the subject of intererit. The poet aptly illustrates the bearing of Tragedy in the Satyr-play by the image of a matron, joining, without loss of dignity, in the festive dance. -234. Inornata; "ut pura, Sat. i., 4, 54, sine tropis." Orelli. -Dominantia; those which are in ordinary use; reigning. 235. Satyrorum; i. e. fabularum SatyriSee A & S 224, R. 3.—237. Davus-et Pythias. Two comic characters, a male and a female slave; opposed to Silenus, the constant attendant of Bacchus, who, though, as Orelli carum. 236. Colori, |