impartial foot. O happy Sextius !30 the short sum total of life forbids us to form remote expectations. Presently shall darkness, and the unreal ghosts," and the shadowy mansion of Pluto oppress you; where, when you shall have once arrived, you shall neither decide the dominion of the bottle by dice," nor shall you admire the tender Lycidas, with whom now all the youth is inflamed, and for whom ere long the maidens will grow warm. 32 ODE V. TO PYRRHA. WHAT dainty youth, bedewed with liquid perfumes, caresses you, Pyrrha, beneath the pleasant grot, amid a profusion of roses? For whom do you bind your golden hair, plain in your neatness?" Alas! how often shall he deplore your perfidy, and the altered gods; and through inexperience be amazed at the seas, rough with blackening storms, who now credulous enjoys you all precious, and, ignorant of the faithless gale, hopes you will be always disengaged, always amiable! Wretched are those, to whom thou untried seemest fair? The sacred 30 Lucius Sextius, or Sestius, kept up a constant friendship with Brutus, after he was routed, yet was commended by Augustus, and made consul with Cneius Calpurnius Piso, in the year after the building of the city 730. WATSON. 31 By "the unreal manes" are meant, the shades of the departed, often made the theme of the wildest fictions of poetry. Some commentators, however, and among them Orellius, understand the expression in its literal sense, "the manes of whom all is fable," and suppose it to imply the disbelief of a future state. Comp. Tí dé П12оúтwv; Mo0os; Call Epig. xiv. 3. Fabula is the nom. plural, i. e. Manes fabulosi, inanes. M'CAUL. 32 A king of wine: it was a custom among the ancients, at feasts, to chose a king, or master, to order how much each guest should urak, whom all the company were obliged to obey; he was chosen by throwing of the dice, upon whose sides were engraven or painted the images of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, and Diana. He who threw up Venus was made king; as Horace, Book II. Ode vii. insinuates: Quem Venus dicet arbitrum bibendi." WATSON. 33 I have borrowed Milton's happy version. brought down fire into the world. After fire was stolen from the celestial mansions, consumption and a new train of fevers settled upon the earth, and the slow approaching necessity of death, which, till now, was remote, accelerated its pace. Dædalus essayed the empty air with wings not permitted to man. The labor of Hercules broke through Acheron. There is nothing too arduous for mortals to attempt. We aim at heaven" itself in our folly; neither do we suffer, by our wickedness, Jupiter to lay aside his revengeful thunderbolts. ODE IV. TO SEXTIUS. SEVERE winter is melted away beneath the agreeable change of spring" and the western breeze; and engines" haul down the dry ships. And neither does the cattle any longer delight in the stalls, nor the plowman in the fireside; nor are the meadows whitened by hoary frosts. Now Cytherean Venus leads off the dance by moonlight; and the comely Graces, in conjunction with the Nymphs, shake the ground with alternate feet; while glowing Vulcan kindles the laborious forges of the Cyclops. Now it is fitting to encircle the shining head either with verdant myrtle, or with such flowers as the relaxed earth produces. Now likewise it is fitting to sacrifice to Faunus28 in the shady groves, whether he demand a lamb, or be more pleased with a kid." Pale death knocks at the cottages of the poor, and the palaces of kings, with an 25 Cœlum ipsum petimus. In allusion to the fable of the giants. FRANCIS. 26 According to Vegetius, the seas were unfit for navigation "ex die iii. Id. Novembr. usque in diem vi. Id. Mart." ORELLI. 27 The ancients used to draw their ships on shore during winter. SAN. 28 Faunus, he was son to Picus, father to Latinus, and the third king of the aborigines in Latium; who, because he taught the people somewhat of religion and tillage, was accounted a country god. And that rude people might be kept in awe of him, they pictured him with feet of horn, and two horns on his head. Afterward all the gods of the woods went by this name. WATSON. 29 This use of the ablative is common with ritual words; so, "facere," "immolare," are used. ORELLI. impartial foot. O happy Sextius !30 the short sum total of life forbids us to form remote expectations. Presently shall darkness, and the unreal ghosts,"1 and the shadowy mansion of Pluto oppress you; where, when you shall have once arrived, you shall neither decide the dominion of the bottle by dice, nor shall you admire the tender Lycidas, with whom now all the youth is inflamed, and for whom ere long the maidens will grow warm. 32 ODE V. TO PYRRHA. WHAT dainty youth, bedewed with liquid perfumes, caresses you, Pyrrha, beneath the pleasant grot, amid a profusion of roses? For whom do you bind your golden hair, plain in your neatness? Alas! how often shall he deplore your perfidy, and the altered gods; and through inexperience be amazed at the seas, rough with blackening storms, who now credulous enjoys you all precious, and, ignorant of the faithless gale, hopes you will be always disengaged, always amiable! Wretched are those, to whom thou untried seemest fair? The sacred 30 Lucius Sextius, or Sestius, kept up a constant friendship with Brutus, after he was routed, yet was commended by Augustus, and made consul with Cneius Calpurnius Piso, in the year after the building of the city 730. WATSON. 31 By "the unreal manes" are meant, the shades of the departed, often made the theme of the wildest fictions of poetry. Some commentators, however, and among them Orellius, understand the expression in its literal sense, "the manes of whom all is fable," and suppose it to imply the disbelief of a future state. Comp. Tí dé П12οúтwv; Mo0os; Call Epig. xiv. 3. Fabulce is the nom. plural, i. e. Manes fabulosi, inanes. M'CAUL. 32 A king of wine: it was a custom among the ancients, at feasts, to chose a king, or master, to order how much each guest should uruk, whom all the company were obliged to obey; he was chosen by throwing of the dice, upon whose sides were engraven or painted the images of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Venus, and Diana. He who threw up Venus was made king; as Horace, Book II. Ode vii. insinuates: Quem Venus dicet arbitrum bibendi." WATSON. 33 I have borrowed Milton's happy version. wall [of Neptune's temple] demonstrates," by a votive tablet, that I have consecrated my dropping garments to the powerful god of the sea. ODE VI. TO AGRIPPA. You shall be described by Varius, a bird" of Mæonian verse, as brave, and a subduer of your enemies, whatever achievements your fierce soldiery shall have accomplished, under your command; either on ship-board" or on horseback. We, humble writers, O Agrippa, neither undertake these high subjects, nor the destructive wrath of inexorable Achilles, nor the voyages of the crafty" Ulysses, nor the cruel house of Pelops: while diffidence, and the Muse who presides over the peaceful lyre, forbid me to diminish the praise of illustrious Cæsar, and yours, through defect of genius. Who with sufficient dignity will describe Mars covered with adamantine coat of mail, or Meriones swarthy with Trojan dust, or the son of Tydeus by the favor of Pallas a match for the gods? We, whether free, or ourselves enamored of aught, light as our wont, sing of banquets; we, of the battles of maids desperate against young fellows with pared nails.38 34 He alludes to a custom among the Romans, of offering some votive tablet or picture to the god by whose power they thought themselves preserved from shipwreck. In these pictures the storm and circumstances of their escape were represented. DAC. 35 The term alite refers to a custom, in which the ancient poets often indulged, of likening themselves to the eagle and the swan; Movoūv opvixes. Theocr. Id. vii. ANTHON. 36 Agrippa gained the victory in two sea-fights. The first against Pompey's lieutenants; the second, against Pompey himself, besides the share whi he had in the battle of Actium. CRUQ. 37 Perhaps the poet intended to express Ulysses' appearing through the whole Odyssey in two characters, or, if the expression may be allowed, in a double character, such as a prince and a beggar, etc. FRANCIS. 39 See Orelli; who regards this conclusion as merely jocular. ODE VII. 39 TO MUNATIUS PLANCUS. OTHER poets shall celebrate the famous Rhodes, or Mitylene, or Ephesus, or the walls of Corinth, situated between two seas, or Thebes, illustrious by Bacchus, or Delphi by Apollo, or the Thessalian Tempe. There are some, whose one task it is to chant in endless verse the city of spotless Pallas, and to prefer the olive culled from every side, to every other leaf. Many a one, in honor of Juno, celebrates Argos, productive of steeds, and rich Mycena. Neither patient Lacedæmon so much struck me, nor so much did the plain of fertile Larissa, as the house of resounding Albunea, and the precipitately rapid Anio, and the Tiburnian groves, and the orchards watered by ductile rivulets. As the clear south-wind often clears away the clouds from a lowering sky, nor teems with perpetual showers; so do you, O Plancus, wisely remember to put an end to grief and the toils of life by mellow wine; whether the camp, refulgent with banners, possess you, or the dense shade of your own Tibur shall detain you. When Teucer fled from Salamis and his father, he is reported, notwithstanding, to have bound his temples, bathed in wine, with a poplar crown, thus accosting his anxious friends: "O associates and companions, we will go wherever fortune, more propitious than a father, shall carry us. Nothing is to be despaired of under Teucer's conduct, and the auspices of Teucer:" for the infallible Apollo has promised, that a Salamis in a new land shall render the name equivocal." O gallant 40 39 Tempe, a pleasant vale in Thessaly, lying between the hills Ossa, Olympus, and Pelion; the river Peneus running through the midst of it. 40 Lucius Munatius Plancus, whose country-seat was Tibur, or at least near to it, and therefore not far from Horace's country-house. WATSON. 41 Teucer, the son of Scamander Cretensis, a king of Troy, who reigned with his father-in-law Dardanus, from whom the Trojans are called Teucri. But the Teucer meant here was the son of Telamon, an excellent archer; at his return from Troy, being banished by his father, he went to Cyprus, and built there a city, which he called Salamis, by the name of his own country. WATSON. 42 Which shall be so like that Salamis which we have left, in glory and grandeur, that it shall be difficult to distinguish them. SAN. |