Quintus Horatius Flaccus

“ But the context shows that he was thinking of the effect of death and its consequent oblivion on worth and worthlessness alike, and contending that the poet alone could remedy the undiscriminating and unjust award of destiny. Throughout the first half of the Ode, however, Horace has rather failed to mark the transitions of thought. He begins by assuring himself and, by implication, those whom he celebrates, of immortality, on the ground that the greatest poets are not the only poets ”

“ Leave poets free to perish as they will.
Following Mr. Howes and probably others who have written on the Ars Poetica, though apparently not the latest editors, I regard all the words from "Deus immortalis haberi" to the end as part of Horace's speech to the man who thinks of rescuing the mad poet. Much of the humour of what follows, e.g. "Nec semel hoc fecit," "Nec satis apparet," &c. would, it seems to me, be lost on any other supposition. ”

“ Ay, dead is Pelops' father, heaven's own guest,
And old Tithonus, rapt from earth to sky,
And Minos, made the council-friend of Jove;
⁠And Panthus' son has yielded up his breath
Once more, though down he pluck'd the shield, to prove
⁠His prowess under Troy, and bade grim death
O'er skin and nerves alone exert its power,
⁠Not he, you grant, in nature meanly read.
Yes, all "await the inevitable hour;"
⁠The downward journey all one day must tread. ”

“ It is the work of an accomplished and liberal-minded scholar. At the commencement of 1849 appeared "The Works of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, illustrated chiefly from the Remains of Ancient Art, with a Life by the Rev. H. H. Milman," 8vo., a beautiful and luxurious edition. Mr. Milman's Life of Horace, and critical remarks on the merits of the Roman poet, are written with much elegance of style, and are very interesting. ”

“ The rich man looks into the future, and makes contracts which he may never live to see executed (v. 17—Tu secanda marmora Locas sub ipsum funus") ; meantime Death, more punctual than any contractor, more greedy than any encroaching proprietor, has planned with his measuring line a mansion of a different kind, which will infallibly be ready when the day arrives.
Book II, Ode 20.
⁠I, whom you call
Your friend, Mæcenas.
With Ritter I have rendered according to the interpretation which makes dilecte Mæcenas' address to Horace; but it is a choice of evils. ”

“ I Have seldome known a Trick succeed, and will put none upon the Reader, But tell him plainly that I think it could never be more seasonable than now to lay down such Rules, as if they be observ'd, will make Men write more Correctly, and judge more discreetly; But Horace must be read seriously or not at all, for else the Reader wont be the better for him, and I shall have lost my labour ”

“ After life's endless babble they sleep well.
I need hardly refer to the well-known line in Macbeth.
Page 44.
Cassius the rake, and Mænius the buffoon.
This is nearly identical with a line in Howes, of which it may very possibly be an unconscious remembrance. Here and in other places I have called Nomentanus, metri gratia, by his family name Cassius, though it is nowhere, I believe, applied to him by Horace. Pantolabus is supposed to be the same as Mænius, whom Horace mentions elsewhere, and I have been only too glad to take the supposition for granted. ”

“ Horace, as I understand him, means to ridicule this want of connexion, while he says that the critics are so indiscriminate in their praises that Ennius may well repose on his laurels, and not trouble himself as to whether there is any real connexion or no.
Page 152.
Just as an unfair sample, set to catch
The heedless customer, will sell the batch. ”

“ How threatens Turius? if he e'er should judge
A cause of yours, he'll bear you an ill grudge.
Each has his natural weapon, you'll agree,
If you will work the problem out with me:
Wolves use their tooth against you, bulls their horn ”

“ While Cæsar lives? who trembles at the sword
The fierce Iberians wield?
In his own hills each labours down the day,
Teaching the vine to clasp the widow'd tree:
Then to his cups again, where, feasting gay,
He hails his god in thee.
A household power, adored with prayers and wine,
Thou reign'st auspicious o'er his hour of ease:
Thus grateful Greece her Castor made divine,
And her great Hercules.
Ah! be it thine long holydays to give
To thy Hesperia! thus, dear chief, we pray
At sober sunrise; thus at mellow eve,
When ocean hides the day. ”

“ That none will live like a contented man
Where choice or chance directs, but each must praise
The folk who pass through life by other ways?
"Those lucky merchants!" cries the soldier stout,
When years of toil have well-nigh worn him out:
What says the merchant, tossing o'er the brine?
"Yon soldier's lot is happier, sure, than mine:
One short, sharp shock, and presto! all is done:
Death in an instant comes, or victory's won." ”

“ No herd of mine in far-off pasture pines:
Yet ne'ertheless I suffer; hourly teased
Less by a body than a mind diseased,
No ear have I to hear, no heart to heed
The words of wisdom that might serve my need,
Frown on my doctors, with the friends am wroth
Who fain would rouse me from my fatal sloth,
Seek what has harmed me, shun what looks of use,
Town-bird at Tibur, and at Rome recluse.
Then ask him how his health is, how he fares,
How prospers with the prince and his confrères. ”

“ Roused from her sleep, looks wonderingly abroad,
Looks on Thrace with snow-drifts white,
And Rhodope by barbarous footstep trod,
So my truant eyes admire
The banks, the desolate forests. O great King
Who the Naiads dost inspire,
And Bacchants, strong from earth huge trees to wring!
Not a lowly strain is mine,
No mere man's utterance. ”

“ With porker's blood the Earth they would appease,
With milk Silvanus, guardian of their trees,
With flowers and wine the Genius, who repeats
That life is short, and so should have its sweets.
'Twas hence Fescennia's privilege began,
Where wit had licence, and man bantered man;
And the wild sport, though countrified and rough,
Passed off each year acceptably enough;
Till jokes grew virulent, and rabid spite
Ran loose through houses, free to bark and bite. ”

“ What difference? You shall ne'er be dumb,
While strains of mine have voice and breath:
The dull neglect of days to come
Those hard-won honours shall not blight:
No, Lollius, no: a soul is yours,
Clear-sighted, keen, alike upright
When fortune smiles, and when she lowers:
To greed and rapine still severe,
Spurning the gain men find so sweet:
A consul, not of one brief year,
But oft as on the judgment-seat
You bend the expedient to the right,
Turn haughty eyes from bribes away,
Or bear your banners through the fight,
Scattering the foeman's firm array. ”

“ You're well supplied: and Jove himself could tell
No way to make you better off than well.
A truce to murmuring: with another's store
To use at pleasure, who shall call you poor?
Sides, stomach, feet, if these are all in health,
What more could man procure with princely wealth?
If, with a well-spread table, when you dine,
To plain green food your eating you confine,
Though some fine day a rich Pactolian rill
Should flood your house, you'd munch your pot-herbs still,
From habit or conviction, which o'er-ride
The power of gold, and league on virtue's side. ”

“ In deathless pride of victory live,
And dower them with a nobler meed
Than sculptors give,
Or mourn the bridegroom early torn
From his young bride, and set on high
Strength, courage, virtue's golden morn,
Too good to die. ”

“ Good sooth, the town is filled with spleen, to see
Its myrtle-groves attract no company;
To find its sulphur-wells, which forced out pain
From joint and sinew, treated with disdain
By tender chests and heads, now grown so bold,
They brave cold water in the depth of cold,
And, finding down at Clusium what they want,
Or Gabii, say, make that their winter haunt. ”

“ He burns bought sticks at night to boil his pot;
Yet all the plain, he fancies, to the stone
That stands beside the poplars, is his own.
But who can talk of property in lands
Exposed to ceaseless risk of changing hands,
Whose owner purchase, favour, lawless power,
And lastly death, may alter in an hour?
So, with heirs following heirs like waves at sea,
And no such thing as perpetuity,
What good are farmsteads, granaries, pasture-grounds
That stretch long leagues beyond Calabria's bounds,
If Death, unbribed by riches, mows down all
With his unsparing sickle, great and small? ”

“ THE gods have heard, the gods have heard my prayer;
Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still
You struggle to look fair;
You drink, and dance, and trill
Your songs to youthful Love, in accents weak
With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love!
He dwells in Chia's cheek,
And hears her harp-strings move.
Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath
Past wither'd trees like you; you're wrinkled now ”

“ To image now a mortal, now a god.
But these are not my riches: your desire
Such luxury craves not, and your means disdain:
A poet's strain you love; a poet's strain
Accept, and learn the value of the lyre. ”

“ At ease upon a couch with crimson dressed,
Then nimbly moves in character of host,
And offers in succession boiled and roast;
Nay, like a well-trained slave, each wish prevents,
And tastes before the tit-bits he presents. ”

“ Authors influenced by Virgil.—Livy, Tacitus, Ovid, Tibullus, Propertius, Manilius, Lucan, Silius Italicus, Statius, Valerius Flaccus, Martial, Juvenal, the author of Aetna. See under each.
HORACE. (1) LIFE.
Our chief source of information about Horace is his own works, and some important details are added in a life of him by Suetonius.
Horace’s full name is Quintus (Sat. ii. 6, 37) Horatius (Od. iv. 6, 44) Flaccus (Sat. ii. 1, 18) . He was born 8th December, B.C. 65, at Venusia in Apulia, on the frontier of Lucania. ”

“ There's not a man can turn a verse so soon,
Or dance so nimbly when he hears a tune:
While, as for singing—ah! my forte is there:
Tigellius' self might envy me, I'll swear."
He paused for breath: I falteringly strike in:
"Have you a mother? have you kith or kin
To whom your life is precious?" "Not a soul:
My line's extinct: I have interred the whole." ”

“ And bade his comrades lay their grief to sleep:
"Where Fortune bears us, than my sire more kind,
There let us go, my own, my gallant crew.
'Tis Teucer leads, 'tis Teucer breathes the wind;
No more despair; Apollo's word is true. ”

“ Of the Parthian, bold in flight,
Nor Scythian hordes, nor aught that breaks her spell.
Heap the grassy altar up,
Bring vervain, boys, and sacred frankincense;
Fill the sacrificial cup;
A victim's blood will soothe her vehemence. ”

“ To Pholoe's frown; but sooner gentle roes
Apulian wolves shall wed,
Than Pholoe to so mean a conqueror strike:
So Venus wills it; 'neath her brazen yoke
She loves to couple forms and minds unlike,
All for a heartless joke. ”

“ Where slave and mistress clip an old man's fleece:
Pollio in buskins chants the deeds of kings:
Varius outsoars us all on Homer's wings:
The Muse that loves the woodland and the farm
To Virgil lends her gayest, tenderest charm. ”

“ Save them by violence, you as good as kill.
'Tis not his first attempt: if saved to-day,
He's sure to die in some outrageous way.
Beside, none knows the reason why this curse
Was sent on him, this love of making verse,
By what offence heaven's anger he incurred,
A grave defiled, a sacred boundary stirred:
So much is plain, he's mad: like bear that beats
His prison down and ranges through the streets,
This terrible reciter puts to flight
The learned and unlearned left and right:
Let him catch one, he keeps him till he kills,
As leeches stick till they have sucked their fills. ”

“ Your Satyr folk, and mirth and morals blend,
Let not your heroes doff their robes of red
To talk low language in a homely shed,
Nor, in their fear of crawling, mount too high,
Catching at clouds and aiming at the sky. ”

“ Who spent vast pains upon the husk of man,
Slept on till mid-day, and enticed their care
To rest by listening to a favourite air.
Robbers get up by night, men's throats to knive:
Will you not wake to keep yourself alive? ”

“ Him shall never fiery steed
Draw in Achæan car a conqueror seated;
Him shall never martial deed
Show, crown'd with bay, after proud kings defeated,
Climbing Capitolian steep:
But the cool streams that make green Tibur flourish,
And the tangled forest deep,
On soft Æolian airs his fame shall nourish. ”

“ FEW roods of ground the piles we raise
Will leave to plough; ponds wider spread
Than Lucrine lake will meet the gaze
On every side; the plane unwed
Will top the elm; the violet -bed,
The myrtle, each delicious sweet,
On olive-grounds their scent will shed,
Where once were fruit-trees yielding meat ”

“ Without distinction seize on all they meet;
None ever scap'd that came within their reach,
Sticking like Leaches till they burst with blood,
Without remorse insatiably they read,
And never leave till they have read Men dead. ”

“ No, though more suasive than the bard of Thrace
You swept the lyre that trees were fain to hear,
Ne'er should the blood revisit his pale face
Whom once with wand severe
Mercury has folded with the sons of night,
Untaught to prayer Fate's prison to unseal.
Ah, heavy grief! but patience makes more light
What sorrow may not heal. ”

“ To make a God, a Hero, or a King,
(Stripp'd of his golden Crown and purple Robe)
Descend to a Mechanick Dialect,
Nor (to avoid such meanness) soaring high
With empty sound, and aiery notions fly;
For, Tragedy should blush as much to stoop
To the low Mimmick follies of a Farce,
As a grave Matron, would to dance with Girles:
You must not think that a Satyrick Stile
Allows of scandalous and brutish Words,
Or the confounding of your Characters.
Begin with Truth, then give Invention scope,
And if your Stile be natural and smooth,
All men will trie, and hope to write as well ”