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HORACE
hietque turpis inter aridas natis
podex uelut crudae bouis. (Epod. 8.1—6)
To think that you, who are rotten with decrepitude, should ask what is unstringing my
virility, when your one tooth is black, and extreme old age ploughs furrows across
your forehead, and your disgusting anus gapes between your shrivelled buttocks like
that of a cow with diarrhoea.
"Whether the victim of this foul attack existed or not we cannot say. If she
did, Horace was not concerned to tell us who she was. On the other hand, we
have no right to assume that because the poem contains no name and clearly
belongs to the abusive tradition of Archilochus the woman must therefore be
fictitious. Better to admit ignorance and pass on to a more important question,
viz. what effect had the poet in mind? When we discover that the woman is
aristocratic (the masks of her ancestors will attend her funeral), wealthy (she
is weighed down with big round jewels), pseudo-intellectual (volumes of
Stoicism lie on her silk cushions), and adulterous (she is eager for extramarital
thrills), the only plausible interpretation is that the whole thing is
a horrible kind of joke, based on deliberate outrage. The poem is exceptional
but not unique — Epod. 12 shows the same scabrous ingenuity, and two later
odes, though less offensive, exploit a similar theme (1.25 and 4.13). Needless
to say, the unpleasant epodes, and also most of Sat. 1.2. (which is bawdy, but
clean in comparison) were omitted by the Victorian commentators; and as
those admirable scholars have not yet been superseded it still has to be pointed
out that Horace was not invariably polite.
Nor was he always happy. The struggle for tranquillity is well illustrated in
Odes 2.3, which begins by affirming the importance of keeping a level head
when things are steep (aequam memento rebus in arduis | seruare mentem). The
next two stanzas speak of enjoying a bottle of Falernian in a secluded field
with trees overhead and a stream running by.' Bring wine, perfume, and roses',
says the poet; but already there are darker overtones, for the lovely roseblossoms
are 'all too brief and we can only enjoy ourselves 'while circumstances
and youth and the black threads of the three sisters allow us'. The prince
will have to leave his castle (17—20); like the poor man he is a victim of pitiless
Orcus (21—4). Continuing the image of the victim (i.e. a sheep or a goat), the
final stanza begins omnes eodem cogimur 'we are all being herded to the same
place'; then the picture changes:
omnium
uersatur urna serius ocius
sors exitura et nos in aeternum
exilium impositura cumbae. (25—8)
Everyone's pebble is being shaken in the jar. Sooner or later it will come out and put us
on the boat for unending exile.
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