06.05.2013 Views

Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

HORACE<br />

7. pallida Mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas<br />

regutnque turns, o beate Sesti,<br />

uitae summa breuis spetn nos uetat incohare longam.<br />

iam te premet nox fabulaeque Manes<br />

et domus exilis Plutonia. (1.4.13—17)<br />

Pale Death kicks with impartial foot the poor man's cottage <strong>and</strong> the prince's castle.<br />

My well-off Sestius, the short span of life forbids us to initiate long hopes. Soon night<br />

<strong>and</strong> the storied spirits <strong>and</strong> the meagre Rich house will hem you in. [Pluto, like Dis,<br />

means 'rich'.]<br />

Note the plosives <strong>and</strong> dentals in the first sentence, the contrast of summa breuis<br />

with spem longam, <strong>and</strong> the juxtaposition of exilis <strong>and</strong> Plutonia, which gives an<br />

added reminder to the beatus Sestius. (The meaning of exilis is guaranteed by<br />

Epist. 1.6.4 5 f.)<br />

8. 'o sol<br />

pulcher! o laud<strong>and</strong>e!' canam, recepto<br />

Caesare felix. (4.2.46-8)<br />

/ shall sing 'Day of beauty, day of glory!' in my happiness at having Caesar back.<br />

Here the trochaic rhythm of a popular song of triumph has been cleverly<br />

incorporated in a sapphic stanza.<br />

9. illic omne malum uino cantuque leuato,<br />

deformis aegrimoniae dulcibus alloquiis. {Epod. 13.17—18)<br />

There lighten every misfortune with wine <strong>and</strong> song, those sweet assuagers of ugly<br />

depression.<br />

Chiron is advising the young Achilles on how to face the miseries of the Trojan<br />

war, from which he will never return. This is the first recorded instance of<br />

alloquium; <strong>and</strong> it is used in the extended sense of 'assuager'. Bentley, who<br />

noticed the peculiarity, took it to indicate textual corruption instead of poetic<br />

originality; but he was probably right in thinking that Horace had in mind the<br />

Greek irapaiiOStov. The expression deformis aegrimoniae looks back to ' scowling<br />

moroseness' (5) <strong>and</strong> to the glowering storm of 1.1. •<br />

10. parcius iunctas quatiunt fenestras<br />

iactibus crebris iuuenes proterui,<br />

nee tibi somnos adimunt, amatque<br />

ianua limen. (1.25.1-4)<br />

Not so relentlessly do wild young men shake your closed shutters with volleys of stones;<br />

they do not rob you of your sleep, <strong>and</strong> the door hugs the threshold.<br />

The sarcasm derives its force from the implication that to any respectable<br />

woman the cessation of these disturbances would be a welcome relief; whereas<br />

• See Rudd (1960W 383-6.<br />

384<br />

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!