The works of Horace : with English notes, critical and ... - Cristo Raul

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288 EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK I,, ODE XVII.
Ode XVII. Horace, having in the last ode made his peace with Tyn
darts, now invites ner to his Sabine farm, where she will find retirement
and security from the brutality of Cyrus, who had treated her with unmanly
rudeness and craelty. In order the more certainly to indace an acceptance
of his offer, he depicts in attractive colors the salubrious position
of his rural retreat, tlie tranquillity which reigns there, and the favoring
protection extended to him by F annus and the other goda.
1-4. 1. Velox amtsnum. Sec. " Ofttimes Faunns, in rapid flight, changes
Mount Lycfieas for the fair Lucretilis." L^ccbo is here the ablative, as denoting
the instrument by which the change is made. They who make
this an hypallage for Lucretili . , . L^cteum, confound the English idiom
with the Latin. Lucretilem. Lucretilis was a mountain in the country
of the Sabines, and amid its windings lay the farm of the poet. It is now
Monte Libretti.—2. Lycmo. Mount Lycaeus was situated in the southwestern
angle of Arcadia, and was sacred to Faunus or Pan. Fannm,
Faunus, the god of shepherds and fields among the Latins, appears to
have become gradually identified with the Pan of the Greeks.—3. DefmdU.
" Wards ofi^."—4. Pluviosque ventos. " And the rainy winds." The poet
sufficiently declares the salubrious situation of his Sabine farm, when he
speaks of it as being equally sheltered from the fiery heats of summer,
and the rain-bearing winds, the sure precnrsors of disease.
5-17. 5. Arhutos. Compare the note on Ode i, 1, 21.—6. Tkyma. The
thyme of the ancients is not our common thyme, but the thymus capitatut,
qui Dioscoridis, which now grows in great plenty on the mountains of
Greece. —^7. Olentis uxores mariti. ** The wives of the fetid husband."
A periphrasis for caprcB.^^9. Nee Martiales Hadilids lupos. "Nor the
fierce wolves of Heedilia." It appears from a'gloss appended to one of the
earliest MSS., that Hsedilia was a mountain in the vicinity of the poefs
farm, infested by wolves. All the MSS. have HcBdilite; but the copyists,
not understanding the meaning of the term, change'd it to hinnulea, which
last, Bentley, by an ingenious emendation, and guided by analogy, altered
into the new word htsdulets, "young female kids." The restoration of the
true reading of the MSS. was made by Orelli. The e-pithet'MariialeSf as
applied to lupost has a double meaning, since it indicates the wolf not only
as a fierce and savage animal, but also one sacred to Mars.—10. Utcunque, .
"Whenever." 'For quandocunque.—11. Usticee cubantis. *' Of the lowlying
Ustica," i. e., gently sloping. This was a small mountain near the
poet's farm.—12. L&jia. In the sense of attrifa, " worn smooth by the
mountain rills."—14. Hie tibi copia^ &c. " Here plenty, rich in rural honors,
shall flow in to thee, from benignant horn filled to the Verybrim." A
figurative allusion to the horn of Plenty'.—17. In reducta tallei "In a
windiiig vale."^C(miCT*?(C. We translate this term by " the dog-star,"
without specifying whether we mean Sirips, the great dog-star, or Pro-
cyotLf the little dog-star. It may, however,.l3e either, since their heliacal
risings do not differ by many "days. Bdt, strictly speaking, canicula is
Procyon, and the dies caniculares, or classical "dog-days," are the twenty
days preceding and the twenty days following the heliacal risingof Cff*
nicula.
18-21. 18. Fide Tela. " On the Teian lyre," i. e., in Anacreo&tic strain
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