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

—
354 EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK III., ODE XIV.
1103, op. Vghelt Ital. Sacr., torn. 7, cot 30, ed. Ven., 1721), in the following
words : " In Bandusino fonte apud Venusiam," and, a little after,
"cum aliis ecclesiis de casteXlo Bandusii." ITrom this it would appear
that the trae Bandusian fount was near Venusiat in Apulia ; and it has
heen coiyectured that the poet named another fountain, on his Sabine
farm, and Which he here addresses, after the one near Vennsia, which he
had known in early boyhood.—2. Dulci digne Tnero, &c.' The nymph of
the fountain is to be propitiated by a libation, and by garlands hung around
the brink. Splendidior vitro. " Clearer than glass."—3. Donaberis.
" Thou shalt be gifted," i. e., in sacrifice,—6. Frustra. Sc. tBtas eum Veneri
et prtBliis ^stinat.—^am gelidos iriflciet, &c. The altars on which
sacrifices were offered to foalitaius, were placed in their immediate vicini-
ty, and constructed of turf.— 9. Te fiagrantis atrox\ &c. "Thee the
iBerce season of the blazing dogstar does not affect." Literally, "knows
not bow to affect." Consult note on Ode i., 17, 7.—13. Fies nobUium tu
quoque fontium. "Thou too shalt become one of the famous fountains."
By the nobiles fontes are meant Castalia, Hippocrene, Dirce, Arethasa,
&;c. The construction^^ nobilium fontium is imitated from the Greek.
—14. Me dicente. "While I tell of," i. e., while I celebrate in song.—
15. Loquaces lymphce tu€e. "Thy prattling waters,"
Ode XrV. On the expected return of Augustus from his expedition
against the Cantabri. The poet proclaims a festal day in honor of so
joyous an erent, and while the consort and the sister of Augustus, accompanied
by the Roman females, are directed to go forth and meet their
prince, he himself proposes to celebrate the day at his own abode with
wine and festivity.
What made the return of the emperor peculiarly gratifying to the Roman
people was the circumstance of his having been attacked by sickness
during his absence, and confined for a time at the city of Tarraco.
1-6. 1. HercuHs ritu, &c. " Augustus, O Romans, who so lately was
said, after the manner of Hercules, to have sought for the laurel to be
purchased only with the risk of death, now," &c. The conquests of Au-
gusttis over remote nations are here compared with the labors of the fabled
Hercules, and as the latter, after the overthrow of Geryou, retamed
in triumph from Spain to Italy, so Augustus now comes from the same
distant quarter victorious over his barbarian foes. The expression morte
venalem petiisse laurum refers simply to the exposure of life in the achiev-
ing of victory. Compare the remark of Acron: ** Mortis contemiu laua
victoria quceritur et triumphi"-—^, Unico gavident muli&r marito, &c.
" Let the consort who exults in a peerless husband, go forth to offer sacri-
ficefl to the just deities of heaven." The allusion is to Livia, the consort
of Augustus. As regards the passage itself, two things are deserving of
attention : the first is the use of unico, in the sense of praestantissimo, on
which point consult Heinsius, ad Ovid, Met., iii., 454 ; the second is the
meaning we must assign to operata, which is here taken by a poetic idiom
for ut operetur. On the latter subject compare Tibullus, ii., 1, S, ed.
Heyne; Virgil, Qeorg., i., 335, ed. Heyne, and the comments of Mitscher-
lich and Doring on the present passage.—6. Justii divis. The gods are
here styled "just" from their granting to Augustas the success which his