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

EXPLANATORY NOTES.—BOOK I., SATIRE VIII. 467
Comoentus hero incladed all who were present at the hearing of the case.
—23. Cohortem. "His retinue." -^24. Solem Asia. As illnminiag the
wholo province of Asia by the splendor of his authority and name.—25.
Canem, ilium, invisum agricolis, &c. " That Rnpilins had come like that
hound, the star hateful to husbandmen." The allusion is to the dog^-star.
Consult note on Ode i., 17, 17.—26. RuehMiflumen ut hibemum, &o. "He
poured along, as a wintry flood is wont, in places whither the ase of the
woodman seldom comes." Fersius, choking i^th rage while he pours
forth hia torrent of angry invective against Rnpilins, is compared to a
stream swollen by the winter rains, and choked in its course by the thick
underwood, and other impediments of the kind which it encounters.
28-30. 28. Turn Pnsnestinus salso, &c. " Then the native of Prae-
neste, like a stubborn and unconquered vine-dresser, to whom the passenger
hath often been obliged to yield, when calling him cnckoo with
roaring voice, retorts upon Bis opponent, as he flowed along in his cutting
and copious style, invectives drawn, as it were, from the vulgar raillery
of the vineyard itself." The vines in Italy were trimmed and pruned
early in the spring. If any'vine-dresser, therefore, attended to this branch
of his duties late in the season (the period when the cnckoo begins to put
forth its note), he was sore of encoimtering the raillery of passengers for
his indolence and loss of time, and it was customary with them, in allusion
to the lateness of the season, in which his labors had only just commenced,
to salute hia ears vrith the cry of eueuUus (" cuckoo," i. e., in the vulgar
dialect of our own days, " lazy lubber") . On this a fierce war of invective
and abuse invariably ensued, in which the more extensive vocabulary of
the vine-dressers generally insured them the victory. Horace compares
Bnpilius, therefore, to a vine-dresser who had been in many such conflicts,
and had always come off conqueror; in other words, he pays a high compliment
to his unrivalled powers of abuse.—29. ArBusto. The Italian
vines were truned along trees. Hence the use of arbustum to denote a
vineyard.—30. Vindemiator. This term properly denotes one who gathers
the grapes for the vintage. It is here used, however, in the sense cXputatvr.
In metrical reading, vindemiator mast be pronounced vindem-ydtar
32-35. 32. Greecus. Compare note on verse 2.
—
Italo aceto. The in-
vectives and abnse uttered by Bupilius are here designated by the appellation
of "Italian viiiegar."—34; Q,ui reges consuesti tollere. Brutus
had aided in slaying Csesar only, but Junius Brutus, one of his ancestors,
had driven Tar^uin from Rome. Fersius therefore addresses him as an
hereditary tyrannicide.—35. Operam hoc mild crede iudrum est. " This
is one, believe me, of the deeds that peculiarly belong to thee," i. e., this,
trust me, is a work for thee alone, the hereditary foe of kings, to accomplish.
We may either understand unum after operum tuorum, or, what
is far preferable, make the genitive here an imitation at once of the Greek
idiom.
Satire YIK. The design of this satire is to ridicule the superstitions
of the Romans. Priapus is introduced, describing the incantations performed
by Camdia, in Mascenas's newly-laid-out gardenjs on the EsqnilSne
Hill, which he protected from thieves. But he could not guard them fi-om