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

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496 EXPLANArORY NOTES. BOOK II., SATIRE III.
i. e., amid the sober tranquillity and the retirement of thy villa.
—
Incipt.
After uttering' this, Damasippns is supposed to pause a while, waiting for
the poet to begin the task of composition. At length, tired with waiting
to no purpose, he exclaims Nil est. " Nothing is forthcoming."—7. Calami.
*' Tbe pens." When writing on paper or parchment, the Homans
made use of a reed sharpened and split in the point, like oar pens, whicL
they dipped in ink- {atramentum).—Immeriiusque laborat iratis natus
paries, &c. "And the unoffending wall suffers, born under the maledic-
tion of gods and of poets." A humorous allusion. The walls of a poet's
chamber, observes Francis, seem built with the curse of tbe gods upon
them, since the gods have subjected them to the capricious passions of the
rhyming tribe, who curse and strike them in their poetical fits as if they
Tf-ere tbe cause of their sterility,
»-16. 9. Atqm vultus erat, &c. "And yet thou hadst the air of ona
that threatened many fine things, if once thy little villa should receive
thee, disengaged from other pursuits, beneath its comfortable roof."—
Minantis. Compare the scholiast : poUicentis, ptomittentis. The allu-
sion is to the promised results of the poet's labors.— ^10. Vacuum. Supply
the ellipsis as follows : te vacuum a negotiis.— Tepido. Alluding to
the comfortable accommodsitions at the poet's Sabine villa.—11. Quarsum
pertiniiit sHpare, Sec. " What good purpose has it answered to pack
Plato on Menander, Eupolis on Archilochus." The allusion is to the
wofks of these writers, which the poet is supposed to have p^l|^d up and
brought with'him into the country. Plato is selected by the poet for the
precepts and maxims oi philosophy with which he abounds, Archilochus
for his Iambic humor and bitterness, iind the writers of the Old and New
Comedy are represented by Eupolis and Menuider. [OrelU, ad loc.)-'
13. Invidiam placare paras, virtute rdicta? "Art thou attempting to
allay the odium excited against thee by abandoning tbe path of virtae?"
e. e.f art thou endeavoring to allay the odium excited by thy satirical wri^
ings by abandoning ^together that branch of composition ? The writing
of satires is here dignified with the appellation of '^virtus," its object be-
y^g to lash the vices and the failings of men.—IS. Quidguid. Understand
/taudis-— Viia mdiore. " In the better period of thy life," in those better
days when spiritless and indolent feelings had not as yet come upon thee,
and when thou wast wont to lash with severity the failings of men.—
16. Ponendum. *' Must be given up." Yox deponendvm.
17-25. 17. Donent tonsore. Horace pretends not to be aware that
Damasippus is a philosopher, and therefore nourishes a length of beard,
but charitably wishes him a barber, who 'may remove from, his chin its
unseemly covering-, to the uncouth appearance of which the want of personal
cleanliness had, no doubt, larg-ely contributed.—18. Postquam omnis
res mea Janum, Sec. " After all my fortunes were shipwrecked at the
middle Janus." Janum ad medium* By this is meant what we would
term, in modern parlance, " the exchange." On the northern side of the
Foram there were three arches or arcades dedicated to this god, standing
at some distance apart, and forming by their line of direction a kind of
street, as it were (for, strictly speaking, there were no streets in the
Forum). The central one of these arches was the usual rendezvous of
brokers and money-lenders, and was termed medius JanvSf while the