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

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498 EXPLANATOEY NOTES. BOOK 11., SATIRE III.
InflcriptioQ still remaining on one of the arches testifies. The modern
name is Ponte di quattro Caph "the bridge of the four heads," from a
fonr-faced statue of Janns erected near it. Non tristem. " With my mind
at ease." No longer plunged in melancholy.
37-45. 37. Operto capiie. Among the ancients, all who had devoted
themselves to death in any way, or on any account, previously covered
the head. Damasippus intended to destroy himself, on the occasion alluded
to, in consequence of the ruin of his private affairs.—38. Dexter
stetit. "He stood, on a sudden, by my side, like a guardian genius."—
Cave. The final vowel of this word is short, the form here employed being
deduced from the old, cavo^ -fyv, the primitive and stem-conjugation of
caveo, ire. Consult Anthon's Lot, Pros., p. 70, note 3.— ^39. Pudor matus.
"A false shame."—43. Mala siuUiiia. "Vicious folly,"—44. Chry^ppt
poriicus et grex> "The portico, and the school of Chrysippus." The
ignorant Stoic here confounds the disciple with the master, and, instead
of referring to Zeno, the actual founder of the Stoic sect, names Chrysippus
as such>—45. Autunuit. "Deem." H^c formaUa. "This definition,"
i. e.f of madness. Tenet. In the sense of cotnplectitw.
48-60. 48. Velut silvi$, ubi passwif dec. The train of ideas is as follows
: As is accustomed to happen in woods, where those who wander
about generally all go wrong ; this one mistakes his way to the left, that
one to the right ; each errs, but in a di£ferent way from the other : in this
same manner [hoc modo) believe thyself to be insane ; while he who
laughs at thee is in no respect whatever a wiser man than thou ar^ and
will be himself laughed at by others as not in possession of his senses.—
53. Caudam trahat. A metaphor, taken, as the scholiast informs us, from
a custom among children, who tied a tail behind a person whom they had
a mind to laugh at.—56, Hide varum. "The opposite to this." Varum
IB here equivalent to dvoersum, and is a much better reading than the or
dihaty varium. Compare Satire i., 3, 47,—57, Clamet arnica mater
* Though an affectionate mother cry out."—58. Honesta soror. "A dati
All sister."—59. Serva. "Take care."—60. Non magis audierit quam
Fujlus ebrius olim, &c. The idea of a person madly making his way
amid such dangers as those mentioned in the text, deaf to all the exclama-
tions and warnings ofhis friends, naturally reminds Stertinins of the laugh-
able anecdote relative to the actor Fufias. The Iliona was a celebrated
play of the Roman poet Facuvius, resembling somewhat in plot the Hecu
ba of Euripides. In this piece Priam was represented as having sent his
son Polydorus, when quite young, to his daughter Iliona, who was mar
ried to Folymestor, ting of Thrace, to be taken cfere of by her. Iliona
made him pass for her own son, and her son Deiphilus for her brother, so
that when Folymestor, at the instigation of the Greeks, killed, as he
thought, Polydorus, it was his own son that he slew. The ghost of De-
iphilus then appeared to his mother in her sleep, and began to address
her in the words Mater, te appello, proceeding to relalte what had happened
to him, and entreating the rites of burial. Thedrunken Fufius, who
should have awakened and sprang from his couch at the Very first words
Mater, te appello, slept away in good earnest, while Catienus, the Jier-
Ibrmer who acted the part of the shade, and the entire audience after nim
{Catienis mille ducentis), kept calling ott the words to no purpose, the intoxicated
actor being too soundly asleep to hear them.