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

—
—
502 EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK Ii., SATIRE 111.
with alittlet &c. Stertinias her© retorts very severely upon them. If
nature's wants are bo few, why dost thou commit bo many crimes to heap
up riches, which thou canst he as well without.—128. Tun sanus. We
have here a new character iutrodaced, and a new species of madness
passes in review. Ctsdere. "To pelt."
131-141. 131. Qmim laquco vxorem interimis^ &c. The scene again
changes, and the Stoic now addresses one who had strangled his wife to
get into possession of a rich portion, and another who had poisoned his
mother in order to attain the sooner to a rich estate. Thus avarice is rega-
larly conducted through all its degrees, until it ends in murder and parri-
cide.—132. Qvid enim 1 " And Why not ?" Stertinius, at first, ironically
concedes that the individual in question is not insane, hecause, forsooth,
he neither killed his mother at Argos, nor with the sword, as Orestes
did, just as if the place or instrument had any thing to do with the crimi-
nality of the act. After this, however, he. changes to a serious tone, and
proceeds to show that Orestes, in fact, was the less guilty of the two. The
latter slew his mother, hecause, contrary to the common belief, the Furies
maddened and impelled him to the deed ; but the moment his mother fell
beneath his hand, insanity departed, and reason returned ; whereas the
person whom the Stoic addresses, after having committed crimes to wblbh
nothing hut his own inordinate desire of riches prompted him, is still as
insane as ever in adding to his store.—137. Q,uin ex quo habitus male
iutee, &c. " Moreover, from the time that Orestes was commonly regarded
as of unsound mind." The expression male tuta is here equivalent to
male sants.—139. Pi/laden. Pylades, the well-known and intimate Mend
of Orestes.— ^141. Splendida bilis. " High-toned choler." The Stoic will
have that Orestes was not insane after he had slain Clytemnestra, bat
only in a state of high-wrought excitement. This statement, so directly
in opposition to the common accomit, but necessary here for the argument,
may either be a discovery of the Stoic's himself, or else Horace may have
followed a different tradition from that which Euripides adopted.
143-155. 142. Pauper Opimius, Sec. Another instance of the insanity
of avarice. " Opimius, poor amid silver and gold hoarded np within."?—
143. Veientanufn. Understand vinum. The Veientan wine, bis holiday
beverage, is described by Porphyrion as being of the worst kind. Per-
sius (v. 147) calls it rubellum from its color, and makes it the drink of the
common s^ors.—144. Campana trulla. "From anesxthentrulla." The
epithet Campana is here used to indicate the earthen-ware of Campania.
The trulla was a species of ladle or cup used for drawing wine, and from
which the liquor was also poured into the drinking-cups. The meaning
of the text therefore is, not that Opimius drank his wine immediately
from the trulla^ but after it had been poured from stich a vessel (made of
earthen-ware, and not of better materials, such as silver, gold, ice.) into
the poculum or cup.—147. Multum celer atquejldelis. " A man of great
promptness and fidelity."—152. Men vivo? "What! while I am yet
alive ?" Ut .vivas igitur, vigila: hoc age. The reply of the physician.
Connect the train of ideas as follows : In the state in which thou at pres
ent art, thou cansthardly besaid tobe alive; that thou mayest live, there
fore, in reality, arouse thyself, do this which I bid.—154. Ruenti. In th«
sense of deficienti. The term is here employed on account of its dhreci