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

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574 EXPLANATORY NOTES, BOOK I., EPirf'lXE X.
SjFISTLE X. The poet loved to retire into the country, and indalge, amid
rural scenes, in reading, and in wooing hia muse. Fuscus, on the other
hand, gave the preference to a city life» though in every thing else his
views and feelings were in unison with those of his friend. In the present
epistle, therefore, Horace states to his old companion t;he grounds of
his choice, and paints, in masterly colors, the innocent pleasures, the sim
plicity, and the calm repose of a country life,
1-10. 1. Urbis amatorem. Beautifully opposed to ruris amatores in
the following line. Fuscum solvere jubemus. " Bid Fuscus hail." Fuscus
AristiuB, who is here addressed, was a distinguished grammarian
and rhetorician of the day, a man of probity, but too much influenced by
the desire of accumulating riches, the common vice of the times, and pre-
ferring, therefore, a city life to the repose of the country. He is the
same individual to whom the 22d ode of the first book is addressed.
3. PcBnegemetli. " Aimost twins." Compare Sat. i., 3, 44.—4. EtcUter.
Supply negat.—5. Annuimus pariter vetuli notique columhi. "We nod
assent to each other, like old and constant doves." .Supply velvM or si-
cuti, and compare the explanatory remark of Boring: "Si alteraitt alter
quoque att, alter alteri in omni re pari modo annuit."— Noti. Alluding
literally to long acquaintance, and to constancy of attachment resulting
therefrom.—6. Nidum. The comparison is stiU kept up, and the city to
which Fuscus clings, and in which all his desires appear to centre, is
beautifully styled the nest, which he is said to keep, while the poet roams
abroad.—7. Musco circumliia saxa. "The moss-grown rocks."—8. Quid
qumris 7 " In a word." For a literal translation, supply ultra. This was
a form of expression used when they wanted, in few words, to give a
reason for, or an explanation of, any thing. Vivo et regno.. " I live and
reign," i. e., I live as happy as a king; I lead a life of independence and
happiness.—9. Rumore secundo. " With favoring acclaim."—10. Utguc
sacerdotis fagitijous, &c. "And, like a priest's runaway slave, I reject
the sweet wafers ; I want plain bread, which is more agreeable to me
now than honeyed cheese-cakes." By liha are meant a kind of consecrat
ed cake or wafer, made of flour, honey, and oil, which were ofiered up,
during the performance of sacred rites, to Bacchus (Ovid, Fast.^ iii., 735),
Ceres, Fan, and other deities. They became the perquisite of the priests,
and their number was so great that the latter gave them, as an article of
food, to their slaves. The placenta were cheese-cakes, composed of fine
wheat flour, cheese, honey, Sec. Compare Cato, R. R., 76.—The idea intended
to be conveyed by this passage is this : As the priest*s slave, who
is tired of living on the delicacies offered to his master's god, runs away
from his service, that he may get a little common bread, so the poet would
retreat from the false taste and the cloying pleasures of the city, to the
simple and natural enjoyments of the country.
12-17. 12. Vivere naturee si convenienter opoHet, Sec. " If we onght to
live conformably to nature, and if a spot of ground is to be sought after, in
the first place, for a dwelling to be erected upon it," i. c, if we would lead
an easy life, and one agreeable to nature, and if, for this end, we make it
our first care to find out some fit place whereon to build us a house. Observe
that domo is here the old form of the dative for domui. This same
fona occurs sometimes in Cato, e. g.^ R. R., 134, ^. The poet begins
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