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

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384 EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK I., EPISTLE XIV.
was detained at Borne by hi» concern for a friend who mourned the Ion
of his brother, and had no less impatience to get into the country than hik
steward to be in town, writes him this epistle to correct his inconstancy,
and to make him ashamed of complaining that he was unhappy in a place
which afforded so much delight to his master, who thought hp never had
any real enjoyment as long as he was absent from it.
1-9. 1. Villice sUvarum, Sec. "Steward of my woods, and of the little
farm that always restores me to myself." The vUlieus was usually of
servile condition.— ^3. Habiiatum gmicque focis. Ice. "Though occupied
by five hearths, and accustomed to send five honest heads of families to
Varia." By focis are meant, in fact, dwellings or families. The poet
merely wishes by the expression quinque honos solUum, &c., to add still
more precision to the phrase kabitatum guinguefocis in the second verse.
His farm contained on it five families, and the fathers or heads of these
families were the poefs tenants, and were accustomed, as often as their
private affairs or a wish to dispose of their commodities called them thitb-
ei", to go to the neighboring town of Varia. In this way be strives to remind
the individual whom he addresses that the farm in qoestion, though
email in itself, was yet, as far as regarded the living happily upon it, suf-
ficiently extensive. Varia, now Vicovaro, was situate in the Sabine territory,
eight miles from Tibur, on the Via Valeria.— 4. Spinas. The
thorns of the mind are its vitia or defects.—5. Et melior sitHoratim an
res. " And whether Horace or hie .farm be in the better condition."—6.
Lamite pietas et cura. " The affection and grief of Lamia," i. e., his affectionate
grief. The allusion is to the grief of Lamia, not of Horace. By
Lamia is meant L. .^lius Lamia, to whom Horace addressed Odes L, S6,
and iii., 17. Me nwratwr. " Detain me here," i. e., at Bome.—7. Sapto.
"Snatched away by death." Supply a morte.—8. Mens animusque.
Equivalent to iotus meus animus. When the Latin writers use mens
animusque, they would express all the faculties of the soul. Mens regards
the superior and intelligent part; animus, the sensible dnd inferior, the
source of the passions.—9. Et amat spatiis ohstaniia rumpere claustra.
" And long to break through the barriers that oppose my way." A figur-
ative allusion to the eareeres, or barriers in the circus (here called claus-
trd), where the chariots were restrained until the signal given for start-
ing, as well as to the spatia, or course itself. The plural form spaUa is
morefreqnently employed than the singular, in order to denote that it was
run over several times in one race.
10-19. 10. Vioentem. " Him who lives." Inmrbe. Sia-pp\j vivejiiem.
—11. Sua nimirum est odio sors. " His own lot evidently is an unpleas-
ing one." The idea intended to be expressed by the whole line is this
'Tis a sure sign, when we envy another's lot, that we are discontented
with our own.—12. Locum immeritum. " The unoffending place." Lit
erally, " the nndeserving place," i. e., innocent. Referring to the place in
which each one is either stationed at the time, or else passes his days.
13. Qui se non ^ugit unquam. Compai-e Ode ii., 16, 20 : " Patrice guis
exsul se guoguefugit?"—14. Mediastinus. "While a mere drudge, at
every one's beck." Mediastinus denotes a slave of the lowest rank, one
who was attached to no particular department of the household, but was
accustomed to perform the lowest offices, and to execute not OD^y any
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