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

EXPLANATORY NOTES. BOOK I., EPISTLE XVIL 595
they used to doabla their cloak of coarse cloth, and called this 'a iinXot^.
{KeiffhtlcTft od loc^—Patientia, The main Cynic virtue was patientiot
called in Greek xaprepla, i. e., endurance of privations, &c. Here, how
ever, mere stubborn obstinacy is meant by it.
27-32. 27. Alter. Alluding to Aiistippna. Non expectabit. " Will not
wait for."—28. QuidlibeU Any sort of cloak, old or new, coarse or fine.
Celeberrima per loca. " Through the most frequented places."—29. Persmiamque
feret non incondnrms utramque. " And will support either
character without the least admixture of awkwardness," i. e., will acquit
Dimself equally ^ell, whether he appears ia a fine or a coarse garment,
in a costly or a mean one.—30. Alter Mileti textam, &c. " The other will
shun a cloak wrought at Uiletus, as something more dreadful than a rabid
dog or a snake." Miletus, an Ionian city, on the western coast of Asia
Minor, was famed for its woollen manufactures and its purple dye.—31.
Mbrieiurfrigore, si non retuleris pannum. "He will die with cold if one
does not restore him his coarse cloak," i. e., be will rather perish with
cold than appear in any other but his coarso cloak. Compare the story
related by the scholiast :
" Aiunt Aristippum, invitato Diogetie ad haU
TieaSf dedisse operaTn^ ut omnes prius effredereniur, ipsiusgue pallium iT^
duisse, illiguepurpureum reliquisse, guodDiogenes cum induere noluisseti
suum repetiit : tunc Anstippus iiicrepuit CynicumtfamiB servientem, qut
algere mallet quam conspici in veste purpurea."— 3!i.,Ilefer, et sine vioat
incptus. " Restore it, and let the fool live."
33-36. 33. Res gerere et captos ostendere dmbus hastes, dec. " To perform
exploits, and to show the citizens their foes led captive, reaches the
throne of Jove and aspires to celestial honors," i. e., is, in fact, a mounting
up to the throne of Jupiter, and treading the paths of immortality. The
expression captos ostendere civibus hastes alludes to the solemnity of a
Roman triumph. Horace continues his argument, to prove that an active
life, the life of a man who aims at acquiring the favor of the great, is preferable
to the indolent life of those who renounce all commerce with the
world, and are actuated by no ambition. His reasoning is this : Princes
who gain great victories, and triumph over their enemies, almost equal
the gods, and acquire immortal renown : in like manner, they whose merit
recommends them to the favor of these true images of the deity, are by
this raised above the rest of their species. The poet here both makes his
court to Augustus, and defends the part he had himself chosen ; for, in the
first satire of the second book, he tells us that envy itself must own he
had lived in reputation with the great.— 35. Prindpibus vvris. "The
great." PriTicipibus ia here used in a more extended signification than
prdinary, and indicates the great, the powerful, the noble, &c.—36. Non
eiiivis homini contingit adire Corinthum. A proverbial form of expression,
and said of things that are arduous and perilous, and which it is not
the fortune of every one to suiTuount. Horace, by nsing this adage, intends
to show that all people have not talents proper for succeeding in a
court, while he seeks, at the same time, to raise the glory of those who
have courage to attempt and address to conquer the difficulties there.
37-40. 37. Sedit qui timuit, &c. The idea intended to be conveyed is
this : The man that doubts of success sits still, and so far is well. Be it
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