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

EXPLANATORY NOTES.—BOOK [., El'ISTLE XIX. 603
that the words which have jast preceded [Forum putealque Libonis, &o,)
could not be spoken either by Cratinns or by Bnnias, who were both dead
long before Libo was bom; nor by Bacchus, who surely would not have
waited so long to publish a decree, which the usage of so many poets had
already established ;
nor by Maecenas, unless we read edixti tLoApalleresx
contrary to all the manuscripts. We must therefore consider Horace him-
self as giving forth his edict in the style and tone of a Uoman praetor.
11. Nocturno certare mero, &c. " To contend in wine at night, to smell of
it by day," i. e., to drink hard at night, and to have their breath smell of it
by day. Horace here langhs at the folly of those who imagined that by
indulging freely in wine they would be enabled to sustain the character
of poets.
12-15. 12. Quid? si jMJs vultu torvo ferns, &o. The idea intended
to be conveyed is this : a person might just as soon think of attaining to
the high reputation of Cato Uticensis by aping the peculiarities of dress
and appearance which characterized that remarkable man, as of becoming
a poet by the mere quaffing of wine.—15. Rupit larbitam Timagenis
cemula lingua. " The emulous tongue of Timagenes caused larbita to
burst, while he desires to be thought a man of wit, and to be regarded as
eloquent." Timagenes was a rhetorician of Alexandrea, who, being taken
captive by Gabinius, was brought to Home, where Faustus, the son of
Sylla, purchased him. He afterward obtained his freedom, and was honored
with the favor of Augustus, but as be was much given to raillery,
and observed no measure with any person, he soon lost the good graces
of his patron, and, being compelled to retire from Kome,«nded his days
at Tusculum. It would appear, from the expression eemuZa lingua, that
the wit and the declamatory powers of Timagenes carried with them more
or less of mimicry and imitation. On the other hand, larbita was a native
of Africa, whose true name was Cordns, but whom the poet pleasantly
styles larbita (" the descendant of larbas," i. e., the Moor), from larbas,
king of Mauretania, the fabled rival of .fflneas, and perhaps with some
satirical allusion to the history of that king. Now the meaning of Horace
is this : that larbita burst his diaphragm (more probably a blood vessel)
by imitating Timagenes in what least deserved imitation j for he imitated
what was ill about Timagenes, not what was good. He copied his personal
sarcasm, and, in endeavoring to equal his powers of declamation
also, he confounded them with mere strength of lungs, and spoke so loud
ut rumperet ilia. He'nce, both in relation to this case, as well as to those
which have preceded it, the poet adds the remark, Dedpit exemplar vitiis
imitaiile. " An example, easy to be imitated in its faults, is sure to deceive
the ignorant."
18-31. 18. Exsangve cuminum. "The pale-making cumin." Dioa-
corides assures us that cumin will make people pale who drink it or
wash themselves with it. Pliny says it was reported that the disciples
of Porcius Latro, a famous master of the artof speaking, used it to imitate
that paleness which he had contracted by his studies.—19. Ut sape. For
quam siepe. 21. Per vacuum. "Along a hitherto untravelled route."
Compare Ode iii., 30, 13 : "Dicar prineeps .Solium carmen ad
Italos deduxisse modos."—W. Non aliena meo pressi pede. Supply ws«»gia.
" I trod not in the footsteps of others."—23. Parios iamhos. " The
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