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

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644 EXPLANATORY NOTES, EPISTLE TO THE PISOS.
bers taken from all kinds of animals. Both are equally deserving of ridi
cnle*—2. VaHas indfueere plumas. " To spread plumage ofvarious hues,"
t, e^ parti-colored plamage. Indncere (*' to spread") is well applied to the
jart of painting.—3. l/ndique. "From every quarter of creation," i. e.,
from every kind of animal.' Ut turpiter atTum, &c. "So that abeauteona
woman above may foully terminate below in a loathsome fish." Some
connect tarpiter with atruTn, but this wants spirit.—6. Pisones. The
father and his two sons. Compare Introductory itemarks, near the commencement.
Isti tabula, Bicferring to the picture which has just been
described. ,Isti marks contempt.—7. Cujus, velut tegri somnia, vana
Jingeniur species. **The ideas in which, like a sick man's dreams, shall
be formed without any regard to sober reality."—9. Reddatv/r. " Can be
assigned," *'. e., belongs. Pictoribus afque poetiSf Sec. "Painters and
poets (some one may say) have always enjoyed ap eoual privilege of attempting
any thing at pleasure." -This is supposea to come from the
mouth of an objector ; and the poefs reply, which is immediately subjoin-
ed, defines the use, and fixes the character oipoetic licence^ which nnskillful
writers often plead in defence of their transgressions against the law
3f unity.—Scimus, et hatic veniam, &c. The idea is this,;- We know it^
and concede the privilege, and claim the same in our torn, but still within
certain limits.—12, Sed non ut pldcidis coeant immitia, Sec. The
meaning is, that poetical or any other licence must never be carried so
far as to nnite things that are plainly and naturally repugnant to each
other.—13. Geminentur. "May be matched."— 14. Ineeptis gra/oihus
plerumque et magna professis. Sec. "Oftentimes to lofly beginnings,
and such as proniise great things, are sewed one or two putple patches,
in order to naake a brillidnt display," &c., i. e., ofteUf After exordiams of
high attempt and lofty promise, we are amused with the description of a
grove and altar of Diana, the meanders of a stream gliding swiftly throagh
pleasant fields, the lUver Hhine, or a rainbow, like so many purple patches
in a garment^ that m'ake, it is tme, a great show, but then are not in their
proper place. The poet here considers and expos'es that particular viola-
tion of uniformity into which young poetfi especially, under the iufiuence
of a warm imagination, are too apt to ran, arismg from frequent and illtimed
descriptions.—18. Sednunc non erat his locus. "But at present
these were out of place." Observe here the use of the imperfect of the
substantive verb, where we would employ the present.
19, 20. 19. Etforfasse cupressum scis simulare, &c. "And perhaps
thou knowest how to imitate a cypress," i. e., to paint one. Horace compares
the poets, whom he has just been censuring, to a painter who bad
learned to draw nothing but a cypress-tree. As this painter, therefore,
would represent the cypress in every picture he was engaged to execute,
80 these poets, altogether unequal to the management of Emy individual
subject in a proper way and with a proper regard to unity of design, were
accustomed to indulge in insulated descriptions, and in common-placft
topics, which had no bearing whatever on the main subject.—20. Quid
hoc, sifracUs enatat exspes, &c. "What is this to the purpose, if he,
who is to be painted for a given price, is to be represented as swimming
forth hopeless from the fragments of a wreck?" Persons who had lost
their all by shipwreck were accustomed to solicit charity hy carrying
around with them a painting. in which the misfortune which had befalles