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The Sixteenth Epistle of Horace
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Wishing to forestall an inquiry from Quinctius about the produce of his farm, Horace says that he will describe its forma et situs (1–4). What follows is not an impersonal description, but an account directed at Quinctius who is thought of as passing judgement on the farm (cf. laudes, 8; dicas, 11; iam si credis, 15). This involvement of Quinctius in the description must be extended to the protasis of the opening sentence of the description: continui montes si dissocientur opaca/valle…, temperiem laudes where the sense is something like ‘if you were to find yourself in a place where the mountains, which crowd close to one another, are parted…, you would praise its temperate climate.
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page 205 note 1 Courbaud's interpretation of ne perconteris as a prohibition is incorrect, Horace, Sa vie … à Vipoque des Épîtres (Paris, 1914), p. 174.Google Scholar Heinze rightly compares epi. 1. 1. 13, where, however, the ne-clause is dependent on an unexpressed ‘you must know that’ as in c. 2. 4. 1; 4.9. i; s. 2. 3. 3i; epi. 1. 12.25; 18. 58 (‘you must not forget that’); 19. 26; 2. 1. 208 and perhaps c. 1. 33. 1.
page 205 note 2 The principle of the lectio difficilior may fairly be invoked in reading si and not ni in 5; cf. Keller, O., Epilegomena zu Horaz, Driller Theil (Leipzig, 1880), p. 662.Google Scholar Much, however, of his impassioned championing of si depends on rather forced arguments. For the sense of continui see Keller, , op. cit., 661,Google Scholar where the attractive suggestion will be found that the position of continui montes is intended to emphasize the narrowness of the valley and suggests that the farm is not a rich one.
page 205 note 3 Cf. also Virgil, , Aen. 7. 100 f.Google Scholar ‘qua Sol utrumquerecurrens / aspicit Oceanum’; 217 f. ‘regnis, quae maxima quondam / extremo veniens Sol aspiciebat Olympo’.
page 205 note 4 Virgil, , Aen. 3. 649.Google Scholar
page 205 note 5 Horace, s. 2. 2. 55 ff.; cf. Ovid, , Met. 8. 665.Google Scholar
page 205 note 6 Col. 12. 10. 3.
page 205 note 7 Note the lowly position assigned by Cato to the glandaria silva (R.R. i. 7).Google Scholar
page 206 note 1 Cf. Courbaud, , op. cit., p. 174,Google Scholar n. 2; Heinze, ad loc.; Wilkinson, L. P., Horace and his Lyric Poetry (Cambridge, 1945), p. 57.Google Scholar
page 206 note 2 Cf. epi. i. 7. 5 ff.Google Scholar
page 206 note 3 Cf. Garn, E., Odenelemente im i. Epistelbuch des Horaz (Diss. Freiburg i. Br., 1954), pp. 66 f.Google Scholar
page 206 note 4 There is no example of this kind of clause in the Odes; cf., however, s. i. 2. 123 f.
page 206 note 5 It is worth noting that Horace's many other references to Thrace are, with the exception of the highly ‘poetic’ epi. i. 3. 3, all to be found in the Odes and Epodes.Google Scholar
page 206 note 6 Cicero sharply distinguishes these two effects: ‘geminatio verborum habet interdum vim, leporem alias’, de oral. 3. 206;Google Scholar cf. Macr. 5. 14. 6 ‘amoenae repetitiones’. Many instances will be found in the Eclogues of Virgil, e.g. 2. 38 f.; 4. 58 f.; 5. 51 f.; 6. 20 f.; see also Horace, c. 1. 22, 23 f., where Heinze, ad loc, compares the style of the Eclogues. In general see ad, NordenAen. 6. 164;Google ScholarMarouzeau, J., Traité de stylistique latine (Paris, 1946), PP. 270 ff.Google Scholar
page 206 note 7 Cf. Garn, , op. cit., p. 67.Google Scholar
page 207 note 1 Cf. epi. 1. 14. 2. f.; s. 2. 7. 118; c. 1. 17. 14 ff.
page 207 note 2 incolumem (16) should be taken in a moral as well as a physical sense, cf. Garn, , op. cit., p. 67.Google Scholar The function of the opening of this epistle may be compared with that of the conclusion (104 ff.) of the eighteenth; cf. Garn, , op. cit., p. 70.Google Scholar
page 207 note 3 It will be seen that Scaliger's criticism, ‘ubi rus descripsit, exilit temere ad discutienda praecepta sapientiae’, Poet. 6. 7, p. 337Google Scholar (folio edition of 1561), is not well founded (for a similar view see Morris, E. P., Yale Cl. St. ii [1931], 91).Google Scholar ‘Quelle malheureuse Critique!’ was Dacier's comment on Scaliger's observation, commentary on epi. i. 16Google Scholar ad init., Les ceuvres d'Horace, traduites en François, avec des notes … par M. Dacier (Paris, 1691)Google Scholar. Heinze, ad 17, and Wieland, H., ut currat sententia (Diss. Freiburg i. Br., 1950), 43, have drawn attention to the importance of me/tu (16 f.) in linking the two parts of the epistle.Google Scholar
page 207 note 4 Cf. Heinze, ad loc.
page 207 note 5 My thanks are due to a learned reader for a suggestion on this point. On forma agri see Varr, . R.R. i. 6. 1 ff.Google Scholar
page 207 note 6 According to Obbarius, S., Q. Horatii Flacci epistolas … edidit S. 0., Fasc. Sextus (Lipsiae, 1845), p. 296,Google Scholar this identification was first proposed by Rodellius, , Petri Rodelii, e soc. lesu, Horatius ad Sereniss. Delphinum (Tolosae, 1683).Google Scholar See P.I.R. ii (Berlin, 1898), 121 f.Google Scholar
page 208 note 1 Cf. Lindholm, E., Stilist. Studien zur Erweiterung der Satzglieder im Lat. (Lund, 1931).Google Scholar
page 208 note 2 Cf. epi. 1. 1. 2; 2. 41 f.; 7. 73 f.; Garn, , op. cit., pp. 5. 15.Google Scholar
page 208 note 3 Cf. Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford, 1957), p. 430, n. 2.Google Scholar
page 208 note 4 Cf. Wieland, , op. cit., p. 43.Google Scholar
page 208 note 5 Courbaud's view, op. cit., p. 177, n. 1, that nempe … is a momentary concession made by Horace (if it were an objection, it would, he thinks, be introduced by at) cannot be accepted. Horace is too much in earnest here to make even the least concession. nempe means ‘but of course’; cf. s. 2. 3. 207.
page 209 note 1 Cf. Wieland, , op. cit., pp. 18 ff.Google Scholar
page 209 note 2 C.I.L. i 2. 7, 9–12, 15.Google Scholar
page 209 note 3 Cf. Sonnenschein, E. A., C.R. xi (1897), 340; xii (1898), 305;Google ScholarSchulze, W., Zur Gesch. latein. Eigennamen (= Abh. königl. Ges. zu Göttingen, Philol.-histor. Klasse, N.F. v. 5, Berlin, 1933), p. 595Google Scholar (additional note to 480); Philipp, P.-W., Zweite Reihe ii, 1570f.Google Scholar
page 209 note 4 Cf. s. 1. i.38ff.; 2. 74 ff.; 3. 25 ff. et al.
page 209 note 5 Lejay, , Œuvres d'Horace, Texte latin avec… des notes explicatives par E. Plessis et P. Lejay, 8th ed. (Paris, 1919), p. 512,Google Scholar is wrong in denying the influence of the paradox. Because of this close connexion between 55 f. and 54 (miscebis sacra profanis) it seems inadvisable to follow Courbaud, , op. cit., pp. 179 f.,Google Scholar and Heinze, , ad loc, who hold that 55 f.Google Scholar do not indicate complete acceptance of the paradox. In this most Stoic of poems there is nothing surprising in Horace's committing himself, nunc …virtutis verae custos rigidusque satelles, to such an extreme view. He is not of course here concerned with punishment for wrongdoing; contrast s. i. 3. 76 ff.
page 210 note 1 Cf. miscebis sacra profanis (54).
page 210 note 1 This interpretation seems preferable to that of Courbaud, who believes that in 63 ff. money is considered as an alternative summum bonum to the good opinion of others, op. cit., pp. 181 f. It is of course true, but irrelevant, that not all avari are hypocrites.
page 210 note 3 s. 2. 3. 241, 275; cf. also 108, 259 f.
page 210 note 4 Heinze identifies him as ‘the World and its opinions’;. It is more likely that he stands for the passions of the avarus himself; cf. s. 2. 7. 93 f. and 81.
page 210 note 5 Heinze, ad loc, did not see that the subject of pascat and aret is as much a legally free man as is the trader of 71.
page 211 note 1 Cf. Wieland, , op. cit., p. 44.Google Scholar
page 211 note 2 A very different method is employed in s. 2. 7. 83 ff.: ‘quisnam igitur liber? sapiens sibique imperiosus, / quern neque pauperies neque mors neque vincula terrent, / responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores/ fortis, et in se ipso totus, teres atque rotundus, / externi ne quid valeat per leve morari,/ in quem manca ruit semper fortuna.’
page 211 note 3 Cf. 21 ff., and see above, p. 208.
page 211 note 4 187 ff.; cf. also epi. i. 17. 13 ff.Google Scholar For this dramatic form in the epigram see Rasche, W., De Anthologiae Graecae epigrammatis quae colloquii formam habent (Diss. Münister, 1910);Google ScholarPeek, W., Ath. Mitt. lxvi (1941), 60,Google Scholar n. I. See also Call., fr. 114 Pf. and Pfeiffer's, remarks in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xv (1952), 26 f.Google Scholar
page 211 note 5 Cf. Arrian, , Epict. Diss. i. 1. 22 ff.,Google Scholar where the exchange, as in Horace, consists entirely of the words spoken by the two adversaries, and 29. 5 ff. In Plut. de tranq. anim. 18 (= Mor. 476 b and c) the same interpretation of Ba. 498 as that given by Horace (78 f.) is to be found.
page 211 note 6 For a more precise suggestion see Rose, H. J., C.Q. xx. (1926), 204 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 211 note 7 Cf. Sen. ep. 70. 14; de ira 3. 15. 4.
page 212 note 1 The remarks of Pöschl, V. on this subject cannot be accepted, L''Influence grecque sur la poésie latine de Catulle à Ovide (Fondation Hardt, Entretiens II), (Vandœuvres-Genève, 1956), p. 111.Google Scholar See, however, also the modified restatement of his views, pp. 126 f., made in response to Klingner's criticism, p. 124.
page 212 note 2 ep. 102. 23–24, 26; cf. Serafini, A., Maia vi (1953). 269 f.Google Scholar
page 212 note 3 On death in Horace see Oppermann, H., Der altspr. Unterrickt, Heft 5 (Stuttgart, 1953), 69 ff.Google Scholar
page 212 note 4 Cf. Pasquali, G., Orazio lirico (Florence, 1920), pp. 667 ff.Google Scholar
page 212 note 5 Cf. Klingner, F., 'EPMHNEIA, Fest schrift O. Regenbogen (Heidelberg, 1952), p. 126;Google ScholarFraenkel, , op. cit., p. 285;Google ScholarKlingner, , J.R.S. xlviii (1958), 175.Google Scholar