Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

up the study of the Greek philosophical writers, and to have become a good deal interested in them, and also to have been a little tired of the world, and disgusted with the jealousies his reputation created. His health did not improve as he grew older, and he put himself under the care of Antonius Musa, the emperor's new physician. By his advice he gave up, for a time at least, his favorite Baiæ. But he found it necessary to be a good deal away from Rome, especially in the autumn and winter.†

In B. C. 17, Augustus celebrated the Ludi Seculares, and Horace was required to write an Ode for the occasion, which he did, and it has been preserved. This circumstance, and the credit it brought him, may have given his mind another leaning to Ode-writing, and have helped him to produce the fourth book, a few pieces in which may have been written at any time. It is said that Augustus particularly desired Horace to publish another book of Odes, in order that those he wrote upon the victories of Drusus and Tiberius (4 and 14) might appear in it. The latter of these Odes was not written, probably, till B. C. 13, when Augustus returned from Gaul. If so, the book was probably published in that year, when Horace was fifty-two. The Odes of the fourth book show no diminution of power, but the reverse. There are none in the first three books that surpass, or perhaps equal, the Ode in honor of Drusus, and few superior to that which is addressed to Lollius. The success of the first three books, and the honor of being chosen to compose the Ode at the Ludi Seculares, seem to have given him encouragement. There are no incidents in his life during the above period recorded or alluded to in his poems. He lived five years after the publication of the fourth book of Odes, if the above date be correct, and during that time, I think it probable, he wrote the Epistles to Augustus and Florus which form the second book; and having conceived the intention of writing a poem on the art and progress of poetry, he wrote as much of it as appears in the Epistle to the Pisones which has been preserved among his works. It seems,

* Epp. i. 15,

† Epp. i. 7. 1-13,

from the Epistle to Florus, that Horace at this time had to resist the urgency of friends begging him to write, one in this style and another in that, and that he had no desire to gratify them and to sacrifice his own ease to a pursuit in which it is plain he never took any great delight. He was likely to bring to it less energy as his life was drawing prematurely to a close, through infirmities either contracted or aggravated during his irrational campaigning with Brutus, his inaptitude for which he appears afterwards to have been perfectly aware of. He continued to apply himself to the study of moral philosophy till his death, which took place, according to Eusebius, on the 27th of November, B. C. 8, in the fifty-seventh year of his age, and within a few days of its completion. Mæcenas died the same year, also towards the close of it; a coincidence that has led some to the notion, that Horace hastened his own death that he might not have the pain of surviving his patron. According to Suetonius, his death (which he places after his fifty-ninth year) was so sudden, that he had not time to execute his will, which is opposed to the notion of suicide. The two friends were buried near one another "in extremis Esquiliis," in the farthest part of the Esquiliæ, that is, probably, without the city walls, on the ground drained and laid out in gardens by Mæcenas. (See S. i. 8, Introduction.)

Q. HORATII FLACCI

CARMINUM

LIBER PRIMUS.

CARMEN I.

MAECENAS atavis edite regibus
O et praesidium et dulce decus meum,
Sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum
Collegisse juvat metaque fervidis
Evitata rotis palmaque nobilis.

Terrarum dominos evehit ad Deus,
Hunc si mobilium turba Quiritium
Certat tergeminis tollere honoribus:
Illum si proprio condidit horreo
Quidquid de Libycis verritur areis.
Gaudentem patrios findere sarculo
Agros Attalicis conditionibus
Nunquam dimoveas, ut trabe Cypria
Myrtoum pavidus nauta secet mare.
Luctantem Icariis fluctibus Africum
Mercator metuens otium et oppidi
Laudat rura sui; mox reficit rates
Quassas indocilis pauperiem pati.
Est qui nec veteris pocula Massici
Nec partem solido demere de die
Spernit, nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
Stratus, nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae,
1

10

15

20

Multos castra juvant et lituo tubae
Permixtus sonitus bellaque matribus
Detestata. Manet sub Jove frigido
Venator tenerae conjugis immemor,
Seu visa est catulis cerva fidelibus,
Seu rupit teretes Marsus aper plagas.
Me doctarum hederae praemia frontium
Dis miscent superis; me gelidum nemus
Nympharumque leves cum Satyris chori
Secernunt populo, si neque tibias
Euterpe cohibet nec Polyhymnia
Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton.
Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseris,
Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.

CARMEN II.

JAM satis terris nivis atque dirae
Grandinis misit Pater, et rubente
Dextera sacras jaculatus arces
Terruit Urbem,

Terruit gentes, grave ne rediret

Seculum Pyrrhae nova monstra questae,
Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos

Visere montes,

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

Labitur ripa Jove non probante uxorius amnis.

Audiet cives acuisse ferrum

Quo graves Persae melius perirent;
Audiet pugnas vitio parentum
Rara juventus.

Quem vocet divum populus ruentis
Imperi rebus? prece qua fatigent
Virgines sanctae minus audientem
Carmina Vestam?

Cui dabit partes scelus expiandi
Juppiter? Tandem venias precamur
Nube candentes humeros amictus,
Augur Apollo;

Sive tu mavis, Erycina ridens,

Quam Jocus circum volat et Cupido:
Sive neglectum genus et nepotes
Respicis auctor,

Heu nimis longo satiate ludo,

Quem juvat clamor galeaeque leves

Acer et Mauri peditis cruentum
Voltus in hostem ;

Sive mutata juvenem figura
Ales in terris imitaris, almae
Filius Maiae, patiens vocari
Caesaris ultor:

Serus in caelum redeas diuque
Laetus intersis populo Quirini;
Neve te nostris vitiis iniquum

Ocior aura

Tollat: hic magnos potius triumphos,
Hic ames dici pater atque princeps,
Neu sinas Medos equitare inultos
Te duce, Caesar.

[blocks in formation]
« ForrigeFortsæt »