mea.

25. iuremus in haec sc. verba; see on 15. 4, in verba iurabas simul imis, etc.: i.e. let it not be lawful to return till Nature's laws are reversed; simul for simul atque, as often.

26. ne sit nefas: i.e. be it lawful.'

27. domum dare lintea: spread our sails for home.

28. Matina cacumina: Mt. Matinus was a spur of Mt. Gargānus on the eastern coast of Apulia.

30. nova . . . libidine: unite monsters in unnatural desire.

so that tigers delight.

31. iuvet ut = ut iuvet, 32. adulteretur, etc.: and the dove mates with the hawk, its inveterate foe; miluo is ablative of association; Introd. § 38. a. For the trisyllabic form, cf. 13. 3, siluae. The word is regularly milvos.

33. credula: prolepsis.

34. levis hircus: the smooth goat; prolepsis. Horace means, 'when the shaggy goat shall lose his hair and become smooth like the fish of the sea.'

35. haec exsecrata: i.e. having made these solemn pledges sealed by curses.

37. aut or at least. indocili grege: the common herd that knows no better and can learn no better. mollis et exspes: sc.

pars.

39. vos: adversative asyndeton, but ye, i.e. the melior pars. tollite: away with!

-

40. Etrusca praeter, etc. : i.e. and speed away from Italy.'

41. Oceanus circumvagus: the Homeric conception of Oceanus as a stream surrounding the circular disk of the earth.

42. arva, beata arva: the fields, the joyous fields. divites insulas: according to the mythical conception, the Happy Isles were the abode of heroes after death. Subsequently they were conceived as an idyllic land situated in the general vicinity of the Canary or the Madeira Islands.

46. suam... arborem: and the ripe fig graces its native tree; the emphasis rests upon suam. Ordinarily the fig required grafting and careful attention to insure a proper harvest. pulla lit. dark, the color of the fig when ripe.

48. levis crepante, etc.: the repetition of the l-sound secures a happy suiting of the sound to the sense in this line.

50. tenta: distended.

amicus: i.e. willingly, unbidden.

51. vespertinus: at evening-tide.

52. intumescit alta viperis: swells high with vipers; what is a

peculiarity of the viper, is here attributed to the ground on which the viper lies.

53. ut: how.

54. arva radat: lays waste the cornfields, as often happened in Italy.

56. utrumque temperante: governing both (extremes), heat and rain.

57. non huc, etc.: i.e. the Happy Isles to which Horace calls his countrymen are as yet uncontaminated by the vices of human kind. Argoo remige pinus: i.e. no Argo with its crew; pinus is for navis, as often in the poets.

58. neque impudica Colchis: nor shameless Colchian (sorceress); i.e. no Medea; cf. 5. 24.

59. Sidonii: Fhoenician; the Phoenicians were the most daring seamen of all antiquity, and so are cited as typical of maritime enterprise. cornua: lit. yard-ends; and so by metonymy for vessels. 60. laboriosa: transferred from Ulixei to cohors; cf. Odes, i. 15. 33, iracunda classis Achillei, 'the fleet of the wrathful Achilles.' Ulixei for the form of the genitive, cf. Odes, i. 6. 7.

61. nullius astri aestuosa impotentia: no star's blazing fury. Phases of the weather were regularly attributed to the influence of the stars; cf. Odes, i. 28 (2). 1; iii. 1. 27. Note the shortening of the i in nullius. For the force of impotentia, cf. Odes, iii. 30. 3, impotens.

64. ut ever since; so also in 7. 19, ut fluxit.

65. quorum secunda fuga : a happy escape from which, viz. from the present hardened generations.

66. vate me by my prophecy; vates is here used in the sense of 'prophet'; the construction is ablative absolute. datur: is offered.

EPODE XVII.

1. Iam iam: at length. do manus: I surrender.

2. Proserpinae, Dianae: the divinities of the lower world were supposed to preside over magic rites.

3. non movenda numina: the inviolable majesty.

4. libros carminum, etc.: books of incantations that can unfix the stars and call them down from heaven.

"

6. Canidia: see Epode 5, Occasion of the Poem.' cease! vocibus sacris: thy magic spells. turbinem: turbo is the magic wheel, whose revo

7. citum . . .

parce :

lution wrought the charm; reversing its movement was supposed to break the spell of the incantation. citum participle of cieo, as in 9. 20; lit. set in motion, and so, revolving. solve, solve: the word is not exact, and betrays the agitation of the speaker, who, in his desire for release from torment, begs Canidia to release the wheel; volve would have been the correct word. For the repetition, cf. Odes, ii. 17. 10, ibimus, ibimus.

8. movit, etc. : reasons why Canidia should heed his prayer: 'Others have granted mercy; so mayst thou.' The nepos Nereius is Achilles, son of Thetis, Nereus's daughter. Telephus, king of the Mysians, wounded by Achilles, had been told by the oracle of Apollo that he could be healed only by the rust of Achilles's spear. He thereupon appealed to Achilles for succor, and the hero granted his request.

11. unxere, etc.: Horace says that the Ilian matrons anointed Hector's body after the king (Priam) had fallen at Achilles's feet,somewhat involved and obscure way of saying that Achilles, at Priam's entreaty, gave up Hector's dead body, thus enabling the Ilian matrons to anoint it preparatory to burning it on the funeral pyre. addictum: given up to.

12. homicidam Hectorem : a not especially felicitous rendering of the Homeric "Ектоpa ȧvôρopóvov, 'the man-slayer Hector'; homicida means 'murderer.'

a

14. heu: with rex procidit ad pedes Achillei. Achillei, Ulixei (16): for the form of the genitive, see on Odes, i. 6. 7.

15 ff. Ulysses's comrades were changed back from swine to human forms by Circe, i.e. Circe relented and consented to restore Ulysses's men to human shapes. saetosa, etc.: bristling with hardened skins; saetosa limits membra. exuere: perfect indicative.

16. laboriosi: with Ulixei.

17. sonus = vox.

18. notus honor: i.e. their wonted dignity of feature.

20. amata nautis, etc. : beloved of sailors and pedlers; the mock compliment is full of scorn.

21. iuventas: sc. mea.

verecundus: here in the sense of rosy. 22. ossa pelle, etc.: i.e. my bones are covered with a shrunken yellow skin.'

6

23. tuis emphatic; the poet pretends to concede Canidia's sovereign power. est has become. odoribus: i.e. her magic compounds.

24. ab labore me reclinat: relieves me from torment.

25. urget presses on the heels of.

neque est: nor is it possi

་

ble; like the Greek οὐκ ἔστιν.

26. levare . praecordia: 'by taking breath to ease my sore

strained lungs' (Bryce).

27. negatum: etc.: I am forced to admit what I once denied. 28. Sabella carmina: the Sabellian (Sabine) women were currently regarded as adepts in witchcraft. increpare, dissilire: in

apposition with negatum.

29. Marsa nenia: by Marsian incantation; witchcraft flourished also among the Marsi, cf. 5. 76, Marsis vocibus, where also Marsus for Marsicus, as here.

31. atro delibutus, etc.: see note on 3. 17.

32. nec Sicana, etc.: nor the live Sicilian flame in blazing Aetna.

33. donec cinis . . . ferar: i.e. till I become dry ashes and be borne by the winds'; ferar is in the subjunctive, owing to the notion of expectancy involved in the donec-clause.

34. iniuriosis: as scattering the ashes and so preventing their interment.

35. cales, etc.: you're always heated up, a very factory of magic drugs' (Bryce); venenis is ablative of means; on Colchicis = magicis, see on 5. 24.

36. quae finis: finis is here feminine, as in Odes, ii. 18. 30, fine destinata. stipendium = poena.

39. mendaci lyra: he wishes Canidia to understand mendaci as referring to his former utterances; in reality he uses the word with reference to his promised praises of her worth.

40. sonari = laudari.

41. perambulabis, etc.: i.e. 'I will represent thee as deified and as changed into a golden constellation.'

42. infamis: reviled. vicem on account of.

44. adempta . . . lumina: the poet Stesichorus (630-555 B.C.) had reflected upon Helen's character in his verses, Castor and Pollux, in revenge for this insult to their sister's memory, were said to have stricken the poet with blindness. Later, moved by his recantation, they restored his sight- another illustration of clemency, like those above; even the gods, urges Horace, are not unrelenting.

46 f. The poet, with mock sincerity, pretends to be recanting former aspersions cast upon Canidia's lineage and practices, but the mock recantation is really but an effective repetition of the former

charges. O nec paternis obsoleta sordibus: O thou not stained by thy father's mean estate.

47. nec in sepulcris, etc. : and that art not a hag clever to scatter, etc. in sepulcris pauperum: among the graves of the poor. The reference is to the graves in the Esquiline burial-ground, where the poor were interred, and where Canidia was in the habit of practising her incantations; see on 5. 100, and cf. Sat. i. 8.

48. novendiales dissipare pulveres: to scatter funeral ashes, i.e. ashes that she had stolen from the graves of the dead.

49. hospitale: kindly.

50. tuosque venter Pactumeius: and Pactumeius is a child of thine; the emphasis rests upon tuos, as it does also upon tuo in tuo. cruore. Horace implies that he had previously denied Canidia's maternity of the child; he now recants.

52. utcumque fortis, etc.: whenever you bound forth a lusty young mother. The description suggests that Canidia recovers too quickly from childbed to warrant the belief that she has really been confined.

53. quid obseratis, etc.: Canidia speaks.

54. non saxa, etc.: Horace's way of putting the thought obscures the logical perspective. He means: 'Not deafer to the cries of helpless sailors are the cliffs that Neptune beats, than I to thine.'

56. inultus ut, etc.: thou unpunished to have divulged and ridiculed the Cotytian rites! a so-called 'repudiating question,' i.e. a question whose form implies that the speaker emphatically repudiates its content. It is a further development of the deliberative. The Cotytian rites were celebrated in honor of a Thracian goddess named Cotytto. Women only were admitted to the ceremonial. Canidia here implies that Horace had secretly attended the celebration of the rites, and had then spread the account among his friends.

57. sacrum liberi Cupidinis: the festival of unbridled love; in apposition with Cotytia. The Cotytia were extremely licentious.

58. Esquilini pontifex venefici: director of the Esquiline witchcraft. Canidia taunts him with assuming power to regulate the practice of witchcraft, just as the pontifex regulated matters of religion. ditasse .. The Paelig

60. quid proderit: i.e. ‘if I cannot punish thee.' anus: i.e. to have paid them for the secret of their arts. nians, like the neighboring Marsians, were adepts in sorcery.

61. velocius: i.e. working swiftly, -potent. It does not mean 'fatal,' but simply effective.' toxicum: potion.