other men's. For them are the training and the prizes of Grecian games -the life of a soldier and the triumph on the Capitol; for him the woods and waters of Tibur and the glory of song. I, too, am a poet. Rome, the mistress of the world, acknowledges me as such, and the voice of envy is still. It is thy gift, O Muse; both the inspiration and the popular acknowledgment of it.'

Compare with the Ode 1. 1, when he looks to Maecenas' taste to give him the rank which here he assumes as given him by the voice of Rome. There are many parallelisms of thought and expression between the two Odes; there is the same division of the objects of Greek and Roman ambition (sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum '), the same description of the poet's life (v. 30 'me gelidum nemus,' &c.), and of his hope to be ranked with the Greek lyrists (cp. 'Lesboum. . barbiton,' 'lyricis vatibus inseris,' with 'inter amabiles vatum ponere me choros,' 'Romanae fidicen lyrae ').

Metre-Third Asclepiad.

Line 1. Melpomene; see on I. 1. 32. Cp. 3. 30. 16.

semel, of that which cannot be recalled and need not be repeated. Cp. 1. 24. 16, C. S. 26.

2. nascentem. . videris; Hes. Theog. 82 "Ovтiva тiμhoovσi Aids koûραι μεγάλοιο Γεινόμενόν τ ̓ ἐσίδωσι, . Τῷ μὲν ἐπὶ γλώσσῃ γλυκερὴν χείουσιν ἀοιδήν.

3. labor Isthmius, as in Pindar káμaтos and Tóvos. Statius imitates it in Silv. 4. 4. 31 Elei labores.'

4. clarabit, a rare and archaic word, not found elsewhere in this sense of 'make famous.'

5. Achaico seems not to be opposed to 'Isthmius' (as though it could signify distinctively ‘Olympian '), but to the Roman triumphal chariot described in the following lines. Virgil and Horace (Od. 1. 15. 35) use the word, like the Homeric 'Axaioi, generally of the Greeks before Troy; and this would nearly coincide with its prose meaning in their time, as the province of Achaia included all southern Greece. Note that the double picture is completed in Horace's way: the chariot of the Roman 'imperator' must be borrowed from the Grecian victor, the olivewreath of the latter from the bay crown of the former.

6. res bellica, opposed to 'res ludicra,' 'war and all that belongs to it'; its enterprises and victories.

Deliis, i. e. 'Apollineis.'

8. Cp. 2. 12. 11 'ductaque per vias Regum colla minacium.'

9. Capitolio, dative case. The notion is of his being the central figure in the procession seen slowly ascending the Capitol, seen by the

crowd on the Capitol, or perhaps rather by Jupiter Capitolinus himself.

10. praefluunt = 'praeterfluunt'; 4. 14. 26 'Aufidus Qui regna Dauni praefluit Apuli,' Liv. 1. 45 'infima valle praefluit Tiberis.' 'Horace evidently means that the scenery of Tibur contributes to the formation of lyric genius. It is Wordsworth's doctrine in the germ; though, if the author had been asked what it involved, perhaps he would not have gone further than Ritter, who resolves it all into the conduciveness of a pleasant retreat to successful composition,' Conington. Cp. Epp. 2. 2. 77 'Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbem,' where nothing but the prosaic explanation is attempted-the bustle and the business of a great town interfere with the poet's proper work. 12. Aeolio; 2. 13. 24, 3. 30. 13, 4. 9. 12.

13. principis urbium; 4. 14. 44 'dominae Romae.'

14. suboles, the sons of Rome. The idea added by this form is apparently the promise of the future: the young, the growing progeny.

15. vatum, like the ‘lyrici vates' of 1. 1. 35, the roll of poets, which as yet contained few, if any, but the Greeks.

17. testudinis aureae; Pind. Pyth. 1. 1 xpvoća pópμuyt ’Awóλλavos καὶ ἰοπλοκάμων σύνδικον Μοισᾶν κτέανον. As with aureo plectro, 2. 13. 26, it is a way of expressing the perfection of the music.

18. temperas, 'rulest'; 1. 24. 14 'auditam moderere arboribus fidem.' 19. mutis quoque piscibus, and so even to him, unlikely as it might have seemed. Compare the way in which in the preceding Ode he professed to feel that, unfit as he was to sing of such themes, yet the happiness of Caesar's return might possibly find him a voice.

22. monstror digito; cp. Pers. 1. 28 At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier hic est.'

23. Romanae lyrae; see on 1. 1. 34, I. 32. 3, a Greek instrument played by a Roman. Cp. Epp. I. 19. 32 'Latinus fidicen.'

24. spiro, of the 'breath' of poetry; see on 2. 16. 38.

ODE IV.

'Like a young eagle that leaves the nest, tries his wings, then swoops down, first on sheep-folds, but soon on more dangerous foes;—like a young lion to the eyes of the unsuspecting hind, who is to be the first victim of his unfleshed tooth ;—such has Drusus been in his campaign in Vindelicia-noble by inherited excellence, noble also by his royal rearing. Rome's gratitude to the house of the Neros is summed up in the memory of Metaurus, the turning-point of the terrible Punic war, when Hasdrubal was routed, and the traces of war vanished, and Hannibal

himself bore witness to Rome's vitality. "It is madness for us to pursue our enemy; more than enough if we can escape their pursuit. From the fires of their native Troy, from the hardships of the long voyage to Italy, they have but drawn strength and stubbornness, like the oak on Algidus which the woodman lops, or the hydra ever growing again to baffle the patience of Hercules. All hope is gone for ever, and buried with Hasdrubal." And the conqueror was an ancestor of the Neros. Jupiter protects the race, and Augustus directs their campaigns. What may we not expect from their arms?'

Nero Claudius Drusus, the younger of the two sons of Livia Drusilla, by her first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, was born in Augustus' house, B. C. 38, three months after his mother's divorce and remarriage. He was by far, the most popular of the two brothers. In B. C. 16, when Augustus set out for Gaul, taking with him Tiberius, who was praetor at the time, Drusus was appointed to discharge the duties of the office during his brother's absence (Dio 54. 19). Of his expedition in the following year against the Raeti, some account will be found in the Introd. to this Book. He died, six years afterwards, from the effect of a fall from his horse, while engaged in the last of three campaigns beyond the Rhine, which gained for him the posthumous title of Germanicus.

Line 1. qualem, so v. 13 'qualemve'; the apodosis is in v. 17, 'talem' being suppressed. The purpose of the two similes is different : the first describes the birth and training of the young warrior prince, the second the astonishment of the enemy when they saw him, and knew instinctively that they were to be the first victims of his maiden sword.

ministrum fulminis; Virg. Aen. 5. 255 Iovis armiger,' Stat. Theb. 3. 507 'vector fulminis.'

2. regnum in aves; Pind. Pyth. 7. 2 àpxòv olavŵv, Ol. 13. 21 olavŵv βασιλέα, and Aesch. Αgam. 115 οἰωνῶν βασιλεὺς βασιλεῦσι νεῶν. For the construction cp. Od. 3. I. 5.

vagas, ǹepopoítovs, 'fowls of the air'; perhaps with the feeling of 'truant,' 'wide wandering,'-of the extent and the difficulty of the sovereignty.

3. Having proved his loyalty on Ganymede'; 'quem praepes ab Ida Sublimem pedibus rapuit Iovis armiger uncis,' Virg. Aen. 5. 255. For the use of 'in' cp. Virg. E. 8. 83, Aen. 2. 541, 'Talis in hoste fuit Priamo,' Madv. § 230, obs. I.

5. olim seems to answer, as Ritter thinks, to 'iam,' 'mox,' 'nunc,' which mark stages in the young bird's progress; so that it will mean

máλai, 'long ago,' and is defined by 'laborum inscium,' 'ere yet he knew life's labours.' It is otherwise taken as merely generalising-aier τινα, ποτέ; see on Epod. 3. 1.

5. iuventas et patrius vigor, 'his young blood and the force of his race.'

6. propulit. So Cruq. on the authority of two of his Bland. MSS., and it is accepted by all recent editors; the larger number of MSS. have 'protulit.' The time of the perfect tenses is that of the Greek aorist in similes.

7. verni. Bentley feels strongly the objection raised by Jul. Caes. Scaliger, that eaglets are not hatched till late in the spring, and would not be fit to fly far till autumn. He prefers vernis,' which has some MS. support, and which he judges to have been the reading of Acron, from his illustration 'ut "ruit imbriferum ver". Probably nimbis remotis' is enough to account for the Scholiast's quotation; the sound and balance of the sentence are in favour of verni.' We need not expect Horace to date the eaglet's growth with the accuracy of an ornithologist. He is more likely to use the epithet 'vernus' in a pleasing sense of the soft breezes, than in association merely with storms. 'Verni' need not mean the first days of spring, nor is the eaglet said yet to be fit for hunting; it is of the first stage in the art of flying. For a conj. alteration of Horace's text on somewhat similar grounds see 1. 23. 5.

10. vividus impetus, of the actual rush, swoop, of his descent; ' demittit impetus aquilam'='aquila cum impetu defertur.' It has also been taken of his impetuous temper; but it suits Horace's economy of words that the motive in this clause should be gathered from the 'amor dapis atque pugnae' (a dainty banquet, with the excitement of fighting for it) of the second clause, the mode of attack in that clause from the 'vividus impetus' of this, as the unresisting weakness of the sheep is left to be inferred from the epithet given to the serpents. See on 2. 3. 9,

3. 4. 45, 3. 13. 6, 4. 3. 5.

11. dracones. For the favourite image of a battle between an eagle and a serpent cp. Hom. Il. 12. 200 foll., Aesch. Cho. 247 foll., Soph. Ant. 125.

14. fulvae matris ab ubere. Some awkwardness has been felt in this expression, as, if we construct it with 'depulsum,' either 'ab ubere' or 'lacte' would seem to be redundant (cp. Virg. E. 7. 17 'depulsos a lacte,' G. 3. 187 depulsus ab ubere matris'), and various modes of treatment have been suggested. 'Ubere' has been taken as an epithet of lacte,' but this is to transfer the redundancy from the expression to the thought: or, again, 'fulvae matris ab ubere' has been referred to the hind (Ritter), but it is hard to see how this adds to the picture;

the youth of the lion is in point, and the preoccupation of the hind, but we do not want in any way to undervalue Drusus' foes. Bentley led the way of conjectural emendation, 'iam mane' or 'iam sponte,' and has been followed by many others. The simplest method is to separate 'ab ubere' to some extent from depulsum,' and to take it in the sense of 'fresh from his mother's teats.' Cp. 'a matre pulli,' Columel., 'recens a vulnere,' Virg. Aen. 6. 450; the place of Virgil's 'recens' is supplied by the more definite lacte depulsum.'

16. peritura vidit, 'looks up, and sees, a moment before she dies by his unfleshed tooth.' The repetition 'vidit,' 'videre,' points the correspondence, and makes it easier to dispense with a more formal introduction of the apodosis; see on 2. 9. 9.

17. Raeti.. Vindelici. It is hard to say which is the adjective. Geographically Raeti is the larger name of the two, being used to cover Vindelicia (Raetia secunda) or the northern slopes of the Alps, from the Lake of Constance to the Inn, as well as Raetia prima, the southern part of the Grisons and the western Tyrol. Horace has the authority of Dio C. 54. 22, in giving the common name of Raeti to the tribes which Tiberius (Od. 4. 14. 14) and Drusus conquered. But it is certainly a perversion of the ordinary usage to assign the Vindelici, both here and in 4. 14, to the invader who approached from the south. The geographical difficulty is unaffected by the question of reading raised by Heinsius, Bentley, and others, as whether we read 'Raetis' or 'Raeti,' the two names will still be given to one locality, and that the scene of Drusus' victory. The MSS. and Acr. are in favour of the nominative. The ablative, distributing the two names between the mountains and the people, would be more in accordance with Horace's style, and it would avoid the awkwardness, however it be explained, of the double designation.

18-22. quibus.. sed. The digression is intended to elevate Drusus' victory, by suggesting an immemorial and legendary antiquity for his enemies. Its prosaic introduction, contrasting awkwardly with the smooth finish of Horace's style, is an intentional, if not very successful, imitation of Pindar. Cp. a slighter instance in 3. 4. 69. Many critics (Lambinus, Buttmann, Meineke, amongst them) have been tempted, by the fact that their excision would cause little or no disturbance of the metre, to condemn the lines as an interpolation, supposing the sentence to have run 'Vindelici diu' or ' Vindelici et diu.' But the faults of the verses are such as the poet is much more likely to have been guilty of than an imitator. They formed part of the text in the time of Servius (on Virg. Aen. I. 243).

19. per omne tempus, 'through all time,' historically.

20. Amazonia, such as the Amazons used; 'securigerae puellae,'