4. The concrete (and poetic) Latin idiom of ab urbe condita: A. G. 292. a; B. 337. 5; G. L. 664. 2; H. 549. 5. n. 2. Cf. 2. 4. 10. n.; 3. 24. 24, 42.

5. The stylistic effect of the future participle: A. G. 293 b; B. 337. 4; G. L. 438. n.; H. 549. 3. Cf. on. 2. 3. 4, and for gerundive, fut. pass. part.' 4. 2. 9. n.

6. The free use of the partitive genitive, and of the genitive of 'reference' or extent of application, etc., with adjectives of plenty, want, knowledge, desire, etc.: A. G. 218. c; B. 204. 1; G. L. 374. 4. 5. 6; H. 399. I. II. III. Cf. (partitive) 1. 9. 14, 1. 10. 19, 1. 29. 5, 4. 6. 31, 2. 1. 23. n. with 4. 4. 76, 4. 12. 20.

7. The Greek gen. of separation with verbs: A. G. 243. f, R; B. 212. 3; G. L. 383. 2; H. 410. V. 4. Cf. 3. 27. 69-70. n. with 2. 9. 18, 3. 17. 16 and 2. 13. 38. n. (?).

8. The dative of place whither: A. G. 258. n. 1; B. 193; G. L. 358; H. 380. II. 4, 385. II. 4. Cf. 1. 2. 1, 1. 28. 10, 3. 23. 1, 4. 4. 69.

9. The dative of the person concerned in its extension, as dative of agent: A. G. 232. a, b; B. 189, Appendix, 308; G. L. 354; H. 388. Cf. 1. 1. 24, 1. 21. 4, 1. 32. 5, 2. 1. 31, 3. 25. 3.

10. The dative with all words of difference and contention: A. G. 229. c; B. 358. 3; G. L. 390. 2. n. 5; H. 385. II. 4. 2. Cf. 1. 1. 15, 4. 9. 29.

11. The dative with misceo, iungo and the like: A. G. 248 a, R; B. 358. 3; G. L. 346. n. 6; H. 385. II. 4. 3. Cf. 1. 1. 30.

12. The various 'Greek,' cognate, adverbial, or specifying accusatives: A. G. 238, 240. a, c; B. 175. 2. d, 176. 2. b. n.; G. L. 333. 2, 338; H. 371. II., 378. Cf. 1. 2. 31, 2. 7. 8, 2. 11. 15, 2. 13. 38. n., 1. 28. 25, 2. 17.

4. 8. 33, 1. 32. 1, 4. 9. 9, 2. 11. 24,

26, 1. 22. 23, 3. 27. 67, 2. 12. 14, 2. 19. 6, 3. 29. 50.

13. The ablative of place where or whence without a preposition: A. G. 258. a, n. 3. b, n. 5; B. 228. d, 229. 1. c; G. L. 385. n. 1; H. 412. II. 2, 425. II. 2. n. 3.

14. The ablative after comparatives instead of quam: A. G. 247. e; G. L. 398; H. 417. n. 1. Cf. 1. 8. 9, 4. 9. 50, 3. 1. 9, 1. 13. 20.

III.

STYLE.

A study of Horace's style must be mainly an analysis of the art by which he compensates for the slenderness of his own inspiration and the relative poverty of the Latin lyric vocabulary. He has no very profound thought or intense emotion to convey. His imagery lacks the imaginative splendor and audacity of the great Greek and English lyrists; and yet, while literary fashions come and go, his indefectible charm abides.

Literary critics have repeatedly told us that it is due to his unfailing tact and exquisite felicity in the expression of poetical and moral commonplace, and the special student of the Odes can do little more than verify and illustrate this judgment in detail.

The chief themes or motifs of the Odes are easily enumerated. There is the Epicurean commonplace, the Stoic commonplace, the verse exercise modeled on the Greek, the praise of poetry, the graceful tribute to friendship, the vers de société, the 'consolation,' the dignified recognition of Augustus as the restorer of peace and tranquillity, and the imperial theme of the new empire, heir to the double tradition of the 'glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.'

There is no intensity of feeling. The love poetry is in the vein of persiflage, playful admiration, banter or worse; the patriotism with a few noble exceptions fails to thrill the pulses, the conviviality is gracefully moderate, the criticism of life is a blending of Stoic didacticism with gentle Epicurean melancholy in the urbane tone of a man of the world, member of a metropolitan and imperial society. That life is short, that the bloom of the rose is brief, that the bird of time is on the wing, that death comes to pauper and prince alike, that it is pleasant to be young and in love but that you know the worth

of a lass once you have come to forty year,'

that good wine promotes good fellowship but must be used in moderation, that the bow always bent makes Apollo a dull god, that we cannot

escape ourselves, that black care sits behind the horseman, that the golden mean is best, that contentment passes wealth, that he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he who sits on the throne of Cyrus, that patience maketh easy what we cannot alter, that brave men lived before Agamemnon, that 'tis sweet and seemly to die for the fatherland, such are the eternal commonplaces that Horace is ever murmuring in our ears. But then, as he himself says, the difficult thing is so to express commonplaces as to make them your own. If one half of the poet's mission is to sing hymns unbidden till the world is wrought to sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not, his no less helpful task is to intensify by beautiful expression our realization of those simple and obvious truths the repetition of which somehow calms and soothes our average mood. In this kind Horace is the supreme master. For the expression of an every-day philosophy of life, just sufficiently illuminated with humor, touched with pathos, and heightened by poetic feeling, his phrases replace all others in the minds of those who have once learned them. They are inevitable. We cannot say the thing otherwise.

In considering the means with which he worked, the first thing that strikes us is the simplicity, not to say poverty, of his poetic vocabulary. In translating Greek lyric, the student must ransack his dictionary for terms rich enough to represent the luxuriance of the Greek compound epithets. In rendering Horace, the problem is to select from the superior wealth of the English poetic vocabulary synonyms which may be introduced without dissonance to relieve the monotony or vagueness of his epithets, and so reproduce by compensation the total effect of rhythm, emphasis, and artful juncture' in the original.

This parsimony may be partly explained by the simpler taste of the ancients, partly by Horace's recognition of the artistic value of restraint, his fondness for moderation and understatement. But it is mainly due, first to the relative poverty of the Latin vocabulary, and, second, to the peculiar difficulty of forcing Latin words into the alien mold of Greek

lyric measures. Horace at times seems to base his own claims as a poet solely on his achievements in vanquishing this difficulty; and certain it is that while modern scholars have written excellent Latin hexameters and elegiacs, in the course of two thousand years no one after Horace has succeeded in composing Sapphics and Alcaics that give pleasure to any one but the author. Those of Statius, who could improvise fluent and sonorous hexameters, are beneath contempt. A good Sapphic or Alcaic strophe must contain at least one flash of fancy, one felicitous phrase, or one brilliant image — that is the part of genius or inspiration. But the associates which this happy find will admit into its company are narrowly limited by the resources of the language and the law of the verse. It was no slight task to round out the measure with harmonious words that should introduce no jarring note or trivial suggestion and yet should not appear too obviously chosen to fill up space. That was the part of the laborious bee to which Horace compared himself.1 These conditions perhaps made inevitable the frequent use of simple, vague, metrically convenient epithets and phrases. Whatever the explanation, the fact remains.

The wind-blown sand (1. 28. 23), the meandering streams, (1. 34. 9), the far-traveled Hercules (3. 3. 9), the overflowing river (1. 2. 18), the wandering birds of the air (3. 27. 16, 4. 4. 2), the straying herd (3. 13. 12), the wind that bloweth where it listeth (3. 29. 24), and the nomad Scythians (3. 24. 10) are all alike vagus.

Acer must describe the warrior's grim visage (1. 2. 39), the bitter satirist (Epode 6. 14), the keen-scented hound (Epode 12. 6), the 'nipping eager' air of winter (1. 4. 1), the ear-piercing fife (1. 12. 1), the sharp-tempered girl (1. 33. 15), the cruel, force of fate (Epode 7. 13), the petulant coquette (1. 6. 18). Hannibal, the dropsy, hail, necessity, and the curse in the eye of a dying child are alike 'dire.'

Care, death, the dusking wave, the lowering storm cloud, the

XX

INTRODUCTION.

immenzus doer

venomous viper and his venom, the lurid flames of the funeral pyre, and the ears of Cerberus are equally ater. Igneus includes the parching midsummer heat (1. 17. 2), the fire-breathing Chimaera (2. 17. 13), and the flaming citadels of aether (3. 3. 10). The furtive tear and the wind-blown spray are alike humor; liquor characterizes the new wine of sacrifice and the frith that parts Europe and Africa. The tall pine (μakpá, vyŋλós), the mighty-limbed warrior (Teλúptos), the high-heaped piles of miser's gold, and the boundless ocean (åπciρwv) merge their distinctions in ingens. Longus measures eternal punishment, the unawakening, everlasting sleep of death, slow-consuming age, the long wash of the billows, and the wide expanse of the ocean. Pholoe who coquettishly trips away, the years that are gliding swiftly by, the soldier who is forced to retreat, and the coward who runs away are all fugaces. Dives is rich, treasureladen, and rolúxpvoos. Aquosus must serve for dropsical, many-fountained, and rain-bringing; opacus and niger for eivooíφυλλος and μελάμφυλλος, serus for ὑστερόποινος, ridens for φιλομμειδής, brevis for ὀλιγοχρόνιος or μινυνθάδιος, certus for νημερτής and ἄφυκτος, fecunda for πολυστάφελος οι βοτρυόεις, pinguis for δασύμαλλος, edax, for θυμοβόρος, etc.

Equally hard-worked are such simple words as bonus, plenus, perfidus, dulcis, gravis, felix, fortis, levis and lēvis, magnus, novus, ferox, decorus, funera, munera, beatus, chorus, clarus, candidus, iniquus, melior, asper, viridis, gratus, minax, etc.

Corresponding to this poverty of epithet is a certain vagueness, impropriety, or indefiniteness of verb or phrase, indubitable in some cases, though in others hardly to be distinguished from curious felicities of expression. This results partly from the lack of the article in Latin,1 or the omission of possessive pronouns and defining adjectives or genitives.2

13. 20. 16, 4. 1. 6.

2 Cf. cives 1. 2. 21; scelus 1. 2. 29; ludo 1. 2. 37; melior fortuna parente 1. 7. 25; virenti (tibi) 1. 9. 17; belli 2. 1. 34; acervos 2. 2. 24; cumbae 2. 3. 28; virtus 2. 7. 11; ictus 2. 15. 10; urbes 2. 20. 5; partem animae 2. 17. 5, etc.