MELPOMENE. WHY did Horace place his lyric poetry under the patronage of the tragic muse? Why, when his minute labour had at length completed the three books, whose immortality he so surely anticipates, why, of all the Nine, did he invite Melpomene to take a pride by service won' and to place upon his brow the wreath which crowned the poet victorious at the Pythian games? sume superbiam quaesitam meritis, et mihi Delphica lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam. It is true that in a merely formal aspect the functions of the tragic muse are not alien to the work of an artist in lyric metre. Melpomene, as Horace says', had received the gift of the lyre, had been no more than a lyrist once, and to the end made no small use of the lyric art. But the lyrics of tragedy, after all, are tragic lyrics, and must serve her main purpose, to awake fear and pity, to set forth the sadness of human life and destiny. Now the Odes of Horace, to judge them by our common impression, might be described perhaps somewhat as follows:they are a collection of short exquisitely finished pieces in verse, for the most part disconnected in subject; the topics are generally light, the chief being love and wine; not unfrequently, however, the favourite theme is developed into moralizing upon the brevity of these and other pleasures, with the Epicurean conclusion that we should enjoy the moment and at the V. H. 1 I. 24. 3. 1 same time be on our guard against excess; here and there are poems, chiefly occasional, upon patriotic and political themes, in which the poet, as an adherent of Augustus, laments the waste of the civil wars and the decline of Roman virtue, proclaims the need of repose and celebrates the exploits and the projects of the emperor; here and there, especially in the public poems, are passages of a lofty eloquence, but in general the style, like the sentiment, preserves the level of moderation, and is remarkable rather for the grace, terseness and point, which have made the poet an unfailing source of quotation, than for the strength or the subtlety of the feelings expressed. This estimate, which strikes, I think, a fair balance between the numerous critics of the poet and his numberless admirers, might be supported by references ad libitum, if it were not rather a waste of time to prove that we do not generally regard Horace, even in his Odes, as a tragic poet. In fact, the controversies of criticism leave the present question untouched. Whether we grant or not that Horace was really, or for lyrical purposes, a pessimist, whether we regard his love poetry as the best possible picture of the emotion on the sensual side, or as a very skilful exercise upon themes recommended by the practice of the Greek lyrists but otherwise rather unsuitable to the Roman imitator (good names might be cited for both views), whether we think he succeeded best under the inspiration of national feelings, or think, on the other hand, that in essaying public topics he went rather beyond his limit, and, in spite of many purple patches, proves himself on the whole more artificial than artistic (respectable patronage is again divided)—the question still remains, where is the tragedy? Horace passes, and with reason, for "a thoroughly modest man," just and correct in his appreciation both of others and of himself. Could he find no more decorous name than that of Melpomene to subscribe to a miscellany, as it would appear to be, of madrigals, moralities, and national hymns-perfect, let us say, of their kind, but in kind surely anything rather than tragic? Pathos and sublimity, and before all, pathos, are the gifts of Melpomene, and if Horace is occasionally sublime, it is a commonplace of Horatian criticism that he is not usually pathetic. If a lover of the Odes were asked to name a poem, not a phrase, a line, or a stanza, but a whole poem, of which the main effect and purpose is pathetic, he would probably fix on the lament for Quintilius (1. 24)—indeed, missing this, could hardly give any answer that would not be open to dispute. But this example, so far from offering a solution of the problem here proposed, brings out the difficulty in the most forcible manner; for it is precisely in the lament for Quintilius, and there only, that we find the poet invoking the name which he has chosen for the ascription of his whole work Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Teach me, Melpomene, songs of mourning. Horace then, it seems, like the author of In Memoriam, thought of Melpomene as owning but a little art To lull with song an aching heart He meant by her name, what every one must mean by it, who has meaning enough to use one word rather than another, and therefore, we must suppose, ascribed his work to her, because she rather than any of her sisters had inspired it. And when', by way of explaining the singular fact that the muse of tragedy should be asked for a dirge, the scholiast on Apollonius is called upon to testify that Melpomene was said to be the inventor of the song in general—λέγεται εὑρηκέναι ᾠδήν—and the scholiast in turn calls the poet Rhianus, to assure us that "it makes no difference whether one Muse is invoked, or all the Muses, for, as he says, All hear if thou pronounce the name of one (πᾶσαι δ' εἰσαίουσι, μιᾶς ὅτε τοὔνομα λέξεις)”; we must surely reply, first that the scholiast's difficulty is a difficulty only for a scholiast; but further, that if Rhianus really thought to call one Muse or to call another an indifferent matter, then for 1 In Memoriam XXXVII. 2 See Orelli on 1. 24. him it probably was so, since on those terms none was likely to come; and further still-for Rhianus seems to have been a real poet and no mean one-that the words cited from him do not imply the scholiast's absurd canon, but, on the contrary, do imply the canon of common sense and common taste, that in the absence of such explanation as Rhianus gives a special invocation would have a special meaning. Vergil, writing his immense epic, and needing the help of every power he can invoke, may of course conceive himself as attended by all the choir, and may for variety appeal to them sometimes without mention of any name (Pandite nunc Helicona, deae), sometimes with the addition of a name (Vos, O Calliope, precor, adspirate canenti), and sometimes by the name of one only (Nunc age, qui reges, Erato,...quis Latio fuerit status, expediam1); and Rhianus, for anything that appears to the contrary, may have had equally good reason for expressing himself as he did. At all events Horace did not misname his Muses or prick for them, like sheriffs, in a list. When he desires to symbolize his difficulties in contending with metrical forms invented for a language sweeter and more copious than his own, he writes that his happier inspirations are found si neque tibias Euterpe cohibet nec Polyhymnia sufficiently designating the Greek givers of musical sound and varied rhythm, even if we were not told that Euterpe invented the pipe or that Polyhymnia had a special acquaintance with μôlo. When he meditates a strain longer than his wont, he seeks the unwearied goddess of epos Descende caelo et dic age tibia regina longum, Calliope, melos 3. When he hesitates whom to choose for celebration from the 1 Even so, the selection of the name is not quite indifferent. In En. 7. 37, Vergil is about to narrate the primae exordia pugnae, the beginning of the war in Italy, i.e. the rivalry for the hand of Lavinia. The invocation of Erato foreshows the theme. 2 I. 1. 3 III. 4. 1. historic roll of Roman glories, it is to the historic Clio that he turns Quem virum aut heroa lyra vel acri tibia sumis celebrare, Clio1? He could no more call Calliope Clio or Clio Melpomene than he could describe the song of Simonides as Maeonian or the song of Homer as Cean'. The more closely we examine the epilogue (III. 30) as a whole, the more we shall feel the force of the concluding invocation. For it is distinctly a surprise, a transition, an epigram. The success which the poet claims, though durable, · seems, up to the last phrase, to be carefully limited. Originality in transforming Greek metres to Roman equivalents, and the power to fix words in the memory-these are merits which Horace sees in his work, and these no one would deny to him. So far the epilogue answers exactly to the prologue; there he was seeking the help of Euterpe and of Polyhymnia, and here he seems to say that he has found it. Then let Polyhymnia or Euterpe crown him. Or if Horace was hurried and could not conveniently bring either of them in-why not Mnemosyne, mother of all the Muses, patroness of memory, and most suitable to a monumentum aere perennius? Or Musa simply*, which the modern school-boy could immediately stretch to the space by the help of a quite permissible 'precor'? But the poet thought the office belonged to Melpomene, the lady of sorrows. Nor was this a sudden freak of fancy. He thought the same when he concluded the book itself, as distinct from the epilogue, with the theme of Fortune playing her proud game, whose toys are the wealth and the ambitions of men. For this ludus Fortunae, this perilous hazard in which men rise and fall, played as it had been on the vastest scale before the eyes of Horace and his contemporaries, is the very subject which, in the opinion of the poet, required the Muse of stern tragedy to aid— |