Hoc,' aiebat, et hoc.' Melius te posse negares,
Bis terque expertum frustra, delere jubebat
Et male tornatos incudi reddere versus.

Si defendere delictum quam vertere malles,
Nullum ultra verbum aut operam insumebat inanem,
Quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares.

Vir bonus et prudens versus reprehendet inertes,
Culpabit duros, incomptis allinet atrum
Traverso calamo signum, ambitiosa recidet
Ornamenta, parum claris lucem dare coget,
Arguet ambigue dictum, mutanda notabit,
Fiet Aristarchus; non dicet, 'Cur ego amicum
Offendam in nugis?' Hae nugae seria ducent
In mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistre.
Ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urget
Aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana,
Vesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque poëtam,
Qui sapiunt; agitant pueri incautique sequuntur.
Hic, dum sublimis versus ructatur et errat,
Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps
In puteum foveamve, licet, 'Succurrite,' longum
Clamet, 'Io cives!' non sit, qui tollere curet.
Si curet quis opem ferre et demittere funem,
Qui scis, an prudens huc se projecerit atque
Servari nolit? Dicam, Siculique poëtae
Narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis haberi

Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam
Sit jus liceatque perire poëtis ;

Insiluit.

Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti.

Nec semel hoc fecit; nec, si retractus erit, jam

440

445

450

455

460

465

Fiet homo et ponet famosae mortis amorem.
Nec satis apparet, cur versus factitet, utrum
Polluerit patrios cineres, an triste bidental
Moverit incestus: certe furit, ac velut ursus
Objectos caveae valuit si frangere clathros,
Indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus;
Quem vero arripuit, tenet occiditque legendo,
Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo.

470

475

INTRODUCTION TO EPODES.'

THE word éπdós (èπí, ¿eidw) has, among other meanings, that of a short verse following a longer, and was extended from this to mean the metre or poem which consisted of such couplets. It is in this sense that the title Epodon Liber has been prefixed to the collection of poems from which the preceding are taken. The term is applicable to Elegiac poems, but was specially used of the iambic and trochaic couplets invented by Archilochus circ. 700 B.C.

The Epodes were written and published before any of the Odes had seen the light, at any rate in the form of a collection; and the date of publication may be accurately fixed by comparing Epode ix. (the latest of the collection) with Ode i. 37. The Epode was written in the autumn of B.C. 31, when the news of the battle of Actium had just reached Rome; the Ode in B. c. 30, after the tragic end of Cleopatra. We cannot so certainly fix the date of the earliest Epode, but we shall be safe in assuming that all were written between B.C. 42 and B.C. 31. They must have been published about the same time as the Second Book of Satires, but were, as above stated, the first of his lyrical poems.

Horace claims (Epp. i. 19, 23-25) to have been the first to use in Latin the Parii iambi of Archilochus, 'following his measures and his spirit, though not his subjects and his words,' i.e. not translating him. In several of the Epodes he uses the same kind of invective for which Archilochus was famous (Cf. A. P. 79, and note); a manner which he afterwards rejected, and from which the Odes are free. Cf. Odes, i. 16, 22-26, 'I too was attacked in my fresh youth by the heart's passion, and driven wildly into swift iambics (Cf. A. P. 252); now I seek to change such bitter themes for milder.' Epodes iv. and vi. have been included in this selection as examples of this. The rest are on similar subjects to those which are handled in the Odes. They bear to some extent the marks of youth. There is less than in the Odes of graceful finish and curiosa felicitas. But they are genuine poetry, and he never wrote more charming descriptions than those of country life in the second, or of the 'happy isles' in the sixteenth Epode.

The metres of the Epodes in this selection are as follows :I. II. IV. VI. VII. IX.-Iambic Trimeter, followed by Iambic Dimeter.

The trimeter follows the Greek tragic metre (the dimeter being similar to the last four feet of the trimeter), except that Horace does not scruple to put a long syllable before a final cretic (e.g. i. 27, 28 end with 'sidus fervidum, mutet pascuis '). Observe that 'laqueo' (ii. 35) in fifth place is a dissyllable, not an anapaest; and that ii. 33 begins thus--' aut ǎmĭtě lēvi.'

XIII.-Hexameter, followed by a verse called Iambelegus, consisting of Iambic Dimeter followed by the last half of a Pentameter. This verse is called ȧovváprηros, 'not welded together,' the last syllable of the first part being independent of the second, e.g. v. 10, 'Levare diris pectoră | sollicitudinibus.' The last part, although, like the Elegiac Pentameter, it admits only dactyls, is ended freely by trisyllables, e.g. 'siluae, revehet.'

XVI.—Hexameter, followed by Iambic Trimeter, with the peculiarity that only iambi are admitted.

NOTES.

EPODON LIBER.

EPODE I.

HORACE is announcing his determination to accompany Maecenas on a service of danger. The poem probably belongs to B. c. 31, when Octavian assembled all his partizans at Brundusium for the final expedition against Antonius and Cleopatra. Maecenas did not, however, go with the expedition, but was sent back to take charge of affairs at Rome, and Horace was thus relieved from carrying out his intention.

It has been supposed by some that the Epode was written B. C. 36, when Maecenas actually joined the expedition against Sextus Pompeius, and Horace may have accompanied him. But the tone of his allusions to his military experience at Philippi (Od. ii. 7, 8-16; Epp. ii. 2, 46-52) seems to imply that it was his last; he may, indeed, in writing this Epode, have had a shrewd hope that he could protest his affection, without being called upon to carry his promise into effect.

Horace had been introduced to Maecenas in B. c. 39, and nine months later had been reckoned among his friends' (Sat. i. 6, 61; ii. 6, 40). There had thus been ample time for a close intimacy to grow up between them.

'You are going into danger, Maecenas, and I will go with you. I would follow you anywhere; not that I can help you, but I feel safer with you than at home without you. Your thanks are enough; I do not want your bounty; you have enriched me enough already.'

Line 1. Liburnis. Liburnae, or Liburnicae, were light galleys used by the Liburni, a piratical tribe in the north of Illyria,