57. Hither not the sturdy rowers of the Argo brought their pine

bark.'

58. impudica. Medea is so called because she left her home to follow a stranger; so Europa of herself, Od. 3. 27. 49 'Impudens liqui patrios Penates.'

59. Sidonii, the Phoenicians.

6

cornua, sc. antennarum,' Virg. Aen. 3. 549.

61, 62. Haupt condemns these verses, and others have altered their place, putting them variously after vv. 50, 52, and 56. But 'contagia,' secrevit,' seem to give the connection which makes them appropriate here. Isolation protects their flocks and herds from disease, as it protects men from moral contagion.

62. impotentia, the furious dogstar's rage'; Od. 3. 30. 3 ‘Aquilo impotens.'

64. Compare Ov. Met. 1. 89-127. Horace has cut down the more usual four ages to three, omitting the 'silver;' Virg. G. 1. 120 foll. only recognizes two stages.

65. aere, for the repetition cp. above, v. 41; a few MSS. have' aerea,' but ‘dehinc' is always in Horace a dissyllable.

quorum, with 'fuga,' 'an escape from which.'

EPODE XVII.

'Horace.-I yield, Canidia. I acknowledge your power; cease your spells. Achilles took compassion on Telephus, and gave back Hector's body to Priam's prayers. Circe restored Ulysses' companions to their own form. You have punished me enough. I have lost the hue of youth; my hair is white; I cannot rest day or night. I deny the power of your spells no more, for I have felt them. Spare me! O earth and sea, I burn with the fire of Nessus' poison or of Aetna. When is it to end? I will do anything you ask; offer a hecatomb; tune my lyre to falsehood, and sing of you as chaste and good. Stesichorus recovered his sight on his palinode. You don't come of base parents; you never plundered graveyards; your heart is kind and your hands are clean; Pactumeius is your true son.

'Canidia.-You speak to sealed ears. Are you to escape scot free after divulging the mysteries of Cotytto and witnessing the witchcraft of the Esquiline, only to make it the talk of the town? If you do I shall have wasted my labour. You wish to die, but you shall live to suffer. Tantalus, and Prometheus, and Sisyphus would like to be set free from their punishment; but they are not. There is no escape. The sword shall not pierce you, the noose shall not choke you. I will

ride in triumph on your neck.
raise the dead from their urns.
Under the form of a recantation offered by himself and rejected by
Canidia, he repeats and aggravates the attacks upon her of Epod. 5 and
Sat. 1. 8. Her witchcraft is taken for granted by both speakers. New
or more definite charges are made against her, though they are put in
the form you did not,' etc. She allows every charge, and is angry
only at their disclosure. The tone is more personal than before. It is
no longer Varus or some unnamed victim of her spells, but Horace
(see esp. v. 58), and it gives an interpretation to the other two poems.
If they had stood alone we might have thought that it was a class, or
a public folly, that he was assailing. But here we can hardly doubt
that we have a personal enmity, involving more or less of real bitter-
ness, and expressed under a form more or less allegorical. It is impos-
sible to read the riddle completely. Horace doubtless dramatizes
imaginary situations, but it is not in his way to sustain an imaginary
character through three entire poems, besides making it the object of
allusions in several others. Cp. Epod. 3. 8, Sat. 2. 1. 48, 2. 8. 95, and
see Introd. to Od. 1. 16. This Epode is posterior to Epod. 5 and Sat.
1. 8, for it contains references to them; see vv. 47-52, 58.

I can call the moon from the sky and
Do you think I can't deal with you?'

Line 1. do manus, 'yield'; Cic. ad Att. 2. 22 Aiebat illum primo sane diu multa contra, ad extremum autem manus dedisse.'

2. Proserpinae.. Dianae; Epod. 5. 51. They are the powers of night and the lower world, to whom witches might be supposed to pray.

3. non movenda, 'that may not be provoked'; Od. 3. 20. 1 ‘Non vides quanto moveas periclo, Pyrrhe, Gaetulae catulos leaenae?'

4. carminum, of magic formulae; Epod. 5. 72, etc., Virg. E. 8. 67–72. 5. refixa, pred., 'to draw the stars from the skies and bring them down'; Virg. Aen. 5. 527' caelo ceu saepe refixa Transcurrunt . . sidera.' Conington remarks that the stars are viewed as nails that stud the sky. 6. vocibus sacris, 'mystic words'; Epod. 5. 76 Marsis vocibus.' 7. retro solve, 'let it loose, that it may run back.'

turbinem, póμßov, the wheel, which was one of the instruments of a magician. Theocritus gives a meaning to its spinning 2. 30 ‘Ns diveîo' ὅδε ῥόμβος ὁ χάλκεος, ἐξ ̓Αφροδίτας "Ως τῆνος δινοῖτο ποθ ̓ ἁμετέρῃσι θύρησιν.

8. movit, 'moved to pity.'

nepotem Nereïum, as the son of Thetis. Telephus had been wounded by Achilles, and the oracle declared that he only who had wounded him could cure him.

II. unxere; Virg. Aen. 6. 218, of the honours paid to the body of Misenus, 'corpusque lavant frigentis et unguunt.' Some good MSS.

have 'luxere'; but, besides the preponderance of MS. authority, 'unxere' answers better to 'addictum alitibus': it expresses more definitely the fact which is the real point, viz. that they recovered the body, though Achilles had declared that they should not have it. 'Luxere' would at least involve an ambiguity, even if it admits, as Bentley argues, the sense of formal mourning over the body.

addictum ; Il. 23. 182 Εκτορα δ' οὔτι Δώσω Πριαμίδην πυρὶ δαπτέμεν, ἀλλὰ κύνεσσιν.

12. homicidam, a translation of ȧvdpopóvos, Hector's epithet in Il. 1. 242 and elsewhere.

13. Hom. Il. 24. 510, of Priam before Achilles, kλαî” ådivà πрoñápoile ποδῶν ̓Αχιλῆος ἐλυσθείς.

14. heu pervicacis; Od. 1. 6. 6 cedere nescii.' The exclamation emphasizes the epithet: 'We reprobate obstinacy even in him, yet he yielded.' Orelli takes it rather as referring to the whole sentence 'ad indignitatem facti,' to the thought of Priam 'holding the knees and kissing the hands, δεινὰς ἀνδροφόνους αἵ οἱ πολέας κτάνον υἷας.

15-18. Ritter points out that the last place is reserved for Circe, as coming nearer home to the witch Canidia.

15. The construction is 'membra setosa pellibus,' i.e. the shapes of swine, 'with bristles on their hard hides.'

16. laboriosi, genitive case; Epod. 16. 60. It is a translation of πολύτλας, πολυτλήμων.

17. Circa. Some good MSS. read 'Circe'; but the other form is sufficiently established by the express statement of Val. Probus, 2. 1. 16 (a grammarian of uncertain date, but considerably earlier than any existing MS. of Horace), who, speaking of substantives from the Greek in e, says, that as there is no ablative in Greek, they take in the ablative the Latin a, unde est illud Horatii Volente Circa.'

sonus, the power of speech.

18. honor; Virg. Aen. 1. 591, 'beauty,' 'dignity.'

20. multum, with adjective, Od. 1. 25. 5 'multum facilis.' institoribus; on Od. 3. 6. 30.

21. verecundus color, the blush of health.

22. ossa. Bentley, followed by Haupt and Meineke, would alter the unanimous reading of the MSS. to 'ora,' objecting to the expression Fossa reliquit color.' But 'ossa atque pellis' were as habitual a conjunction as our skin and bones.' Plaut. Aul. 3. 6. 28 'ossa atque pellis totus est, ita cura macet,' and 'ossa pelle amicta' is equivalent to ‘pellem ossa amicientem.'

pelle, not used of the human skin in life and health; see Forc., s. v. 'cutis,' and cp. Juv. 10. 192 'deformem pro cute pellem.'

23. This line has been taken to show that the Epode was written

when Horace was already 'praecanus'; Epp. 1. 20. 24, cp. Od. 3. 14. 25 Lenit albescens animos capillus.' But it is no more real than the other symptoms described. They are all the effects of love in Theoc. 2. 88 foll. Καί μευ χρὼς μὲν ὁμοῖος ἐγίνετο πολλάκι θάψῳ· Ερρευν δ ̓ ἐκ κεφαλᾶς πᾶσαι τρίχες· αὐτὰ δὲ λοιπὰ ὀστέ ̓ ἔτ ̓ ἦς καὶ δέρμα.

odoribus = 'unguentis magicis'; Epod. 5. 59 and 69.

25. Cp. Od. 2. 18. 15 'Truditur dies die.'

neque est, οὐδ ̓ ἔστι, οὐδ ̓ ἔξεστι.

26. An amplification of the common 'respirare,' åvanveîv (sustaining the metaphor by which he has called his mental distress labor'), 'to draw the breath that would ease my strained lungs.'

27. 'I am constrained to believe, to my sorrow, what once I denied.' 28. Sabella; Sat. 1. 9. 29. The Sabini, Marsi, and Peligni (v. 60), are all spoken of as given to magical arts.

increpare, 'ring through.' It is used of a trumpet blast Virg. Aen. 9. 503, of a rattling peal of thunder Ov. Met. 12. 51 ‘Iuppiter atras Increpuit nubes.'

31. Epod. 3. 17.

32. Join Sicana flamma . . fervida Aetna.

33. virens, 'ever fresh'; 'perpetua, acris, non languescens,' Lambinus. Cp. pavías deivòv ävenpóv тe μévos, Soph. Ant. 960, possibly, as Bentley suggested, with a reminiscence of Lucretius' 'flammai flore,' 1. 898. Orelli takes it of the green sulphurous flame of a volcano; but it does not appear that the fire of Aetna has any colour which would justify such an epithet, or that the ancients attributed any such colour to it. There is a variety of reading among the later MSS., the ¿ in ‘virens' being scratched by a later hand in three, 'urens' being found in several, 'furens,' which Bentley preferred, in a few.

35. cales. The boldness of the metaphor attracted the notice of Porph. ipsam mulierem officinam venenorum diserte dixit.' Canidia is a laboratory of magic drugs, in which the fires will not slacken till Horace is burnt to ashes, which the wind can carry about and make sport of.

36. stipendium, 'composition,' 'payment in lieu of punishment.' 'When will the end come, or how can I buy myself off?' Cp. Catull. 64. 173, of the human tribute exacted by the Minotaur, 'dira ferens stipendia tauro.' It is not uncommonly used of a tribute imposed on a conquered country; stipendio multare,' Cic. pro Balb. 18. 39. mendaci lyra, parallel to v. 20. He must lie to praise her, but he will lie if she pleases. Orelli thinks that it is an équivoque, and that she might have taken 'mendaci' to mean 'which lied before in reviling you'; but the other meaning of the words would have been the more obvious of the two. The humour consists, not in any by-play which

Canidia is supposed to miss, but in the offering as a palinode a lampoon more bitter than that which it professes to retract.

40. tu pudica, tu proba, imitated perhaps from the palinode of Catullus (42. 24) 'pudica proba redde codicillos.'

42. infamis = infamatae,' sc. 'a Stesichoro.' For the story see Introd. to Od. 1. 16.

vice, 'on behalf of.' Orelli and Dill. follow Bentley in preferring 'vicem,' the reading which is found in two MSS. of no great age; the construction, then, as in Plaut. Rud. 3. 5. 34 'Vos respondetote istinc istarum vicem.'

46. obsoleta; cp. (with Orelli) 'Virtus.. neque alienis sordibus obsolescit,' Cic. pro Sest. 28; 'of tattered reputation from the meanness of your parentage.' Horace uses it elsewhere of a tumbledown house; Od. 2. 10.6.

47. prudens, 'well skilled.' It is perhaps with special reference to the emphatic 'pauperum,' as the Scholiast suggests; she shows her wisdom in choosing graves that were not guarded.

48. novendiales, 'ninth-day ashes' seem to mean 'fresh buried.' These were held fitter for a wizard's purpose; cp. Ov. Her. 6. 90 certaque de tepidis colligit ossa rogis,' etc. The adjective ‘novendialis' properly means 'continuing for nine days'; and this is the common meaning of 'novendiale sacrum,' 'novendiales feriae,' etc. But it seems also to have been used of the special ceremonies which, at Rome as well as in Greece, took place on the ninth day after death, rà ěvata. We are dependent for our information chiefly on the Scholiasts upon this place, upon Virg. Aen. 5. 64, and Terent. Phorm. 1. 1. 16, and they differ in their accounts of the employment of the intervening days. But all agree that the ninth day was the one on which the dead was finally put out of sight.

50. venter='partus.' The allusion is to the taunt in Epod. 5. 5. Pactumeius Orelli shows to have been a Roman name.

in the consular lists of the first two Christian centuries.

It occurs

52. fortis exsilis, of her speedy recovery. Intended to retract the retractation.

56, 59. ut.. ut; Madv. § 353 obs. Of something not to be thought of, whether as improbable or as offensive; Cic. Cat. 1. 9 'Quamquam quid loquor? Te ut ulla res frangat. Tu ut unquam te corrigas.' It more often has an interrogative particle added; as in Hor. Sat. 2. 5. 18 'Ut ne tegam spurco Damae latus?'

56. riseris volgata, i. e. 'volgaveris et riseris.'

Cotyttia, licentious mysteries celebrated in Thrace, and later in Athens and Corinth, in the name of a goddess Cotys or Cotytto. Canidia gives this name to the dark rites described in Epod. 5, with their lustful purpose.