Father and Guardian of all human races, Saturnian Jove, to thee the Fates have given Whether the Parthians over Rome impending Wide earth with justice he shall rule, thy viceroy ; Justo triumpho.' "Justo," "regular, full, complete," in which sense this adjective is attached to such nouns as exercitus, legio, acies, prælium, victoria.'-YONGE. 2 Sive subjectos Orientis oræ Seras et Indos.' The Seres, whom some conjecture to be the Chinese, represent the nations at the farthest east known to the Romans. Subjectos oræ,' ' under the edge, or extremity of the East.'-YONGE. The general meaning seems to be, that Jove left the political government of earth to Augustus, his vicegerent; but he reserved to himself alone the dominion of heaven, and the task of avenging such crimes as offended the gods, or polluted the sanctity of the temples. Gentis humanæ pater atque custos, Orte Saturno, tibi cura magni Cæsaris fatis data: tu secundo Cæsare regnes. Ille, seu Parthos Latio imminentes Te minor latum reget æquus orbem ; E ODE XIII. ΤΟ LYDIA. In this ode is expressed naturally enough the sort of jealousy which a Lydia would be likely to inspire in a general lover, such as Horace represents himself in his poemsIsive quid urimur non præter solitum leves.' The ode in When thou the rosy neck of Telephus, The waxen arms of Telephus, art praising, Swells with the anguish I would vainly smother. By what slow fires mine inmost self consumeth. I burn, or whether quarrel o'er his wine, itself. Stain with a bruise dishonouring thy white shoulders, Or whether my boy-rival on thy lips Leave by a scar the mark of his rude kisses. Hope not, if thou wouldst hearken unto me, Thrice happy, ay more than thrice happy, they Whom one soft bond unbroken binds together, Whose love, serene from bickering and reproach, Ends not before the day when life is ended. 1 'Quinta parte sui nectaris.' It has been disputed whether Horace means by this expression the Pythagorean quintessence, which is ether. Most modern translators so take it- an interpretation,' says Macleane, which I am surprised to find Orelli adopts with others, that does not commend itself to my mind at all.' Neither does it to mine. itself, whether borrowed or not from a Greek original, is replete with the elegance which characterises Horace's lovepoems, and there is a tenderness which seems genuine and heartfelt in the concluding stanza. The metre in Horace is the same as in Ode iii., but no English measure seems to me so well to express the sense and spirit of the ode as the graver and more elegiac form in which the translation is cast. CARM. XIII. Cum tu, Lydia, Telephi Tum nec mens mihi nec color Quam lentis penitus macerer ignibus. Uror, seu tibi candidos Turparunt humeros immodicæ mero Rixæ, sive puer furens Non, si me satis audias, Lædentem oscula, quæ Venus Quinta parte sui nectaris imbuit. 1 Felices ter et amplius, Quos irrupta tenet copula, nec malis Suprema citius solvet amor die. think the interpretation rendered by Dillenburger much less pedantic and much more poetical. The ancients supposed that honey contained a ninth or tenth part of nectar, and therefore the lips of Lydia were imbued with double the nectar bestowed on honey. ODE XIV. THE SHIP-AN ALLEGORY. I know not what safer title for this poem can be selected from the many assigned to it in the MSS. All or most critics nowadays are agreed that it is a political allegory, and not, as Grævius, Bentley, and others contended, an address to the actual ship that brought Horace from Philippi, and in which his friends were about to re-embark. Quinctilian illustrates the meaning of the word 'allegory' by a reference to the ode, and the ode itself is an imitation of an allegorical poem by Alcæus on the political troubles of Mitylene, of which a fragment is extant. Quinctilian's interpretation of the allegory, though still popularly receivedviz., that the ship means the Commonwealth or Republic-is not without eminent disputants; and unless there were more assured data as to the time in which the poem was written, and under what political circumstances, the dispute is not likely to be settled. The opinion advanced by Acron and supported with much force by Buttmann is, that the poem is addressed, not to the Commonwealth, but to a remnant of the political party with which Horace had fought under Brutus, and in remonstrance against their launching once more into civil war under Sextus Pompeius. This view has been somewhat rudely assailed, and the generality of critics remain loyal to the good old simile of Ship and State. But of late the argument of a critic at once so acute and so profound as Buttmann has been silently gaining ground with reflective scholars, and has much in its favour. Nothing in itself is more probable than that Horace should have sought to express to his old comrades in an allegorical poem his dissuasion from the hazardous junction with |