aulul. 616 the miser boding evil cries 'Non temere est quod corvos cantat mihi nunc ab laeva manu'. Yet Orelli reads vetet and coolly remarks tenerior hic sensus videtur'; and Macleane observes that vetet is required by the sense: he did not hold that philology like philosophy begins in wonder, and that it is perilous to contradict Lambinus and Bentley when in conjunction. Epod: 15 Ritter's 'si est' (write 'sist') 'superstite' for 'si superstite' or 'superstite' of MSS. is probably right. 9 17 'Ad hunc' has most authority; but what Horace did here write it is not possible to say: ad hunc may = ad solem. 10 2 the old Bernese has Maevium'; but other MS. authority in Horace and Virgil is in favour of spelling this worthy's name 'Mevius'. Carm. saec. 65 'aras' of ant. Bland. and many MSS. is more exquisite than 'arces'. Epist. I 21 Maxime' I have written with Haupt and others, as a proper name: it was a very common cognomen, and a P. Lollius Maximus appears in later times: it cannot stand thus isolated for maxime natu' or 'maxime fratrum.' 5 12 Quo mihi fortuna' of all the best MSS. I retain: comp. Aen. IV 98 aut quo nunc certamine tanto', and Conington's note. 5 16 dissignat', 7 6 Dissignatorem': inscriptions and the best MSS. prove these to be the right spellings. Ars 197 I see no reason for adopting the conjecture ' pacare tumentes'. 394 urbis' is better attested than 'arcis'. The manuscripts of Horace, with the partial exception perhaps of the old Bernese, are not such safe guides in orthography, as those of Virgil for instance or Lucretius. But in Horace too, for reasons which I have fully stated in the introduction to my Lucretius, I have clung as much as possible to the best tradition preserved in the oldest MSS. especially where we have the old Bernese: as instances of spellings unquestionably right, though neglected in editions for the most part, take the following: 'praegnas, Danuvius, Paelignus, paelex, raeda, scaena, Thraex' as well as 'Thrax', 'Zmyrna, querqueta, Quintus, Quintilius' but 'Quinctius' in conformity with inscriptions: 'mercennarius, pilleolus, comissabere, holus, holusculum'; nor have I avoided variety in 'fenore, faenere' 'foenere' I believe to be barbarous: formidolosus, formidulosus, pinna, penna'. I have not deserted the MSS. even in those cases where variety was the rule in classical times, such as the assimilation of prepositions and the use of es or is in the accus. plural: my reasons I have stated fully in the introduction to my Lucretius. Even the best editors, such as Haupt, who attempt to introduce an arbitrary consistency, are often inconsistent, often too give us what Horace certainly did not write: Keller's edition of the odes is a more flagrant instance of this arbitrariness. Of course I am aware I do not always get from the MSS. what Horace wrote; but that I cannot help. Thus in half of Horace we have the guidance of the old Bernese which gives us is in the accus. far oftener than other MSS. Clearly therefore in other parts they must often mislead us thus in Epist. 1 20 27 our best MSS. have all'decembres'; but Priscian vII 85, in shewing that both decembres and decembris were in use, quotes our verse to prove that Horace here used the latter form. The satires and epistles, perhaps from having been less frequently copied than the odes, appear to me to retain in the MSS. a form somewhat more antique than the odes do: the Bernese, as was said above, has only the first three satires and the Ars of this half of Horace; and in the Ars 114 it once retains the nomin. divos; and in these satires and the Ars has five instances of the enclitic st; all of which of course I keep. Doubtless Horace oftener used such forms; but it does not follow that he always gave this os, as his contemporary Augustus on the other hand in his res gestae always has us after another u. Again, though no doubt he always pronounced est as an enclitic st, when otherwise an inadmissible elision would be the consequence, as in Carm. 1 3 37 ardui est, IV 3 21 tui est, 24 tuum est (pronounced tuust, with a slight nasal sound for the m), and hundreds of similar cases, it by no means follows that с he always or generally so wrote it: see what I say on this point in my Aetna n. to v. 5. Probably in prose they pronounced it as an enclitic in such cases, But, to judge from inscriptions, in more ancient times it was less frequently written st, than afterwards: a Greek I presume would have pronounced μovorí and μov iσrí in the same way. Therefore I have never printed it as an enclitic, except in the five instances alluded to. Similarly in Epist. II 2 163 I print modo isto', though probably it was pronounced modosto. I could have wished my authorities had allowed me to write the relative quidquid; but the best MSS. so persistently give quicquid, that I have obeyed them: this form occurs too in the very ancient Lex Rubria and elsewhere. Obprobrium' is constantly attested by all our best MSS.: 'Vemens' I have written in Epist. II 2 120 for the 'Vehemens' of MSS: I should have done so in the other two instances where its quantity is not shewn by its position, as in Horace's time it could only be a dissyl.: perhaps too he always wrote 'reprendere' for reprehendere' of MSS. as twice he certainly did: our books all give us Pollio, Messala, paulum'. That the odes of Horace all consist of stanzas of four lines, I neither affirm nor deny. We are so ignorant of the mode in which his odes were recited, that, where the verses are all the same as in the first ode, since there is no pecessary pause at the end of each quatrain, I hardly know what a stanza means. Therefore I have not marked any stanzas in printing, as in odes evidently stanzaic they sufficiently declare themselves. But I will now conclude. H. A. J. M. M I AECENAS atavis edite regibus, o et praesidium et dulce decus meum, sunt quos curriculo pulverem Olympicum B 5 10 agros Attalicis condicionibus Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton. 15 20 25 30 |