Odes 1.1, 1.38, 2.1, 2.20, 3.30

A: Programmatic poems: Odes 1.1 and 2.1

(a) encomium

The first three books of the Odes use encomiastic elements freely in their opening poems: this is partly a function of their lyric genre, reflecting the praise-odes of Pindar in Greek lyric, echoed prominently in e.g. Odes 1.12 and Odes 3.4, and matches their grander and more elevated tone as Horace’s poetic career advances through sermo and iambic to the heights of lyric. The supposed descent of Maecenas is deployed in 1.1 as an opening honorific gambit (Odes 1.1.1 Maecenas, atauis edite regibus, ‘Maecenas, sprung from kings of old’, while in Odes 2.1 we find praise of Pollio not just as man of letters (2.1.9-12) but also as orator and soldier, more conventional fields of Roman endeavour (2.1.13-16):

insigne maestis praesidium reis

et consulenti, Pollio, curiae,

cui laurus aeternos honores

Delmatico peperit triumpho.

Here Pollio’s role as rhetorical patron of clients in the law-courts recalls the more general support of Maecenas for Horace as acknowledged in Odes 1.1, the fortification-metaphor of praesidium being used in both contexts (Odes 1.2.2 o et praesidium et dulce decus meum). Though Odes 3.1 is as we have seen apparently addressed to the contemporary youth of Rome, its opening does have an encomiastic context, this time applied to the poet himself (3.1.1-4):

Odi profanum uolgus et arceo.

Fauete linguis: carmina non prius

audita Musarum sacerdos

uirginibus puerisque canto.

Here the primary focus is on the high status of Horace himself and his poetry: he is no less than the priest of the Muses, and his songs are unheard before and original, a conventional element of praise for poetry since Callimachus and central to Roman literary culture. As in Odes 3.30 (14-16), there is perhaps some idea that the poet has now in his third and last book of his first lyric collection achieved the classic status that he set out to pursue in Odes 1.1 (35-36).

(b) literary programmes

In the opening poem of the first book of Odes the poet sets the quiet life of literature against the various ambitions of normal Roman life, including again the ownership of vast estates (1.1.9-10); but the hints earlier of competitive glory in athletics and politics (1.1.3-8) look forward to the poem’s close, where again (as in Epodes 1) the poet focusses on himself and makes an ambitious bid for glory and inclusion in the canon of lyric poets (1.1.29-36):

Me doctarum hederae praemia frontium

dis miscent superis, me gelidum nemus

nympharumque leues cum satyris chori

secernunt populo, si neque tibias

Euterpe cohibet nec Polyhymnia

Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton.

Quod si me lyricis uatibus inseres,

sublimi feriam sidera uertice.

Apart from the characteristic self-deflation in moments of ambition and grandeur, this sets up the project of the first collection of Odes which is formally concluded in its last poem, since at 3.30.14-16 the poet asks the Muse for the bays of the poet which he thinks he now deserves:

Sume superbiam

quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica

lauro cinge uolens, Melpomene, comam.

The poet has earned his inclusion in the lyric canon, and the bay garland recalls and replacing the poet’s ivy crown mentioned at 1.1.29 (above). Poetic garlands are also thematised at the end of the first book of Odes: in 1.38 the exotic garlands of lime-bark are rejected by Horace (1.38.2 displicent nexae philyra coronae), and surely symbolise exotic poetry similarly disdained by the poet (see below). Once again a dedicatory poem combines modesty of life with metapoetic discourse and sets a programmatic agenda for its collection.

Odes 2.1, after its lofty encomium of Pollio and its dramatic treatment of his tragic topic of civil war, turns at its end to making sure that Horace’s light lyric does not stray into the higher and heavier territory of Simonidean dirge (2.1.37-40):

Sed ne relictis, Musa procax, iocis

Ceae retractes munera neniae,

mecum Dionaeo sub antro

quaere modos leuiore plectro.

Likewise, the theme of material modesty raises its head once again at the end of Odes 3.1 (3.1.45-8):

cur inuidendis postibus et nouo

sublime ritu moliar atrium?

cur ualle permutem Sabina

diuitias operosiores?

B: Finales: Odes 1.38, 2.20 and 3.30

1: Odes 1.38 – is the poet addressing his own book?

Persicos odi, puer, apparatus,

displicent nexae philyra coronae,

mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum

sera moretur.

simplici myrto nihil allabores

sedulus curo: neque te ministrum

dedecet myrtus neque me sub arta

vite bibentem.

puer = ‘slave, assistant’ Odes 1.9.16, 1.19.13-15, 1.29.7, 2.11.18, 3.14.17, 3.19.10

puer = ‘slave’= ‘book’ Epistles 1.20 (below), and also Ovid:

Parue—nec inuideo—sine me, liber, ibis in urbem:

ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo!

uade, sed incultus, qualem decet exulis esse;

infelix habitum temporis huius habe. (Tristia 1.1.1-4, poet speaks)

Missus in hanc uenio timide liber exulis urbem

da placidam fesso, lector amice, manum;

neue reformida, ne sim tibi forte pudori:

nullus in hac charta uersus amare docet.

Haec domini fortuna mei est, ut debeat illam

infelix nullis dissimulare iocis. (Tristia 3.1.1-6, book speaks)

puer = ‘son’ = ‘book’:

Nec me, quae doctis patuerunt prima libellis,

atria Libertas tangere passa sua est.

In genus auctoris miseri fortuna redundat,

et patimur nati, quam tulit ipse, fugam (Tristia 3.1.71-4, book speaks)

puer = ‘son’ = ‘slave’ = ‘book’:

orba parente suo quicumque uolumina tangis,

his saltem uestra detur in urbe locus.

quoque magis faueas, non haec sunt edita ab ipso,

sed quasi de domini funere rapta sui. (Tristia 1.7.35-38, poet speaks)

Persicos … apparatus

Callimachus Aetia fr.1.17-18 Pfeiffer:

ἔλλετε Βασκανίης ὀλοὸν γένος· αὖθι δὲ τέχνῃ Begone, destructive race of Envy; and judge

κρίνετε, μὴ σχοίνῳ Περσίδι τὴν σοφίην· Wisdom by art, not by the Persian chain …[distance]

Rejection of Persian epic size and complexity? apparatus = stylistic elaboration (cf. Fronto Ad Am 1.4.1 uerborum apparatum).

Choerilus of Samos, epic poem Persica, late 5c BCE

(Supplementum Hellenisticum 317), preface:

ἆ μάκαρ, ὅστις ἔην κεῖνον χρόνον ἴδρις ἀοιδῆς,

Μουσάων θεράπων, ὅτ᾽ ἀκήρατος ἦν ἔτι λειμών.

νῦν δ᾽ ὅτε πάντα δέδασται, ἔχουσι δὲ πείρατα τέχναι,

ὕστατοι ὥστε δρόμου καταλειπόμεθ᾽, οὐδέ πῃ ἔστι

πάντῃ παπταίνοντα νεοζυγὲς ἅρμα πελάσσαι.

Oh, blessed was he who was a skilled singer, a servant of the Muses, at that time when there was still a meadow inviolate. But now, when all things are divided up, and the arts have been limited, we are left behind, as it were, last in the race, and it is not possible for us, peering in all directions, to bring up a newly-yoked chariot.

Horace and the same issue of poetic novelty within an established genre? Allusion to famous metapoetical passage (partly quoted by Aristotle) in new metapoetical passage? Not unlikely that the Persica is the first epic on an event within the writer’s lifetime (Choerilus knew Herodotus according to the Suda), just as Horace’s is the first collection of Greek lyric in Latin; Choerilus’ preface may be leading up to mention of this innovation (cf. MacFarlane, K. A. ‘Choerilus of Samos' Lament (SH 317) and the Revitalization of Epic’, American Journal of Philology 130 (2009): 219-234).

nexae philyra coronae

Could the garland also represent a book (puer = book, his corona = style of book)? Cf. Gregson Davis, Polyhymnia: The Rhetoric of Horatian Lyric Discourse (1991) 118-21, comparing Odes 1.7.5-7:

sunt quibus unum opus est intactae Palladis urbem

carmine perpetuo celebrare et

undique decerptam fronti praeponere olivam

where the olive-garland might symbolise Pindar’s various poems for Athens (fr.74-77 S/M).

corona symbol of the epic of Ennius? cf. Lucretius 1.117-8

Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno

detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam

Propertius 4.1.

Ennius hirsuta cingat sua dicta corona:

mi folia ex hedera porrige, Bacche, tua,

This passage implies that Ennius’ garland was NOT of ivy (hedera) – was it of rougher lime-bast (philyra)?

Garland as (simple) collection and (simple) conclusion

The idea of a poetic collection as a garland – Meleager AP 4.1.1-6 (100-80 BCE):

Μοῦσα φίλα, τίνι τάνδε φέρεις πάγκαρπον ἀοιδάν;

ἢ τίς ὁ καὶ τεύξας ὑμνοθετᾶν στέφανον;

ἄνυσε μὲν Μελέαγρος, ἀριζάλῳ δὲ Διοκλεῖ

μναμόσυνον ταύταν ἐξεπόνησε χάριν,

πολλὰ μὲν ἐμπλέξας Ἀνύτης κρίνα, πολλὰ δὲ Μοιροῦς

λείρια, καὶ Σαπφοῦς βαιὰ μέν, ἀλλὰ ῥόδα·

Interesting links:

στέφανον / corona

male/male situation (Meleager for Diocles, Horace and puer).

interweaving (nexae philyra ~ πολλὰ μὲν ἐμπλέξας Ἀνύτης κρίνα)

rosa/ ῥόδα

simplici

Poetic virtue of simplicity: Ars Poetica 23 denique sit quodvis, simplex dumtaxat et unum.

myrtus

Ecl.7.62 formosae myrtus Veneri: erotic colour of first book of Odes and of this poem?

curo

the poetic cura of the artist: Ars Poetica 261 operae celeris nimium curaque carentis.

ministrum … bibentem

The boy/book provides drink/symposiastic material for the poet?

2: Odes 2.20: does the poet become a book as well as a bird?

Non usitata nec tenui ferar

penna biformis per liquidum aethera

vates neque in terris morabor

longius invidiaque maior

urbis relinquam. Non ego pauperum 5

sanguis parentum, non ego quem vocas,

dilecte Maecenas, obibo

nec Stygia cohibebor unda.

Iam iam residunt cruribus asperae

pelles et album mutor in alitem 10

superne nascunturque leves

per digitos umerosque plumae.

Iam Daedaleo ocior Icaro

uisam gementis litora Bosphori

Syrtisque Gaetulas canorus 15

ales Hyperboreosque campos.

Me Colchus et qui dissimulat metum

Marsae cohortis Dacus et ultimi

noscent Geloni, me peritus

discet Hiber Rhodanique potor. 20

Absint inani funere neniae

luctusque turpes et querimoniae;

conpesce clamorem ac sepulcri

mitte supervacuos honores.

1 non usitata: cf. Callimachus Ep. 28.4 Pf. σικχαίνω πάντα τὰ δημόσια, ‘I loathe everything that is publicly available’), Epistles 1.19.32-3 (Horace’s use of Alcaeus) Hunc ego, non alio dictum prius ore, Latinus / uolgaui fidicen. But a flying book would be especially unusual…

nec tenui: grander than Callimachus, seen as an elegiac/erotic poet ?

2 biformis: this is the final poem of the SECOND book of Odes.

1 ferar: three possible meanings:

bird-like flight (cf. Manilius 5.488),
physical transport of the volume to foreign countries (cf. Ep.1.13.13 portes)
Future voicing in recitation (cf. 3.30.10 dicar, OLD s.v. fero 33,34).

Iam iam residunt cruribus asperae

pelles et album mutor in alitem

superne nascunturque leves

per digitos umerosque plumae.

Possible references to the physical book which this poem concludes?

Rough fibres like those on a papyrus sheet?

Note that the koronis inserted by a papyrus scribe to mark the end of a text could be bird-shaped

P.Berol. inv. 9875 4/3 BCE [end of Timotheus Persae]

Me Colchus et qui dissimulat metum

Marsae cohortis Dacus et ultimi

noscent Geloni, me peritus

discet Hiber Rhodanique potor …

noscent and discent suggest memorising from a book read out by the master, the usual way of learning poetry in antiquity?

3: Odes 3.30 – the book as monument

Exegi monumentum aere perennius

regalique situ pyramidum altius,

quod non imber edax, non Aquilo inpotens

possit diruere aut innumerabilis

annorum series et fuga temporum. 5

Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei

vitabit Libitinam; usque ego postera

crescam laude recens, dum Capitolium

scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex.

Dicar, qua violens obstrepit Aufidus 10

et qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestium

regnavit populorum, ex humili potens

princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos

deduxisse modos. Sume superbiam

quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica 15

lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.