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Ethics and Poetry in Horace's Odes: II 1.7;2.9)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

C. W. Macleod
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Extract

In a previous paper (Greece & Rome 26 (1979), 21–31) I began to consider how Horace in the Odes gives poetic shape to moral philosophy, or reflections on how to live. This article tries to take the same topic a little further. The poems considered there were close to the teachings of Epicurus; the ones treated here are less markedly so. But Horace's ethics, like his poetic imitatio as a whole, are not a slavish reproduction, but a re-creation. They are, moreover, as is proper, related to his life and work as a poet: Odes 1.31 is the most overt expression of this, but by no means the only one. It is strikingly true of Odes 1.7 and 2.9 because both echo in a significant and original way the aesthetic programme of Callimachus, giving it, as Horace often does, an ethical dimension.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , October 1981 , pp. 141 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1981

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References

Notes

1. For this general notion see Cody, J. V., Horace and Callimachean Aesthetics (Brussels, 1976)Google Scholar, though his way of applying it to particular poems does not always convince: he is best on Sat. 2.6. See also Nisbet-Hubbard on Od. 2.16.34–9: furthermore, the comparison of Horace and Tithonus in that poem (line 30) recalls Callimachus' comparison of himself and the cicada (Aet. 1.32–6; minuit corresponds to οὑλαχς); and ‘Parca non mendax’ recalls both the faithful friendship of Callimachus' Muses (Aet. 1.37–8) and the phrase π' ληθεα in Theoc. 7.45, which contrasts the everyday truth of Theocritean poetry with the grandiose fictions of epic mythography: 3.16.30, ‘segetis certa fides meae’ also echoes these passages. For useful, if rather casual, assemblages of material on this topic, see Mette, H. J., MH 18 (1961), 136–9Google Scholar = (ed.) Oppermann, H., Wege zu Horaz (Darmstadt, 1972), pp. 220–4Google Scholar; Bramble, J., Persius and the Programmatic Satire (Cambridge, 1974), p. 162CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Another nest of Callimachean allusions with ethical overtones is Od. 3.16.29–42; and the reminiscences of Callimachus in Od. 3.1.1–6 introduce a poem which is ‘original’ because its poet is a public moralist.

Horace's ethical exploitation of Callimachus – which sometimes includes humorous criticism of the master – continues in the Epistles, poems whose whole concern is with quid verum atque decens. See McGann, M. J., RM 97 (1954), 350Google Scholar and Ed. Fraenkel, , MH 26 (1969), 113–4Google Scholar on Ep. 2.2.70–80; CQ 27 (1977), 362–3, 364, 372–3Google Scholar on Ep. 1.3.8–14 and 1.19.1–11, 32–45 (cf. also 20–21 with Aet. 1.25–8; Epig. 7.1); ZPE 23 (1976), 41–3Google Scholar on Ep. 1.18.47–8. Note further 1.7.44–5, 'parvum parva decent: mihi iam non regia Roma/sed vacuum Tibur placet aut imbelle Tarentum'beside both Aet. 1.1–6 and a fragment, 475 Pfeiffer, adduced by Orelli-Baiter ad loc, which has now found a context, though a scrappy one, in a papyrus published by Meillier, C., REG 89 (1976), 74–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and 1.20.1–13 beside Epig. 28: see further JRS 69 (1979), 23–4Google Scholar.

2. Cf. Nisbet-Hubbard, p. 92. Note further Dio Chrys. 33.1–2; Greek Literary Papyri(Loeb), ed. D. L. Page, 140 (b), 19–23.

3. Cf. Nisbet-Hubbard on line 5. But I doubt if Euphorion's Mοψοπα belongs in this category. Its alternative title, “τακτα, suggests rather a Callimachean ποικιλα, which is in keeping with what we know of Euphorion; and there is no particular reason to think it was encomiastic.

4. Cf. 2.1.42; Virg. G. 334–6 – the laudes Augusti going back to the Trojan origins of the gens Iulia. On this aspect of Prop. 4.1, cf. Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 1 (1976), pp. 141–53Google Scholar. Propertius, in speaking of a poem which would combine Roman oma with Roman history, has in mind the Aeneid as a model. But Virgil too, though his work is an epic which spans the tale of the city from Troy to Augustus, wisely avoids a carmen perpetuum, no less than Callimachus or Horace do.

5. Cf. e.g. Od. 1.6.1–2; 4.9.25–8; Sat. 2.1.10–15; Thuc. 2.41.4; Synesius, On Dreams 20. For epic encomia on cities and the honours, including crowns, which their writers were given, see Dittenberger, W., Sylloge Inscriptionum gracearum 3699, 721, 1059.46Google Scholar; Powell, J. U. and Barber, E. A., New Chapters in the History of Greek Literature: Second Series (Oxford, 1929), 39–40Google Scholar. Such poets could no doubt win crowns in a number of places: cf. ‘unique decerptam…coronam.’

6. Note also Kambylis, A., Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik (1965), pp. 72–5Google Scholar.

7. Cf. Syndikus, H-P., Die Lyrik des Horaz 1 (Darmstadt, 1972), p. 97Google Scholar.

8. See further Nisbet-Hubbard on 1.1.30 and 2.1.39. Also e.g. Ov. Am. 3.1.1–4.

9. The words used of the Olympic victor in lines 5–6 (‘palmaque nobilis/terrarum dominos evehit ad deos’) are echoed by those used of the poet in lines 29–30 (‘me doctarum hederae praemia frontium/dis miscent superis’). Likewise, the idler of lines 19–22 is like Horace as he represents himself in some of the Odes: cf. Nisbet-Hubbard on line 22, though they are wrong to imply that this is a matter of coincidence or convention. If Horace, while claiming a special fame as a lyric poet, at the same time reveals his common humanity, that is altogether characteristic of him and in keeping with his view of his lyric models: cf. Woodman, A. and West, D. A. (ed.) Creative imitation in Latin literature (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 89–94Google Scholar; Nisbet-Hubbard, on Od. 2.13 (p. 205)Google Scholar.

10. Cf. CQ 27 (1977), 368–9Google Scholar. Also Anacreontea 26.1–3.

11. Cf. Elder, J. P., CPh 48 (1953), 3–5Google Scholar; Syndikus, , op. cit., I pp. 95–6Google Scholar. Nisbet-Hubbard's objection to this view (p. 44) is flat-footed, because they do not consider how the argument of the poem unfolds: Horace's purpose is not to say only that he prefers Tibur.

12. Cf. JRS 69 (1979), 25Google Scholar.

13. This is a theme typical of consolationes: cf. Hom. Il. 24.522–51; Cic. Tusc. 3.60, 70; [Plut.] Cons, ad Ap. 5, again with a comparison drawn from the weather.

14. But he need not really have been on campaign when Odes 1.7 was written. In fact, in comparing Plancus to Teucer, Horace may well be thinking rather of his past, which included the foundation of two cities (ILS 886); for he does not seem to have been active abroad after 32 B.C. More relevant to the addressee now may be the praises of Tibur: cf. Nisbet-Hubbard, p. 91 (bottom).

15. We do not know what Virgil took from Naevius, who Servius tells us was behind this passage: cf. Nisbet-Hubbard on line 30. And the similarities between Virgil and Horace could be the result of some kind of exchange, since the two men were friends.

16. So also in Aen. 2.780 (Creusa's words to Aeneas), ‘longa tibi exilia, et vastum maris aequor arandum'. Fogelmark, S., HSCPh 79 (1975), 149–62Google Scholar studies a wide range of similar expressions. Note also Ponte, Mozart-Da, Cosi fan tutte II. iiGoogle Scholar, ‘Nel mare solca/e nell'arena semina/… chi fonda sue speranze/in cor di femmina1’.

17. For a lucid (and sceptical) account of the question see Vaio, J., CPh 61 (1966), 172–3Google Scholar. Another place where Horace must be drawing on the Aeneid is Odes 3.3.17–68. The words of Juno in Aeneid 12.819–28 cap a major theme in the whole epic, the need that Rome should not be a second Troy (recidiva Pergama): it is very unlikely that Virgil should have taken from one ode of Horace something so pervasive in the Aeneid.

18. See Schmid, B., Studien zu den griechischen Ktisissagen (Diss. Fribourg-en-Suisse, 1947)Google Scholar; Cairns, F., Tibullus (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 68–86Google Scholar.

19. For these and other unifying elements see Vaio, , op. cit., 169–70Google Scholar. But he does not comment on their weight or meaning.

20. Cf. Syndikus, , op. cit., p. 105Google Scholar.

21. I take it that Mystes really is dead, not lost to another man – or to the opposite sex like Gallus' Hylas in Prop. 1.20. Perhaps he existed only in Valgius' poems; but if he was real, that would not make the ode far too heartless' (Nisbet-Hubbard, p. 136). Horace's ode does not condole, because Valgius' elegy had already lamented enough.

22. Cf. G&R 26 (1979), 26–7Google Scholar; JRS 69 (1979), 25Google Scholar.

23. Esteve-Forriol, J., Die Trauer-und Trostgedichte in der romischen Literatur (Diss. Munich, 1962), pp. 34–5Google Scholar suggests that Valgius himself had echoed both the Cinna and the Callimachus fragments in his lament for Mystes. That is an attractive possibility, though unprovable.

24. Cf. Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc. and e.g. Prop. 2.1.2. For similar play on words for ‘soft’ and ‘hard’, see CQ 23 (1973), 301 n. 4Google Scholar.

25. The ‘we’ of cantemus expresses benign encouragement; it does not literally mean that Horace intends to form a laudatory duet with Valgius: see Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc.

26. Diog. Laert. 2.89 mentions that the Cyrenaics did not think all pleasure of bodily origin, κα γρ π ψτλῇ τῇ τῇς πατρδος εὺηυρα ὢςπερ τῇ ἰδα χαρν γγενσθαι.

27. Cf. Estéve-Forriol, , op. cit., p. 37Google Scholar. But we do not know that Valgius' treatise came out before Odes 2.9.

28. Nova is the more pointed because Augustus' deeds in the East were not so very recent: cf. Nisbet-Hubbard, p. 138.

29. No doubt Horace also has in mind Achilles' battle with the river Scamander in Iliad 21: Scamander, who overflows and routs his human adversary, is compelled to retire only by the god Hephaestus, whereas Augustus alone beats down the Euphrates. It is a convention of encomium to show how its subject surpasses the heroes of myth: cf. Virg. Aen. 6.801–5 and Norden, E., RM 54 (1899), p. 468Google Scholar = Kleine Schriften (Berlin, 1966), p. 424Google Scholar; also Ov. Fasti 2.133–44.

30. For a sensitive and thorough exegesis of this passage, see Buchheit, V., Der Anspruch des Dichters in Vergils Georgika (Darmstadt, 1972), pp. 103–59Google Scholar. It is clearly in Horace's mind here: see G. 3.30–3 with Od. 2.9.19–24, and Nisbet-Hubbard, pp. 137–8.

31. The poet's victory over the Envy which assails him is another Callimachean motif: cf. Aet. 1.17; H. 2.105–13; Epig. 21.4.

32. On this passage see CQ 27 (1977), 367–72Google Scholar; and on the notion of ‘control’ in literary contexts, North, H., CPh 43 (1948), 11–17Google Scholar.

33. I owe helpful comments on a draft of this paper to Hugh Lloyd-Jones, R. G. M. Nisbet, P. J. Parsons, and R. B. Rutherford.