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Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2016
Extract
... mainly on commentators. But Horace can comment well on himself: so, for instance, when as a lover he describes his rival’s neck as rosea and his arms as cerea in Odes i. 13 the reader should know that he also describes himself as solibus aptus, and, when Damasippus or Davus or Lydia refers to ill temper, that he confesses himself to be irasci celerem (but happily—tarnen ut placabilis essem). He describes his successor in Pyrrha’s affections as gracilis (Odes i. 5. 1); the Life describes the poet as obesus. Horace often talks of himself—or appears to. Yet a many-sided personality finds expression in his poetry, and his self-revelation can be deceptive. In early years his life was adventurous and up-and-down (to be remembered when he talks of Fortuna); later it was quiet and contented, but all the time he was living among great events, and his poetry—particularly Epodes and Odes —is apt to reflect, and even arise from, the contemporary scene. Horace (unlike Virgil) is simply not to be understood apart from the history of the period.
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References
page no 1 note 1 Epist. i. 20. 24.
page no 1 note 2 Epist. i. 20. 25.
page no 1 note 3 cf. Epist. i. 4. 15: me pinguem et nitidum.
page no 1 note 4 A brief biography, derived in part from Suetonius, has survived from antiquity and is printed at the beginning of the Teubner text of F. Klingner (3rd ed. 1959). For an excellent exposition see Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford, 1957), Chapter 1 Google Scholar. The literary biography by Alfred Noyes (London, 1947) is worth mentioning.
page no 1 note 5 On various aspects of the ‘biographical fallacy’ see Rudd, Niall, ‘Style and the Man’, Phoenix xviii (1964), 216-31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page no 1 note 6 See Syme, R., The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1952)Google Scholar. This book can be an eyeopener, but its cynicism is false (even as a projection of Augustus’ attitude), especially when the writers of the period are treated as mere agents of propaganda. An excellent commentary on Augustus’ own account of his achievements, with a clear-headed introduction, is given by Brunt, P. A. and Moore, J. M., Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar. For a very brief outline, Williams, G., The Third Book of Horace’s ‘Odes’ (Oxford, 1969), 2-6Google Scholar.
page no 1 note 7 Good remarks in West, David, Reading Horace (Edinburgh, 1967), Chapter 11 Google Scholar, ‘General Principles’. This perceptive book, though fragmentary and occasionally over-enthusiastic, is essential reading for anyone interested in Horace.
page no 1 note 8 See, for instance, Fraenkel, Horace, Index s.v. ‘Horace, never lies’, and e.g. p. 200 (on Odes ii. 19): ‘I think Horace means what he says. He did see Dionysus. . . .’ It is unnecessary to refer to romantic accounts of Horace’s loves like Pivo, P., Horace, martyre d’amour (Paris, 1936)Google Scholar.
page no 1 note 9 For example, most recently Nisbet, R. G. M. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace Odes i (Oxford, 1970), p. 216 Google Scholar: ‘we must not think of her [Tyndaris] as an actual person . . .’; p. 238 ‘needless to say the ode [i. 19] has no bearing on real life ... it is not about a girl but about literature and Horace ‘; p. 263 ‘there was no such person as Lalage . . .’; p. 291 (on i. 25) ‘of course the unreality of the situation is obvious . . . Horace does not even persuade us, as do Catullus and Propertius, that his conventional formulas reflect real feelings. He is simply exhibiting his usual virtuosity in weaving together diverse poetical strands.’
page no 2 note 1 Because both are essentially treating the poems as historical documents—and draw-opposite (and irrelevant) conclusions from them.
page no 2 note 2 On this see, for instance, Allen, H. W., ‘Sunt qui Propertium malint’ in Critical Essays on Roman Literature: Elegy and Lyric, ed. Sullivan, J. P. (London, 1962), 107-48Google Scholar, and West, op. cit. 3 ff.
page no 2 note 3 The third is to serve the researches of scholars working in different fields who may hit on just the piece of information they need. On ‘parallels’ in general, see Wellek, R. and Warren, A., Theory of Literature (London, 1963), 258 Google Scholar f. (and notes).
page no 2 note 4 An outstanding—and absurd but ingenious—attempt is Campbell, A. Y., Horace: Odes and Epodes2 (Liverpool, 1953)Google Scholar.
page no 2 note 5 See, for instance, Nisbet-Hubbard, op. cit., p. 295, where they support Bentley’s emendation of i. 25. 7 longos . . . noctes and themselves try to take the plural as referring to one night. But the poet is quoting—and exaggerating—what the door used to hear in a golden past, and it means ‘long night after night’. Certainly no other poet said this in this type of poem. Why should he ?
page no 2 note 6 For example, Nisbet-Hubbard, op. cit., p. 61 (on i. 4) ‘It looks as if this line of thought had wider currency in Hellenistic poetry than our surviving fragments would immediately suggest . . .’; p. 117 (on i. 9) ‘the contradiction may be derived from Horace’s sources . . .’; p. 135 (on i. 11) ‘Horace may be using a motif from a lost Greek prototype .. . ’, etc.
page no 3 note 1 In providing the basic information the edition of Odes i by Nisbet and Hubbard supersedes all others, and my use of it to illustrate attitudes which I consider wrong conceals my admiration for a most useful work.
page no 3 note 2 On the strict criteria needed for allusion and imitation see Lee, A. G., ‘Allusion, Parody and Imitation’ (The St. John’s College, Cambridge, Lecture 1970-71Google Scholar; University of Hull, 1971).
page no 3 note 3 See Pöschl, Viktor, Horazische Lyrik (Heidelberg, 1970), 9–16 Google Scholar.
page no 3 note 4 Many works could be mentioned, but it is worth recalling an unpretentious essay, ‘The Odes of Horace’ by Bowra, C. M., printed in Horizon and reprinted in The Golden Horizon, ed. Connolly, Cyril (London, 1953), 438-54Google Scholar.
page no 3 note 5 See p. 8 below. Odes ii. 12 is probably another example: see Williams, TORP, 302 f. On Epodes 13 see p. 13 n. 3 below. Odes i. 14 is a certain example (p. 30 below).
page no 3 note 6 For this process in Roman poetry see G. Williams, TORP, Chapter 5, ‘The Blending of Greek and Roman.’
page no 3 note 7 The Road to Xanadu2 (London, 1951) is a fascinating piece of literary detective work based on indications of Coleridge’s reading in his Notebooks.
page no 3 note 8 But disciplined, informed criticism. Far too much has been written on Horace in recent years that is a mere record of the reader’s mental (and even emotional) vagaries. There are sensible remarks and ideas, with a useful bibliography, in Segal, Charles, ‘Ancient Texts and Modern Literary Criticism’, Arethusa i (1968), 1–25 Google Scholar.
page no 3 note 9 For instance, where choice is possible, Nisbet-Hubbard tend to recommend banal and obvious readings: e.g. i. 5. 16 deae (Zielinski: deo MSS.); 12. 57 laetum (latum equally attested); 28. 21 rabidus (rapidas most MSS.); 32. 15 medicumque (Lachmann: mini cumque MSS.). Cf. their ‘Introduction’, p. xxii: ‘. . . he does not evoke more than he says. His metaphors are sparse and trite. . . .’
page no 4 note 1 The substitution of questions about imponderables like the poet’s independence betrays the same confusion as that indicated above, p. 1. n. 3 and p. 2 n. 1: cf. Nisbet Hubbard, xviii: ‘The test of independence must always remain “Was he in any position to say the opposite ?” ’ This attitude leads to artificial separation of the political poems: Nisbet-Hubbard, xviii: ‘The virtues of irony and sense, that distinguish Horace from most poets, desert him in the political odes; this astute and realistic man, who had lived through such remarkable events, cannot comment on them with intelligence’. But are Horace’s distinguishing virtues ‘irony and sense’? Did contemporaries perhaps have a different view of the political scene from that expressed by Syme?
page no 4 note 2 Fraenkel’s favourite ode was iv. 5 (Horace, 443 n. 1).
page no 4 note 3 Nisbet-Hubbard praise i. 8, 11, 16, 27, 29, and 33.
page no 4 note 4 I apologize to readers for frequent reference to: Williams, G., Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968)Google Scholar, abbreviated as ‘Williams, TORP (there is a short version, The Nature of Roman Poetry [Oxford, 1970], OPUS 49); and to Williams, G., The Third Book of Horace’s ‘Odes’ (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar, abbreviated as ‘Williams, Odes;iii’. In a work like this, not only is the viewpoint personal, but brevity outweighs modesty.
page no 4 note 5 Of general books on Horace, mostly not mentioned elsewhere in this essay, two in English are outstanding: Campbell, A. Y., Horace: A New Interpretation (London, 1925)Google Scholar, and Wilkinson, L. P., Horace and his Lyric Poetry (Cambridge, 1945)Google Scholar. Also requiring mention are Sellar, W. Y., Horace and the Elegiac Poets (Oxford, 1892)Google Scholar, D’Alton, J. F., Horace and his Age (London, 1917)Google Scholar, Pasquali, G., Orazio lirico (Florence, 1920)Google Scholar, Penna, A. La, Orazio e l’ideologia del principato (Turin, 1963)Google Scholar, Newman, J. K., Augustus and the New Poetry (Collection Latomus LXXXVIII: Brussels, 1967)Google Scholar, Newman, J. K., The Concept of Vates in Augustan Poetry (Collection Latomus LXXXIX: Brussels, 1967)Google Scholar, Reckford, K. J., Horace (World Authors 73: New York, 1969)Google Scholar. There is a useful bibliography of works published 1945-57 in CW (1959), 167 ff. and 246 ff. (by R. J. Getty); and a bibliography on each work and poem is given in the Appendices by E. Burck to each of the three volumes of the commentary of Kiessling-Heinze10(1960).
page no 4 note 6 Especially by Rudd, Niall, The Satires of Horace (Cambridge, 1966)Google Scholar, and McGann, M. J., Studies in Horace’s First Book of Epistles (Collection Latomus C: Brussels, 1969)Google Scholar.