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Voces Liqvatae: A Re-Reading of Horace's Ode 3.29
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
Extract
- In hujus carminis percensendis celebrandisque virtutibus facile deficias vel si tibi linguae centum atque ora sient totidem vocesque Iiquatae.
- G. Mitscherlich
A. W. Verrall wrote in 1884 that Horace's great Maecenas-ode, 3.29, was ‘insipid’ in its most philosophic moments if it was read only for its apparent meaning, that is, as a lecture on a philosophy of life. Especially because of the so-called Murena affair of 22 B.C., Verrall thought that to read 3.29 only as a pedagogical exercise was to stretch our very understanding of Horace's greatness: ‘… if he was a lyrical poet [his italics] at all, … the question of “before or after the year 22” goes to the essence of his work.’ Yet received opinion, formed almost exclusively since Verrall wrote, has read the ode precisely in the way Verrall thought made it sound insipid, as affirming a philosophy of life. Virtually no one has followed the dramatic and compelling lines of argumentation Verrall has laid out in his study of the ode. As a result, both the virtuosity as well as the drama of 3.29 have suffered from a lack of close attention.
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- Copyright © Aureal Publications 1988
References
1. Mitscherlich, G. (ed.), Q Horatii Flacci Opera (Reutlingae 1816), 277Google Scholar.
2. Verrall, A. W., Studies Literary and Historical in the Odes of Horace (London 1884), 66Google Scholar.
3. Verrall (n.2 above), 26.
4. See Kiessling, Adolph (ed.), Q, Horatius Flaccus, Oden und Epoden (Berlin 1884), i.273Google Scholar; Wickham, Edward C. (ed.), Quinti Horati Flacci Opera Omnia: The Works of Horace (Oxford 1896), i. 272Google Scholar; Plessis, Frédéric (ed.), Odes, Épodes, et Chant Seculaire (Paris 1924, repr. 1966), 258Google Scholar; Villeneuve, F., Horace: Odes et Epodes (Paris 1927), i. 144–47Google Scholar; Fossataro, Paola, ‘L’Ode III 29 e le opinioni morali e religiose di Orazio’, Atene e Roma n.s. 2 (Jan-March, 1921), 50–56Google Scholar, esp. 55; Fraenkel, Eduard, Horace (Oxford 1957, repr. 1980), 223–29Google Scholar; Arnaldi, Francesco, Orazio: Odi ed Epodi (Milan 1959), 238–40Google Scholar; Hornsby, Roger A., ‘Horace, Ode 3.29’ CJ (1958), 129–36Google Scholar; and Pöschl, Viktor, Horazische Lyrik: Interpretationen (Heidelberg 1970), 198–245Google Scholar.
5. There are four exceptions. Garnsey, E. R. (ed.), The Odes of Horace (London 1907), 195Google Scholar, also reads the Murena affair in the ode; Williams, Gordon (ed.), The Third Book of Horace’s Odes (Oxford 1969), 148Google Scholar, is very good on questioning philosophical language in the ode; Johnson, W. R., The Idea of Lyric (Berkeley 1983), 142–44Google Scholar, offers an evocative rendering of 3.29 along Verrall’s lines, and emphasises the spiritual qualities of the ode; finally, Connor, Peter, Horace’s Lyric Poetry: The Force of Humour (Berwick, Vic, 1987), 132–40Google Scholar, shows that it is the interplay of varying tonal qualities, not the presentation of a particular philosophical position, that gives this poem its ‘true worth’ (134).
6. Fraenkel (n.4 above), 223. In general Fraenkel reads 3.29 as a playful invitation piece and he is very blatant about the formal philosophic elements at play there: ‘Horace’s own contribution to the treatment of the traditional maxims … consists in his harmonious blending of topics … derived from very old poetry … with ideas and illustrations developed in popular philosophy [my emphasis], especially during the Hellenistic period.’ Shortly afterwards (226), Fraenkel uses the words of ‘a follower of the doctrine of Epicurus’ to help set the context of the idea of happiness in the ode. Kiessling (n.4 above), 273, writing in the last century, is very clear in citing both Stoicism and Epicureanism in his reading. He says that ‘entwickelt die Ode gleich jener zu guter Letzt die Weisheit der Resignation und das Glück’, where ‘Resignation’ should be read to mean Stoicism and ‘Glük’ to mean Epicureanism (he writes of a comparison of 3.16 to 3.29). Hornsby (n.4 above), 135, has most openly affirmed the carpe diem motif in the ode: ‘That he [Horace] regarded what has come to become the carpe diem philosophy as the best means whereby man can live, cannot be doubted.’
7. All Horatian passages are taken from Wickham’s, EdwardQ. Horati Flacci Opera (Oxford 1901)Google Scholar, with an occasional punctuation change. Translations are from Shepherd, W. G., Horace, the Complete Odes and Epodes with the Centennial Hymn (Harmondsworth 1983)Google Scholar.
8. Villeneuve (n.4 above), 146f. n.2, is able to assume (in 1927) that these Stoic elements are commonly accepted in the ode. Fossataro (n.4 above), 55, calls Horace a ‘moral Epicurean’ but a ‘religious Stoic’.
9. Villeneuve (n.4 above), 147, cites these Epicurean strains. But Arnaldi (n.4 above), 238, goes even further in saying that Tepicureismo oraziano ha qui raggiunto la sua espressione più complessa’. Pöschl (n.4 above), 198–245, is perhaps the firmest of those who see Epicureanism in the ode. He was in fact criticised on just this score by his reviewer Williams, Gordon, CR n.s. 22 (1972), 273Google Scholar: ‘… but this book creates the suspicion that [Pöschl] makes Horace out to be a far more committed Epicurean than the poet seems to admit.’ Pierre Grimal said much the same thing in his review (REA 64 [1962], 208Google Scholar) of Pöschl’s, smaller work Die grosse Maecenasode des Horaz (C. 3.29) (Heidelberg 1961)Google Scholar: ‘[Mais] ce poème nous semble légèrement hors de place dans la serie didactique ou Pöschl l’insère’. See also the review by Blazquez, J. M., Emerita 30 (1962), 344Google Scholar.
10. Thus while Kiessling (n.4 above), 273, Fossataro (n.4 above), 55, and Villeneuve (n.4 above), 144–47, see both strains in the ode, Pöschl (n.4 above), 198–245, Hornsby (n.4 above), 129–36, Arnaldi (n.4 above), 238–40, and Fraenkel (n.4 above), 223–29, emphasise only the Epicureanism of the ode.
11. On the various aspects of this intimacy and conventionality see Fraenkel (n.4 above), 225; Wickham (n.4 above), 272; Pöschl (n.4 above), 205; Connor (n.5 above), 134.
12. See n. 7 above on the perceived Stoicism of this line.
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14. Williams (n.5 above), 149, has offered this reading. Fraenkel (n.4 above), 226, suggests it also. See also Connor (n.5 above), 139.
15. Some may object to the idea that Horace could consider Greek philosophies to be eastern, but it may be that ‘eastern’ here, though it does in fact point to a datum of geography, more generally suggests distance and separation. However, that the precise direction Horace uses to suggest distance and separation just happens to point towards Greece seems to me to be too neat to be merely coincidence.
16. Verrall (n.2 above), 66f.
17. The phrase has received unnecessary attention. Fraenkel (n.4 above), 225, thinks it is said ‘with a smile’, while Villeneuve (n.4 above), 144, reads the term as implying moral and philosophic seriousness. Pöschl (n.4 above), 205, on the other hand, claims it represents Huldigung. See also Connor (n.5 above), 134. On Maecenas’ preferred title, see Wickham (n.4 above), 272.
18. Alphée Motheau, tr., Oeuvres d’Horace (Paris 1905), 125, translates eripe te morae as ‘allons, plus de retard’. Pöschl’s translation (n.4 above), 199, is ‘entreiss dich dem Säumen’; Turolla, Enrico, tr., Q. Orazio Flacco, Le Odi (Turin 1962), 322Google Scholar, translates it as ‘strappati da ogni indugio’; Bennett’s, translation in the Loeb edition (London and New York 1918), 272Google Scholar, is ‘delay no more’.
19. Hornsby (n.4 above), 130 and 136 n.6.
20. Bennett’s ‘abandon’ (n.19 above), 273, is probably strong enough, as is Pöschl’s ‘verlass’ (n.4 above), 199; but Motheau’s ‘laisse’ (n.18 above), 125, and Turolla’s ‘lascia’ (n.18 above), 322, are probably not.
21. Riedel, Wilhelm, ‘Zu Horaz Carm. 3.29.17’, Philologus n.s. 49 (1943), 308fGoogle Scholar., sums up earlier uses of pater.
22. Drexler, Hans, ‘Horaz Carmina 3.29, 21–24’, SO 44 (1969), 61–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses the sixth strophe in terms of symbolism. Bomer, Franz, ‘Zu Hor. Carm. III.29.23 (horridus Silvanus)’, Gymnasium 64 (1957), 111fGoogle Scholar., discusses the evil qualities implied in horridus.
23. Kidd, D. A., ‘Two Notes on Horace, 2: et Stella vesani Leonis (Odes iii.29.19)’, CR 63 (1949), 8fGoogle Scholar.
24. On the details of these geographical features, see Bennett, , Horace, Odes and Epodes (New Rochelle, NY, 1981), 197Google Scholar and 359f.
25. The debate about the precise date of the Murena affair is not important for my argument. It does not matter one way or the other for the meaning of this ode whether the affair took place in 22 or 23 B.C., but the accepted dating of this ode at 29 B.C. seems — given the internal evidence — much too early (for this date see Bennett [n.24 above], 126). Dating this poem at 23 B.C., on the other hand, places it among the last of the odes to be written, since Horace published Books 1–3 in that very year, and clearly it would appear to be among Horace’s latest compositions anyway, since it is among the most accomplished metrically and rhetorically of all the odes. (This also could prove that this is the correct date of the Murena affair, since we know Horace published Books 1–3 in 23 B.C. thereby ruling out 22 B.C. as a possible date; but historians are not likely to find the phenomenological evidence in 3.29 to their liking.) Horace seems to have known Murena, since he mentions (what scholars presume to be) his name in 2.10. There is good evidence, in fact, to link 2.10, which contains a prophetic warning to Murena in strophe 3 (cf. Connor [n.5 above], 166), to 3.29, in the sense that both deal with danger and doom to greater and lesser degrees. The precise date of the Murena affair remains controversial and unsolved, as evidenced most recently by the spate of articles debating the topic. Of the almost two dozen articles, the following are most comprehensive and offer in their notes a complete bibliography: Jameson, Shelagh, ‘22 or 23’, Historia 18 (1969), 204–29Google Scholar; Bauman, R. A., ‘Tiberius and Murena’, Historia 15 (1966), 420–32Google Scholar; Stockton, David, ‘Primus and Murena’, Historia 14 (1965), 18–29Google Scholar; Atkinson, Kathleen, ‘Constitutional and Legal Aspects of the Trials of Marcus Primus and Varro Murena’, Historia 9 (1960), 444–73Google Scholar; and — the earliest of the articles — Hanslik, R., ‘Horaz und Varro Murena’, RhM 96 (1953), 282–300Google Scholar.
26. On this phrase, see Verrall (n.2 above), 67; Garnsey (n.5 above), 195f.