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Horace C. 3. 30: The Lyricist as Hero

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Michael C. J. Putnam
Michael C. J. Putnam*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

      Exegi monumentum aere perennius
      regalique situ pyramidum altius,
      quod non imber edax, non aquilo impotens
      possit diruere aut innumerabilis
      annorum series et fuga temporum. 5
      non omnis moriar multaque pars mei
      vitabit Libitinam: usque ego poster a
      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.

(I have finished a monument more lasting than bronze and loftier than the pyramids' royal pile, one that no wasting rain, no furious north wind can destroy, or the countless chain of years and the ages' flight. I shall not altogether die, but a mighty part of me shall escape the death-goddess. On and on shall I grow, ever fresh with the glory of after time: so long as the pontiff climbs the Capitol with the silent Vestal, I, risen high from low estate, where wild Aufidus thunders and where Daunus in a parched land once ruled o'er a peasant folk, shall be famed for having been the first to adapt Aeolian song to Italian verse. Accept the proud honour won by thy merits, Melpomene, and graciously crown my locks with Delphic bays.) (Bennett)

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , 1973 , pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1973

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References

1. For another recent critique of this poem see Pöschl, V., ‘Die Horazode Exegi Monumentum (c. 3. 30)’, GIF 20 (1967), 261–72Google Scholar (reprinted in Horazische Lyrik: lnterpretationen [Heidelberg, 1970], 248–62Google Scholar).

2. A point made by Commager, S., The Odes of Horace (New Haven, 1962), 313Google Scholar.

3. On c. 1. 38 see especially Reckford, K.Horace (New York, 1969), 12ffGoogle Scholar.; Owen Lee, M., Word, Sound, and Image in the Odes of Horace (Ann Arbor, 1969), 90ffGoogle Scholar.

4. Prop. 3. 1. 8 Cf. Hor. e. 2. 1. 7; Ovid M. 15. 871. For exigo specifically in relation to time see c. 3. 22. 6 (exactos annos). The many parallels between c. 3. 30 and Prop. 3. 1 and 3. 2 have been discussed by Butler, and Barber, (The Elegies of Propertius [Oxford, 1933], xxivGoogle Scholar) who maintain that Propertius is the imitator and that therefore book 3 of the elegies was logically published in 22, a year after Odes 1–3. The relative chronology, however, must still remain in doubt.

5. On monumentum and the immortality of works of literature, prose as well as poetry, see Suerbaum, W., Untersuchungen zur Selbstdarstellimg älterer römischer Dichter = Spudasmata v. 19 (Hildesheim, 1968), 327fGoogle Scholar.

6. That such a play on words was not beneath Horace may perhaps be seen at s. 1. 2. 36f. where the mention of a certain Cupiennius is immediately followed by a parodic reference to Ennius himself.

7. Re. Suerbaum, op. cit. 167; Pöschl, op. cit. 261f. Both add Isoc. Amid. 7 to the traditional citations but the orator’s point is the beauty, not the endurance of bronze.

8. On the relationship of c. 3. 30 to its predecessor, a relationship partially defined in the change from fugiens hora (c. 3. 29. 48) to fuga temporicm, see Commager, op. cit. 315.

9. Re. Suerbaum, op. cit. 166 and 326f. for other possible parallels.

10. For further discussion see Edwards, I. E. S., The Pyramids of Egypt (London, 1961), 234ffGoogle Scholar.; Mendelssohn, K. ‘A Scientist looks at the Pyramids’, American Scientist 59 (1971), 210–20Google Scholar, esp. 218.

11. A reference to Cleopatra in c. 3. 30 is also suggested by Trencsényi-Walda-pfel, I. ‘Regalique situ pyramidum altius’, Act. Ant. Hung. 12 (1964), 149–167Google Scholar.

12. The topos of ‘freshness’ is discussed in detail by Pöschl, op. cit. 262–3 and n. 4.

13. The analogy of the Capitolium and immortality is used contemporaneously by Virgil (Aen. 9. 446–49), a point made by Williams, G. W. (Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry [Oxford, 1968], 152Google Scholar) to emphasize Horace’s Romanness. See also Borzak, I., ‘Exegi monumentum aere perennius’, Act. Ant. Hung. 12 (1964) 137–47Google Scholar.

14. On the ‘indefinitely recoverable, indefinitely repeatable’ quality of sacred time, see Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane (New York, 1959), 68ffGoogle Scholar. For a detailed discussion of notions of eternity see Meyerhoff, H., Time in Literature (Berkeley, 1955), 89ffGoogle Scholar.

15. Williams, op. cit. 152f. and 367, evokes a lowly village where Horace was born. Re. also ibid., The Third Book of Horace’s Odes (Oxford, 1969), 151Google Scholar (‘The obscure little town in which he was born’) and 152 (‘his humble home-town’).

16. Cf. the use of violens of a victorious horse at e. 1. 10. 37.

17. Cf. Hartmann, G. ‘Toward Literary History’, Daedalus 99 (1970), 355–83Google Scholar, esp. 369ff., reprinted in Beyond Formalism (New Haven, 1970), 356–86Google Scholar.

18. For those who see princeps as only primus, Catullus’ sapphic poems are the stumbling block (see G. Williams Horace’s Odes, 151; Ferguson, J. ‘Catullus and Horace’, AJP 77 [1956], 1–18Google Scholar, esp. 3f.). Horace attacks the problem of his originality in e. 1. 19 calling himself again princeps (21), apparently in general, and primus (23), with particular reference to Archilochus and the Epodes. At e. 1. 19. 32 he singles out Alcaeus as the poet whom he especially celebrates and at e. 2. 2. 99 he is already known as Alcaeus. For further hints on his preferences among the Greek lyricists see c. 1. 32. 3ff. and 2. 13. 30.

19. See the notes of Brunt, P. A. and Moore, J. M. (edd. Res Gestae Divi Augusti [Oxford, 1967]Google Scholar) to 13, 30. 1, 32. 3, esp. pp. 79f. and 83f. For more general discussion see Gwosdz, A., Der Begriff des römischer princeps (Diss. Breslau, 1933Google Scholar); Syme, R., The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), 311Google Scholar.

20. The reversal is treated only as an example of hypallage by M. Owen Lee in his sensitive discussions of the poem (op. cit. 15; cf. also 6, 50).

21. For deducere in this sense see Vir. eel. 3. 46 and 6. 71 (cantando rigidas deducere montibus ornos, ‘by singing to draw the stubborn ash-trees down from the mountains’, of Hesiod’s power over nature). Cf. geo. 3. 10–11.

22. Pöschl (op. cit. 268ff.) singles out the spinning metaphor. Maroti, E. (‘Princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos deduxisse modos’, Act. Ant. Hung. 13 [1965], 97–109Google Scholar) opts for the leading out of a colony. For deducere in connection with a triumph see Nisbet-Hubbard on Hor. c. 1. 37. 31.

23. Cf. the ambiguity of the word modi at c. 3. 3. 72 and Horace’s word-play at e. 2. 2. 141ff.

24. The famous passage is e. 2. 1. 156f.

25. In all this Horace may be proposing himself as a literal pontifex, a spiritual ‘builder of bridges’ who in and through himself religiously binds together disparate worlds. The structure of lines 12–14, from potens to princeps to deduxisse, suggests such an enterprise.

26. For the offering of laurel by the triumphator, see P.-W. 7a (1939), 510. Augustus himself deposited laurum de fascibus … in Capitolio (R. G. 4).

27. Re. Pliny H. N. 15. 127 and Smith on Tib. 2. 5. 117.

28. For Horace and Pindar re. the poet’s own remark at e. 1. 3. 10; Highbarger, E. L., ‘The Pindaric Style of Horace’, TAPA 66 (1935), 222–55Google Scholar; Harms, E., Horaz in seinen Beziehungen zu Pindar (diss. Marburg, 1936); Commager, op. cit. 20ff., 59ff.; Nisbet-Hubbard, op. cit. xiii; G. Williams, Tradition and Originality, 270ff.; Pöschl, Horazische Lyrik, 11Google Scholar.

29. For recent literature on c. 1. 1 see Vretska, K., ‘Horatius, Carm. I, 1,’ Hermes 99 (1971), 323–35Google Scholar and James Shey, H., ‘The Poet’s Progress: Horace, Ode 1. 1’. Arethusa 4 (1971), 185–96Google Scholar.

30. This point is elaborated by Norberg, D. (‘L’olympionique, le poète et leur renom éternel’, Upp. Univ. Ärsskrift 1945. 6, 3–42Google Scholar, esp. 24ff.) without admission of any negative elements. See, by contrast, Carlsson, G., ‘L’Ode I, 1 d’Horace’, Eranos 44 (1946), 404–20Google Scholar; Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford, 1957), 231Google Scholar, n. 3.

31. For the first association see c. 1. 8. 4 and e. 1. 1. 51; for the second, c. 3. 3. 21 and 4. 7. 16.

32. See also c. 1. 12. 43–44.

33. See Musurillo, H., ‘The Poet’s Apotheosis: Horace, Odes 1. 1’, TAPA 93 (1962), 230–39Google Scholar, esp. 237.

34. Horace’s references to Bacchus are analyzed by Schwinge, E.-R., ‘Zur Kunsrtheorie des Horaz’, Philologus 107 (1963), 92–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 4. For a detailed interpretation of the role of Bacchus in Horace’s poetry see Silk, E. T., ‘Bacchus and the Horatian “Recusatio”’, YCS 21 (1969), 195–202Google Scholar.

35. This intermingling of Greek and Roman elements is noted by Nisbet- Hubbard ad. loc.

36. I am grateful to Professor Kenneth Reckford for his comments on this paper.