Ode III
Imitated by Walsh, Johnson's Poets, 8.417. Translated by Addison, ibid. 9.544; by Hughes, ibid. 10.25; by Fenton, ibid. 10.422.
'No wrath of Men or rage of Seas| Can shake a just man's purposes: |No threats of Tyrants, or the Grim| Visage of them can alter him ;| But what he doth at first entend,| That he holds firmly to the end' (Herrick, 616). These lines were recited by Cornelius de Witte on the rack, and their repetition nerved Frederick the Great in his desperate struggle with all Europe (Ste.-Beuve, Causeries, 3.202). Socrates, who withstood the ardor civium in the trial of the generals of Arginousae, and ignored the threats of the instans tyrannus under the Thirty (Plato, Apol. c. 20), is the perfect type of that virtue of 'constancy' which Horace here celebrates as the tradition of the makers of Rome. propositi: purpose; Epp. 1.13.11, victor propositi. Caesar Bell. Civ. 1.83, has tenere propositum.
prava: evil measures. iubentium: suggesting the technical use, senatus decrevit populusque iussit.
voltus: cf. τὸ σὸν δείσας πρόσωπον;' (Soph. O. T. 448), where Jebb comments, 'the blind man (Teiresias) speaks as though he saw the vultus instantis tyranni.' Cf. Gray, The Bard, her 'awe-commanding face' (of Elizabeth), and the biblical use of 'face.' Instans Tyrannus is the title of one of Browning's poems. For the urgency of instans, cf. 2.14.3, and Sat. 2.6.39, 'Si vis, potes,' addit et instat.
mente: is abl. of respect or specification (A. G. 418; B. 226; G. L. 397; H. 480), but the analogy of ἐκπλήττειν, Aesch. Prom. 360, suggests excutit, shakes, dislodges from.
solida: at least an incipient image, which is developed, Sen. de Const. Sap. 3, quemadmodum proiecti in altum scopuli mare frangunt, ita sapientis animus solidus est. So Herrick felt it, 390, 'A just man's like a Rock that turns the wroth| Of all the raging Waves into a froth.' Cf. Tenn. Princess, 'The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base| Had left us rock.' See also Tenn., Will .I.
dux . . . Hadriae: 1.3.15. n.; 2.17.19.
fulminantis: when he thunders = his thunderbolts; not so nearly a mere epithet as tonantem, 3.5.1.
'Should the whole frame of Nature round him break,| In ruin and. confusion hurled,| He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack,| And stand secure amidst a falling world' (Addison). 'If (though) the heavens fall' is proverbial. Cf. Theogn. 869, and the boast of the Celts to Alexander that they feared naught else; Ter. Heaut. 719. See Otto, p.61. Heywood's 'When the skie falth we shall have Larkes' is matched in French and German proverbs. Fiat iustitia ruat caelum is modern. orbis: vault of heaven.
impavidum: 1.15.23. ruinae: 1.16.12, ruens; Verg. Aen. 1.129, caelique ruina; Milt. P. L. 6, 'hell saw| Heav'n ruining from heaven.'
hac arte: sc. constantia. But cf. 4.15.12, artis; ars is as vague as res, ratio, causa, status. Cf. Ter. Andr. 32, nil istac opus est arte ad hanc rem quam paro,| sed eis quas semper in te intellexi sitas,| fide et taciturnitate; Marvell, Horatian Ode on Cromwell, 'The same arts that did gai|n A power must it maintain.' Pollux: as an ideal type, Aristotle, fr. 6.9, Bgk. ; Pind. Nem. 10.65-90; Epp. 2.1.5, cum Castore Pollux, etc. Cf. 1.12.25; 3.29.64. vagus: πολύπλαγκτος, of his travels in the service of man (Verg. Aen. 6.801, nec vero Alcides tantum telluris obivit; Eurip. Herc. Fur. 1196; Pind. Isth. 4. 55). For Hercules, as theme of Stoic moralizing and servant of humanity, see Munro on Lucret. 5.22; Sen. de Const. Sap. 2; Dio Chrys. Orat. 1, in fine; Browning, Balaustion. The whole passage interprets the apotheosis of the ancient religion in the sense of a conception of "subjective immortality" akin to that expressed in George Eliot's 'Choir Invisible'; cf. Epp. 2. 1.
Pliny, N. H. 2.7, Deus est mortali iuvare mortalem; et haec ad aeternam gloriam via. Hac proceres iere Romani. This is the thought that underlies the conventional imagery of compliment.
enisus: struggling up and on; Tac. Ann. 1.70, in editiora enisus. igneas: starry or of the aether. Cf. Ov. Met. 15.858, arcis . . . aetherias; Trist. 5.3. 19. But ignis = stars, 1.12. 47. Cf. Ovid's siderea arx, Am. 3.10.21. Statius to Domitian, Silv. 4.3.155, ibis qua vagus Hercules et Euhan (Bacchus) | ultra sidera flammeumque solem. On the "stars" in the conventional rhetoric of immortality, cf. Cic. Somn. Scip. 16 sqq. ; Rohde, Psyche, p.672.
Augustus: he received the title B.C. 27, which seems to date the ode; cf. on 1.2. recumbens: at table, Epp. 1.5.1; cf. Verg. Ecl. 1.1, recubans sub tegmine fagi.
purpureo: rosy, with reference to the eternal youth of a God. Cf. Verg. Aen. 1.590; 2.593, roseo . . . ore. bibet, the reading of some Mss., predicts, as does Verg. G. 1. 24-42, and may be thought to save Horace from sinking to the level of Martial, 4. 8. 9, et bonus aetherio laxatur nectare Caesar. Bibit visualizes. On the imperial apotheosis and this form of flattery, cf. 4.5.35. n.; 4.15. Gaston Boissier, Relig. Rom. 1.109 sqq.
hac: abl. of cause with merentem, sc. caelum; cf. Ov. Trist. 5.3.19, to Baechus: ipse quoque aetherias meritis invectus es arcis. His travels and labors follow, ibid. 20-24. Bacche pater: 1.18.6. n.
vexere: sc. ad caelum. tigres: the Roman poets seem to have substituted the Armenian tiger for the panther of Bacchus. Verg. Aen. 6.805. Ov. Am. 1.2.48. Ars. Am. 1. 550. But Propert. 4.16.8 has lyncibus ad caelum vecta Ariadna tuis; cf. Keats, 'not charioted by Bacchus and his pards.' The tamed tigers may symbolize his civilizing power.
hac: for syntax see note on hac (13); construe hac Quirinus (merens caelum) fugit. For the disappearance of Romulus (Quirinus) in a storm, and the legend of his translation to heaven in the chariot of Mars, cf. Livy; 1. 16; Plut. Rom. 28; Ov. Fast. 2.496, Hinc tonat, hinc missis abrumpitur ignibus aether: |fit fuga. Rex patriis astra petebat equis. Met. 14.820.
Acheronta fugit: Pind. fr. 120 πορθμὸν πεφευγ́τες Ἀχέροντος. Theoc. 17. 46.
The Roman instance provides Horace with a transition to his central theme, the destiny of the Roman State foretold by Juno in a speech addressed to the assembled gods deliberating on the reception of Romulus among the immortals. The treatment of the myth gives the ode a Pindaric cast (cf. 3. 11; 3.5; 4.4; 1.12; 3.27). The vehemence of Juno's protest against any attempt to rebuild Ilium has been taken as an allusion to some design of the Emperor to remove the Capitol to an Eastern site (cf. Sueton. Jul. Caes. 79). Others fantastically interpret it as an allegory of the rule of the Optimates which passed away forever at Pharsalia and Actium, or of the vices and luxury of the old Empires of the East which must not be permitted to corrupt Rome. It is more simply taken as a dramatic keeping up the character of Juno. In accepting Romulus and consenting to join with Jupiter in cherishing the people of the toga (Verg. Aen. 1.280), she still remembers the spretae iniuria formae, and is careful to explain that she abates not one jot or tittle of her just hatred for perjured Troy. Cf. Verg. Aen. 12.824 sqq. The motif of the deorum concilium was borrowed from Ennius, who represents Jupiter as promising Mars before the foundation of Rome the apotheosis of Romulus; unus erit quem tu tolles in caerula caeli| templa; cf. Verg. Aen. 1.254 sqq. In Eurip. Hel. 878, there is an allusion to a similar consultation.
gratum: they were pleased at her yielding to the general desire. elocuta . . . Iunone: ablative absolute. consiliantibus: in council.
Ilion, Ilion: anadiplosis of strong feeling. Cf. Dante's St. Peter, Paradis. 27.22, 'quegli chi usurpa in terra il loco mio |il loco mio, il loco mio'; Aesch. in Ctes. 133, Θῆβαι δὲ Θᾶβαι.
fatalis: fateful. Hecuba, the mother of Paris, dreamed that she had brought forth a firebrand (Eurip. Tro. 919; Verg. Aen. 7.319 sqq.; also Δύσπαρις Αινόπαρις). incestus: corrupt, in taking a bribe; the reference is not to his lust (cf. 3.2.30), though that was his bribe. (Il. 24.30, μαχλοσύνην;' ; Tenn. Oenone, 'I promise thee| The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.') iudex: Catull. 61.18, venit ad Phrygium Venus| iudicem ; Verg. Aen. 1.27, iudicium Paridis ; Tenn. 'Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of gods.' The judgment of Paris, first mentioned Il. 24. 28-30 (if genuine), was told in the Cypria and is frequently alluded to by Euripides (Hec. 629; Iph. Aul. 1300; Troad. 925; Hel. 23; Andr. 284) and often represented on vases. In Eng. lit. it is the theme of poems by Greene, Beattie, Parnell, Tennyson, etc. (Lang, Helen of Troy, 1.49-57). 20, 21. muller: Juno disdains to name Helen. Cf. 'the strange woman' of the Bible. vertit in pulverem: ἀμαθύνει. ex quo: from the day when, dating damnatum,forfeited. destituit: defrauded. deos: Apollo and Poseidon served a year with King Laomedon, and one or both (the legend varies) built the walls of Troy. 'But when the joyous seasons were accomplishing the time of hire, the redoubtable Laomedon robbed us of all hire and sent us off with threats' (Il.21.450 (Lang)). Cf. Il.7.453; Verg. G. 3.36, Troiae Cynthius auctor; Tenn. 'Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing| When Ilion like a mist rose into towers.'
mihi: for dat., cf. classis Teucro damnata Quirino (Propert. 5.6.21-24).
castae: 1. 7. 5.
fraudulento: Verg. Aen. 4.541, necdum| Laomedonteae sentis periuria gentis? . Pind. Isth. 5. 29, Λαομεδοντειᾶν ὑπὲρ ἀμπλακιᾶν; Aen. 5.811.
splendet: 1. 15. 13; 4. 9. 13-15; Il. 3. 392, κάλλεί τε στίλβων καὶ εἵμασι; Eurip. Tro. 991; Iph. Aul. 74. adulterae: preferably dat. Cf. 1.5. 12. For death of Paris, cf. Quint. Sinyr. 10.235;. Tenn. Death of Oenone; Lang, Helen of Troy, 5. 54-68.
famosus hospes: Paris was the notorious and infamous example of violated hospitality (1.15.2. n.; Il.13.626).
periura: perhaps alluding also to the violation of the oath (Il.4.157 sqq.). pugnacis: 4.6.8. n.
Hectoreis: 2. 4. 10, 11. n. opibus: might. Cf. 1. 6.15; 4.4.60. refringit: beats back.
ductum: protracted (trahere bellum, SaIl.) by our quarrels. Cf. Ov. Trist. 1.2. 5, Mulciber in Troiam, pro Troia stabat Apollo: |Aequa Venus Teucris, Pallas iniqua fuit.
resedit: from resido; the storm of war has abated, the winds and waves subside. Cf. 2.7.15, 16. n.; Verg. Aen. 7.27; 6.407; Tenn. 'Sea was her wrath, yet working after storm.' protinus: so now, henceforth (since Troy is punished), Juno renounces her wrath and her hatred of her grandson Romulus, the son of Mars and Rhea Silvia or Ilia (1.2.15. n.; Verg. Aen. 1. 273, 274).
Troica . . . sacerdos: Juno does not deign to mention Rhea Silvia's name.
redonabo: 2.7.3. n. Here virtually= condonabo, give up. There is a slight zeugma in its use with both iras and nepotem. In Petron. 31 the angry master, pardoning a slave at intercession of friends, says, 'dono vobis eum.' illum: 3. 2.6. n. lucidas: 1.10. n.; Ὀλύμπου μαρμαρόεσσαν αἴγλαν, Soph. Antig. 610.
ducere: quaff (1.17.22; 4.12.14). Many Mss. read discere, grow wonted to the strange draught. 35, 36. adscribi . . . ordinibus: almost technical, be listed, enrolled.
quietis: the gods who live at ease. Cf. on 1.34; Sat. 1. 5.101; Verg. Aen. 4.379, ea cura quietos| sollicitat ; Tenn. Lucret., 'aught they fable of the quiet gods'; Arnold, Emped. 'The rest of immortals,| The action of men.' The rhythm of quietis here seems to match the sense. Cf. 1.31.7.
Rome may grow great beyond the seas and become a dreaded name, but Troy must not revive: occidit occideritque sinas cum nomine Troia (Verg. Aen. 12.828); 'It shall never be inhabited. . . . But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there,' etc. (Isaiah, 13.20, 21); 'But where I sought for Ilium's walls| The quiet sheep feeds and the tortoise crawls' (Byron, Don Juan, 4.77); Lucan, 9.969, etiam periere ruinae.
inter saeviat: the position produces the illusion of a compound. Cf. 3.27.5. This may have suggested to Hetrick his quaint 'intertalkt' (264) and 'superlast' (406).
exsules: slightly spiteful, and with beati a faint oxymoron.
busto: Vergil's iacet ingens litore truncus, etc. (Aen. 2. 557) was not yet published to preoccupy the imagination.
insultet, etc.: τύμβῳ ἐπιθρώσκων, Il.4.177; Eurip. El. 327; 'They say the Lion and the Lizard keep| The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep;| And Bahrám, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass| Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his sleep' (Omar Khayyám, 18); 'et les tombeaux des rois sont des trous à panthère' (Victor Hugo, Zim-Zisimi) ; Lamartine, Le Lézard sur les Ruines de Rome; Pope, Windsor Forest, 'The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires, | And savage howlings fill the sacred quires.'
inultae: 1.2.51. n. stet: 1.9.1. n.; may stand, subjunctive of consent. Capitolium: 1.37.6; 3.30.8. n . 3. 24.45; 4.3.9.
fulgens: in splendor; with stet predicatively. It had been gilded when rebuilt by Catulus after the conflagration of B.C. 83. Cf. fastigatis supra tectis auro puro fulgens praelucet Capitolium (Sen. Contr. 1.6.4). Cf. Verg. Aen. 8.347, Capitolia . . . |aurea nunc, olim silvestribus horrida dumis. triumphatisque: lit., triumphed over, subdued. English prose idiom would turn the participle by a clause coordinate with dare iura. 'Subdue and impose her laws upon.' possit: in her might.
ferox: 1.35.10. dare iura: i.e. exercise sovereignty over. Cf. 4.15.22; Verg. Aen. 3.137; Liv, 1.8. 1. Medis: 1.2.22, 51. n.
horrenda late: dreaded far and wide; horreat Aeneadas et primus et ultimus orbis (Ov. Fast. 1.717); Macaulay, Capys, 31,'. . . Where Atlas flings his shadow| Far o'er the western foam,| Shall be great fear on all who hear| The mighty name of Rome'; Tibull. 2.5. 57-60. But nomen is quasi-technical; 4. 15. 13.
medius liquor: at Straits of Gibraltar. For medius, cf, Verg. Aen. 3.417.
secernit: Europam Libyamque rapax ubi dividit unda, cited Cic. Nat. D. 3.24. 'The narrow seas, whose rapid interval| Parts Afric from green Europe' Tenn. Timbuctoo). Afro=Afris=Africa.
qua tumidus rigat arva Nilus: 'As when old father Nilus gins to swell |With timely pride above the Egyptian vale,| His fatty waves do fertile slime outwell,| And overflow each plain and lowly dale' (F. Q. 1.1.21); Verg. G. 4.292; 'The higher Nilus swells,| The more it promises' (Ant. and Cleop. 2. 7).
aurum, etc.: Horace here is speaking through Juno. sic melius situm, etc.: a well-worn moral; Sen. Nat. Quaest. 5.15.3; Manil. 5.276; Tac. Ger. 5; Boeth. Cons. Phil. 2.5, pretiosa pericula fodit; Ov. Met. 1.140; F. Q. 2.7.17; Milt. P. L. 1, 'with impious hands | Rifled the bowels of their mother earth| For treasures better hid.'
spernere: it is pettifogging to object that the gold cannot be spurned while yet inrepertum. fortior: showing fortitude more. cf. Plato, Laches, 191 D; Verg. Aen. 8.364, aude hospes contemnere opes; F. Q. 2. 6. 1.
cogere: collecting (it). humanos in usus: with rapiente primarily. Fortior expresses a condition of the prophecy tanget.
omne: 1.3.25. n. sacrum: generally, and also more specifically of the gold which the gods have hidden in the earth and which it would be wrong to disturb; 'the hid treasures in her sacred tomb| With sacrilige to dig' (F. Q. 2.7.17).
obstitit=oppositus est; obstitisse (obsisto)= obstare.
visere: 1.2.8; 1.37.25; 4.13.26; 2.15.3.
debacchentur: revel unchecked (1.25. 11. n.); 'Like us the lightning-fires |Love to have scope and play' (Arnold, Emped.). For de, cf. 1.3.13; 1.9.11; 1.18. 9;2. 1.35. For the whole, cf. 1.22.17-22; Verg. G. 1.234-236.
pluviique rores: mist and rain. So δρόσος.
fata . . . dico: cf. fatidicus; fatum (fari) = quod semel dictum est (C. S. 26); in declaring their destinies she ratifies them.
lege: condition, namely, ne . . . velint. pii: the piety of a colony towards the Metropolis, and ancestral home (avitae). In an old Roman poet the soldiers of Scipio Asiaticus on first beholding Troy exclaim, O patria, O divom domus Ilium et incluta bello |Pergama.
fidentes: 3. 4. 50.
Troiae: 'Should Troy revive in evil hour, her star again should set in gore' (after Conington). English cannot reproduce the transference of renascens to fortuna, and the double application of fortuna to the new city and the old. alite: 1.15.5. n.
ducente: as in Verg. Aen. 2.612-614.
Verg. Aen. 1.47; Il.16.432.
ter: the conventional number (Verg. G. 1. 281). murus aeneus: Il. 21. 447, ἄρρηκτος. The phrase is conventional (Epp. 1.1.60). So σιδάρεον τεῖχος, ἀδαμάντινον τεῖχος. Cf. 1.33. 11, iuga aenea.
auctore Phoebo: cf. 1. 21-22. n.; Pind. O.8.31. meis: 1.7.8. n.
excisus: razed; exscissus, which some read (cf. Verg. Aen. 2.177), would be cacophonous. Argivis: abl.; the agent is an instrument. Cf. Juv. 10.155, Poeno milite portas |frangimus (which, however, is conceivably abl. abs.). Others take it dat. agent.
non hoc, etc.: for the sudden check, cf. 2.1.37. n. and 1.6.10. iocosae: forgets the claim of musarum sacerdos (3. 1.3). So Tennyson affects to rebuke his muse for darkening 'sanctities with song' (In Mem. 3.7). Cf. Herrick, 2, To his Muse, 'Whither, mad maiden, wilt thou roame?' Ronsard, Au Sieur Bertrand, 'Taisez-vous, ma lyre mignarde,| Taisez-vous, ma lyre jazarde,| un si haut chant n'est pas pour vous.'
pervicax: 2. 19. 9.
tenuare: cf. 1.6.12, and Milton's 'Who can extenuate thee?' parvis: modestly; cf. 4. 2. 31, parvus; 3. 25. 17. Perhaps also contrasting the Alcaic with the versus longi of Epic.
