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The Poet, The Critic, and the Moralist: Horace, Epistles 1.19

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C.W. Macleod
C.W. Macleod
Affiliation:
Christ Church, Oxford
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Extract

I begin by quoting from two valuable recent works on Horace. Professor Brink in his Horace on Poetry (1964) writes: ‘The centre of the short piece lies in lines 21—34. Readers, among them critics and poets, had denied one aspect of the Odes which was surely above criticism—the striking originality of these poems. Horace's defence turns on the question of originality’ (p. 180) and ‘Epistle 19 is unique in that it alone among the literary satires and letters reiterates Horace's claim to be the Latin fidicen’ (p. 182). And Dr. McGann in his Studies in Horace's First Book of Epistles (Collection Latomus 100: 1969): ‘In Ep. 19... as in the literary satires, Horace is a practising poet or at least a very recently practising one, engaged in defending himself against hostile criticism’ (p. 40) and ‘As the only epistle concerned exclusively with literary matters, the nineteenth stands apart’ (p. 82).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , December 1977 , pp. 359 - 376
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

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References

1 See Brink, , op. cit., p. 180 n.4Google Scholar; McGann, , op. cit., pp. 84 f.Google Scholar; Williams, G.W., Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (1968), pp. 24–8.Google ScholarBecker, , Das Spätwerk des Horaz (1963), p. 45Google Scholar, rightly prefers to see an ethical purpose in the poem, its theme being ‘die imitatio im ganzen Leben’. But this accounts only for lines 1–20, or at a pinch, 1–34; and he does not develop the .

2 Cf. Williams, , op. cit., p. 27Google Scholar: ‘If there is a core of fact in this lively piece...’ and 568: ‘As in Epistles i 19, he [the poet] may take a situation-or invent one...’

3 Cf. Dulke, in Horace, ed. Costa (1973), p. 106.Google Scholar

4 McGann, , op. cit., p. 85.Google Scholar

5 See K.-H. on lines 8–9, who aptly quote Arist. E.N. 1127a 22 f.: ... .

6 e.g. Cic. Ad Pam. 13.2, 3, 5.2, 15.1, 27.2.

7 See also McGann, , op. cit., p.58Google Scholar, whose book as a whole ably argues that Epistles I is unified by its ethical concern.

8 McGann, , op. cit., p. 21 n.7Google Scholar adduces this passage; he also has helpful remarks on the philosophical character of the Epistle (pp. 44–6). Cf. too Od. 3.21.9–20.

9 The Loeb editors compare Teles p. 33. 2 ff. Hense (see also his note on p. 37.6); H. Sat. 2.3.104 ff.

10 Cf. Plut. Mor. 526 A; H. Ep. 2.2.1902.

11 Cf. Plut. Mor. 620 C; Pl. Laws 640 C-D.

12 Cf. Athen. 585 B; P1. Laws 671 C ff.

13 Cf. K.-H. ad loc.

14 For ausus (line 11) used of originality in literary contexts, cf. line 20; Enn. Ann. 216; Cat. 1.5; Virg. G. 4.565; Claudian, Rapt. Pros. 1.3. For et simm. in Greek, see P. 0. 9.82; Call. Iamb. 13.19; Hermogenes, 216.17–22 Rabe.

15 K.-H. ad loc. compare Call. Epig. 28; note also H. 2.108 ff.

16 See K.-H. on Sat. 1.10.36 f.; Kassel, Rb. Mus. 109 (1966), 8–10; Cairns, CQ N.S. 21 (1971), 207 n.l. This parallelism can also grow into a theory of poetic composition: cf. Ar. Thes. 148–56; Arist. Poet.1455a29–34; H. A.P. 102–5.

17 For the dramatic author described as if he were the actor, again with moral implications, cf. H. Ep. 2.1.170–4. I take the metaphor of the ampulla to refer, in Horace at least, to the blown-out cheeks of a speaker: cf. A.P. 94; Hermogenes, 247. 12–15; Prop. 2.30.18, with Cairns, art. cit. 206–12. In general, see Brink on A.P. 97.

18 On the overtones of this word, see CQ N.S. 23 (1973), 303; note also Gaius 3.195.

19 See H. A.P. 86 and Brink ad loc.

20 This theory is also taken over into literary criticism: see Brink on A.P. 31; Russell in the Introd. of his ‘Longinus’, p. xxxiv.

21 I see no decisive reason for preferring the one to the other interpretation of this phrase, ‘the cold compresses of your worldly concerns’ or ‘useless remedies for your troubles’. Perhaps the ambiguity is deliberate and suggests that concerns like poetry and the law, though meant to be a remedy for cares, are in fact themselves cares. At all events, frigida... fomenta is clearly a pun; and for curae as both ‘activities’ and ‘troubles’, see Ov. Tr. 1.11.12.

22 Note, however, how the last two lines of the passage, with their abrupt switch to the metaphor of mimic dancing, cast a characteristically ironic light on what went before.

23 T.S. Eliot, East Coker, 70 f.

24 See Brink on A.P. 295–8.

25 See Bramble, , Persius and tbe Programmatic Satire (1974), pp. 16–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sandy, , Phoenix 25 (1971), 54.Google Scholar

26 See Kambylis, , Die Dichterweibi und ihre Symbolik (1965), pp. 72–5.Google Scholar

27 See H. 2.110–12; cf. Epig. 28.

28 Adduced, with other relevant passages by K.-H.

29 I rather labour this point, because both K.-H. (on line 8) and Fraenkel (op. cit., pp. 340 f.) seem to suppose that Horace is here in some degree seriously committed to ‘wine-drinking’ and contrasting his own poetry with that of ‘water-drinkers’.

30 See N.-H. on Od. 1.26.10.

31 Cf. e.g. Ep. 2.1.56 where docti stands in implicit contrast to alti (‘elevated’). Note also that doctus can apply to philosophic, as well as literary, learning: e.g. Ep. 1.18.96.

32 For a further aspect of the joke, see ZPE 15 (1974), 221 f.

33 Cf. Kassel, loc. cit.

34 Adduced by K.-H. ad loc. For the connection of gout and wine, see also A.P. 11.414 (Hedylus).

35 Cf. Iliad 3.29 = 5.494 etc.; 5.111; 11.211; 16.733, 755.

36 Fraenkel, , op. cit., p. 340 n.7Google Scholar refers, with Dacier, to Od. 3.25 (note also Od. 3.4.5 f.: ‘an me ludit amabilis insania?). But in view of what was said above, it would be confusing and inappropriate if the Epistle picked up the Odes here. Neither, then, should line 2 be connected with Od. 3.30, as Fraenkel does. To say that a work is lasting is simply, for critics as for poets, a commonplace way of praising it: see e.g. ‘Longinus’ 1.3, 7. 4, 36.2; H. A.P. 346.

37 On the ethical background and significance of A.P. 412–18, see Becker, , op. cit., p. 74.Google Scholar

38 See K.-H. on its line 9.

39 Cf. Brink, , op. cit., p. 159 n.2Google Scholar and on A.P. 31, 268.

40 In literary criticism and are often equivalent. See ‘Longinus’ 13.2 and Russell ad loc.; D.H. Lysias 2, De imit, . 1 (p. 203.6–8 Usener-Radermacher)Google Scholar and 2 (p. 204.9–14); Hermogenes, 213.14.

41 Cf. ‘Longinus’ 3.4 and Russell ad loc.; Brink on A.P. 25.

42 Philodemus, , v, ed. Jensen, xxx. 24-xxxi. 33.

43 Ibid. xxi. 17–27: .

44 Lambinus adduced these passages; cf. also Quintil. 10.1.25, quoted by K.-H.

45 Fraenkel, , op. cit., p. 346.Google Scholar

46 Cf. T.L.L. viii.1693.29 ff.Google Scholar

47 Cf. Critias (D.-K. 88 B 44) on Archilochus.

48 Cf. 2.34.33–44; H. Od. 4.9.10–12; Ov. Tr. 2. 439 f. In general on lower genres (epigram, lyric, mime) as ‘confessional’, see Ov. Tr. 2.367 f., 427–30; Quintil. 10.1.100.

49 Cf. Dio Chrys. 33.11 f.; Schol. in Aphthon. 9 (ii. p. 47 Walz).

50 Frg. 71 Wehrli = Porphyrio and Ps.- Acro on H. Sat. 2.1.30.

51 Sed contrasts Alcaeus with Sappho (not Horace). The subject of the phrase is stressed even though there is no pronoun: cf. Kroll on Cat. 55.18. In Greek, Iliad 12.328, 13.486, 18.308; A. Eum. 719; E. Hec. 855, Tro. 684 f., El. 981 (where the reading of L should be retained).

52 I agree, then, with Lambinus, with one small difference, that Sappho and Alcaeus do not mean ‘I in my lyrics modelled on Sappho and Alcaeus’, but genuinely refer to the Aeolic poets. None the less, the point of mentioning them is to lead up to hunc ego etc. in line 31, just as the point of making them followers of Archilochus is to parallel Horace's own development from the Epodes to the Odes.

53 Two arguments should not be used against referring hunc to Archilochus: 1) that hic must refer to what immediately precedes (‘the latter’, not ‘the former’); 2) that 32 f. are an intolerable repetition of 23 f. For 1) hic may refer further back, cf. T.L.L. vi (3). 2715. 40 ff. and Ep. 1.6.68, 1.17.19; Sat. 1.2.7, 1.10.46; Prop 2.34.81; Tac. H. 4.81; 2) 32 f. could pick up and emphasize 23 f. as an : cf. Ep. 2.1.94–102; Sat. 1.3.9–19.

54 Cf. Wistrand, in Entretiens Hardt x (1964), 278 fGoogle Scholar. See also Diomedes, , Gramm. Lat. i. p. 483 KeilGoogle Scholar; Maternus, Firmicus, Math. 6.30.25Google Scholar

55 As Wistrand argues, loc. cit., pp. 273–9.

56 For this judgement, which clearly accommodates his ugly personalities about Pittacus as part of a laudable concern with elevated political matters, cf. Quintil. 10.1. 63; D.H. De imit. 2 (p. 205. 19–21). Further, La Penna, Maia 24 (1972), 208–15.

57 See T.L.L. viii.423.72 ff.Google Scholar, 428.1 ff.

58 See Bramble, , op. cit., p.44Google Scholar; also A.P. 11.20.5 quoted above. My view of the meaning of this word here is substantially Fraenkel's (op. cit., p. 346)-and indeed Lambinus’.

59 Ber. sächs. Ges. d. Wiss., Phil.-hist. KI., 70 (1918), 4 Heft, 25 n.3 Vom Geist des Römertums 3 (1960), p.245 n.38. Cf. Od. 1.8.7; 4.3.18; Sat. 2.5.71; Ep. 2.2.187. Temperant in Od. 1.20.11 is also, 1 believe, an example of this sense. The word there corresponds to domitam just before: Maecenas drinks the grape ‘subdued’ by the Calenian wine-press, whereas no Falernian or Formian vintages ‘control’ Horace's cups. This brings out the contrast in the poem between the public man, dominating through his wealth and dominated by it, and the private man, poorer but free.

60 See further, besides Brink ad loc., Call. frg. 191.3 and Pfeiffer ad loc.

61 On this image, see Stroh, , Die römiscbe Liebeselegie als werbende Dichtung (1971), p. 47 n.106.Google Scholar

62 For similar language cf. ‘courage’ and ‘fear’ used of an author, see Ep. 2.1.166 f., 2.1.182; 2.2.111.

63 Ogle, , AJP 43 (1922), 55–9Google Scholar, documents and rightly emphasizes the connotation of ‘restraint’ in temperare. See further North, , CP 43 (1948), 11–17.Google Scholar

64 The word means not only ‘deadly’, but also ‘malicious’; on the latter sense, see Bramble, , op. cit., p. 202Google Scholar; cf. L.S.J. s.v. , iii 4.

65 On these see Bramble, op. cit., pp. 190–204.Google Scholar

66 Cf. Plutarch, ‘On inoffensive self-praise’ 10 (Mor. 542 C-D). Latin poets commonly assert their own originality by referring to their Greek models; but it is natural to detect an ethical implication in this in the context of the Epistles.

67 Especially since Panaetius: see van Straaten, , Panétius (1946), pp. 160–3.Google Scholar

68 Cf. Dawson, , YCS 11 (1950), 22.Google Scholar In general on this contrast between Callimachus and Hipponax or Archilochus, see CQ N.S. 23 (1973), 305–7 and Bühler, W., Entretiens Hardt x (1964), 231–47Google Scholar, whom I should have mentioned there.

69 Cf. Heinze, , op. cit., p. 249Google Scholar; K.-H. also adduce the passages from Call. Aet. on line 21.

70 Archilochus' own work supplies some ‘evidence’ for such a view: see frgs. 2, 4, 290, and 120 West. Callimachus alludes to the last in frg. 544.

71 There is an echo of the same principle in Od. 1.7.5 which sets Horace apart from those ‘quibus unum opus est intactae Palladis urbem/carmine perpetuo celebrare.’ Carmine perpetuo also recalls a passage of Callimachus: see N.-H. ad loc.

72 For ingenuus opposed to malignus, see Cat. 68.37 f.; for ingenuus implying frankness, see Cic. De am. 65; De off. 3.57; Cat. 110.5.

73 Cf. Themistius, 22.268c; Sen. De ben., 3.3.3.

74 On this word see Brink on A.P. 320.

75 See the references in L.S.J., s.vv. and cognates.

76 As argues, Fraenkel (op. cit., pp. 348 f.).Google Scholar

77 Cf. Bramble, , op. cit., pp. 67 ff.Google Scholar, esp. p. 70 n.1.

78 Cf. A.P. 442–4; Cic. Tusc. 5.63 (quoted by K.-H.); Cat. 22.

79 Cf. McGann, , op. cit., p. 84Google Scholar, though I see no significant relation between rides (43) and iocum (20).

80 Kings are beloved of Zeus: cf. Iliad 1.175, 277–9; 2.197; Call. H. 1.79–84. More specifically, cf. Iliad 9.607 f. (a riposte to 1.175) where Achilles claims that honour from Zeus is enough for him, and the scholiast comments: .

81 See further West, , Reading Horace (1967), p. 49.Google Scholar

82 On this as an ethical topic, cf. above, n.68; further McGann, , op. cit., p.66.Google Scholar

83 Clarke, , CR N.S. 22 (1972), 156–9Google Scholar argues that the ‘books’ concerned are Epistles 1 and the poem a commendation of that work. But carmina (17) could hardly refer to the book in which Horace has given up poetry. So while Clarke's identification of the poem's literary genre is valuable, we need also to consider how the genre is modified to fit the context of the Epistles.

84 Naribus uti (45), as Lambinus saw, is the Greek , which Quintilian defines (8.6.59) as ‘dissimulatus quidem sed non latens derisus’. See further, Russell on ‘Longinus’ 34.2; Bramble, op. cit. pp. 103 f.

85 Cf. Crito 49 D; Grg. 487 A—E etc. For laughter as a failure to be frank, see Grg. 473 E; cf. Lys. 211 C, Euthyd. 276 D, 278 D.

86 Cf. Grg. 457 C-E, Phaedo 91 A, etc.

87 Euthyd. 271 D-272 A, 277 D: Soph. 225.

88 Euthyd. 278 B, 283 B. On the range of meanings of ludus, see McGann, , op. cit., p. 35 n.5.Google Scholar

89 On this as a Hellenistic ethical theme, see N.-H.'s introduction to Od. 1.16. 49 f. (cf. Orelli ad loc.) may be compared not only with Dem. 54.19, but with Epicharmus frg. 148 Kaibel.

90 Cf. Sat. 1.4.132; Cic. De am. 88; Brink on A.P. 419–37, 438–52; De Witt, Epicurus and his Philosophy (1954), pp. 297–303.

91 Cf. Mor. 74 C, 82 A; Cic. De am. 90; D.L. 6.12.

92 This paper was delivered to the Oxford Philological Society in October 1975 and to a seminar in Liverpool University in December 1975. I am grateful to those who were present on both occasions for their comments and reactions.