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Ethics and Poetry in Horace's Odes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

C. W. Macleod
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Extract

A generally recognized achievement of Horace is his working into Latin lyric poetry the moral teachings of Greek philosophy. But it is still worth while to ask how deeply he absorbed, and how significantly he shaped them. This question demands not a sweeping answer based on a mere set of references, but patient examination of individual odes; for as a poet, Horace naturally couches his thought in poems, which are, as it happens, highly elaborate works of art. This paper takes two pieces for such consideration and suggests that the coherence of their argument and the particulars of their diction may be better appreciated if they are read in relation to Epicurean ethics. My method is tentative and cumulative: there is no reason to presuppose the justice of such a reading, and it is justified only if it illumines the whole poem in detail (as it surely does 3.29). The purpose of this paper, then, is not to attach a scholastic label to Odes 1.20 and 2.3, but to bring out their meaning and coherence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , April 1979 , pp. 21 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1979

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References

Notes

1. On this whole matter cf. Nisbet–Hubbard, Vol. ii, p. 2.

2. Cf. notes 19–20 below.

3. Cf. CQ 27 (1977), 368 f.Google Scholar: also an essay of mine which is to appear in a forthcoming volume on imitatio in Latin poetry (ed. Woodman and West).

4. Cf. Od. 3.8.9–12; Ep. 1.5.4.

5. For decisive arguments in favour of this reading, see Nisbet—Hubbard.

6. e.g. [Cic] Ad. Her. 4.30 and Caplan ad loc; Alexander, , Rhetores Graeci iii. 36, 14–25Google Scholar, Spengel.

7. Also, e.g., Ennius, , Trag. 322–3 JocelynGoogle Scholar; Ter., Hec. 9–10Google Scholar; Lucr. 1.463, 941; Prop. 3.24.16; Hor., Od. 1.23.10–12Google Scholar; Ep. 1.1.10–12, 2.2.23; Persius 5.124.

8. Clausen, W., AJP 76 (1955), 49–51Google Scholar, argues that ‘loquitur… means much the same as obloquitur in line 4’; and he adduces many paralles for that idiom, on which see also Ed. Fraenkel, , Festschrift G. Jachmann (Cologne—Opladen, 1959), pp. 20–2Google Scholar = Kleine Beitraäge (Rome, 1964), pp. 441–2Google Scholar, and Kenney on Lucr. 3.261. But in those passages the simple verb is one normally used in much the same sense as the compound; that is not true of loqui and obloqui. And the point of the poem, that Lesbia's nasty talk is a sign not of hostility, but of love, comes out only if the final diagnosis of her behaviour contains no word that would imply ill will: ‘she is on fire, and she expresses it.’

9. In Greek ἃλεω is normal of ships ‘carrying’ people; and this usage may be in Horace's mind here. But I can find no evidence that ducere was used in the same way; so its usual sense must be foremost: see Plaut. Men. 442 for another place where navis is its subject. In general for the thought and expression, cf. Ep. 1.10.47—8, quoted below; Philo, De agr. 69; Dion. Hal. Dem. 10; Sen. Ep. 94.66.

10. Cf. Ep. 1.6.7, where ‘plausus et amici [ironic, since the people is no true friend] dona Quiritis’ are things we should not be impressed or taken in by; also Marc. Aur. 4.3: τÒ κενÒν τ⋯

11. Cf. fr. 551, λáϑε βι⋯ςασ, echoed in Hor. Ep. 1.17.10 and 1.18.103. (I number the fragments of Epicurus after Usener, unless otherwise indicated.)

12. See Festugiére, A.-J., Epicure et ses dieux (Paris, 1968), ch. 3Google Scholar; Witt, N. de, Epicurus and bis Philosophy (Minneapolis, 1954), pp. 102–5, 307–10Google Scholar. Also Philodemus, , A.P. 11.44.5Google Scholar: ⋯λλ ⋯τ⋯ρονσ ὇ψει πανανϑ⋯ασ.

13. Vatican Sayings 78; cf. 52; Basic Doctrines-27–8. Note also Hor. Od. 2.17 where Horace counters Maecenas’ fear of death by invoking his own friendship for him.

14. e.g. V.S. 29. 81; B.D. 7; fr. 208. Also Cic. In Pis. 60.

15. Cf. Od. 1.8.7; Sat. 2.5.71; Ep. 2.2.187; 1.19.28–9, on which see CQ 27 (1977), 370 fGoogle Scholar. This interpretation of temperant does not rule it out that the word also ‘emphasizes the bland character of these first-class wines’ (Nisbet—Hubbard ad loc).

16. Cf. Epic. V.S. 67, 77; Hor. Ep. 1.10.39–41.

17. The antithesis of collecta and cuique, the mass and the individual, is like that of the other wines and Sabinum, or the crowded theatre with its surroundings and ego ipse.

18. Cf. Epic. V.S. 67; Hor. Ep. 1.12.22–4.

19. Cf. Witt, de, op. cit., pp. 297–303Google Scholar; CP 30 (1935), 312–19Google Scholar.

20. e.g. Od. 2.17; Ep. 1.1.94–105; 1.7. Maecenas can also be teased: cf. Epod. 3; Od. 2.12.

21. A.P. 11.44, quoted by Nisbet-Hubbard.

22. Cf. Od. 3.29.53–6 and Kiessling—Heinze ad loc., who quote Epicurus fr. 584 (note also V.S. 47) together with Epic. Ep. 3.134 (cf. Hor. Ep. 1.11.22 f.).

23. Cf., e.g., Od. 1.11.8 and Nisbet-Hubbard ad loc.; Epic. V.S. 14, 30–31. Note also Philodemus, DeMorte col. 37–9, ed. Gigante, M., PP 10 (1955), 357–89Google Scholar, with a valuable commentary. Merlan, P., JHI 10 (1949), 445–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar = Kleine philosopbische Schriften (Hildesheim, 1976), pp. 334–41Google Scholar, is thus wrong to claim that Horace's attitude to death—in any case, a variable thing—is quite different from Epicurus'. ‘Death is nothing to us’ (B.D. 2) precisely because we can see that the soul is mortal (cf. Lucr. 3.830–1); and ‘meditare mortem’ is a maxim.of Epicurus’ (fr. 205).

24. See also, e.g., Ep. 3.135; V.S. 13; fr. 602; fr. 72.29–40, p. 439, Arrighetti; Cic. Fin. 1.62–63. Cf. Konstan, D., Some Aspects of Epicurean Psychology (Leiden, 1973), pp. 59–74Google Scholar.

25. Cf. Ep. 3.131–2; fr. 182; Hor. Sat. 2.2.82–8. Also, probably, Lucr. 2.20 ff.

26. Cf. Woodman, A. J., AJP 91 (1970), 170Google Scholar, and above on conditum in Od. 1.20.3.

27. Horace perhaps echoes Lucr. 3.907 f.: ‘aeternumque nulla dies nobis maerorem e pectore demet.’

28. Cf. Epic. Ep. 3.124; fr. 491; V.S. 8; 63; 69.

29. See B.D. 15 = V.S. 8; fr. 202–3; 468–9,471, 477. Cf. Hor. Sat. 1.1.49–51; 2.3.176–8.

30. Cf. Epic. fr. 570: Epicurus said the wise man would be a country-lover. Also Lucr. 2.14–33, where grass, streams, and trees figure too.

31. On the symbolism here, cf. Commager, S.,The Odes of Horace (New Haven and London, 1962), pp. 284 f.Google Scholar

32. Cf. n. 12 above.

33. This word should be translated ‘swerving’: cf. Kiessling—Heinze and Nisbet— Hubbard ad loc.

34. Cf. Od. 2.11.20: ‘praetereunte lympha’. In general the setting of sympotic poems is often more or less symbolic: cf., e.g., Epod. 13, Od.1.4, 1.9.

35. Cf. n. 13 above.

36. Cf. Woodman, , art. cit., 166 n. 9Google Scholar.

37. Cf. Hor. Ep. 1.10.32: ‘fuge magna’, and Epic, fr. 472–3. For the contrast of big river and little stream, cf. Sat. 1.1.55–60.

38. Cf. ó τῄσ ψύσεωσ πλο⋯τοσ et similia in Epic. B.D. 15; fr. 202, 468, 477. The metaphor of ‘exstructis in ahum’ is also paralleled in Epicurus (σωρε⋯εται in fr. 480, adduced by Nisbet–Hubbard).

39. Cf. Od. 1.29.13, where coemptos suggests that Iccius, like the addressee of Lucian's Adversus Indoctum, is more a book-collector than a reader.

40. See Camps on Prop. 4.11.20; also Sen. H.F. 731 f.

41. See also Prop. 4.11.19 f. and Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Propertiana (Cambridge, 1956), p. 264Google Scholar. A third process is hinted at in the Aeneid passage, the quaesitor's selecting his iudicesby lot: cf. Norden ad loc.

42. Cf. Iliad 7.182; Odyssey 10.207; Soph., Aj. 1287Google Scholar.

43. Cf. Lucr. 3.987–1023 and Bailey ad loc; Cic. In Pis.46 and Nisbet ad loc;Konstan, , op. cit., pp. 22–25Google Scholar.

44. Note especially Ep. 1.11.7 ff. But it is characteristic of Horace in all his writings to moralize the fellow-feeling and self-criticism.

45. Cf. Od. 3.29.40–2, Ep. 1.4.13 and Kiessling-Heinze ad loc.

46. Cf. fr. 120; 186; 596–7. Also Metrodorus ap. Sen. Ep. 99.25.

47. I am indebted for helpful criticism of a draft of this article to Professor and Mrs. Francis Cairns, Mr. Michael Comber, Dr. Anna Crabbe, Mr. D. P. Fowler, Professor A. A. Long, and Professor R. G. M. Nisbet. I am further indebted to Professor Nisbet for showing me the proofs of his and Miss Hubbard's commentary on Odes 2 before publication.