SED*QUAE*TIBUR*AQUAE*FERTILE*PRAEFLUUNT** In the actual translation section, the Wickham/Garrod text is shown enclosed thus and complete with punctuation but this latter is subvented when it proves necessary in achieving a sensible reading and the opening ‘UNCIAL’ text is allowed to prevail. However, word separators (*), line separators (**) and episode separators (***) are inserted for the sake of clarity. The Klingner text is shown at the head of each episode but shorn of editorial punctuation and addressed as though in a continuous UNCIALformat. The first episode addresses the current muse of Horace. This ode consists of six four line stanzas divided into two episodes of three stamzas each. It is suggested instead that Horace regarded the children who performed the Centennial Hymn, the more deserving of praise. It is suggested that the ode was not specifically dedicated to the muse Melpomene whose sole mention in the ode is to indicate the change from lyric poetry to tragic verse. In translation, the word order is changed to to allow the dedication to apply to the children of Rome rather than the lyre. The lyre that once sang so sweetly will now resound to a bitter note.
It is going to be the bitter truth but written and disguised as Aeolian metre. Horace therefore does not promise adulatory verse there are to be no heroes, no military accolades. Whatever follows is on their behalf and Melpomene, the muse of tragedy will oversee the task. Whichever, Horace is offering his services as their voice. Whether these are the children of Rome to whom this ode is now seen to be dedicated so beautifully in the two final stanzas or to the ordinary citizens of Rome who have had to stand by while the city is taken over by the new men. The voice of the swan is to be given over to the hitherto dumb creatures so that they may have their say. Horace is changing from lyric poetry to tragic poetry. If any of the odes was meant to be a dedicatio to the whole book it is surely this one. This would seem to be a good case for making this ode the opening ode of the whole book. It is not Horace's birth that Melpomene is called upon to witness but the commencement of a book of verse on what is happening to Rome and about the people who are making it so. That being so, the ode can be turned around. He is, after all, according to his lights witnessing a tragedy in the making. If, as this book proposes, he is intent on lifting the lid on a society that is descending morally from the high peak of the Republican ethos, then this is the muse he must choose. In Book IV, if Horace is indeed embarking on adulatory verse about distinguished contemporaries, as Fraenkel suggests, then Melpomene is hardly the muse to depend upon.
The two halves of the ode appear to be at odds with each other. In any case, as far as Horace was concerned, the muse of tragedy would have been most inappropriate! The last three stanzas is about Horace and his recent recognition as the foremost lyric poet in Rome. There seems to be no precedent for a muse to be present at the birth of someone destined to become a poet. Past commentators have understood the opening three stanzas to refer to Melpomene's presence at the birth of Horace himself and to assume it to mean that he, Horace, would not turn out to be a boxer, a horseman or a military genius. It is addressed to Melpomene, who was known to be the muse of tragedy and tragic verse. De RES HISTORIAE ANTIQUA BOOKTEXT3 VERBA AMBIGUA HORATIĪNALYSIS & COMMENTARY PART 1 - THE IMPERIAL FAMILYĪ deceptively simple ode whose inclusion in a book of odes ostensibly dedicated to actual people is not readily apparent.
0 kommentar(er)
