own villa, when he is endeavouring to awaken in Munatius a taste for
the surrounding beauties of his more magnificent seat. Commentators
rationally conclude that some connecting lines have been lost from
the Latin of this Ode. It appears to me, that the idea which those
dismembered lines conveyed, must necessarily have been the comparison
added in the four ensuing lines, which makes the transition easy.
[108] This Ode was probably written at the country seat of that
nobleman, near the mountain Soracte, in Tuscany, twenty-six miles from
Rome.
[109] l. 2. _Silent Liris_--A beautiful river of remarkably placid
current. It rises near Sora, a city of Latium, which it divides from
Campania.
[110] l. 15. _More than once_--The Poet deems it a peculiar mark of
the favour of the Deities when the merchant is enabled safely to make
repeated voyages in one year through hazardous seas.
[111] l. 15. _Icarian fate_--_Penna metuente solvi_ must surely be
allusive to the dissolving pinions of Icarus--and mean, that deeds of
private generosity are apt to melt from the recollection of mankind;
while those of what is called heroic exertion go down to Posterity.
For this idea of the passage the translator was indebted to a learned
friend.
[112] l. 8. _Savage scene_--The author had the pleasure of passing a
fortnight with Mr and Mrs Erskine at Buxton, in August 1796.
[113] This Ode is addressed to his friend, an illustrious Roman, who
had lost a beloved son. The poetic literature of Titus Valgius is
ascertained by the honourable mention made of him by Horace, in his
Tenth Satire, Book the First. Valgius, like Sir Brooke Boothby, in
these days had poured forth a train of elegiac sorrows over the blight
of his filial hopes. Horace does not severely reprove these woes,
he only wishes they may not be eternal, and that he will, at least,
suspend them and share the public joy; for this Ode was composed while
the splendid victories, which Augustus had obtained in the East, were
recent.
[114] l. 4. _Vex’d Caspian_--The Caspian is a stormy and harbourless
sea--Yet the poet observes that not even the Caspian is always
tempestuous--insinuating, that inevitable as his grief must be for such
a loss, it yet ought not to be incessant.
[115] l. 2. _Armenia’s lands_--The coldness of Armenia is well known,
surrounded as it is by the high mountains of Niphates, Pariades,
Antiaurus, and Ararat, which are always covered with snow.
[116] l. 10. _Vesper trembles_--alike the evening and morning
star--appearing first and remaining last in the horizon, it ushers
in both the evening and the dawn. In the first instance it is called
Vesper, or Hesperus, in the last Lucifer, or Phospher.
[117] l. 15. _Filial hopes_--Antilochus, the son of Nestor, observing
his father likely to fall in battle, by the sword of his adversary,
threw himself between the combatants, and thus sacrificed his own life
to preserve that of his parent.
[118] l. 9. _Medus_--By the rivers Medus, and Niphates, are meant
the Parthians, or Scythians, for they are the same people, and the
Armenians. The river Tigris, rising in the cold mountain Niphates,
Horace gives its name to the stream, as he does that of Medus to the
Euphrates, which Plato asserts to have been formerly so called. Uniting
those rivers in his verse, the poet means to denote the Roman conquest
over two enemies widely distant from each other.
[119] l. 12. _Scythians rein_--The Scythians, or Parthians, were a
warlike people, famous for their equestrian prowess, for the speed
of their horses, and for the unerring aim of their arrows, shot when
flying on full speed. Augustus obliged their king, Phraates, not only
to restore the Roman standards and prisoners, taken many years before,
but to withdraw his troops from Armenia.
[120] Licinius Murena was a Patrician of high rank, one of the brothers
of Proculeius, whose fraternal generosity is celebrated in the Ode to
Sallust, the ninth of these Paraphrases. The property of Licinius had
been confiscated for having borne arms against the second Triumvirate.
Upon this confiscation Proculeius divided two-thirds of that large
fortune, with which the Emperor had rewarded his valour and fidelity in
the royal cause, between Licinius, and his adopted brother, Terentius,
whose fortunes had suffered equal wreck on account of the party he
had taken. Horace wrote this Ode soon after the affectionate bounty
of Proculeius had restored his friend to affluence. It breathes a
warning spirit towards that turbulent, and ambitious temper, which
Horace perceived in this young nobleman. The poet, however, has used
great address and delicacy, making the reflections not particular
but general; and he guards against exciting the soreness people feel
from reprehension for their prevailing fault, by censuring with equal
freedom the opposite extreme. That kind caution insinuated in this Ode,
proved eventually vain, as did also the generosity of the Emperor, who
soon after permitted Licinius to be chosen Augur;--probably at the
intercession of his favourite Mæcenas, who had married Terentia, a
daughter of that house, and whom Horace calls Licinia in the Ode which
is next paraphrased. Upon the election of Licinius to this post of
honour, trust, and dignity, we perceive the spirits of Horace greatly
elevated; probably as much from the pleasure he knew Mæcenas would
take in the promotion of his brother-in-law, as from the attachment
himself bore to Licinius. A peculiar air of hilarity shines out in the
Ode addressed to Telephus, written the evening on which this Licinius,
then newly chosen Augur, gave his first supper to his friends. The
reader will find it somewhat lavishly paraphrased in the course of this
selection. By the above Ode the poet seems to have feared the seditious
disposition of Licinius:--but when he afterwards strung his lyre to
notes of triumph for the honours of his friend, he little imagined that
friend would finally suffer death for ungratefully conspiring against
the monarch, who had so liberally overlooked his former enmity.
[121] l. 18.--Epidemic diseases were, by the Pagans, believed to be the
effect of having offended Apollo. The arrows he shoots among the Greeks
in the first Book of the Iliad, produce the pestilence, which follows
the rape of his Priest’s daughter, Chryseis. When we consider the
dependence of the human constitution upon the temperate, or intemperate
influence of the sun, the avenging bow of Phœbus appears an obvious
allegory;--and since it is in the hours of health that the fine arts
are sought and cultivated, the sun, under the name of Phœbus, Apollo,
&c. is with equal propriety of fable, supposed their patron, as well as
the avenger of crimes by the infliction of diseases.
[122] Of that artful caution, which marks the character of Horace,
this Ode forms a striking instance. He declines the task appointed by
his patron, that of describing the Italian wars, because he foresees
that in its execution he must either disoblige the Emperor and his
Minister, by speaking too favourably of their enemies, or offend some
friends, whom he yet retained amongst those, who had exerted themselves
against the Cæsars. Horace endeavours to soften the effect of this
noncompliance by a warm panegyric upon Licinia, the betrothed bride of
Mæcenas. She is in other places called Terentia. Both these names have
affinity to those of her brothers, Licinius, afterwards Augur, and her
adopted brother, Terentius.
Horace mentions plainly the Numantian wars, and those with Hannibal,
but artfully speaks of those of Brutus, and Cassius, and of the
character of Antony, under fabulous denominations, sufficiently
understood by Augustus, and his Minister. Dacier justly observes how
easy it is to discern, that by the Lapithæ, and Giants, defeated by
Hercules on the plains of Thessaly, the poet means the armies of
Brutus, and Cassius, defeated by Augustus, almost in the same place,
at the battle of Philippi. He concludes also that by Hylæus is meant
Mark Antony, who assumed the name of Bacchus, and ruined himself by his
profligate passion for Cleopatra. Another commentator observes, that
as the Giants, and Lapithæ, are said to have made the palace of Saturn
shake, so also did Brutus, and Cassius, and afterwards Mark Antony,
make all Italy tremble, and that it is Rome itself that Horace would
have to be understood by the magnificent Palace of Saturn. Some critics
seek to destroy all the common sense, beauty, and character of this
Ode, by denying the allegoric interpretation; and also by insisting
that Licinia was the poet’s own mistress, and not the mistress of his
patron. It had been absurd, and inconceivably unmeaning, if, when he
was requested to sing the triumphs of Augustus in the Italian wars, he
should, during the brief mention of them, have adverted to old fables,
uniting them, not as a simile, but in a line of continuation with the
Numantian, and Carthaginian wars; unless, beneath those fables, he
shadowed forth the Roman enemies of Augustus.
The idea that Licinia was the mistress of Horace, has surely little
foundation:--for it were strange indeed if he could take pleasure in
describing amorous familiarities between Mæcenas, and the person with
whom himself was in love. One of these critics alleges, as the reason
why this lady could not be the destined bride of Mæcenas, that it would
have been as indiscreet in him to have admitted Horace to be a witness
of his passion for Licinia-Terentia, as it would have been impertinent
in the poet, to have invaded the privacies of his patron. It is not
necessary, from this Ode, to conclude that Horace had witnessed the
tender scene he describes. He might, without any hazard of imputed
impertinence, venture to paint, from his imagination, the innocently
playful endearments of betrothed lovers. The picture was much more
likely to flatter than to disgust the gay, and gallant Mæcenas.
[123] l. 12. _Diana’s shrine_--The Roman ladies, according to ancient
custom, danced with entwined arms, around the Altar of Diana, on the
day of her Festival.
[124] It was common with the Antients to consecrate fountains by a
sacrifice, and vinous libations, poured from goblets crowned with
flowers. Lively imaginations glow over the idea of such a beautiful
ceremony.
[125] At the feast, held in honour of Licinius Murena having been
chosen Augur, Horace endeavours to turn the conversation towards gayer
subjects than Grecian Chronology, and the Trojan war, upon which his
friend Telephus had been declaiming; and for this purpose seems to
have composed the ensuing Ode at table. It concludes with a hint, that
the unpleasant state of the poet’s mind, respecting his then mistress,
incapacitates him for abstracted themes, which demand a serene and
collected attention, alike inconsistent with the amorous discontent of
the secret heart, and with the temporary exhilaration of the spirits,
produced by the occasion on which they were met. This must surely be
the meaning of Horace in this Ode, however obscurely expressed. People
of sense do not, even in their gayest conversation, start from their
subject to anoher of total inconnection. When the latent meaning in the
concluding verses is perspicuously paraphrased, it accounts for the
poet’s preference at that period, of trifling to literary subjects.
These slight, and often obscure allusions, closely, and what is called
faithfully translated, give a wild and unmeaning air to the Odes of
Horace, which destroys their interest with the unlearned admirers of
poetry. To give distinct shape and form to these embryo ideas, often
capable of acquiring very interesting form and shape, is the aim of
these Paraphrases.
Telephus, who was a Greek, appears to have been a youth of noble
birth--being mentioned as such in the Ode to Phyllis, which will be
found farther on amongst these Paraphrases. From that to Lydia, so well
known, and so often translated, we learn that he had a beautiful form,
and was much admired by the Roman ladies.
[126] l. 6 _Poignant gust_--The translator was doubtful about using
that word, till she recollected it in the gravest of Pope’s Poems,
“Destroy all creatures for thy sport and _gust_;
“Then cry, If man’s unhappy God’s unjust.”
_Essay on Man._
[127] l. 7. _Aglaia_--The eldest of the Graces.
[128] l. 12. _Dusky wreaths ascend_--The Romans made fires in the
middle of their rooms, with a hole in the ceiling, to let out the
smoke, which is described as rolling to the top of the house.
[129] l. 16. _Love-chosen month_--The feast of Venus was held by the
Romans in April.
[130] l. 5. _Illustrious Telephus_--It is agreed that this is the
same young nobleman to whom the Ode is addressed, on Licinius being
appointed Augur, and which has been paraphrased in this Collection.
[131] The reader will remember, that in the course of these Paraphrases
the design has been avowed of stretching the pictures of Horace upon
a wider canvas, of filling up what are so often mere outlines. If
learned eyes ever glance over this Ode, it is hoped they will not frown
upon the many circumstances and reflections which have been added,
upon a presumption, induced by the pleasing nature of the subject,
since the Roman customs and manners are preserved with fidelity. Those
customs and manners, resulting from their festal, gay, and picturesque
religion, cannot surely be presented without proving interesting. Yet,
to create this interest, stronger and more circumstantial description
seems required than can be found in Horace, if the Paraphraser may be
allowed to judge of the poetic feelings of others by her own. It was
doubtless sufficient for his contemporary readers, and for those of
some succeeding generations, that he slightly alluded to events and
ceremonies, which were familiar to their recollection. In our day more
precision is demanded, at least by those who have poetic taste without
knowledge of the dead languages, or intimacy with the national and
domestic customs of that time, and of that people. Also, to strengthen
this necessary interest in the mind of the reader, it must be eligible
to infuse a more liberal portion of those sentiments and ideas, which
speak to the heart in every age, and in every climate.
To scholars the fascinating music of the Latin tones and measures,
and the elegance with which Horace knew to select, and to regulate
them, recompence the obscurity which is so frequent in his allusions,
and in the violence of his transitions from one subject to another,
between which the line of connection is with difficulty traced. What
is called a faithful translation of these Odes cannot, therefore, be
interesting to unlearned lovers of verse, how alive soever they may
be to poetic beauty.--A literal translation in the plainest prose,
will always shew the precise quantity of real poetic matter, contained
in any production, independent of the music of its intonation, and
numbers, and the elegance of its style.--The prose translations of
Horace’s Odes evince that their merit does not consist in the plenitude
of poetic matter, or essence, constituted by circumstances of startling
interest, by exalted sentiment, impassioned complaint, or appeal,
distinct and living imagery, happy apposite allusion, and sublime
metaphor; but in certain elegant verbal felicities and general charm
of style, produced by the force and sweetness of the Latin language,
subservient to the fine ear, the lively and exquisite taste of Horace.
These are the graces which we find so apt to evaporate in translation,
while genuine Poetic Matter, as defined above, is capable of being
transfused into any other language without losing a particle of its
excellence, provided the chemist, who undertakes the operation, has
genius and skill. The more this poetic matter in an author abounds, the
more close and faithful a translator, who has judgment, may venture
to render his version--but to transfuse merely verbal felicities into
another language is an attempt scarcely less fruitless than to clasp
the rainbow. A kindred nothingness, as to poetic value, ensues. There
is, however, a considerable, though not abounding quantity of poetic
matter, or essence, in Horace; but it bears no proportion to the
profusion of those evanescent glories, which will not bear the grasp
of another language. To give that essence in increased quantity, and
in the freedom of unimitative numbers, is attempted in this selection.
Dryden and Pope translated upon that plan, and hence their Paraphrases
have the spirit of original poems.
Ere this note closes, its Author desires to observe, that painters
cannot take a striking likeness of a face in which there is no
predominant feature, and the poet can only make his image, or
description, distinct, animated, and forcible, by bringing forward some
characteristic trait of the object he is presenting. When Horace says
in this Ode, “How pleasing is it to see the well-fed sheep hastening
home,” the observation is not picturesque, and therefore does not
strongly impress the imagination; but when he adds--“to see the weary
oxen dragging, with languid neck, the inverted ploughshare,” he gives
perhaps the most poetic feature in this Ode. Had he only said, “to
see the oxen returning from their labour,” his oxen had been as much
without character as his sheep, and the sentence must have passed
unimpressive over the mind of the reader. It is the words--dragging,
with languid neck, the inverted ploughshare, that makes the sentence
Poetry, and empowers it to arrest and charm the fancy. Had Horace
always written thus, undeviating fidelity had been the best aim of
his translator, and the sure way of rendering him delightful in every
language.
[132] l. 1. p. 293. Dacier observes that vines supported on the highest
trees produce wines of the most exquisite flavour.
[133] l. 17. The feast of Terminus, one of the rural gods, was held
on the first of February, at which time, in those warm climates, the
spring is very forward.
[134] l. 20. _Hungry wolf releas’d_--The Romans fancied that the
struggle and terror of a kid on being seized by the wolf, made its
flesh more tender.
[135] l. 2. _Ides_--The middle of a month.
[136] l. 3. _Calends_--The beginning of the next month.
[137] l. 12. _Ruthless fratricide_--Romulus, who killed his brother
Remus, for ridiculing his wall by leaping over it.
[138] l. 1.--The English Ballad uses the past tense thro’ the three
first stanzas; this Paraphrase the more dramatic, more impressive
present tense. The distant clocks, marking the midnight hour, is not
in either the Ballad or the Latin poem. In WILLIAM and MARGARET, each
stanza rhymes only twice, but the first has no rhyme. Our best writers
use the imperfect rhymes freely, and I think to the advantage of
their verse, as _mourn_ and _scorn_, _abode_ and _God_, _frost_ and
_coast_;--but _feet_ and _sleep_, which are given as rhymes in the
exordium of that Ballad, are not within the bounds of privilege.
[139]
l. 7.--“And clay-cold was her lily hand
“That held her sable shroud.”
_William and Margaret._
The epithet _lily_ is too nice and pretty for its situation, and
_sable_ seems utterly improper, since shrouds were white in Mallet’s
time, as in ours. Perhaps the epithet sable, temporarily inapplicable,
has been one reason for believing the whole of this Ballad ancient,
since it was probably the old custom to wrap the dead in black stuff,
or linen. The gathering up the sepulchral robe from her feet, instead
of merely holding it, is one of Vincent Bourne’s variations, and
adds the grace of motion to the figure. Statue-like stillness is not
necessary to apparition-costume. The ghost in Hamlet beckons the prince
to follow it.
[140] l. 1. This apostrophe to a young prince is another improvement
in the Latin version. It preserves the moral of the original and less
spirited stanza, with heightened force from the personal address, and
from the grand image in the third line. Compare it with the stanza in
the Ballad:
“So shall the fairest face appear
“When youth and years are flown,
“And such the robe that kings must wear
“When death has reft their crown.”
Here is no picture, and years after youth in the second line, form a
pleonasm;--but the exquisite music produced by the alliteration in
those two words, and by the number of vowels in the line, disarms
criticism.
[141] l. 5.--This stanza in the Ballad is common-place; in the Latin
poem it is an original and charming description of a young beauty; yet
to that which speaks only of her smiles and blushes, the charms of her
eyes are added by the figure of the morning star in this Paraphrase.
In the next stanza also, the discriminating “et faciles risus,” of the
Latin version, is preserved by the epithet _ready_. A prompt smile is
characteristic of early youth, though Vincent Bourne is the first poet
who, by marked description, has recognised the propensity. The word
_gay_ does not, in itself, sufficiently express that facility of smile.
[142] l. 10. “Tandem, O nunc tandem;” the repetition greatly increases
the pathos, and is closely rendered in this Elegy.
[143]
l. 12.--“This is the dull, the dreary hour
“When injur’d ghosts complain;
“When yawning graves give up their dead
“To haunt the faithless swain!”
_William and Margaret._
Excellent as are the three first lines of this original stanza, yet the
Latin quatrain strengthens the awful horrors of inhumation, and the
re-translator flatters herself they have not here lost any of their
terrific powers. Swain, in the last line of the stanza from William and
Margaret, seems a botching appellation, used merely from the rhyme’s
necessity. Whatever might have been the original meaning of the word
_swain_, custom has attached to it a certain character of amorous
effeminacy and tenderness, ill-suited to the perfidious conduct of the
accused, and the sepulchral solemnity of the accuser.
[144] l. 12.--These parenthetic and passionate exclamations are all
in the Latin poem, and add great effect to the solemn and upbraiding
challenge.
[145]
l. 7.--“Nulla mihi heu! florit facies que floruit ecce!”
How much more spirit in that line than in
“This face, alas! no more is fair.”
_William and Margaret._
The word, _ecce_! is a striking challenge to observe her changed face,
and to contrast it with its former beauty.
[146] l. 11.--This line in the old Ballad is of most unpoetic
construction, viz.
“The hungry worm my sister _is_.”
[147] This Sonnet is in the style of our elder poets, with whom the
hyperbole was a favourite poetic figure.
[148] l. 11._Downy blow-ball_--Ben Jonson’s name for the seed-vessels
of the Dandelion.
[149] l. 7. _Life is love_--Mr Bree’s scenes are his own creation,
since he seldom draws from Nature, and never from copies.
[150] This young creature plays every air she catches with full
and elegant bass accompaniment, intuitively and spontaneously
discovered;--also beautiful compositions intirely her own, and this
without knowing the names of the notes or the keys.--_Sept. 1803._ She
has within this month only, begun to learn music scientifically.
[151] l. 13. _Jura’s side_--A vast mountain in Switzerland.
[152] This Poem was written on request, in the year 1800, in the MS.
volume of verses, collected by that young lady. Upon the page destined
for these stanzas, a beautiful little sea-scene, with a light-house,
and a small turret on the shore, had been previously drawn by her
cousin, Miss J. Cheney of Langley.
[153] l. 2. _Ampler tower_--The light-house.
[154] l. 9. _Tender Hero’s_--Alluding to the story of Hero and Leander
in Ovid.
[155] l. 8. _Ancient Witchery_--Since this poem was written, all the
native romance of the river at this spot, has been destroyed by a
detestable cotton-mill.
[156] l. 1. _One of proved fidelity_--The head steward at B----.