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diff --git a/16801.txt b/16801.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5c653c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/16801.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4402 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Horace and His Influence, by Grant Showerman + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Horace and His Influence + + +Author: Grant Showerman + + + +Release Date: October 4, 2005 [eBook #16801] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE AND HIS INFLUENCE*** + + +E-text prepared by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Leonard Johnson, and the +Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(https://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +HORACE AND HIS INFLUENCE + +by + +GRANT SHOWERMAN + + + * * * * * * + + + +Our Debt to Greece and Rome + +Editors + +George Depue Hadzsits, Ph.D. +University of Pennsylvania + +David Moore Robinson, Ph.D., Ll.D. +The Johns Hopkins University + + +[Illustration] + + + +Contributors to the "Our Debt to +Greece and Rome Fund," Whose +Generosity Has Made Possible +the Library + +Our Debt to Greece and Rome + + Philadelphia + + DR. ASTLEY P.C. ASHHURST + WILLIAM L. AUSTIN + JOHN C. BELL + HENRY H. BONNELL + JASPER YEATES BRINTON + GEORGE BURNHAM, JR. + JOHN CADWALADER + MISS CLARA COMEGYS + MISS MARY E. CONVERSE + ARTHUR G. DICKSON + WILLIAM M. ELKINS + H.H. FURNESS, JR. + WILLIAM P. GEST + JOHN GRIBBEL + SAMUEL F. HOUSTON + CHARLES EDWARD INGERSOLL + JOHN STORY JENKS + ALBA B. JOHNSON + MISS NINA LEA + HORATIO G. LLOYD + GEORGE MCFADDEN + MRS. JOHN MARKOE + JULES E. MASTBAUM + J. VAUGHAN MERRICK + EFFINGHAM B. MORRIS + WILLIAM R. MURPHY + JOHN S. NEWBOLD + S. DAVIS PAGE (memorial) + OWEN J. ROBERTS + JOSEPH G. ROSENGARTEN + WILLIAM C. SPROUL + JOHN B. STETSON, JR. + DR. J. WILLIAM WHITE (memorial) + GEORGE D. WIDENER + MRS. JAMES D. WINSOR + OWEN WISTER + The Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Liberal Studies. + + Boston + + ORIC BATES (memorial) + FREDERICK P. FISH + WILLIAM AMORY GARDNER + JOSEPH CLARK HOPPIN + + Chicago + + HERBERT W. WOLFF + + Cincinnati + + CHARLES PHELPS TAFT + + Cleveland + + SAMUEL MATHER + + Detroit + + JOHN W. ANDERSON + DEXTER M. FERRY, JR. + + Doylestown, Pennsylvania + + "A LOVER OF GREECE AND ROME" + + New York + + JOHN JAY CHAPMAN + WILLARD V. KING + THOMAS W. LAMONT + DWIGHT W. MORROW + MRS. D.W. MORROW + _Senatori Societatis Philosophiae_, [Greek: PhBK], _gratias maximas + agimus_ + ELIHU ROOT + MORTIMER L. SCHIFF + WILLIAM SLOANE + GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM + And one contributor, who has asked to have his name withheld: + _Maecenas atavis edite regibus,_ + _O et praesidium et dulce decus meum._ + + Washington + + The Greek Embassy at Washington, for the Greek Government. + + + * * * * * * + + +HORACE AND HIS INFLUENCE + +by + +GRANT SHOWERMAN + +Professor of Classics +The University of Wisconsin + +George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd. +London Calcutta Sydney + +The Plimpton Press Norwood Massachusetts + +1922 + + + + + + +To +HOWARD LESLIE SMITH +LOVER OF LETTERS + + + + +SABINE HILLS + + O_n Sabine hills when melt the snows_, + S_till level-full His river flows_; + E_ach April now His valley fills_ + W_ith cyclamen and daffodils_; + A_nd summers wither with the rose_. + + S_wift-waning moons the cycle close_: + B_irth,--toil,--mirth,--death; life onward goes_ + T_hrough harvest heat or winter chills_ + O_n Sabine hills_. + + Y_et One breaks not His long repose_, + N_or hither comes when Zephyr blows_; + I_n vain the spring's first swallow trills_; + N_ever again that Presence thrills_; + O_ne charm no circling season knows_ + O_n Sabine hills_. + + GEORGE MEASON WHICHER + + + + +EDITORS' PREFACE + + +The volume on Horace and His Influence by Doctor Showerman is the second +to appear in the Series, known as "Our Debt to Greece and Rome." + +Doctor Showerman has told the story of this influence in what seems to +us the most effective manner possible, by revealing the spiritual +qualities of Horace and the reasons for their appeal to many generations +of men. These were the crown of the personality and work of the ancient +poet, and admiration of them has through successive ages always been a +token of aspiration and of a striving for better things. + +The purpose of the volumes in this Series will be to show the influence +of virtually all of the great forces of the Greek and Roman +civilizations upon subsequent life and thought and the extent to which +these are interwoven into the fabric of our own life of to-day. Thereby +we shall all know more clearly the nature of our inheritance from the +past and shall comprehend more steadily the currents of our own life, +their direction and their value. This is, we take it, of considerable +importance for life as a whole, whether for correct thinking or for true +idealism. + +The supremacy of Horace within the limits that he set for himself is no +fortuity, and the miracle of his achievement will always remain an +inspiration for some. But it is not as a distant ideal for a few, but as +a living and vital force for all, that we should approach him; and to +assist in this is the aim of our little volume. + +The significance of Horace to the twentieth century will gain in clarity +from an understanding of his meaning to other days. We shall discover +that the eternal verity of his message, whether in ethics or in art, +comes to _us_ with a very particular challenge, warning and cry. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + CONTRIBUTORS TO THE FUND ii + SABINE HILLS vii + EDITORS' PREFACE ix + INTRODUCTION: THE DYNAMISM OF THE FEW xiii + + I. HORACE INTERPRETED + The Appeal of Horace 3 + 1. Horace the Person 6 + 2. Horace the Poet 9 + 3. Horace the Interpreter of His Times + Horace the Duality 23 + i. The Interpreter of Italian Landscape 25 + ii. The Interpreter of Italian Living 28 + iii. The Interpreter of Roman Religion 31 + iv. The Interpreter of the Popular Wisdom 35 + Horace and Hellenism 38 + 4. Horace the Philosopher of Life + Horace the Spectator and Essayist 39 + i. The Vanity of Human Wishes 44 + ii. The Pleasures of this World 49 + iii. Life and Morality 54 + iv. Life and Purpose 59 + v. The Sources of Happiness 62 + II. HORACE THROUGH THE AGES + Introductory 69 + 1. Horace the Prophet 70 + 2. Horace and Ancient Rome 75 + 3. Horace and the Middle Age 87 + 4. Horace and Modern Times + The Rebirth of Horace 104 + i. In Italy 106 + ii. In France 114 + iii. In Germany 115 + iv. In Spain 118 + v. In England 121 + vi. In the Schools 126 + III. HORACE THE DYNAMIC + The Cultivated Few 127 + 1. Horace and the Literary Ideal 131 + 2. Horace and Literary Creation + i. The Translator's Ideal 136 + ii. Creation 143 + 3. Horace in the Living of Men 152 + IV. CONCLUSION 168 + NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 171 + + + + +INTRODUCTION: THE DYNAMISM +OF THE FEW + + +To those who stand in the midst of times and attempt to grasp their +meaning, civilization often seems hopelessly complicated. The myriad and +mysterious interthreading of motive and action, of cause and effect, +presents to the near vision no semblance of a pattern, and the whole web +is so confused and meaningless that the mind grows to doubt the presence +of design, and becomes skeptical of the necessity, or even the +importance, of any single strand. + +Yet civilization is on the whole a simple and easily understood +phenomenon. This is true most apparently of that part of the human +family of which Europe and the Americas form the principal portion, and +whose influences have made themselves felt also in remote continents. If +to us it is less apparently true of the world outside our western +civilization, the reason lies in the fact that we are not in possession +of equal facilities for the exercise of judgment. + +We are all members one of another, and the body which we form is a +consistent and more or less unchanging whole. There are certain +elemental facts which underlie human society wherever it has advanced to +a stage deserving the name of civilization. There is the intellectual +impulse, with the restraining influence of reason upon the relations of +men. There is the active desire to be in right relation with the +unknown, which we call religion. There is the attempt at the +beautification of life, which we call art. There is the institution of +property. There is the institution of marriage. There is the demand for +the purity of woman. There is the insistence upon certain decencies and +certain conformities which constitute what is known as morality. There +is the exchange of material conveniences called commerce, with its +necessary adjunct, the sanctity of obligation. In a word, there are the +universal and eternal verities. + +Farther, if what we may call the constitution of civilization is thus +definite, its physical limits are even more clearly defined. +Civilization is a matter of centers. The world is not large, and its +government rests upon the shoulders of the few. The metropolis is the +index of capacity for good and ill in a national civilization. Its +culture is representative of the common life of town and country. + +It follows that the history of civilization is a history of the famous +gathering-places of men. The story of human progress in the West is the +story of Memphis, Thebes, Babylon, Nineveh, Cnossus, Athens, Alexandria, +Rome, and of medieval, Renaissance, and modern capitals. History is a +stream, in the remoter antiquity of Egypt and Mesopotamia confined +within narrow and comparatively definite banks, gathering in volume and +swiftness as it flows through Hellenic lands, and at last expanding into +the broad and deep basin of Rome, whence its current, dividing, leads +away in various channels to other ample basins, perhaps in the course of +time to reunite at some great meeting of waters in the New World. To one +afloat in the swirl of contradictory eddies, it may be difficult to +judge of the whence and whither of the troubled current, but the ascent +of the stream and the exploration of the sources of literature and the +arts, of morals, politics, and religion, of commerce and mechanics, is +on the whole no difficult adventure. + +Finally, civilization is not only a matter of local habitation, but a +matter of individual men. The great city is both determined by, and +determines, its environment; the great man is the product, and in turn +the producer, of the culture of his nation. The human race is gregarious +and sequacious, rather than individual and adventurous. Progress depends +upon the initiative of spirited and gifted men, rather than upon the +tardy movement of the mass, upon idea rather than force, upon spirit +rather than matter. + +I preface my essay with these reflections because there may be readers +at first thought skeptical of even modest statements regarding Horace as +a force in the history of our culture and a contributor to our life +today. It is only when the continuity of history and the essential +simplicity and constancy of civilization are understood that the direct +and vital connection between past and present is seen, and the mind is +no longer startled and incredulous when the historian records that the +Acropolis has had more to do with the career of architecture than any +other group of buildings in the world, or that the most potent influence +in the history of prose is the Latin of Cicero, or that poetic +expression is more choice and many men appreciably saner and happier +because of a Roman poet dead now one thousand nine hundred and thirty +years. + + + + +HORACE AND HIS +INFLUENCE + + + + +I. HORACE INTERPRETED + +THE APPEAL OF HORACE + + +In estimating the effect of Horace upon his own and later times, we must +take into account two aspects of his work. These are, the forms in which +he expressed himself, and the substance of which they are the garment. +We shall find him distinguished in both; but in the substance of his +message we shall find him distinguished by a quality which sets him +apart from other poets ancient and modern. + +This distinctive quality lies neither in the originality nor in the +novelty of the Horatian message, which, as a matter of fact, is +surprisingly familiar, and perhaps even commonplace. It lies rather in +the appealing manner and mood of its communication. It is a message +living and vibrant. + +The reason for this is that in Horace we have, above all, a person. No +poet speaks from the page with greater directness, no poet establishes +so easily and so completely the personal relation with the reader, no +poet is remembered so much as if he were a friend in the flesh. In this +respect, Horace among poets is a parallel to Thackeray in the field of +the novel. What the letters of Cicero are to the intrigue and turmoil of +politics, war, and the minor joys and sorrows of private and social life +in the last days of the Republic, the lyrics and "Conversations" of +Horace are to the mood of the philosophic mind of the early Empire. Both +are lights which afford us a clear view of interiors otherwise but +faintly illuminated. They are priceless interpreters of their times. In +modern times, we make environment interpret the poet. We understand a +Tennyson, a Milton, or even a Shakespeare, from our knowledge of the +world in which he lived. In the case of antiquity, the process is +reversed. We reconstruct the times of Caesar and Augustus from fortunate +acquaintance with two of the most representative men who ever possessed +the gift of literary genius. + +It is because Horace's appeal depends so largely upon his qualities as a +person that our interpretation of him must center about his personal +traits. We shall re-present to the imagination his personal appearance. +We shall account for the personal qualities which contributed to the +poetic gift that set him apart as the interpreter of the age to his own +and succeeding generations. We shall observe the natural sympathy with +men and things by reason of which he reflects with peculiar faithfulness +the life of city and country. We shall become acquainted with the +thoughts and the moods of a mind and heart that were nicely sensitive to +sight and sound and personal contact. We shall hear what the poet has to +say of himself not only as a member of the human family, but as the user +of the pen. + +This interpretation of Horace as person and poet will be best attempted +from his own work, and best expressed in his own phrase. The pages which +follow are a manner of Horatian mosaic. They contain little not said or +suggested by the poet himself. + + + +1. HORACE THE PERSON + +Horace was of slight stature among even a slight-statured race. At the +period when we like him best, when he was growing mellower and better +with advancing years, his black hair was more than evenly mingled with +grey. The naturally dark and probably not too finely-textured skin of +face and expansive forehead was deepened by the friendly breezes of both +city and country to the vigorous golden brown of the Italian. Feature +and eye held the mirror up to a spirit quick to anger but plenteous in +good-nature. Altogether, Horace was a short, rotund man, smiling but +serious, of nothing very remarkable either in appearance or in manner, +and with a look of the plain citizen. Of all the ancients who have left +no material likeness, he is the least difficult to know in person. + +We see him in a carriage or at the shows with Maecenas, the Emperor's +fastidious counsellor. We have charming glimpses of him enjoying in +company the hospitable shade of huge pine and white poplar on the grassy +terrace of some rose-perfumed Italian garden with noisy fountain and +hurrying stream. He loiters, with eyes bent on the pavement, along the +winding Sacred Way that leads to the Forum, or on his way home struggles +against the crowd as it pushes its way down town amid the dust and din +of the busy city. He shrugs his shoulders in good-humored despair as the +sirocco brings lassitude and irritation from beyond the Mediterranean, +or he sits huddled up in some village by the sea, shivering with the +winds from the Alps, reading, and waiting for the first swallow to +herald the spring. + +We see him at a mild game of tennis in the broad grounds of the Campus +Martius. We see him of an evening vagabonding among the nameless common +folk of Rome, engaging in small talk with dealers in small merchandise. +He may look in upon a party of carousing friends, with banter that is +not without reproof. We find him lionized in the homes of the first men +of the city in peace and war, where he mystifies the not too +intellectual fair guests with graceful and provokingly passionless +gallantry. He sits at ease with greater enjoyment under the opaque vine +and trellis of his own garden. He appears in the midst of his household +as it bustles with preparation for the birthday feast of a friend, or he +welcomes at a less formal board and with more unrestrained joy the +beloved comrade-in-arms of Philippi, prolonging the genial intercourse + + "T_ill Phoebus the red East unbars_ + A_nd puts to rout the trembling stars_." + +Or we see him bestride an indifferent nag, cantering down the Appian +Way, with its border of tombs, toward the towering dark-green summits of +the Alban Mount, twenty miles away, or climbing the winding white road +to Tivoli where it reclines on the nearest slope of the Sabines, and +pursuing the way beyond it along the banks of headlong Anio where it +rushes from the mountains to join the Tiber. We see him finally arrived +at his Sabine farm, the gift of Maecenas, standing in tunic-sleeves at +his doorway in the morning sun, and contemplating with thankful heart +valley and hill-side opposite, and the cold stream of Digentia in the +valley-bottom below. We see him rambling about the wooded uplands of his +little estate, and resting in the shade of a decaying rustic temple to +indite a letter to the friend whose not being present is all that keeps +him from perfect happiness. He participates with the near-by villagers +in the joys of the rural holiday. He mingles homely philosophy and +fiction with country neighbors before his own hearth in the big +living-room of the farm-house. + +Horace's place is not among the dim and uncertain figures of a hoary +antiquity. Only give him modern shoes, an Italian cloak, and a +walking-stick, instead of sandals and toga, and he may be seen on the +streets of Rome today. Nor is he less modern in character and bearing +than in appearance. We discern in his composition the same strange and +seemingly contradictory blend of the grave and gay, the lively and +severe, the constant and the mercurial, the austere and the trivial, the +dignified and the careless, that is so baffling to the observer of +Italian character and conduct today. + + + +2. HORACE THE POET + +To understand how Horace came to be a great poet as well as an engaging +person, it is necessary to look beneath this somewhat commonplace +exterior, and to discern the spiritual man. + +The foundations of literature are laid in life. For the production of +great poetry two conditions are necessary. There must be, first, an age +pregnant with the celestial fires of deep emotion. Second, there must be +in its midst one of the rare men whom we call inspired. He must be of +such sensitive spiritual fiber as to vibrate to every breeze of the +national passion, of such spiritual capacity as to assimilate the common +thoughts and moods of the time, of such fine perception and of such +sureness of command over word, phrase, and rhythm, as to give crowning +expression to what his soul has made its own. + +For abundance of stirring and fertilizing experience, history presents +few equals of the times when Horace lived. His lifetime fell in an age +which was in continual travail with great and uncertain movement. Never +has Fortune taken greater delight in her bitter and insolent game, never +displayed a greater pertinacity in the derision of men. In the period +from Horace's birth at Venusia in southeastern Italy, on December 8, +B.C. 65, to November 27, B.C. 8, when + + "M_ourned of men and Muses nine_, + T_hey laid him on the Esquiline_," + +there occurred the series of great events, to men in their midst +incomprehensible, bewildering, and disheartening, which after times +could readily interpret as the inevitable change from the ancient and +decaying Republic to the better knit if less free life of the Empire. + +We are at an immense distance, and the differences have long since been +composed. The menacing murmur of trumpets is no longer audible, and the +seas are no longer red with blood. The picture is old, and faded, and +darkened, and leaves us cold, until we illuminate it with the light of +imagination. Then first we see, or rather feel, the magnitude of the +time: its hatreds and its selfishness; its differences of opinion, +sometimes honest and sometimes disingenuous, but always maintained with +the heat of passion; its divisions of friends and families; its +lawlessness and violence; its terrifying uncertainties and adventurous +plunges; its tragedies of confiscation, murder, fire, proscription, +feud, insurrection, riot, war; the dramatic exits of the leading actors +in the great play,--of Catiline at Pistoria, of Crassus in the eastern +deserts, of Clodius at Bovillae within sight of the gates of Rome, of +Pompey in Egypt, of Cato in Africa, of Caesar, Servius Sulpicius, +Marcellus, Trebonius and Dolabella, Hirtius and Pansa, Decimus Brutus, +the Ciceros, Marcus Brutus and Cassius, Sextus the son of Pompey, Antony +and Cleopatra,--as one after another + + "S_trutted and fretted his hour upon the stage_, + A_nd then was heard no more_." + +It is in relief against a background such as this that Horace's works +should be read,--the _Satires_, published in 35 and 30, which the poet +himself calls _Sermones_, "Conversations," "Talks," or _Causeries_; the +collection of lyrics called _Epodes_, in 29; three books of _Odes_ in +23; a book of _Epistles_, or further _Causeries_, in 20; the _Secular +Hymn_ in 17; a second book of _Epistles_ in 14; a fourth book of _Odes_ +in 13; and a final _Epistle_, _On the Art of Poetry_, at a later and +uncertain date. + +It is above all against such a background that Horace's invocation to +Fortune should be read: + + G_oddess, at lovely Antium is thy shrine_: + R_eady art thou to raise with grace divine_ + O_ur mortal frame from lowliest dust of earth_, + O_r turn triumph to funeral for thy mirth_; + +or that other expression of the inscrutable uncertainty of the human +lot: + + F_ortune, whose joy is e'er our woe and shame_, + W_ith hard persistence plays her mocking game_; + B_estowing favors all inconstantly_, + K_indly to others now, and now to me_. + W_ith me, I praise her; if her wings she lift_ + T_o leave me, I resign her every gift_, + A_nd, cloaked about in my own virtue's pride_, + W_ed honest poverty, the dowerless bride_. + +Horace is not here the idle singer of an empty day. His utterance may be +a universal, but in the light of history it is no commonplace. It is the +eloquent record of the life of Rome in an age which for intensity is +unparalleled in the annals of the ancient world. + +And yet men may live a longer span of years than fell to the lot of +Horace, and in times no less pregnant with event, and still fail to come +into really close contact with life. Horace's experience was +comprehensive, and touched the life of his generation at many points. He +was born in a little country town in a province distant from the +capital. His father, at one time a slave, and always of humble calling, +was a man of independent spirit, robust sense, and excellent character, +whose constant and intimate companionship left everlasting gratitude in +the heart of the son. He provided for the little Horace's education at +first among the sons of the "great" centurions who constituted the +society of the garrison-town of Venusia, afterwards ambitiously took him +to Rome to acquire even the accomplishments usual among the sons of +senators, and finally sent him to Athens, garner of wisdom of the ages, +where the learning of the past was constantly made to live again by +masters with the quick Athenian spirit of telling or hearing new things. + +The intellectual experience of Horace's younger days was thus of the +broadest character. Into it there entered and were blended the shrewd +practical understanding of the Italian provincial; the ornamental +accomplishments of the upper classes; the inspiration of Rome's history, +with the long line of heroic figures that appear in the twelfth _Ode_ of +the first book like a gallery of magnificent portraits; first-hand +knowledge of prominent men of action and letters; unceasing discussion +of questions of the day which could be avoided by none; and, finally, +humanizing contact on their own soil with Greek philosophy and poetry, +Greek monuments and history, and teachers of racial as well as +intellectual descent from the greatest people of the past. + +But Horace's experience assumed still greater proportions. He passed +from the university of Athens to the larger university of life. The news +of Caesar's death at the hands of the "Liberators," which reached him as +a student there at the age of twenty-one, and the arrival of Brutus some +months after, stirred his young blood. As an officer in the army of +Brutus, he underwent the hardships of the long campaign, enriching life +with new friendships formed in circumstances that have always tightened +the friendly bond. He saw the disastrous day of Philippi, narrowly +escaped death by shipwreck, and on his return to Italy and Rome found +himself without father or fortune. + +Nor was the return to Rome the end of his education. In the interval +which followed, Horace's mind, always of philosophic bent, was no doubt +busy with reflection upon the disparity between the ideals of the +liberators and the practical results of their actions, upon the +difference between the disorganized, anarchical Rome of the civil war +and the gradually knitting Rome of Augustus, and upon the futility of +presuming to judge the righteousness either of motives or means in a +world where men, to say nothing of understanding each other, could not +understand themselves. In the end, he accepted what was not to be +avoided. He went farther than acquiescence. The growing conviction among +thoughtful men that Augustus was the hope of Rome found lodgment also in +his mind. He gravitated from negative to positive. His value as an +educated man was recognized, and he found himself at twenty-four in +possession of the always coveted boon of the young Italian, a place in +the government employ. A clerkship in the treasury gave him salary, +safety, respectability, a considerable dignity, and a degree of leisure. + +Of the leisure he made wise use. Still in the afterglow of his Athenian +experience, he began to write. He attracted the attention of a limited +circle of associates. The personal qualities which made him a favorite +with the leaders of the Republican army again served him well. He won +the recognition and the favor of men who had the ear of the ruling few. +In about 33, when he was thirty-two years old, Maecenas, the +appreciative counsellor, prompted by Augustus, the politic ruler, who +recognized the value of talent in every field for his plans of +reconstruction, made him independent of money-getting, and gave him +currency among the foremost literary men of the city. He triumphed over +the social prejudice against the son of a freedman, disarmed the +jealousy of literary rivals, and was assured of fame as well as favor. + +Nor was even this the end of Horace's experience with the world of +action. It may be that his actual participation in affairs did cease +with Maecenas's gift of the Sabine farm, and it is true that he never +pretended to live on their own ground the life of the high-born and +rich, but he nevertheless associated on sympathetic terms with men +through whom he felt all the activities and ideals of the class most +representative of the national life, and past experiences and natural +adaptability enabled him to assimilate their thoughts and emotions. + +Thanks to the glowing personal nature of Horace's works, we know who +many of these friends and patrons were who so enlarged his vision and +deepened his inspiration. Almost without exception his poems are +addressed or dedicated to men with whom he was on terms of more than +ordinary friendship. They were rare men,--fit audience, though few; men +of experience in affairs at home and in the field, men of natural taste +and real cultivation, of broad and sane outlook, of warm heart and deep +sympathies. There was Virgil, whom he calls the half of his own being. +There was Plotius, and there was Varius, bird of Maeonian song, whom he +ranks with the singer of the _Aeneid_ himself as the most luminously +pure of souls on earth. There was Quintilius, whose death was bewailed +by many good men;--when would incorruptible Faith and Truth find his +equal? There was Maecenas, well-bred and worldly-wise, the pillar and +ornament of his fortunes. There was Septimius, the hoped-for companion +of his mellow old age in the little corner of earth that smiled on him +beyond all others. There was Iccius, procurator of Agrippa's estates in +Sicily, sharing Horace's delight in philosophy. There was Agrippa +himself, son-in-law of Augustus, grave hero of battles and diplomacy. +There was elderly Trebatius, sometime friend of Cicero and Caesar, with +dry legal humor early seasoned in the wilds of Gaul. There were Pompeius +and Corvinus, old-soldier friends with whom he exchanged reminiscences +of the hard campaign. There was Messalla, a fellow-student at Athens, +and Pollio, soldier, orator, and poet. There were Julius Florus and +other members of the ambitious literary cohort in the train of Tiberius. +There was Aristius Fuscus, the watch of whose wit was ever wound and +ready to strike. There was Augustus himself, busy administrator of a +world, who still found time for letters. + +It is through the medium of personalities like these that Horace's +message was delivered to the world of his time and to later generations. +How far the finished elegance of his expression is due to their +discriminating taste, and how much of the breadth and sanity of his +content is due to their vigor of character and cosmopolitan culture, we +may only conjecture. Literature is not the product of a single +individual. The responsive and stimulating audience is hardly less +needful than the poet's inspiration. + +Such were the variety and abundance of Horace's experience. It was large +and human. He had touched life high and low, bond and free, public and +private, military and civil, provincial and urban, Hellenic, Asiatic, +and Italian, urban and rustic, ideal and practical, at the cultured +court and among the ignorant, but not always unwise, common people. + +And yet, numbers of men possessed of experience as abundant have died +without being poets, or even wise men. Their experience was held in +solution, so to speak, and failed to precipitate. Horace's experience +did precipitate. Nature gave him the warm and responsive soul by reason +of which he became a part of all he met. Unlike most of his associates +among the upper classes to which he rose, his sympathies could include +the freedman, the peasant, and the common soldier. Unlike most of the +multitude from which he sprang, he could extend his sympathies to the +careworn rich and the troubled statesman. He had learned from his own +lot and from observation that no life was wholly happy, that the cares +of the so-called fortunate were only different from, not less real than, +those of the ordinary man, that every human heart had its chamber +furnished for the entertainment of Black Care, and that the chamber was +never without its guest. + +But not even the precipitate of experience called wisdom will alone make +the poet. Horace was again endowed by nature with another and rarer and +equally necessary gift,--the sense of artistic expression. It would be +waste of time to debate how much he owed to native genius, how much to +his own laborious patience, and how much to the good fortune of generous +human contact. He is surely to be classed among examples of what for +want of a better term we call inspiration. The poet _is_ born. We may +account for the inspiration of Horace by supposing him of Greek descent +(as if Italy had never begotten poets of her own), but the mystery +remains. In the case of any poet, after everything has been said of the +usual influences, there is always something left to be accounted for +only on the ground of genius. It was the possession of this that set +Horace apart from other men of similar experience. + +The poet, however, is not the mere accident of birth. Horace is aware of +a power not himself that makes for poetic righteousness, and realizes +the mystery of inspiration. The Muse cast upon him at birth her placid +glance. He expects glory neither on the field nor in the course, but +looks to song for his triumphs. To Apollo, + + "L_ord of the enchanting shell_, + P_arent of sweet and solemn-breathing airs_," + +who can give power of song even unto the mute, he owes all his power and +all his fame. It is the gift of Heaven that he is pointed out by the +finger of the passer-by as the minstrel of the Roman lyre, that he +breathes the divine fire and pleases men. But he is as perfectly +appreciative of the fact that poets are born and also made, and condemns +the folly of depending upon inspiration unsupported by effort. He calls +himself the bee of Matinum, industriously flitting with honeyed thigh +about the banks of humid Tibur. What nature begins, cultivation must +develop. Neither training without the rich vein of native endowment, nor +natural talent without cultivation, will suffice; both must be friendly +conspirators in the process of forming the poet. Wisdom is the beginning +and source of writing well. He who would run with success the race that +is set before him must endure from boyhood the hardships of heat and +cold, and abstain from women and wine. The gift of God must be made +perfect by the use of the file, by long waiting, and by conscious +intellectual discipline. + + + +3. HORACE THE INTERPRETER +OF HIS TIMES + +HORACE THE DUALITY + +Varied as were Horace's experiences, they were mainly of two kinds, and +there are two Horaces who reflect them. There is a more natural Horace, +simple and direct, of ordinary Italian manners and ideals, and a less +natural Horace, finished in the culture of Greece and the +artificialities of life in the capital. They might be called the +unconventional and the conventional Horace. + +This duality is only the reflection of the two-fold experience of Horace +as the provincial village boy and as the successful literary man of the +city. The impressions received from Venusia and its simple population of +hard-working, plain-speaking folk, from the roaring Aufidus and the +landscape of Apulia, from the freedman father's common-sense instruction +as he walked about in affectionate companionship with his son, never +faded from Horace's mind. The ways of the city were superimposed upon +the ways of the country, but never displaced nor even covered them. They +were a garment put on and off, sometimes partly hiding, but never for +long, the original cloak of simplicity. It is not necessary to think its +wearer insincere when, constrained by social circumstance, he put it on. +As in most dualities not consciously assumed, both Horaces were genuine. +When Davus the slave reproaches his master for longing, while at Rome, +to be back in the country, and for praising the attractions of the city, +while in the country, it is not mere discontent or inconsistency in +Horace which he is attacking. Horace loved both city and country. + +And yet, whatever the appeal of the city and its artificialities, +Horace's real nature called for the country and its simple ways. It is +the Horace of Venusia and the Sabines who is the more genuine of the +two. The more formal poems addressed to Augustus and his house-hold +sometimes sound the note of affectation, but the most exacting critic +will hesitate to bring a like charge against the odes which celebrate +the fields and hamlets of Italy and the prowess of her citizen-soldiers +of time gone by, or against the mellow epistles and lyrics in which the +poet philosophizes upon the spectacle of human life. + + +_i_. THE INTERPRETER OF ITALIAN +LANDSCAPE + +The real Horace is to be found first of all as the interpreter of the +beauty and fruitfulness of Italy. It is no land of mere literary +imagination which he makes us see with such clear-cut distinctness. It +is not an Italy in Theocritean colors, like the Italy of Virgil's +_Bucolics_, but the Italy of Horace's own time, the Italy of his own +birth and experience, and the Italy of today. Horace is not a +descriptive poet. The reader will look in vain for nature-poems in the +modern sense. With a word or a phrase only, he flashes upon our vision +the beautiful, the significant, the permanent in the scenery of Italy. +The features which he loved best, or which for other reasons caught his +eye, are those that we still see. There are the oak and the opaque ilex, +the pine and the poplar, the dark, funereal cypress, the bright flower +of the too-short-lived rose, and the sweet-scented bed of violets. There +are the olive groves of Venafrum. Most lovely of sights and most +beautiful of figures, there is the purple-clustered vine of vari-colored +autumn wedded to the elm. There is the bachelor plane-tree. There are +the long-horned, grey-flanked, dark-muzzled, liquid-eyed cattle, grazing +under the peaceful skies of the Campagna or enjoying in the meadow their +holiday freedom from the plow; the same cattle that Carducci sings-- + + "I_n the grave sweetness of whose tranquil eyes_ + O_f emerald, broad and still reflected, dwells_ + A_ll the divine green silence of the plain_." + +We are made to see the sterile rust on the corn, and to feel the blazing +heat of dog-days, when not a breath stirs as the languid shepherd leads +his flock to the banks of the stream. The sunny pastures of Calabria lie +spread before us, we see the yellow Tiber at flood, the rushing Anio, +the deep eddyings of Liris' taciturn stream, the secluded valleys of the +Apennines, the leaves flying before the wind at the coming of winter, +the snow-covered uplands of the Alban hills, the mead sparkling with +hoar-frost at the approach of spring, autumn rearing from the fields her +head decorous with mellow fruits, and golden abundance pouring forth +from a full horn her treasures upon the land. It is real Italy which +Horace cuts on his cameos,--real landscape, real flowers and fruits, +real men. + + "What joy there is in these songs!" + +writes Andrew Lang, in _Letters to Dead Authors_, "what delight of life, +what an exquisite Hellenic grace of art, what a manly nature to endure, +what tenderness and constancy of friendship, what a sense of all that is +fair in the glittering stream, the music of the water-fall, the hum of +bees, the silvery gray of the olive woods on the hillside! How human are +all your verses, Horace! What a pleasure is yours in the straining +poplars, swaying in the wind! What gladness you gain from the white +crest of Soracte, beheld through the fluttering snowflakes while the +logs are being piled higher on the hearth!... None of the Latin poets +your fellows, or none but Virgil, seem to me to have known as well as +you, Horace, how happy and fortunate a thing it was to be born in Italy. +You do not say so, like your Virgil, in one splendid passage, numbering +the glories of the land as a lover might count the perfections of his +mistress. But the sentiment is ever in your heart, and often on your +lips. 'Me neither resolute Sparta nor the rich Larissaean plain so +enraptures as the fane of echoing Albunea, the headlong Anio, the grove +of Tibur, the orchards watered by the wandering rills.' So a poet should +speak, and to every singer his own land should be dearest. Beautiful is +Italy, with the grave and delicate outlines of her sacred hills, her +dark groves, her little cities perched like eyries on the crags, her +rivers gliding under ancient walls: beautiful is Italy, her seas and her +suns." + + +_ii_. THE INTERPRETER OF ITALIAN LIVING + +Again, in its visualization of the life of Italy, Horace's art is no +less clear than in the presentation of her scenery. Where else may be +seen so many vivid incidental pictures of men at their daily occupations +of work or play? In _Satire_ and _Epistle_ this is to be expected, +though there are satirists and writers of letters who never transfer the +colors of life to their canvas; but the lyrics, too, are kaleidoscopic +with scenes from the daily round of human life. We are given fleeting +but vivid glimpses into the career of merchant and sailor. We see the +sportsman in chase of the boar, the rustic setting snares for the greedy +thrush, the serenader under the casement, the plowman at his ingleside, +the anxious mother at the window on the cliff, never taking her eyes +from the curved shore, the husbandman passing industrious days on his +own hillside, tilling his own acres with his own oxen, and training the +vine to the unwedded tree, the young men of the hill-towns carrying +bundles of fagots along rocky slopes, the rural holiday and its +festivities, the sun-browned wife making ready the evening meal against +the coming of the tired peasant. We are shown all the quaint and quiet +life of the countryside. + +The page is often golden with homely precept or tale of the sort which +for all time has been natural to farmer folk. There is the story of the +country mouse and the town mouse, the fox and the greedy weasel that ate +until he could not pass through the crack by which he came, the rustic +who sat and waited for the river to get by, the horse that called man to +aid him against the stag, and received the bit forever. The most formal +and dignified of the _Odes_ are not without the mellow charm of Italian +landscape and the genial warmth of Italian life. Even in the first six +_Odes_ of the third book, often called the _Inaugural Odes_, we get such +glimpses as the vineyard and the hailstorm, the Campus Martius on +election day, the soldier knowing no fear, cheerful amid hardships under +the open sky, the restless Adriatic, the Bantine headlands and the +low-lying Forentum of the poet's infancy, the babe in the wood of +Voltur, the Latin hill-towns, the craven soldier of Crassus, and the +stern patriotism of Regulus. Without these the _Inaugurals_ would be but +barren and cold, to say nothing of the splendid outburst against the +domestic degradation of the time, so full of color and heat and +picturesqueness: + + 'T_was not the sons of parents such as these_ + T_hat tinged with Punic blood the rolling seas_, + L_aid low the cruel Hannibal, and brought_ + G_reat Pyrrhus and Antiochus to naught_; + + B_ut the manly brood of rustic soldier folk_, + T_aught, when the mother or the father spoke_ + T_he word austere, obediently to wield_ + T_he heavy mattock in the Sabine field_, + + O_r cut and bear home fagots from the height_, + A_s mountain shadows deepened into night_, + A_nd the sun's car, departing down the west_, + B_rought to the wearied steer the friendly rest_. + + +_iii_. THE INTERPRETER OF ROMAN RELIGION + +Still farther, Horace is an eloquent interpreter of the religion of the +countryside. He knows, of course, the gods of Greece and the +East,--Venus of Cythera and Paphos, of Eryx and Cnidus, Mercury, deity +of gain and benefactor of men, Diana, Lady of the mountain and the +glade, Delian Apollo, who bathes his unbound locks in the pure waters of +Castalia, and Juno, sister and consort of fulminating Jove. He is +impressed by the glittering pomp of religious processions winding their +way to the summit of the Capitol. In all this, and even in the +emperor-worship, now in its first stages at Rome and more political than +religious, he acquiesces, though he may himself be a sparing frequenter +of the abodes of worship. For him, as for Cicero, religion is one of the +social and civic proprieties, a necessary part of the national +mechanism. + +But the great Olympic deities do not really stir Horace's enthusiasm, or +even evoke his warm sympathy. The only _Ode_ in which he prays to one of +them with really fervent heart stands alone among all the odes to the +national gods. He petitions the great deity of healing and poetry for +what we know is most precious to him: + + "W_hen, kneeling at Apollo's shrine_, + T_he bard from silver goblet pours_ + L_ibations due of votive wine_, + W_hat seeks he, what implores_? + + "N_ot harvests from Sardinia's shore_; + N_ot grateful herds that crop the lea_ + I_n hot Calabria; not a store_ + O_f gold, and ivory_; + + "N_ot those fair lands where slow and deep_ + T_hro' meadows rich and pastures gay_ + T_hy silent waters, Liris, creep_, + E_ating the marge away_. + + "L_et him to whom the gods award_ + C_alenian vineyards prune the vine_; + T_he merchant sell his balms and nard_, + A_nd drain the precious wine_ + + "F_rom cups of gold--to Fortune dear_ + B_ecause his laden argosy_ + C_rosses, unshattered, thrice a year_ + T_he storm-vexed Midland sea_. + + "R_ipe berries from the olive bough_, + M_allows and endives, be my fare_. + S_on of Latona, hear my vow!_ + A_pollo, grant my prayer!_ + + "H_ealth to enjoy the blessings sent_ + F_rom heaven; a mind unclouded, strong_; + A_ cheerful heart; a wise content_; + A_n honored age; and song_." + +This is not the prayer of the city-bred formalist. It reflects the heart +of humble breeding and sympathies. For the faith which really sets the +poet aglow we must go into the fields and hamlets of Italy, among the +householders who were the descendants of the long line of Italian +forefathers that had worshiped from time immemorial the same gods at the +same altars in the same way. They were not the gods of yesterday, +imported from Greece and Egypt, and splendid with display, but the +simple gods of farm and fold native to the soil of Italy. Whatever his +conception of the logic of it all, Horace felt a powerful appeal as he +contemplated the picturesqueness of the worship and the simplicity of +the worshiper, and reflected upon its genuineness and purity as +contrasted with what his worldly wisdom told him of the heart of the +urban worshiper. + +Horace may entertain a well-bred skepticism of Jupiter's thunderbolt, +and he may pass the jest on the indifference of the Epicurean gods to +the affairs of men. When he does so, it is with the gods of mythology +and literature he is dealing, not with really religious gods. For the +old-fashioned faith of the country he entertains only the kindliest +regard. The images that rise in his mind at the mention of religion pure +and undefiled are not the gaudy spectacles to be seen in the marbled +streets of the capital. They are images of incense rising in autumn from +the ancient altar on the home-stead, of the feast of the Terminalia with +its slain lamb, of libations of ruddy wine and offerings of bright +flowers on the clear waters of some ancestral spring, of the simple +hearth of the farmhouse, of the family table resplendent with the silver +_salinum_, heirloom of generations, from which the grave paterfamilias +makes the pious offering of crackling salt and meal to little gods +crowned with rosemary and myrtle, of the altar beneath the pine to the +Virgin goddess, of Faunus the shepherd-god, in the humor of wooing, +roaming the sunny farmfields in quest of retreating wood-nymphs, of +Priapus the garden-god, and Silvanus, guardian of boundaries, and, most +of all, and typifying all, of the faith of rustic Phidyle, with clean +hands and a pure heart raising palms to heaven at the new of the moon, +and praying for the full-hanging vine, thrifty fields of corn, and +unblemished lambs. Of the religious life represented by these, Horace is +no more tempted to make light than he is tempted to delineate the +Italian rustic as De Maupassant does the French,--as an amusing animal, +with just enough of the human in his composition to make him ludicrous. + + +_iv_. THE INTERPRETER OF THE POPULAR +WISDOM + +Finally, in the homely, unconventional wisdom which fills _Satire_ and +_Epistle_ and sparkles from the _Odes_, Horace is again the national +interpreter. The masses of Rome or Italy had little consciously to do +with either Stoicism or Epicureanism. Their philosophy was vigorous +common sense, and was learned from living, not from conning books. +Horace, too, for all his having been a student of formal philosophy in +Athens, for all his professed faith in philosophy as a boon for rich and +poor and old and young, and for all his inclination to yield to the +natural human impulse toward system and adopt the philosophy of one of +the Schools, is a consistent follower of neither Stoic nor Epicurean. +Both systems attracted him by their virtues, and both repelled him +because of their weaknesses. His half-humorous confession of wavering +allegiance is only a reflection of the shiftings of a mind open to the +appeal of both: + +And, lest you inquire under what guide or to what hearth I look for +safety, I will tell you that I am sworn to obedience in no master's +formula, but am a guest in whatever haven the tempest sweeps me to. Now +I am full of action and deep in the waves of civic life, an unswerving +follower and guardian of the true virtue, now I secretly backslide to +the precepts of Aristippus, and try to bend circumstance to myself, not +myself to circumstance. + +Horace is either Stoic or Epicurean, or neither, or both. The character +of philosophy depends upon definition of terms, and Epicureanism with +Horace's definitions of pleasure and duty differed little in practical +working from Stoicism. In profession, he was more of the Epicurean; in +practice, more of the Stoic. His philosophy occupies ground between +both, or, rather, ground common to both. It admits of no name. It is not +a system. It owes its resemblances to either of the Schools more to his +own nature than to his familiarity with them, great as that was. + +The foundations of Horace's philosophy were laid before he ever heard of +the Schools. Its basis was a habit of mind acquired by association with +his father and the people of Venusia, and with the ordinary people of +Rome. Under the influence of reading, study, and social converse at +Athens, under the stress of experience in the field, and from long +contemplation of life in the large in the capital of an empire, it +crystallized into a philosophy of life. The term "philosophy" is +misleading in Horace's case. It suggests books and formulae and +externals. What Horace read in books did not all remain for him the dead +philosophy of ink and paper; what was in tune with his nature he +assimilated, to become philosophy in action, philosophy which really was +the guide of life. His faith in it is unfeigned: + +Thus does the time move slowly and ungraciously which hinders me from +the active realization of what, neglected, is a harm to young and old +alike.... The envious man, the ill-tempered, the indolent, the +wine-bibber, the too free lover,--no mortal, in short, is so crude that +his nature cannot be made more gentle if only he will lend a willing ear +to cultivation. + +The occasional phraseology of the Schools which Horace employs should +not mislead. It is for the most part the convenient dress for truth +discovered for himself through experience; or it may be literary +ornament. The humorous and not unsatiric lines to his poet-friend Albius +Tibullus,--"when you want a good laugh, come and see me; you will find +me fat and sleek and my skin well cared for, a pig from the sty of +Epicurus,"--are as easily the jest of a Stoic as the confession of an +Epicurean. Horace's philosophy is individual and natural, and +representative of Roman common sense rather than any School. + + +HORACE AND HELLENISM + +A word should be said here regarding the frequent use of the word +"Hellenic" in connection with Horace's genius. Among the results of his +higher education, it is natural that none should be more prominent to +the eye than the influence of Greek letters upon his work; but to call +Horace Greek is to be blinded to the essential by the presence in his +poems of Greek form and Greek allusion. It would be as little reasonable +to call a Roman triumphal arch Greek because it displays column, +architrave, or a facing of marble from Greece. What makes Roman +architecture stand is not ornament, but Roman concrete and the Roman +vault. Horace is Greek as Milton is Hebraic or Roman, or as Shakespeare +is Italian. + + + +4. HORACE THE PHILOSOPHER OF LIFE + +HORACE THE SPECTATOR AND ESSAYIST + +A great source of the richness of personality which constitutes Horace's +principal charm is to be found in his contemplative disposition. His +attitude toward the universal drama is that of the onlooker. As we shall +see, he is not without keen interest in the piece, but his prevailing +mood is that of mild amusement. In time past, he has himself assumed +more than one of the roles, and has known personally many of the actors. +He knows perfectly well that there is a great deal of the mask and +buskin on the stage of life, and that each man in his time plays many +parts. Experience has begotten reflection, and reflection has +contributed in turn to experience, until contemplation has passed from +diversion to habit. + +Horace is another Spectator, except that his "meddling with any +practical part in life" has not been so slight: + +Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind than as one of +the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, +soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical +part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband, or a +father, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, and +diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them: as +standers-by discover blots which are apt to escape those who are in the +game. + +He looks down from his post upon the life of men with as clear vision as +Lucretius, whom he admires: + +Nothing is sweeter than to dwell in the lofty citadels secure in the +wisdom of the sages, thence to look down upon the rest of mankind +blindly wandering in mistaken paths in the search for the way of life, +striving one with another in the contest of wits, emulous in distinction +of birth, night and day straining with supreme effort at length to +arrive at the heights of power and become lords of the world. + +Farther, Horace is not merely the stander-by contemplating the game in +which objective mankind is engaged. He is also a spectator of himself. +Horace the poet-philosopher contemplates Horace the man with the same +quiet amusement with which he surveys the human family of which he is an +inseparable yet detachable part. It is the universal aspect of Horace +which is the object of his contemplation,--Horace playing a part +together with the rest of mankind in the infinitely diverting _comedie +humaine_. He uses himself, so to speak, for illustrative purposes,--to +point the moral of the genuine; to demonstrate the indispensability of +hard work as well as genius; to afford concrete proof of the possibility +of happiness without wealth. He is almost as objective to himself as the +landscape of the Sabine farm. Horace the spectator sees Horace the man +against the background of human life just as he sees snow-mantled +Soracte, or the cold Digentia, or the restless Adriatic, or leafy +Tarentum, or snowy Algidus, or green Venafrum. The clear-cut elegance of +his miniatures of Italian scenery is not due to their individual +interest, but to their connection with the universal life of man. +Description for its own sake is hardly to be found in Horace. In the +same way, the vivid glimpses he affords of his own life, person, and +character almost never prompt the thought of egotism. The most personal +of poets, his expression of self nowhere becomes selfish expression. + +But there are spectators who are mere spectators. Horace is more; he is +a critic and an interpreter. He looks forth upon life with a keen vision +for comparative values, and gives sane and distinct expression to what +he sees. + +Horace must not be thought of, however, as a censorious or carping +critic. His attitude is judicial, and the verdict is seldom other than +lenient and kindly. He is not a wasp of Twickenham, not a Juvenal +furiously laying about him with a heavy lash, not a Lucilius with the +axes of Scipionic patrons to grind, having at the leaders of the people +and the people themselves. He is in as little degree an Ennius, +composing merely to gratify the taste for entertainment. There are some, +as a matter of fact, to whom in satire he seems to go beyond the limit +of good-nature. At vice in pronounced form, at all forms of unmanliness, +he does indeed strike out, like Lucilius the knight of Campania, his +predecessor and pattern, gracious only to virtue and to the friends of +virtue; but those whose hands are clean and whose hearts are pure need +fear nothing. Even those who are guilty of the ordinary frailties of +human kind need fear nothing worse than being good-humoredly laughed at. +The objects of Horace's smiling condemnation are not the trifling faults +of the individual or the class, but the universal grosser stupidities +which poison the sources of life. + +The Horace of the _Satires_ and _Epistles_ is better called an essayist. +That he is a satirist at all is less by virtue of intention than because +of the mere fact that he is a spectator. To look upon life with the eye +of understanding is to see men the prey to passions and delusions,--the +very comment on which can be nothing else than satire. + +And now, what is it that Horace sees as he sits in philosophic +detachment on the serene heights of contemplation; and what are his +reflections? + +The great factor in the character of Horace is his philosophy of life. +To define it is to give the meaning of the word Horatian as far as +content is concerned, and to trace the thread which more than any other +makes his works a unity. + + +_i_. THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES + +Horace looks forth upon a world of discontented and restless humanity. +The soldier, the lawyer, the farmer, the trader, swept over the earth in +the passion for gain, like dust in the whirlwind,--all are dissatisfied. +Choose anyone you will from the midst of the throng; either with greed +for money or with miserable ambition for power, his soul is in travail. +Some are dazzled by fine silver, some lose their senses over bronze. +Some are ever straining after the prizes of public life. There are many +who love not wisely, but too well. Most are engaged in a mad race for +money, whether to assure themselves of retirement and ease in old age, +or out of the sportsman's desire to outstrip their rivals in the course. +As many as are mortal men, so many are the objects of their pursuit. + +And, over and about all men, by reason of their bondage to avarice, +ambition, appetite, and passion, hovers Black Care. It flits above their +sleepless eyes in the panelled ceiling of the darkened palace, it sits +behind them on the courser as they rush into battle, it dogs them as +they are at the pleasures of the bronze-trimmed yacht. It pursues them +everywhere, swifter than the deer, swifter than the wind that drives +before it the storm-cloud. Not even those who are most happy are +entirely so. No lot is wholly blest. Perfect happiness is unattainable. +Tithonus, with the gift of ever-lasting life, wasted away in undying old +age. Achilles, with every charm of youthful strength and gallantry, was +doomed to early death. Not even the richest are content. Something is +always lacking in the midst of abundance, and desire more than keeps +pace with satisfaction. + +Nor are the multitude less enslaved to their desires than the few. Glory +drags bound to her glittering chariot-wheels the nameless as well as the +nobly-born. The poor are as inconstant as the rich. What of the man who +is not rich? You may well smile. He changes from garret to garret, from +bed to bed, from bath to bath and barber to barber, and is just as +seasick in a hired boat as the wealthy man on board his private yacht. + +And not only are all men the victims of insatiable desire, but all are +alike subject to the uncertainties of fate. Insolent Fortune without +notice flutters her swift wings and leaves them. Friends prove +faithless, once the cask is drained to the lees. Death, unforeseen and +unexpected, lurks in ambush for them in a thousand places. Some are +swallowed up by the greedy sea. Some the Furies give to destruction in +the grim spectacle of war. Without respect of age or person, the ways of +death are thronged with young and old. Cruel Proserpina passes no man +by. + +Even they who for the time escape the object of their dread must at last +face the inevitable. Invoked or not invoked, Death comes to release the +lowly from toil, and to strip the proud of power. The same night awaits +all; everyone must tread once for all the path of death. The summons is +delivered impartially at the hovels of the poor and the turreted palaces +of the rich. The dark stream must be crossed by prince and peasant +alike. Eternal exile is the lot of all, whether nameless and poor, or +sprung of the line of Inachus: + + A_las! my Postumus, alas! how speed_ + T_he passing years: nor can devotion's deed_ + S_tay wrinkled age one moment on its way_, + N_or stay one moment death's appointed day_; + + N_ot though with thrice a hundred oxen slain_ + E_ach day thou prayest Pluto to refrain_, + T_he unmoved by tears, who threefold Geryon drave_, + A_nd Tityus, beneath the darkening wave_. + + T_he wave we all must one day surely sail_ + W_ho live and breathe within this mortal vale_, + W_hether our lot with princely rich to fare_, + W_hether the peasant's lowly life to share_. + + I_n vain for us from murderous Mars to flee_, + I_n vain to shun the storms of Hadria's sea_, + I_n vain to fear the poison-laden breath_ + O_f Autumn's sultry south-wind, fraught with death_; + + A_down the wandering stream we all must go_, + A_down Cocytus' waters, black and slow_; + T_he ill-famed race of Danaus all must see_, + A_nd Sisyphus, from labors never free_. + + A_ll must be left,--lands, home, beloved wife_,-- + A_ll left behind when we have done with life_; + O_ne tree alone, of all thou holdest dear_, + S_hall follow thee,--the cypress, o'er thy bier!_ + + T_hy wiser heir will soon drain to their lees_ + T_he casks now kept beneath a hundred keys_; + T_he proud old Caecuban will stain the floor_, + M_ore fit at pontiffs' solemn feasts to pour_. + +Nor is there a beyond filled with brightness for the victim of fate to +look to. Orcus is unpitying. Mercury's flock of souls is of sable hue, +and Proserpina's realm is the hue of the dusk. Black Care clings to poor +souls even beyond the grave. Dull and persistent, it is the only +substantial feature of the insubstantial world of shades. Sappho still +sighs there for love of her maiden companions, the plectrum of Alcaeus +sounds its chords only to songs of earthly hardships by land and sea, +Prometheus and Tantalus find no surcease from the pangs of torture, +Sisyphus ever rolls the returning stone, and the Danaids fill the +ever-emptying jars. + + +_ii_. THE PLEASURES OF THIS WORLD + +The picture is dark with shadow, and must be relieved with light and +color. The hasty conclusion should not be drawn that this is the +philosophy of gloom. The tone of Horace is neither that of the cheerless +skeptic nor that of the despairing pessimist. He does not rise from his +contemplation with the words or the feeling of Lucretius: + +O miserable minds of men, O blind hearts! In what obscurity and in what +dangers is passed this uncertain little existence of yours! + +He would have agreed with the philosophy of pessimism that life contains +striving and pain, but he would not have shared in the gloom of a +Schopenhauer, who in all will sees action, in all action want, in all +want pain, who looks upon pain as the essential condition of will, and +sees no end of suffering except in the surrender of the will to live. +The vanity of human wishes is no secret to Horace, but life is not to +him "a soap-bubble which we blow out as long and as large as possible, +though each of us knows perfectly well it must sooner or later burst." + +No, life may have its inevitable pains and its inevitable end, but it is +far more substantial in composition than a bubble. For those who possess +the secret of detecting and enjoying them, it contains solid goods in +abundance. + +What is the secret? + +The first step toward enjoyment of the human lot is acquiescence. Of +course existence has its evils and bitter end, but these are minimized +for the man who frankly faces them, and recognizes the futility of +struggling against the fact. How much better to endure whatever our lot +shall impose. Quintilius is dead: it is hard; but patience makes lighter +the ill that fate will not suffer us to correct. + +And then, when we have once yielded, and have ceased to look upon +perfect happiness as a possibility, or upon any measure of happiness as +a right to be demanded, we are in position to take the second step; +namely, to make wise use of life's advantages: + + M_id all thy hopes and all thy cares, mid all thy wraths and fears_, + T_hink every shining day that dawns the period to thy years_. + T_he hour that comes unlooked for is the hour that doubly cheers_. + +Because there are many things to make life a pleasure. There is the +solace of literature; Black Care is lessened by song. There are the +riches of philosophy, there is the diversion of moving among men. There +are the delights of the country and the town. Above all, there are +friends with whom to share the joy of mere living in Italy. For what +purpose, if not to enjoy, are the rose, the pine, and the poplar, the +gushing fountain, the generous wine of Formian hill and Massic slope, +the villa by the Tiber, the peaceful and healthful seclusion of the +Sabines, the pleasing change from the sharp winter to the soft zephyrs +of spring, the apple-bearing autumn,--"season of mists and mellow +fruitfulness"? What need to be unhappy in the midst of such a world? + +And the man who is wise will not only recognize the abounding +possibilities about him, but will seize upon them before they vanish. +Who knows whether the gods above will add a tomorrow to the to-day? Be +glad, and lay hand upon the gifts of the passing hour! Take advantage of +the day, and have no silly faith in the morrow. It is as if Omar were +translating Horace: + + + "W_aste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit_ + 0_f This and That endeavor and dispute;_ + B_etter be jocund with the fruitful Grape_ + T_han sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit._ + + "A_h! fill the Cup: what boots it to repeat_ + H_ow Time is slipping underneath our Feet:_ + U_nborn tomorrow, and dead yesterday,_ + W_hy fret about them if today be sweet!"_ + +The goods of existence must be enjoyed here and now, or never, for all +must be left behind. What once is enjoyed is forever our very own. Happy +is the man who can say, at each day's close, "I have lived!" The day is +his, and cannot be recalled. Let Jove overcast with black cloud the +heavens of to-morrow, or let him make it bright with clear sunshine,--as +he pleases; what the flying hour of to-day has already given us he never +can revoke. Life is a stream, now gliding peacefully onward in +mid-channel to the Tuscan sea, now tumbling upon its swirling bosom the +wreckage of flood and storm. The pitiful human being on its banks, ever +looking with greedy expectation up the stream, or with vain regret at +what is past, is left at last with nothing at all. The part of wisdom +and of happiness is to keep eyes on that part of the stream directly +before us, the only part which is ever really seen. + + Y_ou see how, deep with gleaming snow,_ + S_oracte stands, and, bending low,_ + Y_on branches droop beneath their burden,_ + A_nd streams o'erfrozen have ceased their flow._ + + A_way with cold! the hearth pile high_ + W_ith blazing logs; the goblet ply_ + W_ith cheering Sabine, Thaliarchus;_ + D_raw from the cask of long years gone by._ + + A_ll else the gods entrust to keep,_ + W_hose nod can lull the winds to sleep,_ + V_exing the ash and cypress aged,_ + O_r battling over the boiling deep._ + + S_eek not to pierce the morrow's haze,_ + B_ut for the moment render praise;_ + N_or spurn the dance, nor love's sweet passion,_ + E_re age draws on with its joyless days._ + + N_ow should the campus be your joy,_ + A_nd whispered loves your lips employ,_ + W_hat time the twilight shadows gather,_ + A_nd tryst you keep with the maiden coy._ + + F_rom near-by nook her laugh makes plain_ + W_here she had meant to hide, in vain!_ + H_ow arch her struggles o'er the token_ + F_rom yielding which she can scarce refrain!_ + + +_iii_. LIFE AND MORALITY + +But Horace's Epicureanism never goes to the length of Omar's. He would +have shrunk from the Persian as extreme: + + "YESTERDAY _This Day's Madness did prepare_, + TOMORROW'S _Silence, Triumph, or Despair_, + _Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why_: + D_rink! for you know not why you go, nor where_." + +The Epicureanism of Horace is more nearly that of Epicurus himself, the +saintly recluse who taught that "to whom little is not enough, nothing +is enough," and who regarded plain living as at the same time a duty and +a happiness. The lives of too liberal disciples have been a slander on +the name of Epicurus. Horace is not among them. With degenerate +Epicureans, whose philosophy permitted them "To roll with pleasure in a +sensual sty," he had little in common. The extraction from life of the +honey of enjoyment was indeed the highest purpose, but the purpose could +never be realized without the exercise of discrimination, moderation, +and a measure of spiritual culture. Life was an art, symmetrical, +unified, reposeful,--like the poem of perfect art, or the statue, or +the temple. In actual conduct, the hedonist of the better type differed +little from the Stoic himself. + +The gracious touch and quiet humor with which Horace treats even the +most serious themes are often misleading. This effect is the more +possible by reason of the presence among his works of passages, not many +and for the most part youthful, in which he is guilty of too great +freedom. + +Horace is really a serious person. He is even something of a preacher, a +praiser of the time when he was a boy, a censor and corrector of his +youngers. So far as popular definitions of Stoic and Epicurean are +concerned, he is much more the former than the latter. + +For Horace's counsel is always for moderation, and sometimes for +austerity. He is not a wine-bibber, and he is not a total abstainer. To +be the latter on principle would never have occurred to him. The vine +was the gift of God. Prefer nothing to it for planting in the mellow +soil of Tibur, Varus; it is one of the compensations of life: + + "I_ts magic power of wit can spread_ + T_he halo round a dullard's head_, + C_an make the sage forget his care_, + H_is bosom's inmost thoughts unbare_, + A_nd drown his solemn-faced pretense_ + B_eneath its blithesome influence_. + B_right hope it brings and vigor back_ + T_o minds outworn upon the rack_, + A_nd puts such courage in the brain_ + A_s makes the poor be men again_, + W_hom neither tyrants' wrath affrights_, + N_or all their bristling satellites_." + +When wine is a curse, it is not so because of itself, but because of +excess in its use. The cup was made for purposes of pleasure, but to +quarrel over it,--leave that to barbarians! Take warning by the +Thracians, and the Centaurs and Lapiths, never to overstep the bounds of +moderation. Pleasure with after-taste of bitterness is not real +pleasure. Pleasure purchased with pain is an evil. + +Upon women he looks with the same philosophic calm as upon wine. Love, +too, was to be regarded as one of the contributions to life's pleasure. +To dally with golden-haired Pyrrha, with Lyce, or with Glycera, the +beauty more brilliant than Parian marble, was not in his eyes to be +blamed in itself. What he felt no hesitation in committing to his poems +for friends and the Emperor to read, they on their part felt as little +hesitation in confessing to him. The fault of love lay not in itself, +but in abuse. This is not said of adultery, which was always an offense +because it disturbed the institution of marriage and rotted the +foundation of society. + +There is thus no inconsistency in the Horace of the love poems and the +Horace of the _Secular Hymn_ who petitions Our Lady Juno to prosper the +decrees of the Senate encouraging the marriage relation and the rearing +of families. Of the illicit love that looked to Roman women in the home, +he emphatically declares his innocence, and against it directs the last +and most powerful of the six _Inaugural Odes_; for this touched the +family, and, through the family, the State. This, with neglect of +religion, he classes together as the two great causes of national decay. + +Horace is not an Ovid, with no sense of the limits of either indulgence +or expression. He is not a Catullus, tormented by the furies of youthful +passion. The flame never really burned him. We search his pages in vain +for evidence of sincere and absorbing passion, whether of the flesh or +of the spirit. He was guilty of no breach of the morals of his time, and +it is likely also, in spite of Suetonius, that he was guilty of no +excess. He was a supporter in good faith of the Emperor in his attempts +at the moral improvement of the State. If Virgil in the writing of the +_Georgics_ or the _Aeneid_ was conscious of a purpose to second the +project of Augustus, it is just as likely that his intimate friend +Horace also wrote with conscious moral intent. Nothing is more in +keeping with his conception of the end and effect of literature: + +It shapes the tender and hesitating speech of the child; it straight +removes his ear from shameless communication; presently with friendly +precepts it moulds his inner self; it is a corrector of harshness and +envy and anger; it sets forth the righteous deed; it instructs the +rising generations with the familiar example; it is a solace to the +helpless and the sick at heart. + + +_iv_. LIFE AND PURPOSE + +Horace's philosophy of life is thus based upon something deeper than the +principle of seizing upon pleasure. His definition of pleasure is not +without austerity; he preaches the positive virtues of performance as +well as the negative virtue of moderation. He could be an unswerving +follower and guardian of true virtue, and could bend self to +circumstance. + +He stands for domestic purity, and for patriotic devotion. _Dulce et +decorum est pro patria mori_,--to die for country is a privilege and a +glory. His hero is Regulus, returning steadfastly through the ranks of +protesting friends to keep faith with the pitiless executioners of +Carthage. Regulus, and the Scauri, and Paulus, who poured out his great +spirit on the disastrous field of Cannae, and Fabricius, of simple heart +and absolute integrity, he holds up as examples to his generation. In +praise of the sturdy Roman qualities of courage and steadfastness he +writes his most inspired lines: + +The righteous man of unswerving purpose is shaken in his solid will +neither by the unworthy demands of inflamed citizens, nor by the +frowning face of the threatening tyrant, nor by the East-wind, turbid +ruler of the restless Adriatic, nor by the great hand of fulminating +Jove himself. If the heavens should fall asunder, the crashing fragments +would descend upon him unterrified. + +He preaches the gospel of faithfulness not only to family, country, and +purpose, but to religion. He will shun the man who violates the secrets +of the mysteries. The curse of the gods is upon all such, and pursues +them to the day of doom. + +Faithfulness to friendship stands out with no less distinctness. While +Horace is in his right mind, he will value nothing so highly as a +delightful friend. He is ready, whenever fate calls, to enter with +Maecenas even upon the last journey. Among the blest is he who is +unafraid to die for dear friends or native land. + +Honor, too,--the fine spirit of old Roman times, that refused bribes, +that would not take advantage of an enemy's weakness, that asked no +questions save the question of what was right, that never turned its +back upon duty, that swore to its own hurt and changed not; the same +lofty spirit the recording of whose manifestations never fails to bring +the glow to Livy's cheek and the gleam to his eye,--honor is also first +and foremost in Horace's esteem. Regulus, the self-sacrificing; Curius, +despising the Samnite gold; Camillus, yielding private grievance to come +to his country's aid; Cato, dying for his convictions after Thapsus, are +his inspirations. The hero of his ideal fears disgrace worse than death. +The diadem and the laurel are for him only who can pass on without the +backward glance upon stores of treasure. + +Finally, not least among the qualities which enter into the ideal of +Horace is the simplicity of the olden time, when the armies of Rome were +made up of citizen-soldiers, and the eye of every Roman was single to +the glory of the State, and the selfishness of luxury was yet unknown. + + S_cant were their private means, the public, great_; + 'T_was still a commonwealth, that State_; + N_o portico, surveyed with private rule_, + A_ssured one man the shady cool_. + + T_he laws approved the house of humble sods_; + 'T_was only to the homes of gods_, + T_he structures reared with earnings of the nation_, + T_hey gave rich marble decoration_. + +The healthful repose of heart which comes from unity of purpose and +simple devotion to plain duty, he sees existing still, even in his own +less strenuous age, in the remote and peaceful countryside. Blessed is +the man far from the busy life of affairs, like the primeval race of +mortals, who tills with his own oxen the acres of his fathers! Horace +covets the gift earnestly for himself, because his calm vision assures +him that it, of all the virtues, lies next to happy living. + + +_v_. THE SOURCES OF HAPPINESS + +Here we have arrived at the kernel of Horace's philosophy, the key which +unlocks the casket containing his message to all men of every +generation. In actual life, at least, mankind storms the citadel of +happiness, as if it were something material and external, to be taken by +violent hands. Horace locates the citadels of happiness in his own +breast. It is the heart which is the source of all joy and all sorrow, +of all wealth and all poverty. Happiness is to be sought, not outside, +but within. Man does not create his world; he _is_ his world. + +Men are madly chasing after peace of heart in a thousand wrong ways, all +the while over-looking the right way, which is nearest at hand. To +observe their feverish eagerness, the spectator might be led to think +happiness identical with possession. And yet wealth and happiness are +neither the same nor equivalent. They may have nothing to do one with +the other. Money, indeed, is not an evil in itself, but it is not +essential except so far as it is a mere means of life. Poor men may be +happy, and the wealthy may be poor in the midst of their riches. A man's +wealth consisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth. More +justly does he lay claim to the name of rich man who knows how to use +the blessings of the gods wisely, who is bred to endurance of hard want, +and who fears the disgraceful action worse than he fears death. + +Real happiness consists in peace of mind and heart. Everyone desires it, +and everyone prays for it,--the sailor caught in the storms of the +Aegean, the mad Thracian, the Mede with quiver at his back. But peace is +not to be purchased. Neither gems nor purple nor gold will buy it, nor +favor. Not all the externals in the world can help the man who depends +upon them alone. + + N_ot treasure trove nor consul's stately train_ + D_rives wretched tumult from the troubled brain_; + S_warming with cares that draw unceasing sighs_, + T_he fretted ceiling hangs o'er sleepless eyes_. + +Nor is peace to be pursued and laid hold of, or discovered in some other +clime. Of what avail to fly to lands warmed by other suns? What exile +ever escaped himself? It is the soul that is at fault, that never can be +freed from its own bonds. The sky is all he changes: + + T_he heavens, not themselves, they change_ + W_ho haste to cross the seas_. + +The happiness men seek for is in themselves, to be found at little +Ulubrae in the Latin marshes as easily as in great cities, if only they +have the proper attitude of mind and heart. + +But how insure this peace of mind? + +At the very beginning, and through to the end, the searcher after +happiness must recognize that unhappiness is the result of slavery of +some sort, and that slavery in turn is begotten of desire. The man who +is overfond of anything will be unwilling to let go his hold upon it. +Desire will curb his freedom. The only safety lies in refusing the rein +to passion of any kind. "To gaze upon nothing to lust after it, +Numicius, is the simple way of winning and of keeping happiness." He who +lives in either desire or fear can never enjoy his possessions. He who +desires will also fear; and he who fears can never be a free man. The +wise man will not allow his desires to become tyrants over him. Money +will be his servant, not his master. He will attain to wealth by curbing +his wants. You will be monarch over broader realms by dominating your +spirit than by adding Libya to far-off Gades. + +The poor man, in spite of poverty, may enjoy life more than the rich. It +is possible under a humble roof to excel in happiness kings and the +friends of kings. Wealth depends upon what men want, not upon what men +have. The more a man denies himself, the greater are the gifts of the +gods to him. One may hold riches in contempt, and thus be a more +splendid lord of wealth than the great landowner of Apulia. By +contracting his desires he may extend his revenues until they are more +than those of the gorgeous East. Many wants attend those who have many +ambitions. Happy is the man to whom God has given barely enough. Let him +to whom fate, fortune, or his own effort has given this enough, desire +no more. If the liquid stream of Fortune should gild him, it would make +his happiness nothing greater, because money cannot change his nature. +To the man who has good digestion and good lungs and is free from gout, +the riches of a king could add nothing. What difference does it make to +him who lives within the limits of nature whether he plow a hundred +acres or a thousand? + +As with the passion of greed, so with anger, love, ambition for power, +and all the other forms of desire which lodge in the human heart. Make +them your slaves, or they will make you theirs. Like wrath, they are all +forms of madness. The man who becomes avaricious has thrown away the +armor of life, has abandoned the post of virtue. Once let a man submit +to desire of an unworthy kind, and he will find himself in the case of +the horse that called a rider to help him drive the stag from their +common feeding-ground, and received the bit and rein forever. + +So Horace will enter into no entangling alliances with ambition for +power, wealth, or position, or with the more personal passions. By some +of them he has not been altogether untouched, and he has not regret; but +to continue, at forty-five, would not do. He will be content with just +his home in the Sabine hills. This is what he always prayed for, a patch +of ground, not so very large, with a spring of ever-flowing water, a +garden, and a little timberland. He asks for nothing more, except that a +kindly fate will make these beloved possessions forever his own. He will +go to the ant, for she is an example, and consider her ways and be wise, +and be content with what he has as soon as it is enough. He will not +enter the field of public life, because it would mean the sacrifice of +peace. He would have to keep open house, submit to the attentions of a +body-guard of servants, keep horses and carriage and a coachman, and be +the target for shafts of envy and malice; in a word, lose his freedom +and become the slave of wretched and burdensome ambition. + +The price is too great, the privilege not to his liking. Horace's prayer +is rather to be freed from the cares of empty ambition, from the fear of +death and the passion of anger, to laugh at superstition, to enjoy the +happy return of his birthday, to be forgiving of his friends, to grow +more gentle and better as old age draws on, to recognize the proper +limit in all things: + + "H_ealth to enjoy the blessings sent_ + F_rom heaven; a mind unclouded, strong_; + A_ cheerful heart; a wise content_; + A_n honored age; and song_." + + + + +II. HORACE THROUGH THE AGES + +INTRODUCTORY + + +Thus much we have had to say in the interpretation of Horace. Our +interpretation has centered about his qualities as a person: his broad +experience, his sensitiveness, his responsiveness, his powers of +assimilation, his gift of expression, his concreteness as a +representative of the world of culture, as a son of Italy, as a citizen +of eternal Rome, as a member of the universal human family. + +Let us now tell the story of Horace in the life of after times. It will +include an account of the esteem in which he was held while still in the +flesh; of the fame he enjoyed and the influence he exercised until Rome +as a great empire was no more and the Roman tongue and Roman spirit +alike were decayed; of the way in which his works were preserved intact +through obscure centuries of ignorance and turmoil; and of their second +birth when men began to delight once more in the luxuries of the mind. +This will prepare the way for a final chapter, on the peculiar quality +and manner of the Horatian influence. + + + +1. HORACE THE PROPHET + +Horace is aware of his qualities as a poet. In an interesting blend, of +which the first and larger part is detached and judicial estimation of +his work, a second part literary convention, and the third and least a +smiling and inoffensive self-assertion, he prophesies his own +immortality. + +From infancy he has been set apart as the child of the Muses. At birth +Melpomene marked him for her own. The doves of ancient story covered him +over with the green leaves of the Apulian wood as, lost and overcome by +weariness, he lay in peaceful slumber, and kept him safe from creeping +and four-footed things, a babe secure in the favor of heaven. The sacred +charm that rests upon him preserved him in the rout at Philippi, rescued +him from the Sabine wolf, saved him from death by the falling tree and +the waters of shipwreck. He will abide under its shadow wherever he may +go,--to his favorite haunts in Latium, to the far north where fierce +Britons offer up the stranger to their gods, to the far east and the +blazing sands of the Syrian desert, to rude Spain and the streams of +Scythia, to the treeless, naked fields of the frozen pole, to homeless +lands under the fiery car of the too-near sun. He will rise superior to +the envy of men. The pinions that bear him aloft through the clear ether +will be of no usual or flagging sort. For him there shall be no death, +no Stygian wave across which none returns: + + F_orego the dirge; let no one raise the cry_, + O_r make unseemly show of grief and gloom_, + N_or think o'er me, who shall not really die_, + T_o rear the empty honor of the tomb_. + +His real self will remain among men, ever springing afresh in their +words of praise: + + N_ot lasting bronze nor pyramid upreared_ + B_y princes shall outlive my powerful rhyme_. + T_he monument I build, to men endeared_, + N_ot biting rain, nor raging wind, nor time_, + E_ndlessly flowing through the countless years_, + S_hall e'er destroy. I shall not wholly die_; + T_he grave shall have of me but what appears_; + F_or me fresh praise shall ever multiply_. + A_s long as priest and silent Vestal wind_ + T_he Capitolian steep, tongues shall tell o'er_ + H_ow humble Horace rose above his kind_ + W_here Aufidus's rushing waters roar_ + I_n the parched land where rustic Daunus reigned_, + A_nd first taught Grecian numbers how to run_ + I_n Latin measure. Muse! the honor gained_ + I_s thine, for I am thine till time is done_. + G_racious Melpomene, O hear me now_, + A_nd with the Delphic bay gird round my brow_. + +Yet Horace does not always refer to his poetry in this serious vein; if +indeed we are to call serious a manner of literary prophecy which has +always been more or less conventional. His frequent disclaimers of the +higher inspiration are well known. The Muse forbids him to attempt the +epic strain or the praise of Augustus and Agrippa. In the face of grand +themes like these, his genius is slight. He will not essay even the +strain of Simonides in the lament for an Empire stained by land and sea +with the blood of fratricidal war. His themes shall be rather the feast +and the mimic battles of revelling youths and maidens, the making of +love in the grots of Venus. His lyre shall be jocose, his plectrum of +the lighter sort. + +He not only half-humorously disclaims the capacity for lofty themes, +but, especially as he grows older and more philosophic, and perhaps less +lyric, half-seriously attributes whatever he does to persevering effort. +He has + + "N_or the pride nor ample pinion_ + T_hat the Theban eagle bear_, + S_ailing with supreme dominion_ + T_hrough the azure deep of air_;" + +he is the bee, with infinite industry flitting from flower to flower, +the unpretending maker of verse, fashioning his songs with only toil and +patience. He believes in the file, in long delay before giving forth to +the world the poem that henceforth can never be recalled. The only +inspiration he claims for _Satire_ and _Epistle_, which, he says, +approximate the style of spoken discourse, lies in the aptness and +patience with which he fashions his verses from language in ordinary +use, giving to words new dignity by means of skillful combination. Let +anyone who wishes to be convinced undertake to do the same; he will find +himself perspiring in a vain attempt. + +And if Horace did not always conceive of his inspiration as purely +ethereal, neither did he always dream of the path to immortality as +leading through the spacious reaches of the upper air. At forty-four, he +is already aware of a more pedestrian path. He has observed the ways of +the public with literature, as any writer must observe them still, and +knows also of a certain use to which his poems are being put. Perhaps +with some secret pride, but surely with a philosophic resignation that +is like good-humored despair, he sees that the path is pedagogical. In +reproachful tones, he addresses the book of _Epistles_ that is so eager +to try its fortune in the big world: But if the prophet is not blinded +by disgust at your foolishness, you will be prized at Rome until the +charm of youth has left you. Then, soiled and worn by much handling of +the common crowd, you will either silently give food to vandal worms, or +seek exile in Utica, or be tied up and sent to Ilerda. The monitor you +did not heed will laugh, like the man who sent his balky ass headlong +over the cliff; for who would trouble to save anyone against his will? +This lot, too, you may expect: for a stammering old age to come upon you +teaching children to read in the out-of-the-way parts of town. + + + +2. HORACE AND ANCIENT ROME + +That Horace refers to being pointed out by the passer-by as the minstrel +of the Roman lyre, or, in other words, as the laureate, that his satire +provokes sufficient criticism to draw from him a defense and a +justification of himself against the charge of cynicism, and that he +finally records a greater freedom from the tooth of envy, are all +indications of the prominence to which he rose. That Virgil and Varius, +poets of recognized worth, and their friend Plotius Tucca, third of the +whitest souls of earth, introduced him to the attention of Maecenas, and +that the discriminating lover of excellence became his patron and made +him known to Augustus, are evidences of the appeal of which he was +capable both as poet and man. In the many names of worthy and +distinguished men of letters and affairs to whom he addresses the +individual poems, and with whom he must therefore have been on terms of +mutual respect, is seen a further proof. Even Virgil contains passages +disclosing a more than ordinary familiarity with Horace's work, and men +like Ovid and Propertius, of whose personal relations with Horace +nothing is known, not only knew but absorbed his poems. + +If still further evidence of Horace's worth is required, it may be seen +in his being invited to commemorate the exploits of Drusus and Tiberius, +the royal stepsons, against the hordes of the North, and the greatness +of Augustus himself, ever-present help of Italy, and imperial Rome; and +in the Emperor's expression of disappointment, sometime before the +second book of _Epistles_ was published, that he had been mentioned in +none of the "Talks." And, finally, if there remained in the minds of his +generation any shadow of doubt as to the esteem in which he was held by +the foremost men in the State, who were in most cases men of letters as +well as patrons of letters, it was dispelled when, in the year 17, +Horace was chosen to write the _Secular Hymn_, for use in the greatest +religious and patriotic festival of the times. + +These facts receive greater significance from an appreciation of the +poet's sincerity and independence. He will restore to Maecenas his +gifts, if their possession is to mean a curb upon the freedom of living +his nature calls for. He declines a secretaryship to the Emperor +himself, and without offense to his imperial friend, who bids him be +free of his house as if it were his own. + +But Horace must submit also to the more impartial judgment of time. Of +the two innovations which gave him relief against the general +background, one was the amplification of the crude but vigorous satire +of Lucilius into a more perfect literary character, and the other was +the persuasion of the Greek lyric forms into Roman service. Both +examples had their important effects within the hundred years that +followed on Horace's death. + +The satire and epistle, which Horace hardly distinguished, giving to +both the name of _Sermo_, or "Talk," was the easier to imitate. Persius, +dying in the year 62, at the age of twenty-eight, was steeped in Horace, +but lacked the gentle spirit, the genial humor, and the suavity of +expression that make Horatian satire a delight. In Juvenal, writing +under Trajan and Hadrian, the tendency of satire toward consistent +aggressiveness which is present in Horace and further advanced in +Persius, has reached its goal. With Juvenal, satire is a matter of the +lash, of vicious cut and thrust. Juvenal may tell the truth, but the +smiling face of Horatian satire has disappeared. With him the line of +Roman satire is extinct, but the nature of satire for all time to come +is fixed. Juvenal, employing the form of Horace and substituting for his +content of mellow contentment and good humor the bitterness of an +outraged moral sense, is the last Roman and the first modern satirist. + +The _Odes_ found more to imitate them, but none to rival. The most +pronounced example of their influence is found in the choruses of the +tragic poet Seneca, where form and substance alike are constantly +reminiscent of Horace. Two comments on the _Odes_ from the second half +of the first century are of even greater eloquence than Seneca's example +as testimonials to the impression made by the Horatian lyric. Petronius, +of Nero's time, speaks of the poet's _curiosa felicitas_, meaning the +gift of arriving, by long and careful search, at the inevitable word or +phrase. Quintilian, writing his treatise on Instruction, sums him up +thus: "Of our lyric poets, Horace is about the only one worth reading; +for he sometimes reaches real heights, and he is at the same time full +of delightfulness and grace, and both in variety of imagery and in words +is most happily daring." To these broad strokes the modern critic has +added little except by way of elaboration. + +The _Life of Horace_, written by Suetonius, the secretary of Hadrian, +contains evidence of another, and perhaps a stronger, character +regarding the poet's power. We see that doubtful imitations are +beginning to circulate. "I possess," says the imperial secretary, "some +elegies attributed to his pen, and a letter in prose, supposed to be a +recommendation of himself to Maecenas, but I think that both are +spurious; for the elegies are commonplace, and the letter is, besides, +obscure, which was by no means one of his faults." + +The history of Roman literature from the end of the first century after +Christ is the story of the decline of inspiration, the decline of taste, +the decline of language, the decline of intellectual interest. Beneath +it all and through it all there is spreading, gradually and silently, +the insidious decay that will surely crumble the constitution of the +ancient world. Pagan letters are uncreative, and, with few exceptions, +without imagination and dull. The literature of the new religion, +beginning to push green shoots from the ruins of the times, is a +mingling of old and new substance under forms that are always old. + +In the main, neither Christian nor pagan will be attracted by Horace. +The Christian will see in his gracious resignation only the philosophy +of despair, and in his light humors only careless indulgence in the +vanities of this world and blindness to the eternal concerns of life. +The pagan will not appreciate the delicacy of his art, and will find the +abundance of his literary, mythological, historical, and geographical +allusion, the compactness of his expression, and the maturity and depth +of his intellect, a barrier calling for too much effort. Both will +prefer Virgil--Virgil of "arms and the man," the story-teller, Virgil +the lover of Italy, Virgil the glorifier of Roman deeds and destiny, +Virgil the readily understood, Virgil who has already drawn aside, at +least partly, the veil that hangs before the mystic other-world, Virgil +the almost Christian prophet, with the almost Biblical language, Virgil +the spiritual, Virgil the comforter. + +Horace will not be popular. He will remain the poet of the few who enjoy +the process of thinking and recognize the charm of skillful expression. +Tacitus and Juvenal esteem him, the Emperor Alexander Severus reads him +in leisure hours, the long list of mediocrities representing the course +of literary history demonstrate by their content that the education of +men of letters in general includes a knowledge of him. The greatest of +the late pagans,--Ausonius and Claudian at the end of the fourth +century; Boethius, philosopher-victim of Theodoric in the early sixth; +Cassiodorus, the chronicler, imperial functionary in the same +century,--disclose a familiarity whose foundations are to be looked for +in love and enthusiasm rather than in mere cultivation. It may be safely +assumed that, in general, appreciation of Horace was proportionate to +greatness of soul and real love of literature. + +The same assumption may be made in the realm of Christian literature. +Minucius Felix, calmly and logically arguing the case of Christianity +against paganism, Tertullian the fiery preacher, Cyprian the enthusiast +and martyr, Arnobius the rhetorical, contain no indications of +familiarity with Horace, though this is not conclusive proof that they +did not know and admire him; but Lactantius, the Christian Cicero, +Jerome, the sympathetic, the sensitive, the intense, the irascible, +Prudentius, the most original and the most vigorous of the Christian +poets, and even Venantius Fortunatus, bishop and traveler in the late +sixth century, and last of the Christian poets while Latin was still a +native tongue, display a knowledge of Horace which argues also a love +for him. + +The name of Venantius Fortunatus brings us to the very brink of the +centuries called the Middle Age. If there are those who object to the +name of Dark Age as doing injustice to the life of the times, they must +at any rate agree that for Horace it was really dark. That his light was +not totally lost in the shadows which enveloped the art of letters was +due to one aspect of his immortality which we must notice before leaving +the era of ancient Rome. + +Thus far, in accounting for Horace's continued fame, we have considered +only his appeal to the individual intellect and taste, the admiration +which represented an interest spontaneous and sincere. There was another +phase of his fame which expressed an interest less inspired, though its +first cause was none the less in the enthusiasm of the elect. It was the +phase foreseen by Horace himself, and its first manifestations had +probably appeared in his own life-time. It was the immortality of the +text-book and the commentary. + +Quintilian's estimate of Horace in the _Institutes_ is an indication +that the poet was already a subject of school instruction in the latter +half of the first century. Juvenal, in the first quarter of the next, +gives us a chiaroscuro glimpse into a Roman school-interior where little +boys are sitting at their desks in early morning, each with odorous lamp +shining upon school editions of Horace and Virgil smudged and discolored +by soot from the wicks, + + _totidem olfecisse lucernas_, + Q_uot stabant pueri, cum totus decolor esset_ + F_laccus et haereret nigro fuligo Maroni_. +(VII. 225 ff.) + +The use of the poet in the schools meant that lovers of learning as well +as lovers of literary art were occupying themselves with Horace. The +first critical edition of his works, by Marcus Valerius Probus, appeared +as early as the time of Nero. A native of Berytus, the modern Beirut, +disappointed in the military career, he turned to the collection, study, +and critical editing of Latin authors, among whom, besides Horace, were +Virgil, Lucretius, Persius, and Terence. His method, comprising careful +comparison of manuscripts, emendations, and punctuation, with +annotations explanatory and aesthetic, all prefaced by the author's +biography, won him the reputation of the most erudite of Roman men of +letters. It is in no small measure due to him that the tradition of +Horace's text is so comparatively good. + +There were many other critics and interpreters of Horace. Of many of +them, the names as well as the works have been lost. Modestus and +Claranus, perhaps not long after Probus, are two names that survive. +Suetonius, as we have seen, wrote the poet's _Life_, though it contains +almost nothing not found in the works of Horace themselves. In the time +of Hadrian appeared also the edition of Quintus Terentius Scaurus, in +ten books, of which the _Odes_ and _Epodes_ made five, and the _Satires_ +and _Epistles_ five, the _Ars Poetica_ being set apart as a book in +itself. At the end of the second or the beginning of the third century, +Helenius Acro wrote commentaries on certain plays of Terence and on +Horace, giving special attention to the persons appearing in the poet's +pages, a favorite subject on which a considerable body of writing sprang +up. Not long afterward appeared the commentary of Pomponius Porphyrio, +originally published with the text of Horace, but later separately. In +spite of modifications wrought in the course of time, only Porphyrio's, +of all the commentaries of the first three hundred years, has preserved +an approximation to its original character and quantity. Acro's has been +overlaid by other commentators until the identity of his work is lost. +The purpose of Porphyrio was to bring poetic beauty into relief by +clarifying construction and sense, rather than to engage in learned +exposition of the subject matter. + +Finally, in the year 527, the consul Vettius Agorius Basilius Mavortius, +with the collaboration of one Felix, revised the text of at least the +_Odes_ and _Epodes_, and perhaps also of the _Satires_ and _Epistles_. +That there were many other editions intervening between Porphyrio's and +his, there can be little doubt. + +This review of scant and scattered, but consistent, evidence is proof +enough of Horace's hold upon the intellectual and literary leaders of +the ancient Roman world. For the individual pagan who clung to the old +order, he represented more acceptably than anyone else, or anyone else +but Virgil, the ideal of a glorious past, and afforded consequently +something of inspiration for the decaying present. Upon men who, whether +pagan or Christian, were possessed by literary enthusiasms, and upon men +who delighted in contemplation of the human kind, he cast the spell of +art and humanity. Those who caught the fire directly may indeed have +been few, but they were men of parts whose fire was communicated. + +As for the influence exercised by Horace upon Roman society at large +through generation after generation of schoolboys as the centuries +passed, its depth and breadth cannot be measured. It may be partly +appreciated, however, by those who realize from their own experience +both as pupils and teachers the effect upon growing and impressionable +minds of a literature rich in morality and patriotism, and who reflect +upon the greater amplitude of literary instruction among the ancients, +by whom a Homer, a Virgil, or a Horace was made the vehicle of +discipline so broad and varied as to be an education in itself. + + +3. HORACE AND THE MIDDLE AGE + +There is no such thing as a line marking definitely the time when +ancient Rome ceased to be itself and became the Rome of the Middle Age. +If there were such a line, we should probably have crossed it already, +whether in recording the last real Roman setting of the Horatian house +in order by Mavortius in 527, or in referring to Venantius Fortunatus, +the last of the Latin Christian poets. The usual date marking the end of +the Western Empire, 476, is only the convenient sign for the culmination +of the movement long since begun in the interferences of an army +composed more and more of a non-Italian, Northern soldiery, and ending +in a final mutiny or revolt which assumed the character of invasion and +the permanent seizure of civil as well as military authority. The coming +of Odoacer is the ultimate stage in the process of Roman and Italian +exhaustion, the sign that life is not longer possible except through +infusion of northern blood. + +The military and political change itself was only exterior, the outward +demonstration of deep-seated maladies. The too-successful +bureaucratization of Augustus and such of his successors as were really +able and virtuous, the development of authority into tyranny by such as +were neither able nor virtuous, but mad and wilful, had removed from +Roman citizenship the responsibility which in the olden time had made it +strong; and the increase of taxes, assessments, and compulsory honors +involving personal contribution, had substituted for responsibility and +privilege a burden so heavy that under it the civic life of the Empire +was crushed to extinction. In Italy, above all, the ancient seed was +running out. Under the influence of economic and social movement, the +old stock had died and disappeared, or changed beyond recognition. The +old language, except in the mouths and from the pens of the few, was +fast losing its identity. Uncertainty, indifference, stagnation, +weariness of body, mind, and soul, leaden resignation and despair, +forgetfulness of the glories of the past in art and even in heroism, +were the inheritance of the last generations of the old order. Jerome +felt barbarism closing in: _Romanus orbis ruit_, he says,--the Roman +world is tumbling in ruins. + +In measure as the vitality of pagan Rome was sapped, into the inert and +decaying mass there penetrated gradually the two new life-currents of a +new religion and a new blood. The change they wrought from the first +century to the descent of the Northerners was not sudden, nor was it +rapid. Nor was it always a change that carried visible warrant of +virtue. The mingling of external races in the army and in trade, the +interference of a Northern soldiery in the affairs of the throne, the +more peaceful but more intimate shuffling of the population through the +social and economic emergence of the one-time nameless and poor, whether +of native origin or foreign, may have contributed fresh blood to an +anaemic society, but the result most apparent to the eye and most +disturbing to the soul was the debasement of standards and the fears +that naturally come with violent, sudden, or merely unfamiliar change. +The new religion may have contributed new hope and erected new +standards, but it also contributed exaggerations, contradictions, and +new uncertainties. The life of logic began to be displaced by the life +of feeling. + +The change and turmoil of the times that attended and followed the +crumbling of the Roman world were favorable neither to the production of +letters nor to the enjoyment of a literary heritage. Goth, Byzantine, +Lombard, Frank, German, Saracen, and Norman made free of the soil of +Italy. If men were not without leisure, they were without the leisure of +peaceful and careful contemplation, and lacked the buoyant heart without +which assimilation of art is hardly less possible than creation. +Ignorance had descended upon the world, and gross darkness covered the +people. The classical authors were solid, the meat of vigorous minds. +Their language, never the facile language of the people and the +partially disciplined, now became a resisting medium that was foreign to +the general run of men. Their syntax was archaic and crabbed, their +metres forgotten. Their substance, never grasped without effort, was now +not only difficult, but became the abstruse matter of another people and +another age. To all but the cultivated few, they were known for anything +but what they really were. It was an age of Virgil the mysterious +prophet of the coming of Christ, of Virgil the necromancer. Real +knowledge withdrew to secret and secluded refuges. + +If the classical authors in general were beyond the powers and outside +the affection of men, Horace was especially so. More intellectual than +Virgil, and less emotional, in metrical forms for the most part lost to +their knowledge and liking, the poet of the individual heart rather than +of men in the national or racial mass, the poet strictly of this world +and in no respect of the next, he almost vanished from the life of men. + +Yet the classics were not all lost, and not even Horace perished. +Strange to say, and yet not really strange, the most potent active +influence in the destruction of his appeal to men was also the most +effective instrument of his preservation. Through the darkness and the +storms of the nine hundred years following the fall of the Western +Empire, Horace was sheltered under the wing of the Church. + +It was a natural exaggeration for Christianity to begin by teaching +absolute separation from the world, and to declare, through the mouths +of such as Tertullian, that the blood of Christ alone sufficed and +nothing more was needed, and that literature and all the other arts of +paganism, together with its manners, were so inseparable from its +religion that every part was anathema. It was natural that Horace, more +than Virgil, should be the object of its neglect, and even of its active +enmity. Horace is the most completely pagan of poets whose works are of +spiritual import. The only immortality of which he takes account is the +immortality of fame. Aside from this, the end of man is dust and shadow. + +It is true that in the depth of his heart he does not feel with +Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius that "Dust thou art, to dust +returnest" is spoken of soul as well as body. The old Roman instinct for +ancestor-communion is too strong in him for that. But he acquiesces in +their doctrine in so far as shadowy existence in another world inspires +in him no pleasing hope. He displays no trace of the faith in the +supernatural which accompanies the Christian hope of happy immortality. +He contains none of the expressions of yearning for communion with the +divine, of self-abasement in the presence of the eternal, which belong +to Christian poetry. The flights of his muse rarely take him into the +realm of a divine love and providence. His aspirations are for things +achievable in this world: for faithfulness in friendship, for enduring +courage, for irreproachable patriotism,--in short, for ideal _human_ +relations. + +Horace's idealism is not Christian idealism, and is only in a limited +way even spiritual idealism. When he prays, it is likely to be for +others rather than himself, and for temporal blessings only: for the +success of Augustus at home and in the field, for prolongation of +Maecenas' life and happiness, for the weal of the State, for the +nurslings of his little flock, for health of body and contentment of +heart. His dwelling is not in the secret place of the Most High. +Philosophy, not religion, is his refuge and his fortress. In philosophy, +not in God, will he trust. + +In a word, Horace is logical, self-reliant, and self-sufficient. He sees +no happy future after this life, is conscious of no providence watching +over him, is involved in no obligation to the beings of an eternal +world. He looks this world and the next, gods and men, directly in the +face, and expects other men to do the same. Life and its duties are for +him clear-cut. He is no propounder of problems, no searcher after hidden +purposes. He lacks almost absolutely the feverish aspiration and unrest +which characterize Christian and other humanitarian modes of thought and +sentiment, and whose manifestation is one of the best known features of +recent modern times, as it was of the earliest Christian experience. + +But Christianity was a religion of men, and therefore human. If its +exaggerations were natural, its reservations and its reactions were also +natural. There were men whose admiration continued to be roused and +whose affections continued to be touched by Virgil and Horace. There +were men whose reason as well as whose instinct impelled them to employ +the classic authors and the classic arts in the service of the new +religion. Christianity possessed no distinct and separate media of +expression and no separate body of knowledge which could bear fruit as +matter of instruction. Pagan art and literature were indispensable +whether for the study of history or of mere humanity. Christianity was +therefore compelled to employ the old forms of art, which involved the +use of the old instrumentalities of literary education. When, finally, +paganism had fallen under its repeated assaults, what had been forced +use became a matter of choice, and the classics were taken under the +Church's protection and marked with her approval. + +The data regarding Horace in the Middle Age are few, but they are clear. +We need not examine them all in order to draw conclusions. + +The monastic idea, of eastern origin and given currency in the West by +Jerome, was first reduced to systematic practice by Benedict, who +created the first Rule at Monte Cassino about the time of the Mavortian +recension of Horace, in 527. New moral strength issued from the +cloisters now rapidly established. Cassiodorus, especially active in +promoting the spiritual phase of monkish retreat, made the intellectual +life also his concern. Monte Cassino, between Naples and Rome, and +Bobbio, in the northern part of the peninsula, were the great Italian +centers. The Benedictine influence spread to Ireland, which before the +end of the sixth century became a stronghold of the movement and an +inspiration to England, Germany, France, and even Italy, where Bobbio +itself was founded by Columban and his companions. St. Gall in +Switzerland, Fulda at Hersfeld in Hesse-Nassau, Corvey in Saxony, Iona +in Scotland, Tours in France, Reichenau on Lake Constance, were all +active centers of religion and learning within two hundred years from +Benedict's death. + +The monasteries not only afforded the spiritual enthusiast the +opportunity of separation from the world of temptation and storm, but +were equally inviting to men devoted first of all to the intellectual +life. The scholar and the educator found within their walls not only +peaceful escape from the harshnesses of political change and military +broil, but the opportunity to labor usefully and unmolested in the +occupation that pleased them most. The cloister became a Christian +institute. The example of Cassiodorus was followed two hundred years +later on a larger scale by Charlemagne. Schools were founded both in +cloister and at court, scholars summoned, manuscripts copied, the life +of pagan antiquity studied, and the bond between the languages and +cultures of present and past made firmer. The schools of the old regime +had fallen away in the sixth century, when Northern rule had closed the +civic career to natives of Italy. A great advance in the intellectual +life now laid the foundations of all cultural effort in the Middle Age. + +No small part of this advance was due to the preservation of manuscripts +by copying. In this activity France was first, so far as Horace was +concerned. The copies by the scribes of Charlemagne went back to +Mavortius and Porphyrio, the originals of which were probably discovered +at Bobbio by his scholars. Of the two hundred and fifty manuscripts in +existence, the greater part are French in origin, the oldest being the +Bernensis, of the ninth or tenth century, from near Orleans. Germany was +a worthy second to France. The finds in monastery libraries of both +countries in the humanist movement of the fifteenth century were +especially rich. Italy, on the contrary, preserved few manuscripts of +her poet, and none that is really ancient. Italy began the great +monastery movement, but disorder and change were against the diffusion +of culture. Charlemagne's efforts probably had little to do with Italy. +The Church seems to have had no care to preserve the ancient culture of +her native land. + +What this meant in terms of actual acquaintance with the poet would not +be clear without evidence of other kinds. By the end of the sixth +century, knowledge of Horace was already vague. He was not read in +Africa, Spain, or Gaul. Read in Italy up to Charlemagne's time, a +hundred years later his works are not to be found in the catalogue of +Bobbio, one of the greatest seats of learning. What the general attitude +of the Church's leadership toward him was, may be conjectured from the +declaration of Gregory the Great against all beauty in writing. Its +general capacity for Horace may perhaps be surmised also from the +confession of the Pope's contemporary, Gregory of Tours, that he is +unfamiliar with the ancient literary languages. The few readers of the +late Empire had become fewer still. The difficult form and matter of the +_Odes_, and their unadaptability to religious and moral use, +disqualified them for the approval of all but the individual scholar or +literary enthusiast. The moralities of the _Epistles_ were more +tractable, and formed the largest contribution to the _Florilegia_, or +flower-collections, that were circulated by themselves. Horace did not +contain the facile and stimulating tales of Ovid, he was not a Virgil +the story-teller and almost Christian, his lines did not exercise a +strong appeal to the ear, he was not an example of the rhetorical, like +Lucan, his satire did not lend itself, like a Juvenal's, to universal +condemnation of paganism. + +In the eighth century, Columban knows Horace, the Venerable Bede cites +him four times, and Alcuin is called a Flaccus. The York catalogue of +Alcuin shows the presence of most of the classic authors. Paul the +Deacon, who wrote a poem in the Sapphics he learned from Horace, is +declared, he says, to be like Homer, Flaccus, and Virgil, but +ungratefully and ungraciously adds, "men like that I'll compare with +dogs." In Spain, Saint Isidore of Seville knew Horace in the seventh +century, though the Rule of Isidore, as of some other monastic +legislators, forbade the use of pagan authors without special +permission; yet the coming of the Arabs in the eighth century, and the +struggle between the Gothic, Christian, and Islamic civilizations +resulted, for the next six or seven centuries, in what seems total +oblivion of the poet. + +In the ninth and tenth centuries, under the impulse of the Carolingian +favor, France, in which there is heretofore no evidence of Horace's +presence from the end of Roman times, becomes the greatest center of +manuscript activity, the Bernensis and six Parisian exemplars dating +from this period. Yet the indexes of St. Gall, Reichenau, and Bobbio +contain the name of no work of Horace, and only Nevers and Loesch +contained his complete works. The _Ecbasis Captivi_, an animal-epic +appearing at Toul in 940, has one fifth of its verses formed out of +Horace in the manner of the _cento_, or patchwork. At about the same +time, the famous Hrosvitha of Gandersheim writes her six Christian +dramas patterned after Terence, and in them uses Horace. Mention by +Walter of Speyer, and interest shown by the active monastery on the +Tegernsee, are of the same period. The tenth century is sometimes spoken +of as the Latin Renaissance under the Ottos, the first of whom, called +the Great, crowned Emperor at Rome in 962, welcomed scholars at his +court and made every effort to promote learning. + +The momentum of intellectual interest is not lost in the eleventh +century. Paris becomes its most ardent center, with Reims, Orleans, and +Fleury also of note. The _Codex Parisinus_ belongs to this period. +German activity, too, is at its height, especially in the education of +boys for the church. Italy affords one catalogue mention, of a Horace +copied under Desiderius. Peter Damian was its man of greatest learning, +but the times were intellectually stagnant. The popes were occupied by +rivalry with the emperors. It was the century of Gregory the Seventh and +Canossa. + +In the twelfth century came the struggle of the Hohenstaufen with the +Italian cities, and the disorder and turmoil of the rise of the communes +and the division of Italy. One catalogue shows a Horace, and one +manuscript dates from the time. England and France are united by the +Norman Conquest in much the same way as Germany and France had been +associated in the kingdom of Charlemagne. It is the century of Roger +Bacon. Especially in Germany, England, and France, it is the age of the +Crusades and the knightly orders. It is an age of the spread of culture +among the common people. In France, it is the age of the monastery of +Cluny, and the age of Abelard. Education and travel became the mode. In +general, acquaintance with Horace among cultivated men may now be taken +for granted. The _Epistles_ and _Satires_ find more favor than the +_Odes_. Five hundred and twenty citations of the former and +seventy-seven of the latter have been collected for the twelfth century. + +The thirteenth century marks a decline in the intellectual life. The +Crusades exhaust the energies of the time, and detract from its literary +interest. The German rulers and the Italian ecclesiasts are absorbed in +the struggle for supremacy between pope and emperor. Scholasticism +overshadows humanism. The humanistic tradition of Charlemagne has died +out, and the intellectual ideal is represented by Vincent of Beauvais +and the _Speculum Historiale_. There is no mention of Horace in the +catalogues of Italy. The manuscripts of France are careless, the +comments and glosses poor. The decline will continue until arrested by +the Renaissance. + +It must not be forgotten that among all these scattered and flickering +attentions to Horace there was the constant nucleus of instruction in +the school. That he was used for this purpose first in the Carolingian +cloister-schools, and later in the secular schools which grew to +independent existence as a result of the vigorous spread of educational +spirit, cannot be doubtful. Gerbert, dying at the beginning of the +eleventh century as Pope Sylvester II, is known to have interpreted +Horace in his school. This is the oldest direct evidence of the +scholastic use of Horace, but other proofs are to be seen in the +commentaries of the medieval period, all of which are of a kind suitable +for school use, and in the marginal annotations, often in the native +tongue. + +The decline of humane studies in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries +meant also the decline of interest in Horace, who had always been above +all the poet of the cultivated few. At the beginning of the thirteenth +century in Italy, nowhere but at Bologna and Rome was Latin taught +except as the elementary instruction necessary to the study of civil and +canonical law. Gaufried of Vinesaux, coming from England to Italy, and +composing an _Ars Dictaminis_ and a _Poietria Nova_ containing Horatian +reminiscences, is one of two or three significant examples of Latin +teachers who concerned themselves with literature as well as language. +Coluccio Salutati, wanting to buy a copy of Horace in 1370, is +apparently unable to find it. The decline of interest in Horace will be +arrested only by the Rebirth of Learning. + +The intellectual movement back to the classical authors and the +classical civilizations is well called the Rebirth. The brilliance of +the new era as compared with the thousand years that lead to it from the +most high and palmiest days of Rome is such as to dim almost to darkness +the brightest days of medieval culture. The new life into which Horace +is now to enter will be so spirited and full that the old life, though +by no means devoid of active influence in society at large and in the +individual soul, will seem indeed like a long death and a waiting for +the resurrection into a new heaven and a new earth. + + +4. HORACE AND MODERN TIMES + +THE REBIRTH OF HORACE + +The national character of the _Aeneid_ gave Virgil a greater appeal than +Horace in ancient Roman times. In the Middle Age, his qualities as +story-teller and poet of the compassionate heart, together with his fame +as necromancer and prophet, made still more pronounced the favor in +which he was held. The ignorance of the earlier centuries of the period +could not appreciate Horace the logical, the intellectual, the +difficult, while the schematized religion and knowledge of the later +were not attracted by Horace the philosophical and individual. + +With the Renaissance and its quickening of intellectual life in general, +and in particular the value it set upon personality and individualism, +the positions of the poets were reversed. For four hundred years now it +can hardly be denied that Horace rather than Virgil has been the +representative Latin poet of humanism. + +This is not to say that Horace is greater than Virgil, or that he is as +great. Virgil is still the poet of stately movement and golden +narrative, the poet of the grand style. Owing to the greater facility +with which he may be read, he is also still the poet of the young and of +greater numbers. With the coming of the new era he did not lose in the +esteem that is based upon the appreciation of literary art, but rather +gained. + +It will be better to say that Horace finally came more fully into his +own. This was not because he changed. He did not change. The times +changed. The barriers of intellectual sloth and artificiality fell away, +and men became accessible to him. Virgil lost nothing of his old-time +appeal to the fancy and to the ear, but Horace's virtues also were +discovered: his distinction in word and phrase, his understanding of the +human heart. Virgil lost nothing of his charm for youth and age, but +Horace was discovered as the poet of the riper and more thoughtful mind. +Virgil remained the admired, but Horace became the friend. Virgil +remained the guide, but Horace became the companion. "Virgil," says +Oliver Wendell Holmes, "has been the object of an adoration amounting +almost to worship, but he will often be found on the shelf, while Horace +lies on the student's table, next his hand." + +The nature and extent of Horace's influence upon modern letters and life +will be best brought into relief by a brief historical review. It is not +necessary to this purpose, nor would it be possible, within ordinary +limits, to enter into a detailed account. It will be appropriate to +begin with Italy. + + +_i_. IN ITALY + +Horace did not spring immediately into prominence with the coming of the +Renaissance, whether elsewhere or in Italy. As might be expected, the +essentially epic and medieval Dante found inspiration in Virgil rather +than in Horace, though the _Ars Poetica_ was known to him and quoted +more than once as authority on style. "This is what our master Horace +teaches," runs one of the passages, "when at the beginning of _Poetry_ +he says, 'Choose a subject, etc.'" The imperfect idea of Horace formed +in Dante's mind is indicated by the one verse in the _Divina Commedia_ +which refers to him: + + L' altro e Orazio satiro che viene,-- + + T_he other coming is Horace the satirist_. + +With Petrarch, the first great figure to emerge from the obscure vistas +of medievalism, the case was different. The first modern who really +understood the classics understood Horace also, and did him greater +justice than fell to his lot again for many generations. The copy of +Horace's works which he acquired on November 28, 1347, remained by him +until on the 18th of July in 1374 the venerable poet and scholar was +found dead at the age of seventy among his books. Fond as he was of +Virgil, Cicero, and Seneca, he had an intimate and affectionate +knowledge of Horace, to whom there are references in all his works, and +from whom he enriched his philosophy of life. Even his greatest and most +original creation, the _Canzoniere_, is not without marks of Horace, and +their fewness here, as well as their character, are a sign that +Petrarch's familiarity was not of the artificial sort, but based on real +assimilation of the poet. His letter to Horace begins: + + Salve o dei lirici modi sovrano, + Salve o degl' Itali gloria ed onor,-- + + H_ail! Sovereign of the lyric measure_, + H_ail! Italy's great pride and treasure_; + +and, after recounting the qualities of the poet, and acknowledging him +as guide, teacher, and lord, concludes: + + Tanto e l' amor che a te m'avvince; tanto + E degli affetti miei donno il tuo canto-- + + S_o great the love that bindeth me to thee_; + S_o ruleth in my heart thy minstrelsy_. + +But Petrarch is a torch-bearer so far in advance of his successors that +the illumination almost dies out again before they arrive. It was not +until well into the fifteenth century that the long and numerous line of +imitators, translators, adapters, parodists, commentators, editors, and +publishers began, which has continued to the present day. The +modern-Latin poets in all countries were the first, but their efforts +soon gave place to attempts in the vernacular tongues. The German Eduard +Stemplinger, in his _Life of the Horatian Lyric Since the Renaissance_, +published in 1906, knows 90 English renderings of the entire _Odes_ of +Horace, 70 German, 100 French, and 48 Italian. Some are in prose, some +even in dialect. The poet of Venusia is made a Burgundian, a Berliner, +and even a Platt-deutsch. All of these are attempts to transfuse Horace +into the veins of modern life, and are significant of their authors' +conviction as to the vitalizing power of the ancient poet. No author +from among the classics has been so frequently translated as Horace. + +Petrarch, as we have seen, led the modern world by a century in the +appreciation of Horace. It was in 1470, ninety-six years after the +laureate's death, that Italy achieved the first printed edition of the +poet, which was also the first in the world. This was followed in 1474 +by a printing of Acro's notes, grown by accretion since their origin in +the third century into a much larger body of commentary. In 1476 was +published the first Horace containing both text and notes, which were +those of Acro and Porphyrio, and in 1482 appeared Landinus's notes, the +first printed commentary on Horace by a modern humanist. Landinus was +prefaced by a Latin poem of Politian's, who, with Lorenzo dei Medici, +was a sort of arbiter in taste, and who produced in 1500 a Horace of his +own. Mancinelli, who, like many other scholars of the time, gave public +readings and interpretations of Horace and other classics, in 1492 +dedicated to the celebrated enthusiast Pomponius Laetus an edition of +the _Odes_, _Epodes_, and _Secular Hymn_, in which he so successfully +integrated the comments of Acro, Porphyrio, Landinus, and himself, that +for the next hundred years it remained the most authoritative Horace. In +Italy, between 1470 and 1500, appeared no fewer than 44 editions of the +poet, while in France there were four and in Germany about ten. Venice +alone published, from 1490 to 1500, thirteen editions containing text +and commentary by "The Great Four," as they were called. The famous +Aldine editions began to appear in 1501. Besides Venice, Florence, and +Rome, Ferrara came early to be a brilliant center of Horatian study, +Lionel d'Este and the Guarini preparing the way for the more +distinguished, if less scholastic, discipleship of Ariosto and Tasso. +Naples and the South displayed little activity. + +Roughly speaking, the later fifteenth century was the age of manuscript +recovery, commentary, and publication; the sixteenth, the century of +translation, imitation, and ambitious attempt to rival the ancients on +their own ground; the seventeenth and eighteenth, the centuries of +critical erudition, with many commentaries and versions and much +discussion of the theory of translation; and the nineteenth, the century +of scientific revision and reconstruction. In the last movement, Italy +had comparatively small part. Among her translators during these +centuries must be mentioned Ludovico Dolce, whose excellent rendering of +the _Satires_ and _Epistles_ was a product of the early sixteenth; +Scipione Ponsa, whose faithful _Ars Poetica_ in _ottava rima_ appeared +in the first half of the seventeenth; the advocate Borgianelli, whose +brilliant version of Horace entire belongs to the second half; and the +Venetian Abriani, whose complete _Odes_ in the original meters, the +first achievement of the kind, was a not unsuccessful performance which +has taken its place among Horatian curiosities. Among literary critics +are the names of Gravina, whose _Della Ragione Poetica_, full of sound +scholarship and refreshing good sense, appeared in 1716 at Naples; Volpi +of Padua, author of a treatise on Satire, in which the merits of +Lucilius, Horace, Juvenal, and Persius were effectively discussed; and +their followers, Algarotti the Venetian and Vannetti of Roveredo, in +whom Horatian criticism reached its greatest altitude. + +If we look outside the field of scholastic endeavor and academic +imitation, and attempt to discern the effect of Horace in actual +literary creation, we are confronted by the difficulty of determining +exactly where imitation and adaptation cease to be artificial, and reach +the degree of individuality and independence which entitles them to the +name of originality. If we are to include here such authors as are +manifestly indebted to suggestion or inspiration from Horace, and yet +are quite as manifestly modern and Italian, we may note at least the +names of Petrarch, already mentioned; the famous Cardinal Bembo, whose +ideal, to write "thoughtfully and little," was a reflection of Horace; +Ariosto, whose satires are in the Horatian spirit, and who, complaining +to his brother Alessandro of the attitude of his patron, Cardinal +Hippolyto d'Este, recites the story of the fox and the weasel, changing +them to donkey and rat; Chiabrera of Savona, who wrote satire +honeycombed with Horatian allusion and permeated by Horatian spirit, and +who, in Leopardi's opinion, had he lived in a different age, would have +been a second Horace; Testi of Ferrara, whom Ariosto's enthusiasm for +Horace so kindled that he gravitated from the modern spirit to the +classical; Parini of Milan, whose poem, _Alla Musa_, is Horatian in +spirit and phrase; Leopardi, who composed a parody on the _Ars Poetica_; +Prati, who transmuted _Epode II_ into the _Song of Hygieia_; and +Carducci, whose use of Horatian meters, somewhat strained, is due to the +conscious desire of making Italy's past greatness serve the present. The +names of Bernardo Tasso and Torquato Tasso might be added. + +It is not impossible, also, that the musical debt of the world to Italy +is in a measure owing to Horace. Whether the music which accompanied the +_Odes_ as they emerged from the Middle Age was only the invention of +monks, or the survival of actual Horatian music from antiquity, is a +question hardly to be answered; but the setting of Horace to music in +the Renaissance was not without an influence. In 1507, Tritonius +composed four-voice parts for twenty-two different meters of Horace and +other poets. In 1526, Michael engaged in the same effort, and in 1534 +Senfl developed the youthful compositions of Tritonius. All this was for +school purposes. With the beginnings of Italian opera, these +compositions, in which the music was without measure and held strictly +to the service of poetry, came to an end. It is not unreasonable to +suspect that in these early attempts at the union of ancient verse and +music there exist the beginnings of the musical drama. + + +_ii_. IN FRANCE + +France, where the great majority of Horatian manuscripts were preserved, +was the first to produce a translation of the _Odes_. Grandichan in +1541, and Pelletier in 1545, published translations of the _Ars Poetica_ +which had important consequences. The famous Pleiad, whose most +brilliant star, Pierre de Ronsard, was king of poetry for more than a +score of years, were enthusiastic believers in the imitation of the +classics as a means for the improvement of letters in France. Du Bellay, +the second in magnitude, published in 1550 his _Deffence et illustration +de la langue francoyse_, a manifesto of the Pleiad full of quotations +from the _Ars Poetica_ refuting a similar work of Sibilet published in +1548. Ronsard himself is said to have been the first to use the word +"ode" for Horace's lyrics. The meeting of the two, in 1547, is regarded +as the beginning of the French school of Renaissance poetry. Horace thus +became at the beginning an influence of the first magnitude in the +actual life of modern French letters. In 1579 appeared Mondot's complete +translation. The versions of Dacier and Sanadon, in prose, in the +earlier eighteenth century, were an innovation provoking spirited +opposition in Italy. The line of translators, imitators, and enthusiasts +in France is as numerous as that of other countries. The list of great +authors inspired by Horace includes such names as Montaigne, "The French +Horace," Malherbe, Regnier, Boileau, La Fontaine, Corneille, Racine, +Moliere, Voltaire, Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Le Brun, Andre Chenier, De +Musset. + + +_iii_. IN GERMANY + +In Germany, the Renaissance movement had its pronounced beginning at +Heidelberg. In that city began also the active study of Horace, in the +lectures on Horace in 1456. The _Epistles_ were first printed in 1482 at +Leipzig, the _Epodes_ in 1488, and in 1492 appeared the first complete +Horace. Up to 1500, about ten editions had been published, only those of +1492 and 1498 being Horace entire, and none of them with commentary +except that of 1498, which had a few notes and metrical signs to +indicate the structure of the verse. The first German to translate a +poem of Horace was Johann Fischart, 1550-90, who rendered the second +_Epode_ in 145 rhymed couplets. The famous Silesian, Opitz, "father of +German poetry," and his followers, were to Germany what the Pleiad were +to France. His work on poetry, 1624, was grounded in Horace, and was +long the canon. Bucholz, in 1639, produced the first translation of an +entire book of the _Odes_ in German. Weckherlin, 1548-1653, translated +three _Odes_, Gottsched of Leipzig, 1700-66, and Breitinge of Zurich, +confess Horace as master of the art of poetry, and their cities become +the centers of many translations. Guenther, 1695-1728, the most gifted +lyric poet of his race before Klopstock, made Horace his companion and +confidant of leisure hours. Hagedorn, 1708-54, forms his philosophy from +Horace,--"my friend, my teacher, my companion." Of Ramler, for +thirty-five years dictator of the Berlin literary world, who translated +and published some of the _Odes_ in 1769 and was called the German +Horace, Lessing said that no sovereign had ever been so beautifully +addressed as was Frederick the Great in his imitation of the Maecenas +ode. The epoch-making Klopstock, 1724-1803, quotes, translates, and +imitates Horace, and uses Horatian subjects. Heinse reads him and writes +of him enthusiastically, and Platen, 1796-1835, is so full of Homer and +Horace that he can do nothing of his own. Lessing and Herder are devoted +Horatians, though Herder thinks that Lessing and Winckelmann are too +unreserved in their enthusiasm for the imitation of classical letters. +Goethe praises Horace for lyric charm and for understanding of art and +life, and studies his meters while composing the _Elegies_. Nietzsche's +letters abound in quotation and phrase. Even the Church in Germany shows +the impress of Horace in some of her greatest hymns, which are in +Alcaics and Sapphics of Horatian origin. To speak of the German editors, +commentators, and critics of the nineteenth century would be almost to +review the history of Horace in modern school and university; such has +been the ardor of the German soul and the industry of the German mind. + + +_iv_. IN SPAIN + +A glance at the use of Horace in Spain will afford not the least +edifying of modern examples. The inventories of Spanish libraries in the +Middle Age rarely contain the name of Horace, or the names of his lyric +brethren, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. Virgil, Lucan, Martial, +Seneca, and Pliny are much more frequent. It was not until the fifteenth +century that reminiscences of the style and ideas of Horace began to +appear in quantity. Imitation rather than translation was the vehicle of +Spanish enthusiasm. The fountain of Horatianism in Spain was the +imitation of _Epode II_, _Beatus Ille_, by the Marquis de Santillana, +one of Castile's two first sonneteers, in the first half of the +fifteenth century. Garcilaso also produced many imitations of the +_Odes_. The Horatian lyric seemed especially congenial to the Spanish +spirit and language. Fray Luis de Leon, of Salamanca, the first real +Spanish poet, and the most inspired of all the Spanish lovers of Horace, +was an example of the poet translating the poet where both were great +men. He not only brought back to life once more "that marvelous +sobriety, that rapidity of idea and conciseness of phrase, that +terseness and brilliance, that sovereign calm and serenity in the spirit +of the artist," which characterized the ancient poet, but added to the +Horatian lyre the new string of Christian mysticism, and thus wedded the +ancient and the modern. "Luis de Leon is our great Horatian poet," says +Menendez y Pelayo. Lope de Vega wrote an _Ode to Liberty_, and was +influenced by the _Epistles_. The _Flores de Poetas ilustres de Espana_, +arranged by Pedro Espinosa and published in 1605 at Valladolid, included +translations of eighteen odes. Hardly a lyric poet of the eighteenth +century failed to turn some part of Horace into Spanish. Salamanca +perfected the ode, Seville the epistle, Aragon the satire. Mendoza in +his nine _Epistles_ shows his debt to Horace. In 1592, Luis de Zapata +published at Lisbon a not very successful verse translation of the _Ars +Poetica_. In 1616, Francisco de Cascales of Murcia published _Fablas +Poeticas_, containing in dialogue the substance of the same composition, +which had been translated by Espinel, 1551-1624, and which was +translated again in 1684, twice in 1777, and in 1827. Seville founded a +Horatian Academy. The greatest of the Spanish translators of Horace +entire was Javier de Burgos, whose edition of four volumes, 1819-1844, +is called by Menendez y Pelayo the only readable complete translation of +Horace, "one of the most precious and enviable jewels of our modern +literature," and "perhaps the best of all Horaces in the neo-Latin +tongues." The nearest rival of Burgos was Martinez de la Rosa. The +greatest Spanish scholar and critic of Horace is Menendez y Pelayo, +editor of the _Odes_, 1882, and author of _Horacio en Espana_, 1885. + +In the index of _Horacio en Espana_ are to be found the names of 165 +Castilian translators of the poet, 50 Portuguese, 10 Catalan, 2 +Asturian, and 1 Galician. There appear the names of 29 commentators. Of +complete translations, there are 6 Castilian and 1 Portuguese; of +complete translations of the _Odes_, 6 Castilian and 7 Portuguese; of +the _Satires_, 1 Castilian and 2 Portuguese; of the _Epistles_, 1 +Castilian and 1 Portuguese; of the _Ars Poetica_, 35 Castilian, 11 +Portuguese, and 1 Catalan. The sixteenth century translators were +distinguished in general by facility and grace, the freshness and +abandon of youth, and a considerable degree of freedom, or even license. +Those of the eighteenth show a gain in accuracy and a loss in spirit. + + +_v_. IN ENGLAND + +The appeal of Horace in England and English-speaking countries has been +as fruitful as elsewhere in scholarship, with the possible exception of +Germany. In its effect upon the actual fibre of literature and life, it +has been more fruitful. + +A review of Horatian study in England would include the names of Talbot +and Baxter, but, above all, of the incomparably brilliant Richard +Bentley, despite his excesses, themselves due to his very genius, the +most famous and most stimulating critic and commentator of Horace the +world has seen. His edition, appearing in 1711, provoked in 1717 the +anti-Bentleian rejoinder of Richard Johnson, and in 1721 the more +ambitious but equally unsuccessful attempt to discredit him by the +Scotch Alexander Cunningham. The primacy in the study of Horace which +Bentley conferred upon England had been enjoyed previously by the Low +Countries and France, to which it had passed from Italy in the second +half of the sixteenth century. The immediate sign of this transfer of +the center to northern lands was the publication in 1561 at Lyons of the +edition containing the text revision and critical notes of Lambinus and +the commentary of the famous Cruquius of Bruges. The celebrated Scaliger +was unfavorably disposed to Horace, who found a defender in Heinsius, +another scholar of the Netherlands. D'Alembert, who became a sort of +_Ars Poetica_ to translators, published his _Observations_ at Amsterdam +in 1763. + +An account of the English translations of the poet would include many +renderings of individual poems, such as those of Dryden, Sir Stephen E. +De Vere, and John Conington, and the version of Theodore Martin, +probably the most successful complete metrical translation of Horace in +any language. It is literally true that "every theory of translation has +been exemplified in some English rendering of Horace." + +It is in the field of literature, however, that the manifestations of +Horace's hold upon the English are most numerous and most significant. +Even Shakespeare's "small Latin" includes him, in _Titus Andronicus_: + +Demetrius. + + W_hat's here? A scroll, and written round about!_ + L_et's see_: + + Integer vitae scelerisque purus + Non eget Mauri jaculis nec arcu. + +Chiron. + + O_, 'tis a verse in Horace; I know it well_: + I_ read it in the grammar long ago_. + +The mere mention of English authors in poetry and prose who were touched +and kindled by the Horatian flame would amount to a review of the whole +course of English literature. It would begin principally with Spenser +and Ben Jonson, who in some measure represented in their land what the +Pleiad meant in France, and Opitz and his following in Germany. "Steep +yourselves in the classics," was Jonson's counsel, and his countrymen +did thus steep themselves to such a degree that it is possible for the +student to say of Milton's times: "The door to English literature and +history of the seventeenth century is open wide to those who are at ease +in the presence of Latin. Many writings and events of the time may +doubtless be understood and enjoyed by readers ignorant of the classics, +but to them the heart and spirit of the period as a whole will hardly be +revealed. Poetry, philosophy, history, biography, controversy, sermons, +correspondence, even conversation,--all have come down to us from the +age of Milton either written in or so touched with Latin that one is +compelled to enter seventeenth century England by way of Rome as Rome +must be entered by way of Athens." + +Great as was the vogue of Latin in the earlier centuries, it was the +first half of the eighteenth, the most critical period in English +letters, that realized to the full the virtues of Horace. His words in +the _Ars Poetica_ "were accepted, even more widely than the laws of +Aristotle, as the standard of critical judgment. Addison and Steele by +their choice of mottoes for their periodicals, Prior by his adoption of +a type of lyric that has since his time been designated as Horatian, and +Pope with his imposing series of _Imitations_, gave such an impulse to +the already widespread interest that it was carried on through the whole +of the century." "Horace may be said to pervade the literature of the +eighteenth century in three ways: as a teacher of political and social +morality; as a master of the art of poetry; and as a sort of _elegantiae +arbiter_." Richardson, Sterne, Smollett, and Fielding, Gay, Samuel +Johnson, Chesterfield, and Walpole, were all familiar with and fond of +Horace, and took him unto themselves. + +In the nineteenth century, Wordsworth has an intimate familiarity with +Virgil, Catullus, and Horace, but loves Horace best; Coleridge thinks +highly of his literary criticism; Byron, who never was greatly fond of +him, frequently quotes him; Shelley reads him with pleasure; Browning's +_The Ring and the Book_ contains many quotations from him; Thackeray +makes use of phrases from the _Odes_ "with an ease and facility which +nothing but close intimacy could produce"; Andrew Lang addresses to him +the most charming of his _Letters to Dead Authors_; and Austin Dobson is +inspired by him in many of his exquisite poems in lighter vein. These +names, and those in the paragraphs preceding, are not all that might be +mentioned. The literature of England is honey-combed with the classic +authors in general, and Horace is among the foremost. Without him and +without the classics, a great part of our literary patrimony is of +little use. + + +_vi_. IN THE SCHOOLS + +Of the place of Horace in the schools and universities of all these +countries, and of the world of western civilization in general, it is +hardly necessary to speak. The enlightened sentiment of the five hundred +years since the death of Petrarch has been enthusiastic in the +conviction that the Greek and Latin classics are indispensable to +instruction of the first quality, and that among them Horace is of +exceeding value as a model of poetic taste and as an influence in the +formation of a philosophy of life. If his place has been less secure in +latter days, it is due less to alteration of that conviction than to +extension of the educational system to the utilitarian arts and +sciences, and to the passing of educational control from the few to the +general average. + + + + +III. HORACE THE DYNAMIC + +THE CULTIVATED FEW + + +We have followed in such manner and at such length as is possible for +our purpose the fortunes of Horace through the ages from his death and +the death of the Empire in whose service his pen was employed to our own +times. We have seen that he never was really forgotten, and that there +never was a time of long duration when he ceased to be of real +importance to some portion of mankind. + +The recital of historical fact is at best a narration of circumstance to +which there clings little of the warmth of life. An historical event +itself is but the cumulated and often frigid result of intimate original +forces that may have meant long travail of body and soul before the act +of realization became possible. The record of the event in chronicle or +its commemoration in monument is only the sign that at some time there +occurred a significant moment rendered inevitable by previous stirrings +of life whose intensity, if not whose very identity, are forgotten or no +longer realized. + +Thus the enumeration of manuscript revisions, translations, imitations, +and scholastic editions of Horace may also seem at first sight the +narrative of cold detail. There may be readers who, remembering the +scant stream of the cultivated few who tided the poet through the +centuries of darkness, and the comparative rareness of cultivated men at +all times, will be slow to be convinced of any real impress of Horace +upon the life of men. They especially who reflect that during all the +long sweep of time the majority of those who have known him, and even of +those who have been stirred to enthusiasm by him, have known him through +the compulsion of the school, and who reflect farther on the +artificialities, the insincerities, the pettinesses, the abuses, and the +hatreds of the class-room, the joy with which at the end the text-book +is dropped or bidden an even more violent farewell, and the apparently +total oblivion that follows, will be inclined to view as exaggeration +the most moderate estimate of our debt to him. + +Yet skepticism would be without warrant. The presence of any subject in +an educational scheme represents the sincere, and often the fervent, +conviction that it is worthy of the place. In the case of literary +subjects, the nearer the approach to pure letters, the less demonstrable +the connection between instruction and the winning of livelihood, the +more intense the conviction. The immortality of literature and the arts, +which surely has been demonstrated by time, the respect in which they +are held by a world so intent on mere living that of its own motion it +would never heed, is the work of the passionate few whose enthusiasms +and protestations never allow the common crowd completely to forget, and +keep forever alive in it the uneasy sense of imperfection. That Horace +was preserved for hundreds of years by monastery and school, that the +fact of acquaintance with him is due to his place in modern systems of +education, are not mere statements empty of life. They represent the +noble enthusiasms of enlightened men. The history of human progress has +been the history of enthusiasms. Without enthusiasms, the fabric of +civilization would collapse in a day into the chaos of barbarism. + +To give greater completeness and reality to our account of Horace's +place among men, ancient and modern, we must in some way add to the +narrative of formal fact the demonstration of his influence in actual +operation. In the case of periods obscure and remote, this is hardly +possible. In the case of modern times it is not so difficult. For the +recent centuries, as proof of the peculiar power of Horace, we have the +abundant testimony of literature and biography. + +Let us call this influence the Dynamic Power of Horace. Dynamic power is +the power that explodes men, so to speak, into physical or spiritual +action, that operates by inspiration, expansion, fertilization, +vitalization, and results in the living of a fuller life. If we can be +shown concrete instances of Horace enriching the lives of men by +increasing their love and mastery of art or multiplying their means of +happiness, we shall not only appreciate better the poet's meaning for +the present day, but be better able to imagine his effect upon men in +the remoter ages whose life is less open to scrutiny. + +Our purpose will best be accomplished by demonstrating the very specific +and pronounced effect of Horace, first, upon the formation of the +literary ideal; second, upon the actual creation of literature; and, +third, upon living itself. + + +1. HORACE AND THE LITERARY IDEAL + +There is no better example of the direct effect of Horace than the part +played in the discipline of letters by the _Ars Poetica_. This work is a +literary _causerie_ inspired in part by the reading of Alexandrian +criticism, but in larger part by experience. In it the author's +uppermost themes, as in characteristic manner he allows himself to be +led on from one thought to another, are unity, consistency, propriety, +truthfulness, sanity, and carefulness. Such has been its power by reason +of inner substance and outward circumstance that it has been at times +exalted into a court of appeal hardly less authoritative than Aristotle +himself, from whom in large part it ultimately derives. + +We have seen how the Pleiad, with Du Bellay and Ronsard leading, seized +upon the classics as a means of elevating the literature of France, and +how the treatise of Du Bellay which was put forth as their manifesto was +full of matter from the _Ars Poetica_, which two years previously has +served Sibilet also, whose work Du Bellay attacked. A century later, +Boileau's _L'Art Poetique_ testifies again to the inspiration of Horace, +who is made the means of riveting still more firmly upon French drama, +for good or ill, the strict rules that have always governed it; and by +the time of Boileau's death the program of the Pleiad is revived a +second time by Jean Baptiste Rousseau. Opitz and Gottsched in the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are for Germany what Du Bellay and +Boileau were for France in the sixteenth and seventeenth. Literary Spain +of the latter fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was under the same +influence. The Spanish peninsula, according to Menendez y Pelayo, has +produced no fewer than forty-seven translations of the _Ars Poetica_. +Even in England, always less tractable in the matter of rules than the +Latin countries, Ben Jonson and his friends are in some sort another +Pleiad, and the treatise possesses immense authority throughout the +centuries. We turn the pages of Cowl's _The Theory of Poetry in +England_, a book of critical extracts illustrating the development of +poetry "in doctrines and ideas from the sixteenth century to the +nineteenth century," and note Ben Jonson and Wordsworth referring to or +quoting Horace in the section on Poetic Creation; Dryden and Temple +appealing to him and Aristotle on the Rules; Hurd quoting him on Nature +and the Stage; Roger Ascham, Ben Jonson, and Dryden citing him as an +example on Imitation; Dryden and Chapman calling him master and +law-giver on Translation; Samuel Johnson referring to him on the same +subject; and Ben Jonson and Dryden using him on Functions and Principles +of Criticism. "Horace," writes Jonson, "an author of much civility, ... +an excellent and true judge upon cause and reason, not because he +thought so, but because he knew so out of use and experience." Pope, in +the _Essay on Criticism_, describes with peculiar felicity both Horace's +critical manner and the character of the authority, persuasive rather +than tyrannical, which he exercises over Englishmen: + + "H_orace still charms with graceful negligence_, + A_nd without method talks us into sense_; + W_ill, like a friend, familiarly convey_ + T_he truest notions in the easiest way_." + +But the dynamic power of the _Ars Poetica_ will be still better +appreciated if we assemble some of its familiar principles. Who has not +heard of and wondered at the hold the "Rules" have had upon modern +drama, especially in France,--the rule of five acts, no more and no +less; the rule of three actors only, liberalized into the rule of +economy; the rule of the unities in time, place, and action; the rule +against the mingling of the tragic and comic "kinds"; the rule against +the artificial denouement? Who has not heard of French playwrights +composing "with one eye on the clock" for fear of violating the unity of +time, or of their delight in the writing of drama as in "a difficult +game well played?" If Alexandrian criticism, and, back of it, Aristotle, +were ultimately responsible for the rules, Horace was their disseminator +in later times, and was looked up to as final authority. Who has not +heard and read repeatedly the now common-place injunctions to be +appropriate and consistent in character-drawing; to avoid, on the one +hand, clearness at the cost of diffuseness, and, on the other, brevity +at the cost of obscurity; to choose subject-matter suited to one's +powers; to respect the authority of the masterpiece and to con by night +and by day the great Greek exemplars; to feel the emotion one wishes to +rouse; to stamp the universal with the mark of individual genius; to be +straightforward and rapid and omit the unessential; to be truthful to +life; to keep the improbable and the horrible behind the scenes; to be +appropriate in meter and diction; to keep clear of the fallacy of poetic +madness; to look for the real sources of successful writing in sanity, +depth of knowledge, and experience with men; to remember the mutual +indispensability of genius and cultivation; to combine the pleasant and +the useful; to deny one's self the indulgence of mediocrity; never to +compose unless under inspiration; to give heed to solid critical +counsel; to lock up one's manuscript for nine years before giving it to +the world; to destroy what does not measure up to the ideal; to take +ever-lasting pains; to beware of the compliments of good-natured +friends? Not less familiar are the apt figurative illustrations of the +woman beautiful above and an ugly fish below, the purple patch, the +painter who would forever put in his cypress tree, the amphora that came +out a pitcher, the dolphin in the wood and the boar in the waters, the +sesquipedalian word, the mountains in travail and the birth of the +ridiculous mouse, the plunge _in medias res_, the praiser of the good +old times, the exclusion of sane poets from Helicon, the counsellor who +himself can write nothing, but will serve as whetstone for genius, the +nodding of Homer. + +Nor did the effects of this diffusion of Horatian precept consist merely +in restraint upon the youthful and the impulsive, or confine themselves +to the drama, with which the _Ars Poetica_ was mainly concerned. The +persuasive and authoritative counsels of the Roman poet have entered, so +to speak, into the circulatory system of literary effort and become part +of the life-blood of modern enlightenment. Their great effect has been +formative: the cultivation of character in literature. + + + +2. HORACE AND LITERARY CREATION + +_i_. THE TRANSLATOR'S IDEAL + +Besides the invisible, and the greatest, effect of Horace in the +moulding of character in literature, is the visible effect in literary +creation. His inspiration wrought by performance as well as by precept. +The numerous essays in verse and prose on the art of letters which have +been prompted by the _Ars Poetica_ are themselves examples of this +effect. They are not alone, however, though perhaps the most apparent. +The purer literature of the lyric also inspired to creation, with +results that are far more charming, if less substantial. + +In the case of the lyric inspired by the _Odes_, as well as in the case +of the critical essay inspired by the _Ars Poetica_, it is not always +easy to distinguish adaptation or imitation from actual creation. +Bernardo Tasso's _Ode_, for example, and Giovanni Prati's _Song of +Hygieia_, while really independent poems, are so charged with Horatian +matter and spirit that one hesitates to call them original. The same is +true of the many inspirations traceable to the famous _Beatus Ille +Epode_, which, with such _Odes_ as _The Bandusian Spring_, _Pyrrha_, +_Phidyle_, and _Chloe_, have captured the fancy of modern poets. Pope's +_Solitude_, on the other hand, while surely an inspiration of the second +_Epode_, shows hardly a mark affording proof of the fact. + +To some of the most manifest imitations and adaptations, it is +impossible to deny originality. The _Fifth Book of Horace_, by Kipling +and Graves, is an example. Thackeray's delightful _Ad Ministram_ is +another example which must be classed as adaptation, yet such is its +spontaneity that not to see in it an inspiration would be stupid and +unjust: + + +AD MINISTRAM + + D_ear Lucy, you know what my wish is_-- + I_ hate all your Frenchified fuss_: + Y_our silly entrees and made dishes_ + W_ere never intended for us_. + N_o footman in lace and in ruffles_ + N_eed dangle behind my arm-chair_; + A_nd never mind seeking for truffles_ + A_lthough they be ever so rare_. + + B_ut a plain leg of mutton, my Lucy_, + I_ prithee get ready at three_: + H_ave it smoking, and tender, and juicy_, + A_nd what better meat can there be?_ + A_nd when it has feasted the master_, + 'T_will amply suffice for the maid_; + M_eanwhile I will smoke my canaster_, + A_nd tipple my ale in the shade_. + +In similar strain of exquisite humor are the adaptations of the +Whichers, American examples of spirit and skill not second to that of +Thackeray: + + +MY SABINE FARM + +LAUDABUNT ALII + + S_ome people talk about "Noo Yo'k"_; + O_f Cleveland many ne'er have done_; + T_hey sing galore of Baltimore_, + C_hicago, Pittsburgh, Washington_. + + O_thers unasked their wit have tasked_ + T_o sound unending praise of Boston_-- + O_f bean-vines found for miles around_ + A_nd crooked streets that I get lost on_. + + G_ive me no jar of truck or car_, + N_o city smoke and noise of mills_; + R_ather the slow Connecticut's flow_ + A_nd sunny orchards on the hills_. + + T_here like the haze of summer days_ + B_efore the wind flee care and sorrow_. + I_n sure content each day is spent_, + U_nheeding what may come to-morrow_. + + +VITAS HINNULEO + +DONE BY MR. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH + + I _met a little Roman maid_; + S_he was just sixteen (she said)_, + A_nd O! but she was sore afraid_, + A_nd hung her modest head_. + + A _little fawn, you would have vowed_, + T_hat sought her mother's side_, + A_nd wandered lonely as a cloud_ + U_pon the mountain wide_. + + W_hene'er the little lizards stirred_ + S_he started in her fear_; + I_n every rustling bush she heard_ + S_ome awful monster near_. + + "I_'m not a lion; fear not so_; + S_eek not your timid dam_."-- + B_ut Chloe was afraid, and O!_ + S_he knows not what I am_: + + A creature quite too bright and good + To be so much misunderstood. + +Again, in Austin Dobson's exquisite _Triolet_, whether the inspiration +of the poem itself is in Horace, or the inspiration, so far as Horace is +concerned, lies in the choice of title after the verses were written, we +must in either case confess a debt of great delight to the author of the +_Ars Poetica_: + + +URCEUS EXIT + + I_ intended an Ode_, + A_nd it turned to a Sonnet_. + I_t began_ a la mode, + I_ intended an Ode_; + B_ut Rose crossed the road_ + I_n her latest new bonnet_; + I_ intended an Ode_, + A_nd it turned to a Sonnet_. + +The same observation applies equally to the same author's _Iocosa Lyra_: + + +IOCOSA LYRA + + I_n our hearts is the great one of Avon_ + E_ngraven_, + A_nd we climb the cold summits once built on_ + B_y Milton_; + + B_ut at times not the air that is rarest_ + I_s fairest_, + A_nd we long in the valley to follow_ + A_pollo_. + + T_hen we drop from the heights atmospheric_ + T_o Herrick_, + O_r we pour the Greek honey, grown blander_, + O_f Landor_, + + O_r our cosiest nook in the shade is_ + W_here Praed is_, + O_r we toss the light bells of the mocker_ + W_ith Locker_. + + O_ the song where not one of the Graces_ + T_ightlaces_,-- + W_here we woo the sweet Muses not starchly_, + B_ut archly_,-- + + W_here the verse, like a piper a-Maying_ + C_omes playing_,-- + A_nd the rhyme is as gay as a dancer_ + I_n answer_,-- + + I_t will last till men weary of pleasure_ + I_n measure!_ + I_t will last till men weary of laughter_ ... + A_nd after!_ + +Whatever we may say of the indebtedness of things like these to the +letter of the ancient poet, we must acknowledge them all alike as +examples of the dynamic power of Horace. + + +_ii_. CREATION + +But there are other examples whose character as literary creation is +still farther beyond question. Such a one, to mention one brilliant +specimen in prose, is the letter of Andrew Lang to Horace. In verse, +Austin Dobson again affords one of the happiest examples: + + +TO Q.H.F. + + "H_oratius Flaccus_, B.C. 8," + T_here's not a doubt about the date_,-- + Y_ou're dead and buried_: + A_s you observed, the seasons roll_; + A_nd 'cross the Styx full many a soul_ + H_as Charon ferried_, + S_ince, mourned of men and Muses nine_, + T_hey laid you on the Esquiline_. + + A_nd that was centuries ago!_ + Y_ou'd think we'd learned enough, I know_, + T_o help refine us_, + S_ince last you trod the Sacred Street_, + A_nd tacked from mortal fear to meet_ + T_he bore Crispinus_; + O_r, by your cold Digentia, set_ + T_he web of winter birding-net_. + + O_urs is so far-advanced an age!_ + S_ensation tales, a classic stage_, + C_ommodious villas!_ + W_e boast high art, an Albert Hall_, + A_ustralian meats, and men who call_ + T_heir sires gorillas!_ + W_e have a thousand things, you see_, + N_ot dreamt in your philosophy_. + + A_nd yet, how strange! Our "world," today_, + T_ried in the scale, would scarce outweigh_ + Y_our Roman cronies_; + W_alk in the Park,--you'll seldom fail_ + T_o find a Sybaris on the rail_ + B_y Lydia's ponies_, + O_r hap on Barrus, wigged and stayed_, + O_gling some unsuspecting maid_. + + T_he great Gargilius, then, behold!_ + H_is "long-bow" hunting tales of old_ + A_re now but duller_; + F_air Neobule too! Is not_ + O_ne Hebrus here,--from Aldershot?_ + A_ha, you colour!_ + B_e wise. There old Canidia sits_; + N_o doubt she's tearing you to bits_. + + A_nd look, dyspeptic, brave, and kind_, + C_omes dear Maecenas, half behind_ + T_erentia's skirting_; + H_ere's Pyrrha, "golden-haired" at will_; + P_rig Damasippus, preaching still_; + A_sterie flirting_,-- + R_adiant, of course. We'll make her black_,-- + A_sk her when Gyges' ship comes back_. + + S_o with the rest. Who will may trace_ + B_ehind the new each elder face_ + D_efined as clearly_; + S_cience proceeds, and man stands still_; + O_ur "world" today's as good or ill_,-- + A_s cultured_ (_nearly_), + A_s yours was, Horace! You alone_, + U_nmatched, unmet, we have not known_. + +But it is not only to comparatively independent creation that we must +look. The dynamic power of Horace is to be found at work even in the +translation of the poet. The fact that he has had more translators than +any other poet, ancient or modern, is itself an evidence of +inspirational quality, but a greater proof lies in the variety and +character of his translators and the quality of their achievement. A +list of those who have felt in this way the stirrings of the Horatian +spirit would include the names not only of many great men of letters, +but of many great men of affairs, whose successes are to be counted +among examples of genuine inspiration. Translation at its best is not +mere craftsmanship, but creation,--in Roscommon's lines, + + 'T_is true, composing is the Nobler Part_, + B_ut good Translation is no easy Art_. + +Theodore Martin's rendering of I. 21, _To a Jar of Wine_, already quoted +in part, is an example. Another brilliant success is Sir Stephen E. De +Vere's I. 31, _Prayer to Apollo_, quoted in connection with the poet's +religious attitude. No less felicitous are Conington's spirited twelve +lines, reproducing III. 26, _Vixi puellis_: + + +VIXI PUELLIS NUPER IDONEUS + + F_or ladies' love I late was fit_, + A_nd good success my warfare blest_; + B_ut now my arms, my lyre I quit_, + A_nd hang them up to rust or rest_. + H_ere, where arising from the sea_ + S_tands Venus, lay the load at last_, + L_inks, crowbars, and artillery_, + T_hreatening all doors that dared be fast_. + O_ Goddess! Cyprus owns thy sway_, + A_nd Memphis, far from Thracian snow_: + R_aise high thy lash, and deal me, pray_, + T_hat haughty Chloe just one blow!_ + +To translate in this manner is beyond all doubt to deserve the name of +poet. + +We may go still farther and claim for Horace that he has been a dynamic +power in the art of translation, not only as it concerned his own poems, +but in its concern of translation as a universal art. No other poet +presents such difficulties; no other poet has left behind him so long a +train of disappointed aspirants. "Horace remains forever the type of the +untranslatable," says Frederic Harrison. Milton attempts the _Pyrrha_ +ode in unrhymed meter, and the light and bantering spirit of Horace +disappears. Milton is correct, polished, restrained, and pure, but heavy +and cold. An exquisite _jeu d'esprit_ has been crushed to death: + + W_hat slender youth, bedew'd with liquid odours_, + C_ourts thee on roses in some pleasant cave_, + P_yrrha? For whom bind'st thou_ + I_n wreaths thy golden hair_, + P_lain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he_ + O_n faith and changed gods complain, and seas_ + R_ough with black winds and storms_ + U_nwonted shall admire_! + W_ho now enjoys thee credulous, all gold_, + W_ho, always vacant, always amiable_ + H_opes thee, of flattering gales_ + U_nmindful! Hapless they_ + T_o whom thou untried seem'st fair! Me in my vowed_ + P_icture, the sacred wall declares to have hung_ + M_y dank and dropping weeds_ + T_o the stern God of Sea_. + +But let the attempt be made to avoid the ponderous movement and +excessive sobriety of Milton, and to communicate the Horatian airiness, +and there is a loss in conciseness and reserve: + + W_hat scented youth now pays you court_, + P_yrrha, in shady rose-strewn spot_ + D_allying in love's sweet sport_? + F_or whom that innocent-seeming knot_ + I_n which your golden strands you dress_ + W_ith all the art of artlessness?_ + + D_eluded lad! How oft he'll weep_ + O_'er changed gods! How oft, when dark_ + T_he billows roughen on the deep_, + S_torm-tossed he'll see his wretched bark_! + U_nused to Cupid's quick mutations_, + I_n store for him what tribulations!_ + + B_ut now his joy is all in you_; + H_e thinks your heart is purest gold_; + E_xpects you'll always be love-true_, + A_nd never, never, will grow cold_. + P_oor mariner on summer seas_, + U_ntaught to fear the treacherous breeze!_ + + A_h, wretched whom your Siren call_ + D_eludes and brings to watery woes_! + F_or me--yon plaque on Neptune's wall_ + S_hows I've endured the seaman's throes_. + M_y drenched garments hang there, too_: + H_enceforth I shun the enticing blue._ + +It is not improbable that the struggle of the centuries with the +difficulties of rendering Horace has been a chief influence in the +development of our present exacting ideal of translation; so exacting +indeed that it has defeated its purpose. By emphasis upon the +impossibility of rendering accurately the content of poetry in the form +of poetry, scholastic discussion of the theory of translation has led +first to despair, and next from despair to the scientific and +unaesthetic principle of rendering into exact prose all forms of +literature alike. The twentieth century has thus opened again and +settled in opposite manner the old dispute of the French D'Alembert and +the Italian Salvini in the seventeen-hundreds, which was resolved by +actual results in favor of D'Alembert and fidelity to spirit as opposed +to Salvini and fidelity to letter. + +In what we have said thus far of the dynamic power of Horace in literary +creation, we have dealt with visible results. We should not be misled, +however, by the satisfaction of seeing plainly in imitation, adaptation, +translation, quotation, or real creation, the mark of Horatian +influence. The discipline of the literary ideal in the individual, and +the moulding of character in literature as an organism, are effects less +clearly visible, but, after all, of greater value. If the bread and meat +of human sustenance should appear in the body as recognizable bread and +meat, it would hardly be a sign of health. Its value is in the strength +conferred by assimilation. With all respect and gratitude for creation +manifestly due to Horace, we must also realize that this is but a +superficial result as compared with the chastening restraint of +expression and the health and vigor of content that have been encouraged +by allegiance to him, but are known by no special marks. It is no bad +sign when we turn the pages of the _Oxford Selections of Verse_ in the +various modern languages and find but few examples of the visible sort +of Horatian influence. To detect the more invisible sort requires the +keen eye and the sensitive spirit of the poet-scholar, but the reader +not so specially qualified may have faith that it exists. With Goethe +writing of Horace as a "great, glowing, noble poet, full of heart, who +with the power of his song sweeps us along, lifts us, and inspires us," +with Menendez y Pelayo in Spain defining the Horatian lyric, whether +Christian or pagan, by "sobriety of thought, rhythmic lightness, the +absence of artificial adornment, unlimited care in execution, and +brevity," and holding this ideal aloft as the influence needed by the +modern lyric, and with no countries or periods without leaders in poetry +and criticism uttering similar sentiments and exhortations, it would be +difficult not to believe in a substantial Horatian effect on literary +culture, however slight the external marks. + + +3. HORACE IN THE LIVING OF MEN + +Let us take leave of these illustrations of the dynamic power of Horace +in letters, and consider in conclusion his power as shown directly in +the living of men. + +First of all, we may include in the dynamic working of the poet his +stirring of the heart by pure delight. If this is not the highest and +the ultimate effect of poetry, it is after all the first and the +essential effect. Without the giving of pleasure, no art becomes really +the possession of men and the instrument of good. As a matter of fact, +many of the most frequently and best translated _Odes_ are devoid both +of moral intent, and, in the ordinary sense, of moral effect. _To +Pyrrha_, _Soracte Covered with Snow_, _Carpe Diem_, _To Glycera_, +_Integer Vitae_, _To Chloe_, _Horace and Lydia_, _The Bandusian Spring_, +_Faunus_, _To an Old Wine-Jar_, _The End of Love_, and _Beatus Ille_ are +merely _jeux-d'esprit_ of the sort that for the moment lighten and clear +the spirit. The same may be said of _The Bore_ and the _Journey to +Brundisium_ among the _Satires_, and of many of the _Epistles_. + +But these trifles light as air are nevertheless of the sort for which +mankind is eternally grateful, because men are convinced, without +process of reason, that by them the fibre of life is rested and refined +and strengthened. We may call this familiar effect by the less familiar +name of re-creative. What lover of Horace has not felt his inmost being +cleansed and refreshed by the simple and exquisite art of _The Bandusian +Spring_, whose cameo of sixty-eight Latin words in four stanzas is an +unapproachable model of vividness, elegance, purity, and restraint: + + O_ crystal-bright Bandusian Spring_, + W_orthy thou of the mellow wine_ + A_nd flowers I give to thy pure depths_: + A_ kid the morrow shall be thine_. + + T_he day of lustful strife draws on_, + T_he starting horn begins to gleam_; + I_n vain! His red blood soon shall tinge_ + T_he waters of thy clear, cold stream_. + + T_he dog-star's fiercely blazing hour_ + N_e'er with its heat doth change thy pool_; + T_o wandering flock and ploughworn steer_ + T_hou givest waters fresh and cool_. + + T_hee, too, 'mong storied founts I'll place_, + S_inging the oak that slants the steep_, + A_bove the hollowed home of rock_ + F_rom which thy prattling streamlets leap_. + +Or who does not live more abundant life at reading the _Chloe Ode_, with +its breath of the mountain air and its sense of the brooding forest +solitude, and its exquisite suggestion of timid and charming girlhood? + + "Y_ou shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_ + A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_ + T_hrough trackless woods. If spring-winds sigh_, + I_t vainly strives its fears to smother_;-- + + "I_ts trembling knees assail each other_ + W_hen lizards stir the bramble dry_;-- + Y_ou shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_ + A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_. + + "A_nd yet no Libyan lion I_,-- + N_o ravening thing to rend another_; + L_ay by your tears, your tremors by_,-- + A_ husband's better than a brother_; + N_or shun me, Chloe, wild and shy_ + A_s some stray fawn that seeks its mother_." + +But there are those who demand of poetry a usefulness more easily +measurable than that of recreation. In their opinion, it is improvement +rather than pleasure which is the end of art, or at least improvement as +well as pleasure. In this, indeed, the poet himself is inclined to +agree: "He who mingles the useful with the pleasant by delighting and +likewise improving the reader, will get every vote." + +Let us look for these more concrete results, and see how Horace the +person still lives in the character of men, as well as Horace the poet +in the character of literature. + +To appreciate this better, we must return to the theme of Horace's +personal quality. We have already seen that in no other poet so fully as +in Horace is the reality of personal contact to be felt. The lyrics, as +well as the _Epistles_ and _Satires_, are almost without exception +addressed to actual persons. So successful is this attempt of the poet +to speak from the page that it needs but the slightest touch of +imagination to create the illusion that we ourselves are addressed. We +feel, as if at first hand, all the qualities that went to make up +Horace's character,--his good will, good faith, and good-nature, the +depth and constancy of his friendship, his glow of admiration for the +brave deed, the pure heart, and the steadfast purpose, his patient +endurance of ill, his delight in men and things, his affection for what +is simple and sincere, his charity for human weakness, his mildly +ironical mood, as of one who is aware that he himself is not undeserving +of the good-humored censure he passes on others, his clear vision of the +sources of happiness, his reposeful acquiescence, and his elusive humor, +which never bursts into laughter and yet is never far away from it. We +are taken into his confidence, like old friends. He describes himself +and his ways; he lets us share in his own vision of himself and in his +amusement at the bustling and self-deluded world, and subtly conciliates +us by making us feel ourselves partakers with him in the criticism of +life. There is no better example in literature of personal magnetism. + +And he is more than merely personal. He is sincere and unreserved. Were +he otherwise, the delight of intimate acquaintance with him would be +impossible. It is the real Horace whom we meet,--not a person on the +literary stage, with buskins, pallium, and mask. Horace holds the mirror +up to himself; rather, not to himself, but to nature in himself. Every +side of his personality appears: the artist, and the man; the formalist, +and the skeptic; the spectator, and the critic; the gentleman in +society, and the son of the collector; the landlord of five hearths, and +the poet at court; the stern moralist, and the occasional voluptuary; +the vagabond, and the conventionalist. He is independent and unhampered +in his expression. He has no exalted social position to maintain, and +blushes neither for parentage nor companions. His philosophy is not +School-made, and the fear of inconsistency never haunts him. His +religion requires no subscription to dogma; he does not even take the +trouble to define it. Politically, his duties have come to be also his +desires. He will accept the favors of the Emperor and his ministers if +they do not compromise his liberty or happiness. If they withdraw their +gifts, he knows how to do without them, because he has already done +without them. He conceals nothing, pretends to nothing, makes no +excuses, suffers from no self-consciousness, exercises no reserve. There +are few expressions of self in all literature so spontaneous and so +complete. Horace has left us a portrait of his soul much more perfect +than that of his person. It is a truthful portrait, with both shadow and +light. + +And there is a corollary to Horace's frankness that constitutes another +element in the charm of his personality. His very unreserve is the proof +of an open and kindly heart. To call him a satirist at all is to +necessitate his own definition of satire, "smilingly to tell the truth." +At least in his riper work, there is no trace of bitterness. He laughs +with some purpose and to some purpose, but his laughter is not sardonic. +Sane judgment and generous experience tell him that the foibles of +mankind are his own as well as theirs, and are not to be changed by so +slight a means as a railing tongue. He reflects that what in himself has +produced no very disastrous results may without great danger be forgiven +also in them. + +It is this intimate and warming quality in Horace that prompts Hagedorn +to call him "my friend, my teacher, my companion," and to take the poet +with him on country walks as if he were a living person: + + Horaz, mein Freund, mein Lehrer, mein Begleiter, + Wir gehen aufs Land. Die Tage sind so heiter; + +and Nietzsche to compare the atmosphere of the _Satires_ and _Epistles_ +to the "geniality of a warm winter day"; and Wordsworth to be attracted +by his appreciation of "the value of companionable friendship"; and +Andrew Lang to address to him the most personal of literary letters; and +Austin Dobson to give his Horatian poems the form of personal address; +and countless students and scholars and men out of school and immersed +in the cares of life to carry Horace with them in leisure hours. _Circum +praecordia ludit_, "he plays about the heartstrings," said Persius, long +before any of these, when the actual Horace was still fresh in the +memory of men. + +If we were to take detailed account of certain qualities missed in +Horace by the modern reader, we should be even more deeply convinced of +his power of personal attraction. He is not a Christian poet, but a +pagan. Faith in immortality and Providence, penitence and penance, and +humanitarian sentiment, are hardly to be found in his pages. He is +sometimes too unrestrained in expression. The unsympathetic or +unintelligent critic might charge him with being commonplace. + +Yet these defects are more apparent than real, and have never been an +obstacle to souls attracted by Horace. His pages are charged with +sympathy for men. His lapses in taste are not numerous, and are, after +all, less offensive than those of European letters today, after the +coming of sin with the law. And he is not commonplace, but universal. +His content is familiar matter of today as well as of his own time. His +delightful natural settings are never novel, romantic, or forced; we +have seen them all, in experience or in literature, again and again, and +they make familiar and intimate appeal. Phidyle is neither ancient nor +modern, Latin nor Teuton; she is all of them at once. The exquisite +expressions of friendship in the odes to a Virgil, or a Septimius, are +applicable to any age or nationality, or any person. The story of the +town mouse and country mouse is always old and always new, and always +true. _Mutato nomine de te_ may be said of it, and of all Horace's other +stories; alter the names, and the story is about you. Their application +and appeal are universal. + +"Without sustained inspiration, without profundity of thought, without +impassioned song," writes Duff, "he yet pierces to the universal +heart.... His secret lies in sanity rather than impetus. Kindly and +shrewd observer of the manifold activities of life, he draws vignettes +therefrom and passes judgments thereon which awaken undying interest. +_Non omnis moriar_--he remains fresh because he is human." + +Horace's philosophy of life may be imperfect for the militant +humanitarian and the Christian, but, as a matter of fact, it is a +complete and perfect thing in itself. Horace does not fret or fume. He +is not morbid or unpleasantly melancholy. It is true that "his tempered +and polished expression of common experience, free from transports and +free from despairs, speaks more forcibly to ripe middle age than to +youth," but it is not without its appeal also to youth. Horace sums up +an attitude toward existence which all men, of whatever nation or time, +can easily understand, and which all, at some moment or other, +sympathize with. Whether they believe in his philosophy of life or not, +whether they put it into practice or not, it is always and everywhere +attractive,--attractive because founded on clear and sympathetic vision +of the joys and sorrows that are the common lot of men, attractive +because of its frankness and manly courage, and, above all, attractive +because of its object. So long as the one great object of human longing +is peace of mind and heart, no philosophy which recognizes it will be +without followers. The Christian is naturally unwilling to adopt the +Horatian philosophy as a whole, but with its _summum bonum_, and with +many of its recommendations, he is in perfect accord. Add Christian +faith to it, or add it, so far as is consonant, to Christian faith, and +either is enriched. + +We are better able now to appreciate the dynamic power of Horace the +person. We may see it at work in the fostering of friendly affection, in +the deepening of love for favorite spots of earth, in the encouragement +of righteous purpose, in the true judging of life's values. + +Horace is the poet of friendship. With his address to "Virgil, the half +of my soul," his references to Plotius, Varius, and Virgil as the purest +and whitest souls of earth, his affectionate messages in _Epistle_ and +_Ode_, he sets the heart of the reader aglow with love for his friends. +"Nothing, while in my right mind, would I compare to the delight of a +friend!" What numbers of men have had their hearts stirred to deeper +love by the matchless ode to Septimius: + + "S_eptimius, who with me would brave_ + F_ar Gades, and Cantabrian land_ + U_ntamed by Rome, and Moorish wave_ + T_hat whirls the sand_; + + "F_air Tibur, town of Argive kings_, + T_here would I end my days serene_, + A_t rest from seas and travelings_, + A_nd service seen_. + + "S_hould angry Fate those wishes foil_, + T_hen let me seek Galesus, sweet_ + T_o skin-clad sheep, and that rich soil_, + T_he Spartan's seat_. + + "O_h, what can match the green recess_, + W_hose honey not to Hybla yields_, + W_hose olives vie with those that bless_ + V_enafrum's fields_? + + "L_ong springs, mild winters glad that spot_ + B_y Jove's good grace, and Aulon, dear_ + T_o fruitful Bacchus, envies not_ + F_alernian cheer_. + + "T_hat spot, those happy heights desire_ + O_ur sojourn; there, when life shall end_, + Y_our tear shall dew my yet warm pyre_, + Y_our bard and friend_." + +And what numbers of men have taken to their hearts from the same ode the +famous + + Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes + Angulus ridet,-- + + Y_onder little nook of earth_ + B_eyond all others smiles on me_,-- + +and expressed through its perfect phrase the love they bear their own +beloved nook of earth. "Happy Horace!" writes Sainte-Beuve on the margin +of his edition, "what a fortune has been his! Why, because he once +expressed in a few charming verses his fondness for the life of the +country and described his favorite corner of earth, the lines composed +for his own pleasure and for the friend to whom he addressed them have +laid hold on the memory of all men and have become so firmly lodged +there that one can conceive no others, and finds only those when he +feels the need of praising his own beloved retreat!" + +To speak of sterner virtues, what a source of inspiration to +righteousness and constancy men have found in the apt and undying +phrases of Horace! "Cornelius de Witt, when confronting the murderous +mob; Condorcet, perishing in the straw of his filthy cell; Herrick, at +his far-away old British revels; Leo, during his last days at the +Vatican, and a thousand others," strengthened their resolution by +repeating _Iustum et tenacem_: + + "T_he man of firm and noble soul_ + N_o factious clamors can control_ + N_o threat'ning tyrant's darkling brow_ + C_an swerve him from his just intent_.... + A_y, and the red right arm of Jove_, + H_urtling his lightnings from above_, + W_ith all his terrors then unfurl'd_, + H_e would unmoved, unawed behold_: + T_he flames of an expiring world_ + A_gain in crashing chaos roll'd_, + I_n vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd_, + M_ust light his glorious funeral pile_: + S_till dauntless midst the wreck of earth he'd smile_." + +Of this passage Stemplinger records thirty-one imitations. How many have +had their patriotism strengthened by _Dulce et decorum est pro patria +mori_, the verse which is aptly found in modern Rome on the monument to +those who fell at Dogali. How many have been supported and comforted in +calamity and sorrow by the poet's immortal words of consolation on the +death of Quintilius: + + Durum: sed levius fit patientia + Quicquid corrigere est nefas,-- + + A_h, hard it is! but patience lends_ + S_trength to endure what Heaven sends_. + +The motto of Warren Hastings was _Mens aequa in arduis_,--An even temper +in times of trial. Even humorous use of these phrases has served a +purpose. The French minister, compelled to resign, no doubt drew +substantial consolation from _Virtute me involvo_, when he turned it to +fit his case: + + I_n the robe of my virtue I wrap me round_ + A _solace for loss of all I had_; + B_ut ah! I realize I've found_ + W_hat it really means to be lightly clad_! + +But the most pronounced effect of Horace's dynamic power is its +inspiration to sane and truthful living. Life seems a simple thing, yet +there are many who miss the paths of happiness and wander in wretched +discontent because they are not bred to distinguish between the false +and the real. We have seen the lesson of Horace: that happiness is not +from without, but from within; that it is not abundance that makes +riches, but attitude; that the acceptation of worldly standards of +getting and having means the life of the slave; that the fraction is +better increased by division of the denominator than by multiplying the +numerator; that unbought riches are better possessions than those the +world displays as the prizes most worthy of striving for. No poet is so +full of inspiration as Horace for those who have glimpsed these simple +and easy yet little known secrets of living. Men of twenty centuries +have been less dependent on the hard-won goods of this world because of +him, and lived fuller and richer lives. Surely, to give our young people +this attractive example of sane solution of the problem of happy living +is to leaven the individual life and the life of the social mass. + + + + +IV. CONCLUSION + + +We have visualized the person of Horace and made his acquaintance. We +have seen in his character and in the character of his times the sources +of his greatness as a poet. We have seen in him the interpreter of his +own times and the interpreter of the human heart in all times. We have +traced the course of his influence through the ages as both man and +poet. We have seen in him not only the interpreter of life, but a +dynamic power that makes for the love of men, for righteousness, and for +happier living. We have seen in him an example of the word made flesh. +"He has forged a link of union," writes Tyrrell, "between intellects so +diverse as those of Dante, Montaigne, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Voltaire, +Hooker, Chesterfield, Gibbon, Wordsworth, Thackeray." + +To know Horace is to enter into a great communion of twenty +centuries,--the communion of taste, the communion of charity, the +communion of sane and kindly wisdom, the communion of the genuine, the +communion of righteousness, the communion of urbanity and of friendly +affection. + +"Farewell, dear Horace; farewell, thou wise and kindly heathen; of +mortals the most human, the friend of my friends and of so many +generations of men." + + + + +NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +The following groups of references are not meant as annotations in the +usual sense. Those to the text of the poet are for such persons as wish +to increase their acquaintance with Horace by reading at first hand the +principal poems which have inspired the essayist's conclusions. The +others are for those who desire to view in detail the working of the +Horatian influence. + + HORACE THE PERSON: + _Odes_, I. 27; 38; II. 3; 7; III. 8; IV. 11. + _Satires_, I. 6; 9; II. 6. + _Epistles_, I. 7; 10; 20. + Suetonius, _Life of Horace_. (see below.) + + HORACE THE POET: + _Odes_, I. 1; 3; 6; 12; 24; 35; II. 7; 16; III. 1; 21; 29; IV. 2; 3; 4. + _Satires_, I. 4; 6. + _Epistles_, I. 3; 20; II. 2. + + HORACE THE INTERPRETER OF HIS TIMES: + Landscape; + _Odes_, I. 4; 31; II. 3; 6; 14; 15; III. 1; 13; 18; 23. + _Epistles_, I. 12; 14. + Living; + _Odes_, I. 1; III. 1; 2; 4; 6; IV. 5; _Epode_, 2. + _Satires_, I. 1; II. 6. + _Epistles_, I. 7; 10. + Religion; + _Odes_, I. 4; 10; 21; 30; 31; 34; III. 3; 13; 16; 18; 22; 23; IV. + 5; 6; _Epode_, 2. + Popular Wisdom; + _Epistle_, I. 1; 4; II. 2. + + HORACE THE PHILOSOPHER OF LIFE: + The Spectator and Essayist; _Satires_, I. 4; II. 1. + The Vanity of Human Wishes; + _Odes_, I. 4; 24; 28; II. 13; 14; 16; 18; III. 1; 16; 24; 29; IV. 7. + _Satires_, I. 4; 6. + _Epistles_, I. 1. + The Pleasures of this World; + _Odes_, I. 9; 11; 24; II. 3; 14; III. 8; 23; 29; IV. 12. + _Epistles_, I. 4. + Life and Morality; + _Odes_, I. 5; 18; 19; 27; III. 6; 21; IV. 13. + _Epistles_, I. 2; II. 1. + Life and Purpose; + _Odes_, I. 12; II. 2; 15; III. 2; 3; IV. 9; _Epode_, 2. + _Satires_, I. 1. + _Epistles_, I. 1. + The Sources of Happiness; + _Odes_, I. 31; II. 2; 16; 18; III. 16; IV. 9. + _Satires_, I. 1; 6; II. 6. + _Epistles_, I. 1; 2; 6; 10; 11; 12; 14; 16. + + HORACE THE PROPHET: + _Odes_, II. 20; III. 1; 4; 30; IV. 2; 3. + + HORACE AND ANCIENT ROME: + _Odes_, IV. 3. + _Epistles_, I. 20. + Suetonius, _Vita Horati, Life of Horace_, Translation, J.C. Rolfe, + in _The Loeb Classical Library_, New York, 1914. + Hertz, Martin, _Analecta ad carminum Horatianorum Historiam_, i-v. + Breslau, 1876-82. + Schanz, Martin, _Geschichte der Roemischen Litteratur_. Muenchen, 1911. + + HORACE AND THE MIDDLE AGE: + Manitius, Maximilian, _Analekten zur Geschichte des Horaz im + Mittelalter, bis 1300_. Goettingen, 1893. + + HORACE AND MODERN TIMES: + In Italy; + Curcio, Gaetano Gustavo, _Q. Orazio Flacco, studiato in Italia dal + secolo XIII al XVIII_. Catania, 1913. + In France and Germany; + Imelmann, J., _Donec gratus eram tibi, Nachdichtungen und + Nachklaenge aus drei Jahrhunderten_. Berlin, 1899. + Stemplinger, Eduard, _Das Fortleben der Horazischen Lyrik seit der + Renaissance_. Leipzig, 1906. + In Spain; + Menendez y Pelayo, D. Marcelino, _Horacio en Espana_, 2 vols. + Madrid, 1885.[2] + In England; + Goad, Caroline, _Horace in the English Literature of the Eighteenth + Century_. New Haven, 1918. + Myers, Weldon T., _The Relations of Latin and English as Living + Languages in England during the Age of Milton_. Dayton, Virginia, + 1913. + Nitchie, Elizabeth, "Horace and Thackeray," in _The Classical + Journal_, XIII. 393-410 (1918). + Shorey, Paul, and Laing, Gordon J., _Horace: Odes and Epodes_ + (Revised Edition). Boston, 1910. + Thayer, Mary R., _The Influence of Horace on the Chief English + Poets of the Nineteenth Century_. New Haven, 1916. + + HORACE THE DYNAMIC: + _Ars Poetica._ + Cowl, R.P., _The Theory of Poetry in England; its development in + doctrines and ideas from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth + century_. London, 1914. + Dobson, Henry Austin, _Collected Poems_, Vol. I, 135, 181, 219, 222, + 224, 231, 236, 245, 263; II. 66, 83, 243, etc. London, 1899. + Gladstone, W.E., _The Odes of Horace_, English Verse Translation. + New York, 1901. + Kipling, Rudyard, et Graves, C.L., _Q. Horati Flacci Carminum Liber + Quintus_. New Haven, 1920.[3] + Lang, Andrew, _Letters to Dead Authors_. New York, 1893. + Martin, Sir Theodore, _The Odes of Horace_; translated into English + verse. London, 1861.[2] + Untermeyer, Louis, "_--and Other Poets_." New York, 1916. + Whicher, G.M. and G.F., _On the Tibur Road, a Freshman's Horace_. + Princeton, 1912. + +Besides the works mentioned above, reference should be made to: + + CAMPAUX, A., _Des raisons de la popularite d'Horace en France_. Paris, + 1895. + D'ALTON, J.F., _Horace and His Age_. London, 1917. + MCCREA, N.G., _Horatian Criticism of Life_. New York, 1917. + STEMPLINGER, EDUARD, _Horaz im Urteil der Jahrhunderte_. Leipzig, + 1921. + TAYLOR, HENRY OSBORN, _The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages_. New + York, 1903.[2] + _The Century Horace._ + +and, also, to the two following works, cited and quoted in the text: + + DUFF, J. WIGHT, _A Literary History of Rome_. London, 1910.[2] (p. + 545) + TYRRELL, R.Y., _Latin Poetry_. Boston, (lectures delivered at The + Johns Hopkins University, 1893). (p. 164) + +_Note_: Translations of Horace, not otherwise assigned or not enclosed +in quotation marks, are those of G.S. + + + + +Our Debt to Greece and Rome + +AUTHORS AND TITLES + + + 1. HOMER. John A. Scott, Northwestern University. + 2. SAPPHO. David M. Robinson, The Johns Hopkins University. + 3A. EURIPIDES. F.L. Lucas, King's College, Cambridge. + 3B. AESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. J.T. Sheppard, King's College, + Cambridge. + 4. ARISTOPHANES. Louis E. Lord, Oberlin College. + 5. DEMOSTHENES. Charles D. Adams, Dartmouth College. + 6. ARISTOTLE'S POETICS. Lane Cooper, Cornell University. + 7. GREEK HISTORIANS. Alfred E. Zimmern, University of Wales. + 8. LUCIAN. Francis G. Allinson, Brown University. + 9. PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. Charles Knapp, Barnard College, Columbia + University. + 10A. CICERO. John C. Rolfe, University of Pennsylvania. + 10B. CICERO AS PHILOSOPHER. Nelson G. McCrea, Columbia University. + 11. CATULLUS. Karl P. Harrington, Wesleyan University. + 12. LUCRETIUS AND EPICUREANISM. George Depue Hadzsits, University of + Pennsylvania. + 13. OVID. Edward K. Rand, Harvard University. + 14. HORACE. Grant Showerman, University of Wisconsin. + 15. VIRGIL. John William Mackail, Balliol College, Oxford. + 16. SENECA. Richard Mott Gummere, The William Penn Charter School. + 17. ROMAN HISTORIANS. G. Ferrero, Florence. + 18. MARTIAL. Paul Nixon, Bowdoin College. + 19. PLATONISM. Alfred Edward Taylor, University of Edinburgh. + 20. ARISTOTELIANISM. John L. Stocks, University of Manchester, + Manchester. + 21. Stoicism. Robert Mark Wenley, University of Michigan. + 22. LANGUAGE AND PHILOLOGY. Roland G. Kent, University of + Pennsylvania. + 23. RHETORIC AND LITERARY CRITICISM. (Greek) W. Rhys Roberts, Leeds + University. + 24. GREEK RELIGION. Walter W. Hyde, University of Pennsylvania. + 25. ROMAN RELIGION. Gordon J. Laing, University of Chicago. + 26. MYTHOLOGIES. Jane Ellen Harrison, Newnham College, Cambridge. + 27. THEORIES REGARDING THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. Clifford H. Moore, + Harvard University. + 28. STAGE ANTIQUITIES. James T. Allen, University of California. + 29. GREEK POLITICS. Ernest Barker, King's College, University of + London. + 30. ROMAN POLITICS. Frank Frost Abbott, Princeton University. + 31. ROMAN LAW. Roscoe Pound, Harvard Law School. + 32. ECONOMICS AND SOCIETY. M.T. Rostovtzeff, Yale University. + 33. WARFARE BY LAND AND SEA. E.S. McCartney, University of Michigan. + 34. THE GREEK FATHERS. Roy J. Deferrari, The Catholic University of + America. + 35. BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE. Henry Osborn Taylor, New York. + 36. MATHEMATICS. David Eugene Smith, Teachers College, Columbia + University. + 37. LOVE OF NATURE. H.R. Fairclough, Leland Stanford Junior + University. + 38. ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY. Franz Cumont, Brussels. + 39. THE FINE ARTS. Arthur Fairbanks, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. + 40. ARCHITECTURE. Alfred M. Brooks, Swarthmore College. + 41. ENGINEERING. Alexander P. Gest, Philadelphia. + 42. GREEK PRIVATE LIFE, ITS SURVIVALS. Charles Burton Gulick, Harvard + University. + 43. ROMAN PRIVATE LIFE, ITS SURVIVALS. Walton B. McDaniel, University + of Pennsylvania. + 44. FOLK LORE. + + 45. GREEK AND ROMAN EDUCATION. + + 46. CHRISTIAN LATIN WRITERS. Andrew F. West, Princeton University. + 47. ROMAN POETRY AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON EUROPEAN CULTURE. Paul Shorey, + University of Chicago. + 48. PSYCHOLOGY. + 49. MUSIC. Theodore Reinach, Paris. + 50. ANCIENT AND MODERN ROME. Rodolfo Lanciani, Rome. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HORACE AND HIS INFLUENCE*** + + +******* This file should be named 16801.txt or 16801.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/8/0/16801 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. 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