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Horace's Arboreal Anniversary (C. 3.8)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
Extract
- Martiis caelebs quid agam kalendis,
- quid uelint flores et acerra turis
- plena miraris positusque carbo in caespite uiuo,
- docte sermones utriusque linguae:
- uoueram dulcis epulas et album
- Libero caprum prope funeratus arboris icru.
- hic dies anno redeunte festus
- corticem adstrictum pice dimouebit
- amphorae fumum bibere institutae consule Tullo.
- sume, Maecenas, cyathos amici
- sospitis centum et uigiles lucernas
- perfer in lucem: procul omnis esto clamor et ira.
- mitte ciuilis super urbe curas:
- occidit Daci Cotisonis agmen,
- Medus infestus sibi luctuosis dissidet armis,
- seruit Hispanae uetus hostis orae
- Cantaber sera domitus catena,
- iam Scythae laxo meditantur arcu cedere campis.
- neglegens, ne qua populus laboret,
- parce priuatus nimium cauere et
- dona praesentis cape laetus horae: linque seuera.
What I, a bachelor, am doing on the Kalends of March, what the flowers mean and the casket full of incense and the coal placed on the living turf, you marvel at, learned in the conversations of both languages: I had vowed a savoury feast and a white goat to Liber when I was nearly done to death by the tree's fall. This feast day, as the year returns, will remove the cork, tightened with pitch, from a jar taught to drink the smoke when Tullus was consul.
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- Copyright © Aureal Publications 1996
References
1. Among the several studies of C. 3.8 itself and those in which the ode figures I have found the following most useful: Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford 1955Google Scholar); Williams, G., Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford 1968Google Scholar), especially 103–7; id., The Third Book of Horace’s Odes (Oxford 1969Google Scholar); Bradshaw, A., ‘Some Stylistic Oddities in Horace, Odes HI 8’, Philologus 114 (1970), 145–50Google Scholar; Syndikus, H.P., Die Lyrik des Horaz: II (= Impulse der Forschung 7: Darmstadt 1973), 103–9Google Scholar; Pavlock, B., ‘Horace’s Invitation Poems to Maecenas: Gifts to a Patron’, Ramus 11 (1982), 79–98Google Scholar; Santirocco, M., Unity and Design in Horace’s Odes (Chapel Hill 1986), 125–31Google Scholar (on the place of C. 3.8 in the structure of the third book of odes and especially on the similarities with C. 3.14) and 161 (on Horace here as a ‘model for his patron to emulate’); Porter, D., Horace’s Poetic Journey (Princeton 1987Google Scholar); Connor, P., Horace’s Lyric Poetry: The Force of Humour (= Ramus Monographs 2: Berwick Vic. 1987), 121–25Google Scholar; Lyne, R.O.A.M., Horace: Behind the Public Poetry (New Haven 1995Google Scholar).
2. On the Matronalia see Ovid F. 3.245–58 (and Bömer on 3.167, Fraser on 3.169) and commentators on Martial 5.84.11 and Juvenal 9.53.
3. The humour of particular details in the poem is noted by Williams Tradition (n.l above), 30; Syndikus (n.l above), 104f; Connor (n.l above), 122f.
4. Williams Tradition (n.l above), 107, is surely correct that the poem ‘is a dramatic evocation of an occasion imagined as now taking place and is not an invitation to a real, but future, occasion…’
5. Lyne (n.l above, 111 n.42) also notes the connection between C. 2. 17 and C. 3. 8.
6. On the number of Maecenas’ dialogi see Charisius in GL (Keil) 1.146.29; for Maecenas as littérateur, Schanz, M. and Hosius, C., Geschichte der Römischen Literatur 2 (Munich 1935), 17–21Google Scholar.
7. Sat. 1.10.23f. The two uses of the phrase are noted by Wickham ad loc, and by Pavlock (n.l above, 83 and n.ll) who recognises its interpretative value.
8. C. 3.30.13f.
9. Epist. 1.19.8f.
10. The point is made by Bradshaw (n.l above, 148) and Connor (n.l above, 122).
11. This ‘comic reversal’ is also noted by Bradshaw (n.l above, 147).
12. Vigil is used by Horace of dogs at C. 3.16.2, of humans at Epist. 1.2.37, 2.1.113.
13. Sat. 2.5.61; Epist. 1.12.19. Cf. OLD s.v. 17.
14. Fraenkel (n.l above), 222. Cf. also Williams Tradition (n.l above), 104, on the poem’s solemn, or mock-solemn, tone.
15. In the context of C. 3.8, the word uiuo at 4 (caespite uiuo) takes on special significance.
16. For the language, see commentators on Call. H. 2.2 and Vir. Aen. 6.258 (with Norden on Aen. 6.46). I cannot here agree with Kiessling-Heinze (ed. 10 [1960], on 13) that ‘Mit dem sakralen Gebet, das an Feiertagen alle gerichtlichen und aussergerichtlichen Streitigkeiten…ausschloss, hat das hier Gesagte nichts zu schaffen.’
17. Cf. Horace’s personification of Curae at C. 2.16.22 and 3.1.40.
18. Epist. 1.19.49.
19. C. 2.20.21–24.
20. In this context it is well to remember the prominence of Martiis as the poem’s first word. Mars is present in the poem but only to be relegated away from the quiet festivity that opens his month and on to Rome’s enemies. Though etymology may connect the two, the poet’s ‘doings’ (agam) are a far cry from Cotiso’s military ‘band’ (agmen) which now brings death to itself. As C. 1.18.8f. warns us, rixa debellata and its kindred spirits have no place in the conuiuium’s balanced sharing.—Mention of Mars may also be meant, in a way typical of Horace, to recall the phrase gramine Martio which appears toward the end of the preceding ode (C. 3.7.26). If so, it introduces a subtle note of eroticism not altogether hidden in what follows.
21. See Williams Third Book (n.l above), 15, for the asyndeta. He also notes (12f.) the novelty of the construction neglegens ne…
22. Cat. 27.5–7.
23. Cf. also Epist. 1.5.13. This is but one of many links between the epistle and C. 3.8.
24. Just as Horace’s closeness to death is displaced on to Rome’s enemies, so Maecenas’ seueritas, and the worries that accompany it, must be eliminated in favour of the amicitia and laetitia of Horace’s celebration. Cf. the use of horridus and ingenio…duro, at C. 3.21.10 and 13f., associated with non-drinking. For matters seuera and the origin of the Matronalia see Servius on Aen. 8.638.
25. The connection between lucina and lux is made by Varro (L.L. 5.69) and Ovid (F. 3.255). On Juno Lucina see, further, Frazer on F. 2.435, Courtney on Juv. 9.50 and K. Latte, P.-W. 13.2.1648–51.
26. In this context it may not be accidental that the wine which Horace has chosen to offer Maecenas was bottled consule Tullo, i.e. in 66 BCE, the year preceding the poet’s actual birth. A reminder of initial nativity is appropriate at a moment when the renewal of life is a principal subject.
27. I am grateful to Professor Joseph Pucci for several helpful suggestions.