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Originary Song, Poetic Composition, and Transgression: A Reading of Horace, Odes 1.3 and 1.22
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2016
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This paper argues for a combined reading of Odes 1.3, the propempticon for Virgil, and Odes 1.22, the Lalage ode. The arrangement of the first book of Odes places 1.3 in structural relation to 1.22; and the appearance of scelus, ‘sin’, in the penultimate verse of 1.3 and the initial line of 1.22 activates a thematic affiliation that has gone unexamined in the scholarship. I take the poet's use of scelus as my starting point, analysing in what follows the ways in which Virgil and Horace are both positioned in the drama of 1.3 as practitioners of scelus of a kind that associates them with Prometheus, Daedalus and Hercules. Then I press the question of how such a depiction makes sense, given the ways in which these mythological exemplars are shown to be transgressors of natural boundaries. I then turn to 1.22 for an answer otherwise not forthcoming in 1.3, where scelus reappears in a poem about the power of song. I argue that the transgression Virgil and Horace practise in 1.3 is poetic composition itself—a sin Horace himself commits in the very odes that dramatise it, but whose staging extols the purity and integrity of a kind of singing that is prior to the concatenation of word, metre and music that go into the composing of any poetry. I see in these odes, then, a meditation on the ways in which poets cross back and forth between a boundary that separates originary song from the polished songs of poetry that it initiates—surely a topic that interested, and vexed, Horace for all of his career, and about which these odes have something fundamental to tell.
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References
In October 2003, Michael Putnam’s colleagues honoured him on the occasion of his seventieth birthday with an informal gathering of papers. What follows is a revised version of my contribution to that effort that I am happy to dedicate to my colleague publicly in token of that singular event. I hope something here can please him.
1. My text of Horace is Wickham, E.C. and Garrod, H.W. (eds.), Q. Horati Flacci Opera (Oxford 1901).Google Scholar
2. Santirocco has demonstrated convincingly that Odes 1.20–23, standing as a block at the beginning of the second half of Book 1, are structurally parallel to Odes 1.1–4 (i.e., 1.1 is parallel to 1.20, 1.2 to 1.21, 1.3 to 1.22, and 1.4 to 1.23). The parallelism is based on thematic affiliations. In the case of 1.3 and 1.22: ‘[b]oth [poems] involve travel,…[and] both poems are about the safety of the poet, for Vergil’s journey [in 1.3]…is symbolic of his composition of the Aeneid, and Horace’s immunity from the wolf in C. 1.22 results from his singing. [The] appearance of Vergil only two poems later [thus]…encourages the reader’s perception of a rough balance between the two halves of the book.’ See Santirocco, M.S., Unity and Design in Horace’s Odes (Chapel Hill 1986), 56.Google Scholar
3. The Lalage ode has been variously interpreted. Verrall, A.W., Studies Literary and Historical in the Odes of Horace (New York 1884), 169f.Google Scholar, views the poem as a serious pastoral, a seriousness evidenced most famously in the fact that well into the last century the Germans often sang the first strophe of this ode as a funeral hymn, as Fraenkel, E., Horace (Oxford 1967), 184 Google Scholar and n.3, reports. Johnson, W.R., Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom: Readings in Epistles I (Ithaca and London 1993), 76 Google Scholar, considers the poem a pastoral parody, characterising it as a send-up of ‘cloying Arcady’, with Horace playing to the hilt ‘the temporarily demented supersophisticate impersonating the noble savage, terrifying fatal beasts, playing hovel with his sweetie, and warbling his woodnotes wild.’ Others have seen the poem as a wolf tale, among them, Wilkinson, L.P., Horace and His Lyric Poetry (Cambridge 1945), 62f.Google Scholar; Smith, C., The Odes and Epodes of Horace (Boston 1894), 66f.Google Scholar; Moore, C.H., Horace: Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Saeculare (New York 1902), 121 f.Google Scholar; Nisbet, R.G.M. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book I (Oxford 1970), 261-63Google Scholar; West, D., Horace, Odes 1: Carpe Diem (Oxford 1995), 104-06Google Scholar. The exemplarity of moral resolve has led some to see the poem as an affirmation of Stoic morality or in any case to emphasise its philosophical content. On this approach see Macleane, A.J., Works of Horace (Boston 1856), 26f.Google Scholar; Kiessling, A. and Heinze, R., Q. Horatius Flaccus Oden und Epoden (Berlin 1964), 100f.Google Scholar; Syndikus, H.P., Die Lyrik des Horaz: Eine Interpretation der Oden (Darmstadt 1972), 225-32Google Scholar. The poem has also been read—this the most popular understanding of it—as a dramatisation of the role of the love poet, on which see Hendrickson, G.L., ‘Integer Vitae’, CJ 5 (1910), 250-54Google Scholar; Campbell, A.Y., Horace: A New Interpretation (London 1924), 228-30Google Scholar; Lee, M.O., Word, Sound, and Image in the Odes of Horace (Ann Arbor 1969), 32-34Google Scholar; Commager, S., The Odes of Horace: A Critical Study (New Haven and London 1962), 130-36Google Scholar; McCormick, J., ‘Horace’s Integer Vitae ’, CW 61 (1973), 28-33Google Scholar; Zumwalt, N.K., ‘Horace, C. 1.22: Poetic and Political Integrity’, TAPA 105 (1975), 417-30Google Scholar; Olstein, K., ‘Horace’s Integritas and the Geography of Carm. 1.22’, GB 11 (1984), 113-20Google Scholar; Ancona, R., Time and the Erotic in Horace’s Odes (Durham and London 1994), 114-21Google Scholar. On the other hand, Davis argues for a metaphorical reading of 1.22, seeing the wolf as emblematic of iambic poetry and Lalage betokening the lyric poem of a Horatian kind. The speaker of 1.22 is thus able to affirm the superiority of lyric over iambic by virtue of his ability to sing ‘Lalage’ and make the ‘iambic’ wolf flee. See Davis, G., ‘ Carminal Iambi: The Literary-Generic Dimension of Horace’s Integer vitae (C. 1, 22)’, QUCC n.s. 27 (1987), 67-78Google Scholar. Lowrie, M., Horace’s Narrative Odes (Oxford 1997), 189-94Google Scholar, cultivates similar ground in her eclectic discussion of 1.22. The views I take in this paper are most closely adumbrated, but only in the briefest way, by Oliensis, E., Horace and the Rhetoric of Authority (Cambridge 1998), 109-11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who sees ‘lyric purity lurking beyond the boundary stone’, so that Lalage is ‘the hypostasis of Horatian song’, and singing ‘my Lalage’ is ‘to chant the very syllables of musicality’.
4. For the details of this argument see Pucci, J., ‘Horace and Virgilian Mimesis: A Re-Reading of Odes 1.3’, CW 85 (1992), 659-73.Google Scholar
5. See Pucci (n.4 above), esp. 659-61, nn.3-5.
6. Translations throughout are my own.
7. On Horace’s use of and deviation from the normal features of the propempticon, see Basto, R., ‘Horace’s Propempticon to Vergil: A Re-Examination’, Vergilius 28 (1982), 30-43.Google Scholar
8. On these and other epic aspects of Horace’s diction, see Basto (n.7 above), 31; Pucci (n.4 above), 663, nn. 10, 11,12.
9. The schetliasmos, the curse on the inventor of ships, is a traditional part of the propempticon. On this in its generic frame, see Pucci (n.4 above), 668; Basto (n.7 above), 40.
10. See Aesch. Prom. Bound, passim; Ar. Birds 686ff.; Hor. Odes 1.16.13-16; Pausanias 10.4.4; OCD, 1253f.
11. See Horn. Il. 18.372ff., 479,482; OCD 425f.
12. The space inhabited by Horace’s exemplars deserves some attention also, for these figures realise the full gamut of spatial potential. Prometheus purloins fire, after all, from the precincts of heaven, while Daedalus uses his skills to loosen gravity’s hold, soaring, if only momentarily, toward heaven’s heights—the source of Prometheus’ fire. At the same time, in forcing his way into the precincts of Acheron, Hercules stoops to the depths—all the way to Hades.
13. See Hes. Th. 506-616 and Aesch. Prom. Bound, esp. 436-506, for Prometheus as an exemplar of skills and scientific knowledge; cf. OCD, 1253f.
14. Daedalus is a figure of artistry and invention par excellence in the Aeneid; see 6.14-40.
15. Both Hercules and Daedalus make prominent appearances in the Aeneid; see 6.14-40 for Daedalus and, for Hercules, 3.551,5.410, 7.656, 8.270, 10.319,779.
16. Readers that stress the moral exemplarism of the poem’s opening lines include Macleane (n.3 above), 26f.; Kiessling and Heinze (n.3 above), 100f.; Syndikus (n.3 above), 225-32. Those that stress Lalage, the fleeing wolf, and poet as lover/singer include Johnson (n.3 above), 76; Wilkinson (n.3 above), 62f.; Smith (n.3 above), 66f.; Moore (n.3 above), 121f.; Nisbet and Hubbard (n.3 above), 261-63; West (n.3 above), 104-06; Hendrickson (n.3 above), 250-54; Campbell (n.3 above), 228-30; Lee (n.3 above), 32-34; Commager (n.3 above), 130-36; McCormick (n.3 above), 28-33; Zumwalt (n.3 above), 417-30; Olstein (n.3 above), 113-20; Ancona (n.3 above), 114-21; Davis (n.3 above), 67-78; Lowrie (n.3 above), 189-94; Oliensis (n.3 above), 109-11.
17. The history of the parainetic form in specific respect of Odes 1.22 is offered by Fraenkel (n.3 above), 185.
18. Fraenkel (n.3 above), 185.
19. Ford, A., ‘From Letters to Literature: Reading the “Song Culture” of Classical Greece’, in Yunis, H. (ed.), Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece (Cambridge 2003), 15-37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 37, well puts this relationship as follows [my italics]: ‘[Literature put] the Greek heritage of song to use as isolated, fixed, and tangible works of verbal design. One implication of this is familiar: the meaning that can be extracted from a song text through the interplay of its lexical items must be subordinated to the entire effects of its situated performance. More generally, I urge that readers of early Greek poetry realize they are dealing with something more than verbal patterning. Like all song, this song had a social life and that life was its most meaningful presence, however ephemeral, variable, and hard to retrieve it may be.’ This last point is, in my view, precisely why Horace esteems song and denigrates writing, for what Ford calls the ‘life’ of song is what writing cannot proffer, its purity and wholeness, the ‘presence’, of experience that Lalage embodies.
20. This translation is my own; I explain this unusual rendering of curis pp. 10f. below.
21. Fraenkel (n.3 above), 185.
22. Davis (n.3 above), 67f. and n.2. Cognates ramify the word’s connection to song by negotiating the lines between song, non-sung human sounds and speech, and contain meanings as diverse as ‘to talk’, ‘to chat’, ‘to prattle’, ‘to chatter’, ‘given to babbling’, ‘to chirp like a swallow’. Importantly, and not coincidentally, writing is denied any compass in these cognates, so that, so to speak, the figure of Lalage resides at the centre of Odes 1.22 exclusively as an exemplar of human sound—confirmed by the verb canto used here by Horace. On all of these words see LSJ9, s.vv. 
.
23. Nisbet and Hubbard (n.3 above), 269.
24. See Nisbet and Hubbard (n.3 above), 269, for a discussion of Bentley’s views. It also carries forward in its secondary meanings the military imagery of the ode’s opening lines.
25. OLD s.v. cura 3b. L&S s.v. cura confirms these examples and offers the Greek μελέτη, ‘a written work’, ‘writing’, as comparable, a word that has imbedded in its meaning also the idea of ‘something to be practised or studied’ (LSJ9 s.v. μελετάω), precisely what ‘singing Lalage’ does not embody.
26. cura is the reading of the lesser mss.; causa is often preferred. I would suggest my interpretation of 1.22 strengthens the case for reading cura over causa.
27. Other examples in Horace’s output: Epist. 1.3.26, 1.4.5; AP 261; Odes 4.11.36; Sat. 2.4.8. Only the example discussed here at Epist. 2.2.83, however, strikes me as beyond doubt. The others would require fresh readings of the lines in question, though not, so far as I can tell, were such arguments to be ventured, to the detriment of sense.
28. Drawing especially on Greek evidence, Davis argues that the wolf represents the iambic tradition in ancient poetry; see Davis (n.3 above), 69-71. Nothing in his argument and mine is mutually contradictory or exclusive, for, though he deals with written poetry, Davis’s arguments apply to the songs that originally gave rise to the poetic genres he discusses.
29. I realise Horace’s wolf is a lupus, not a lupa.
30. Nisbet and Hubbard (n.3 above), 262f, outline the details of Fuscus’ life and his position relative to Horace, such as we know it, but the dynamic of friendship and competition at work in their long-standing relationship, as well as the association of Fuscus to the city, is best articulated by Johnson (n.3 above), 75-78. Fuscus appears at Sat. 1.9 and 1.10, in addition to Epist. 1.10. The depiction in the Epistles, of course, can be used only to confirm, rather than control, my readings of 1.22, since it postdates the ode.
31. L&S s.v. uagio I, II and 1, 2 uagor; OLD s.v. uagor, which specifies the sound to a baby’s cry. Add to this the notion in Cicero (De Or. 1.209, 3.124, 190), as reported in OLD s.v. uagor 4, that the verb uagor includes speech or writing that wanders freely and widely or that proceeds without precepts, the latter meaning also found in Horace, AP 265 (and De Or. 3.176). These meanings accord well with Horace’s own ‘writing’ that is wandering beyond itself (ultra terminum) into sound, or trying to.
32. Nisbet and Hubbard (n.3 above), 268.
33. L&S s.v. terminus I, which lists meanings for the concrete understanding of this noun. See also OLD s.v. terminus 1, 2.
34. 1 paraphrase the descriptions found at OLD s.v. terminus 3,4. See also the rich discussion of Oliensis (n.3 above), 110f.
35. See Ford (n.19 above) passim, and also his The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece (Princeton 2002 Google Scholar), esp. 93-112.
36. Ford (n.35 above), 93-112.
37. Compare Horace’s use of Necessitas in his treatment of transgressive behaviours. Some transgressions are necessary; writing would seem to be one of them.
38. In one sense, of course, Catullus has been present in 1.22 all along, for the phrasing of lines 4f., siue…siue recalls poem 11, as does its Sapphic metre, shared also by Catullus 11.
39. On Horace’s use of Catullus 51 in this poem see Lee, M. Owen, ‘Catullus in the Odes of Horace’, Ramus 4 (1975), 33-48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 36-41.
40. ‘The Idea of Order at Key West’ 1. I am grateful to W.R. Johnson, who taught me to read Horace and from whom I’m still learning; to Tom D’Evelyn, Ray Marks, and Bryn Canner, for their wisdom and friendship, and especially to my colleague Jeri DeBrohun, whose hand is everywhere involved in anything good in this paper.