scripta Palatinus quaecumque recepit Apollo, ne, si forte suas repetitum venerit olim grex avium plumas, moveat cornicula1 risum furtivis nudata coloribus. ipse quid audes ? quae circumvolitas agilis thyma ? non tibi parvum ingenium, non incultum est et2 turpiter hirtum. seu linguam causis acuis seu civica iura respondere3 paras seu condis amabile carmen, prima feres hederae victricis praemia. quod si frigida curarum fomenta relinquere posses, quo te caelestis sapientia duceret, ires.4 hoc opus, hoc studium parvi properemus et ampli, si patriae volumus, si nobis vivere cari.

Debes hoc etiam rescribere, sit5 tibi curae quantae conveniat Munatius; an male sarta gratia nequiquam coit et rescinditur, ac vos seu calidus sanguis seu rerum inscitia vexat indomita cervice feros? ubicumque locorum vivitis, indigni fraternum rumpere foedus, pascitur in vestrum reditum votiva iuvenca. 1 vulpecula Servius on Aen. xi. 522.

responsare E.

20

25

30

35

4 Hitzig would transpose ll. 26, 27 with each other, perhaps correctly.

5 si d: hence si tibi curae est Bentley, Orelli.

6

seu . seu Acron: heu . . . heu MSS.

a Celsus is urged to depend more upon himself, instead of drawing so freely upon earlier writers, whose works he consulted in the library of the temple of Apollo on the Palatine.

Strictly speaking, the ivy applies only to the poet. For this cf. Odes, i. 1. 29.

writings which Apollo on the Palatine has admitted": lest, if some day perchance the flock of birds come to reclaim their plumage, the poor crow, stripped of his stolen colours, awake laughter. And yourself— what do you venture on? About what beds of thyme are you busily flitting? No small gift is yours: not untilled is the field, or rough-grown and unsightly. Whether you sharpen your tongue for pleading, or essay to give advice on civil law, or build charming verse, you will win the first prize of the victor's ivy. But could you but lay aside your cares― -those cold compresses you would rise to where heavenly wisdom would lead. This task, this pursuit let us speed, small and great alike, if we would live dear to our country, and dear to ourselves.

с

30 This, too, when you reply, you must tell mewhether you esteem Munatius as much as you should. Or does your friendship, like a wound ill-stitched, close vainly and tear open once more? Yet, whether hot blood or ignorance of the world drives you both, wild steeds with untamed necks, wherever on earth you are living-you who are too good to break the bond of brotherhood-a votive heifer is fattening against your return.

Horace seems to mean that the cares which weigh upon Florus are like the cold bandages which physicians in his day were prescribing for certain bodily ailments, cf. Suet. Aug. 81. The curae chilled the fire of inspiration, and were therefore far from beneficial, because Florus was continually wrapping himself up in his troubles. Some, however, prefer to take curarum as an objective genitive, so that curarum fomenta means remedies against cares."

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IV

TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS

ALBIUS TIBULLUs, the elegiac poet, who died the same year as Virgil, 19 B.C., when still quite young, had returned from a campaign in Aquitania in 27 B.C., and then perhaps read for the first time the Satires of Horace. As the first verse of this Epistle refers only to the Satires and not to the Odes, this short letter seems to have been written before 23 B.C., when the Odes (Books i.-iii.) were published.

Tibullus seems to have been of a sensitive and somewhat melancholy disposition, like the English poet, Thomas Gray. Horace here tries to divert him, and concludes with an invitation to visit him, a prosperous Epicurean, at his Sabine farm.

The commonly accepted view that the Albius here addressed by Horace is the poet Tibullus has been rejected by Cruquius, Baehrens and, more recently, by Professor J. P. Postgate (Selections from Tibullus, 1903, p. 179). The identity of Albius and Tibullus. is upheld by Professor B. L. Ullman in an article on "Horace and Tibullus" in the American Journal of Philology, xxxiii. (1912) pp. 149 ff., to which Professor Postgate replies briefly in the same volume, pp. 450 ff. Ullman also holds that Tibullus is the Albi filius of Sat. i. 4. 109, written when Tibullus was about sixteen years of age.

IV.

Albi, nostrorum sermonum candide iudex, quid nunc te dicam facere in regione Pedana ? scribere quod Cassi Parmensis opuscula vincat, an tacitum silvas inter reptare salubris,

curantem quidquid dignum sapiente bonoque1 est ? 5 non tu corpus eras sine pectore di tibi formam, di tibi divitias dederunt2 artemque fruendi. quid voveat dulci nutricula maius alumno, qui3 sapere et fari possit quae sentiat, et cui gratia, fama, valetudo contingat abunde, et mundus victus non deficiente crumina ?

Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras5 omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur hora. me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises, cum ridere voles, Epicuri de grege porcum.

1 bonumque Rπ.

2 dederant EM.

3 qui EV Porph.: quin a, II: qun M.

4 mundus, I: modus et, II: domus et Bentley.

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15

66

a i.e. the Satires. The word Sermones means talks,"