Tempus Ad Hoc :: Rogare Longo Putidam :: Epode 8

In my last post, I lamented that there were no grammar books that exposed the student to the types of word order found in Latin literature. However, there are grammar books out there that do expose the student to more than just the usual subject-object-verb word-order. Tempus ad hoc, I’ve found two.

The first one is a book written in 1858 by George J. Adler [1821–1868], a long-ago professor of German Language and Literature at the University of the City of New York. He was a genius, I suppose, having written a massive German-English dictionary. He was also crazy and resided for most of his adult life in an insane asylum in upper Manhattan. And he was a friend of Herman Melville’s, whom he had met on a boat trip to Europe in 1849. (This last is interesting because it is said that Melville modeled Bartleby [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11231] after Adler, and because Melville was one of handful who attended Adler’s funeral.)

Adler’s book can be found on line at:

http://archive.org/details/apracticalgramm00adlegoog

It is worth taking a good look at. The method is based upon the assumption that even though Latin is dead, it can be taught as a living language. The sentences seem normal at the beginning, but soon they become extremely repetitive and even downright bizarre.  Take this sentence from Lesson 43: “Do you wish to cut his finger?” Was this Adler’s insanity peeking through or was this just Adler’s attempt to find sentences that would illustrate the peculiarities of Latin grammar? I don’t know.

But apart from the oddities, there are sentences that teach uncommon word order such as these:

Núm hábes ménsas íllas púlchras? 

[Have you those fine tables?] [pg. 51]

Utrum cultros habent tuos an (illos) Anglorum? 

[Have they your knives or those (illos) 

of the English [end of Exercise 17]

The nice thing about this book is that Adler made a key to the exercises. This can be found at:

http://archive.org/details/keytoexercisesco00adle

The only problem I found with Adler’s key is that you never know which conjunction he is going to choose or, more to the point of this posting, which word order.

The second book that presents literary word order is one done in 1957 by three authors steeped in the language learning theories of the day (Waldo Sweet, Ruth Craig, and Gerda Seligson). It is called Latin: A Structural Approach [Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press]. The book is available to buy online and probably a copy can be gotten through abebooks.com. The good thing about this book is that the sentences are all, it seems, taken from Latin authors—not just the classical ones but those writing in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and even in modern times. Thus, we are learning not only grammar but style.

For example, on page 105, we find:

Ā cane lātrante nōn tenētur aper. 

(A boar is not held by a barking dog.)

The common subject-object-verb word order would have produced this dazzling high school Latin:

Aper ā cane lātrante nōn tenētur,

which, by the way, we find a variant of a few pages later. This exposure to various word-order combinations is exactly what is needed to prepare a student for the rigors of reading literary Latin. And it is especially gratifying to find—among the exercises—this kind of sentence wherein the adjective is separated from its noun:

Lātrantem cūratne alta Diāna canem? (pg. 110)

Does lofty Diana care for the barking dog?

What would the student have learned, if the authors had written:

Cūratne Diāna alta canem lātrantem?

Not enough.

Today’s epode is a nasty one. There is no other way to put it. It reviles and condemns some woman. Horace’s description of her is a bit shocking. Isn’t he the poet who gave us non omnis moriar and vides ut alta stet nive candidum? Be that as it may, I present you with an unusual poem and an unusual translation as I attempt to use Horace’s word order. Why not feel what it was like to have the information streaming into your ears disjointed, Roman-style? Some of the word order I did have to change such as chiasmus. This is when adjectives and nouns do a cross-over dance (thus the word “chiasmus” taken from the Greek letter X (chi). Chiasmus is almost impossible in English, but if I try I can come up with an example:

the wooden girl in the pregnant house

Logic tells us that this has to be 

the pregnant girl in the wooden house.

(As an aside, screwy Latin word order only works because the reader/hearer knows which endings go together and because he uses his knowledge of the world to make the sentence meaningful.)

The two examples of chiasmus in this epode are found highlighted in red below.

Since this epode is full of sexual references, better not read it, if you’re too young or too prudish or too annoyed by such things. I found it amusing that in all languages, there seem to be a lot of words for genitalia. In Latin the membrum virile can be vires (forces < vis) or nervi (nerves) or fascinum (apparently an amulet in the shape of a phallus which was worn around a child’s neck to protect it from harm.) How vulgar these expressions were is really unknown to me; so I have taken my cue from other translations.

translation ::

To ask long-stinking you 

     for a century 

           about my cock

                what unnerves it,

when you have a tooth all black,

      and wrinkles

           on your forehead 

                old, old age ploughs up,

and gapes your vile 

     (between dry butt cheeks)

           asshole 

                like from cow diarrhea.

But it excites me 

     your breasts and 

           tits stinking

                horse-like tits

and a belly mushy 

     and thighs thin

           with swelling calves  

                attached.

Bless you! A funeral? Yes, and

     ancestral images,

             may they lead it

                 triumphant for you!

Nor may there be 

     a married woman, 

          who with rounder burdened

                pearls walks about.

What about the books by Stoics 

     between silken pillows

           lying there 

                and loving it?

Does more my 

     illiterate cock 

          get hard or less 

               limp my willy?

Though you may

     call it out

          of my 

              proud crotch,

with your mouth

       work it over 

          is what you’ll have 

               to do.

translation © 2013 by James Rumford

in prose ::

Rogare te putidam saeculo longo

quid viris meas enervet,

cum tibi ater dens sit et

senectus vetus frontem rugis exaret

podexque turpis inter natis aridas 

velut crudae bovis hiet.

sed pectus et mammae putres 

quales ubera equina me incitat

venterque mollis et femur exile

suris tumentibus additum.

esto beata, funus tuum atque

imagines triumphales ducant,

nec sit marita, quae bacis rotundioribus

onusta ambulet.

quid quod libelli Stoici inter pulvillos

sericos iacere amant?

Nervi num illiterati minus rigent,

fascinumve minus languet?

quod ut ab inguine superbo provoces,

ore allaborandum tibi est.

original ode:

Rogare longo putidam te saeculo,

     viris quid enervet meas,

cum sit tibi dens ater et rugis vetus

     frontem senectus exaret.

hietque turpis inter aridas natis

     podex velut crudae bovis!

sed incitat me pectus et mammae putres

     equina quales ubera,

venterque mollis et femur tumentibus

    exile suris additum.

esto beata. funus atque imagines

    ducant triumphales tuum,

nec sit marita, quae rotundioribus

    onusta bacis ambulet.

quid quod libelli Stoici inter sericos

    iacere pulvillos amant?

illiterati num magis [minus] nervi rigent,

     minusve languet fascinum?

quod ut superbo provoces ab inguine,

     ore allaborandum est tibi.

     

The Noxious Horace Wrote about Garlic :: Parentis Olim :: Epode III

The title to this blog sounds strange, but that’s Latin. In earlier blogs (Sept 15, 2009, Mar 12, 2010, Dec 18, 2011) I wrote about what I would call abnormal word order. 

To me it is abnormal to separate the adjective from the noun. It almost runs counter to psycholinguistic rules about the strategies a listener must have to decode the stream of speech entering his ears. Some scholars have suggested that comprehension depended on the delivery. Even so, what kind of rule could account for a sentence such as 

The noxious Horace wrote about garlic,

which was supposed to be interpreted as

Horace wrote about the noxious garlic?

Perhaps there was a rule about the number of items a Roman could insert between adjective and noun. Maybe the verb and subject had to be in a special position when sandwiched inside the adjective phrase. Whatever the rules were, all I know is that the Romans could understand such eccentric sentences. Plautus and Terrence, two playwrights who are reported to have used colloquial speech to write their plays, wrote adjective-divorced sentences over and over.

As I wrote on December 18, 2011, it is too bad that Latin teachers and Latin books do not better prepare their students for these types of sentences. Even an old-fashioned audio-lingual drill might help. Try this one out. 

Substitute malum with the noun given.

Ex: Magnum puella parva emit in foro malum.  (togas)

         Magnas puella parva emit in foro togas.

1. libros  

2. alium  

3. florem  

4. togas  

5. panem  

Now, what if the next word to be substituted in the drill above was māla, apples?  What would a Roman do with this sentence?

Magna puella parva emit in foro mala.

Would the Roman wonder why a girl could be big and small at the same time? Or would the Roman naturally attach magna to mala because to do otherwise would be nonsense? Or would the Roman think that the big girl bought small apples? 

Here’s another exercise.

Repeat the following sentence but change the word order. Put the adjective first and the noun it modifies last.

Ex: Ancilla malum magnum clam edit.  

Magnum ancilla clam edit malum.

1. Puer librum parvum legere vult.

2. Viri servos Punicos Romam attulerunt.

3. Ille dives domum magnam construxit.

4. Ubi est toga candida quam feci?

5. Agricola mala magna vendere volebat.

Sentence five would produce magna agricola vendere volebat mala. This sentence might be hard for you and me to understand. We might want to put magna with agricola, but agricola is masculine. If we had wanted to say that the big farmer wanted to sell apples, we would have produced: magnus agricola vendere volebat mala.

But here’s the crux of the matter. What if there is a divorced-adjective rule in Latin that says:

Adjectives come after nouns, but if they don’t, watch out! 

The noun they modify may come much later. 

Further:

An adjective can be divorced from its noun only 

when there is no confusion of endings.

Thus a sentence like 

Magna agricola vendere volebat mala 

might have been considered bad Latin. And a sentence like 

Magna domina vendere volebat mala 

would have been impossible, since a Roman might think that the mistress was big, not the apples.

Enough of this for now, for I will have more to say about this in a later post. Let us turn our attention to garlic. To my ears, it is quite humorous to read this scathing poem on something I naturally think of when I think of Italian food. What would spaghetti be without garlic? Perhaps in Roman times, people ate a lot of it, too, and this was part of the satire behind Horace’s epode. Perhaps, as this ode suggests, garlic was so offensive that it was tantamount to eating hemlock. The smell is repugnant to those not used to it. By the way, the Hawaiians did not have garlic until after the arrival of the world post 1776. They called the stuff: ‘aka‘akai pilau, smelly onion. Perhaps Horace would have found this amusing. Maybe he might have found my translation amusing, too—into Hawaiian style English, called Pidgin here in the Islands. (ōpū: stomach; brah: brother; wen: past tense marker; kine: kind, stuff, thingamajig, buggah: bugger, guy, person; wahine: woman, lady, Mrs.; moe: sleep, lie)

A few more bits of information before you read the poem: Canidia is an evil witch, whom Horace will also mention in epodes 5 and 17. Medea fell in love with Jason and anointed him with what Horace claims to have been garlic. She also murdered Creusa, daughter of Creon, king of Corinth, by giving her a poisoned garment to wear. Horace claims that poison was garlic, too! Likewise, the poison Deianeira put on a cloak which she then gave to her husband Hercules was garlic not the gore of the Centaur Nessus, as everyone else commonly believes.

Translation ::

If anyone one day like crush a father’s

old troat wit one unholy han’,

let him eat—worse dan hemlock—garlic,

ho! tough da farmer’s stomach!

What kine poison ting going wild in my ōpū?

Someone wen trick me wit 

uncook snake blood in dis salad or what?

Canidia wen put on one evil banquet!

Dat time Medea fall in love wit fah-out 

Jason ovah all da Argonauts, 

(da buggar wuz about to rope da bulls nevah know yokes)

wit dis she wen anoint da leader;

wit dis she wen smear da gifs fo’ get back at da wahine,

den she escape on one flying snake.

No heat li’dat from da stars evah settle on

dried up Apulia,

No gift wen burn more hot on da shoulders

of Hercules da Doer.

But if evah you want da kine garlic,

Maecenas, I ask you, brah,

let da wahine put her han’ up when you kiss

and moe on da fah side of da bed.  

translation ©2013 by James Rumford

In Prose ::

Olim si quis manu impia 

guttur senile fregerit,

alium cicutis alium edit,

o ilia dura messorum!

quid hoc veneni in praecordiis saevit?

num cruor viperimus incoctus 

his herbis me fefellit, an Canidia

dapes malas tractavit?

ut Medea ducem candidum  (praeter omnis 

Argonautas) mirata est,

hōc Iasonem (illigaturum iuga 

ignota tauris) perunxit,

donis hōc delibutis, paelicem ulta,

serpente alite fugit.

nec tantus vapor siderum Apuliae 

siticulosae umquam insedit,

nec munus umeris Herculis efficacis

aestuosius inarsit.

at si quid umquam tale concupiveris,

iocose Maecenas, precor

puella manum savio tuo opponat,

et in sponda extrema cubet.  

Original Epode ::

Parentis olim si quis impia manu

sinile guttur fregerit,

edit cicutis alium nocentius,

o dura messorum ilia!

quid hoc veneni saevit in praecordiis?

num viperimus his cruor

incoctus herbis me fefellit, an malas

Canidia tractavit dapes?

ut Argonautas praeter omnis candidum

Medea mirata est ducem,

ignota tauris illigaturum iuga

perunxit hōc Iasonem 

hōc delibutis ulta donis paelicem,

serpente fugit alite.

nec tantus umquam siderum insedit vapor

siticulosae Apuliae 

nec munus umeris efficacis Herculis

inarsit aestuosius.

at si quid umquam tale concupiveris,

iocose Maecenas, precor

manum puella savio opponat tuo,

extrema et in sponda cubet.   

Ahhhhh, Latin :: Nox Erat :: Ep 15

Understanding today’s epode means having a firm grasp of the letter a. To see if you are up to speed, I’ve made up a sentence, scrambled à la Horace and worthy of being included in a nineteenth-century Latin textbook:

Acuta ama a pulchra allata Diana arma.

If you’re good, much better than I am, you figured out that this is:

Acuta amā ā pulchrā allāta Diānā arma.

Love the sharp arms brought by beautiful Diana.

My question now is: how did you pronounce this sentence? Did you follow the advice of some modern grammarians and say aahh for ā and uh for a? If you did, you have probably made your life easier as an English speaker. If on the other hand, you are a Finnish speaker, you’d have no trouble keeping these two a’s apart. To Finns, their aa [ā] takes longer to say than does their a. It’s just that simple.

As for what the Romans did, no one seems to know for sure. Some of the other vowels like ō and o were differentiated (in imperial times) not only by length but by being articulated in different parts of the mouth. Ō was like coat (without diphthongization) and o was like cot (not for Californian speakers like me). This, by the way was talked about by the Romans themselves and attested by the behavior of the two sounds in Spanish (cf. flōs/flōrem > flor and porta > puerta). As for a in Spanish, it seems there was no change (cf āera > aire and aqua > agua).  Because of this, some scholars seem to think that there was no ah vs. uh, but just ah, differentiated by length.

Of course, we don’t know how the Romans pronounced ā and a when they recited poetry. Every language I have ever heard makes a big distinction between normal speech sounds and poetic speech sounds. Nowhere is this more evident, by the way, than in Persian, were the difference between ā  [ آ ]and æ [ ا ]is exaggerated to the point where ā becomes an awww-sound. I remember the first time I heard Persian poetry being recited: I was quite surprised and a bit mesmerized by the exaggeration, as in this famous beginning of a poem by Hāfiz (غزل ۴ در هروی):

اگر آن ترک شیرازی به دست آرد دل مارا

agar awwn torke shirawwzi be dast awwrad dele maww raww

If that Shirazi Turk takes my heart

به خال هندویش بخشم سمرقند و بهارارا

be khawwle henduyesh bakhsham samarqando bokhawwraww raww.

for that Hindu mole of hers I’ll give Samarkand and Bukhara.

But back to Latin. Back to trying to understand what Horace has written without the convenience of the macron or the fortune of hearing it as it must have sounded in imperial Rome. After studying the epode, you will see that there are four different uses of the letter a. 

There is the first declension nominative/vocative a (luna, laesura, procera, aura, dolitura, constantia, and Neaera).

There is the neuter plural a (sidera minora, verba mea, and arcana).

There is the Greek accusative masculine a (Nirea).

And finally there is the ablative feminine ā (hederā, virtute meā, multā tellure, formā).

And what is more, you will notice that Horace has cleverly mixed things up a bit, spicing his phrasing with just the right amount of long a’s and short a’s.

For instance, take line 11:

o dolitura mea multum virtute Neaera

It almost looks as if mea should go with Neaera, “my Neaera,” but it can’t. It has to go with virtute, “my manliness.” Thus, mea is meā.

Then there is line 5:

artius atque hedera procera adstringitur ilex

Is the hedera (ivy) procera (long) or is it the ilex (oak) that is procera (tall)? It turns out that it is the oak. The ivy is that by which the oak was entwined. Thus we read the word as hederā.

My “favorite” line is 22.

formaque vincas Nirea

My Greek is pretty poor. So the fact that Nirea is in the accusative flew right by me. Without this bit of knowledge, I had no idea what to do with forma, which turns out to be in the ablative: formā.

Okay. By now, those of you in the know are raising objections: “Don’t you know that you can tell the length of a by its placement in the line and that if such placement calls for a long syllable, a has to be ā?” I know all of that, but, mehercule, I can’t seem to keep all of that inside my tiny skull.

  

translation ::

Night it was; in a sky serene the moon 

among the lesser stars kept shining

as you, ready to offend the power of the great gods, 

with my words kept swearing—

more tightly than an oak entwined with ivy, 

your soft arms clinging—

“As long as a wolf is hostile to cattle and Orion for sailors 

enrages a winter’s sea,

and the breeze entangles Apollo’s unshorn hair, 

“Our love shall ever be.” 

ah, Neaera, you’ll come to miss my manliness most! 

(if there’s any of my manhood in Flaccus,

who won’t bear the constant nights your putting out for a rival; 

so angry he’ll seek a mate),

and constancy shall not yield to beauty once offended 

when sure pain has made its way in.

So, whoever you are, are luckier than I, and proud 

you exult in my misfortune.

You might be rich in cattle and much land, and 

the Pactolus might flow for you,

and the teachings of Pythagoras reborn might not fool you, 

and you in beauty might conquer Nireus,

but there’ll come a time. I’ll have the last laugh. Heh, heh—

and you’ll be sad over love sessions given to another.

translation © 2013 by James Rumford

notes ::

procera : tall, used with trees (see also Ode III:25:15); large as with wolves (see Sermon 2:2:36); and long as in syllabae procerae, Varro.

ilex : holm oak

Orion infestus : sighting the constellation Orion heralded bad weather.

infestus : hostile (see also Ode III:8:19) and dangerous (see Ode II:10:13); used also with thieves (see Sermon 2.2.42.) Horace probably means that Orion is hostile, but I thought that he might mean that the wolf is. Horace’s salad mix of Latin words is so hard to come to terms with!

Flaccus: one of Horace’s names, flacid.

Pactolus : a river in Turkey, the Sart Çayı, where Midas washed his hands of gold.

Nireus : one of the Achaean leaders in the Trojan war, a man of outstanding beauty.

in prose ::

Nox erat et luna caelo sereno inter sidera 

   minora fulgebat,

cum tu numen deorum magnorum laesura

   in verba mea irabas,

atque ilex procera brachiis adhaerens lentis

   hedera artius adstringitur,

dum lupus pecori et Orion infestus nautis

   mare hibernum turbaret,

auraque capillos intonsos Apollinis agitaret,

   hunc amorem mutuum fore.

o Neaera virtute mea multum dolitura!

   nam si quid viri in Flacco viri est,

non feret te noctes adsiduas potiori dare,

   et iratus parem quaeret,

nec constantia, semel offensae, formae cedet,

   si dolor certus intrarit.

et tu, quicumque es felicior atque nunc superbus

   malo meo incedis,

licebit dives pecore atque multa tellure sis,

   Pactolusque tibi fluat,

nec arcana Pythagorae renati te fallant,

   Nireaque forma vincas

heu, heu amores translatos alio maerebis:

   ast ego vicissim risero.

  

original ::

Nox erat et caelo fulgebat luna sereno 1

   inter minora sidera,

cum tu magnorum numen laesura deorum

   in verba iurabas mea,

artius atque hederā procera adstringitur ilex, 5

   lentis adhaerens brachiis,

dum pecori lupus et nautis infestus Orion

   turbaret hibernum mare,

intonsosque agitaret Apollinis aura capillos,

   fore hunc amorem mutuum. 10

o dolitura meā multum virtute Neaera!

   nam si quid in Flacco viri est,

non feret adsiduās potiori te dare noctes,

   et quaeret irātus parem,

nec semel offensae cedet constantia formae, 15

   si certus intrarit dolor.

et tu, quicumque es felicior atque meo nunc

   superbus incedis malo,

sis pecore et multā dives tellure licebit,

   tibique Pactolus fluat,       20

nec te Pythagorae fallant arcana renati,

   formāque vincās Nirea,

heu, heu translātos alio maerebis amores:

   ast ego vicissim risero.

Naa Naa Na Naa Naa :: Lupus et Agnis :: Epode IV

These nasty little epodes of Horace’s got me thinking. It is said that the iambic meter Horace used evoked in the Roman mind a kind of taunt. I wonder, was this a bit like our childish song that runs something like this?

naaa naaa na naaa naaa na na na na naaa naaa-aaaa

Surprisingly, you can almost fit this to today’s ode. Take the first line: lupis et agnis quanta sortito obtigit:

naaa  naaa na  naaa naaa    na  na na na  naaa   naaa-aaaa

luuu  piiis  et  aaag  niiis  quan ta sor ti  tooob  tiiigiiiiit

Of course, this is nonsense, since I have made a long syllable like quan short and a short syllable like ti in obtigit long. Be that as it may, I had fun sing-songing this ode as a childish taunt.

And taunt it is. Just read it. Obviously Horace can’t stand the guy for putting on airs when he is no better than a convict who is used to the triumvirate whip, that is, the magristrate’s whip. It galled Horace that this fellow had a Falernian farm, which was located in northern Campania, not far from Rome. (Falernum produced some of the best wines, which Horace has often mentioned). And it galled Horace that this lowlife would sit in the best theater seats in direct violation of a law laid down by Emperor Otho in 67 B.C.

Before I end this, I have a few nit-picky things to say about style. Suppose I were Horace’s Latin teacher and he had submitted this for homework. I guess I’d give him a B- (I’m pretty tough). Just look at the verb in line 16: sedet. It is too close in sound to sedilibus. Couldn’t he have chosen a verb that would further describe this fellow’s arrogance?  And in line 17, gravi does go with pondere, but aren’t all ponderous things heavy? Perhaps this is why in Niall Rudd’s translation, he gave pondere the meaning “ram.” I almost like the huc huc of line 9 and the hoc hoc of line 20, but doesn’t this seem a bit too high-schoolish? Besides, Horace doesn’t often repeat words like this. Is this repetition him sputtering? Maybe anger and disgust got the better of our poet. Better luck next epode, Flacce. 

  

translation ::

Like the wolf and the lamb, it is fated:

   you and I can’t get along,

with your sides scorched by Iberian ropes,

   your legs rough from shackles.

You presume to walk around money proud—

   wealth doesn’t change your type—

See yourself sailing down Via Sacra

   in a toga six ells long,

as the heads of passersby turn here and there

   in open indignation?

“That one, cut by the triumvirate whip

   till the crier was sickened,

plows a thousand acre farm and with horses  

   wears the Appian away;

a big knight, he sits on the first benches

   in contempt of Otho.

What’s the good of so many ships, with carved

   beaks, heavy rams, being led

against pirates and bands of slaves by this—

   this military tribune?”

translation © 2012 by James Rumford

in prose ::

Quanta lupis et agnis sortito obtigit,

   [tanta] discordia mihi tecum est,

latus funibus Hibericis peruste 

   et crura dura compede.

licet superbus pecunia ambules,

   fortuna genus non mutat.

videsne te Viam Sacram metiente

   cum toga bis trium ulnarum

ut ora huc vertat et indignatio

   liberrima huc euntium?

“hic, flagellis triumviralibus ad

   fastidium praeconis sectus,

mille iugera fundi Falerni arat

   et Appiam mannis terit,

equesque magnus in sedilibus primis,

   Othone contempto, sedet.

quid attinet tot ora rostrata navium

   pondere gravi duci

contra  latrones atque manum sevilem,

   hoc, hoc tribuno militum?” 

original ::

Lupis et agnis quanta sortito obtigit

   tecum mihi discordia est,

Hibericis peruste funibus latus

   et crura dura compede.

licet superbus ambules pecunia,

   fortuna non mutat genus.

videsne, Sacram metiente te Viam

   cum bis trium ulnarum toga,

ut ora vertat huc et huc euntium

   liberrimus indignatio?

“sectus flagellis hic triumviralibus

   praeconis ad fastidium

arat Falerni mille fermi iugera

   et Appiam mannis terit,

sedilibusque magnus in primis eques

   Othone contempto sedet.

quid attinet tot ora navium gravi

   rostrata duci pondere

contra latrones atque servilem manum,

   hoc, hoc tribuno militum?”

Sticks and Stones :: Quid Immerentis :: Epode 6

I suppose that words will never hurt, but Horace mentions two instances in Epode 6 where they do. 

The first is Lycambes, a Greek man, who betrothed his daughter to the poet Archilochus. When Lycambes refused to let his daughter go through with the marriage, Archilochus mocked him so viciously in his iambic poems that both Lycambes and his daughter hanged themselves. 

The second is Hipponax. He was so ugly that the sculptors Bupalus and Athenis made statues of him to mock and ridicule him publicly. Hipponax retaliated with a shower of invectives. The two sculptors hanged themselves, too.

Is Horace that serious? Is he that angry? Does he want his enemy to commit suicide? Does he want that on his conscience? In Epode 19, as we’ll see, he is against the kind of poetry that led to Lycambes’ suicide. So what does Horace want? What’s his beef? Who has wronged him? 

Surely something has happened, for Horace turns himself into a raging dog of the Molossus or Spartan (Lacon) kind.

[The Molossus, an extinct breed but very much like Mastiff-type dogs, sometimes called Molossers. This Roman statue, on display at the British Museum and known as the Jennings Dog, is believed to be a molossus.]

And if that is not enough, Horace sprouts a set of horns. He is ready for the black teeth of an enemy full of lies and malicious gossip. If the poem is directed against a particular person, we do not know who that is. If the poem is directed at Rome or the political situation, we cannot be sure. And if the poem is directed at the misfortunes of his own life, we can only make guesses.

I suppose, after two thousand years, we’ll just have to enjoy this epode for what it is, a bit of iambic steam Horace just had to let off.

translation :: 

What! You coward dog against he-wolves

do rile undeserving guests! Why not, 

if you can, turn your empty threats here

and come after me-who-bites-back? For I, 

Molossus-like or golden Spartan,

a friendly force to shepherds, through high snows,

ears up, will pursue any wild animal ahead: 

that’s you, filling the woods with your scaaaary 

voice, and sniffing at food thrown your way.

Watch out, watch out, for I, roughest of all,

horns ready for low lifes, will attack—

like the son-in-law despised by faithless

Lycambes or Bupalus’ bitter enemy.

If someone, black-toothed, chooses me out,

do I unavenged cry like a boy?

translation © 2012 by James Rumford 

in prose ::

Quid! [Tu] canis ignavis adversum lupos 

hospitēs immerentēs vexas?!

Quin huc, si potes, 

minas inan[ē]s vertis 

et me-remorsurum petis?

Nam qualis aut Molossus aut Lacon fulvus, 

vis amica pastoribus, 

per nivēs altās,

aure sublatā,

fera quaecumque praecedet

agam:

et cum tu nemus voce timendā complesti,

cibum proiectum odaris.

Cave, cave;

namque [ego] asperrimus 

cornua in malōs parata tollo,

qualis gener spretus Lycambae infidō

aut hostis acer Bupalō.

An siquis 

dente atrō

me petiverit,

[ego] inultus 

ut puer 

flebo?

Original ::

Quid immerentis hospites vexas canis

   ignavus adversum lupos?

quin huc inanis, si potes, vertis minas,

   et me remorsurum petis?

nam qualis aut Molossus aut fulvus Lacon,

   amica vis pastoribus,

agam per altas aure sublata nives,

   quaecumque praecedet fera:

tu cum timenda voce complesti nemus,

   proiectum odoraris cibum.

cave, cave: namque in malos asperrimus

   parata tollo cornua,

qualis Lycambae spretus infido gener

   aut acer hostis Bupalo.

an si quis atro dente me petiverit,

   inultus ut flebo puer?