Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/479

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SATIRE VI

Has winter yet brought thee, Bassus, to thy Sabine hearth? Are thy lyre and its strings still alive under thy sturdy quill? Thou that art so rare a craftsman in setting to numbers the beginnings of our ancient tongue,^[1] and bringing out the manly notes of the Latin lyre; then again a wonderful old man to ply the youthful jest, and sing in lighter but not indecorous strains.^[2] To me now the Ligurian coast, and my own winter sea,^[3] are giving all their warmth; here the cliffs form a mighty wall, with a deep valley running in from the shore. "'Tis worth your while, O citizens, to know the port of Luna";^[4] so did Ennius speak his mind^[5] when he had given up dreaming that he was Maeon's son, fifth in descent from the peacock of Pythagoras.^[6]

↑ The phrase primordia vocum is from Lucretius, iv. 531, who uses it to mean the bodily "first beginnings of voices," i.e. the actual corporeal atoms of which he supposes voices and words to consist. Here it seems to refer to the beginnings of Latin, with an indication of the manly and archaic character of the style of Bassus.
↑ The readings vary between egregius senex and egregios senes. Conington translates senex, but has senes in his text. Büch. reads egregius senex.
↑ For the difficulties raised by the words intepet and hibernat, see Professor Housman (l.c. p. 65).
↑ This line is a quotation from Ennius.
↑ The Romans considered the heart, not the brain, to be the seat of intelligence. Cicero quotes from Ennius the phrase egregie cordatus homo = "a clever man."
↑ This is the explanation of the Scholiast, who imagines Ennius in his dream to have gone through five transformations, the stages being (1) Pythagoras, (2) a peacock, (3) Euphorbus, (4) Homer, (5) Ennius. But in his Annals Ennius only relates that he had seen Homer in a dream, who told him he had once been a peacock; and it seems simpler to take Quintus to refer to Ennius' own praenomen, "when he ceased to dream himself Homer, becoming Quintus, i.e. himself (Quintus being his own praenomen) out of the Pythagorean peacock."

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[1] The phrase primordia vocum is from Lucretius, iv. 531, who uses it to mean the bodily "first beginnings of voices," i.e. the actual corporeal atoms of which he supposes voices and words to consist. Here it seems to refer to the beginnings of Latin, with an indication of the manly and archaic character of the style of Bassus.

[2] The readings vary between egregius senex and egregios senes. Conington translates senex, but has senes in his text. Büch. reads egregius senex.

[3] For the difficulties raised by the words intepet and hibernat, see Professor Housman (l.c. p. 65).

[4] This line is a quotation from Ennius.

[5] The Romans considered the heart, not the brain, to be the seat of intelligence. Cicero quotes from Ennius the phrase egregie cordatus homo = "a clever man."

[6] This is the explanation of the Scholiast, who imagines Ennius in his dream to have gone through five transformations, the stages being (1) Pythagoras, (2) a peacock, (3) Euphorbus, (4) Homer, (5) Ennius. But in his Annals Ennius only relates that he had seen Homer in a dream, who told him he had once been a peacock; and it seems simpler to take Quintus to refer to Ennius' own praenomen, "when he ceased to dream himself Homer, becoming Quintus, i.e. himself (Quintus being his own praenomen) out of the Pythagorean peacock."

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