Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/236

HORACE. 208 HORACE. join the . io near tlic market-town of Vnria, the iiioilern V'ko-Varo. I'erliaps no gift ever exerci.-.ed a more important inlluencc upon a man's career. It was not merely that lie was tlius enabled to devote himself wholly to his art without tlioujrlit of iK'ouniary return. The farm was his "arx," his sure retreat from the fatigues and di-itraetions of the great world. The peace of nature, loved since the days at Venusia, enlcri'd into and possessed his soul, and the pure air— it was about two thousand feet above the sea — renewed his physical strength, of which, as the years passed, he had to take increasing care. He has immoitalized the farm, and, indeed, the whole valley, in his affectionate praise.. One may doubt wlicther he could have been happy without active participation in the brilliant life of the capital, but nuich of what is truest and best in the inspiration of the Odes and the Epistles is due to the many quiet days spent with his books in Sabiiiis. The eighty-eight lyrics that are comprised in the first three books of the Odes were undoubt- edly privately circulated among his friends pre- vious to their final ciillection and publication in one little volume in the year 23. Their com- position extended over about seven years, for the earliest that can be dated with certainty (i., .37) was written upon the receipt at Rome of the news of Cleopatra's suicide, and few, if any, couhl have preceded this. They were the outcome of long and loving study of the great Greek lyric poets, es]X'cially Alca-us and !Sappho, belonging to the early classical period rather than to the Alex- andrian age. Hut. while their form is similar, their content is vitally different in its effect, and it is dilhcult to define precisely the nature of that unfailing charm which almost from the moment of their appearance they have l)ccn uni- versally felt to possess. .Shelley in his Defrtiee of I'netr;/, following a famous passage in Plato's I'hadrti.i, and Sidney in his Apologic for Poetry, both maintained that "poots are so beloved of the gods that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury." But nothing could be more alien to Horace's temper than this. He has neither the passion of Burns or t'atuUus in the expression or feeling, nor the absorbed and ecstatic earnest- ness of Lucretius in urging the claims of the true philosophy of life, nor yet the imaginative and mystical power of Vergil. Gray, however, a poet whose method of composition resembled- Horace's in its critical deliboratcness — in the second poem of the fourth book of Odea, Horace compares himself to a bee tnat with infinite labor gathers its sweets from many a flower — says in one of his letters: "Extreme conciseness of ex- pression, yet pure, perspicuous, and musical, is one of the grand beauties of lyric poetry." The three adjectives liere used are peculiarly appro- priate to Horace's work; indeed, no other lyric poet in Latin literature has so exquisite a verbal technique. The Odes ahoimd in phrases of such perfect finish that no change save for the worse seems possible, phrases which have been the common property of educated men for centuries: Persieos odi, puer appnrnhis ; enrpe diem : dulee et deeorum est pro pntrin mori : vixere fortes arte t]nmemnrtnn : mntrn piilehrn filln put- chrinr ; nil despernndum ; splendide mrtdn3>: dulee est desipere itt Joeo : post equilem sedrf ntrn cura — to cive a complete list would he almost to quote the Odes entire. Yet it is all a cnriosa felicilas, as Pctronius aptly described it, elTects carefully and minutely wrought out by a mind trained in the nicest ajjprehension of the color values of words and an ear attuned to all the subtleties of cadence. And no artist was ever more alive to the delicate shades of meaning that words gain from their context. Partly, no doubt, from the dilhculties inherent in the use of for- eign metres, but more especially because of his own liking for moderation and simplicity, the vocabulary which he has chosen to employ is notably limited. Vet the oft-recurring words produce so dilTcrent an effect in their ever-chang- ing settings that one does not notice the repeti- tion. The themes themselves are even more lim- ited in their range than the vocabulary, but upon the few that he selects he plays variations of surpassing beauty. There is nothing transcen- dental, niithing of what Poe held to be the essence of poetry, "no mere appreciation of the beauty before us, but a wilil elfort to reach the beauty above." The Odes are rather the expres- sion of idealized common .sense, and just for this reason Horace has been in all ages the favorite poet of minds the most diverse, for none makes a surer appeal to the finer sensioilities of humanity in its every-day moods. In the ein-oi to the first three books of the Orfc5, Horace expresses his entire confidence in their abiding fame, and with this achievement his lyrical impulse seems to have satisfied itself. A new series of 'talks' engaged his attention, cast, however, in a different literary form, that of the letter. These Epistles, of which the first book aj)- peared toward the end of 20, or. at the latest, in 19, do not differ nnich from the Satires in the subjects discussed. Conduct is more than ever 'thrcH>-foi:rths of life.' But the years of reading and retlection have brought truer insight and greater brearlth of view. He is still a searcher after the philosophy of life (his mind was far too independent to accept any creed formulated by others), but he urces with tactful insistence the elementary principles of whose truth he has become convinced. The humor is kindlier and more subtle; in fact, one is often in doubt whether he is speaking in jest or earnest, .so that he has the inexhaustible charm of one whose secret is never wholly surprised. He is no iileal- ist : it is rather the doctrine of the mean, the aurea mediocrilns, that he so winningly incul- cates. Not even virtue itself is to be sought bevond the bounds of reason, as indeed Aristotle had claimed long before him. Both the lan- guage and the metre of the Epistles show the effects of the seven years devoted to lyric com- position. There is the same wealth of terse and happy phrase, and the hexameter, which even in the Satires was an immense advance upon the rhythm of Lucilius. is always smooth and often musical. Tlie death of Vergil in 19 left Horaoe by gen- eral consent the greatest living poet: and it was as such that in 17 Augustus commissioned him to write the hymn for the religious festival of the Secular Games. The restilt to modern ears may seem rather stiff and unimaginative in spue of the technical excellence of the verse, but to the creat Roman audience — wp must remember that the Pnrwer) Srprulnre was chanted in the open air — there must have been something peculiarly impressive in the linking of the old liturgical for- mulas with the new faith in th£ city's imperial