The Fourth Book
of the
Odes of Horace.
ODE I.
TO VENUS.
After a long cessation, O Venus, again are you stirring up tumults? Spare me, I beseech you, I beseech you. I am not the man I was under the dominion of good-natured[1] Cynara. Forbear, O cruel mother of soft desires, to bend one bordering upon fifty, now too hardened for soft commands: go, whither the soothing prayers of youths, invoke you. More seasonably may you revel in the house of Paulus Maximus, flying[2] thither with your splendid swans, if you seek to inflame a suitable breast. For he is both noble and comely, and by no means silent in the cause of distressed defendants, and a youth of a hundred accomplishments; he shall bear the ensigns of your warfare far and wide; and whenever, more
- ↑ Bonæ. Horace appears to intimate by this epithet, that the affection entertained for him by Cynara, was rather pure and disinterested than otherwise. The word is often used in the sense of "generous," "unrapacious." Comp. Tibull. ii. 4, 45, "At bona, quæ nec avara fuit." Anthon.
- ↑ Purpureis ales oloribus. The allusion is to the chariot of Venus, drawn by swans: and hence the term ales is, by a bold and beautiful figure, applied to the goddess herself, meaning literally "winged." As regards purpureis, it must be remarked that the ancients called any strong and vivid color by the name of purpureus, because that was their richest color. Thus we have purpureæ comæ, purpureus capillus, lumen juventæ purpureum, etc. Compare Virgil, Æn. i. 591. Albinovanus (El. ii. 62) even goes so far as to apply the term to snow. The usage of modern poetry is not dissimilar. Thus Spencer, "The Morrow next appeared with purple hair;" and Milton, "waves his purple wings." So also Gray, "The bloom of young desire and purple light of love." Wheeler.
