purified ear: “Wisely in time dismiss the aged courser, lest, an object of derision, he miscarry at last, and break his wind.” Now therefore I lay aside both verses, and all other sportive matters; my study and inquiry is after what is true and fitting, and I am wholly engaged in this: I lay up, and collect rules which I may be able hereafter to bring into use. And lest you should perchance ask under what leader, in what house [of philosophy], I enter myself a pupil: addicted to swear implicitly to the ipse-dixits[1] of no particular master, wherever the weather drives me, I am carried a guest. One while I become active, and am plunged in the waves of state affairs, a maintainer and a rigid partisan of strict virtue; then again I relapse insensibly into Aristippus’ maxims,[2] and endeavor to adapt circumstances to myself, not myself to circumstances. As the night seems long to those with whom a mistress has broken her appointment, and the day slow to those who owe their labor; as the year moves lazy with minors, whom the harsh guardianship of their mothers confines; so all that time to me flows tedious and distasteful, which delays my hope and design of strenuously executing that which is of equal benefit to the poor and to the rich, which neglected will be of equal detriment to young and to old. It remains, that I conduct and comfort myself by these
- ↑ Jurare in verba magistri. Similarly, Epod. 15, in verba jurant mea. Soldiers jurabant in verba imperatoris, when entering on service; whence some think Horace alludes to this; others suppose the reference is to the great respect paid to Pythagoras by his disciples, so that the words ipse dixit were sufficient to decide any question. M'Caul.
- ↑ This naturally follows the three preceding lines. Horace could not long be reconciled to the two former systems; one required too much action, the other too much severity; and neither of them was agreeable to his inclination. The morals of Aristippus, who founded the Epicurean sect, were more to his taste; but as this philosophy was very severely treated by the Stoics and Cynics, the poet pleasantly says, he was obliged with privacy, furtim, to follow its doctrines. San.
Horace by the word furtim, might probably mean, that he did not pass, at once, from the sentiments of Zeno to those of Aristippus, as it were from one extreme to another, but by degrees, and insensibly. Dac. This latter view is correct. Ed. Dubl.
example of Veianus, who, having often fought with success, was now retired into the country, determined never to expose himself on the stage again; for if a gladiator, who had obtained his discharge, ever engaged a second time, he was obliged to have a second dismission, and going to the end of the stage, extrema arena, implored the people to give him his freedom. Cruq.
