Horace's Preoccupation With Death
Horace's Preoccupation With Death
Horace's Preoccupation With Death
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HORACE'S PREOCCUPATION WITH DEATH
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316 DONALD NORMAN LEVIN
Compare as
In verses such also these several verses from
these Horac
calling to our attention
Odes 2.18, a poem concerned throughout not
men are subject
with the futility to death,
of amassing real estate bu
strikes impartially,
and of ostentatiously displayingignorin
the physi-
cal trappings of splendor (2.18.29-34):7
economic distinctions. Diuesne
ab Inacho / nil interest
nulla certior tamen an p
fima / de rapacis Orci
gente, subfine destinata
diuo more
aula diuitem manet
nil miserantis Orci (2.3.21-4)
erum. quid ultra tendis? aequa tellus
To emphasize death's
pauperi recluditur impartia
may resort toregumque
yet another cru
pueris....
Even before having mention
What is the moral import of death's in-
urna in Odes 3.1 he observes th
evitability and universality and egalitar-
(or fate, if you prefer),
ianism? Obviously, if the distinctions "m
equality before the law,
between noble and humble decid
birth, between
the famous and the lowly"
wealth and poverty, between fame and (
obscurity are meaningless in the face of
aequa lege necessitas
sortitur insignis et imos.
man's mortality, there is no point in seek-
Similar ing to become
language wealthy or famous,
occurs inandOde
surely it is ridiculous of
Horace, the master to sneer poetic
at others
whose lineage happens
ment, dispels abruptly the j to be less illustrious
than one's own or whose material resources
mood established in his first dozen verses
happen to be less ample. Moreover,
(1.4.13-14) :6
weighed against the brevity of human exis-
pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum
tence any sort of ambitious planning must
tabernas
regumque turris .... be deemed an exercise in futility.
Hence, not surprisingly, Horace empha-
5 "This thought" (i.e. "Aspirations-also political aspira- sizes the basic contrast denoted by the
tion-are futile, distinctions illusory because Death changes
inequalities to equality"), observes F. Solmsen, "Horace'sadjectives breuis, applicable to man, and
first Roman ode," AJP 68 (1947) 338, "is familiar to us
from many other odes in which Horace is speaking as a
longus, descriptive of his misguided proj-
pupil of Hellenistic philosophers, not at all as uates of ects. Vitae summa breuis, he declares,
the Augustan Empire" (emphasis mine). Solmsen finds
the very different "patriotic" approach rather in Odes 3.2 spem nos uetat incohare longam (1.4.15):
(concerning which poem see also below). In a later "Life's scant sum-total forbids us to inau-
article, "Propertius and Horace," CP 43 (1948) 105-9,
Solmsen suggests that Propertius' concern in Book 3 of gurate long-range hopes."s Similarly in Odes
the Elegies with death's equalizing function was influenced
by the recent publication of Horace's first three books 1.11 the poet urges his addressee (whose
of Odes.
opposite sex is only incidental to the theme
6 "Twelve lines of innocent description of spring lull us
into security," observes Wilkinson (n.2 above) 39, "whenof the poem) to work out an adjustment
suddenly death knocks at the door." Wilkinson claims
too that the effect is heightened by the choice of words between her expectations and her allotted
full of explosive "p's" and "t's" (i.e.: pallida . . . time span (1.11.6-7):9
pulsat pede pauperum tabernas . . . turris). C. L.
Babcock, "The role of Faunus in Horace, Carmina 1.4,"
TAPA 92 (1961) 13-19, likewise takes note of the allit- 7The whole poem is subjected to detailed analysis by
eration (p.18) and agrees (p.13) that in line 13 "the H. Womble, "Repetition and irony: Horace, Odes 2.18,"
unexpected entrance of death . . . is certainly designed TAPA 92 (1961) 537-49. C. W. Mendell, "Horace, Odes
to shock the complacent listener." But he differs from II 18," YCS 11 (1950) 281-92, devotes more attention
H. Toll, Phoenix 9 (1956) 156, who claimed that the bright to the relationship between Odes 2.18 and other ancient
picture had become "darkened without warning." Bab- poetry (or even prose).
cock's article is devoted instead to demonstration of how 8 Citing both this verse and 13f. (quoted above), Wili
carefully Horace has prepared the way for the arrival of (n.1 above) 231 describes Odes 1.4 not only as the most
pallida mors. Nevertheless I remain unconvinced that impressive spring-poem from antiquity, but also as "eine
the second part of the Ode "should begin . . . not with antike Variation des 'Mitten im Leben sind wir vom Tod
pallida mors, but with o beate Sesti" (Babcock p.19). umgeben.' "
Nor am I convinced that line 13 and the first part of 9 Much ingenuity has been expended by commentators
line 14 constitute a "quotation put into the mouth of and translators in their effort to grapple with the ablative
Faunus." expression in line 6. I have thought spatio breui to mean
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HORACE'S PREOCCUPATION WITH DEATH 317
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318 DONALD NORMAN LEVIN
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HORACE'S PREOCCUPATION WITH DEATH 319
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320
turies ago.26 Roman arms no longer con- thanks also to a humanistic tradition
trol vast stretches of Europe, Asia, and which refuses to be extirpated from our
Africa. Yet thanks to the labors of genera- educational systems even as man prepares
tions of nameless scribes who kept such to depart for the moon, the Odes of Horace
writings from being consigned to oblivion, and the Metamorphoses of Ovid continue
still to be read and discussed and ad-
2 But see Fraenkel (n.17 above, 304): "When Horace mired.27
had been in his grave for many centuries the places
around which the life of the ancient Romans had circled DONALD NORMAN LEVIN
were being deserted one after another, and what was left
of the dwindling population lived on different hills. Rice University
There was still a pontifex, but he would reside on the
Lateran or the Quirinal or the Vatican, and would not 2 "And yet it remained true," Fraenkel avers, loc. cit.
care to sacrifice to Iuppiter Optimus Maximus. There (n.26 above), "and remains true to the present day,
was still a city of Rome, but filled with new gods, new that usque ego postera crescam laude recens. Horace's
rituals, and new ideas." boast turns out to be an enormous understatement."
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