|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2, through details like 10 altas . . . populos, the numbers suggested by prospectat errantis in 12, the distenta ubera of 46, and the pinguissimis . . . ramis of 55, to the final ditis examen domus of 65. One way of reading this in relation to Epode 1 is to stress how at the end of that poem Horace had rejected the economic aspect of farming: |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
satis superque me benignitas tua
ditavit: haud paravero
quod aut avarus ut Chremes terra premam
discinctus aut perdat31 nepos |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Enough and more than enough the riches your kindness has given me: I shall not amass wealth to hide in the ground like miserly Chremes, or money for a dissolute grandson to lose. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
With this, one can compare Epistles 1.16, where Quinctius is depicted as interested in the products of farming but Horace wants no more than a sunny valley, rich in only oak-leaves and shade: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ne perconteris fundus meus, optime Quincti,
arvo pascat erum an bacis opulentet olivae,
pomisne an pratis an amicta vitibus ulmo,
scribetur tibi forma loquaciter et situs agri.
continui montes si dissocientur opaca
valle, sed ut veniens dextrum latus aspiciat sol
laevum discedens curru fugiente vaporet,
temperiem laudes: quid si rubicunda benigni
corna vepres et pruina ferant? si quercus et ilex
multa fruge pecus multa dominum iuvet umbra? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
To stop you asking, my dear Quinctus, whether my farm keeps its master fed through arable-land or enriches him through olives, through apples or meadows or elm-trees clad in vines, you shall have a detailed account of the disposition of my land. If continuous hills were broken by a valley, shady but such that the sun at his coming looked at the right side, breathed on the left when he departed in his chariot, you would praise the climate: what if the kindly thorns bore red cornel-berries, if the oaks pleased the cattle with abundant fodder and the master with abundant shade? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The effect of the coda in Epode 2 on this reading would not be to enable us to accept the initial moralising by relieving the tension inherent in seriousness, but would be to expose the difference between what is said in Epode 2 and true love of the country: this would not be 'The countryside is a wonderful place as a Barbara Cartland villain might say' but an instance of genuine subversion which forces us to go back and re-evaluate what we |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
31 The manuscripts have perdam, but the efforts of the commentators to explain that are unconvincing, and Shackleton Bailey's perdat is an easy change. |
|
|
|
|
|