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Horace's Virgil1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

L. A. Moritz
Affiliation:
Adduxere sitim tempora, Vergili.

Extract

This is the somewhat surprising moral drawn by Horace, in the twelfth poem of the fourth book of Odes (lam verts comites), from an idyllic description of spring, which includes the nesting of the unhappy bird that weeps for Itys and goes on to an Arcadian scene of shepherds with their pipes. In this ‘thirsty season’ Vergilius, who is addressed as iuvenum nobilium cliens, is invited to join the poet in broaching a jar of wine (but to earn his drink with a gift of perfume) and to forget for a while his usual preoccupations:

verum pone moras et studium lucri,

nigrorumque memor dum licet ignium

misce stultitiam consiliis brevem:

dulce est desipere in loco. (25–8)

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1969

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