saepe trucem adverso perlabi sidere pontum ? aurea nunc rapidi flumina adire Tagi? 50 non nostrum est tantas, non, inquam, attingere laudes, quin ausim hoc etiam dicere, vix hominum est. 56 ipsa haec, ipsa ferent rerum monumenta per orbem, ipsa sibi egregium facta decus parient. nos ea, quae tecum finxerunt carmina divi, X SABINUS ille, quem videtis, hospites, ait fuisse mulio celerrimus IX. 47 perlabi Aldine edition 1517: perlabens . 50 non : nec Aldine edition 1517. timuisse A. 60 Musae A Musa BMH, retained by Birt. 61 laude Baehrens. MHA: et Voss. X. 1 Albinus R. 2 multo 60 aspirarem MH. si (adire) B: sed 62 si B: sic Zu, Med. quem] quidem B. mulio Aldine edition 1517. The home of Callimachus, the elegiac poet. Ellis takes humilis with Cyrenas, 66 Cyrene's unexalted style.' 2 This is a clever parody on the fourth poem of Catullus. Sabinus has been identified with the Sabinus of Cicero (ad under unkindly stars, thou glidest o'er the savage deep? How oft in thy daring thou conquerest the sea, and oft the storm? And how oft thou flingest thyself upon the serried foe, heedless of the common god of war? How thou makest thy way, now to the nimble Africans, the swarms of a perjured race, now to the golden waters of swift Tagus? How in warfare thou seekest nation after nation, and conquerest even beyond Ocean's bounds? 55 'Tis not, not, I say, for us to attain to such glories; nay I should dare even this to say, 'tis scarce a task for mortal man. Even of themselves shall these exploits carry their records through the world; of themselves shall beget their own peerless renown. As for me, touching those songs which the gods have fashioned in concert with thee, even the Cynthian and the Muses, Bacchus and Aglaia, if, lowly as I am, I can breathe their praise, if I can approach Cyrene,1 can approach the wit of Greece. with a song of Rome, henceforth I advance even beyond my hopes. This is enough: naught have I to do with the stupid rabble. SABINUS yonder, whom you see, my friends, says he was once the fastest of muleteers, and never was Fam. xv. 20) and with Ventidius Bassus of Aulus Gellius, xv. 4, who rose from humble life to the offices of praetor and consul. But it is most probable that the man referred to was a purely local celebrity, who, at the end of his active life, set up a votive offering to Castor and Pollux for having saved him from the perils of his calling. The offering took the form of a statuette or painting of himself, seated in a curule chair, the artist having perhaps taken as his model some dignified official of note, who had quite properly been so represented. (So Professor Elmer T. Merrill in Classical Philology, 1913.) 499 neque ullius volantis impetum cisi et hoc negat Tryphonis aemuli domum neque ulla vota semitalibus deis sibi esse facta, praeter hoc novissimum, paterna lora proximumque pectinem. sed haec prius fuere: nunc eburnea sedetque sede seque dedicat tibi, gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris. 3 ullius Aldine edition 1517: illius B. 6 et Scaliger: neque . -ne A. 5 10 15 20 25 9 dicet AR. forfice Heyne: forcipe BH: forpice AR. 10 ne quid orion B: ne quis torion Z: ne Cytorio Maehly. 15 dicit] ultima n. 16 deposisse Scaliger: de(o)posuisse . 17 After this line Birt inserts the following conjectural versc: iter parasse mulio, neque ipse non. there any gig that raced along whose speed he was unable to pass, whether he had to race to Mantua or to Brixia. And this, says he, the noble house of his rival, Trypho, does not deny; nor the lodging-rooms of Caerulus, where he who afterwards was Sabinus, but ere that Quinctio, tells that with two-bladed shears he once clipped the hairy necks, lest, under the pressure of Cytorian yoke,1 the harsh mane might cause some soreness. 12 O cold Cremona and muddy Gaul, Sabinus says that this was and is well-known to thee: he claims that from his earliest birthtime he stood in thy mire, in thy marsh laid by his packs, and thence over so many miles of rutty roads bore the yoke, whether the mule on left or on right or on both sides began to flag .; and that no vows to the gods of the by-ways were made by him save this at the lasthis father's reins and the curry-comb close by.2 24 But these things are past and gone; now he sits in his ivory chair and dedicates himself to thee, twin Castor, and to thee, Castor's twin-brother. 1 i.e. box-wood yoke, because Cytorus, a mountain in Paphlagonia, abounded in box-wood trees. 2 Or "next in value." 19 mulas : mula edition 1482. utrimque Heinsius. 20 Birt supplies: pecus recalcitrare ferreo pede. 22 sibi Aldine edition 1517: tibi . propter ZMuMed. XI QUIS deus, Octavi, te nobis abstulit? an quae dicunt, a, nimio pocula ducta mero? "vobiscum, si est culpa, bibi. sua quemque sequuntur fata: quid immeriti crimen habent cyathi?" scripta quidem tua nos multum mirabimur et te raptum et Romanam flebimus historiam, sed tu nullus eris. perversi dicite manes, hunc superesse patri quae fuit invidia? 5 XII SUPERBE Noctuine, putidum caput, datur tibi puella, quam petis, datur; datur, superbe Noctuine, quam petis. sed, o superbe Noctuine, non vides duas habere filias Atilium, duas, et hanc et alteram, tibi dari? adeste nunc, adeste: : ducit, ut decet, superbus ecce Noctuinus hirneam. Thalassio, Thalassio, Thalassio! 5 XI. 2 dicunt a nimio u: dicunt animo (-mi) BH : dicuntur animo AR, Med.: dicunt Centaurum Birt: Centaurum nimio Garrod. ducta Heinsius: dura 3 culpabile B. XII. 4 o B: omitted Z. . 4 facta BMu. 6 duas Aldine edition 1517: omitted . 7 ducit Z: dicit B (above the line). 9 Thalassio twice only : thrice, Marius Victorinus. 1 Written in dialogue, and in the form of an epitaph, the subject of which is the Octavius Musa of Catalepton IV. above. Octavius, it would seem, has been " dead-drunk," and so is humorously treated as if he had died. He is a "son of Bacchus," and Bacchus (i.e. the wine) had died (was all |