Falsa licet cupidus deponat gaudia livor: Destitit ire novas Cynthia nostra vias. Sunt igitur Musæ, neque amanti tardus Apollo; 30 35 40 45 Ecce jaces, supplexque venis ad jura puellæ, Et tibi nunc quovis imperat empta modo. Dicere, quos juvenes quæque puella domet. Aut Amphioniæ monia flere lyræ? dicere carmen, Plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero; | the Thebaid which Ponticus was composing. See above, on El. vii. —Amphioniæ lyra. Hor. Od. iii. 11, 2. 'movit Amphion lapides canendo.' De Art. Poet. 394. Infra, iv. i. 43, &c.— flere, flebiliter canere. K. II. 'Elegiac verses have more influence in love than heroic.' Mimnermus of Colophon lived about 600, B.C., and is said to have been the inventor of elegiac verse. 13. Hertzberg has interpreted this verse, 'Go now and write those very poems (i.e., elegies) which you used to call contemptuously tristes.' Others take compone for 'lay aside,' i.e. in your scrinium, and tristes libellos for the dull Thebaid. But he well observes (1) that componere is the proper and conventional word for scribere, σvvrilévai; (2) that i nunc is often used in conveying a taunt; (3) that istos is the word of contempt formerly used by Ponticus to Propertius, and now retorted by the latter. There is weight in his arguments: nevertheless, I think the antithesis both here and elsewhere (see on iii. 26, 44,) between tristis or durus (epic) and mollis or lenis (amatory elegiac verse), so marked, and the verses im Et cane, quod quævis nosse puella velit. Acrius illa subit, Pontice, si qua tua est; mediately preceding and following so strongly in favour of the old interpretation, sepone, depone,' that I have not ventured to depart from it. Hertzberg admits that omnes composui, ‘I have buried them all,' Hor. Sat. i. 9, 28, justifies such a sense. 15 'What would you do if a subject to write about were wanting, when even now you are puzzled what to say when over head and ears in love?'-copia here, as Hertzberg has shewn, is scribendi materies. The passage is explained by 7, 19, 20, et frustra cupies mollem componere versum, nec tibi subjiciet carmina serus amor.' Ponticus had been warned, that he had better practise elegywriting against the time when he might require the aid of its persuasive eloquence. 17-18 What you now feel is but a foretaste of the pangs of true love.' 23-4 The meaning of these beautiful lines is well given by Kuinoel: 'nunquam Amor cuiquam amanti ita 15 20 25 facilis est, ut non sæpius eum tormentis et cruciatibus afficiat.' The metaphor is taken from a wanton' who holds a bird in a silken thread, and lets it fly a little way only to pull it down again. I cannot believe that the poet had in mind the celebrated passage in the Phædrus, p. 251, b.— alterna manu does not mean with the other hand, but expresses the alternate action of the same hand which holds the string. 25 'Do not be deceived by the idea that possession will allay the anguish you are beginning to feel.' 27 Quippe ubi, ‘since in that case:' like quippe qui.-vigilare alio nomine, love does not allow you to be awake on any other account,' i.e. occupies all your waking as well as sleeping hours with the thoughts of your mistress.' Hertzberg and others place an interrogation at the end of v. 28. 'Can love be expected to leave you, when your eyes hourly encounter the object of your regard ?' thus making vigilare depend on liceat. Nec vigilare alio nomine cedat Amor; Quisquis es, assiduas ah fuge blanditias. Nedum tu possis, spiritus iste levis. Quare, si pudor est, quam primum errata fatere: X. O jocunda quies, primo cum testis amori Tantus in alternis vocibus ardor erat. 30 The MSS. have aufuge, which does not admit of an accusative case: -ah fuge Kuinoel, Lachmann, and Hertzberg, with the approval of Jacob. 33 Si pudor est. 'If you are ashamed of loving a slave, and feel inclined to conceal the fact, be advised by me, and boldly avow it.'Errata, a word properly used in this sense, like the Greek pára, Esch. Cho. 904. Similarly error inf. 13, 35. 34 Quo in amore. Conjungenda sunt hæc verba.' Hertzberg. See on i. 13, 7. perditus in quadam.' 30 5 IO Non solum vestros didici reticere dolores; Est quiddam in nobis majus, amice, fide. Et possum alterius curas sanare recentis, Nec levis in verbis est medicina meis. Cynthia me docuit semper quæcumque petenda Neve superba loqui, neve tacere diu; At quo sis humilis magis et subjectus amori, to make me a confidant, receive from 6 13 Fide, 'the power to keep a secret.' 15 Diversos, separated.' Properly said of two persons who start from the same point in opposite directions; while varius or varus (i.e. varjus; compare arjete for ariete &c.) implies a path gradually diverging, like the letter Y. See Persius, Sat. iv. 12. Hor. Sat. i. 3, 47. hunc varum, distortis cruribus.' cornua vara' Ovid. Amor. i. 3. 24. Hence divaricare, 'to stretch asunder,' as the legs of a compass; and prævaricari, said of a guide who deviates from the straight path, and so leads his follower wrong. Diversæ fenestræ' i. 3, 31, are ' oppositæ,' 'ex adverso patentes.' Tacit. Ann. iii. 2, 'etiam quorum diversa oppida, tamen obvii-dolorem testa 20 25 30 bantur,' i.e. towns away from which, rather than towards which, the funeral procession of Germanicus was directing its course. 21 Here the poet imparts certain rules, derived from his own experience, for the direction of his friend in securing his mistress's affections. 23 Verba benigna, i.e. puellæ tuæ. 'Do not slight or treat with disregard her kind expressions towards you.' The whole passage probably refers to a tristis puella, i.e. irata; and he here advises Gallus to meet with frankness any symptoms of returning tenderness, which his repentant mistress may exhibit. |