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CAREFREE IN CORFU? HORACE, EPISTLES 1.2.31

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2017

David A. Traill
David A. Traill*
Affiliation:
University of California at Davis
*
datraill@ucdavis.edu
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Extract

      nos numerus sumus et frugis consumere nati,
      sponsi Penelopae nebulones Alcinoique
      in cute curanda plus aequo operata iuuentus,
      cui pulchrum fuit in medios dormire dies et        30
      ad strepitum citharae cessatum ducere curam.
      ut iugulent hominem, surgunt de nocte latrones:
      ut te ipsum serues, non expergisceris?

We are ciphers, born to eat bread, the worthless suitors of Penelope and the young men of Alcinous’ court, all too concerned with keeping their skin attractive, who thought it a fine thing to sleep till midday and * * * To murder a man, thieves get up at night; to save yourself, won't you wake up?

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , May 2017 , pp. 314 - 317
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Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2017 

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References

1 Housman, A.E., ‘Horatiana’, in Diggle, J. and Goodyear, F.R.D. (edd.), The Classical Papers of A.E. Housman (Cambridge, 1972), 1.151-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Housman addresses the first issue by pointing to four lines in Horace that he finds equally awkward: Sat. 2.3.134 and 181; Ars P. 87 and 263.

3 The nine editions were: the OCT by E. Wickham (1901), the Loeb by H. Fairclough (1939), the Teubners by F. Klingner (1959) and S. Borzsák (1984); also the editions by O.A.W. Dilke (London, 1954), R. Heinze (Berlin, 1961), J. Préaux (Paris, 1968), D. Bo (Turin, 1959) and R. Mayer (Cambridge, 1994).

4 Inge, W.R., ‘Horace, Epp. 1. 2. 30, 31’, CR 35 (1921), 103 Google Scholar; Dilke, O.A.W. (ed.), Horace: Epistles, Book 1 (London, 1966), 81 Google Scholar.

5 Harrison, E.L., ‘Horace, Epistles 1.2.31’, Eranos 53 (1955), 200–4, at 202–3Google Scholar.

6 Kraggerud, E., ‘ Cessatum ducere somnum again (Horace, Epistles 1.2.31)’, Eranos 84 (1986), 145–8Google Scholar, where he refers to Palmer, L.R., The Latin Language (London, 1955 2), 327 Google Scholar.

7 The only evidence for Scaliger's emendation is to be found in Heinsius, Daniel, In Horati Flacci Opera Animadversiones et Notae (Leiden, 1629), 93 Google Scholar: ‘vir illustris Iosephus Scaliger malebat cessatam ducere curam, sicut in Ovid. Fasti, 4.617 largaque prouenit cessatis messis in herbis’ (modern editors read in aruis).

8 Walters, W.C.F., ‘Note on Horace, Ep. 1.2.31’, CR 17 (1903), 203 Google Scholar. Walters seems unaware that Scaliger had already proposed this emendation.

9 Similarly, the possibility that cura here means ‘their business’ in any of the senses outlined in OLD s.v. 7 and 9 seems ruled out by the fact that neither Homer nor Horace suggests that the young Phaeacians have any such responsibilities.

10 These are Fast. 4.617 larga prouenit cessatis messis in aruis (‘fields that have lain fallow’) and Met. 10.669 (of Atalanta) illa moram celeri cessataque tempora cursu corrigit (‘lost time’).

11 Harrison (n. 5), 201 n. 1.

12 Bentley, R., In Horatium Flaccum Notae et Emendationes (Cambridge, 1711), 341 Google Scholar.

13 For the Romans’ predilection for the ab urbe condita construction to avoid the use of an abstract noun, see Kühner, R. and Stegmann, C., Ausführliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache (Hanover, 1912), 2. Pt. 1, §136.5Google Scholar.