Catullan Echoes in the Odes of Horace

Abstract

IN HIS pocket edition of Horace, Walter Savage Landor scribbled on a margin opposite the twenty-seventh ode of Book iii sad stuff. Much has been said about this ode, and most of it in disparagement, but criticism has not gone far beyond the uncritical verdict of Landor. It has, to be sure, been constantly pointed out that the opening stanzas are lacking in clarity and that the local setting for the ancient myth is not presented with Horace's customary skill; also that the transition from the setting to the myth is at least a trifle awkward. All this is merely a detailed elaboration of the feeling that inspired Landor's sad stuff. Bergk undertook a more critical analysis of the poem and proposed the theory that Horace was following Simonides when he wrote this ode and that the model was a dithyramb by the Greek lyricist. It is true that the story of Europa was the subject of a dithyramb by Simonides, but the subject was also treated by Stesichorus and by Bacchylides, and it is difficult to follow Bergk precisely without further evidence. To confirm the theory of a Greek model it has been pointed out that the omen of the laevus picus (1. 15) is a Greek conception in contrast with the Latin and that the use of the infinitive in line 73 is essentially a Greek usage. There is not a great deal in any of this which is at all conclusive. The poem is obviously far from a perfect one, and it suggests at least the study of a Greek model. Before accepting the suggestion of dithyrambic origin, one should consider the form of the poem in relation with others of Horace's Odes more successful but not unlike this one in construction. The fact