Laudator Temporis Acti

Daniel H. Garrison, ed., Horace: Epodes and Odes. A New Annotated Latin Edition (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), p. 193, summarized Horace's 16th Epode thus:

Horace's disaffection with Rome's civil wars provides the theme for this declamatory poem. In language that mimics the formulas of Greek and Roman legislatures, Horace proposes that the "better part" (15 and 37 melior pars) leave Rome and colonize some Utopian "wealthy isles" set aside by Jupiter to preserve the age of gold.

Niall Rudd, in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Horace's Odes and Epodes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 310, note 11 (on Epodes 16.61-62):

vv. 61-2 after 56 Bentley.

So far as I can tell, Rudd erred in attributing the transposition to Richard Bentley (1662-1742). See Q. Horatius Flaccus ex Recensione et cum Notis atque Emendationibus Richardi Bentleii, 3rd ed., vol. I (Berlin: Weidmann, 1869), p. 314, where the lines appear in their traditional position after line 60. David Mankin, ed., Horace: Epodes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; rpt. 2002), p. 45, and Friedrich Klingner, ed., Horatius: Opera (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), p. 157, also attributed the transposition to Bentley, and so perhaps have others.

But it seems that Carlo Fea (1753-1836) was the first to transpose lines 61-62 after line 56, in his edition of Horace's works, vol. I (Rome: Franciscus Bourlie, 1811), p. 249. R.W. Carrubba, "Structural Symmetry in Horace, Epodes 16.41-66," Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 110 (1967) 201-209, defended Fea's transposition.

There is also a flaw in Rudd's translation (Loeb edition, p. 311), because he translated lines 61-62 twice, once in their transposed position (after line 56) and once in their traditional position (after line 60). The two translations are slightly different. Here is Rudd's translation in context (lines 53-66), with the duplicate verses underlined by me:

And we, lucky people that we are, will have still more to marvel at: how there is no wet East Wind to scour the ploughed land with its drenching showers; nor are the fertile seeds scorched in the dry soil; for the king of the gods moderates each extreme. No infections harm the livestock, and the flocks do not swelter under the merciless heat of any star. The craft of pine never strove to reach here, rowed by the Argo's crew; the shameless Colchian never set foot here; no sailors of Sidon turned their yardarms in this direction, nor did Ulysses' toiling comrades. No plague infects the herd, no star's furious heat scorches the flock. Jove set these shores apart for the righteous race when he debased the golden age with bronze. First with bronze, then with iron, he hardened the generations of men. A blessed escape is offered to their righteous members if they heed me as their seer.

The second underlined sentence should therefore be removed from Rudd's translation.

Here is the Latin (Horace, Epodes 16.53-66):

pluraque felices mirabimur; ut neque largis
  aquosus Eurus arva radat imbribus,
pinguia nec siccis urantur semina glaebis,    55
  utrumque rege temperante caelitum.
nulla nocent pecori contagia, nullius astri    61
  gregem aestuosa torret impotentia.    62
non huc Argoo contendit remige pinus,    57
  neque impudica Colchis intulit pedem;
non huc Sidonii torserunt cornua nautae
  laboriosa nec cohors Ulixei:    60
Iuppiter illa piae secrevit litora genti,    63
  ut inquinavit aere tempus aureum;
aere, dehinc ferro duravit saecula, quorum    65
  piis secunda vate me datur fuga.

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I am indebted to two readers of this blog who sent me the editions of Garrison and Rudd as gifts.

Labels: typographical and other errors