Saturday, November 06, 2021
A Poet's Right
Eduard Fraenkel, Aeschylus, Agamemnon. Edited with a Commentary, Vol. II: Commentary on 1-1055 (1950; rpt. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), p. 90, n. 1 (on line 149 ἐχενῇδας):
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In all periods poets have the right to restore to a word its 'original' meaning, which in daily usage it has entirely or almost entirely lost. Horace, Odes 1.36.20 lascivis hederis ambitiosior provides a good example. The peculiar use in Horace, Odes 4.4.65 of evenit, to which several critics have objected, belongs to the same category; Baiter ad loc. rightly says 'Horatius saepius ad propriam vocabulorum vim redire ausus est'.
