Horace the Epistles Free ebook download

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two books of Epistles, compo sed betwe en 23 and c. 13
orace's
S.c., are the produ ct of the poet's most matur e art. In these poems
"e writes to a numbe r of friends, fellow writer s and acquaintances,
h
-anging from the Empe ror Augus tus to his own bailiff. Thoug
tion
:hey vary in length and tone, the poems form a cohere nt collec
i)ecause all deal in some way with ethica l proble ms. Colin Macle od's
to
ll1tt roduct ions and notes explain the impor tance of philos ophy
r
neithe
Horace and his contem porari es, and show that the poems are
lrivial exercises nor solem n tracts. Horac e comes across as a humor
stua

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is also a
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es more detailinclud
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:.d .comm entarie s on four of the poems .

and Balliol College,
' olin Macleod was born in 1943 and educated at Rugby School

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Virtuosi ty, but to convey somethi ng of his wisdom and humanit y.

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5396
C

1-123
1986

ED IZ IO NI
.
-JL' A TE NE O SPA V

COLIN MACLEOD

//t;;.rCl ('c

/HORACE/ THE EPISTLES/
Translated into English Verse with Brief Comment

V

EDIZIONI DELL'ATENEO

C/dJJ

fJJI
1936 © Copyright by Edizioni delf' A teneo , s.p.a.
Casella Postale 7 216, 0 0 100 Roma

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

.Ct.
)7;)73

FOREWORD by R. G . M. Nisbet. . . .
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TEXTUAL NOTE.
INTRODUCTION .
BOOK ONE .
EPISTLE 1 .
NOTES.
EPISTLE 2 .
NOTES .
EPISTLE 3 .
NOTES.
EPISTLE 4 .
NOTES.
EPISTLE 5 .
NOTES .
EPISTLE 6 .
NOTES.
EPISTLE 7 .
NOTES.
EPISTLE 8 .
EPISTLE 9.
EPISTLE 10
NOTES . . . . . . .
EPISTLE 11 . . . . . .
NOTES . . . . . . .
EPISTLE 12 . . . . . .
NOTES . . . . . . .
EPISTLE 13 . . . . . .
NOTES . . . . . . .
EPISTLE 14 .. .. . .
NOTES . . . . . . . .
EPISTLE 15 . . . . . .
NOTES . . . . . . . .
EPISTLE 16 . . . . . . .
NOTES . . . . . . . .
EPISTLE 17 . . . . . . .
NOTES . . . . . . . .

!jet"

Editorial Note: after the work of translating, which
Professor R. G. M . Nisbet's foreword describes, Colin
Macleod embarked in the summer of 1981 on a commentary on the Epistles. His draft notes on four poems
from the first book, although unrevised, contain much
to supplement the translation, and it has seemed appropriate to publish them here as the final "Remarks
and Notes."
The text was transcribed intO electronic memory under a grant from the Program in Classical Studies of
the Graduate School, The City University of New
York , with aid and comfort from the Program in
Comparative Literature and the Computer Centers of
the Graduate School and Brooklyn College. Transmitted electronically through the BITNET, the text was
skillfully readied for printing by Richard A.
Damon III, using facilities made available by the
Department of Classics and the Computer Center of
Brown University.

Gold stater of T. Quinctius Flamininus
by courtesy of the British Museum

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VII
X 1l1
Xll 1

. xv

. 1

.3
.6
.8
10
11
12

13
14
15
16
17
19
20

23
24

26
27

29
30
31

32
33
35
36

37
39
40
42
43
45
47
49

VI

VII

Table of Conten ts

EPISTLE 18 . . . .
NOTE S .
EPISTLE 19
NOTE S .
EPISTLE 20
NOTE S.
BOOK TWO
EPISTLE 1 .
NOTE S.
EPISTLE 2 .
. ... . ..... .
NOTE S.
REMARKS AND NOTE S ON EPISTLES i. l, 3, 9,
and 14 .. . . . . . . . . . . . .
REMARKS ON EPISTLE l. 1. . .
NOTE S . . . . . . . . . .
REMARKS ON EPISTLE l. 3 .
NOTE S . . . . . . .
REMARKS ON EPISTLE l.9 .
NOTE S . . . . . . . . . .
REMARKS ON EPISTLE l. 14
NOTE S . . . . . . . . . .

50

53
54
56
57
58

59
61
70
74
81
83

85

86
98
99

105
105
108
109

FORE WORD

Colin Macleod died in Decem ber 1981 at the age of 38. He
was a Studen t of Christ Churc h, Oxford (what is called a fellow in other colleges), and a Univer sity Lectur er in Greek and
Latin literatu re . He had already establi shed himsel f as a classical scholar of uncom mon subtle ty and range . But though his
sensiti vity enable d him to help others, he could not save himself, and in a depression he ended his life. He is remem bered
by friends in several countr ies with pleasure and gratitu de.
Macleod was the favourite pupil of Eduard Fraenkel's old
age: the one needed a discipl e, the other an intelle ctual father-fi gure . In some ways they were very different: Fraenkel
had his feet firmly plante d in the world, and he was puzzle d
by his reticen t compa nion's leanings towards philoso phy and
even religio n. But they shared a love of Italy, which they both
found less artificial than Oxford ; here they travelled togeth er,
and here Colin met his wife Barbara. Both men were exceptional in the breadt h of their schola rship, though their spheres
of interes t did not entirel y coincide; while Fraenkel includ ed
vases and Roman law, Macleod 's wide readin g in Greek prose
gave his work on poetry a distinc tive dimen sion. Above all
they both strong ly believed that ancien t literatu re is about life
acaand love and sufferi ng, and not simply a game for cle~r
demics . Their attitud e was more unusua l twenty years ago
than it is today.
Macleod 's breadt h and depth appear conspicuously in his
posthu mous Collected Essays (Oxford, 198 3). Here he writes on
Greek and Latin, poetry and prose, rangin g from Sappho and
the Eumenides (a paper highly regard ed by good judges) to
Grego ry of N yssa's Life of Moses. He was not the type of
scholar who cracks puzzles and pulls rabbits Out of hats , and
he had no special skill in the packag ing of his goods; but nobody can forget his demon stratio n that Catullu s 50 parodies
the langua ge of love while talking about poetry , and that
· 116, the last poem in the collect ion, reverses the motifs of a
dedica tion (which sugges ts that Catull us himsel f arrang ed at
least this part of the book). Macleod may someti mes seem
over-s ubtle and over-c ompre ssed, but for him scholarship was
a quest rather than a discovery, and even when he fails to
convince, he advances the discussion . And someti mes he does

Foreword

Foreword

much more; the six papers on passages in Thucydides draw illumination from rhetoric, tragedy, a close analysis of the
structure, and a persistent awareness of the moral issues. In
rebutting the strictures of Dionysius, he gives an exemplary
exposition of his author's style, which as always with great
writers he saw as an integral part of the meaning : he memorably quotes what a contemporary said of Michelangelo: 'he
says things and you say words'.
Macleod also left behind him a commentary on the last
book of Homer's Iliad (Cambridge, 1982). This is a little
masterpiece , which will be widely read , and not JUSt for its
clear and su