48 



Some are offered as sport to unmerciful Mars by tlie Furies ; 

 Greedily swallows the ocean the sailor ; 



Mixed with the old are the young in the dense-thronged funerals ; not one 

 Ever was spared by unfeeling Proserpine. 20 



I too was o'erwhelmed in Illyria's sea by the south wind, 

 Boist'rous companion of setting Orion. 

 But, sailor, be not unkind, nor gi-udge me a handful 

 Sand for my head and my bones unbmded. 



Then, if the east wind rages and roars on Hesperian waters, 25 



May the Venusian forests be shattered, 

 But thou ever remain unhurt, and ever abundant 

 Gain be showered on thee from Jove and 



Neptune, the guardian god of the hallowed town of Tarentuni. 

 Eeck'st thou not, thy innocent children, 30 



Still unborn, to involve in the guilt of thy own transgression ? 

 Dire retribution perchance will await thee. 



And the deserved reward ; my curses are heard, if thou leave me ; 

 And no sacrifice ever wOl purge thee. 



Tarry awhile, however tliou hastest, and thrice on my body 35 



Sprinkle the dust, then speed on tliy voyage. 

 Dr. IiiNE then proceeded as follows : — 



No ode of Horace is more difficult to explain than tlie following. 

 This is the introductory remark of Mr. Newman to his translation, and 

 of all commentators, ancient and modern. But the difficulty is of 

 their own making; it is the result of too much ingenuity and of too free 

 a play of fancy. They will have it, that this ode is a dialogue between 

 the shade of Archytas, the philosopher, who was drowned in the 

 Adriatic, and a mariner coasting along the shoi'e. The first six lines 

 are attributed to the latter, and the remainder to the Tarentine sage. 

 That this view is entirely untenable I shall endeavour to show first, and 

 then to give what I consider the right explanation. 

 The first six lines are thus translated by Francis : — 

 "Archytas, what avails thy nice survey 

 Of ocean's countless sands, of earth ami sea ? 

 In vain thy mighty sfiirit once could soar 

 To orbs celestial and their course explore ; 

 If here, upon the tcmpest-bcatcn strand » 

 Thou liest confined, till some more liberal hand 

 Shall strew the pious dust in funeral rile, 

 And icing thee to the huundless realms of light." 



The last two lines and a half, which are a perfectly gratuitous addition 

 to the orig-inal, have the eff"ect of begging the question, that poor 

 Archytas, at the time of the supposed dialogue, was lying unburied on 

 the shore. This is, in truth, what all the commentators require us to 

 take for granted, for in the second part of the poem, where the mariner 

 is requested to strew a few handfuls of sand on the dead body, it is 



