50 



were accustomed to dialogues in the odes of Horace, we should not bo 

 justified in supposing this to be one. We might as easily make dia- 

 logues of Thomson's "Seasons," or Popes "Essay on Man," by simply 

 marking every new paragraph with dramatis personce^ as it has been done 

 in this ode. The difficulty aud perplexity of the dialogue theory is 

 still further increased by verse 14. The shade of the philosopher 

 speaks of Pythagoras, and, addressing the sailor, says of liim, " Judice 

 te non sordidus auctor Naturae verique" — 



Not meanly skilled, even by your own applause, 



In moral truth and Nature's secret laws. 



This is rather too much. Imagine the philosopher appealing to a 

 sailor's judgment of Pjthagoras. As well might a member of this 

 Society ask a captain of a river flat what he thought of Lord Bacon's 

 "Novum Organou," or Newton's " Principia." The absurdity presented 

 in such a suj)position is so great, that some editors have adopted the 

 easy process, by which all hermeueutical difficulties are at once re- 

 moved, viz. : an alteration in the text. What was easier than to 

 change te into me, and thus to make the spirit of Archytas say, that in 

 his (not the sailor's) opinion, Pythagoras was a great philosopher. I 

 need hardly say no MSS. waiTant tl;is arbitrary alteration of the text, 

 and that the good sense of modern editors has discarded it altogether. 



But thus the difliculty remains, and we must try to remove it without 

 violence to the text, by a simple and natural interpretation. 



As we can discover in the poem itself no traces of a dialogue, the 

 oulj' thing we have to do is to find out the person into whose mouth 

 the poet places the address to Archytas, and the various reflections 

 resulting from it. Nor is this discovery difficult, for v. 21 designates the 

 person most distinctly as some other shipwrecked traveller. 

 jMe qiioque devexi rapidus comes Orionis 

 Illyricis Notus obruit undis. 

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

 Boist'rous companion of setting Orion. 



It is clear that these words c mnot be attributed to Archytas. The 

 qiwqite points to another person, and surely it would be too absurd if 

 Archytas here took the trouble to inform of his misfortune a man who, 

 as the first few lines of the poem indicate, knew all about him so well. 



The body of the person then, designated v. 91, we must imagine cast 

 ashore near the well-known grave of Archytas. He recognises it, and 

 then addressing the philosopher, descants on the inevitable fate of 

 death. Then, v. 23, he abruptly turns with At tu to a mariner, and 

 implores him to perform the funeral rites on him, aud by this act of 

 piety to earn the reward of the gods. 



