290 



OCTAVIA ODE. 



of two voices in exact movement by octaves, which 

 oilend the ear. The reason why such progressions 

 by octaves are disallowed in a musical piece for many 

 voices, is evident, because, when two voices proceed 

 by octaves, no difference can be perceived between 

 these two ; and, for example, a piece for four voices, 

 becomes one for two. There are also those which 

 are called covered octaves, that is, such as become 

 for the first-time distinguishable when the interval of 

 the two voices, proceeding in an exact movement by 

 octaves, is filled up with unimportant notes. Of the 

 compositions for two voices, or in the two upper 

 parts of composition for three or four voices, those 

 alone are free from fault hi which the upper part 

 rises or falls a second, but the fundamental a fourth 

 or fifth. The use of the others is only allowed under 

 the middle part, or between an upper and a middle 

 part. Octave, also, in an organ, signifies the open 

 flute stop, which is one or two octaves higher than 

 the principal. 



OCTAVIA ; daughter of Caius Octavius and of 

 Accia, and sister to the emperor Augustus. All thfi 

 historians praise the beauty and the noble character 

 of this celebrated Roman lady. After the death of 

 her first husband, Marcus Marcellus, she married the 

 triumvir Marcus Antonius, that she might confirm 

 the friendship existing between him and her brother. 

 But Antony was incapable ot duly estimating her 

 virtues; and the charms of Cleopatra, which inflamed 

 his passions, he preferred to the modest beauty of his 

 wife. After her marriage, she followed her husband 

 to Athens, where she passed the winter (B. C. 39) 

 with him, averse from those luxurious pleasures to 

 which he abandoned himself. Without her interpo- 

 sition, civil war would even then have broken out 

 between Octavius and Antony. By urgent prayers 

 she appeased her husband, who was incensed against 

 her brother for his suspicions, and then, disregarding 

 the difficulties of the journey and her own preg- 

 nancy, she went, with his consent, from Greece to 

 Rome, and induced her brother to consent to an inter- 

 view with Antony, and to come to a reconciliation 

 with him. When her husband went to make war 

 against the Parthians, she accompanied him to Cor- 

 ey ra, and at his order returned thence to remain 

 with her brother. New quarrels arose between Oc- 

 tavius and Antony. To have a pretext for a rup- 

 ture, Octavius ordered his sister to go to her hus- 

 band, in the expectation that he would send her 

 back. This actually happened. Antony was lead- 

 ing a life of pleasure with Cleopatra at Leucopolis, 

 when letters from Octavia at Athens informed him 

 that she would soon join him with money and troops. 

 The prospect of this visit was so unwelcome to Cleo- 

 patra, that she persisted in her entreaties till Antony 

 sent his wife an order to return. Even now she en- 

 deavoured to pacify the rivals. Octavius commanded 

 her to leave the house of a husband who had treated 

 her so insultingly ; but feeling her duties as a wife 

 and a Roman, she begged him not, for the sake of a 

 single woman, to destroy the peace of the world, and 

 of two persons so dear to her, by the horrors of war. 

 Octavius granted her wish ; she remained in the 

 house of Antony, and occupied herself in educating 

 with care and tenderness the children which she had 

 borne him, and those of his first wife, Fulvia. This 

 noble behaviour in Octavia increased the indignation 

 of the Romans against her husband. At last he 

 divorced her, and ordered 1ier to leave his house. 

 She obeyed without complaint, and took with her all 

 her children, except her eldest son, Antillus, who 

 was with his father. Soon after, she witnessed the 

 outbreak of the civil war. She died in the year of 

 Rome 742, twelve years before the Christian era. 

 Augustus pronounced her funeral oration, but re 



fused the marks of honour which the senate \ver 

 desirous of bestowing on her. 



OCTAVIUS, or OCTAVIANUS. See4u S ui>tu4 



OCTOBER (from the Latin octn, eight); origi 

 nally the eighth month in the Roman calendar, 

 whence its name, which it still retained after the 

 beginning of the year had been changed from March 

 to January. 



OCTROI or OCTROY, an old French term (from 

 auctoritas) signifying a grant or privilege from go- 

 vernment, is particularly applied to the commercial 

 privileges granted to a person or to a company. In 

 a like sense the term is applied to the constitution 

 of a state granted by a prince, in contradistinction 

 to those which are derived from a compact between 

 the ruler and the representatives of the people. 



Octroi also signifies a tax levied at the gates of 

 some cities in France upon all articles of food. 



OCZACOW (Otschakow) ; called by the Turks 

 Dzain Krimenda ; a town in the Russian govern- 

 ment of Cherson, with about 1000 inhabitants, situ- 

 ated on the Black sea, at the mouth of the Dnieper ; 

 lat. 46 36' N. ; Ion. 41 30' E. It was formerly 

 an important Turkish fortress, with a citadel, the, 

 walls of which were twenty-five feet high. In 1737, 

 it was stormed by the Russians, who lost 18,000 men 

 in the attack. The Turks attempted to recover it with 

 a force of 70,000 men, but were repulsed with the loss 

 of 20,0(JO. In 1738, it was given up by the Russians, 

 who had previously destroyed the works. The 

 Turks fortified it anew in 1743, and held it until 

 1788, when, after a siege of six months, it was stormed 

 by Suwaroff, who razed it to the ground. By the 

 peace of 1791, it was ceded to Russia ; but since the 

 rise of Odessa its commerce has become inconsider 

 able. 



ODAHLIC ; the name given to the females con- 

 fined in the harems of the Turkish sultan. See 

 Harem. 



ODE ; a poem of purely lyrical character, or of 

 that class of lyrical compositions which express the 

 feelings of the poet in moments of high excitement, 

 with the vividness which present emotion inspires. 

 (See Lyrics.) The Greeks called every lyrical poem 

 adapted to singing, and hence opposed to the elegiac- 

 poem, an ode (uSn, i. e. song), from which they did 

 not even separate what the moderns call songs. 

 We are acquainted with the Greek odes through the 

 choruses in the Greek dramas, Pindar's heroic odes 

 in praise of the conquerors at the great national 

 games, the few relics of the amatory songs of Sap- 

 pho, Alcaeus and others, the Anacreontic songs, the 

 imitations of the Greek odes by the Romans, par- 

 ticularly Horace, and through the scholia. What- 

 ever was the subject, or the degree of feeling or 

 excitement, every poem was termed an ode, provided 

 it was purely lyrical. The name of odes was also 

 given to the hymns or praises of the gods (the Ho- 

 meric hymns excepted, because they are of an epic 

 character), which received different names from the 

 various deities to whom they were addressed ; thus 

 dithyrambics were originally hymns in praise of Bac- 

 chus. The odes of the ancients are distinguished 

 from the lyrical poems of the moderns, by expressing 

 feeling, according to the prevailing character of 

 antiquity, more by the aid of imagery. The plastic, 

 or the clothing of inward conceptions in outward 

 forms, is a chief trait of the Qreek art ; and, in the 

 same manner, the feeling of the poet expressed itself 

 in a series of striking images. In modern times, 

 odes have been more confined to the simple utter- 

 ance of feeling ; and so far has this been carried, 

 that they have sometimes been divested of all poetic 

 conception. But a naked expression of feelings 

 does not make a poem ; and this is the defect of 



