Hor. Od. 3.16

Latin Learning Latin
1

Context:

Horace declares that a modest income is more to be desired than great wealth.

.
purae rivos aquae silvaque iugerum
paucorum et segetis certa fides meae
fulgentem imperio fertilis Africae
fallit sorte beatior.

I could not untangle the grammar until I looked at some translations, and read some of the article on “fallo” in Lewis and Short. Below is my effort at translation, and my effort to clarify the grammar points that were hard for me.

Streams of clean water, a wood of
a few acres, and the sure confidence
in my crops–a happier fate–
missed by the man gleaming in the
command of fecund Africa.

I read “sorte beatior” as a kind of interjection: “oh a happier lot (for me, i.e. the voice of the poem)”

“fulgentem” I read as a present active participle used substantively, meaning “the man gleaming”

“imperio”, ablative singular, “in the command”

“fallit”, here means “deceives” or “hides from”, its direct object is “fulgentem”. The idea is that wealth and power make invisible the surer pleasure of a modest sufficiency.

2

rivus?
I’d say that sorte beatior refers to the subject of fallit, i.e. rivus, silva, fides.

3

I have been reading about bilingualism in the ancient world so I was interested to see this. The commentaries point out that fallit is used " in imitation of the Greek λανθάνει ὀλβιώτερον ὄν. The [lack] of ὄν makes the Latin awkward." So yes I agree with bedwere sorte beatior is not an interjection but agrees with purae rivus etc.

Streams …etc escape the notice of the dazzling man with his command of fruitful Africa, [being] [these are] more blessed/fortunate [for me].

4

How arrogant commentators can be. “Awkward” indeed! It’s a criticism one might make if this were prose, but fallit sorte beatior seems to me to bring a perfect stanza to a perfect end. So simply structured (subject trio vv.1&2, object v.3, verb+predicate v.4), the final verse basically inevitable but its three words so finely textured and so rich in connotation. Horace at his most exquisite.

5

I am sure “Awkward” was not used as a term of literary criticism. Page says the lack of a present participle makes the Latin “somewhat less clear in such places”. Indeed that was hlawson38’s experience.

6

Thanks for the replies. Here are some more questions.

.
purae rivos aquae silvaque iugerum
paucorum et segetis certa fides meae
fulgentem imperio fertilis Africae
fallit sorte beatior.

rivos: this looks to me like accusative plural. How to parse this? We seem to be reading this as an element in the joint subject of fallit (rivos … silva … fides…fallit).

sorte beatior: I take beatior as a comparative adjective. But what does it modify? Is the reader meant to supply something like this: sorte beatior (est). “It (the poet’s modest prosperity) is happier (in respect of) lot”.

This stanza became clearer when I interpreted fulgentem as a present participle used substantively, the direct object of fallit. But I still did not see the grammar of sorte beatior.

7

rivos must be an error. My text says rivus as do others I have consulted. Although I dont have a critical edition I cant imagine that rivos is right it doesnt make sense.

If you read bedwere’s recent post he clearly explains the structure.

Subject

purae rivus aquae silvaque iugerum
paucorum et segetis certa fides meae

object

fulgentem imperio fertilis Africae

verb+predicate

fallit sorte beatior

The more blessed [lot] of the rivers etc escapes the notice of the brilliant man with his command of Africa.

I think the key to understanding this is to understand how fallit works. Its much easier to understand if you know Greek.

Sorte beatior are taken together and agrees with fides. Fides certa applied to the rivers, woods and crops.

Page translates “(these) and a harvest that never fails are a happier lot unknown to the brilliant lord of fertile Africa.” unknown = it escapes his notice.

Does this help?

8

rivos or riuos is an older spelling for rivus. The -o- is short (unlike the accusative plural ending). Horace may well have written RIVOS, rather than RIVVS, but of course there’s no way we can know.

See Allen & Greenough sec. 6:

  1. Latin spelling varied somewhat with the changes in the language and was never absolutely settled in all details. . . .

The spelling of the first century of our era, known chiefly from inscriptions, is tolerably uniform, and is commonly used in modern editions of the classics.

[*] > a. After v (consonant u ), o was anciently used instead of u (voltus, servos), and this spelling was not entirely given up until the middle of the first century of our era.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=AG+6&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0001

“Brilliant” for fulgentem is perhaps not quite the right word, though I can’t offhand think of a better one. “Great, powerful, famous, and very wealthy” is the underlying idea, of course. Horace compresses all of these concepts into a single word, “shining.”

9

Hylander yes that makes sense and it may well be what is one or other of the manuscripts. I wanted to emphasise that it is not an accusative.

I quite like “brilliant” because it carries the idea of a very successful career culminating in the glittering prize of a province. As in all translation there is an inevitable loss in allusiveness. I also like the way Page writes “lot” to catch an allusion “to the allotment of provinces” ( his italics).

10

As to RIVOS : RIVVS, let us remember that the orthographies with -VV- were somewhat regularly avoided. I am not sure, though, whether this was because it was simply considered bad looking or whether it was retained due to euphony. Alternatively, the reason could have been dissimilatory, i.e. [wu] would have contained a glide and a vowel too close to each other (practically equals to euphony).

I know ashamedly little about epigraphy, but I am given to understand that this phenomenon were reflected in contemporary epigraphs.

11

that . . . may well be what is one or other of the manuscripts.

The manuscripts are generally worthless in matters of orthography. The manuscripts are the product of centuries of tinkering, both in antiquity and after. You can never be sure whether an archaic spelling was original or was imposed at some later point by someone who knew just enough about the history of Latin spelling to be dangerous. And I doubt we can be sure that contemporary epigraphic evidence reflects the orthographic practices of pen and paper writers–assuming they spelled consistently, which isn’t necessarily a valid assumption.

12

Read the poem out loud and the meter instantly reveals that rivos has short o.

The Odes demand to be read metrically. As with TV, shut off the sound and you lose a lot.

13

.
purae rivos aquae silvaque iugerum
paucorum et segetis certa fides meae
fulgentem imperio fertilis Africae
fallit sorte beatior.

I give the text again, above.

rivos> : this looks to me like accusative plural. How to parse this?

Thanks to several for the notes on rivos as a variant spelling of rivus, and especially to Hylander with his contribution of an A&G citation, aimed like an arrow at the heart of my difficulty with this word.

For fallit, even without Greek literacy, the dictionary gave me enough to catch a satisfactory meaning, but the references are interesting.

14

rivos> : this looks to me like accusative plural.

It may look like it, but it doesn’t sound like it. Once again I would urge reading metrically, as Horace means us to.

He prides himself on having brought aeolic meters to Italy, the meters of Sappho and Alcaeus. As he says in his sign-off ode 3.30: dicar … | princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos | deduxisse modos. (He doesn’t acknowledge that Catullus had anticipated him.) And this is a typical aeolic verse. After the first two syllables (both long in Horace) we get –uu- (a choriamb); then another choriamb, and then υ- to end the line. The first three verses of each stanza all take this form—a heavy start before lightening up and catchily tripping along. (princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos in 3.30 exemplifies the same verse form, as does 1.1 Maecenas atavis edite regibus.) The last verse of the stanza (a glyconic) drops one of the choriambs, making a sort of coda. (fallit sorte beatior —uu-u-, like e.g. 20 Maecenas equitum decus, 28 magnas inter opes inops.)

Horace’s Odes are all written in four-line stanzas, just like Sappho’s and Alceus’. The metrical schemes may vary from ode to ode, but they are all isosyllabic (unlike the dactylic hexameter), and certain patterns continually recur. (You’ll notice Catullus’ dedication poem started out the same way, cui dono lepidum …)

And yes, one or two of Horace’s locutions may be based on Greek usage, but you don’t need Greek to understand them. They work as Latin.

Hope this smoothes your path, and adds to your appreciation of the poetry.

15

I would add that Horace’s aeolic meters are easier to assimilate than dactylic hexameter–the verses are shorter, and as mwh notes, they’re isosyllabic–no substitution of a long for two shorts.

And again, hearing and feeling the meter amounts to at least 1/3 of the enjoyment and appreciation of Horace. You’re really missing a lot if you don’t try to get the meter.

16

And it’s not just the meter, it’s also the sound effects—urbane, nothing too obvious, but we can hear the culmination of the mounting “f”s in fallit, and the echo of |ful(gent-) ~ |fal(lit). fulgentem is the mot juste in more ways than one.

On the meter, I should have noted the regular word-break after the first choriamb, so the line runs —uu-/-uu-u-, the break marking the onset of the repeat. As well as being shorter than the dactylic hexameter, aeolic verses have great rhythmical clarity—purity, one might say.

purae rivos aquae silvaque iugerum
paucorum et segetis certa fides meae

Fides certa applied to the rivers, woods and crops.

I don’t think this is quite right. It doesn’t always do to pin Horace down too closely, but here he’s quite exact. Fides certa applies only to the third of the trio, his seges. He can count on having a crop. The first two items, the pure stream (a Callimachean ideal) and the silva, are standard markers of pastoral sans cultivation, but farming, already suggested by the iugera, comes to the fore with segetis certa fides, and the climactic meae signals his pride in ownership of the land (thanks to Octavian, we are given to understand). It’s a shift from nature to (small-scale) culture, from the Eclogues to the Georgics in one easy move, as it were.

As to beatior, grammatically it refers to fides, the closest noun, but its force extends over the whole lot. And of course we understand that it’s descriptive of Horace himself, his happiness being bound up with his rural property. So it’s a kind of beatitude, beatus ille, … converted to a slightly displaced beatus ego: more blessed in his sors than the glorious ruler of Asia, if the glorious ruler of Asia only knew it. (Which is itself a familiar trope, cf. Herodotus’ Croesus on who’s the happiest/richest of them all.)

17

Respectfully, the brilliant ruler’s domain is not Asia but Africa–the breadbasket of Rome. The comparison is between Horace’s humble but reliable plot of cropland and the vast latifundia of Africa that produced the grain that fed Rome.

Horace doesn’t mention that he’s not out there in the field plowing, planting, harvesting, threshing etc. His plot is worked by a crew of slaves while he sits under an arbor drinking Falernian wine mixed with the pure water of the stream, in the company of one of those demimondaines with Greek names who populate the Odes.

18

Yes, Africa not Asia, of course. Sorry about that.

I wonder how many of the Greek-named women are in fact to be imagined as demimondaines. And even how often he drinks wine with one of them. I think the picture is less simple and less consistent. His self-imaging is far less straightforward than Alcaeus’, say.