Context: Horace signals his intention to shift his writing from lyric poetry, to the philosophical, and seeks to overcome resistance by his patron Maecenas.
I’ve been struggling with the first line of this letter, and need some help on its grammar.
Prima dicte mihi, summa dicende Camena,
spectatum satis et donatum iam rude quaeris,
Maecenas, iterum antiquo me includere ludo.
Here are my grammar calls, very much in the spirit of “run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes it.”
dicte . . . dicende: participles in agreement with Maecenas, vocative case.
Camena: a muse. I’m going to guess ablative case, ablative of the origin.
prima . . . summa: both plural, neuter adjectives, with substantive force, direct objects of their respective participles.
Maecenas: vocative, not nominative.
So the first line means something like this:
Oh [Maecenas] celebrated [dicte ]in the first words to me [from my muse], and who should be celebrated [dicende] in the last ones from Camena [ my muse ],
The sense of the remainder becomes clear after some dictionary work.
spectatum: idiom, seen and approved in the gladiatorial ring.
donatum . . . rude: idiom, awarded the wooden sword, symbol of honorable retirement of gladiators.
ludo: special meaning, a gladiatorial training school.
So the remainder means something like this: after enough acclaim in the arena, I’ve been honorably retired, but you strive to lock me back up in the gladiatorial institute.