Horace, Odes, Book 3, No. 25

Latin Learning Latin
1

I submit this for review. I am, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, using tools I haven’t mastered. There are so many ways that I might have gone wrong, or have turned an easy problem into a difficult one, that I need expert commentary.

The context is the expression of awe at the power of Bacchus. The passage starts in the fourth stanza:

o Naiadum potens
Baccharumque valentium
proceras manibus vertere fraxinos,

nil parvum aut humili modo,
nil mortale loquar.

My translation:
“Oh I would sing the power infusing Naiads
and the strong Bacchantes,
to tear down lofty ash trees with bare hands,
nothing trivial and in no ordinary tune
nothing mortal.”

I read this as a sentence of indirect discourse.

Loquar . . . potens . . . vertere . . . fraxinos

nil parvum . . . nil mortale: neuter singular, appositives of potens

potens I read as an adjective used substantively, neuter, accusative, for the indwelling power from Bacchus to do these things.

vertere: I believe this has to be an infinitive, rather than the perfect, active, 3rd person plural. This was the critical moment in my study of this passage. The rationale for this is my understanding of the metrics of this line:

proceras manibus / vertere fraxinos
_ _ _ u u _ / _ u u _ u _ (Asclepiad line)

The first syllable of “vertere” is long by position. The second syllable, if the 3rd person plural, perfect active indicative were intended, ought to be long by nature, as I understand; but metrics wants a short syllable.

As I said, I may have gone wrong in several ways here, but if I did, then getting this corrected will be helpful to me.

2

Potens is vocative: O you who have power over the naiads … He’s renewing his address to Bacchus.

vertere depends on valentium: and the bacchanals who have the strength to … . Horace has Euripides’ Bacchae in mind.

nil parvum etc. is governed by loquar (which I take as future rather than as a prayer).

All clear now?

3

Thanks for the reply.

I understand the vocative potens. That matches the repetition of the vocative in the poem, as I now see. The vocative is one of my weak points, as is continuity through a work.

But I must be missing something about “valentium”, which I read as genitive plural, modifying Baccharum. I don’t get the relation between “valentium” and “vertere” you allude to. I haven’t read that play of Euripedes.

Are you suggesting something like this:

O ruler of the Naiads,
and of the might of the Bacchantes to tear down tall ash-trees"

4

valentium [vertere] – “able to” or better, “strong enough to [overturn . . .],”

Lewis and Short valeo II B f notes that valeo + infinitive is mostly a poetic usage, at least in Horace’s era, and cites several examples from Horace:

With inf. (mostly poet. and in postAug. prose; not in Cic. or Cæs.): nam si certam finem esse viderent Aerumnarum homines, aliquā ratione valerent Religionibus … obsistere, Lucr. 1, 108: hanc ob rem vitam retinere valemus, id. 3, 257: nec continere suos ab direptione castrorum valuit, Liv. 38, 23, 4 Weissenb. ad loc.: quam (urbem) neque finitimi valuerunt perdere Marsi, Hor. Epod. 16, 3: cetera … adeo sunt multa, loquacem Delassare valent Fabium, id. S. 1, 1, 13; id. C. 4, 7, 27: nec valuit locos coeptos avertere cursus, Tib. 4, 1, 55: qui relicti erant … ne conspectum quidem hostis sustinere valuerunt, Curt. 3, 4, 5: neque ex eo infamiam discutere valuit, Suet. Caes. 79.

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.20:81.lewisandshort

"ruler of the Naiads and of the Bacchantes who are able to . . . "

Glad to see you’re working on the metrics!

5

valentium is present participle of valeo, modifying baccharum as you say. valeo with infinitive (here vertere) means to have the strength to do something, to be strong enough to do something.
O ruler of … the bacchants having-the-strength to pull up lofty ash trees, i.e. of the bacchants who have the strength to ….

In Euripides’ play the bacchants uproot a fir-tree that Pentheus is perched on top of and then tear him to pieces, all with their bare hands.

Once you’ve worked your way through an ode it’s a good idea to try to view it as a whole, taking in its overall structure and progression.

EDIT. Sorry, I see Hylander’s already written.

6

Well, this was a productive session, thanks to Hylander and mwh. At least I’m making a higher class of mistake.

7

Do I take it correctly that the infinitive vertere is classified as an infinitive complement of valentium?


Trying to make potens the subject accusative of vertere led me astray, and I was tempted to try this by the failure to parse potens as vocative. Adding to the fog was another difficulty:l making out the relations of several genitives placed near each other.

8

Do I take it correctly that the infinitive vertere is classified as an infinitive complement of valentium?

Yes, exactly.