BOOKTEXT6

LYDIA

The four Odes about Lydia cover an unknown space of time since, in them, she progresses from a young girl to an older woman, although old in this poetical context may mean no longer attractive, desirable or even fashionable. The attitude of the poet to Lydia ranges from open admiration through besotted infatuation to an apparent cruel sarcasm and on to a final reconciliation. In form they differ greatly, much in keeping with the general feeling engendered by each poem. Was Lydia a real person? Was Horace her lover? Is it the same woman throughout? Reading the four Odes in sequence, one is made aware of an underlying thread of consciousness that one is indeed reading about the same person, as much by Horace's own attitude to her as by any persona that emerges from the text. As for Horace's personal involvement with her, there is also the feeling of a carefully controlled mixture of despair and joy in her company, that emanates from his words. In all, one is left with the certainty that Horace is describing a true emotional passage in his life, a passage where he was racked by feelings of love for this attractive woman.

Lydia is first encountered through Horace's eyes by her effect on his friend, Sybaris, whose masculine pursuits are completely diverted by her charms. Horace plaintively asks her what has happened to his friend. Where once he had a adventurous companion he now no longer sees him around his old haunts. We gain a background of the pursuits of young men of the leisured class in Imperial Rome and although there are some strange references, in general the picture is that of the same devastating effect of first love on a young man that pertains today. Lydia is next encountered as the mistress of Horace himself and Horace displays all the vulnerability of a man in love with a woman, uncertain of his hold and conscious of the envy of others and their desire to possess what he considers to be his. The two feelings that emanate from this poem are that Horace is much older than Lydia and that he feels himself at a disadvantage, not only because of this but because of his own physical imperfections, real or imaginary. The poem ends with platitudes on love, constancy and togetherness but with the overall feeling tha Horace is fooling only himself.

At first sight the third poem on Lydia seems cruel and one assumes that Horace is taking revenge. Lydia is painted as living a lonely life, shunned by men and not even attracting the attention of bawdy youth. It is a savage reversal of Horace's concern where once, in the middle poem, it was precisely this attention that drove him to jealousy. However, careful inspection reveals that neither Lydia's age nor her circumstances are what they seem! The fourth poem is an amusing reconciliation between old adversaries. Both have new partners, in Horace's case it is Chloe, both, it seems, would die for their new love but above all, both would like to return to the old days when they lived only for each other. While it is last in the sequence of four, its general feeling would place it third, since Horace's Ode to the older Lydia seems so final. However, love being what it is, who knows? Taken as a group, these poems display a virtuosity in conveying emotion by sheer poetical craftmanship. The word content, the rhythmic form and the overall impact of the invidual poems convey a life like Lydia, her disturbing beauty in the first two, the abyss of feeling that the passing of that beauty engenders in the third and the air of teasing playfulness in the fourth. One cannot invent a three dimensional woman such as Lydia from the recesses of a purely objective imagination however much aesthetic creativity is applied. If Lydia is not a real person then Horace had a model in mind; if his emotion was not lavished specifically on her, it already had been lavished on someone else. These are undoubtedly poems born of experience.

ODES I, 8

Cultus in caedem et Lycias proriperet catervas?

LYDIA – IN HER YOUTH

Lydia, by all the gods

I beg, say why you are hurrying Sybaris to ruin

With love, why has he,

Once so tolerant of sun and dust forsaken the campus

Why no longer rides

Amongst his cavalry cronies, nor controls the Gallic

Mount with sharp bridle

Why fears he the touch of murky Tiber? Why avoid

Olive oil more cautiously

Than viper's blood, nor now exult in forearm bruised

From weapon drill, renowned

For discus and javelin, easily across the boundary?

Why hide, as they say did the son of

Thetis, Sea Goddess, when piteous Troy was doomed to

Dreadful death, lest his habit

Of male attire, bring him to death at Lycian hands?

ODES I, 13

Suprema citius solvet amor die.

LYDIA – IN HER PRIME

O Lydia, when you praise the nape

Of Telephus's rosy neck, the smooth waxen skin

Of Telephus's forearm, alas, my impetuous

Liver boils with passion and with dangerous bile.

Then, for me, neither my feelings

Nor my composure, stay unchanged and tears steathily

Begin to form in eyelids, proving

With what glowing internal fires I may be consumed.

I burn whether some brawl made hot

With unmixed wine, has defiled your chaste shoulders

Or whether this wild, drunken youth

Has marked with teeth, lasting imprints on your lip.

Enough, if you will listen to me

From one who would so savagely hurt the sweet little

Mouth Venus has moistened with a fifth

Part of her nectar, you may not expect constancy.

Three times, and more, happy

They whose bond holds fast nor incompatible feelings

Break up by stupid quarrels

Until love unloosens when the final day is reached.

ODES I, 25

Dedicet Euro

LYDIA – GROWING OLD

Seldom are groups of youths impudently

Shaking your shutters with repeated blows,

Nor is sleep taken away, the outer door

Loves the threshold

That once moved so often and so easily upon

The hinges. Less and less now you hear:

"Lydia, you sleep, the long nights waste away

And I for you."

In turn you will lament the arrogance of lovers

An insignificant woman alone in a narrow street,

More a bacchante than the Thracian wind before

The crescent moon,

When for you, burning love and violent desire

That, more in keeping with furious mares in heat,

Will rage around your liver so wounded by love,

Not without lament,

That joyful youth rejoices far more in green ivy

And also in dark green myrtle and will surrender

Old and withered foliage to Winter's companion,

The East Wind.

ODES III, 9

Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens!"

LYDIA – RECONCILIATION

"So long as I was pleasing to you

Nor some better youth was throwing his arms

About your beautiful neck

I thrived more content than the Persia's king."

"So long as for no other you were

Burning more and it was not Lydia after Chloe

I, Lydia, flourished in name

Much more brilliantly than Roman Ilia."

"Thracian Chloe rules me now,

Knowing the lyre and experienced in delicate melodies,

I shall not be afraid to die before,

If the Fates will spare the life to be continued on."

"Calais, son of Thurian Ornytus

Burns me with the torch of reciprocal love,

For whom I will endure to die twice,

If the Fates will spare the boy to live on."

"What if erstwhile love returns again

And collects her separated lovers under a brazen yoke?

If golden yellow Chloe is thrown out

And to rejected Lydia the door lies wide open?"

"Although he is more beautiful than

The stars, you are more trifling than that cork and

More inclined to anger that the wild Adriatic,

With you I would love to live, with you gladly die"

ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

The Ode to Lydia in her youth, is a cascade of questions which can all be completed with the same obvious answer. They are posed as allusions to the interrupted pursuits of her lover Sybaris. – Cur properes ... perdere? – cur ... oderit campum? – cur neque ... equitet? – cur timet ... Tiberim? cur olivum ... vitat? – Quid latet? Love of Lydia is the obvious answer and the interrupted pursuits are those of a young Roman male undergoing the required military training after assuming the toga virilis. By which we may assume that Sybaris is between fifteen and seventeen years of age. The age of Lydia is problematical but the assumption of similar youthfulness is a charitable gesture.

amando sits more comfortably in translation as an ablative noun, 'with love' suiting the metrical context and English syntax better than the alernative 'with loving'.

Apricum campum 'the open field', contrasted with patiens pulveris ... solis 'suffering dust and sun', allows a compression in translation. Suffering is not really implied and tolerance can be assumed, while the open field is known to be the barrack square.

Militaris inter aequales implies cavalry exercises as a company rather than an individual; Gallica ... frenis implies the necessary training to control the Gallic cavalry horse to command amongst a mass of others, rather than a riding lesson.

Flavum ... tangere 'yellow coloured' or 'murky' and 'to touch'. Swimming in the Tiber is implied, either in training or for pleasure. Whether the river is coloured by the spring thaws or by the effluent from the Roman sewerage system is equally unclear; the former would be a seasonal, the latter a constant, peril. In either event, the present infinitive tangere, 'to touch' falls better as a substantive, 'the touch', in translation.

Sanguine viperino cautius 'more cautiously than viper's blood', implies the belief that a snake's blood also contains its venom and its mere touch on skin with open wounds would be fatal. Olive oil was used in athletics, particularly wrestling, part of military training. Neque ... bracchia 'nor exults in bruised arms' picks up the viper's blood motif while saepe ... expedito underlines the athletic prowess required of a young Roman male.

Ut marinae filium dicunt Thetidis 'as they say the son of the Sea Goddess Thetis'. The son of the Sea Goddess Thetis was of course Achilles; sub lacrimosa Troiae funera, 'before the piteous deaths of Troy' the culmination of all the deaths, including his own, at Troy. Achilles is said to have remained hidden to avoid going to the Trojan War but both he and Troy were doomed by the Gods from the beginning. The context of this line is therefore that one cannot avoid one's fate and that since love of Lydia is decreed for Sybaris, remaining hidden will not save him. The comparison is heavy but in keeping with the mock seriousness of the whole piece. Ne virilis cultus 'lest the habit of male attire', is an unintended pun while in caedem ... catervas?, 'bring him death by Lycian troops of soldiers' closes the comparisons. Quinn suggests that virilis cultus might be strengthened in translation to have the meaning 'playing the part of a man', as a reference to the post–puberty appetite of a young male. If so, caedem ... catervas is a little strong as a corollary and it is doubtful if Horace intended this. As with most of the love poetry of Horace, Fraenkel has nothing to say on this, or any of the other Lydia Odes.

ODE I, 13

Uror ... rixae ... turparunt candidos umeros, 'I burn ... a drunken brawl ... defiles the shining shoulder', is a magnificent summary of drunken revelry and the unease of an older escort, with such a young desirable woman, in such company. Sive puer furens impressit ... labris, 'whether a wild youth ... impresses ... lips' compounds the outrage.

Si me satis audias and non ... speres perpetuum dulcia barbare 'listen to me – do not expect anything good from such a barbarian' are the immediate and jealous response of a lover in such circumtances. Laedentem oscula, ... Venus ... imbuit 'one who would hurt the little mouth that Venus has moistened with nectar' is the reason given implying that he, the lover, suffers from no such lack of reverence and, in consequence, underlying his lack of excititement to Lydia.

Felices ... copula 'three times happier they with secure bonds' must surely compound the lacking quality of Horace the lover, for Lydia. What woman in the midst of the wild party circuit would respond to such words. Her pleasures are immediate, her expectations short term. Nec malis ... querimoniis divulsus ... suprema ... die 'nor evil quarrels separate us ... until love is loosened by death' would almost cetainly bring the affair to an end.

This Ode is about Roman society and the party circuit. Telephus is young, handsome and well born; Horace is short and fat, and the son of a freedman with a tendency to social paranoia. Lydia is a healthy and beautiful young woman who responds to flattery and attention, as would be expected. The age old ingredients are there and youth has no respect for convention. Taunting an older man by flirting with his younger partner has always been good as a source of amusement. Everything lies in the response of the older man and Horace allows the situation to get out of hand. This is beautiful poetry wryly set against the poet himself, while commenting on an age old dilemma. Quinn does not see Horace actively involved with Lydia here but acting more in the nature of a confidant, a position surely difficult to substantiate in the first three stanzas; the deep feelings that emanate here are surely motivated by righteous anger at an intrusion rather than those of a disinterested observer. Fraenkel apparently does not consider this Ode worth any attention at all.

ODES I, 25.

Parents of young daughters may well read the first stanza of this Ode with vague feelings of recognition and relief. Young men knocking on shutters at odd hours of the night are symbols of youth, of youth knowing no restraint or acknowledging no conventions. Conversely, the absence of such nocturnal visits is a symbol of growing up, when youth begins to give way to social responsibilities. So, Parcius ... protervi and nec ... adimunt 'seldom the shaking of shutters and the loss of sleep' need not be taken as the onset of old age but the normal transformation of adolescence into adulthood.

Similarly, amatque ianua ... cardines 'the outer door now loves the architrave that once moved on welcoming hinges', need not reflect the constantly opening and closing of a prostitute's front door but the stealthly comings and goings of youthful escapades. This allows us to regard "me tuo ... Lydia dormis?" 'the night is young Lydia and you sleep?', free of sinister implications and more in the nature of the hoarse whispers of youthful voices in need of company.

Invicem moechos ... arrogantes flebis 'in turn you will lament the arrogance of lovers' is a sudden switch of emphasis: Horace warns Lydia of what the progression to adulthood holds in store while implying that he has suffered arrogance from Lydia herself. Anus ... in solo levis angiportu, 'an old woman alone in a deserted alleyway' is where that progression ultimately leads. It seems reasonable to assume that Horace is using 'old' here to mean to mean no longer attractive, in keeping with the opening stanza, rather than a statement of true age, in order to underline the fact that Lydia has passed the peak of her beauty. It could therefore be regarded as an allegorical warning, a picture of a woman on the streets as the ultimate shame, so beloved of our Victorian ancestors. It is refreshing to find that it was also in use in Roman society. Thracio ... vento, 'more bacchante than the Thracian wind under a new moon', is perhaps piling on the agony, picturing the disciple of Dionysus driven to sexual extremes by the hot, dry wind from Thrace and the rampant new moon, lying on its back. Cum tibi ... equorum ... ulcerosum 'when burning love and violent desire ... like mares in heat ... wounded by love ... will rage' so Horace completes the picture of Lydia's future degradation.

Non sine questu ... hedera virenti ... pulla ... myrto, 'not without grief that young men prefer greener growths': Horace points out the consequence, that young men prefer younger women. Aridas frondes ... dedicet Euro, 'surrendering older branches ... to winter's fires', and, says Horace, consign older, if more experienced, women to more suitable situations.

This Ode on Lydia surprises us. Initially it looks like a counterblast to an old woman who had treated Horace badly; in fact it is presumably prompted by pique and jealousy on Horace's part. Lydia emerges as still a young woman while Horace is telling her that her lifestyle will end in her downfall. Not only does it change our perspective on Lydia but it makes sense of the reconciliation of Horace and Lydia in Ode III, 9. It also prompts the questioning of Lydia's status in Roman society. Hitherto she has been variously regarded as a prostitute, a courtesan or a married woman and adulteress. Here she could be regarded as the daughter of a freedman, a freedwoman on her own part or even part of the Establishment, but, in any case, quite independent as a person.

ODES III, 9.

This Ode is about a Lydia some way removed from the Lydia of the other three Odes. Horace has since had relationships with Glycera and is now involved with Chloe, while Lydia is involved with a younger man, Calais. It is in the form of a dialogue between the old lovers, where one stanza from one partner is followed by one from the other partner and both stanzas follow the same rhythmic formula.

The first two stanzas are remembrances of the old days. Donec ... tibi, 'when I was pleasing to you', the scene is set, nec ... bracchia ... cervici ... dabat 'nor some better youth was throwing arms around the shining neck'; echoes of Telephus in I, 13? Persarum ... beatior, 'I thrived more content than Persia's king,' presumably a standard of lifestyle to which Romans aspired.

This is answered by, Donec ... Lydia post Chloen 'when you burned for no other and Lydia was first,' matching Horace's remembrance. Multi Lydia ... Ilia 'Lydia flourished in name more so than Roman Ilia', the supreme accolade of Roman womanhood, to be compared with Ilia, mother of Romulus.

The third and fourth stanzas are a statement of their present position with new lovers. For Horace, me nunc ... Chloe ... citharae sciens 'Thracian Chloe, skilled in music, rules me now'. Thus his involvement, pro qua ... mori ... superstiti 'accordingly I shall not be afraid to die if she is spared', thus his intention.

For Lydia, me torret ... Calais ... Ornyti 'Calais burns me with mutual love', thus Lydia's involvement, pro quo ... mori ... superstiti 'for whom I will die twice if he be spared', thus her intention.

The fifth and sixth stanzas explore possibilities. Quid se ... aeneo? ' 'What if past love returns and gathers us under its yoke?' Horace questions, then elaborates, si flava ... Chloe reiectaeque ... Lydiae? 'and golden Chloe is rejected for Lydia?'

Lydia replies, Quamquam ... pulchrior ... est 'although he is more beautiful than the stars', and continues disparagingly, tu levior ... iracundior Hadria 'and you of no more substance than a cork and angrier than the Adriactic'. She concludes, tecum vivere ... tecum obeam 'with you I would live, with you I will die.' Thus, apart from being a delighful work on the subject of reconciliation, this Ode ties the Lydia quartet together and enables us to see Horace and Lydia as believable people; a pair of lovers subjected to the rigours of love's differences.'Lydia' may well have been pseudonym but was undoubtedly the subject of a real experience in Horace's life.