Horace's "Carpe Diem"

Author(s): R. E. Grimm
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 58, No. 7 (Apr., 1963), pp. 313-318
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South
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HORACE'S CARPE DIEM
ODE
1.11 OF HORACE is well known as
the
carpe diem poem,
and indeed
this
phrase
has become so familiar to-
day
that it is often
quoted, by
those who
know little if
any Horace,
as a tab for
the
"gather ye
rosebuds" theme
promi-
nent in
many
literatures. The ode it-
self, however,
has received
relatively
slight
attention from scholars and com-
mentators, perhaps
because of its
brevity
and
apparent simplicity.'
Yet
it is
very skillfully wrought
and con-
tains some elements which deserve
more careful consideration than to
my
knowledge they
have received. Even
the
carpe diem phrase itself,
when con-
sidered within the framework of the
entire
poem,
assumes a
significance
richer than that
usually assigned
it.
Since this
phrase
comes in the final
line and serves as a climax to the
pro-
gression
of ideas which Horace is de-
veloping,
an
analysis
of the
preceding
lines is
necessary
if we are to realize
more
fully
the
impact
of the words
carpe
diem.
2
The ode has been
variously punctu-
ated,
but none of the
changes suggested
has
seriously
affected the sense. In
the first
sentence,
Tu . . .
numeros,
Horace, addressing Leuconoe, urges
her to cease
perusing astrological
lore
as a means of
ascertaining
the number
of
years
she and Horace have
yet
to
live. In the second
sentence,
Ut .
. .
Tyrrhenum,3
the
poet suggests
to
Leuconoe that it is better
simply
to
accept things
as
they
come from the
hands of
Jupiter.
In the third
sentence,
Sapias
. . .
reseces,
Horace makes
clear what he had intended
by quidquid
erit
pati:
Leuconoe is to
go
about her
normal
tasks, straining
her wines and
putting
an end to
far-reaching hopes.
In the final
sentence,
Dum . . .
postero,
Horace reminds Leuconoe that time is
ever
flying;
therefore she should make
the most of the
present day,
without
concern for the morrow.
A
prose paraphrase fails,
of
course,
to
give any
hint of the
poetic experi-
ence,
but it does reveal the basic frame-
work of the
poem.
Horace is
assuming
the role of a
kindly
lecturer.
Though
the
poet
is
perhaps creating
an
imagin-
ary young
woman4 and an
imaginary
time,
within the world of the
poem
it
is winter
(lines 4-5),
and
Leuconoe,
as
the words vina
liques
of line 6 would
indicate,
is
probably
a servant
girl
with whom Horace is
chatting
in or
near the house.
Having
discovered the
girl poring
over
astrological writings,
Horace
proceeds
to admonish her. The
admonitions bulk
large
in the
poem;
in
fact,
commands or near-commands
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314 R. E. GRIMM
form a
principal
feature of each of the
four sentences. Ne
quaesieris opens
the
poem,
with nec
Babylonios/ temptaris
numeros further
defining,
in Horace's
manner,
what is meant
by
the first
command. In the second
sentence,
ut
melius
quidquid
erit
pati, balancing
the
negative
commands of the first sen-
tence, stipulates
in
general
terms a
more
positive
course of
action;
in the
third
sentence, sapias
is
immediately
made clear
by
vina
liques
and
spem
longam
reseces. The final sentence con-
tains the
summarizing positive injunc-
tion
carpe diem and ends
neatly
in the
near-negative
command
quam
mini-
mum credula
postero,
which
brings
us
back once
again
to the
thought
of the
opening
line. This rather
astonishing
predominance
of the didactic element
would
ordinarily
be intolerable in a
poem
of so brief a
compass.
But Horace
has
carefully
contrived each sentence
so that this "command" element al-
ternates with or is relieved
by
some-
thing
else. For
example,
the
paren-
thetical scire
nefas
of the first sentence
breaks the command and
imparts
a
solemn tone at the
very beginning
of
the
poem:
it is
wrong, impious,
con-
trary
to heaven's will to seek to know
the
future.5 This
emphasis
on divine
will is reinforced
immediately
in line 2
by finem
di dederint
and,
much more
graphically, by
the content of lines
3-6,
which
encompass
the second sentence.
This second sentence starts out con-
ventionally enough:
better to take the
future as it
comes,
without concern
whether
Jupiter grants
us more win-
ters or the last one. Hiemes in line 4
is of course conventional for
annos,6
and Horace with ultimam
(hiemem)
has
seemingly
said all that is neces-
sary
to make his
point.
Hence the con-
tinuing quae . . . Tyrrhenum of lines
5-6
appears at first glance to be mere
poetic elaboration. But it is strange
elaboration,
since Horace is describ-
ing
in these
lines,
in
oddly precise
terms,
the effects of a
merely hypo-
thetical last winter which
Jupiter
is
granting
Leuconoe and
himself;
"a"
winter becomes "this"
winter,
which
is "now"
(nunc) "wearing
out"
(de-
bilitat)
the
Tyrrhenian
Sea
(mare
Tyrrhenum)
"with" or "on" the
"op-
posing,
out-thrust
pumice
rocks"
(op-
positis pumicibus).
These words should raise some
ques-
tions.
They certainly require
closer
analysis
than has
usually
been ac-
corded them.
Why,
for
example,
the
emphatic nunc,
which
points
to a
spe-
cific time? To answer this
question
Verrall7 made the
tempting suggestion
that Horace is
referring
to the con-
struction
by Agrippa
of the Portus
Iulus near Baiae in the winter of 37-36.
Portus Iulus was the naval station from
which in the
following
autumn
Agrippa
initiated successful naval
operations
against
Sextus
Pompey.
Verrall
thought
that
oppositis
should be translated liter-
ally:
the stones were "set
against"
the
sea to form the breakwater behind
which
Agrippa
had
joined
the Lucrine
and Avernian lakes to form an artificial
harbor.
Certainly,
if
pumicibus
is taken
literally,
that volcanic
part
of
Italy's
western coast near Vesuvius is the
logical
candidate to fit Horace's de-
scription; further,
Horace knew this
region
well as a winter resort. He tells
Maecenas in
Epist.
1.7.10-11 that he
winters on the
shore,
and his famili-
arity
with Baiae and the
Naples region
is made clear from Ode 1.4.24 and
Epist.
1.15. No
subsequent editor,
to
my
knowledge,
has referred to Verrall's
suggestion; yet
it
certainly
merits con-
sideration. It cannot be
doubted,
for ex-
ample,
that the
Tyrrhenian
Sea was
considered to extend
along
the shore
around Naples.8 A
strong objection,
however, can be raised to Verrall's
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HORACE'S carpe
diem 315
thesis. He translates
pumicibus
as
"frail stones." Now
many
editors have
interpreted pumex
to mean
soft, porous
rock in
general,
not
necessarily pumice
stone;
and this is
certainly
a
permis-
sible
interpretation,
as commentators'
citations make clear.9 However,
it
hardly
seems
appropriate
to
apply
this
word to the breakwater which
Agrippa
constructed to shelter his harbor from
the sea. To withstand the
impact
of
the
waves,
a breakwater of
porous,
friable stones would have formed an
insufficient barrier.
lo However,
we are
at
liberty
to
interpret pumicibus
liter-
ally
and to consider these stones as
real volcanic
rock,
located on
Italy's
central western coast. We
may imagine
that Horace and Leuconoe
(whose
Greek name
may
be somewhat more
appropriate
in the
Naples region)
are
somewhere within
sight
of the coast
-
perhaps
at Baiae
--and
can view the
wintry
sea as it dashes
against
the
rocky
shore. The word nunc would then
be
accompanied by
a wave of Horace's
hand as he
points
from the house down
to the
sea;
it is intended
by
Horace to
emphasize
the words
following
it.
The
rhythm
of line 5
neatly
isolates
the verb debilitat between the
gram-
matically joined oppositis pumicibus.11
Commentators have been content to
assign
the
general meaning
"breaks
the force of" to the
verb,
the
thought
being
that the sea
spends
its
fury
against
rocks
lying along
the shore.
Lewis and
Short, quoting
this instance
of debilito as a kind of
hapax lego-
menon, duly
translate "breaks its
waves." But the
juxtaposition
of
op-
positis
with debilitat
requires
a more
graphic
translation. The rocks and the
sea are seen as
combatants,
locked in
struggle,
with the rocks
"wearing
down," "maiming," "weakening" their
opponent the sea. Oppositis thus con-
veys
an overtone of
hostility
or
strug-
gle.12 However,
a moment's reflection
about the nature of these combatants
should make us realize that
though
now
(nunc)
the rocks are
wearing
down
their
opponent
the
wintry sea, they
are in
turn, by
their
very
nature as
friable
pumices, being
worn
away,
with the sea
gradually taking
its toll
from them. 13 This
mutually
exhaust-
ing struggle
between elements of land
and sea is the most
compelling
feature
of the canvas which Horace is
paint-
ing
in this
line,
but it is
by
no means
the entire
picture.
For Horace has not
merely
described this combat but has
named its
instigator,
the ultima
hiems,
which,
itself destined
eventually
to
pass away
in the inexorable roll of the
seasons,
is
anything
but benevolent in
its
course;
for it seeks to exhaust one
of nature's inexhaustible
forces,
the
sea
itself, by setting
that sea
against
those
pumice
rocks
along
the shore.
Horace thus
presents
in line 5 the com-
bat of the elements: the winter season
will
pass away,
but while it is
present
it vents its wrath on the sea which will
survive
it, by hurling
that sea
against
the
very
rocks which both blunt the
waves and in turn are blunted
by
them.
This is not
all,
however. To re-create
completely
the
picture
which Horace
presents
we must return to the final
words of line 4. This
strife-arousing
winter, hypothetically
the last which
Horace and Leuconoe are to
see,
is
not,
after
all,
a free
agent:
tribuit
Iuppiter.
Here at last we find the
princeps
omnium,
the lord of the universe who
is both the
dispenser
of our own fate
and master of the
passing
seasons.
There is
something coldly dispassionate
in the word
tribuit; Jupiter
has
duly
set
a bound to the lives of Horace and
Leuconoe -ultimam hiemem. And if
this is to be their last winter on earth,
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316 R. E. GRIMM
what solace does the lord of the
gods
grant
them? Hiems
quae
nunc
oppositis
debilitat
pumicibus
mare
Tyrrhenum:
this is their comfort. This somber
pic-
ture of the
grim
combat between na-
ture's
forces, ultimately
administered
by
the same
dispassionate deity
who
assigns
the bounds to our own
lives,
provides
the essential emotional back-
drop
as
Horace, beginning
with
sapias
in line
6,
resumes his advice to Leu-
conoe
by spelling
out what he had
meant
by quidquid
erit
pati
in line 3.
The advice is brief and
peremptory;
the rather
abrupt sapias
seems de-
signed
to shock Leuconoe to her senses
while the sober
thoughts
aroused
by
the
preceding
lines are still with her. This
injunction
is
immediately
made ex-
plicit by
the words vina
liques
and
spem longam
reseces. Leuconoe is to
strain her
wines, i.e.,
resume her
normal
tasks,
and
"lop off," "prune
away"
her
far-reaching hopes
from
her
spatium breve,
the narrow field of
operations
to
which she is confined.14
Liquo, "filter," "strain,"
a word natu-
ral in the vintner's
vocabulary (as
ex-
amples
in Lewis-Short
show),
seems
appropriately
directed to the servant
girl Leuconoe,
but its further overtones
should not be missed. The commen-
tators
quote passages showing
that the
ancients used a colander or cloth to
rid their wines of
impurities.
There-
fore, metaphorically speaking,
Leu-
conoe is to
get
the
pure
essence of
the "wine" she
has, straining away
the
impurities,
the idle
speculations
about
the future. This
thought
is immediate-
ly
reinforced
by
the
following reseces,
which, taking
its color from
liques,
acquires
the nuance
"prune away"
or
"lop off,"
as I have translated above.
The
metaphor
is
pretty:
Leuconoe's ex-
pectations
are
portrayed
as
straying
tendrils outgrowing her own little "vine-
yard," and she is to prune away the
excess
(spem longam), maintaining
her
hope
within the narrow
plot
that
is her own.15
Moreover, liques
and
reseces, coming
after the
image
of
erosion and
rending by
nature's forces
in line
5,
are
aptly
used to lead
up
to
the
carpe
of the last
sentence; for
Horace is intent
upon showing
Leuconoe
how she
too,
if she
keeps
herself with-
in her
proper limits,
can carve out
(to
maintain the
metaphor)
a modicum of
enjoyment
for herself.
The last sentence
begins
with dum lo-
quimur, whereby
Horace maintains the
fiction of an informal chat between
Leuconoe and himself.
Fugerit
invida
aetas is
masterfully placed just
before
the
summarizing carpe diem;
Horace
makes clear once more the malevolence
of natural forces. In line
5,
winter
(a
re-
curring aspect
of
aetas)
was
portrayed
as
pitting
sea
against
stone.
Here,
time is considered as an unbroken en-
tity,
and it is
"grudging," "spiteful."
It
begrudges
a man even those
days
which, part
of the endless succession
of
days composing it,
coincide with
his lifetime. Confronted
by
this
spite-
ful
aetas,
what is Leuconoe to do?
Horace's answer is
carpe
diem. Com-
mentators have been divided as to the
meaning
of the
metaphor,
some
pre-
ferring
the
thought
of
plucking
the
flower
(i.e., gaining
the
pure essence)
of the
present day,
others
thinking
that
Horace
urges
Leuconoe to snatch the
fleeing joys
before
they escape
her. It
is
idle,
I
think,
to
prefer
either
interpre-
tation,
since both
metaphors
are
opera-
tive. The horticultural
imagery
initiated
by
vina
liques
and
spem longam
reseces
finds its culmination in
carpe diem,
in
which dies
is, metaphorically,
the fine
flower to be
plucked
in Leuconoe's little
garden.16
But in view of the immedi-
ately preceding
invida aetas and the
disquieting
overtones of line 5, the
picture of Leuconoe snatching fleeing
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HORACE'S carpe diem
317
joys
before
they escape
her combines
with the first
picture
and
produces
a
powerful
double effect.
Carpe
is a
strong
word:
"rend," "snatch," "tear";
but it is
appropriately applied
to
Leuconoe
only
after the
preceding
lines
have made clear the
precise
nature of
her
ability
to do so. For
against
the
background
of a
spiteful, rending
uni-
verse,
administered
by
a
dispassionate
Jupiter, Leuconoe, too, though
a frail
mortal,
can snatch
something
for her-
self,
since even
grudging
time must
grant
her some
days
from his abundant
store. Horace's
point
is that this
gift
of
"today"
time is
always taking away.
Time "will have fled" with the
present
day
before
Leuconoe,
in her
preoccupa-
tion with the
future,
will have
noticed;
and
thereby
she will be
doubly foolish,
having
lost
today
in a vain
attempt
to
know tomorrow.
However,
if she but
"snatch
away"
from time each
day
as
it is
presented
to
her,
she
can,
in a
sense,
assert her own
individuality
in
the face of a
grim
universe whose ele-
ments are
frequently engaged
in a
struggle
of mutual annihilation
(the
Lucretian overtones of this little ode
extend
beyond
the obvious one in-
volved in the conventional
interpreta-
tion of
carpe diem).
She
can, finally,
"snatch
away" something
from
time,
which snatches
away
all
things
eventu-
ally. Thereby Leuconoe,
as
long
as she
realizes the limitations within which
she can exercise her
power,
can
gain
some
compensation
from a universe
which remains
supremely
unconcerned
about her as an individual.
R. E.
GRIMM
University of California
Davis
1
The ode was among
those not discussed by
Eduard Fraenkel in his recent valuable study,
Horace
(Oxford 1957). Walter Wili, Horaz
(Basel
1948),
and L. P. Wilkinson, Horace and
his
lyric
poetry (Cambridge 1946),
touch
upon
the ode only
inm passing.
2
The text used in the following
discussion is
that of Wickham and Garrod (Oxford 1912).
Among
the commentaries, the following
will ordi-
narily
be cited hereafter
by
editor's name only:
C. E. Bennett, Horace, Odes and Epodes (Boston
1901); A. Y. Campbell, Horace, Odes and Epodes
(Liverpool 1953); A. Kiessling and R. Heinze,
Q.
Horattus
Flaccus,
Oden und
Epoden7 (Berlin
1930); A. J. Macleane and R. H. Chase,
The
works
of
Horace
(Boston 1886);
C. H. Moore,
Horace,
The Odes and
Epodes (New
York 1902);
C. W. Nauck,
Des
Q.
Horatius Flaccus Oden und
Epoden (Leipzig 1894); I. C. Orelli, Q.
Horatius
Flaccus2, vol. 1
(Zurich 1843);
T. E.
Page,
A.
Palmer, A. S. Wilkin, Q.
Horatz Flaccz Opera
(London 1910);
H. Schtitz, Q. Horatius Flaccus,
Oden und Epoden2 (Berlin 1880); G. B. Wheeler,
The works of Horace5, vol. 1
(Dublin 1865);
E. C.
Wickham, The works
of Horace, vol. 1 (Oxford
1881).
3
Bennett, Kiessling, Macleane, Moore, Nauck,
Page,
and Schlitz
put
either a
period or a colon
after
Tyrrhenum. Orelli, Wheeler,
and
Wickham,
with a full
stop
after
patz,
make the seu . .
Tyrrhenum clause the protasis of a condition of
which the conclusion is
sapias
. . . reseces. The
punctuation is
largely
a matter of
taste;
to me
there is a definite
advantage to be
gained by
the
sudden
asyndeton
after
Tyrrhenum in line 6,
whereby
Horace's
abrupt commands to Leuconoe
are separated
from what immediately precedes.
Campbell, objecting
to exclamatory ut
with
melius,
has emended to at
medztans
("but prac-
ticing"),
thus achieving
an unbroken sentence
from line 1 to reseces of line 7. This is unneces-
sary. Kiessling quotes
an adequate parallel
for
ut
with a comparative,
Plaut. True. 806: ut
faczlIus
alta quam alia eundem puerum unuim parit. Just,
too, is Kiessling's observation that ut is not used
for quanto,
but instead strengthens
the entire
sentence. A varlation of this interpretation
is to
consider ut as strengthening
an understood est:
ut est melius
pati quidquid
ertt. This last view is
that of
Schtitz,
who has a
good
discussion of the
expression.
4
This is
certainly possible.
Orelli and Moore
think that Leuconoe was a fictitious name em-
ployed by
Horace
simply
for its
pleasing
sound.
Others,
like Wickham and Bennett, claim that
Horace derived the name from leuk6s and
noils,
but remain undecided whether Horace thinks
Leuconoe "clear-headed" or
"empty-minded."
J. A.
Smith, "Metonomy
in
Horace, Odes, Book
I.xi,"
CR 33
(1919) 27-8, fancifully
detects an
allusion to Meton, the great geometrician-astrono-
mer, who came from the Attic deme of Leuconoe.
N. Festa in
RendLinc 1936, 112-18, after rejecting
previous hypotheses
about Leuconoe's name,
argues
for the thesis that Leuconoe is a real
person, a
"ragazza
di
albergo" or "donna casa-
linga"
in a Lucanian winter retreat visited
by
Horace. However, his case rests
primarily
on an
unlikely identification of Leuconoe with the
Lucana amica of
Epist. 1.15.21.
5
Kiessling
and others
give
the
meaning "im-
possible" to
nefas, comparing
1.24.20.
qutdquid
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318
corrigere est nefas. This seems to me as out of
place
in that
passage as in the present one.
There, Horace's point
is that it is "wickedness"
to
try
to
tamper with fate and
bring Quintilius
back to life.
Mercury (the embodiment of
heaven's
will) is
specifically non levis precibus
fata recludere (line 17).
In the
present ode, too,
Leuconoe would be
acting contrary to divine will
in her
attempt to know the end vouchsafed her
and Horace. The kind of divine
authority por-
trayed by
Horace in this ode is not one to be
tampered with.
6
Both
Kiessling
and Moore cite 1.15.35:
post
certas hIemes.
7 A. W. Verrall,
Studies literary and
historical
in
the odes of Horace (London 1884), 113-14.
8
Vergil, Georg. 2.161-4
(quoted by Verrall,
loc. cit.), specifically calls the sea outside the
Lucrine and Avernian lakes
Tyrrhenus,
and
Turseonzk6s
is the name Dio Cassius
applies
(48.50.2)
to the sea outside Lake Lucrinus.
9 A common citation is
Verg.
Aen. 5.213-14:
columba, / cut domus et dulces latebroso in
pum-
tce ntdt.
10
Servius on
Georg.
2.161 attributes to Julius
Caesar the
building
of the
breakwater, though
inm
the
commentary
on the next line he mentions
also
Agrippa's
work of
joining
the two lakes of
Lucrinus and Avernus.
Pliny,
H.N. 36.125, refers
to mare
Tyrrhenum
a Lucrino molibus seclusum
without
attributing
the construction to either
Caesar or
Agrippa.
11 Wilkinson (see note 1), 142, acutely observes
another effect: "The relentless pounding of the
sea is well represented by
the reiterated quad-
rlsyllables."
12
Cf Serm. 2.5.94-5: extrahe turba
/ oppositis
umeris.
13 Cf Lucr. 1.326: vesco sale saxa pere3a, com-
monly quoted by commentators on this line of
Horace.
14
So far as I
know, no one has
suggested
that
spatto
brevw
is an ablative of
separation. The
usual view, followed
by
all commentators
except
Kiessling, is that
spatzum
here means
"space of
ltfe";
most take
spatto
brevw
as an ablative
absolute, with the sense
being: since her
space
of
life is
short, Leuconoe should cut off distant
expectations. Kiessling interprets
spatzum
to
mean "der Abstand
gemessen von der
Gegenwart
aus." The
thought
would be that Leuconoe is to
confine her
hopes within today
or the near future.
A.
O. Hulton, CR n.s. 8 (1958) 106-7, challenges
both the conventional view and
Kiessling.
He
points out that:
(1)
when
spatzum
means "extent
of life" the reference is
always explicit; (2) not
shortness of
life, but the
unknowability
of the
future is Horace's main
point; and
(3) spatto
brevi, considered as a
parenthetical ablative
absolute, breaks the flow of
thought;
it
logically
belongs to the sentence as a whole. As for
Kiessling, Hulton thinks that spatto brevi as a
measure of distance can only mean "cut down
by a short space," that is, "take a little bit off."
Hulton's own proposal, however, gives a sense
differing little from Klessling's interpretation. He
feels that spatto brevi is a sort of instrumental-
local ablative with reseces, which he regards as
analogous to verbs of restraining or limiting, such
as claudo or contineo. Spatto brevi, he says,
"may therefore naturally be taken of the brief
extent 'by' ('to,' 'within') which, says Horace,
hope must be reduced and circumscribed " In
support he quotes Liv. 2.50 7: cogebantur brevtore
spatio et ipst orbem cotligere, and Ov. Fastz
6.495-6: est
spatao
contracta
brevw
. . . terra
While Hulton's refutation of the conventional view
of spatio brevr is convincing, his own interpreta-
tion can be challenged on the following counts.
(1) reseco in its metaphorical sense of "curtail"
or "restrain" is possibly analogous to verbs of
restraining such as
contzneo
or compesco, but
Hulton
is-unable
to provide an example of its use
with such an ablative as he describes; (2) follow-
Ing the vivid and concrete
lhques
and
preceding
the equally forceful carpe, reseces
gains much if
its primary concrete sense, "cut off," "lop
away," is emphasized; (3) since Horace specifi-
cally says that the spes is longa, how can it be
confined within the spatium breve? Rather, as I
have said, the ablative is most
simply explained
as one of separation: Leuconoe is to rid herself of
such hopes as this by cutting them off from her
spatzum,
which will
here mean not
"lifetime," but
rather her
limlted
scope, the little plot allotted a
humble
servant girl in the scheme of
things.
Aurea
mediocrztas
once again: Leuconoe should
prune away such hopes as do not sort with her
circumstances. For the use of reseces with the
ablative of separation, cf. (with a preposition)
Cic. Verr. 2.3.50: de vivo altquid erat
resecandum,
and Ov. Met. 8.649: servatoque diu resecat de
tergore partem; also (without a
preposition,
where the ablative
may
be either local or one of
separation) Ov. Met. 7 264:
illhc
Haemonia
radzces
valle resectas.
(All these
quotations ap-
pear in Lewis-Short s. v.
reseco.)
15 Steele
Commager, "The function of wine in
Horace's odes," TAPA 88
(1957) 75, n
15, also
sees a horticultural
metaphor in
spem longam
reseces. On
p 73, n.
12, he
suggests on
wvna
liques:
"Vzna lhques
(6) may further
suggest the
clarity of allegiance to the present, as
opposed to
the obscure prophecies of
Babylonian astrolo-
gers."
16 For Horace's
possible derivation of the words
carpe
dzem
from Epicurus, see P.
Keseling, PhW
47 (1927) 508-9
Though Epicurus
perhaps
in-
spired this
phrase, Horace's use of it
is, as I
hope has been
shown, integrated with the
major
themes of the ode.
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