[18] P. Brumoy, Disc. sur le parall. des Theat. p. 165. Amst. 1732.
[19] Imitations of Horace by Thomas Nevile, M. A. Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, 1758.
[20] There is a considerable difference in the copies of this ode, as given us in the best editions of Athenæus and Diogenes Laertius. But the SIXTH verse is, in all of them, so inexplicable, in respect of the measure, the construction, and the sense, that I have no doubt of its being extremely corrupt. In such a case one may be indulged in making conjectures. And the following one, by a learned person, exactly skilled in the proprieties as well as elegancies of the Greek language, is so reasonable, that I had almost ventured to give it a place in the text.
The Poet had been celebrating v. 3. the divine form of virtue; which inspired the Grecian youth with an invincible courage and contempt of danger. It was natural therefore to conclude his panegyric with some such Epiphonema as this: “Such a passion do’st thou kindle up in the minds of men!”
To justify this passion, he next turns to the fruits, or advantages which virtue yields; which, he tells us, are more excellent than those we receive from any other possession, whether of wealth, nobility, or ease, the three great idols of mankind. Something like this we collect from the obscure glimmerings of sense that occur to us from the common reading,
Τοῖον ἐπὶ φρένα βάλλεις καρπόν τ’ εἰς ἀθάνατον,
Χρυσοῦ τε κρέσσω, &c.
But it is plain, then, that a very material word must have dropt out of the first part of the line, and that there is an evident corruption in the last. In a word, the whole passage may be reformed thus,
Τοῖον ἐπὶ φρέν’ ἜΡΩΤΑ βάλλεις.
Καρπὸν ΦΕΡΕΙΣ ἀθάνατον
Χρυσοῦ τε κρέσσω καὶ γονέων,
Μαλακαυγητοῖό θ’ ὕπνου.
It need not be observed how easily καρπὸν ΤΕΕΙΣ is changed into καρπὸν ΦΕΡΕΙΣ: And as to the restored word ἔρωτα, besides the necessity of it to complete the sense, it exactly suits with σοῖς τε πόθοις in v. 12. Lastly, the measure will now sufficiently justify itself to the learned reader.
[21] Agite, fugite, quatite, Satyri: A verse cited from one of these Latin satyrs by Marius Victorinus.