"Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotus-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind."
See the whole of the passage.
Had Horace known anything of natural science, he might not have gone so far to seek for the explanation of the seeming miracle.
Gibbon speaks contemptuously of many of the incidents recorded in this poem, asking, "How could a man of taste reflect on them the day after?" But the poem has much more than a merely literary interest; thanks to such passages as these, and to the charming tribute by Horace to his friends previously cited.
Nothing can better illustrate the footing of easy friendship on which he soon came to stand with Maecenas than the following poem, which must have been written before the year B.C. 32; for in that year Terentia became the mistress of the great palace on the Esquiline, and the allusion in the last verse is much too familiar to have been intended for her. Horace, whose delicacy of stomach was probably notorious, had apparently been the victim of a practical joke—a species of rough fun to which the Romans of the upper classes appear to have been particularly prone. It is difficult otherwise to understand how he could have stumbled at Maecenas's table on a dish so overdosed with garlic as that which provoked this humorous protest. From what we know of the abominations of an ordinary Roman banquet, the vegetable stew in this instance must have reached a climax of unusual atrocity.
"If his old father's throat any impious sinner
Has cut with unnatural hand to the bone,
Give him garlic, more noxious than hemlock, at dinner.
Ye gods! the strong stomachs that reapers must own!
"With what poison is this that my vitals are heated?
By viper's blood—certes, it cannot be less—
Stewed into the potherbs; can I have been cheated?
Or Canidia, did she cook the villainous mess?
"When Medea was struck by the handsome sea-rover,
Who in beauty outshone all his Argonaut band,
This mixture she took to lard Jason all over,
And so tamed the fire-breathing bulls to his hand.
"With this her fell presents she dyed and infected,
On his innocent leman avenging the slight
Of her terrible beauty, forsaken, neglected,
And then on her car, dragon-wafted, took flight.
"Never star on Apulia, the thirsty and arid,
Exhaled a more baleful or pestilent dew,
And the gift, which invincible Hercules carried,
Burned not to his bones more remorselessly through.
"Should you e'er long again for such relish as this is,
Devoutly I'll pray, wag Maecenas, I vow,
With her hand that your mistress arrest all your kisses,
And lie as far off as the couch will allow."
It is startling to our notions to find so direct a reference as that in the last verse to the "reigning favourite" of Maecenas; but what are we to think of the following lines, which point unequivocally to Maecenas's wife, in the following Ode addressed to her husband (Odes, II. 12)?
"Would you, friend, for Phrygia's hoarded gold,
Or all that Achaemenes' self possesses,
Or e'en for what Araby's coffers hold,
Barter one lock of her clustering tresses,
While she stoops her throat to your burning kiss,
Or, fondly cruel, the bliss denies you,
She would have you snatch, or will, snatching this
Herself, with a sweeter thrill surprise you?"
If Maecenas allowed his friends to write of his wife in this strain, it is scarcely to be wondered at if that coquettish and capricious lady gave, as she did, "that worthy man good grounds for uneasiness."