can tear down, not even the innumerable succession
of years and the flight of time.)The beginning of this text is strange to say the least. The publication of a
book whose fragility we have seen and which could only with difficulty
claim to be more solid than bronze or the pyramids of Egypt, can this
bring the poet immortality? Of course, everyone knows the eternal glory
granted the Greekaoidos, but that is perpetuated by means of oral
performances, rituals that are missing from Rome. It is therefore not the
liberwhich is themonumentum.
Then Horace elaborates: he will not entirely die, a part of him will not
go in the tomb; quite the contrary, a glory always new (recens) will
accompany him in the future.Recensmakes us think of a renewed ritual.
And in fact this eternal glory is related to the perenniality of the Capito-
line cults, that is, with the survival of Rome as the city of Jupiter (6–9):
Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei
uitabit Libitinam; usque ego postera
crescam laude recens, dum Capitolium
scandet cum tacita uirgine pontifex.(I shall not wholly die and the greater part of me
will evade Libitina; continually I
shall grow fresh with added praise, as long as
the Pontifex climbs the Capitoline with the silent virgin.)In what then will his glory consist? Not in the perenniality of his verses
eternally sung. Rather, that people will say of him that he was the first
Roman (princeps, 13) to have brought in Aeolic poetry, that is, the Alcaic
or Sapphic stanza, integrating it with the old Italian rhythms, that is to
say, by creating a Latin metrics. And in fact the poetic revolution of the
age of Augustus consisted of imposing on the Latin language a true
metrical system on the Greek model that can make itself heard and
replaces the ancientversus quadratusof Ennius (10–14):
Dicar qua uiolens obstrepit Aufidus
et qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestium
regnauit populorum, ex humili potens
princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos
deduxisse modos.(I shall be spoken of where the raging Aufidus roars
and where Daunus, short of water, ruled
his rustic people, I, powerful from a humble birth,
as having been the first to bring Aeolian verse
to Italian measures.)He thus deserves the same glory as the other melic poets in the heart of
the libraries and the same laurel wreath (14–16):
The Corrupted Boy and the Crowned Poet 161