the votes of the fickle public with the expense of dinners and the gift of
worn out clothes. I do not for I am the disciple and protector of great
writers think it worthy to suck up to the tribes of literary expounders and
their lecture platforms.)^145Readers love Horace’s books when they read them in private, but
they carp at him for not currying their favor. Horace wants readers not
listeners. Horace’smonumentum aere perennius(Odes3.30.1) is not a
voice reciting a poem. It is a book.
Propertius assumed that he would be read, and in books:
et turpis de te iam liber alter erit. (2.3.4)(And now there will be a second cruel book about you.)sat mea, sat magna est, si tres sint pompa libelli,
quos ego Persephonae maxima dona feram. (2.13.25 26)(My funeral procession will be enough, big enough, if it is only three books
that I can bear as the greatest gifts to Persephone.)ista meis fiet notissima forma libellis. (2.25.3)(Your beauty will become the most famous of all because of my books.)at Musae comites et carmina cara legenti,
nec defessa choris Calliopea meis.
fortunata, meo si qua’s celebrata libello!
carmina erunt formae tot monumenta tuae. (3.2.15 18)(Yet, the muses are my comrades and my songs are dear to the reader, nor
has Calliope tired of my choruses. Fortunate woman, whoever is celebrated
by my book. My songs will be so many memorials to your beauty.)‘‘Tu loqueris, cum sis iam noto fabula libro
et tua sit toto Cynthia lecta foro?’’ (2.24.1 2)(‘‘Is that how you talk, when you are a piece of gossip as a result of your
famous book and your Cynthia is read all over the forum?’’)Holzberg claims, ‘‘the author’s texts were intended primarily for a rela-
tively small circle of hearers at recitations.’’
146
The author himself, how-
ever, says the exact opposite. His Cynthia is being read all over town. The
- This passage has been misunderstood since Lambinus, but Fraenkel (1957, 348 9)
pointed out the correct meaning long ago: ‘‘auditorappears often as synonymous with
discipulus.’’ Horace disdains two distinct groups: the bribable public and the professors. - Holzberg 2001, 3.
Books and Reading Latin Poetry 221