How To Look Like A Roxy Model

Whispers from a dead language

Tommaso Ramella


Before starting to read the ode 3, 13 of Horace I should give a brief introduction. My translation, pedestrian way, does not reproduce the rhythm nor the musicality of the text Horace, both key aspects of poetry in general and especially of the opera.

The odes of Horace, unlike those of Greece, were not accompanied by the lyre , so the task of producing the melody was entrusted entirely to the word, the alternation of long and short syllables and melodic accents. We who are about to read a poem by Horace we are no longer able to perceive the amount of syllables nor the elevations and the lowering of tone: it is a bit 'as if we read the text of a song by De André without the voice and the accompaniment, in short , music. To distinguish the classical poetry from prose is so resorted to the following scheme: at the first long syllable of the foot (the measure marks the line) has brought down a heavy accent, or an increase of the intensity of voice, this emphasis has replaced the 'stroke Latin, which served to distinguish the bacteria from the lift during the recitation. But if the reading metrics by which generations of students were tortured is simply a convention, if our words never sound like those of Horace, a professor of all'erbitrio why obey? To try to answer this question I will return to the example of De André. Imagine that, unfortunately, get lost all the scores of his songs, that there is no way to hear his voice or the music and all that remains are his lyrics: best play a concert reading the text of his songs or trying to write new scores for singing? I believe that rebuilding a musical context for fear of betraying De André and Horace is a much more serious treason against them that stain qualche arbitrio nel tentativo di mettere nuovamente a contatto il pubblico con la loro opera. Inserirò dunque nel testo latino degli accenti intensivi: che vogliate leggerli o meno, sappiate che la voce di Orazio non la sentirete.

Hor. Carmina 3, 13 (metro: strofe asclepiadea terza)

O΄ fons Ba΄ndusia΄e sple΄ndidio΄r vitro,

du΄lci di΄gne mero΄ no΄n sine flo΄ribus,

cra΄s dona΄beris hae΄do

cu΄i frons tu΄rgida co΄rnibus

pri΄mis e΄t venerem e΄t pro΄elia de΄stinat.

Fru΄stra: na΄m gelido΄s i΄nficie΄t tibi

ru΄bro sa΄nguine ri΄vos

la΄scivi΄ subole΄s gregis.

Te΄ flagra΄ntis atro΄x ho΄ra Caniculae

nescit tangere, tu frigus amabile

fessis vomere tauris

Well ebes et pecori wagon.

nobilium Facebook Fies quoque fontium

with dicente cavisimpositam ilicem

saxis, unde loquaces

LYMPHA desiliunt tuae.

Bandusia O source, the brighter the glass, not worthy of pure sweet wine without flowers, tomorrow you'll be given a goat as his forehead swollen for the first horns promises love and clashes . In vain: the offspring of the flock will stain of blood-red heat the cold streams. The time from the red fierce Canicola can not touch you, you offer lovely freshness to the tired oxen plow and cattle wandering. You too will become one of the sources known, since I sing the holly oak above the rock quarry from which it sprang talkative your waters.

The ode is dedicated to the source of Bandusia nymph, a small stream probably located near the villa sabina di Orazio. In ancient sources were sacred to poets, since it was said that gives them the inspiration, the poets, in exchange, the sources made it famous with their song. This tradition, seemingly bizarre, actually has an explanation of a technical nature: to speak in verse water was considered the most difficult test for the poet, who had been compelled to be an element so changeable and elusive words through fixed and immutable. So whenever you see the water in Latin poetry, we may certain that the author is preparing to exhibit his talent.

Horace defines his source splendidior vitro, the brighter the glass: a comparative superlative camouflaged by the majority, since the second term of comparison is splendidus the highest degree. The spring water is clear and shining in the sun, even more than the glass, but not enough, the water is worthy of offerings such as the pure sweet wine and wreaths of flowers, that are sacred. Horace begins to describe a rite itself: we learn that cras the next day, the source will receive the gift of a goat. If Horace informs us that the kid will be given the day after the day on which he imagines delivered the ode, we can assume that this is a recurrence, in all likelihood Fontanal , a holiday celebrated on October 13 during which they were offered at source wine, wreaths and a kid.

You will notice that the verb gift is used in a rather unusual to see 3, we expect a building of the Italian type someone gives something to someone, donate where the verb is used in the active sense, Horatio instead uses the opportunity afforded him by turns and the Latin verb gift to the person, in expression similar to Italian someone receives a gift something. Why Horace has made this choice? After all, he knew Latin, the construction of the active verb gift, indeed, it was by far the most frequent. To find out, we must ask the following question: What is the difference between these two sentences, someone will donate a goat to the source the source and receive a gift of a goat ? What distinguishes them is the number of compositional elements: the second term, one chosen by Horace, to exclude from the scene who will bring a gift to the source of kid, that man. The harmony of the natural landscape that is emerging would be disturbed by humans, so Horace merely cite the source and the goat, an animal that brings us immediately to see the sacred context introduced 2. Horace describes the kid is not a mere instrument votive is a living being inserted into the natural cycle: small bumps on its forehead, just a hint of horns, suggesting its mature form, the season of love and clashes with rivals. The kid is destinatus to everything, is already looking towards the future, when the natural cycle is abruptly broken dall'avverbio frustration, which seems to slice through the thread of life of the animal.

Before analyzing vv. 6-7 open a brief parenthesis: the Latin, as you noted from the first verse, the words can have an extremely fluid because, unlike in Italian, is the grammatical endings to establish connections between words. When two words are linked grammatically it included the other forms a link: the reader expects that the first term follow that connected to it, and when this is not in him develops a tension that finds its dissolution only with the appearance the word hold. The advantage of this to cause tension in the reader is that this will significantly increase its contribution to the text is the same mechanism that leads us to follow a film with greater apprehension Load suspense. If we now return to vv. 6-7, we see that they consist of a link that has the details of the terms and gelidos rivos , among whom are included four items, inficiet , tibi, rubro sanguine and . We follow the words and we pay attention to what we say. gelidos , the bitter cold of a stream. inficiet the splendidissimae , gelidae waters are colored. tibi, everything that happens is at the source and the source. rubro is better defined the dyed water, which take on a reddish color. blood flow, which turns red waters of the source is the blood of freshly killed goat, still red hot. rivos , the connection closes. The clear, cold waters of the source have been dyed red with the blood still warm, kid. The image, now vivid in our minds, it is only foreshadowed by Horace, the sacrifice is not yet complete, but now the fate of the kid who can not shed their blood in the icy streams.

The alliteration of r to see 9 produces an effect very similar to that of poetry Noon pale and withdrawn the Montale and contributes to the description of the fierce heat of summer afternoons, when the oxen and cattle seek refreshment from the water source still cold, seemingly immune to sunlight. Horace does not need to describe the landscape, as the presence of farm animals immediately suggests to his audience the rural areas become topos in bucolic poetry, a distesta pastures, gentle slopes, forests and streams.

The ode Horace is coming to an end and announced that the fons Bandusiae will soon reach the fame of the most popular sources, those which are sung by the great Greek lyric: for this to happen he still has available three ways in which will concentrate all his art. Horace sings an oak overlooking a rock quarry, jump down from the top of the water source. It 's a complete representation of the locus amoenus a literary topos with which Greek and Latin poets used to deal with. But Horace is not content with a silent picture, wants to give life to his work, and it does reproduce the sound of water gushing from the rock and falls on the rocks below. The metaphor LYMPHA loquaces for us modern readers the most obvious suggestion of this sound: the vibrant waters of the stream to produce a continuous flow and it seems that while they're chatting. Yet, to imitate the sound of water, Horatio has a By far the most effective instrument of abstract metaphor: there's the sound of words. Unfortunately we will never know what effect the direction of Horace produced, as the Latin language is silent now, but we have evidence of the importance that should look like noise in the latter verse, for example, the alliteration of l , the internal rhyme LYMPHA - tuae and the presence of a foreign voice to Latin, the y of LYMPHA . The word LYMPHA , enhanced by exotic vocalism, is a jewel in the conclusion of the ode by Horace, a demonstration of his poetic genius, a lesser poet would have completed the framework of the locus amoenus the term aquae, the water that sprang from the rock, but Horace wants to bring the listener on a higher floor, away from the landscape of the Sabine countryside: the term describes LYMPHA concretely the process of poetic inspiration, indicating the flow of ideas that are slid into the mind of the poet from his divinity. More than two thousand years from the day when Horace spoke this hatred, the sound of her voice is off with the murmur of water, but if you pay attention, you can still hear the whispers of his Muse, the nymph Bandusia.