A Commentary on Horace, Odes Book III (review)

The commentaries on books 1 and 2 by Nisbet and Margaret Hubbard (Oxford 1970 and 1978, respectively) have had so much impact on Horatian scholarship that books 3 and 4 have been comparatively neglected. Book 3 is one of the most difficult texts of Augustan poetry, and it is a relief to have a commentary at this level of competence. The format of the new commentary is the same as Nisbet–Hubbard, except that now the two editors, under the suitably chiastic acronyms RN and NR, are allowed to disagree in print ("RN sees here a hint. . . . NR thinks it is going too far to see"): the effect is refreshing, since it invites the reader to further experiments in disagreeing.

Like its predecessor Nisbet–Hubbard, Nisbet–Rudd is excellent for three reasons, learning, flair in selecting relevant parallels, and the resolve not to sweep anything under the rug. If a difficulty can be identified, we will find it. If you want parallels for 3.3.11–12, where Augustus drinks in heaven with a "purple mouth," you will find them, but Nisbet and Rudd also warn you that the parallels are all about female beauty, then they part company: the implication is either "vitality of the new god" (Nisbet) or a staining red nectar (Rudd). If neither solution prevails, you can still go back to the parallels and stare at the feminized lips of Augustus. There are also many unexpected new answers. Why, for example, specify (3.26.5–6) that the offer to Venus belongs to the left wall? The Roman temple of Venus on the Capitol, Nisbet observes, was rubbing elbows ("divided only by a gutter") with the simultaneously built temple of Mens (see Prop. 3.24.19 for a lover addressing the goddess of Good Sense).

The authors have made a consistent attempt to integrate recent and less recent scholarship. (Of course they cannot please everybody in their selection of references: two works that in my experience repay constant attention, Gordon Williams' pioneering 1969 explication de texte, and the book by M. Citroni, Poesia e lettori in Roma antica [Roma and Bari, 1995], with very rich discussion of Horace's lyric addressees and no Horace in the title, therefore worth mentioning, do not loom large.)

Nisbet and Rudd usually resist two main trends in recent Horatian scholarship, interest in book form and interest in performance: yet a discussion of the relationship and interaction between textual poetics and lyric performance was and is needed, especially if one refuses to consider the two approaches as incompatible. The foreclosing of those important general aspects sits oddly with their extremely open-minded approach to localized aporias.

I end with two personal notes. The entry "Nisbet, Robin George Murdoch" in the Enciclopedia Oraziana ([Rome 1998] 372–74) by the late H. D. Jocelyn is worth consulting as a precocious celebration of Nisbet's achievement: set between the entries "Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm" and "Notker di San Gallo – V: Carolingi, Scrittori," it states that it is "unlikely that we will be able to see a volume on book 3," mentioning disaste for the Roman Odes as a stumbling block. Second, it is a sobering thought that neither of the two leading commentators on Roman poetry uses a word-processor: E. J. Kenney prefers a typewriter, and Nisbet a black ballpoint pen.