Title: “Sym—posion Interruptus” or “The
Anti-climactic Banquet”
The epode’s fun (most reminiscent of Catullus) depends on
the hyperbolic disjunction of eating some spicy food and the mythic figures of
the accused cooks: Canidia, Medea, and Deianira, the three witches supreme.
What is so bewitching about this garlic at a banquet that it gives the poet
heartburn and prevents Maecenas from enjoying his sexy lady? Worse than hemlock
it is, since it ruins the banquet for both poet and patron: some joke-- hot hearts
but no sex.
Epode III
Parentis olim siquis inpia manu
senile guttur fregerit,
edit cicutis alium nocentius.
o dura messorum ilia.
quid hoc veneni saevit in praecordiis? (5)
num viperinus his cruor
incoctus herbis me fefellit? an malas
Canidia tractavit dapes?
ut Argonautas praeter omnis candidum
Medea mirata est ducem, (10)
ignota tauris inligaturum iuga
perunxit hoc Iasonem,
hoc delibutis ulta donis paelicem
serpente fugit alite.
nec tantus umquam Siderum insedit vapor
siticulosae Apuliae
nec munus umeris efficacis Herculis
inarsit aestuosius.
at siquid umquam tale concupiveris,
iocose Maecenas, precor, (20)
manum puella savio opponat tuo,
extrema et in sponda cubet.
This poem is a joke – perhaps played on Maecenas, even though Maecenas is the one that slips too much garlic in his poet’s food. Maecenas amice (Maecenas in battle risking his life for his patron Caesar, epode 1) has taken a different stance, iocose Maecenas (on the banquet couch at a party with his cliens). His position, although as the patron-host he is still quite important, has been lowered a bit or to be sure has become less heroic.
The comic hyperbole developed throughout: sinister crime of patricide/punished by garlic; garlic as snake’s blood; the garlic cooks Canidia, Medea and Deianira in full tragic form; a curse placed on the prankster: that Maecenas would miss out on cuddling with his mistress. The greatest of crimes and tragedies reduced to a breakup on a banquet couch because of a little bad fart and smelly breath. Aristophanes would love this.
The epode, which certainly stands by itself as a nice bit of
fun, also connects well to the storyline developed by epode 1 and 2, a
storyline which details Horace’s mixed attitude toward the rewards and
obligations of writing for the new greats of
Horace plays with the indigestion and constipation caused by garlic as an image of working for a patron. The best way to become “blocked-up” as a poet is to turn poetry into a negotium. Epode 1: Everybody has their patrons. Maecenas, you fight for Caesar as you can, and I fight for you Maecenas as I can. I do not do this for the rewards, although you have given them to me. The epode closes with mercantile language and with the characters of comedy (vv.32-34). Epode 2: begins by swearing off negotium with language that directly contravenes the obligations of amicitia in epode 1. the blessed life is plowing ancestral fields not farms bought by payments (cp. 1.25-26: non ut iuvencis inligata pluribus atrata nitantur meis); the blessed life is not involved in war (cp. 1.23-24: libenter hoc et omne militabitur / bellum in tuae spem gratiae); the blessed avoids the forum and the threshold of the powerful. The speaking voice of epode 2 appears to be the same voice of the poet at the end of epode 1 who discounts the rewards of doing battles for patrons and emphasizes the true affection of amicitia. Then the voice of epode 2 turns out to be a sham, a hypocritical lie told by another comic character the moneylender Alfius, who cannot calm his desire for negotium. The confusion of the poet’s voice with Alfius’ for all but the last four lies of the poem throws doubt on the credibility of the poet’s own motivations expressed in epode 1. The poet against Alfius becomes the hypocrite having fun with the same fault that plagues him (the same hypocritical anger will be on display in epode 4 without the subtle innuendo and comic twists, when the poet-son-of-a-freedman-become-military tribune derides a slave who has become a military tribune). Now in epode 3 Horace attends a banquet at the house of his patron, doing exactly what the falsifying Alfius/poet wished he did not have to do – call on the houses of the powerful. And he is not going to eat those simple rustic herbs (sorrel and mallow) that keep the bowels clear. On this occasion Horace is the city-boy whose delicate system is upset with a different rustic herb (o dura messorum ilia, 2.4) As the banquet plays out the poet discovers a bitter herb in the dishes that is worse than hemlock. The garlic could have been put there by Canidia, Medea, or Deianira, but no, it was put in by his patron Maecenas. Maecenas the patron does provide the banquet, the delicacies that his poet enjoys – he gave him the Sabine villa and enriched the poet enough and more than enough with the goods of an Alfius’ simple life: flocks, herds in a cool valley, house, servants – but mixed in with the delicacies there is garlic that can cause the poet major indigestion and cost the patron his sexy fun: sym –posion interruptus.
Now at this point I might be accused of seeing things or as some scholars might say, “You have overread the text. Garlic at the banquet is just garlic at the banquet. The Romans use garlic, and Horace is just having some fun with his friend Maecenas.” I do doubt that Horace teases with Maecenas and that the tone of this piece is predominantly comic. It should make us chuckle: garlic preventing a make-out by the host with his girl. All of this is on one level amusing exaggerated bravado that was often enjoyed between client and patron, if there is any reality at all in Plautine comedy. But this is not Horace’s only mention of hemlock: hemlock is Horace’s cure for writing verses for a patron after he has been enriched enough (and more than enough). Epist 2.2.49-54: Romae nutriri mihi contigit atque doceri / iratus Grais quantum nocuisset Achilles … paupertas impulit audax / ut versus facerem; sed quod non desit habentem / quae poterunt umquam satis expurgare cicutae, / ni melius dormire putem quam scribere versus? The Horace of epodes 1-3 has been enriched enough by Maecenas, but he, like the moneylender Alfius, just cannot stay away from Maecenas’ banquet of delicacies. In the language of the epistle, it would be better for Horace to take the hemlock, clean out his system, and then take a rest perhaps permanently. In the language of the epode 3, the patron’s garlic, the rewards of the banquet feast, is worse than hemlock and can ruin all the fun.
In many ways epodes 1-3 probably proves all too familiar to Horace’s audiences. Epode 1 is a dedication to a patron which introduces an examination of the interplay between poetics and politics that runs throughout the opening sequence of poems and on through the book. The poet’s tone is not at all clear. How funny or simply amusing is the poet or just how serious are we to take such banter with a patron? Does Horace think he would really be better off without the garlic or can he just not control his Alfian desire to win privileges? Or is the garlic being slipped in on him by his patron when he is not looking or is he forced in some way to attend his patron’s garlicky feast. Horace expresses the same obsession with the cliens-poet’s image and a similar obfuscation of that image in his satires.
What difference if any do iambic expectations make? A
satirist typically operates from within the societal constructs he criticizes
so that in effect there is always the possibility that the satirist (especially
as he pretends a position of inferiority as does often our Horace) is being
self-effacing. At least we might say of the satiric Horace that his posturing
as a member of Roman society helps to strengthen his standing as an individual
with the power to address his own culture’s foibles. Iambic traditionally
positions the poet as an outsider – someone who has been disadvantaged and/or
is speaking on behalf of the disenfranchised. Iambic, even Callimachean iambic,
allows more the posture of the victim, and therefore creates more the
expectation for cutting attacks (both outright and disguised) against an
offending party. Epode 3 has both bilem (the poet’s indigestion) and iocum
(the prankster host). Horace so describes his iambic mood (Epist.1.19.20-21: O
imitatores, servum pecus, ut mihi saepe / bilem, saepe iocum vestri movere
tumultus! We expect an iambic poet, when moved, to answer back even to a
superior patron.
I may not have convinced you that garlic is any more than garlic, in literary terms I may have made your iambic Horace too Archilochean and too little Callimachean To be honest part of me hopes that I have not been overly convincing, because I do not wish to take all the laughter out of Horace’s comic game and interpret Canidia, Medea, and Deianira as too threatening. I must admit that when it comes to Horace I do not want to read too seriously and miss the fun sex at the end of his poetic banquet. I also do not want to leave my mistress sitting on the edge of my couch. I enjoy in my reading of Horace a kiss that is poetic: prolonged, deep, and meaningful. Horace’s laughter, like kissing, is hardly inconsequential. Horace, the poet friend of the greats, is restless with his image as a cliens, and he projects his disquiet into his poetry and onto his audience from the first of his satires to the last of his epistles. His poetic career thus poised between independence and dependence has produced the most splendid and amusing poetry, and one lesson from the plot of epodes 1-3 is that we should not ruin this tension by turning Horatian poetry into political extremes: the Horatian persona does not support either an outright coup for independence or a passive acceptance. Horace is best savored somewhere between the pleasantries and the garlic of his obligations. If we insist on too much of either, we like Maecenas will risk missing the kiss and our lover may end up dodging us on the edge of the bed.