Entre o cirne e a abelha. A Recvsatio Horaciana do lirismo sublime

Abstract

Horace had a perfect conscience of the differences which separated the elevation and the liberty of the «Dircean swan», as he called Pindarus, from the calculated flight of the «Matine bee», to which he resembled his poetry. He tried, however, in spite of everything, the imitation of the Teban: with a praiseworthy success in his bacchic odes (2.19 and 3.25) and in some of his civic odes (namely 3.4 and the beginning of the Carmen sceculare); with obvious constraint and artifice in his other poems. His critical conscience adverted him that he should not go on insisting; and the final recusatio of 4.2 (written, however, per exemplum) opposes to Pindarus hasty breath, Mosco's Alexandrine gracefulness. The parallel between the end of this ode and the splendid evocation of the source in 3.13 shows that Horace knew how to choose the most congenial poetry for his art and the most delectable for his reader.