Altogether the four books contain 103 odes, to which may be added the Carmen Saeculare. A variety of different metres is used, but the main ones are Alcaic, Sapphic, and the various forms of Asclepiad.[47]
The metres are not all evenly spread. Asclepiad metres, which are common in books 1, 3, and 4, are found only once in book 2. In book 2, all the odd-numbered poems are Alcaic, as well as 2.14 and 2.20; while most of the even numbered poems are Sapphic. The first nine poems of book 1 (known as the "parade odes") are each in a different metre; the first six poems of book 3 (known as the "Roman odes") are all in Alcaic.
The metre of most of the poems can be deduced from the first three syllables of their first line:
- x – ᴗ = Alcaic
- – ᴗ – = Sapphic (except 2.18)
- – – – = Asclepiadic (except 1.7, 4.7)
- ᴗ ᴗ – = Ionic
Thus the poem beginning ēheu fugācēs is Alcaic, integer vītae is Sapphic, ō fōns Bandusiae is Asclepiadic, and miserārum est is Ionic.
Because Alcaeus and Sappho wrote in the Aeolic Greek dialect, their metres are known as "Aeolic". Horace himself ('Odes 3.30.13–14) claimed to be "the first to have brought Aeolic song to Latin poetry" (prīnceps Aeolium carmen ad Ītalōs/ dēdūxisse modōs); which is true if two poems written by Catullus (11 and 51) in Sapphic stanzas are not counted. Asclepiades lived in the 3rd century BC, and did not write in the Aeolic dialect. Only a few epigrams written by him survive, none of them in the asclepiadean metre.[48]
Alcaic stanza
The four-line Alcaic stanza is used in 37 Odes. These are:
- Book 1: 9, 16, 17, 26, 27, 29, 31, 34, 35, 37
- Book 2: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20
- Book 3: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 17, 21, 23, 26, 29
- Book 4: 4, 9, 14, 15
In the Alcaic stanza the first two lines start with an iambic rhythm. The first syllable is sometimes short (13 times in book 1), but usually long. There is almost always a word-break after the 5th syllable.[49] The third line has an iambic rhythm, but the fourth line starts with two dactyls.
- x – ᴗ – – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x
- x – ᴗ – – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x
- x – ᴗ – – – ᴗ – x
- – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- Vidēs ut altā / stet nive candidum
- Soracte nec iam / sustineant onus
- silvae labōrantēs gelūque
- flūmina cōnstiterint acūtō?[50]
- 'Do you see how Soracte is standing,
- white with deep snow, and the labouring woods
- no longer sustain their burden
- and the rivers have frozen with sharp frost?'
The Alcaic stanza does not appear to have been used by any Roman poet before Horace. It is used in one poem of Statius (Silv. 4.5), imitating Horace, otherwise it does not appear to have been written by any major Latin poet.[51]
The Alcaic stanza was often used by Horace for poems in the grand style, for example, the six Roman Odes (Odes 3.1–6), and the odes in praise of Drusus (4.4), Tiberius (4.14) and Augustus (4.15) in book 4.
Sapphic stanza
The Sapphic stanza is used in 25 odes, and in the Carmen Saeculare. The odes in this metre are:
- Book 1: 2, 10, 12, 20, 22, 25, 30, 32, 38
- Book 2: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 16
- Book 3: 8, 11, 14, 18, 20, 22, 27
- Book 4: 2, 6, 11
- Carmen Saeculare
The first three lines of a Sapphic stanza have a trochaic rhythm. In Sappho and Alcaeus the fourth syllable can sometimes be short, but in Horace it is always long.[52] There is normally a word-break after the fifth syllable, but occasionally (especially in the Carmen Saeculare and Odes book 4) it can come after the 6th syllable.[53] The fourth line is an adonean (– ᴗ ᴗ – x).
- – ᴗ – – – / ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- – ᴗ – – – / ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- – ᴗ – – – / ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- – ᴗ ᴗ – x
- Iam satis terrīs / nivis atque dīrae
- grandinis mīsit / Pater et rubente
- dexterā sacrās / iaculātus arcēs
- terruit Urbem,[54]
- 'By now the Father has sent enough snow and fearsome
- hail on the earth, and by casting thunderbolts
- with red right hand at the sacred citadels
- has terrified the City.'
The Sapphic stanza can be distinguished from the Alcaic and Asclepiad by the cretic rhythm (– ᴗ –) of its first three syllables.
Although called "Sapphic", in fact this metre was used by both Alcaeus and Sappho. In Latin, Catullus had already used the Sapphic stanza in poems 11 and 51 (the latter being a translation of one of Sappho's poems). The poet Statius wrote one poem in this metre (Silv. 4.7) and Seneca the Younger wrote a chorus (Medea 579–606) in Sapphic stanzas, as well as sometimes writing the longer line continuously (e.g. Phaedr. 274–324).[53]
Asclepiad systems
The asclepiad line is a glyconic with an extra choriamb; the greater asclepiad has two extra choriambs. It is used in 5 different patterns, which are numbered differently in different authors. The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 used by Klingner (1939), Nisbet & Hubbard (1970), D. West (1995), and Mayer (2012), (followed here) are called 1, 4, 5, 3, 2 by Wickham (1896) and Raven (1965), and 1, 3, 4, 2, 5 by Page (1895), Bennett (1914), and Rudd (2004). In their joint edition of Odes book 3 (2004), Nisbet and Rudd drop the numbering and simply refer to "Asclepiad systems".
Altogether the various asclepiad metres are used in 34 odes.
1st Asclepiad (a continuous series of lesser asclepiad lines used stichically)
- Book 1: 1
- Book 3: 30
- Book 4: 8
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x
- Maecēnās atavīs / ēdite rēgibus
- ō et praesidi(um) et / dulce decus meum[55]
- 'Maecenas, descended from ancestral kings,
- and o! my protection and sweet glory'
In Horace, there is almost always a word-break after the sixth syllable of the asclepiad. In the Greek poets the first two syllables of the asclepiad, pherecratean, and glyconic can be long or short (making the so called "Aeolic base"), but in Horace they are always long (except apparently at 1.15.36).[56] The asclepiad can easily be distinguished from the Alcaic and Sapphic metres by the three long syllables with which it begins.
2nd Asclepiad (a series of three asclepiads followed by a glyconic)
- Book 1: 6, 15, 24, 33
- Book 2: 12
- Book 3: 10, 16
- Book 4: 5, 12
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x.
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x.
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x.
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x.
- Iam vēris comitēs, / quae mare temperant,
- impellunt animae / lintea Thrāciae,
- iam nec prāta rigent, / nec fluviī strepunt
- hībernā nive turgidī.[57]
- 'Now spring's companions, the Thracian breezes,
- which calm the sea, are driving on the sails;
- now the meadows are no long frozen, nor do the rivers roar,
- swollen with winter snow.'
3rd Asclepiad (two asclepiads followed by a pherecratean and a glyconic)
- Book 1: 5, 14, 21, 23
- Book 3: 7, 13
- Book 4: 13
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x.
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x.
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – x
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x.
- Quis multā gracilis / tē puer in rosā
- perfūsus liquidīs / urget odōribus
- grātō, Pyrrha, sub antrō?
- cui flāvam religās comam?[58]
- 'What slender boy, drenched in perfumed oil,
- is pressing you on a bed of roses
- in a pleasant grotto, Pyrrha?
- For whom do you bind up your yellow hair...?
4th Asclepiad (a glyconic followed by an asclepiad)
- Book 1: 3, 13, 19, 36
- Book 3: 9, 15, 19, 24, 25, 28
- Book 4: 1, 3
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x.
- Māter saeva Cupīdinum
- Thēbānaeque iubet / mē Semelae puer
- et lascīva Licentia
- fīnītīs animum / redder(e) amōribus.
- 'The cruel mother of the Cupids[59]
- and the son of Theban Semele[60]
- and wanton Licentiousness are bidding me
- to return my mind to the loves I thought were finished.'
5th Asclepiad (a series of greater asclepiads used stichically)
- Book 1: 11, 18
- Book 4: 10
The greater asclepiad is similar to the lesser asclepiad, but lengthened by an extra choriamb (– ᴗ ᴗ –). In Horace it has a word-break after both the 6th and the 10th syllable. This metre is also found in Theocritus 28, 30 and Catullus 30, as well as several poems by Alcaeus.
- – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ x
- tū nē quaesierīs, / scīre nefās, / quem mihi, quem tibī
- fīnem dī dederint, / Leuconoē, / nec Babylōniōs
- temptārīs numerōs. / ut melius, / quidquid erit patī
- seu plūrīs hiemēs, / seu tribuit / Iuppiter ultimam.[61]
- 'Do not inquire – it is a sin to know – what end the gods
- have given to me, and what to you, Leuconoë; and do not try out
- Babylonian astrology. How much better it is to suffer whatever will be,
- whether Jupiter will grant more winters, or has granted our last.'
Rarer metres
The remaining metres are only used in one or two poems each. As with the asclepiad metres, there is no general agreement among scholars as to the names of the archilochian ones.
1st Archilochian
(a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic tetrameter)
- Book 1: 7, 28
- – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – / ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – x
- – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – x
- Laudābunt aliī clāram Rhodon aut Mytilēnēn
- aut Epheson bimarisve Corinthī
- moenia vel Bacchō Thēbās vel Apolline Delphōs
- īnsignīs aut Thessala Tempē:[62]
- 'Others will praise famous Rhodes or Mytilene
- or Ephesus or two-sea'd Corinth's
- city walls or Thebes, notable for Bacchus, or Delphi for Apollo,
- or Thessalian Tempe.'
This metre is also known as the Alcmanian (or Alcmanic) stanza. The metre is also used in Epode 12, and it is the only metre Horace uses in both the Odes and Epodes.
2nd Archilochian
(a dactylic hexameter followed by a dactylic hemiepes.)
- Book 4: 7
- – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – / ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – x
- – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ x
- Diffūgēre nivēs / redeunt iam grāmina campīs
- arboribusque comae
- 'The snows have fled away and the grass is now returning to the plains
- and the leaves to the trees'
This metre is also known as the "1st Archilochian".
3rd Archilochian
(a dactylic tetrameter + ithyphallic (= 3 trochees), followed by an iambic trimeter catalectic)
- Book 1: 4
- – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ ᴗ / – ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- x – ᴗ – – / – ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- Solvitur ācris hiēms grātā vice / vēris et Favōnī
- trahuntque siccās / māchinae carīnās,
- ac neque iam stabulīs gaudet pecus / aut arātor ignī
- nec prāta cānīs / albicant pruīnīs.[63]
- 'Harsh winter is being loosened with a welcome change of spring and the West Wind;
- and machines are dragging the dry keels (to the shore);
- the cattle no longer rejoice in their stables or the ploughman in his fire;
- nor are the meadows white with hoar frost.'
This metre is also called the "4th Archilochian". The first of these lines is known as a "greater Archilochian".
Hipponactean
(a trochaic dimeter catalectic, followed by an iambic trimeter catalectic)
- Book 2: 18
- – ᴗ – ᴗ – ᴗ x
- x – ᴗ – x / – ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- Nōn ebur nequ(e) aureum
- meā renīdet / in domō lacūnar
- 'No ivory and no golden
- panelled ceiling glitters in my house'
Greater Sapphic
(an aristophaneus followed by a greater Sapphic line)
- Book 1: 8
- – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- – ᴗ – – – ᴗ ᴗ – / – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – x
- Lȳdia, dīc, per omnīs
- hoc deōs vērē, Sybarin / cūr properēs amandō
- perdere, cūr aprīcum
- ōderit campum, patiēns / pulveris atque sōlis,...
- 'Lydia, by all the gods tell me
- this truly, why do you hasten to destroy Sybaris by loving him,
- why does he shun the sunny
- Campus, though he can well tolerate the dust and the sun?'
Nisbet and Hubbard cite no other examples of this metrical form in Horace or in other poets. The metre is not found in the surviving fragments of Sappho and Alcaeus.[64]
Ionic
(an ionic metron (ᴗ ᴗ – –) repeated ten times)
- Book 3: 12
- ᴗ ᴗ – – / ᴗ ᴗ – – / ᴗ ᴗ – – / ᴗ ᴗ – – /
- ᴗ ᴗ – – / ᴗ ᴗ – – / ᴗ ᴗ – – / ᴗ ᴗ – – /
- ᴗ ᴗ – – / ᴗ ᴗ – –
- Miserārum (e)st / nequ(e) amōrī / dare lūdum / neque dulcī
- mala vīnō / laver(e) aut exanimārī / metuentīs
- patruae verbera linguae.[65]
- 'It is only sad girls who do not play with love, or wash away
- their troubles with sweet wine or faint for fear
- of the lashings of an uncle's tongue.'
There tends to be a word-break after each metron, although not every time. The above arrangement is as given in Wickham's Oxford Classical Text. Other editors arrange the stanzas 4 + 4 + 2 or 4 + 3 + 3. Other editors, such as Gould (1977) and Quinn (1980), prefer to arrange the poem in four-line stanzas. Woodman (2021) agrees and prints it with a 2 + 2 + 4 + 2 arrangement as follows:[66]
- Miserārum (e)st nequ(e) Amōrī
- dare lūdum neque dulcī
- mala vīnō laver(e) aut exanimārī metuentēs
- patruae verbera linguae.
This four-line arrangement is felt to be more in keeping with the rest of the Odes. Another advantage is that the number of lines in 3.7–3.19 (336) now becomes exactly the same as that of 3.1–3.6 and 3.20–3.30.
Another possibility, also in four-line stanzas, was suggested in the 19th century by a certain "S.S.I.", with a 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 arrangement.[67]
- Miserārum (e)st / nequ(e) amōrī / dare lūdum
- neque dulcī / mala vīnō / laver(e) aut ex-
- animārī / metuentīs / patruae ver-
- bera linguae.
He suggested that by moving the position of the words simul ... undis in the 3rd stanza to follow victus, the word Bellerophonte comes at the end of a line where its anomalous short final vowel can perhaps be licensed by the principle of brevis in longo.
