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Abstract.
In the final stanza of Odes 3.1, Horace reverts to themes broached in the programmatic opening lines, qualifying them in light of the intervening lyric argument. By means of associations with literary aesthetics in the question cur valle permutem Sabina divitias operosiores (47-48), and by allusions to the proem of Vergil Georgics 3 and to Pindar Olympian 6.1-4 in invidendis postibus et novo sublime ritu moliar atrium (45-46), Horace develops a literary metaphor in order to express his discomfort in treating national and political themes in the lyric genre.
THE NOTION THAT THE FIRST STANZA OF ODES 3.1 was added later as a general introduction to the six "Roman Odes" was laid to rest long ago.1 This notion had hindered consideration of the stanza in the context of the poem as a whole, and its relation to the ending in particular. It was Fraenkel (1957, 264) who first noted the unity effected by the personal tone at the start and finish of the poem. Then Williams (1969, 31) observed that the first-person forms in odi (1), arceo (1), and canto (4) are recalled in moliar and permutem in line 46-47. As this paper seeks to demonstrate, there are also thematic elements in the first stanza that are recalled at the end, thereby reinforcing the sense of structure. At the outset, the poet assumes the role of a priest officiating in a mystery religion, and he raises the level of the lyric mode to an unparalleled hypsos in order to accommodate novel matters, matters of political and public concern. The poet returns to these topics at the conclusion of the poem, commenting on them in light of the argument in the intervening stanzas.
Critical self-reflection upon the writing of national, political poetry is not foreign to the Odes and in fact concludes two other poems in the collection. In Odes 2.1 the poet ends his tribute to Asinius Pollio by distancing himself from the serious political subjects treated in Pollio's history of the civil wars. Horace asks his "wanton Muse" to seek measures of a lighter style (modos leviore plectra, 2.1.40). In Odes 3.3 the poet curtails Juno's proclamation concerning the future of Rome by exclaiming that national themes do not suit his "playful...