Book 2
6
Father of the morning, Matutine pater. The satire properly begins here, and all before this line is a kind of preface. Janus presided over time, and therefore Horace calls him god of the morning, as if time seemed to be renewed every morning. or Janus, if with more pleasure thou hearest thyself [called by that name], from whom men commence the toils of business, and of life (such is the will of the gods), be thou the beginning of my song. At Rome you hurry me away to be bail; "Away, dispatch, [you cry,] lest any one should be beforehand with you in doing that friendly office" To show that all his distresses begin with the morning, the poet introduces Janus, the god of the morning, pressing them upon him, Urge sive Aquilo, etc. : I must go, at all events, whether the north wind sweep the earth, or winter contracts the snowy day into a arrower circle. Interiore diem. The northern part of the circle which the sun describes in summer is more distant from our earth than the southern part, which he describes in winter. From hence our days are shorter in winter than in summer, and he may therefore be poetically said to drive the day in a smaller course. Horace calls this circle interiorem gyrum, by a figure taken from chariot races, in which the driver who turned nearest the goal marked a narrower circle, and was therefore called interior quadriga, with regard to those who were obliged to take a larger compass, exteriores. After this, having uttered in a clear and determinate manner [the legal form], which may be a detriment to me, I must bustle through the crowd; and must disoblige the tardy. "What is your will, madman, and what are you about, impudent fellow?" So one accosts me with his passionate curses. "You jostle every thing that is in your way, if with an appointment full in your mind you are posting away to Maecenas." This pleases me, and is like honey: I will not tell a lie. But by the time I reach the gloomy Esquiliae, a hundred affairs of other people's encompass me on every side: "Roscius begged that you would be with him at the court-house Ad Puteal. He describes a part of the forum by a monument erected there to show that the place had been struck with thunder. Some of the proctors held a kind of sessions there to decide private causes. to-morrow before the second hour." "The secretaries Horace had purchased an employment of register or secretary to the treasury; from whence he is desired to return early from Maecenas to consult about some important affair that concerned the whole body. requested you would remember, Quintus, to return to-day about an affair of public concern, and of great consequence." "Get Maecenas to put his signet Imprimat his, cura. Dion informs us, that Maecenas was intrusted with the great seal of the Roman Empire, and was a kind of Lord High Chancellor to Augustus. to these tablets." Should one say, "I will endeavor at it:" "If you will, you can," adds he; and is more earnest.
