Ars Poetica

“If a painter should wish to unite a horse’s neck to a human head, and spread a variety of plumage over limbs [of different animals] taken from every part [of nature], so that what is a beautiful woman in the upper part terminates unsightly in an ugly fish below; could you, my friends, refrain from laughter, were you admitted to such a sight Believe, ye Pisos, the book will be perfectly like such a picture, the ideas of which, like a sick man’s dreams, are all vain and fictitious: so that neither head nor foot can correspond to any one form.”

Horace opens his verse epistle with ekphrasis. Rather than follow the traditional rhetorical structure, Horace’s figurative language immediately establishes his whimsical tone. The ekphrasis conveys the necessity of unity strikingly and memorably.

“In pompous introductions, and such as promise a great deal, it generally happens that one or two verses of purple patch-work, that may make a great show, are tagged on.”

This quotation includes one of the famous Horatian phrases: purpureus pannas, or purple patches. “Purple verse” overuses ornate language, metaphors, adjectives, and adverbs. Although novice poets writing purple verse think it will enhance their work, the practice only signifies their lack of knowledge and ability to use simple and uniform language.

“It will make a wide difference, whether it be Davus that speaks, or a hero; a man well-stricken in years, or a hot young fellow in his bloom; and a matron of distinction, or an officious nurse; a roaming merchant, or the cultivator of a verdant little farm; a Colchian, or an Assyrian; one educated at Thebes, or one at Argos.”

Horace contrasts two types of characters to emphasize the necessity for consistency. In drama, Davus, an enslaved character, needs to speak differently than a hero. An individual from Colchia (present-day western Georgia) acts differently than one from Assyria (northern Mesopotamia). A character educated in Thebes (the setting in the Oedipean dramas by Sophocles) talks differently than someone educated in Argos (the seat of the Mycenean kingdom recorded in ancient Greek mythology). Although these distinctions appear foreign to modern readers, these references were familiar to Horace’s