Horace Odes 1.14 Notes

Horace makes an immediate impact 'O navis', which immediately makes us ask the question "what is he talking about?" Gradually we realise that this is not a simple description of a battered ship but a metaphorical description of his country, 'the ship of state' Almost every aspect of the ship is in ruins and new dangers threaten. The yard-arm is the horizontal bar from which the sail hangs. The African wind is the south wind, and the 'ropes' were tied round the hull to keep the timbers together. Horace tells us that the ship, standing for Rome, is made of the very best timber, which came from Pontus an area round the Black Sea now in Turkey. Horace says that Rome's pedigree and reputation are useless and her citizens - the sailors- are so insecure that they have no faith in her illustrious history. The last stanza is very difficult, the Cyclades are a group of islands off Greece which are beautiful - glittering- but the seas around them are dangerous. Why does Horace specifically pray that the ship of state should avoid those waters? One theory is that the Emperor Augustus is away on a voyage which will take him past these islands. There is nothing in the poem which directly points to the ship being a metaphor for the Roman state but this interpretation has always been applied. The poem seems to refer to a specific political crisis. It may refer to the years before Augustus finally conquered Anthony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium in 31BC. Anthony's base was in Egypt and that could explain the reference to 'the swift African wind' in line 5.