05 - Audire est operae pretium: Double Entendres in Horace Satires 1.2.37-8

At Satires 1.2.37-8 Horace parodies two patriotic lines of Ennius to preface a litany of punishments encountered by adulterers when caught. The original Ennian lines, preserved solely by Porphyrio's commentary on Horace, are (Annales 494-5, Skutsch): audire est operae pretium, procedere recte / qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere voltis. Horace quotes the first of the lines unchanged, but substantially alters the second line to introduce adulterers and their suffering: audire est operae pretium, procedere recte / qui moechis non voltis, ut omni parte laborent.... Why has Horace chosen these lines of Ennius to parody? This paper proposes that the unaltered first line allows for double entendres that Horace here exploits to hilarious effect. Whereas Ennius' audire est operae pretium is intended to mean "it is worthwhile to hear," a Roman mind could have generated an obscene alternative by performing two quick recalculations, one on the syntax of audire est, the other on the syntax and semantics of operae pretium. Latin authors occasionally use the infinitive with a finite form of esse to mean "it is possible to, it is allowable to," imitating the Greek construction of the infinitive with ἐστί(ν) (OLD s.v. sum 9; Pinkster 2015, 95; Svennung 1922, 78-81). Horace uses this construction on two other occasions in this very satire: at 1.2.78-9 (haurire est) and at 1.2.101-2 (videre est). Thus, audire est can mean "you may hear, it is allowed for you to hear." Law (2021, 75) laudably notes a possible sexual connotation in operae pretium here - on the obscene sense of opera, see Cic. Fam. 9.22.3, Off. 128; Adams 1990, 157 - but leaves unexplained how the alternative syntax of audire est makes a sexual interpretation likely and neglects relevant parallels for reinterpreting the syntax and semantics of operae pretium. Livy's diction (25.6.21) shows that operae pretium can sometimes be construed as a "reward for effort," and because pretium "reward" can also refer to a "penalty" (OLD s.v. 1b), audire est operae pretium can be taken, approximately, as "You may hear the reward / punishment for screwing." (Juvenal's similar play on operae pretium at 9.27-8, also in a sexual context and possibly inspired by Horace, lends further support.) When the phrase operae pretium is construed as the object of audire est in this way, it is natural to take the litany of punishments Horace is about to enumerate (ut omni parte laborent....) in apposition with it. The paper will also discuss the likelihood, hitherto unremarked, that Horace's introduction of moechis (or the alternative moechos of some manuscripts; cf. Gowers 2012, 100 ad loc.) after procedere recte suggests an image of adulterers advancing with erect phalluses, continuing the imagery that Horace has Cato conjure shortly before when praising a young man for resorting to a brothel instead of other men's wives (1.2.33: "nam simul ac venas inflavit taetra libido...") and anticipating the castration that concludes Horace's list of punishments for adulterers (1.2.45-6).

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Presenters

Kevin Muse, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

  SCS-56