SOURCE: “The Love Odes” in The Golden Plectrum: Sexual Symbolism in Horace's Odes, Rodopi, 1982, pp. 14-64.

In the following excerpt, Minadeo concentrates on Horace's use of sexual images and symbolism.

Horace was an orderly lyrist. Each of his first nine odes is dressed in a distinct meter, the nine comprising all of the major verse forms to follow. Similarly, the nine furnish the essentials of the work's sexual symbolism. As was Horace's evident plan, the fifth and ninth odes would suffice for a preview of the symbolism, but, in view of its superb corroborative effect, I shall also include the eleventh in my own introduction.

We start with the ode that is in every way the cornerstone of the love lyrics (1:5):

Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa perfusus liquidis urget odoribus                     grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?                                         Cui flavam religas comam, 

simplex munditiis? Heu quotiens fidem mutatosque deos flebit...