A cruel and pointless trick? False non-closure in Horace’s Odes

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Some scholars argue that only a change of metre signals the beginning of a new poem in Horace’s Odes. Woodman has objected that, if this were the case, the juxtaposition of poems in the third and second asclepiadic metres, which begin with the same two metrical lines, would mislead the reader into thinking that a poem was continuing, only to realize belatedly at the third line that a new poem had begun, ‘a cruel and pointless trick’. This article explores the positive potential of such a trick, which I term false non-closure, to produce pointed, subtle, and complex poetic and thematic effects. The move is situated within Roman poets’ wider practice of springing surprises, twists, and tricks on readers, including Horace’s own use of false closure and shifts of direction. The process of misreading, correcting, and re-reading, always coloured by the initial misreading, forces the reader to reflect on her interpretation of each ode and on the relationships, continuity, and discontinuity, between them, as well as on the very act of reading. The cases of Carm. 1.14–15 and 1.23–24 are examined in detail, and an explanation given for the absence of the trick at 1.5–6 and 4.12–13.