«Tange, sodes, citharam» (CB 121): «chiodo scaccia chiodo», Orazio e al disillusione d'Amore

Abstract

The poetry of Horace (not only the author of «Satyres» and «Epistles», but also that of «Odes» and «Epodes») has a big diffusion in «Carmina Burana», and there are many compositions who clearly show that. CB 121 («Tange, sodes, citharam») is a lyric in wich we can find a brilliant, amusing and ironical reflection about women’s fidelity and infidelity in love. At the first time (stanzas 1-3) a boy, addressing his speech to a friend, contrasts the infidelity and venality of his earlier girl with his idealized new lover; but, at the end of the poem (stanza 4), the second spokesman rupts love illusion of the first, because he, who is being consulted on how make the girl more submissive, casually offers advice based on his own love experience with her. The lyric can be so considered as a sprightly “variation” upon the themes of illusion and disillusion in love. The anonymous poet is very learned and knows Latin auctores very well, like Cicero (he mentions the renowned proverb «clavus clavo retunditur», who occurs in tusc. disp. IV 35,75), Ovid and, particullary, Horace.