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HORACE, (HORATIUS), Odes. Book I. Edited by R. Mayer. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014. 5th impr. IX,246p. Paperback. ‘With this addition to the Cambridge ‘green-and-yellow’ series, Roland Mayer fills a niche that had long stood sadly empty. (…) Mayer’s commentary addresses the graduate student or sophisticated undergraduate to develop a more nuanced approach to translating the ‘Odes’. After the conventional List of Abbreviations, we find Mayer’s Introduction to his edition. This follows the general pattern of the Cambridge series. Its first section, 'Lyric Impulse and Lyric Challenge', addresses Horace’s inheritance from the archaic lyricists and the Alexandrians; here Mayer treats generic differences between Horace’s Odes and Satires. He touches as well on issues of oral vs. written production of poetry. The second section, 'Technical Challenges of Lyric', includes subsections on meter, register, and word order. Section 3, 'The Architecture of the Ode', outlines some primary ode types, while granting a paragraph each to “Middles” and “Endings” of the Horatian Ode. Subsequent sections of the Introduction cover book structure, publication, and textual transmission. (…) Mayer closes his Introduction with a note on 'Interpretation', in which he anticipates potential objections to the conservatism of his remarks on individual poems: there has been a policy decision 'to privilege literal or traditional interpretation.' The Introduction as a whole is very serviceable, if perforce brief; while I would have liked to see a fuller discussion of oral vs. written lyric, I found the section on meter both succinct and wonderfully lucid. The text of Odes I comes after the Introduction, with comments on individual poems following the full text. Needless to say, it is here that one finds the commentary’s true worth. Mayer opens his remarks on each poem by identifying its meter; he kindly directs the reader to the relevant pages of the Introduction. Occasionally there are remarks on Horace’s choice of meter. Otherwise, though, Mayer delays his more discursive comments on individual poems until after the line-by-line commentary; this has the pleasant effect of foregrounding issues of translation while keeping the editor’s voice in the background.Without exception, Mayer’s notes conspicuously hit the mark. (…) Finally, (relatively) extended interpretation follows the line-by-line comments for each ode. (…) My relatively small objections aside, though, Mayer’s edition is an outstanding volume.’ (ELIZABETH H. SUTHERLAND in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2014.03.27). € 27.50 (New) ISBN: 9780521671019