Ode ((/j'o//, a song) originally meant any lyrical piece adapted to be sung. In the modern use of the word, odes are distinguished from songs by not being necessarily in a form to be sung, and by embodying loftier conceptions and more intense and passionate emotions. The language of the ode is therefore abrupt, concise, and energetic; and the highest art of the poet is called into requisition in adapting the metres and cadences to the varying thoughts and emotions; hence the changes of metre and versification that occur in many odes. The rapt state of inspiration that gives birth to the ode leads the poet to conceive all nature as animated and conscious, and instead of speaking cd)Out persons and objects, to address them as present.
Among the highest examples of the ode are the Song of Moses and several of the Psalms. Dryden's Alex- ander''s Feast is reckoned one of the first odes in the English language. We may mention, as additional specimens, Gray's Bard; Collins's Ode to the Passions; Burns's Scots wha hu'e ; Coleridge's Odes to Memory and Despomlency ; Shelley's Ode to the Sh/lark ; and Wordsworth's Ode on the Recollections of Immortality in Childhood. — Chambers's Cyclop, s. v. See IIvjin ; Psalm; Song.
O'ded (Ileb. Oded', Tli", erecting; Sept.'Qij/yJ v.r. 'AoaO), the name of two Hebrews.
1. The father of Azariah the prophet, who was com- missioned to meet and encourage Asa on his return from defeating the Ethiopians (2 Chron. xv, 1-8). B.C. ante 953. It curiously happens that the address which at the commencement is ascribed to Azariah, the son of Oded, is at the end ascribed to Oded him- self (xv, 8). But this is supposed to have been a slip of copj'ists, and the versions (Sept., Vulg., and Syr.) read the latter verse like the former. — Kitto.
2. A prophet of Jehovah in Samaria, at the time of Pekah's invasion of Judah. B.C. 739. Jose])luis (.1»^ ix, 12, 2) calls him Obedas (QjSijSdg). On the return of the victorious army with the 200,000 captives of Judah and Jerusalem, Oded met them and prevailed upon them to let the captives go free (2 Chron. xxviii, 9). He was supported by the chivalrous feelings of some of the chieftains of Ephraim ; and the narrative of the restoration of the prisoners, fed, clothed, and anointed, to Jericlio, the city of palm-trees, is a pleas- ant episode of the last days of the northern kingdom. — Smith.
Odem. See Sakdius.
Oderic of PounKNONE (or PoHrKXAu), an Italian Franciscan noted as a traveller, was born in 1286 at Cividalc, district of Pordenone (Friuli.) After having finished his studies at Udine, he devoted himself to the labors of the foreign missions, and resolved to carry the Gospel to Asia. During an absence of sixteen years, consecrated to the preaching of Christianity, Oderic ad- ministered baptism to more than 20,000 unbelievers. He returned to Pordenone in 1330; but the sufferings of all kinds that he had endured so changed him that he was not easily recognised even by his nearest relatives. His intention was to go to Avignon to pope John XXII, to give him an account of the state of the Oriental mis-
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sions, and solicit from him new aid for the conversion of the Tartars; but the troubles excited in the Order of the Franciscans b}' the schismatic election of Peter of Corbiere, one of their number, to the papacy, imder the name of Nicolas Y, and an illness which surprised Oderic at Pisa prevented him from putting this project in exe- cution. He came to Padua, where, by order of the pro- vincial, he dictated, although sick, the relation of his voyage to one of his brothers, called William de Solag- na. Shortly after he entered his convent at Udine, and there died with the reputation of a saint, support- ed by a great number of miracles, related by the dif- ferent authors of his life. His narrative, valuable for the geography of Asia in the Hth century, although we possess but live chapters of it, according to the common opinion was printed for the tirst time in the Raccolta ilelle navif/uzioiii et I'iafjgi of IJamnusio (ed. of 15G3, ii, 245); however, Tiraboschi pretends that Apostolo Zeno makes mention of an anterior edition, published in 1513. Haym does not speak of it in his Bibliuiheca Italiana ; but he quotes an Italian translation of it by an anony- mous writer (Pesaro, 1573, 4t()). The HoUandists have inserted it in the life of Oderic, Jan. 14. Several other authors have given editions of it at different times. They have also placed upon it different titles; the Bol- landists call it B. Odorici Pereyrimitio, ab ipsomet de- scripia ; Wadding, llistoria peref/riiut/ionis ; and certain others, De debits incof/nilis, Oderic is besides the author of several sermons; of a work entitled De mirubilibus mimdi, in which he shows, as in his works, a spirit of observation, but too much credulity; and finally Chro- nica, abridged, from the commencement of the world to the pontiticate of John XXH. See Wadding and Fon- seca, Annules Miiioiuin, vii, 123-] 5(5; Add Sanctdrtim, Jan. 1, 983-992; Asqnini, I'itu et Viugf/i del beafo Odo- rico da Udine (1737, 8vo) ; Lirutti. Notizie delle vite ed ojiere scritte da' letterati del Friiili, 1, 274-291 ; Venni, Elogio isto7-ico del B. Odorico (Venice, 1761, 4to) ; Jean de Saint-Antoine, Biblioth. vniv. Francisc. ii, 404; Ti- raboschi, Hisfor. delta letteratura Hal. vol. iii. — Hoefer, Nouv. Bio(j. Gen. xxxviii, 470.