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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5419.txt b/5419.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f946bce --- /dev/null +++ b/5419.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6888 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry +by Horace + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry + +Author: Horace + a.k.a. Quintus Horatius Flaccus + Translated by John Conington, M. A. + +Release Date: April, 2004 [EBook #5419] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 14, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATIRES OF HORACE *** + + + + +Produced by David Moynihan, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + +THE SATIRES, EPISTLES, AND ART OF POETRY OF HORACE + +TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE +BY JOHN CONINGTON, M.A. +CORPUS PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN THE +UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. + + + + +TO + +THE REV. W. H. THOMPSON, D.D. +MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, +ETC. ETC. ETC. +IN GRATITUDE FOR MANY KINDNESSES +RECEIVED FROM HIM AND OTHER CAMBRIDGE FRIENDS, +AND IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE COMPLIMENT +PAID BY CAMBRIDGE TO OXFORD +IN THE APPOINTMENT OF THE OXFORD LATIN PROFESSOR +AS ONE OF THE ELECTORS TO HER LATIN CHAIR. + + + + +PREFACE. + +In venturing to follow up my translation of the Odes of Horace by a +version of the Satires and Epistles, I feel that I am in no way +entitled to refer to the former as a justification of my boldness in +undertaking the latter. Both classes of works are doubtless +explicable as products of the same original genius: but they differ +so widely in many of their characteristics, that success in +rendering the one, though greater than any which I can hope to have +attained, would afford no presumption that the translator would be +found to have the least aptitude for the other. As a matter of fact, +while the Odes still continue to invite translation after +translation, the Satires and Epistles, popular as they were among +translators and imitators a hundred years ago, have scarcely been +attempted at all since that great revolution in literary taste which +was effected during the last ten years of the last century and the +first ten years of the present. Byron's Hints from Horace, Mr. +Howes' forgotten but highly meritorious version of the Satires and +Epistles, to which I hope to return before long, and a few +experiments by Mr. Theodore Martin, published in the notes to his +translation of the Odes and elsewhere, constitute perhaps the whole +recent stock of which a new translator may be expected to take +account. In one sense this is encouraging: in another dispiriting. +The field is not pre-occupied: but the reason is, that general +opinion has pronounced its cultivation unprofitable and hopeless. + +No doubt, apart from fluctuations in the taste of the reading +public, there are special reasons why a version of this portion of +Horace's works should be a difficult, perhaps an impracticable +undertaking. It would not be easy to maintain that a Roman satirist +was incapable of adequate representation in English in the face of +such an instance to the contrary as Gifford's Juvenal, probably, +take it all in all, the very best version of a classic in the +language. But though Juvenal has many passages which sufficiently +remind us of Horace, some of them light and playful, others level +and almost flat, these do not form the staple of his Satires: there +are passages of dignified declamation and passionate invective which +suffer less in translation, and which may be so rendered as to leave +a lasting impression of pleasure upon the mind of the reader. Like +Horace, he has an abundance of local and temporary allusions, in +dealing with which the most successful translator is the one who +fails least: unlike Horace, when he quits the local and the +temporary, he generally quits also the language of persiflage, and +abandons himself unrestrainedly to feeling. Persiflage, I suppose, +even in ordinary life, is much less easy to practise with perfect +success than a graver and less artificial mode of speaking, though, +perhaps for that very reason, it is apt to be more sought after: the +persiflage of a writer of another nation and of a past age is of +necessity peculiarly difficult to realize and reproduce. Nothing is +so variable as the standard of taste in a matter like this: even on +the minor question, what expressions may and what may not be +tolerated in good society, probably no two persons think exactly +alike: and when we come to inquire not simply what is admissible but +what is excellent, and still more, what is characteristic of a +particular type of mind, we must expect to meet with still less +unanimity of judgment. The wits of the Restoration answered the +question very differently from the way in which it would be answered +now; even Pope and his contemporaries would not be accepted as quite +infallible arbiters of social and colloquial refinement in an age +like the present. Whether Horace is grave or gay in his familiar +writings, his charm depends almost wholly on his manner: a modern +who attempts to reproduce him runs an imminent risk first of losing +all charm whatever, secondly of missing completely that +individuality of attractiveness which makes the charm of Horace +unlike the charm of any one else. + +Without however enlarging further on the peculiar difficulty of the +task, I will proceed to say a few words on some of the special +questions which a translator of the Satires and Epistles has to +encounter, and the way in which, as it appears to me, he may best +deal with them. These questions, I need hardly say, mainly resolve +themselves into the metre and the style. With regard to the metre, I +have myself but little doubt that the measure in which Horace may +best be represented is the heroic as I suppose we must call it, of +ten syllables. The one competing measure of course is the +Hudibrastic octosyllabic. This latter metre is not without +considerable authority in its favour. Two translators, Smart and +Boscawen, have rendered the whole, or nearly the whole of these +poems in that and no other way: Francis occasionally adopts it, +though he generally uses the longer measure: Swift and Pope, as +every one knows, employ it in three or four of their imitations: +Cowper, in his original poems perhaps the greatest master we have of +the Horatian style, translates the only two satires he has attempted +in the shorter form: Mr. Martin uses it as often as he uses the +heroic: perhaps Mr. Howes is the only translator since Creech who +employs the heroic throughout. Some of my readers may possibly +wonder why I in particular, having rendered the AEneid in a measure +which, whatever its vivacity, may be thought deficient in dignity, +should turn round and repudiate it in a case where vivacity, not +dignity, happens to be the point desired. I can only say that it is +precisely the colloquial nature of the metre which makes me stand in +doubt of it for my present purpose. Using it in the case of Virgil, +I was sure to be reminded of the need of guarding against its abuse: +using it in the case of Horace, I should be constantly in danger of +regarding the abuse as the law of the measure. Horace is scarcely +less remarkable for his terseness than for his ease: the tendency of +the octosyllabic metre in its colloquial form is to become slipshod, +interminable, in a word unclassical. Again, few of those who use it +apply it consistently to all Horace's hexameter poems: most make a +distinction, applying it to some and not to others. In point of +fact, however, it does not seem that any such distinction can be +made. Horace's lightest Satires or Epistles have generally something +grave about them: his gravest have more than one light passage. To +draw a metrical line in the English where none is drawn in the Latin +appears to me objectionable ipso facto where it can reasonably be +avoided. That it can be avoided in the present case does not really +admit of a doubt. The English heroic couplet, managed as Cowper has +managed it, is surely quite equal to representing all the various +changes of mood and temper which find their embodiment successively +in the Horatian hexameter. Cowper's more serious poems contain more +of deep and sustained gravity than is to be found in any similar +production of Horace: while on the other hand there are few things +in Horace so easy and sprightly as the Epistle to Joseph Hill, +nothing perhaps so absolutely prosaic as the Colubriad and the +verses to Mrs. Newton. There is also an advantage in rendering the +Satires of Horace in the metre which may be called the recognized +metre of English satire, and as such has always been employed (with +one very partial and grotesque exception) by the translators of +Juvenal. Lastly, I may be allowed to say that, while very +distrustful of my powers of managing the graver heroic, where so +many great masters have gone before me, I felt less diffidence in +attempting the lower and more colloquial form of the measure, as not +requiring the same command of rhythm, and not exposing a writer to +the same amount of invidious comparison with his predecessors. + +In what I have said I have implied that Cowper is the right model +for the English heroic as applied to a translation of Horace: and +this on the whole I believe to be the case. Horace's +characteristics, as I remarked just now, are ease and terseness, and +both these Cowper possesses, ease in metre, and ease and terseness +in style. Pope, on the other hand, who in some respects would seem +the better representative of Horace, is less easy both in style and +metre, while his terseness is what Horace's terseness is not, +trimness and antithetical smartness. Still, while making Cowper my +pattern as a general rule, I have attempted from time to time to +borrow a grace from Pope, even, when the original gave me no warrant +for the appropriation. If Cowper's verse could be written by Cowper, +it would probably leave nothing to be desired in a translation of +this kind: handled by an inferior workman, it is in danger of +becoming flat, pointless, and insipid: and Horace has many passages +which, if not flat, pointless, or insipid in themselves, are +painfully liable to become so in the hands of a translator. I have +accordingly on various occasions aimed at epigram and pungency when +there was nothing epigrammatic or pungent in the Latin, in full +confidence that any trifling additions which may be made in this way +to the general sum of liveliness will be far more than compensated +by the heavy outgoings which must of necessity be the lot of every +translator, and more particularly of myself. [Footnote: Cowper +himself has some remarks bearing on this point: "That is +epigrammatic and witty in Latin which would be perfectly insipid in +English; and a translator of Bourne would frequently find himself +obliged to supply what is called the turn, which is in fact the most +difficult and the most expensive part of the whole composition, and +could not perhaps, in many instances, be done with any tolerable +success. If a Latin poem is neat, elegant and musical, it is enough; +but English readers are not so easily satisfied. To quote myself, +you will find, in comparing the Jackdaw with the original, that I +was obliged to sharpen a point which, though smart enough in the +Latin, would in English have appeared as plain and as blunt as the +tag of a lace." --Letter to Unwin, May 23, 1781 (Southey's Cowper, +ed. 1836, vol. iv. p. 97).] All translation, as has been pointed out +over and over again, must proceed more or less on the principle of +compensation; a translator who is conscious of having lost ground in +one place is not to blame if he tries to recover it in another, so +that he does not consciously depart from what he believes to be the +spirit of the original: the question he has to ask himself is not so +much whether he has conformed to the requirements of this or that +line, most important as such conformity is where it can be realized +without a sacrifice of higher things, as whether he has conformed to +the requirements of the whole sentence, or even of the whole +paragraph; whether the general effect produced by all the combined +elements in the English lines answers in any degree to that produced +by the Latin. Often and often, while engaged on this translation, I +have been reminded of Johnson's words in his Life of Dryden: "It is +not by comparing line with line that the merit of works is to be +estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is +easy to note a weak line and write one more vigorous in its place, +to find a happiness of expression in the original and transplant it +by force into the version; but what is given to the parts may be +subducted from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the +critic may commend. That book is good in vain which the reader +throws away." [Footnote: Compare his parallel between Pitt's and +Dryden's Aeneid in his Life of Pitt.] I will only add that if these +remarks are true of translation in general, they apply with special +force to the translation of an original like the present, where the +Latin is nothing if it is not idiomatic, and the English in +consequence, if it is to be anything, must be idiomatic also. + +There is yet something more to be said on the question of style. The +exact mode of representing Horace's persiflage is, as I have +intimated already, not an easy thing to determine. The translators +of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the most part made +their author either vulgar or flat, sometimes both. Probably no +better rule can be laid down for the translator of the present day, +than that he should try to follow the ordinary language of good +society, wavering and uncertain as that standard is. I do not mean +so much the language of the better sort of light literature as the +language of conversation and of familiar letter-writing. Even some +of the idiomatic blemishes of conversation may perhaps, in such a +work, be venial, if not laudable. I have not always sought to be a +minute purist even on points of grammar. Cowper, rather singularly, +appears from his practice to proscribe colloquial abbreviations in +poetry, though they were, I suppose, at least as usual in his time +as in ours, and are used by Pope in his lighter works with little +scruple. I have adopted them freely through nearly the whole of my +version, though of course there are some passages where they could +not be properly employed. Gifford says in the Essay on the Roman +Satirists prefixed to his Juvenal that the general character of his +translation will be found to be plainness: and if I do not +misunderstand what he means by the term, it exactly represents the +quality which I have endeavoured to attain myself. As a general +rule, where a rendering presented itself to me which in dealing with +another author I should welcome as poetical, I hare deliberately +rejected it, and cast about instead for something which, without +being feeble or slipshod, should have an idiomatic prosaic ring. +Where Horace evidently means to rise, I have attempted to rise too: +but through the greater part of this work I have been anxious, to +use his own expression, to creep along the ground. No doubt there is +danger in all this, the danger of triviality, pertness, and +occasional vulgarity. Gifford's own work was attacked on its first +appearance by a reviewer of the day precisely on those grounds: and +though he seems to have made a vehement reply to his assailant, the +changes which he made in his second edition showed that the censure +was not without its effect. Still, where it is almost impossible to +walk quite straight, the walker will reconcile himself to incidental +deviations, and will even consider, where a slip is inevitable, on +which side of the line it is better that the slip should take place. + +A patent difficulty of course is to know what to do with local and +temporary customs, allusions, proverbs, &c., which enter, I need not +say, far more largely into satire or comedy than into any other form +of writing. Here it is that the imitator has the advantage of the +translator: a certain parallelism between his own time and the time +of the author he imitates is postulated in the fact of his imitating +at all, and if he is a dexterous writer, like Pope or Johnson, he is +sure to be able to introduce a number of small equivalents, some of +them perhaps actual improvements on the original, while he is at +liberty to throw into the shade those points of which he despairs of +being able to make anything. A translator has three courses open to +him, to translate more or less verbally, so as to run the risk of +being unintelligible to a reader unacquainted with the original, to +generalize what is special, and to borrow something of the +imitator's licence, introducing a modern speciality in place of an +ancient. Here, as I have found on other occasions of the kind, to be +allowed a choice of evils is itself a matter for self- +congratulation. To be shut up entirely to one or other of these +resources would be a serious misfortune: to be able to employ them +(should it seem advisable) successively is no inconsiderable relief. +The last of the three no doubt requires to be used very sparingly +indeed, or one great object of translating a classic, the laying +open of ancient life and thought to a modern reader, will be +wantonly sacrificed. No one now-a-days would dream of going as far +in this direction as Dryden and some of the translators of his +period, talking e.g. about "the new Lord Mayor" and "the Louvre of +the sky." But there are occasionally minor points--very minor ones, +I admit--where a modern equivalent is allowable, if not absolutely +necessary. Without transforming bodily a Roman caena into an English +dinner, one may sometimes effect with advantage a trifling change in +the less important dishes: a boar must not appear as a baron of +beef, but a scarus may perhaps be turned, as I have turned it, into +a sardine. In money again it would surely be needless pedantry in +the translator of a satirist to talk of sestertia rather than +pounds. I fear I have not always been at the pains to make the +English sum even roughly equivalent to the Roman, but have from time +to time introduced a particular English sum arbitrarily, if it +appeared to suit the context or even the metre. Thus, where Philip +gives or lends Mena fourteen sestertia that he may buy a farm, I +have not startled the modern agricultural reader by talking about a +hundred and twenty pounds, but have ventured to turn the sestertia +into so many hundreds. On the whole, however, while I certainly +cannot recommend any one to try to distil Latin antiquities from my +translation as they are sometimes distilled from the original, I +hope that I have not been unfaithful to the antique spirit, but have +reflected with sufficient accuracy the broad features of Roman life. + +Taken altogether, this translation will be found less close to the +original than those with which I have formerly troubled the public. +The considerations pointed out in the last paragraph will to a great +extent account for this: generally too I may say that where the main +characteristic of the original is perfect ease, the translator, if +he is to be easy also, will be obliged to take considerable +latitude. I trust however that I shall be found in most cases not to +have translated irrespectively of the Latin, but to have borne it in +mind even while departing from it most widely. I have studied the +various commentators with some care, and hope that my version may +not be without its use in turn as a sort of free commentary. I have +omitted two entire satires and several passages from others. Some of +them no one would wish to see translated: some, though capable of +being rendered without offence a hundred or even fifty years ago, +could hardly be so rendered now. Where I have not translated I have +not in general cared to paraphrase, but have been silent altogether. +I have in short given so much of my author as a well-judging reader +would wish to dwell on in reading the original, and no more. + +I have made acquaintance with such of the previous translations as I +did not already know, though it seemed best to avoid consulting them +in any passage till I had translated it myself. The few places in +which I have been consciously indebted to others have been mentioned +in the notes. Besides these, there are many other coincidences in +expression and rhyme which might be detected by any one sharing my +taste for that kind of reading, probably one or two in each poem: +but as I believe them to be mere coincidences, I have not been at +pains either to avoid them or to call attention to them. The only +one of my predecessors in translating all the poems contained in +this volume whom I need mention particularly is Mr. Howes. His book +was published posthumously in 1845; but though it is stated in the +preface to want the author's last corrections, a good deal of it +must have been written long before, as the translation of the +Satires is announced as nearly half finished in the introduction to +a translation of Persius by the same author published in 1809, and +some specimens given in the notes to that volume correspond almost +exactly with the passages as they finally appear. The translation of +Persius is a work of decided ability, but, in common I am inclined +to think with all the other translations, fails to give an adequate +notion of the characteristics of that very peculiar writer. The +translation of the Horatian poems, on the other hand, seems to me on +the whole undoubtedly successful, though, for whatever reason, its +merits do not appear to have been recognized by the public. It is +unequal, and it is too prolix: but when it is good, which is not +seldom, it is very good, unforced, idiomatic, and felicitous. In one +of its features, the habit of supplying connecting links to Horace's +not unfrequently disconnected thoughts, perhaps I should have done +wisely to follow it more than I have done: but the matter is one +where a line must be drawn, and I am not without apprehension as it +is that the scholar will sometimes blame me for introducing what the +general reader at any rate may thank me for. I should be glad if any +notice which I may be fortunate enough to attract should go beyond +my own work, and extend to a predecessor who, if he had published a +few years earlier, when translations were of more account, could +scarcely have failed to rank high among the cultivators of this +branch of literature. + + + + +BOOK I. + + +SATIRE I. + +QUI FIT, MAECENAS. + + +How comes it, say, Maecenas, if you can, +That none will live like a contented man +Where choice or chance directs, but each must praise +The folk who pass through life by other ways? +"Those lucky merchants!" cries the soldier stout, +When years of toil have well-nigh worn him out: +What says the merchant, tossing o'er the brine? +"Yon soldier's lot is happier, sure, than mine: +One short, sharp shock, and presto! all is done: +Death in an instant comes, or victory's won." +The lawyer lauds the farmer, when a knock +Disturbs his sleep at crowing of the cock: +The farmer, dragged to town on business, swears +That only citizens are free from cares. +I need not run through all: so long the list, +Fabius himself would weary and desist: +So take in brief my meaning: just suppose +Some God should come, and with their wishes close: +"See, here am I, come down of my mere grace +To right you: soldier, take the merchant's place! +You, counsellor, the farmer's! go your way, +One here, one there! None stirring? all say nay? +How now? you won't be happy when you may." +Now, after this, would Jove be aught to blame +If with both cheeks he burst into a flame, +And vowed, when next they pray, they shall not find +His temper easy, or his ear inclined? + +Well, not to treat things lightly (though, for me, +Why truth may not be gay, I cannot see: +Just as, we know, judicious teachers coax +With sugar-plum or cake their little folks +To learn their alphabet):--still, we will try +A graver tone, and lay our joking by. +The man that with his plough subdues the land, +The soldier stout, the vintner sly and bland, +The venturous sons of ocean, all declare +That with one view the toils of life they bear, +When age has come, and labour has amassed +Enough to live on, to retire at last: +E'en so the ant (for no bad pattern she), +That tiny type of giant industry, +Drags grain by grain, and adds it to the sum +Of her full heap, foreseeing cold to come: +Yet she, when winter turns the year to chill, +Stirs not an inch beyond her mounded hill, +But lives upon her savings: you, more bold, +Ne'er quit your gain for fiercest heat or cold: +Fire, ocean, sword, defying all, you strive +To make yourself the richest man alive. +Yet where's the profit, if you hide by stealth +In pit or cavern your enormous wealth? +"Why, once break in upon it, friend, you know, +And, dwindling piece by piece, the whole will go." +But, if 'tis still unbroken, what delight +Can all that treasure give to mortal wight? +Say, you've a million quarters on your floor: +Your stomach is like mine: it holds no more: +Just as the slave who 'neath the bread-bag sweats +No larger ration than his fellows gets. +What matters it to reasonable men +Whether they plough a hundred fields or ten? +"But there's a pleasure, spite of all you say, +In a large heap from which to take away." +If both contain the modicum we lack, +Why should your barn be better than my sack? +You want a draught of water: a mere urn, +Perchance a goblet, well would serve your turn: +You say, "The stream looks scanty at its head; +I'll take my quantum where 'tis broad instead." +But what befalls the wight who yearns for more +Than Nature bids him? down the waters pour, +And whelm him, bank and all; while he whose greed +Is kept in check, proportioned to his need, +He neither draws his water mixed with mud, +Nor leaves his life behind him in the flood. + +But there's a class of persons, led astray +By false desires, and this is what they say: +"You cannot have enough: what you possess, +That makes your value, be it more or less." +What answer would you make to such as these? +Why, let them hug their misery if they please, +Like the Athenian miser, who was wont +To meet men's curses with a hero's front: +"Folks hiss me," said he, "but myself I clap +When I tell o'er my treasures on my lap." +So Tantalus catches at the waves that fly +His thirsty palate--Laughing, are you? why? +Change but the name, of you the tale is told: +You sleep, mouth open, on your hoarded gold; +Gold that you treat as sacred, dare not use, +In fact, that charms you as a picture does. +Come, will you hear what wealth can fairly do? +'Twill buy you bread, and vegetables too, +And wine, a good pint measure: add to this +Such needful things as flesh and blood would miss. +But to go mad with watching, nights and days +To stand in dread of thieves, fires, runaways +Who filch and fly,--in these if wealth consist, +Let me rank lowest on the paupers' list. + +"But if you suffer from a chill attack, +Or other chance should lay you on your back, +You then have one who'll sit by your bed-side, +Will see the needful remedies applied, +And call in a physician, to restore +Your health, and give you to your friends once more." +Nor wife nor son desires your welfare: all +Detest you, neighbours, gossips, great and small. +What marvel if, when wealth's your one concern, +None offers you the love you never earn? +Nay, would you win the kinsmen Nature sends +Made ready to your hand, and keep them friends, +'Twere but lost labour, as if one should train +A donkey for the course by bit and rein. + +Make then an end of getting: know, the more +Your wealth, the less the risk of being poor; +And, having gained the object of your quest, +Begin to slack your efforts and take rest; +Nor act like one Ummidius (never fear, +The tale is short, and 'tis the last you'll hear), +So rich, his gold he by the peck would tell, +So mean, the slave that served him dressed as well; +E'en to his dying day he went in dread +Of perishing for simple want of bread, +Till a brave damsel, of Tyndarid line +The true descendant, clove him down the chine. + +"What? would you have me live like some we know, +Maenius or Nomentanus?" There you go! +Still in extremes! in bidding you forsake +A miser's ways, I say not, Be a rake. +'Twixt Tanais and Visellius' sire-in-law +A step there is, and broader than a straw. +Yes, there's a mean in morals: life has lines, +To north or south of which all virtue pines. + +Now to resume our subject: why, I say, +Should each man act the miser in his way, +Still discontented with his natural lot, +Still praising those who have what he has not? +Why should he waste with very spite, to see +His neighbour has a milkier cow than he, +Ne'er think how much he's richer than the mass, +But always strive this man or that to pass? +In such a contest, speed we as we may, +There's some one wealthier ever in the way. +So from their base when vying chariots pour, +Each driver presses on the car before, +Wastes not a thought on rivals overpast, +But leaves them to lag on among the last. +Hence comes it that the man is rarely seen +Who owns that his a happy life has been, +And, thankful for past blessings, with good will +Retires, like one who has enjoyed his fill. +Enough: you'll think I've rifled the scrutore +Of blind Crispinus, if I prose on more. + + + + +SATIRE III. + +OMNIBUS HOC VITIUM. + + +All singers have a fault: if asked to use +Their talent among friends, they never choose; +Unask'd, they ne'er leave off. Just such a one +Tigellius was, Sardinia's famous son. +Caesar, who could have forced him to obey, +By his sire's friendship and his own might pray, +Yet not draw forth a note: then, if the whim +Took him, he'd troll a Bacchanalian hymn, +From top to bottom of the tetrachord, +Till the last course was set upon the board. +One mass of inconsistence, oft he'd fly +As if the foe were following in full cry, +While oft he'd stalk with a majestic gait, +Like Juno's priest in ceremonial-state. +Now, he would keep two hundred serving-men, +And now, a bare establishment of ten. +Of kings and tetrarchs with an equal's air +He'd talk: next day he'd breathe the hermit's prayer: +"A table with three legs, a shell to hold +My salt, and clothes, though coarse, to keep out cold." +Yet give this man, so frugal, so content, +A thousand, in a week 'twould all be spent. +All night he would sit up, all day would snore: +So strange a jumble ne'er was seen before. + +"Hold!" some one cries, "have you no failings?" Yes; +Failings enough, but different, maybe less. +One day when Maenius happened to attack +Novius the usurer behind his back, +"Do you not know yourself?" said one, "or think +That if you play the stranger, we shall wink?" +"Not know myself!" he answered, "you say true: +I do not: so I take a stranger's due." +Self-love like this is knavish and absurd, +And well deserves a damnatory word. +You glance at your own faults; your eyes are blear: +You eye your neighbour's; straightway you see clear, +Like hawk or basilisk: your neighbours pry +Into your frailties with as keen an eye. +A man is passionate, perhaps misplaced +In social circles of fastidious taste; +His ill-trimmed beard, his dress of uncouth style, +His shoes ill-fitting, may provoke a smile: +But he's the soul of virtue; but he's kind; +But that coarse body hides a mighty mind. +Now, having scanned his breast, inspect your own, +And see if there no failings have been sown +By Nature or by habit, as the fern +Springs in neglected fields, for men to burn. + +True love, we know, is blind: defects that blight +The loved one's charms escape the lover's sight, +Nay, pass for beauties, as Balbinus glows +With admiration of his Hagna's nose. +Ah, if in friendship we e'en did the same, +And virtue cloaked the error with her name! +Come, let us learn how friends at friends should look +By a leaf taken from a father's book. +Has the dear child a squint? at home he's classed +With Venus' self; "her eyes have just that cast:" +Is he a dwarf like Sisyphus? his sire +Calls him "sweet pet," and would not have him higher, +Gives Varus' name to knock-kneed boys, and dubs +His club-foot youngster Scaurus, king of clubs. +E'en so let us our neighbours' frailties scan: +A friend is close; call him a careful man: +Another's vain and fond of boasting; say, +He talks in an engaging, friendly way: +A third is a barbarian, rude and free; +Straightforward and courageous let him be: +A fourth is apt to break into a flame; +An ardent spirit--make we that his name. +This is the sovereign recipe, be sure, +To win men's hearts, and having won, secure. + +But WE put virtue down to vice's score, +And foul the vessel that was clean before: +See, here's a modest man, who ranks too low +In his own judgment; him we nickname slow: +Another, ever on his guard, takes care +No enemy shall catch him unaware, +(Small wonder, truly, in a world like this, +Beset with dogs that growl and snakes that hiss); +We turn his merit to a fault, and style +His prudence mere disguise, his caution guile. +Or take some honest soul, who, full of glee, +Breaks on a patron's solitude, like me, +Finds his Maecenas book in hand or dumb, +And pokes him with remarks, the first that come; +We cry "He lacks e'en common tact." Alas! +What hasty laws against ourselves we pass! +For none is born without his faults: the best +But bears a lighter wallet than the rest. +A man of genial nature, as is fair, +My virtues with my vices will compare, +And, as with good or bad he fills the scale, +Lean to the better side, should that prevail: +So, when he seeks my friendship, I will trim +The wavering balance in my turn for him. +He that has fears his blotches may offend +Speaks gently of the pimples of his friend: +For reciprocity exacts her dues, +And they that need excuse must needs excuse. + +Now, since resentment, spite of all we do, +Will haunt us fools, and other vices too, +Why should not reason use her own just sense, +And square her punishments to each offence? +Suppose a slave, as he removes the dish, +Licks the warm gravy or remains of fish, +Should his vexed master gibbet the poor lad, +He'd be a second Labeo, STARING mad. +Now take another instance, and remark +A case of madness, grosser and more stark. +A friend has crossed you:--'tis a slight affair; +Not to forgive it writes you down a bear:-- +You hate the man and his acquaintance fly, +As Ruso's debtors hide from Ruso's eye; +Poor victims, doomed, when that black pay-day's come, +Unless by hook or crook they raise the sum, +To stretch their necks, like captives to the knife, +And listen to dull histories for dear life. +Say, he has drunk too much, or smashed some ware, +Evander's once, inestimably rare, +Or stretched before me, in his zeal to dine, +To snatch a chicken I had meant for mine; +What then? is that a reason he should seem +Less pleasant, less deserving my esteem? +How could I treat him worse, were he to thieve, +Betray a secret, or a trust deceive? + +Your men of words, who rate all crimes alike, +Collapse and founder, when on fact they strike: +Sense, custom, all, cry out against the thing, +And high expedience, right's perennial spring. +When men first crept from out earth's womb, like worms, +Dumb speechless creatures, with scarce human forms, +With nails or doubled fists they used to fight +For acorns or for sleeping-holes at night; +Clubs followed next; at last to arms they came, +Which growing practice taught them how to frame, +Till words and names were found, wherewith to mould +The sounds they uttered, and their thoughts unfold; +Thenceforth they left off fighting, and began +To build them cities, guarding man from man, +And set up laws as barriers against strife +That threatened person, property, or wife. +'Twas fear of wrong gave birth to right, you'll find, +If you but search the records of mankind. +Nature knows good and evil, joy and grief, +But just and unjust are beyond her brief: +Nor can philosophy, though finely spun, +By stress of logic prove the two things one, +To strip your neighbour's garden of a flower +And rob a shrine at midnight's solemn hour. +A rule is needed, to apportion pain, +Nor let you scourge when you should only cane. +For that you're likely to be overmild, +And treat a ruffian like a naughty child, +Of this there seems small danger, when you say +That theft's as bad as robbery in its way, +And vow all villains, great and small, shall swing +From the same tree, if men will make you king. + +But tell me, Stoic, if the wise, you teach, +Is king, Adonis, cobbler, all and each, +Why wish for what you've got? "Tou fail to see +What great Chrysippus means by that," says he. +"What though the wise ne'er shoe nor slipper made, +The wise is still a brother of the trade. +Just as Hennogenes, when silent, still +Remains a singer of consummate skill, +As sly Alfenius, when he had let drop +His implements of art and shut up shop, +Was still a barber, so the wise is best +In every craft, a king's among the rest." +Hail to your majesty! yet, ne'ertheless, +Rude boys are pulling at your beard, I guess; +And now, unless your cudgel keeps them off, +The mob begins to hustle, push, and scoff; +You, all forlorn, attempt to stand at bay, +And roar till your imperial lungs give way. +Well, so we part: each takes his separate path: +You make your progress to your farthing bath, +A king, with ne'er a follower in your train, +Except Crispinus, that distempered brain; +While I find pleasant friends to screen me, when +I chance to err, like other foolish men; +Bearing and borne with, so the change we ring, +More blest as private folks than you as king. + + + + +SATIRE IV. + +EUPOLIS ATQUE CRATINUS. + + +Cratinus, Aristophanes, and all +The elder comic poets, great and small, +If e'er a worthy in those ancient times +Deserved peculiar notice for his crimes, +Adulterer, cut-throat, ne'er-do-well, or thief, +Portrayed him without fear in strong relief. +From these, as lineal heir, Lucilius springs, +The same in all points save the tune he sings, +A shrewd keen satirist, yet somewhat hard +And rugged, if you view him as a bard. +For this was his mistake: he liked to stand, +One leg before him, leaning on one hand, +Pour forth two hundred verses in an hour, +And think such readiness a proof of power. +When like a torrent he bore down, you'd find +He left a load of refuse still behind: +Fluent, yet indolent, he would rebel +Against the toil of writing, writing WELL, +Not writing MUCH; for that I grant you. See, +Here comes Crispinus, wants to bet with me, +And offers odds: "A meeting, if you please: +Take we our tablets each, you those, I these: +Name place, and time, and umpires: let us try +Who can compose the faster, you or I." +Thank Heaven, that formed me of unfertile mind, +My speech not copious, and my thoughts confined! +But you, be like the bellows, if you choose, +Still puffing, puffing, till the metal fuse, +And vent your windy nothings with a sound +That makes the depth they come from seem profound. + +Happy is Fannius, with immortals classed, +His bust and bookcase canonized at last, +While, as for me, none reads the things I write. +Loath as I am in public to recite, +Knowing that satire finds small favour, since +Most men want whipping, and who want it, wince. +Choose from the crowd a casual wight, 'tis seen +He's place-hunter or miser, vain or mean: +One raves of others' wives: one stands agaze +At silver dishes: bronze is Albius' craze: +Another barters goods the whole world o'er, +From distant east to furthest western shore, +Driving along like dust-cloud through the air +To increase his capital or not impair: +These, one and all, the clink of metre fly, +And look on poets with a dragon's eye. +"Beware! he's vicious: so he gains his end, +A selfish laugh, he will not spare a friend: +Whate'er he scrawls, the mean malignant rogue +Is all alive to get it into vogue: +Give him a handle, and your tale is known +To every giggling boy and maundering crone." +A weighty accusation! now, permit +Some few brief words, and I will answer it: +First, be it understood, I make no claim +To rank with those who bear a poet's name: +'Tis not enough to turn out lines complete, +Each with its proper quantum of five feet; +Colloquial verse a man may write like me, +But (trust an author)'tis not poetry. +No; keep that name for genius, for a soul +Of Heaven's own fire, for words that grandly roll. +Hence some have questioned if the Muse we call +The Comic Muse be really one at all: +Her subject ne'er aspires, her style ne'er glows, +And, save that she talks metre, she talks prose. +"Aye, but the angry father shakes the stage, +When on his graceless son he pours his rage, +Who, smitten with the mistress of the hour, +Rejects a well-born wife with ample dower, +Gets drunk, and (worst of all) in public sight +Keels with a blazing flambeau while 'tis light." +Well, could Pomponius' sire to life return, +Think you he'd rate his son in tones less stern? +So then 'tis not sufficient to combine +Well-chosen words in a well-ordered line, +When, take away the rhythm, the self-same words +Would suit an angry father off the boards. +Strip what I write, or what Lucilius wrote, +Of cadence and succession, time and note, +Reverse the order, put those words behind +That went before, no poetry you'll find: +But break up this, "When Battle's brazen door +Blood-boltered Discord from its fastenings tore," +'Tis Orpheus mangled by the Maenads: still +The bard remains, unlimb him as you will. + +Enough of this: some other time we'll see +If Satire is or is not poetry: +Today I take the question, if 'tis just +That men like you should view it with distrust. +Sulcius and Caprius promenade in force, +Each with his papers, virulently hoarse, +Bugbears to robbers both: but he that's true +And decent-living may defy the two. +Say, you're first cousin to that goodly pair +Caelius and Birrius, and their foibles share: +No Sulcius nor yet Caprius here you see +In your unworthy servant: why fear ME? +No books of mine on stall or counter stand, +To tempt Tigellius' or some clammier hand, +Nor read I save to friends, and that when pressed, +Not to chance auditor or casual guest. +Others are less fastidious: some will air +Their last production in the public square: +Some choose the bathroom, for the walls all round +Make the voice sweeter and improve the sound: +Weak brains, to whom the question ne'er occurred +If what they do be vain, ill-timed, absurd. +"But you give pain: your habit is to bite," +Rejoins the foe, "of sot deliberate spite." +Who broached that slander? of the men I know, +With whom I live, have any told you so? +He who maligns an absent friend's fair fame, +Who says no word for him when others blame, +Who courts a reckless laugh by random hits, +Just for the sake of ranking among wits, +Who feigns what he ne'er saw, a secret blabs, +Beware him, Roman! that man steals or stabs! +Oft you may see three couches, four on each, +Where all are wincing under one man's speech, +All, save the host: his turn too comes at last, +When wine lets loose the humour shame held fast: +And you, who hate malignity, can see +Nought here but pleasant talk, well-bred and free. +I, if I chance in laughing vein to note +Rufillus' civet and Gargonius' goat, +Must I be toad or scorpion? Look at home: +Suppose Petillius' theft, the talk of Rome, +Named in your presence, mark how yon defend +In your accustomed strain your absent friend: +"Petillius? yes, I know him well: in truth +We have been friends, companions, e'en from youth: +A thousand times he's served me, and I joy +That he can walk the streets without annoy: +Yet 'tis a puzzle, I confess, to me +How from that same affair he got off free." +Here is the poison-bag of malice, here +The gall of fell detraction, pure and sheer: +And these, I'swear, if man such pledge may give, +My pen and heart shall keep from, while I live. + +But if I still seem personal and bold, +Perhaps you'll pardon, when my story's told. +When my good father taught me to be good, +Scarecrows he took of living flesh and blood. +Thus, if he warned me not to spend but spare +The moderate means I owe to his wise care, +'Twas, "See the life that son of Albius leads! +Observe that Barrus, vilest of ill weeds! +Plain beacons these for heedless youth, whose taste +Might lead them else a fair estate to waste:" +If lawless love were what he bade me shun, +"Avoid Scetanius' slough," his words would run: +"Wise men," he'd add, "the reasons will explain +Why you should follow this, from that refrain: +For me, if I can train you in the ways +Trod by the worthy folks of earlier days, +And, while you need direction, keep your name +And life unspotted, I've attained my aim: +When riper years have seasoned brain and limb, +You'll drop your corks, and like a Triton swim." +'Twas thus he formed my boyhood: if he sought +To make me do some action that I ought, +"You see your warrant there," he'd say, and clench +His word with some grave member of the bench: +So too with things forbidden: "can you doubt +The deed's a deed an honest man should scout, +When, just for this same matter, these and those, +Like open drains, are stinking 'neath your nose?" +Sick gluttons of a next-door funeral hear, +And learn self-mastery in the school of fear: +And so a neighbour's scandal many a time +Has kept young minds from running into crime. + +Thus I grew up, unstained by serious ill, +Though venial faults, I grant you, haunt me still: +Yet items I could name retrenched e'en there +By time, plain speaking, individual care; +For, when I chance to stroll or lounge alone, +I'm not without a Mentor of my own: +"This course were better: that might help to mend +My daily life, improve me as a friend: +There some one showed ill-breeding: can I say +I might not fall into the like one day?" +So with closed lips I ruminate, and then +In leisure moments play with ink and pen: +For that's an instance, I must needs avow, +Of those small faults I hinted at just now: +Grant it your prompt indulgence, or a throng +Of poets shall come up, some hundred strong, +And by mere numbers, in your own despite, +Force you, like Jews, to be our proselyte. + + + + +SATIRE V. + +EGRESSUM MAGNA. + + +Leaving great Rome, my journey I begin, +And reach Aricia, where a moderate inn +(With me was Heliodorus, who knows more +Of rhetoric than e'er did Greek before): +Next Appii Forum, filled, e'en, nigh to choke, +With knavish publicans and boatmen folk. +This portion of our route, which most get through +At one good stretch, we chose to split in two, +Taking it leisurely: for those who go +The Appian road are jolted less when slow. +I find the water villanous, decline +My stomach's overtures, refuse to dine, +And sit and sit with temper less than sweet +Watching my fellow-travellers while they eat. +Now Night prepared o'er all the earth to spread +Her veil, and light the stars up overhead: +Boatmen and slaves a slanging-match begin: +"Ho! put in here! What! take three hundred in? +You'll swamp us all:" so, while our fares we pay, +And the mule's tied, a whole hour slips away. +No hope of sleep: the tenants of the marsh, +Hoarse frogs and shrill mosquitos, sing so harsh, +While passenger and boatman chant the praise +Of their true-loves in amoebean lays, +Each fairly drunk: the passenger at last +Tires of the game, and soon his eyes are fast: +Then to a stone his mule the boatman moors, +Leaves her to pasture, lays him down, and snores. +And now 'twas near the dawning of the day, +When 'tis discovered that we make no way: +Out leaps a hair-brained fellow and attacks +With a stout cudgel mule's and boatman's backs: +And so at length, thanks to this vigorous friend, +By ten o'clock we reach our boating's end. +Tired with the voyage, face and hands we lave +In pure Feronia's hospitable wave. +We take some food, then creep three miles or so +To Anxur, built on cliffs that gleam like snow; +There rest awhile, for there our mates were due, +Maecenas and Cocceius, good and true, +Sent on a weighty business, to compose +A feud, and make them friends who late were foes. +I seize on the occasion, and apply +A touch of ointment to an ailing eye. +Meanwhile Maecenas with Cocceius came, +And Capito, whose errand was the same, +A man of men, accomplished and refined, +Who knew, as few have known, Antonius' mind. +Along by Fundi next we take our way +For all its praetor sought to make us stay, +Not without laughter at the foolish soul, +His senatorial stripe and pan of coal. +Then at Mamurra's city we pull up, +Lodge with Murena, with Fonteius sup. +Next morn the sun arises, O how sweet! +At Sinnessa we with Plotius meet, +Varius and Virgil; men than whom on earth +I know none dearer, none of purer worth. +O what a hand-shaking! while sense abides, +A friend to me is worth the world besides. +Campania's border-bridge next day we crossed, +There housed and victualled at the public cost. +The next, we turn off early from the road +At Capua, and the mules lay down their load; +There, while Maecenas goes to fives, we creep, +Virgil and I, to bed, and so to sleep: +For, though the game's a pleasant one to play, +Weak stomachs and weak eyes are in the way. +Then to Cocceius' country-house we come, +Beyond the Caudian inns, a sumptuous home. +Now, Muse, recount the memorable fight +'Twixt valiant Messius and Sarmentus wight, +And tell me first from what proud lineage sprung +The champions joined in battle, tongue with tongue. +From Oscan blood great Messius' sires derive: +Sarmentus has a mistress yet alive. +Such was their parentage: they meet in force: +Sarmentus starts: "You're just like a wild horse." +We burst into a laugh. The other said, +"Well, here's a horse's trick:" and tossed his head. +"O, were your horn yet growing, how your foe +Would rue it, sure, when maimed you threaten so!" +Sarmentus cries: for Messius' brow was marred +By a deep wound, which left it foully scarred. +Then, joking still at his grim countenance, +He begged him just to dance the Cyclop dance: +No buskin, mask, nor other aid of art +Would be required to make him look his part. +Messius had much to answer: "Was his chain +Suspended duly in the Lares' fane? +Though now a notary, he might yet be seized +And given up to his mistress, if she pleased. +Nay, more," he asked, "why had he run away, +When e'en a single pound of corn a day +Had filled a maw so slender?" So we spent +Our time at table, to our high content. + +Then on to Beneventum, where our host, +As some lean thrushes he essayed to roast, +Was all but burnt: for up the chimney came +The blaze, and well nigh set the house on flame: +The guests and servants snatch the meat, and fall +Upon the fire with buckets, one and all. +Next rise to view Apulia's well-known heights, +Which keen Atabulus so sorely bites: +And there perchance we might be wandering yet, +But shelter in Trivicum's town we get, +Where green damp branches in the fireplace spread +Make our poor eyes to water in our head. +Then four and twenty miles, a good long way, +Our coaches take us, in a town to stay +Whose name no art can squeeze into a line, +Though otherwise 'tis easy to define: +For water there, the cheapest thing on earth, +Is sold for money: but the bread is worth +A fancy price, and travellers who know +Their business take it with them when they go: +For at Canusium, town of Diomed, +The drink's as bad, and grits are in the bread. +Here to our sorrow Varius takes his leave, +And, grieved himself, compels his friends to grieve. +Fatigued, we come to Rubi: for the way +Was long, and rain had made it sodden clay. +Next day, with better weather, o'er worse ground +We get to Barium's town, where fish abound. +Then Gnatia, built in water-nymphs' despite, +Made us cut jokes and laugh, as well we might, +Listening to tales of incense, wondrous feat, +That melts in temples without fire to heat. +Tell the crazed Jews such miracles as these! +I hold the gods live lives of careless ease, +And, if a wonder happens, don't assume +'Tis sent in anger from the upstairs room. +Last comes Brundusium: there the lines I penned, +The leagues I travelled, find alike their end. + + + + +SATIRE VI. + +NON QUIA, MAECENAS. + + +What if, Maecenas, none, though ne'er so blue +His Tusco-Lydian blood, surpasses you? +What if your grandfathers, on either hand, +Father's and mother's, were in high command? +Not therefore do you curl the lip of scorn +At nobodies, like me, of freedman born: +Far other rule is yours, of rank or birth +To raise no question, so there be but worth, +Convinced, and truly too, that wights unknown, +Ere Servius' rise set freedmen on the throne, +Despite their ancestors, not seldom came +To high employment, honours, and fair fame, +While great Laevinus, scion of the race +That pulled down Tarquin from his pride of place, +Has ne'er been valued at a poor half-crown +E'en in the eyes of that wise judge, the town, +That muddy source of dignity, which sees +No virtue but in busts and lineal trees. + +Well, but for us; what thoughts should ours be, say, +Removed from vulgar judgments miles away? +Grant that Laevinus yet would be preferred +To low-born Decius by the common herd, +That censor Appius, just because I came +From freedman's loins, would obelize my name-- +And serve me right; for 'twas my restless pride +Kept me from sleeping in my own poor hide. +But Glory, like a conqueror, drags behind +Her glittering car the souls of all mankind; +Nor less the lowly than the noble feels +The onward roll of those victorious wheels. +Come, tell me, Tillius, have you cause to thank +The stars that gave you power, restored you rank? +Ill-will, scarce audible in low estate, +Gives tongue, and opens loudly, now you're great. +Poor fools! they take the stripe, draw on the shoe, +And hear folks asking, "Who's that fellow? who?" +Just as a man with Barrus's disease, +His one sole care a lady's eye to please, +Whene'er he walks abroad, sets on the fair +To con him over, leg, face, teeth, and hair; +So he that undertakes to hold in charge +Town, country, temples, all the realm at large, +Gives all the world a title to enquire +The antecedents of his dam or sire. +"What? you to twist men's necks or scourge them, you, +The son of Syrus, Dama, none knows who?" +"Aye, but I sit before my colleague; he +Ranks with my worthy father, not with me." +And think you, on the strength of this, to rise +A Paullus or Messala in our eyes? +Talk of your colleague! he's a man of parts: +Suppose three funerals jostle with ten carts +All in the forum, still you'll hear his voice +Through horn and clarion: that commends our +choice. + +Now on myself, the freedman's son, I touch, +The freedman's son, by all contemned as such, +Once, when a legion followed my command, +Now, when Maecenas takes me by the hand. +But this and that are different: some stern judge +My military rank with cause might grudge, +But not your friendship, studious as you've been +To choose good men, not pushing, base, or mean. +In truth, to luck I care not to pretend, +For 'twas not luck that mark'd me for your friend: +Virgil at first, that faithful heart and true, +And Varius after, named my name to you. +Brought to your presence, stammeringly I told +(For modesty forbade me to be bold) +No vaunting tale of ancestry of pride, +Of good broad acres and sleek nags to ride, +But simple truth: a few brief words you say, +As is your wont, and wish me a good day. +Then, nine months after, graciously you send, +Desire my company, and hail me friend. +O, 'tis no common fortune, when one earns +A friend's regard, who man from man discerns, +Not by mere accident of lofty birth +But by unsullied life, and inborn worth! + +Yet, if my nature, otherwise correct, +But with some few and trifling faults is flecked, +Just as a spot or mole might be to blame +Upon some body else of comely frame, +If none can call me miserly and mean +Or tax my life with practices unclean, +If I have lived unstained and unreproved +(Forgive self-praise), if loving and beloved, +I owe it to my father, who, though poor, +Passed by the village school at his own door, +The school where great tall urchins in a row, +Sons of great tall centurions, used to go, +With slate and satchel on their backs, to pay +Their monthly quota punctual to the day, +And took his boy to Rome, to learn the arts +Which knight or senator to HIS imparts. +Whoe'er had seen me, neat and more than neat, +With slaves behind me, in the crowded street, +Had surely thought a fortune fair and large, +Two generations old, sustained the charge. +Himself the true tried guardian of his son, +Whene'er I went to class, he still made one. +Why lengthen out the tale? he kept me chaste, +Which is the crown of virtue, undisgraced +In deed and name: he feared not lest one day +The world should talk of money thrown away, +If after all I plied some trade for hire, +Like him, a tax-collector, or a crier: +Nor had I murmured: as it is, the score +Of gratitude and praise is all the more. +No: while my head's unturned, I ne'er shall need +To blush for that dear father, or to plead +As men oft plead, 'tis Nature's fault, not mine, +I came not of a better, worthier line. +Not thus I speak, not thus I feel: the plea +Might serve another, but 'twere base in me. +Should Fate this moment bid me to go back +O'er all my length of years, my life retrack +To its first hour, and pick out such descent +As man might wish for e'en to pride's content, +I should rest satisfied with mine, nor choose +New parents, decked with senatorial shoes, +Mad, most would think me, sane, as you'll allow, +To waive a load ne'er thrust on me till now. +More gear 'twould make me get without delay, +More bows there'd be to make, more calls to pay, +A friend or two must still be at my side, +That all alone I might not drive or ride, +More nags would want their corn, more grooms their meat, +And waggons must be bought, to save their feet. +Now on my bobtailed mule I jog at ease, +As far as e'en Tarentum, if I please, +A wallet for my things behind me tied, +Which galls his crupper, as I gall his side, +And no one rates my meanness, as they rate +Yours, noble Tillius, when you ride in state +On the Tiburtine road, five slaves EN SUITE, +Wineholder and et-ceteras all complete. + +'Tis thus my life is happier, man of pride, +Than yours and that of half the world beside. +When the whim leads, I saunter forth alone, +Ask how are herbs, and what is flour a stone, +Lounge through the Circus with its crowd of liars, +Or in the Forum, when the sun retires, +Talk to a soothsayer, then go home to seek +My frugal meal of fritter, vetch, and leek: +Three youngsters serve the food: a slab of white +Contains two cups, one ladle, clean and bright: +Next, a cheap basin ranges on the shelf, +With jug and saucer of Campanian delf: +Then off to bed, where I can close my eyes +Not thinking how with morning I must rise +And face grim Marsyas, who is known to swear +Young Novius' looks are what he cannot bear. +I lie a-bed till ten: then stroll a bit, +Or read or write, if in a silent fit, +And rub myself with oil, not taken whence +Natta takes his, at some poor lamp's expense. +So to the field and ball; but when the sun +Bids me go bathe, the field and ball I shun: +Then eat a temperate luncheon, just to stay +A sinking stomach till the close of day, +Kill time in-doors, and so forth. Here you see +A careless life, from stir and striving free, +Happier (O be that flattering unction mine!) +Than if three quaestors figured in my line. + + + + +SATIRE VII. + +PROSCRIPTI REGIS RUPILI. + + +How mongrel Persius managed to outsting +That pungent proscript, foul Rupilius King, +Is known, I take it, to each wight that drops +Oil on bleared eyes, or lolls in barbers' shops. + +Persius was rich, a man of great affairs, +Steeped to the lips in monetary cares +Down at Clazomenae: and some dispute +'Twixt him and King had festered to a suit. +Tough, pushing, loud was he, with power of hate +To beat e'en King's; so pestilent his prate, +That Barrus and Sisenna you would find +Left in the running leagues and leagues behind. +Well, to return to King: they quickly see +They can't agree except to disagree: +For 'tis a rule, that wrath is short or long +Just as the combatants are weak or strong: +'Twixt Hector and Aeacides the strife +Was truceless, mortal, could but end with life, +For this plain reason, that in either wight +The tide of valour glowed at its full height; +Whereas, if two poor cravens chance to jar, +Or if an ill-matched couple meet in war, +Like Diomede and Glaucus, straight the worse +Gives in, and presents are exchanged of course. + +Well, in the days when Brutus held command, +With praetor's rank, o'er Asia's wealthy land, +Persius and King engage, a goodly pair, +Like Bithus matched with Bacchius to a hair. +Keen as sharp steel, before the court they go, +Bach in himself as good as a whole show. + +Persius begins: amid the general laugh +He praises Brutus, praises Brutus' staff, +Brutus, the healthful sun of Asia's sphere, +His staff, the minor stars that bless the year, +All, save poor King; a dog-star he, the sign +To farmers inauspicious and malign: +So roaring on he went, like wintry flood, +Where axes seldom come to thin the wood. + +Then, as he thundered, King, Praeneste-bred, +Hurled vineyard slang in handfuls at his head, +A tough grape-gatherer, whom the passer-by +Could ne'er put down, with all his cuckoo cry. + +Sluiced with Italian vinegar, the Greek +At length vociferates, "Brutus, let me speak! +You are our great king-killer: why delay +To kill this King? I vow 'tis in your way." + + + + +SATIRE IX. + +IBAM FORTE VIA SACRA. + + +Long the Sacred Road I strolled one day, +Deep in some bagatelle (you know my way), +When up comes one whose name I scarcely knew-- +"The dearest of dear fellows! how d'ye do?" +He grasped my hand--"Well, thanks: the same to you." +Then, as he still kept walking by my side, +To cut things short, "You've no commands?" I cried. +"Nay, you should know me: I'm a man of lore." +"Sir, I'm your humble servant all the more." +All in a fret to make him let me go, +I now walk fast, now loiter and walk slow, +Now whisper to my servant, while the sweat +Ran down so fast, my very feet were wet. +"O had I but a temper worth the name, +Like yours, Bolanus!" inly I exclaim, +While he keeps running on at a hand-trot, +About the town, the streets, I know not what. +Finding I made no answer, "Ah! I see, +Tou 're at a strait to rid yourself of me; +But 'tis no use: I'm a tenacious friend, +And mean to hold you till your journey's end," +"No need to take you such a round: I go +To visit an acquaintance you don't know: +Poor man! he's ailing at his lodging, far +Beyond the bridge, where Caesar's gardens are." +"O, never mind: I've nothing else to do, +And want a walk, so I'll step on with you." + +Down go my ears, in donkey-fashion, straight; +You've seen them do it, when their load's too great. +"If I mistake not," he begins, "you'll find +Viscus not more, nor Varius, to yoar mind: +There's not a man can turn a verse so soon, +Or dance so nimbly when he hears a tune: +While, as for singing--ah! my forte is there: +Tigellius' self might envy me, I'll swear." + +He paused for breath: I falteringly strike in: +"Have you a mother? have you kith or kin +To whom your life is precious?" "Not a soul: +My line's extinct: I have interred the whole." +O happy they! (so into thought I fell) +After life's endless babble they sleep well: +My turn is next: dispatch me: for the weird +Has come to pass which I so long have feared, +The fatal weird a Sabine beldame sung, +All in my nursery days, when life was young: +"No sword nor poison e'er shall take him off, +Nor gout, nor pleurisy, nor racking cough: +A babbling tongue shall kill him: let him fly +All talkers, as he wishes not to die." + +We got to Vesta's temple, and the sun +Told us a quarter of the day was done. +It chanced he had a suit, and was bound fast +Either to make appearance or be cast. +"Step here a moment, if you love me." "Nay; +I know no law: 'twould hurt my health to stay: +And then, my call." "I'm doubting what to do, +Whether to give my lawsuit up or you. +"Me, pray!" "I will not." On he strides again: +I follow, unresisting, in his train. + +"How stand you with Maecenas?" he began: +"He picks his friends with care; a shrewd wise man: +In fact, I take it, one could hardly name +A head so cool in life's exciting game. +'Twould be a good deed done, if you could throw +Your servant in his way; I mean, you know, +Just to play second: in a month, I'll swear, +You'd make an end of every rival there." +"O, you mistake: we don't live there in league: +I know no house more sacred from intrigue: +I'm never distanced in my friend's good grace +By wealth or talent: each man finds his place." +"A miracle! if 'twere not told by you, +I scarce should credit it." "And yet 'tis true." +"Ah, well, you double my desire to rise +To special favour with a man so wise." +"You've but to wish it: 'twill be your own fault, +If, with your nerve, you win not by assault: +He can be won: that puts him on his guard, +And so the first approach is always hard." +"No fear of me, sir: a judicious bribe +Will work a wonder with the menial tribe: +Say, I'm refused admittance for to-day; +I'll watch my time; I'll meet him in the way, +Escort him, dog him. In this world of ours +The path to what we want ne'er runs on flowers." + +'Mid all this prate there met us, as it fell, +Aristius, my good friend, who knew him well. +We stop: inquiries and replies go round: +"Where do you hail from?" "Whither are you bound?" +There as he stood, impassive as a clod, +I pull at his limp arms, frown, wink, and nod, +To urge him to release me. With a smile +He feigns stupidity: I burn with bile. +"Something there was you said you wished to tell +To me in private." "Ay, I mind it well; +But not just now: 'tis a Jews' fast to-day: +Affront a sect so touchy! nay, friend, nay." +"Faith, I've no scruples." "Ah! but I've a few: +I'm weak, you know, and do as others do: +Some other time: excuse me." Wretched me! +That ever man so black a sun should see! +Off goes the rogue, and leaves me in despair, +Tied to the altar, with the knife in air: +When, by rare chance, the plaintiff in the suit +Knocks up against us: "Whither now, you brute?" +He roars like thunder: then to me: "You'll stand +My witness, sir?" "My ear's at your command." +Off to the court he drags him: shouts succeed: +A mob collects: thank Phoebus, I am freed. + + + + +SATIRE X. + +NEMPE INCOMPOSITO. + + +Yes, I did say that, view him as a bard, +Lucilius is unrhythmic, rugged, hard. +Lives there a partisan so weak of brain +As to join issue on a fact so plain? +But that he had a gift of biting wit, +In the same page I hastened to admit. +Now understand me: that's a point confessed; +But he who grants it grants not all the rest: +For, were a bard a bard because he's smart, +Laberius' mimes were products of high art. +'Tis not enough to make your reader's face +Wear a broad grin, though that too has its place: +Terseness there wants, to make the thought ring clear, +Nor with a crowd of words confuse the ear: +There wants a plastic style, now grave, now light, +Now such as bard or orator would write, +And now the language of a well-bred man, +Who masks his strength, and says not all he can: +And pleasantry will often cut clean through +Hard knots that gravity would scarce undo. +On this the old comedians rested: hence +They're still the models of all men of sense, +Despite Tigellius and his ape, whose song +Is Calvus and Catullus all day long. + +"But surely that's a merit quite unique, +His gift of mixing Latin up with Greek," +Unique, you lags in learning? what? a knack +Caught by Pitholeon with his hybrid clack? +"Nay, but the mixture gives the style more grace, +As Chian, plus Falernian, has more race." +Come, tell me truly: is this rule applied +To verse-making by you, and nought beside, +Or would you practise it, when called to plead +For poor Petillius, at his direst need? +Forsooth, you choose that moment, to disown +Your old forefathers, Latin to the bone, +And while great Pedius and Corvinus strain +Against you in pure Latin lungs and brain, +Like double-tongued Canusian, try to speak +A piebald speech, half native and half Greek! + +Once when, though born on this side of the sea, +I tried my hand at Attic poetry, +Quirinus warned me, rising to my view +An hour past midnight, just when dreams are true: +"Seek you the throng of Grecian bards to swell? +Take sticks into a forest just as well." +So, while Alpinus spills his Memnon's blood, +Or gives his Rhine a headpiece of brown mud, +I toy with trifles such as this, unmeet +At Tarpa's grave tribunal to compete, +Or, mouthed by well-graced actors, be the rage +Of mobs, and hold possession of the stage. + +No hand can match Fundanius at a piece +Where slave and mistress clip an old man's fleece: +Pollio in buskins chants the deeds of kings: +Varius outsoars us all on Homer's wings: +The Muse that loves the woodland and the farm +To Virgil lends her gayest, tenderest charm. +For me, this walk of satire, vainly tried +By Atacinus and some few beside, +Best suits my gait: yet readily I yield +To him who first set footstep on that field, +Nor meanly seek to rob him of the bay +That shows so comely on his locks of grey. + +Well, but I called him muddy, said you'd find +More sand than gold in what he leaves behind. +And you, sir Critic, does your finer sense +In Homer mark no matter for offence? +Or e'en Lucilius, our good-natured friend, +Sees he in Accius nought he fain would mend? +Does he not laugh at Ennius' halting verse, +Yet own himself no better, if not worse? +And what should hinder me, as I peruse +Lucilius' works, from asking, if I choose, +If fate or chance forbade him to attain +A smoother measure, a more finished strain, +Than he (you'll let me fancy such a man) +Who, anxious only to make sense and scan, +Pours forth two hundred verses ere he sups, +Two hundred more, on rising from his cups? +Like to Etruscan Cassius' stream of song, +Which flowed, men say, so copious and so strong +That, when he died, his kinsfolk simply laid +His works in order, and his pyre was made. +No; grant Lucilius arch, engaging, gay; +Grant him the smoothest writer of his day; +Lay stress upon the fact that he'd to seek +In his own mind what others find in Greek; +Grant all you please, in turn you must allow, +Had fate postponed his life from then to now, +He'd prune redundancies, apply the file +To each excrescence that deforms his style, +Oft in the pangs of labour scratch his head, +And bite his nails, and bite them, till they bled. +Oh yes! believe me, you must draw your pen +Not once nor twice but o'er and o'er again +Through what you've written, if you would entice +The man that reads you once to read you twice, +Not making popular applause your cue, +But looking to fit audience, although few. +Say, would you rather have the things you scrawl +Doled out by pedants for their boys to drawl? +Not I: like hissed Arbuscula, I slight +Your hooting mobs, if I can please a knight. + +Shall bug Pantilius vex me? shall I choke +Because Demetrius needs must have his joke +Behind my back, and Fannius, when he dines +With dear Tigellius, vilifies my lines? +Maecenas, Virgil, Varius, if I please +In my poor writings these and such as these, +If Plotius, Valgius, Fuscus will commend, +And good Octavius, I've achieved my end. +You, noble Pollio (let your friend disclaim +All thought of flattery when he names your name), +Messala and his brother, Servius too, +And Bibulus, and Furnius kind and true, +With others whom, despite their sense and wit +And friendly hearts, I purposely omit; +Such I would have my critics; men to gain +Whose smiles were pleasure, to forego them pain, +Demetrius and Tigellius, off! go pule +To the bare benches of your ladies' school! + +Hallo there, youngster! take my book, you rogue, +And write this in, by way of epilogue. + + + + +BOOK II. + + +SATIRE I. + +SUNT QUIBUS IN SATIRA. + +HORACE. TREBATIUS. + + +HORACE. + +Some think in satire I'm too keen, and press +The spirit of invective to excess: +Some call my verses nerveless: once begin, +A thousand such per day a man might spin. +Trebatius, pray advise me. + +T. Wipe your pen. + +H. What, never write a single line again? + +T. That's what I mean. + +H. 'Twould suit me, I protest, Exactly: but at nights I get no rest. + +T. First rub yourself three times with oil all o'er, +Then swim the Tiber through from shore to shore, +Taking good care, as night draws on, to steep +Your brain in liquor: then you'll have your sleep. +Or, if you still have such an itch to write, +Sing of some moving incident of fight; +Sing of great Caasar's victories: a bard +Who works at that is sure to win reward. + +H. Would that I could, my worthy sire! but skill +And vigour lack, how great soe'er the will. +Not every one can paint in epic strain +The lances bristling on the embattled plain, +Tell how the Gauls by broken javelins bleed, +Or sing the Parthian tumbling from his steed. + +T. But you can draw him just and brave, you know, +As sage Lucilius did for Scipio. + +H. Trust me for that: my devoir I will pay, +Whene'er occasion comes to point the way. +Save at fit times, no words of mine can find +A way through Cassar's ear to Cassar's mind: +A mettled horse, if awkwardly you stroke, +Kicks out on all sides, and your leg is broke. + +T. Better do this than gall with keen lampoon +Cassius the rake and Maenius the buffoon, +When each one, though with withers yet unwrung, +Fears for himself, and hates your bitter tongue. + +H. What shall I do? Milonius, when the wine +Mounts to his head, and doubled lustres shine, +Falls dancing; horses are what Castor loves; +His twin yolk-fellow glories in the gloves: +Count all the folks in all the world, you'll find +A separate fancy for each separate mind. +To drill reluctant words into a line, +This was Lucilius' hobby, and 'tis mine. +Good man, he was our better: yet he took +Such pride in nought as in his darling book: +That was his friend, to whom he would confide +The secret thoughts he hid from all beside, +And, whether Fortune used him well or ill, +Thither for sympathy he turned him still: +So there, as in a votive tablet penned, +You see the veteran's life from end to end. + +His footsteps now I follow as I may, +Lucanian or Apulian, who shall say? +For we Venusians live upon the line +Just where Lucania and Apulia join, +Planted,'tis said, there in the Samnites' place, +To guard for Rome the intermediate space, +Lest these or those some day should make a raid +In time of war, and Roman soil invade. + +But this poor implement of mine, my pen, +Shall ne'er assault one soul of living men: +Like a sheathed sword, I'll carry it about, +Just to protect my life when I go out, +A weapon I shall never care to draw, +While my good neighbours keep within the law. +O grant, dread Father, grant my steel may rust! +Grant that no foe may play at cut and thrust +With my peace-loving self! but should one seek +To quarrel with me, yon shall hear him shriek: +Don't say I gave no warning: up and down +He shall be trolled and chorused through the town. + +Cervius attacks his foes with writ and rule: +Albutius' henbane is Canidia's tool: +How threatens Turius? if he e'er should judge +A. cause of yours, he'll bear you an ill grudge. +Each has his natural weapon, you'll agree, +If you will work the problem out with me: +Wolves use their tooth against you, bulls their +horn; + +Why, but that each is to the manner born? +Take worthy Scaeva now, the spendthrift heir, +And trust his long-lived mother to his care; +He'll lift no hand against her. No, forsooth! +Wolves do not use their heel, nor bulls their tooth: +But deadly hemlock, mingled in the bowl +With honey, will take off the poor old soul. +Well, to be brief: whether old age await +My years, or Death e'en now be at the gate, +Wealthy or poor, at home or banished, still, +Whate'er my life's complexion, write I will. + +T. Poor child! your life is hanging on a thread: +Some noble friend one day will freeze you dead. + +H. What? when Lucilius first with dauntless brow +Addressed him to his task, as I do now, +And from each hypocrite stripped off the skin +He flaunted to the world, though foul within, +Did Laelius, or the chief who took his name +Prom conquered Carthage, grudge him his fair game? + +Felt they for Lupus or Metellus, when +Whole floods of satire drenched the wretched men? +He took no count of persons: man by man +He scourged the proudest chiefs of each proud clan, +Nor spared delinquents of a humbler birth, +Kind but to worth and to the friends of worth. +And yet, when Scipio brave and Laelius sage +Stepped down awhile like actors from the stage, +They would unbend with him, and laugh and joke +While his pot boiled, like other simple folk. +Well, rate me at my lowest, far below +Lucilius' rank and talent, yet e'en so +Envy herself shall own that to the end +I lived with men of mark as friend with friend, +And, when she fain on living flesh and bone +Would try her teeth, shall close them on a stone; +That is, if grave Trebatius will concur-- + +T. I don't quite see; I cannot well demur; +Yet you had best be cautioned, lest you draw +Some mischief down from ignorance of law; +If a man writes ill verses out of spite +'Gainst A or B, the sufferer may indict. + +H. Ill verses? ay, I grant you: but suppose +Caesar should think them good (and Caesar knows); +Suppose the man you bark at has a name +For every vice, while yours is free from blame. + +T. O, then a laugh will cut the matter short: +The case breaks down, defendant leaves the court. + + + + +SATIRE II. + +QUAE VIRTUS ET QUANTA. + + +The art of frugal living, and its worth, +To-day, my friends, Ofellus shall set forth +('Twas he that taught me it, a shrewd clear wit, +Though country-spun, and for the schools unfit): +Lend me your ears:--but not where meats and wine +In costly service on the table shine, +When the vain eye is dazzled, and the mind +Recoils from truth, to idle shows resigned: +No: let us talk on empty stomachs. Why? +Well, if you'd have me tell you, I will try. + +The judge who soils his fingers by a gift +Is scarce the man a doubtful case to sift. +Say that you're fairly wearied with the course, +Following a hare, or breaking in a horse, +Or, if, for Roman exercise too weak, +You turn for your amusement to the Greek, +You play at ball, and find the healthy strain +Of emulation mitigates the pain, +Or hurl the quoit, till toil has purged all taint +Of squeamishness, and left you dry and faint; +Sniff, if you can, at common food, and spurn +All drink but honey mingled with Falern. +The butler has gone out: the stormy sea +Preserves its fishes safe from you and me: +No matter: salt ad libitum, with bread +Will soothe the Cerberus of our maws instead. +What gives you appetite? 'tis not the meat +Contains the relish: 'tis in you that eat. +Get condiments by work: for when the skin +Is pale and bloated from disease within, +Not golden plover, oyster, nor sardine, +Can make the edge of dulled enjoyment keen. +Yet there's one prejudice I sorely doubt +If force of reason ever will root out: +Oft as a peacock's set before you, still +Prefer it to a fowl you must and will, +Because (as if that mattered when we dine!) +The bird is costly, and its tail's so fine. +What? do you eat the feathers? when'tis drest +And sent to table, does it still look best? +While, as to flesh, the two are on a par: +Yes, you're the dupe of mere outside, you are. +You see that pike: what is it tells you straight +Where those wide jaws first opened for the bait, +In sea or river? 'twixt the bridges twain, +Or at the mouth where Tiber joins the main? +A three-pound mullet you must needs admire, +And yet you know 'tis never served entire. +The size attracts you: well then, why dislike +The selfsame quality when found in pike? +Why, but to fly in Nature's face for spite. +Because she made these heavy those weigh light? +O, when the stomach's pricked by hunger's stings, +We seldom hear of scorn for common things! + +"Great fishes on great dishes! how I gloat +Upon the sight!" exclaims some harpy-throat. +Blow strongly, blow, good Auster, and ferment +The glutton's dainties, and increase their scent! +And yet, without such aid, they find the flesh +Of boar and turbot nauseous, e'en though fresh, +When, gorged to sick repletion, they request +Onions or radishes to give them zest. +Nay, e'en at royal banquets poor men's fare +Yet lingers: eggs and olives still are there. +When, years ago, Gallonius entertained +His friends with sturgeon, an ill name he gained. +Were turbots then less common in the seas? +No: but good living waxes by degrees. +Safe was the turbot, safe the stork's young brood, +Until a praetor taught us they were good. +So now, should some potential voice proclaim +That roasted cormorants are delicious game, +The youth of Rome (there's nothing too absurd +For their weak heads) will take him at his word. + +But here Ofellus draws a line, between +A life that's frugal and a life that's mean: +For 'tis in vain that luxury you shun, +If straight on avarice your bark you run. +Avidienus--you may know him--who +Was always call'd the Dog, and rightly too, +On olives five-year-old is wont to dine, +And, till 'tis sour, will never broach his wine: +Oft as, attired for feasting, blithe and gay, +He keeps some birthday, wedding, holiday, +From his big horn he sprinkles drop by drop +Oil on the cabbages himself:--you'd stop +Your nose to smell it:--vinegar, I own, +He gives you without stint, and that alone. +Well, betwixt these, what should a wise man do? +Which should he copy, think you, of the two? +'Tis Scylla and Charybdis, rock and gulf: +On this side howls the dog, on that the wolf. +A man that's neat in table, as in dress, +Errs not by meanness, yet avoids excess; +Nor, like Albucius, when he plays the host, +Storms at his slaves, while giving each his post; +Nor, like poor Naevius, carelessly offends +By serving greasy water to his friends. + +Now listen for a space, while I declare +The good results that spring from frugal fare. +IMPRIMIS, health: for 'tis not hard to see +How various meats are like to disagree, +If you remember with how light a weight +Your last plain meal upon your stomach sate: +Now, when you've taken toll of every dish, +Have mingled roast with boiled and fowl with fish, +The mass of dainties, turbulent and crude, +Engenders bile, and stirs intestine feud. +Observe your guests, how ghastly pale their looks +When they've discussed some mystery of your cook's: +Ay, and the body, clogged with the excess +Of yesterday, drags down the mind no less, +And fastens to the ground in living death +That fiery particle of heaven's own breath. +Another takes brief supper, seeks repair +From kindly sleep, then rises light as air: +Not that sometimes he will not cross the line, +And, just for once, luxuriously dine, +When feasts come round with the revolving year, +Or his shrunk frame suggests more generous cheer: +Then too, when age draws on and life is slack, +He has reserves on which he can fall back: +But what have you in store when strength shall fail, +You, who forestall your goods when young and hale? + +A rancid boar our fathers used to praise: +What? had they then no noses in those days? +No: but they wished their friends to have the treat +When tainted rather than themselves when sweet. +O had I lived in that brave time of old, +When men were heroes, and the age was gold! + +Come now, you set some store by good repute: +In truth, its voice is softer than a lute: +Then know, great fishes on great dishes still +Produce great scandal, let alone the bill. +Think too of angry uncles, friends grown rude, +Nay, your own self with your own self at feud +And longing for a rope to end your pain: +But ropes cost twopence; so you long in vain. +"O, talk," you say, "to Trausius: though severe, +Such truths as these are just what HE should hear: +But I have untold property, that brings +A yearly sum, sufficient for three kings." +Untold indeed! then can you not expend +Your superflux on some diviner end? +Why does one good man want while you abound? +Why are Jove's temples tumbling to the ground? +O selfish! what? devote no modicum +To your dear country from so vast a sum? +Ay, you're the man: the world will go your way.... +O how your foes will laugh at you one day! +Take measure of the future: which will feel +More confidence in self, come woe, come weal, +He that, like you, by long indulgence plants +In body and in mind a thousand wants, +Or he who, wise and frugal, lays in stores +In view of war ere war is at the doors? + +But, should you doubt what good Ofellus says, +When young I knew him, in his wealthier days: +Then, when his means were fair, he spent and spared +Nor more nor less than now, when they're impaired. +Still, in the field once his, but now assigned +To an intruding veteran, you may find, +His sons and beasts about him, the good sire, +A sturdy farmer, working on for hire. +"I ne'er exceeded"--so you'll hear him say-- +"Herbs and smoked gammon on a working day; +But if at last a friend I entertained, +Or there dropped in some neighbour while it rained, +I got no fish from town to grace my board, +But dined off kid and chicken like a lord: +Raisins and nuts the second course supplied, +With a split fig, first doubled and then dried: +Then each against the other, with a fine +To do the chairman's work, we drank our wine, +And draughts to Ceres, so she'd top the ground +With good tall ears, our frets and worries drowned +Let Fortune brew fresh tempests, if she please, +How much can she knock off from joys like these! +Have you or I, young fellows, looked more lean +Since this new holder came upon the scene? +Holder, I say, for tenancy's the most +That he, or I, or any man can boast: +Now he has driven us out: but him no less +His own extravagance may dispossess +Or slippery lawsuit: in the last resort +A livelier heir will cut his tenure short. +Ofellus' name it bore, the field we plough, +A few years back: it bears Umbrenus' now: +None has it as a fixture, fast and firm, +But he or I may hold it for a term. +Then live like men of courage, and oppose +Stout hearts to this and each ill wind that blows." + + + + +SATIRE III. + +SIC RARO SCRIBIS. + +DAMASIPPUS. HORACE. + + +DAMASIPPUS. + +So seldom do you write, we scarcely hear +Your tablets called for four times in the year: +And even then, as fast as you compose, +You quarrel with the thing, and out it goes, +Vexed that, in spite of bottle and of bed, +You turn out nothing worthy to be read. +How is it all to end? Here you've come down, +Avoiding a December spent in town: +Your brains are clear: begin, and charm our ears +With something worth your boasting.--Nought appears. +You blame your pens, and the poor wall, accurst +From birth by gods and poets, comes off worst. +Yet you looked bold, and talked of what you'd do, +Could you lie snug for one free day or two. +What boot Menander, Plato, and the rest +You carried down from town to stock your nest? +Think you by turning lazy to exempt +Your life from envy? No, you'll earn contempt. +Then stop your ears to sloth's enchanting voice, +Or give up your best hopes: there lies your choice. + +H. Good Damasippus, may the immortals grant, +For your sage counsel, the one thing you want, +A barber! but pray tell me how yon came +To know so well what scarce is known to fame? + +D. Why, ever since my hapless all went down +'Neath the mid arch, I go about the town, +And make my neighbours' matters my sole care, +Seeing my own are damaged past repair. +Once I was anxious on a bronze to light +Where Sisyphus had washed his feet at night; +Each work of art I criticized and classed, +Called this ill chiselled, that too roughly cast; +Prized that at fifty thousand: then I knew +To buy at profit grounds and houses too, +With a sure instinct: till the whole town o'er +"The pet of Mercury" was the name I bore. + +H. I know your case, and am surprised to see +So clear a cure of such a malady. + +D, Ay, but my old complaint (though strange, 'tis true) +Was banished from my system by a new: +Just as diseases of the side or head +My to the stomach or the chest instead, +Like your lethargic patient, when he tears +Himself from bed, and at the doctor squares. + +H. Spare me but that, I'll trust you. + +D. Don't be blind; +You're mad yourself, and so are all mankind, +If truth is in Stertinius, from whose speech +I learned the precious lessons that I teach, +What time he bade me grow a wise man's beard, +And sent me from the bridge, consoled and cheered. +For once, when, bankrupt and forlorn, I stood +With muffled head, just plunging in the flood, +"Don't do yourself a mischief," so he cried +In friendly tones, appearing at my side: +"'Tis all false shame: you fear to be thought mad, +Not knowing that the world are just as bad. +What constitutes a madman? if 'tis shown +The marks are found in you and you alone, +Trust me, I'll add no word to thwart your plan, +But leave you free to perish like a man. +The wight who drives through life with bandaged eyes, +Ignorant of truth and credulous of lies, +He in the judgment of Chrysippus' school +And the whole porch is tabled as a fool. +Monarchs and people, every rank and age, +That sweeping clause includes,--except the sage. + +"Now listen while I show you, how the rest +Who call you madman, are themselves possessed. +Just as in woods, when travellers step aside +From the true path for want of some good guide, +This to the right, that to the left hand strays, +And all are wrong, but wrong in different ways, +So, though you're mad, yet he who banters you +Is not more wise, but wears his pigtail too. +One class of fools sees reason for alarm +In trivial matters, innocent of harm: +Stroll in the open plain, you'll hear them talk +Of fires, rocks, torrents, that obstruct their walk: +Another, unlike these, but not more sane, +Takes fires and torrents for the open plain: +Let mother, sister, father, wife combined +Cry 'There's a pitfall! there's a rock! pray mind!' +They'll hear no more than drunken Fufius, he +Who slept the part of queen Ilione, +While Catienus, shouting in his ear, +Roared like a Stentor, 'Hearken, mother dear!' + +"Well, now, I'll prove the mass of humankind +Have judgments just as jaundiced, just as blind. +That Damasippus shows himself insane +By buying ancient statues, all think plain: +But he that lends him money, is he free +From the same charge? 'O, surely.' Let us see. +I bid you take a sum you won't return: +You take it: is this madness, I would learn? +Were it not greater madness to renounce +The prey that Mercury puts within your pounce? +Secure him with ten bonds; a hundred; nay, +Clap on a thousand; still he'll slip away, +This Protean scoundrel: drag him into court, +You'll only find yourself the more his sport: +He'll laugh till scarce you'd think his jaws his own, +And turn to boar or bird, to tree or stone. +If prudence in affairs denotes men sane +And bungling argues a disordered brain, +The man who lends the cash is far more fond +Than you, who at his bidding sign the bond. + +"Now give attention and your gowns refold, +Who thirst for fame, grow yellow after gold, +Victims to luxury, superstition blind, +Or other ailment natural to the mind: +Come close to me and listen, while I teach +That you're a pack of madmen, all and each. + +"Of all the hellebore that nature breeds, +The largest share by far the miser needs: +In fact, I know not but Anticyra's juice +Was all intended for his single use. +When old Staberius died, his heirs engraved +Upon his monument the sum he'd saved: +For, had they failed to do it, they were tied +A hundred pair of fencers to provide, +A feast at Arrius' pleasure, not too cheap, +And corn, as much as Afric's farmers reap. +'I may be right, I may be wrong,' said he, +'Who cares? 'tis not for you to lecture me.' +Well, one who knew Staberius would suppose +He was a man that looked beyond his nose: +Why did he wish, then, that his funeral stone +Should make the sum he left behind him known? +Why, while he lived, he dreaded nothing more +Than that great sin, the sin of being poor, +And, had he left one farthing less in purse, +The man, as man, had thought himself the worse: +For all things human and divine, renown, +Honour, and worth at money's shrine bow down: +And he who has made money, fool or knave, +Becomes that moment noble, just, and brave. +A sage, you ask me? yes, a sage, a king, +Whate'er he chooses; briefly, everything. +So good Staberius hoped each extra pound +His virtue saved would to his praise redound. +Now look at Aristippus, who, in haste +To make his journey through the Libyan waste, +Bade the stout slaves who bore his treasure throw +Their load away, because it made them slow. +Which was more mad? Excuse me: 'twill not do +To shut one question up by opening two. + +"If one buys fiddles, hoards them up when bought, +Though music's study ne'er engaged his thought, +One lasts and awls, unversed in cobbler's craft, +One sails for ships, not knowing fore from aft, +You'd call them mad: but tell me, if you please, +How that man's case is different from these, +Who, as he gets it, stows away his gain, +And thinks to touch a farthing were profane? +Yet if a man beside a huge corn-heap +Lies watching with a cudgel, ne'er asleep, +And dares not touch one grain, but makes his meat +Of bitter leaves, as though he found them sweet: +If, with a thousand wine-casks--call the hoard +A million rather--in his cellars stored, +He drinks sharp vinegar: nay, if, when nigh +A century old, on straw he yet will lie, +While in his chest rich coverlets, the prey +Of moth and canker, moulder and decay, +Few men can see much madness in his whim, +Because the mass of mortals ail like him. + +"O heaven-abandoned wretch! is all this care +To save your stores for some degenerate heir, +A son, or e'en a freedman, who will pour +All down his throttle, ere a year is o'er? +You fear to come to want yourself, you say? +Come, calculate how small the loss per day, +If henceforth to your cabbage you allow +And your own head the oil you grudge them now. +If anything's sufficient, why forswear, +Embezzle, swindle, pilfer everywhere? +Can you be sane? suppose you choose to throw +Stones at the crowd, as by your door they go, +Or at the slaves, your chattels, every lad +And every girl will hoot yon down as mad: +When with a rope you kill your wife, with bane +Your aged mother, are you right in brain? +Why not? Orestes did it with the blade, +And 'twas in Argos that the scene was laid. +Think you that madness only then begun +To seize him, when the impious deed was done, +And not that Furies spurred him on, before +The sword grew purple with a parent's gore? +Nay, from the time they reckon him insane, +He did no deed of which you could complain: +No stroke this madman at Electra aims +Or Pylades: he only calls them names, +Fury or other monster, in the style +Which people use when stirred by tragic bile. + +"Opimius, who, with gold and silver store +Lodged in his coffers, ne'ertheless was poor +(The man would drink from earthen nipperkin +Flat wine on working-days, on feast-days thin), +Once fell into a lethargy so deep +That his next heir supposed it more than sleep, +And entering on possession at his ease, +Went round the coffers and applied the keys. +The doctor had a conscience and a head: +He had a table moved beside the bed, +Poured out a money-bag, and bade men come +And ring the coin and reckon o'er the sum: +Then, lifting up his patient, he began: +'That heir of yours is plundering you, good man. +'What? while I live?' 'You wish to live? then take +The necessary steps: be wide awake.' +'What steps d'ye mean?' 'Your strength will soon run short, +Unless your stomach have some strong support. +Come, rouse yourself: take this ptisane of rice.' +'The price?' 'A trifle.' 'I will know the price.' +'Eight-pence.' 'O dear! what matters it if I +Die by disease or robbery? still I die.' +"'Who then is sane?' He that's no fool, in troth. +'Then what's a miser?' Fool and madman both. +'Well, if a man's no miser, is he sane +That moment?' No. 'Why, Stoic?' I'll explain. +The stomach here is sound as any bell, +Craterus may say: then is the patient well? +May he get up? Why no; there still are pains +That need attention in the side or reins. +You're not forsworn nor miserly: go kill +A porker to the gods who ward off ill. +You're headlong and ambitious: take a trip +To Madman's Island by the next swift ship. +For where's the difference, down the rabble's throat +To pour your gold, or never spend a groat? + +Servius Oppidius, so the story runs, +Rich for his time, bequeathed to his two sons +Two good-sized farms, and calling to his bed +The hopeful youths, in faltering accents said: +'E'er since I saw you, Aulus, give away +Your nuts and taws, or squander them at play, +While you, Tiberius, careful and morose, +Would count them over, hide them, keep them close, +I've feared lest both should err in different ways, +And one have Cassius', one Cicuta's craze. +So now I beg you by the household powers +Who guard, and still shall guard, this roof of ours, +That you diminish not, nor you augment +What I and nature fix for your content. +To bar ambition too, I lay an oath +Of heaviest weight upon the souls of both; +Should either be an aedile, or, still worse, +A praetor, let him feel a father's curse. +What? would you wish to lavish my bequest +In vetches, beech-nuts, lupines and the rest, +You, that in public you may strut, or stand +All bronze, when stripped of money, stripped of land; +You, that Agrippa's plaudits you may win, +A sneaking fox in a brave lion's skin?' + +"What moves you, Agamemnon, thus to fling +Great Ajax to the dogs? 'I am a king.' +And I a subject: therefore I forbear +More questions. 'Right; for what I will is fair: +Yet, if there be who fancy me unjust, +I give my conduct up to be discussed.' +Mightiest of mighty kings, may proud success +And safe return your conquering army bless! +May I ask questions then, and shortly speak +When you have answered? 'Take the leave you seek.' +Then why should Ajax, though so oft renowned +For patriot service, rot above the ground, +Your bravest next Achilles, just that Troy +And envious Priam may the scene enjoy, +Beholding him, through whom their children came +To feed the dogs, himself cast out to shame? +'A flock the madman slew, and cried that he +Had killed my brother, Ithacus, and me.' +Well, when you offered in a heifer's stead +Your child, and strewed salt meal upon her head, +Then were you sane, I ask you? 'Why not sane?' +Why, what did Ajax when the flock was slain? +He did no violence to his wife or child: +He cursed the Atridae, true; his words were wild; +But against Teucer ne'er a hand he raised, +Nor e'en Ulysses: yet you call him crazed. +'But I, of purpose, soothed the gods with blood, +To gain our fleet free passage o'er the flood.' +Blood! ay, your own, you madman. 'Nay, not so: +My own, I grant it: but a madman's, no.' + +"He that sees things amiss, his mind distraught +By guilty deeds, a madman will be thought; +And, so the path of reason once be missed, +Who cares if rage or folly gave the twist? +When Ajax falls with fury on the fold, +He shows himself a madman, let us hold: +When you, of purpose, do a crime to gain +A meed of empty glory, are you sane? +The heart that air-blown vanities dilate, +Will medicine say 'tis in its normal state? +Suppose a man in public chose to ride +With a white lambkin nestling at his side, +Called it his daughter, had it richly clothed, +And did his best to get it well betrothed, +The law would call him madman, and the care +Of him and of his goods would pass elsewhere. +You offer up your daughter for a lamb; +And are you rational? Don't say, I am. +No; when a man's a fool, he's then insane: +The man that's guilty, he's a maniac plain: +The dupe of bubble glory, war's grim queen +Has dinned away his senses, clear and clean. + +"Cassius and luxury! hunt that game with me; +For spendthrifts are insane, the world shall see. +Soon as the youngster had received at last +The thousand talents that his sire amassed, +He sent round word to all the sharking clan, +Perfumer, fowler, fruiterer, fisherman, +Velabrum's refuse, Tuscan Alley's scum, +To come to him. next morning. Well, they come. +First speaks the pimp: 'Whatever I or these +Possess, is yours: command it when you please.' +Now hear his answer, and admire the mind +That thus could speak, so generous and so kind. +'You sleep in Umbrian snow-fields, booted o'er +The hips, that I may banquet on a boar; +You scour the sea for fish in winter's cold, +And I do nought; I don't deserve this gold: +Here, take it; you a hundred, you as much, +But you, the spokesman, thrice that sum shall +touch.' + +"AEsopus' son took from his lady dear +A splendid pearl that glittered in her ear, +Then melted it in vinegar, and quaffed +(Such was his boast) a thousand at a draught: +How say you? had the act been more insane +To fling it in a river or a drain? + +"Arrius' two sons, twin brothers, of a piece +In vice, perverseness, folly, and caprice, +Would lunch off nightingales: well, what's their mark? +Shall it be chalk or charcoal, white or dark? + +"To ride a stick, to build a paper house, +Play odd and even, harness mouse and mouse, +If a grown man professed to find delight +In things like these, you'd call him mad outright. +"Well now, should reason force you to admit +That love is just as childish, every whit; +To own that whimpering at your mistress' door +Is e'en as weak as building on the floor; +Say, will you put conviction into act, +And, like young Polemo, at once retract; +Take off the signs and trappings of disease, +Your leg-bands, tippets, furs, and muffatees, +As he slipped off his chaplets, when the word +Of sober wisdom all his being stirred? + + +"Give a cross child an apple: 'Take it, pet:' +He sulks and will not: hold it back, he'll fret. +Just so the shut-out lover, who debates +And parleys near the door he vows he hates, +In doubt, when sent for, to go back or no, +Though, if not sent for, he'd be sure to go. +'She calls me: ought I to obey her call, +Or end this long infliction once for all? +The door was shut:'tis open: ah, that door! +Go back? I won't, however she implore.' +So he. Now listen while the slave replies, +And say if of the two he's not more wise: +'Sir, if a thing is senseless, to bring sense +To bear upon it is a mere pretence; +Now love is such a thing, the more's the shame; +First war, then peace, 'tis never twice the same, +For ever heaving, like a sea in storm, +And taking every hour some different form. +You think to fix it? why, the job's as bad +As if you tried by reason to be mad.' + +"When you pick apple-pips, and try to hit +The ceiling with them, are you sound of wit? +"When with your withered lips you bill and coo, +Is he that builds card-houses worse than you? +Then, too, the blood that's spilt by fond desires, +The swords that men will use to poke their fires! +When Marius killed his mistress t'other day +And broke his neck, was he demented, say? +Or would you call him criminal instead, +And stigmatize his heart to save his head, +Following the common fallacy, which founds +A different meaning upon different sounds? + +"There was an aged freedman, who would run +From shrine to shrine at rising of the sun, +Sober and purified for prayer, and cry +'Save me, me only! sure I need not die; +Heaven can do all things:' ay, the man was sane +In ears and eyes: but how about his brain? +Why, that his master, if not bent to plead +Before a court, could scarce have guaranteed. +Him and all such Chrysippus would assign +To mad Menenius' most prolific line. + +"'Almighty Jove, who giv'st and tak'st away +The pains we mortals suffer, hear me pray!' +(So cries the mother of a child whose cold, +Or ague rather, now is five months old) +'Cure my poor boy, and he shall stand all bare +In Tiber, on thy fast, in morning air.' +So if, by chance or treatment, the attack +Should pass away, the wretch will bring it back, +And give the child his death: 'tis madness clear; +But what produced it? superstitious fear." + +Such were the arms Stertinius, next in sense +To the seven sages, gave me for defence. +Now he that calls me mad gets paid in kind, +And told to feel the pigtail stuck behind. + +H. Good Stoic, may you mend your loss, and sell +All your enormous bargains twice as well. +But pray, since folly's various, just explain +What type is mine? for I believe I'm sane. + +D. What? is Agave conscious that she's mad +When she holds up the head of her poor lad? + +H. I own I'm foolish--truth must have her will-- +Nay, mad: but tell me, what's my form of ill? + +D. I'll tell you. First, you build, which means you try +To ape great men, yourself some two feet high, +And yet you laugh to see poor Turbo fight, +When he looks big and strains beyond his height. +What? if Maecenas does a thing, must you, +His weaker every way, attempt it too? +A calf set foot on some young frogs, they say, +Once when the mother chanced to be away: +One 'scapes, and tells his dam with bated breath +How a huge beast had crushed the rest to death: +"How big?" quoth she: "is this as big?" and here +She swelled her body out. "No, nothing near." +Then, seeing her still fain to puff and puff, +"You'll burst," gays he, "before you're large enough." +Methinks the story fits you. Now then, throw +Your verses in, like oil to feed the glow. +If ever poet yet was sane, no doubt, +You may put in your plea, but not without. +Your dreadful temper-- + +H. Hold. + +D. The sums you spend +Beyond your income-- + +H. Mind yourself, my friend. + +D. And then, those thousand flames no power can cool. + +H. O mighty senior, spare a junior fool! + + + + +SATIRE IV. + +UNDE ET QUO CATIUS? + +HORACE. CATIUS. + + +HORACE. + +Ho, Catius! whence and whither? + +C. Not to-day: +I cannot stop to talk: I must away +To set down words of wisdom, which surpass +The Athenian sage and deep Pythagoras. + +H. Faith, I did ill at such an awkward time +To cross your path; but you'll forgive the crime: +If you've lost aught, you'll get it back ere long +By nature or by art; in both you're strong. + +C. Ah, 'twas a task to keep the whole in mind, +For style and matter were alike refined. + +H. But who was lecturer? tell me whence he came. + +C. I give the precepts, but suppress the name. + +The oblong eggs by connoisseurs are placed +Above the round for whiteness and for taste: +Procure them for your table without fail, +For they're more fleshy, and their yolk is male. +The cabbage of dry fields is sweeter found +Than the weak growth of washed-out garden ground. +Should some chance guest surprise you late at night, +For fear the new-killed fowl prove tough to bite, +Plunge it while living in Falernian lees, +And then 'twill be as tender as you please. +Mushrooms that grow in meadows are far best; +You can't be too suspicious of the rest. +He that would pass through summer without hurt +Should eat a plate of mulberries for dessert, +But mind to pluck them in the morning hour, +Before the mid-day sun exerts its power. + +Aufidius used Falernian, rich and strong, +To mingle with his honey: he did wrong: +For when the veins are empty, 'tis not well +To pour in fiery drinks to make them swell: +Mild gentle draughts will better do their part +In nourishing the cockles of the heart. +In costive cases, limpets from the shell +Are a cheap way the evil to dispel, +With groundling sorrel: but white Coan neat +You'll want to make the recipe complete. +For catching shell-fish the new moon's the time, +But there's a difference between clime and clime; +Baiae is good, but to the Lucrine yields; +Circeii ranks as best for oyster-fields; +Misenum's cape with urchins is supplied; +Flat bivalve mussels are Tarentum's pride. + +Let no man fancy he knows how to dine +Till he has learnt how taste and taste combine. +'Tis not enough to sweep your fish away +From the dear stall, and chuckle as you pay, +Not knowing which want sauce, and which when broiled +Will tempt a guest whose appetite is spoiled. + +The man who hates wild boars that eat like tame +Gets his from Umbria, genuine mast-fed game: +For the Laurentian beast, that makes its fat +Off sedge and reeds, is flavourless and flat. +The flesh of roes that feed upon the vine +Is not to be relied on when you dine. +With those who know what parts of hare are best +You'll find the wings are mostly in request. +Fishes and fowls, their nature and their age, +Have oft employed the attention of the sage; +But how to solve the problem ne'er was known +By mortal palate previous to my own. + +There are whose whole invention is confined +To novel sweets: that shows a narrow mind; +As if you wished your wines to be first-rate, +But cared not with what oil your fish you ate. +Put Massic wine to stand 'neath a clear sky +All night, away the heady fumes will fly, +Purged by cool air: if 'tis through linen strained, +You spoil the flavour, and there's nothing gained. +Who mix Surrentine with Falernian dregs +Clear off the sediment with pigeons' eggs: +The yolk goes down; all foreign matters sink +Therewith, and leave the beverage fit to drink. +'Tis best with roasted shrimps and Afric snails +To rouse your drinker when his vigour fails: +Not lettuce; lettuce after wine ne'er lies +Still in the stomach, but is sure to rise: +The appetite, disordered and distressed, +Wants ham and sausage to restore its zest; +Nay, craves for peppered viands and what not, +Fetched from some greasy cookshop steaming hot. + +There are two kinds of sauce; and I may say +That each is worth attention in its way. +Sweet oil's the staple of the first; but wine +Should be thrown in, and strong Byzantine brine. +Now take this compound, pickle, wine, and oil, +Mix it with herbs chopped small, then make it boil, +Put saffron in, and add, when cool, the juice +Venafrum's choicest olive-yards produce. +In taste Tiburtian apples count as worse +Than Picene; in appearance, the reverse. +For pots, Venucule grapes the best may suit: +For drying, Albans are your safer fruit. +'Twas I who first, authorities declare, +Served grapes with apples, lees with caviare, +White pepper with black salt, and had them set +Before each diner as his private whet. + +'Tis gross to squander hundreds upon fish, +Yet pen them cooked within too small a dish. +So too it turns the stomach, if there sticks +Dirt to the bowl wherein your wine you mix; +Or if the servant, who behind you stands, +Has fouled the beaker with his greasy hands. +Brooms, dish-cloths, saw-dust, what a mite they cost! +Neglect them though, your reputation's lost. +What? sweep with dirty broom a floor inlaid, +Spread unwashed cloths o'er tapestry and brocade, +Forgetting, sure, the less such things entail +Of care and cost, the more the shame to fail, +Worse than fall short in luxuries, which one sees +At no man's table but your rich grandees'? + +H. Catius, I beg, by all that binds a friend, +Let me go with you, when you next attend; +For though you've every detail at command, +There's something must be lost at second hand. +Then the man's look, his manner--these may seem +Mere things of course, perhaps, in your esteem, +So privileged as you are: for me, I feel +An inborn thirst, a more than common zeal, +Up to the distant river-head to mount, +And quaff these precious waters at their fount. + + + + +SATIRE V. + +HOC QUOQUE, TIRESIA. + +ULYSSES. TIRESIAS. + + +ULYSSES + +Now, good Tiresias, add one favour more +To those your kindness has vouchsafed before, +And tell me by what ways I may redeem +My broken fortunes--You're amused, 'twould seem. + +T. You get safe home, you see your native isle, +And yet it craves for more, that heart of guile! + +U. O source of truth unerring, you're aware, +I reach my home impoverished and stripped bare +(So you predict), and find nor bit nor sup, +My flocks all slaughtered and my wines drunk up: +Yet family and worth, without the staff +Of wealth to lean on, are the veriest draff. + +T. Since, in plain terms, 'tis poverty you fear, +And riches are your aim, attend and hear. +Suppose a thrush or other dainty placed +At your disposal, for your private taste, +Speed it to some great house, all gems and gold, +Where means are ample, and their master old: +Your choicest apples, ripe and full of juice, +And whatsoe'er your garden may produce, +Before they're offered at the Lares' shrine, +Give them to your rich friend, as more divine: +Be he a branded slave, forsworn, distained +With brother's blood, in short, a rogue ingrained, +Yet walk, if asked, beside him when you meet, +And (pray mind this) between him and the street. + +U. What, give a slave the wall? in happier days, +At Troy, for instance, these were not my ways: +Then with the best I matched myself. + +T. Indeed? I'm sorry: then you'll always be in need. + +U. Well, well, my heart shall bear it; 'tis inured +To dire adventure, and has worse endured. +Go on, most worthy augur, and unfold +The arts whereby to pile up heaps of gold. + +T. Well, I have told you, and I tell you still: +Lay steady siege to a rich dotard's will; +Nor, should a fish or two gnaw round the bait, +And 'scape the hook, lose heart and give up straight. +A suit at law comes on: suppose you find +One party's old and childless, never mind +Though law with him's a weapon to oppress +An upright neighbour, take his part no less: +But spurn the juster cause and purer life, +If burdened with a child or teeming wife. +"Good Quintus," say, or "Publius" (nought endears +A speaker more than this to slavish ears), +"Your worth has raised you up a friend at court; +I know the law, and can a cause support; +I'd sooner lose an eye than aught should hurt, +In purse or name, a man of your desert: +Just leave the whole to me: I'll do my best +To make you no man's victim, no man's jest." +Bid him go home and nurse himself, while you +Act as his counsel and his agent too; +Hold on unflinching, never bate a jot, +Be it for wet or dry, for cold or hot, +Though "Sirius split dumb statues up," or though +Fat Furius "spatter the bleak Alps with snow." +"What steady nerve!" some bystander will cry, +Nudging a friend; "what zeal! what energy! +What rare devotion!" ay, the game goes well; +In flow the tunnies, and your fish-ponds swell. +Another plan: suppose a man of wealth +Has but one son, and that in weakly health; +Creep round the father, lest the court you pay +To childless widowers your game betray, +That he may put you second, and, in case +The poor youth die, insert you in his place, +And so you get the whole: a throw like this, +Discreetly hazarded, will seldom miss. +If offered by your friend his will to read, +Decline it with a "Thank you! no, indeed!" +Yet steal a side-long glance as you decline +At the first parchment and the second line, +Just to discover if he leaves you heir +All by yourself, or others have a share. +A constable turned notary oft will cheat +Your raven of the cheese he thought to eat; +And sly Nasica will become, you'll see, +Coranus' joke, but not his legatee. + +U. What? are you mad, or do you mean to balk +My thirst for knowledge by this riddling talk? + +T. O Laertiades! what I foreshow +To mortals, either will take place or no; +For 'tis the voice of Phoebus from his shrine +That speaks in me and makes my words divine. + +U. Forgive my vehemence, and kindly state +The meaning of the fable you narrate. + +T. When he, the Parthian's dread, whose blood comes down +E'en from Aeneas' veins, shall win renown +By land and sea, a marriage shall betide +Between Coranus, wight of courage tried, +And old Nasica's daughter, tall and large, +Whose sire owes sums he never will discharge. +The duteous son-in-law his will presents, +And begs the sire to study its contents: +At length Nasica, having long demurred, +Takes it and reads it through without a word; +And when the whole is done, perceives in fine +That he and his are simply left--to whine. + +Suppose some freedman, or some crafty dame +Rules an old driveller, you may join their game: +Say all that's good of them to him, that they, +When your back's turned, the like of you may say +This plan has merits; but 'tis better far +To take the fort itself, and end the war. + +A shrewd old crone at Thebes (the fact occurred +When I was old) was thus by will interred: +Her corpse was oiled all over, and her heir +Bore it to burial on his shoulders bare: +He'd stuck to her while living; so she said +She'd give him, if she could, the slip when dead. +Be cautious in attack; observe the mean, +And neither be too lukewarm, nor too keen. +Much talk annoys the testy and morose, +But 'tis not well to be reserved and close. +Act Davus in the drama: droop your head, +And use the gestures of a man in dread. +Be all attention: if the wind is brisk, +Say, "Wrap that precious head up! run no risk!" +Push shouldering through a crowd, the way to clear +Before him; when he maunders, prick your ear. +He craves for praise; administer the puff +Till, lifting up both hands, he cries "Enough." +But when, rewarded and released, at last +You gain the end of all your service past, +And, not in dreams but soberly awake, +Hear "One full quarter let Ulysses take," +Say, once or twice, "And is good Dama dead? +Where shall I find his like for heart and head?" +If possible, shed tears: at least conceal +The tell-tale smiles that speak the joy you feel. +Then, for the funeral: with your hands untied, +Beware of erring upon meanness' side: +No; let your friend be handsomely interred, +And let the neighbourhood give you its good word. +Should one of your co-heirs be old, and vexed +With an inveterate cough, approach him next: +A house or lands he'd purchase that belong +To your estate: they're his for an old song. +But Proserpine commands me; I must fly; +Her will is law; I wish you health; good-bye. + + + + +SATIRE VI. + +HOC ERAT IN VOTIS. + + +This used to be my wish: a bit of land, +A house and garden with a spring at hand, +And just a little wood. The gods have crowned +My humble vows; I prosper and abound: +Nor ask I more, kind Mercury, save that thou +Wouldst give me still the goods thou giv'st me now: +If crime has ne'er increased them, nor excess +And want of thrift are like to make them less; +If I ne'er pray like this, "O might that nook +Which spoils my field be mine by hook or crook! +O for a stroke of luck like his, who found +A crock of silver, turning up the ground, +And, thanks to good Alcides, farmed as buyer +The very land where he had slaved for hire!" +If what I have contents me, hear my prayer: +Still let me feel thy tutelary care, +And let my sheep, my pastures, this and that, +My all, in fact, (except my brains,) be fat. + +Now, lodged in my hill-castle, can I choose +Companion fitter than my homely Muse? +Here no town duties vex, no plague-winds blow, +Nor Autumn, friend to graveyards, works me woe. +Sire of the morning (do I call thee right, +Or hear'st thou Janus' name with more delight?) +Who introducest, so the gods ordain, +Life's various tasks, inaugurate my strain. +At Rome to bail I'm summoned. "Do your part," +Thou bidd'st me; "quick, lest others get the start." +So, whether Boreas roars, or winter's snow +Clips short the day, to court I needs must go. +I give the fatal pledge, distinct and loud, +Then pushing, struggling, battle with the crowd. +"Now, madman!" clamours some one, not without +A threat or two, "just mind what you're about: +What? you must knock down all that's in your way, +Because you're posting to Maecenas, eh?" +This pleases me, I own; but when I get +To black Esquiliae, trouble waits me yet: +For other people's matters in a swarm +Buzz round my head and take my ears by storm. +"Sir, Roscius would be glad if you'd arrange +By eight a. m. to be with him on 'Change." +"Quintus, the scribes entreat you to attend +A meeting of importance, as their friend." +"Just get Maecenas' seal attached to these." +"I'll try." "O, you can do it, if you please." +Seven years, or rather eight, have well-nigh passed +Since with Maecenas' friends I first was classed, +To this extent, that, driving through the street, +He'd stop his car and offer me a seat, +Or make such chance remarks as "What's o'clock?" +"Will Syria's champion beat the Thracian cock?" +"These morning frosts are apt to be severe;" +Just chit-chat, suited to a leaky ear. +Since that auspicious date, each day and hour +Has placed me more and more in envy's power: +"He joined his play, sat next him at the games: +A child of Fortune!" all the world exclaims. +From the high rostra a report comes down, +And like a chilly fog, pervades the town: +Each man I meet accosts me "Is it so? +You live so near the gods, you're sure to know: +That news about the Dacians? have you heard +No secret tidings?" "Not a single word." +"O yes! you love to banter us poor folk." +"Nay, if I've heard a tittle, may I choke!" +"Will Caesar grant his veterans their estates +In Italy, or t'other side of the straits?" +I swear that I know nothing, and am dumb: +They think me deep, miraculously mum. +And so my day between my fingers slips, +While fond regrets keep rising to my lips: +O my dear homestead in the country! when +Shall I behold your pleasant face again; +And, studying now, now dozing and at ease, +Imbibe forgetfulness of all this tease? +O when, Pythagoras, shall thy brother bean, +With pork and cabbage, on my board be seen? +O happy nights and suppers half divine, +When, at the home-gods' altar, I and mine +Enjoy a frugal meal, and leave the treat +Unfinished for my merry slaves to eat! +Not bound by mad-cap rules, but free to choose +Big cups or small, each follows his own views: +You toss your wine off boldly, if you please, +Or gently sip, and mellow by degrees. +We talk of--not our neighbour's house or field, +Nor the last feat of Lepos, the light-heeled-- +But matters which to know concerns us more, +Which none but at his peril can ignore; +Whether 'tis wealth or virtue makes men blest, +What leads to friendship, worth or interest, +In what the good consists, and what the end +And chief of goods, on which the rest depend: +While neighbour Cervius, with his rustic wit, +Tells old wives' tales, this case or that to hit. +Should some one be unwise enough to praise +Arellius' toilsome wealth, he straightway says: +"One day a country mouse in his poor home +Received an ancient friend, a mouse from Rome: +The host, though close and careful, to a guest +Could open still: so now he did his best. +He spares not oats or vetches: in his chaps +Raisins he brings and nibbled bacon-scraps, +Hoping by varied dainties to entice +His town-bred guest, so delicate and nice, +Who condescended graciously to touch +Thing after thing, but never would take much, +While he, the owner of the mansion, sate +On threshed-out straw, and spelt and darnels ate. +At length the townsman cries: "I wonder how +You can live here, friend, on this hill's rough brow: +Take my advice, and leave these ups and downs, +This hill and dale, for humankind and towns. +Come now, go home with me: remember, all +Who live on earth are mortal, great and small: +Then take, good sir, your pleasure while you may; +With life so short, 'twere wrong to lose a day." +This reasoning made the rustic's head turn round; +Forth from his hole he issues with a bound, +And they two make together for their mark, +In hopes to reach the city during dark. +The midnight sky was bending over all, +When they set foot within a stately hall, +Where couches of wrought ivory had been spread +With gorgeous coverlets of Tyrian red, +And viands piled up high in baskets lay, +The relics of a feast of yesterday. +The townsman does the honours, lays his guest +At ease upon a couch with crimson dressed, +Then nimbly moves in character of host, +And offers in succession boiled and roast; +Nay, like a well-trained slave, each wish prevents, +And tastes before the tit-bits he presents. +The guest, rejoicing in his altered fare, +Assumes in turn a genial diner's air, +When hark! a sudden banging of the door: +Each from his couch is tumbled on the floor: +Half dead, they scurry round the room, poor things, +While the whole house with barking mastiffs rings. +Then says the rustic: "It may do for you, +This life, but I don't like it; so adieu: +Give me my hole, secure from all alarms, +I'll prove that tares and vetches still have charms." + + + + +SATIRE VII. + +JAMDUDUM AUSCULTO. + +DAVUS. HORACE. + + +DAVUS. + +I've listened long, and fain a word would say, +But, as a slave, I dare not. + +H. Davus, eh? + +D. Yes, Davus, true and faithful, good enough, +But not too good to be of lasting stuff. + +H. Well, take December's licence: I'll not balk +Our fathers' good intentions: have your talk. + +D. Some men there are take pleasure in what's ill +Persistently, and do it with a will: +The greater part keep wavering to and fro, +And now all right, and now all wrong they go. +Prisons, we all remember, oft would wear +Three rings at once, then show his finger bare; +First he'd be senator, then knight, and then +In an hour's time a senator again; +Flit from a palace to a crib so mean, +A decent freedman scarce would there be seen; +Now with Athenian wits he'd make his home, +Now live with scamps and profligates at Rome; +Born in a luckless hour, when every face +Vertumnus wears was pulling a grimace. +Shark Volanerius tried to disappoint +The gout that left his fingers ne'er a joint +By hiring some one at so much per day +To shake the dicebox while he sat at play; +Consistent in his faults, so less a goose +Than your poor wretch who shifts from fast to loose. + +H. For whom d'ye mean this twaddle, tell me now, +You hang-dog? + +D. Why, for you. + +H. Good varlet, how? + +D. You praise the life that people lived of old, +When Rome was frugal and the age was gold, +And yet, if on a sudden forced to dwell +With men like those, you'd strenuously rebel, +Either because you don't believe at heart +That what you bawl for is the happier part, +Or that you can't act out what you avow, +But stand with one foot sticking in the slough. +At Rome you hanker for your country home; +Once in the country, there's no place like Rome. +If not asked out to supper, then you bless +The stars that let you eat your quiet mess, +Vow that engagements are mere clogs, and think +You're happy that you've no one's wine to drink. +But should Maecenas, somewhat late, invite +His favourite bard to come by candle-light, +"Bring me the oil this instant! is there none +Hears me?" you scream, and in a trice are gone: +While Milvius and his brother beasts of prey, +With curses best not quoted, walk away. +Yet what says Milvius? "Honest truth to tell, +I turn my nose up at a kitchen's smell; +I'm guided by my stomach; call me weak, +Coward, tavern-spunger, still by book you'll speak. +But who are you to treat me to your raps? +You're just as bad as I, nay worse perhaps, +Though you've a cloak of decent words, forsooth, +To throw at pleasure o'er the ugly truth." +What if at last a greater fool you're found +Than I, the slave you bought for twenty pound? +Nay, nay, don't scare me with that threatening eye: +Unclench your fist and lay your anger by, +While I retail the lessons which of late +The porter taught me at Crispinus' gate. + +You're no adulterer:--nor a thief am I, +When I see plate and wisely pass it by: +But take away the danger, in a trice +Nature unbridled plunges into vice. +What? you to be my master, who obey +More persons, nay, more things than words can say, +Whom not the praetor's wand, though four times waved, +Could make less tyrant-ridden, less enslaved? +Press home the matter further: how d'ye call +The thrall who's servant to another thrall? +An understrapper, say; the name will do; +Or fellow-servant: such am I to you: +For you, whose work I do, do others' work, +And move as dolls move when their wires we jerk. + +Who then is free? The sage, who keeps in check +His baser self, who lives at his own beck, +Whom neither poverty nor dungeon drear +Nor death itself can ever put in fear, +Who can reject life's goods, resist desire, +Strong, firmly braced, and in himself entire, +A hard smooth ball that gives you ne'er a grip, +'Gainst whom when Fortune runs, she's sure to trip. +Such are the marks of freedom: look them through, +And tell me, is there one belongs to you? +Your mistress begs for money, plagues you sore, +Ducks you with water, drives you from her door, +Then calls you back: break the vile bondage; cry +"I'm free, I'm free."--Alas, you cannot. Why? +There's one within you, armed with spur and stick, +Who turns and drives you, howsoe'er you kick. + +On one of Pausias' masterworks you pore, +As you were crazy: what does Davus more, +Standing agape and straining knees and eyes +At some rude sketch of fencers for a prize, +Where, drawn in charcoal or red ochre, just +As if alive, they parry and they thrust? +Davus gets called a loiterer and a scamp, +You (save the mark!) a critic of high stamp. +If hot sweet-cakes should tempt me, I am naught: +Do you say no to dainties as you ought? +Am I worse trounced than you when I obey +My stomach? true, my back is made to pay: +But when you let rich tit-bits pass your lip +That cost no trifle, do you 'scape the whip? +Indulging to excess, you loathe your meat, +And the bloat trunk betrays the gouty feet. + +The lad's a rogue who goes by night to chop +A stolen flesh-brush at a fruiterer's shop: +The man who sells a farm to buy good fare, +Is there no slavery to the stomach there? + +Then too you cannot spend an hour alone; +No company's more hateful than your own; +You dodge and give yourself the slip; you seek +In bed or in your cups from care to sneak: +In vain: the black dog follows you, and hangs +Close on your flying skirts with hungry fangs. + +H. Where's there a stone? + +D. Who wants it? + +H. Or a pike? + +D. Mere raving this, or verse-making belike. + +H. Unless you're off at once, you'll join the eight +Who do their digging down at my estate. + + + + +SATIRE VIII. + +UT NASIDIENI. + +HORACE. FUNDANIUS. + + +HORACE. + +That rich Nasidienus--let me hear +How yesterday you relished his good cheer: +For when I tried to get you, I was told +You'd been there since the day was six hours old. + +F. O, 'twas the finest treat. + +H. Inform me, pray, +What first was served your hunger to allay. + +F. First a Lucanian boar; 'twas captured wild +(So the host told us) when the wind was mild; +Around it, turnips, lettuce, radishes, +By way of whet, with brine and Coan lees. +Then, when the board, a maple one, was cleared, +A high-girt slave with purple cloth appeared +And rubbed and wiped it clean: another boy +Removed the scraps, and all that might annoy: +"While dark Hydaspes, like an Attic maid +Who carries Ceres' basket, grave and staid, +Came in with Caecuban, and, close behind, +Alcon with Chian, which had ne'er been brined. +Then said our host: "If Alban you'd prefer, +Maecenas, or Falern, we have them, Sir." + +H. What sorry riches! but I fail to glean +Who else was present at so rare a scene. + +F. Myself at top, then Viscus, and below +Was Varius: after us came Balatro, +Vibidius also, present at the treat +Unasked, as members of Maecenas' suite. +Porcius and Nomentanus last, and he, +Our host, who lay betwixt them, made the three: +Porcius the undermost, a witty droll, +Who makes you laugh by swallowing cheesecakes whole: +While Nomentanus' specialty was this, +To point things out that vulgar eyes might miss; +For fish and fowl, in fact whate'er was placed +Before us, had, we found, a novel taste, +As one experiment sufficed to show, +Made on a flounder and a turbot's roe. +Then, turning the discourse to fruit, he treats +Of the right time for gathering honey-sweets; +Plucked when the moon's on wane, it seems they're red; +For further details see the fountain-head. +When thus to Balatro Vibidius: "Fie! +Let's drink him out, or unrevenged we die; +Here, bigger cups." Our entertainer's cheek +Turned deadly white, as thus he heard him speak; +For of the nuisances that can befall +A man like him, your toper's worst of all, +Because, you know, hot wines do double wrong; +They dull the palate, and they edge the tongue. +On go Vibidius and his mate, and tilt +Whole flagons into cups Allifae-built: +We follow suit: the host's two friends alone +Forbore to treat the wine-flask as their own. + +A lamprey now appears, a sprawling fish, +With shrimps about it swimming in the dish. +Whereon our host remarks: "This fish was caught +While pregnant: after spawning it is naught. +We make our sauce with oil, of the best strain +Venafrum yields, and caviare from Spain, +Pour in Italian wine, five years in tun, +While yet 'tis boiling; when the boiling's done, +Chian suits best of all; white pepper add, +And vinegar, from Lesbian wine turned bad. +Rockets and elecampanes with this mess +To boil, is my invention, I profess: +To put sea-urchins in, unwashed as caught, +'Stead of made pickle, was Curtillus' thought." + +Meantime the curtains o'er the table spread +Came tumbling in a heap from overhead, +Dragging withal black dust in whirlwinds, more +Than Boreas raises on Campania's floor: +We, when the shock is over, smile to see +The danger less than we had feared 'twould be, +And breathe again. Poor Rufus drooped his head +And wept so sore, you'd think his son was dead: +And things seemed hastening to a tragic end, +But Nomentanus thus consoled his friend: +"O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers, +Why make such game of this poor life of ours?" +Varius his napkin to his mouth applied, +A laugh to stifle, or at least to hide: +But Balatro, with his perpetual sneer, +Cries, "Such is life, capricious and severe, +And hence it comes that merit never gains +A meed of praise proportioned to its pains. +What gross injustice! just that I may get +A handsome dinner, you must fume and fret, +See that the bread's not burned, the sauce not spoiled, +The servants in their places, curled and oiled. +Then too the risks; the tapestry, as of late, +May fall; a stumbling groom may break a plate. +But gifts, concealed by sunshine, are displayed +In hosts, as in commanders, by the shade." +Rufus returned, "Heaven speed things to your mind! +Sure ne'er was guest so friendly and so kind;" +Then takes his slippers. Head to head draws near, +And each man's lips are at his neighbour's ear. + +H. 'Tis better than a play: but please report +What further things occurred to make you sport. + +F. Well, while Vibidius takes the slaves to task, +Enquiring if the tumble broke the flask, +And Balatro keeps starting some pretence +For mirth, that we may laugh without offence, +With altered brow returns our sumptuous friend, +Resolved, what chance has damaged, art shall mend. +More servants follow, staggering 'neath the load +Of a huge dish where limbs of crane were stowed, +Salted and floured; a goose's liver, crammed +To twice its bulk, so close the figs were jammed; +And wings of hares dressed separate, better so +Than eaten with the back, as gourmands know. +Then blackbirds with their breasts all burnt to coal, +And pigeons without rumps, not served up whole, +Dainties, no doubt, but then there came a speech +About the laws and properties of each; +At last the feeder and the food we quit, +Taking revenge by tasting ne'er a bit, +As if Canidia's mouth had breathed an air +Of viperous poison on the whole affair. + + + + +THE EPISTLES. + +BOOK I. + + +I. To Maecenas. + +PRIMA DICTE MIHI. + + +Theme of my earliest Muse in days long past, +Theme that shall be hereafter of my last, +Why summon back, Maecenas, to the list +Your worn-out swordsman, pensioned and dismissed? +My age, my mind, no longer are the same +As when I first was 'prenticed to the game. +Veianius fastens to Alcides' gate +His arms, then nestles in his snug estate: +Think you once more upon the arena's marge +He'd care to stand and supplicate discharge? +No: I've a Mentor who, not once nor twice, +Breathes in my well-rinsed ear his sound advice, +"Give rest in time to that old horse, for fear +At last he founder 'mid the general jeer." +So now I bid my idle songs adieu, +And turn my thoughts to what is right and true; +I search and search, and when I find, I lay +The wisdom up against a rainy day. + +But what's my sect? you ask me; I must be +A member sure of some fraternity: +Why no; I've taken no man's shilling; none +Of all your fathers owns me for his son; +Just where the weather drives me, I invite +Myself to take up quarters for the night. +Now, all alert, I cope with life's rough main, +A loyal follower in true virtue's train: +Anon, to Aristippus' camp I flit, +And say, the world's for me, not I for it. + +Long as the night to him whose love is gone, +Long as the day to slaves that must work on, +Slow as the year to the impatient ward +Who finds a mother's tutelage too hard, +So long, so slow the moments that prevent +The execution of my high intent, +Of studying truths that rich and poor concern, +Which young and old are lost unless they learn. +Well, if I cannot be a student, yet +There's good in spelling at the alphabet. +Your eyes will never see like Lynceus'; still +You rub them with an ointment when they're ill: +You cannot hope for Glyco's stalwart frame, +Yet you'd avoid the gout that makes you lame. +Some point of moral progress each may gain, +Though to aspire beyond it should prove vain. + +Say, is your bosom fevered with the fire +Of sordid avarice or unchecked desire? +Know, there are spells will help you to allay +The pain, and put good part of it away. +You're bloated by ambition? take advice; +Yon book will ease you if you read it thrice. +Run through the list of faults; whate'er you be, +Coward, pickthank, spitfire, drunkard, debauchee, +Submit to culture patiently, you'll find +Her charms can humanize the rudest mind. + +To fly from vice is virtue: to be free +From foolishness is wisdom's first degree. +Think of some ill you feel a real disgrace, +The loss of money or the loss of place; +To keep yourself from these, how keen the strain! +How dire the sweat of body and of brain! +Through tropic heat, o'er rocks and seas you run +To furthest India, poverty to shun, +Yet scorn the sage who offers you release +From vagrant wishes that disturb your peace. +Take some provincial pugilist, who gains +A paltry cross-way prize for all his pains; +Place on his brow Olympia's chaplet, earned +Without a struggle, would the gift be spurned? + +Gold counts for more than silver, all men hold: +Why doubt that virtue counts for more than gold? +"Seek money first, good friends, and virtue next," +Each Janus lectures on the well-worn text; +Lads learn it for their lessons; grey-haired men, +Like schoolboys, drawl the sing-song o'er again. +You lack, say, some six thousand of the rate +The law has settled as a knight's estate; +Though soul, tongue, morals, credit, all the while +Are yours, you reckon with the rank and file. +But mark those children at their play; they sing, +"Deal fairly, youngster, and we'll crown you king." +Be this your wall of brass, your coat of mail, +A guileless heart, a cheek no crime turns pale. + +"Which is the better teacher, tell me, pray, +The law of Roscius, or the children's lay +That crowns fair dealing, by Camillus trolled, +And manly Curius, in the days of old; +The voice that says, "Make money, money, man; +Well, if so be,--if not, which way you can," +That from a nearer distance you may gaze +At honest Pupius' all too moving plays; +Or that which bids you meet with dauntless brow, +The frowns of Fortune, aye, and shows you how? + +Suppose the world of Rome accosts me thus: +"You walk where we walk; why not think with us, +Be ours for better or for worse, pursue +The things we love, the things we hate eschew?" +I answer as sly Reynard answered, when +The ailing lion asked him to his den: +"I'm frightened at those footsteps: every track +Leads to your home, but ne'er a one leads back." +Nay, you're a perfect Hydra: who shall choose +Which view to follow out of all your views? +Some farm the taxes; some delight to see +Their money grow by usury, like a tree; +Some bait a widow-trap with fruits and cakes, +And net old men, to stock their private lakes. +But grant that folks have different hobbies; say, +Does one man ride one hobby one whole day? +"Baiae's the place!" cries Croesus: all is haste; +The lake, the sea, soon feel their master's taste: +A new whim prompts: 'tis "Pack your tools tonight! +Off for Teanum with the dawn of light!" +The nuptial bed is in his hall; he swears +None but a single life is free from cares: +Is he a bachelor? all human bliss, +He vows, is centred in a wedded kiss. + +How shall I hold this Proteus in my gripe? +How fix him down in one enduring type? +Turn to the poor: their megrims are as strange; +Bath, cockloft, barber, eating-house, they change; +They hire a boat; your born aristocrat +Is not more squeamish, tossing in his yacht. + +If, when we meet, I'm cropped in awkward style +By some uneven barber, then you smile; +You smile, if, as it haps, my gown's askew, +If my shirt's ragged while my tunic's new: +How, if my mind's inconsequent, rejects +What late it longed for, what it loathed affects, +Shifts every moment, with itself at strife, +And makes a chaos of an ordered life, +Builds castles up, then pulls them to the ground, +Keeps changing round for square and square for round? +You smile not; 'tis an every-day affair; +I need no doctor's, no, nor keeper's care: +Yet you're my patron, and would blush to fail +In taking notice of an ill-pared nail. + +So, to sum up: the sage is half divine, +Rich, free, great, handsome, king of kings, in fine; +A miracle of health from toe to crown, +Mind, heart, and head, save when his nose runs down. + + + + +II. TO LOLLIUS. + +TROJANI BELLI SCRIPTOREM. + + +While you at Rome, dear Lollius, train your tongue, +I at Praeneste read what Homer sung: +What's good, what's bad, what helps, what hurts, he shows +Better in verse than Crantor does in prose. +The reason why I think so, if you'll spare +A moment from your business, I'll declare. + +The tale that tells how Greece and Asia strove +In tedious battle all for Paris' love, +Talks of the passions that excite the brain +Of mad-cap kings and peoples not more sane. +Antenor moves to cut away the cause +Of all their sufferings: does he gain applause? +No; none shall force young Paris to enjoy +Life, power and riches in his own fair Troy. +Nestor takes pains the quarrel to compose +That makes Atrides and Achilles foes: +In vain; their passions are too strong to quell; +Both burn with wrath, and one with love as well. +Let kings go mad and blunder as they may, +The people in the end are sure to pay. +Strife, treachery, crime, lust, rage, 'tis error all, +One mass of faults within, without the wall. + +Turn to the second tale: Ulysses shows +How worth and wisdom triumph over woes: +He, having conquered Troy, with sharp shrewd ken +Explores the manners and the towns of men; +On the broad ocean, while he strives to win +For him and his return to home and kin, +He braves untold calamities, borne down +By Fortune's waves, but never left to drown. +The Sirens' song you know, and Circe's bowl: +Had that sweet draught seduced his stupid soul +As it seduced his fellows, he had been +The senseless chattel of a wanton queen, +Sunk to the level of his brute desire, +An unclean dog, a swine that loves the mire. +But what are we? a mere consuming class, +Just fit for counting roughly in the mass, +Like to the suitors, or Alcinous' clan, +Who spent vast pains upon the husk of man, +Slept on till mid-day, and enticed their care +To rest by listening to a favourite air. + +Robbers get up by night, men's throats to knive: +Will you not wake to keep yourself alive? +Well, if you will not stir when sound, at last, +When dropsical, you'll be for moving fast: +Unless you light your lamp ere dawn and read +Some wholesome book that high resolves may breed, +You'll find your sleep go from you, and will toss +Upon your pillow, envious, lovesick, cross. +You lose no time in taking out a fly, +Or straw, it may be, that torments your eye; +Why, when a thing devours your mind, adjourn +Till this day year all thought of the concern? +Come now, have courage to be wise: begin: +You're halfway over when you once plunge in: +He who puts off the time for mending, stands +A clodpoll by the stream with folded hands, +Waiting till all the water be gone past; +But it runs on, and will, while time shall last. +"Aye, but I must have money, and a bride +To bear me children, rich and well allied: +Those uncleared lands want tilling." Having got +What will suffice you, seek no happier lot. +Not house or grounds, not heaps of brass or gold +Will rid the frame of fever's heat and cold. +Or cleanse the heart of care. He needs good health, +Body and mind, who would enjoy his wealth: +Who fears or hankers, land and country-seat +Soothe just as much as tickling gouty feet, +As pictures charm an eye inflamed and blear, +As music gratifies an ulcered ear. + +Unless the vessel whence we drink is pure, +Whate'er is poured therein turns foul, be sure. +Make light of pleasure: pleasure bought with pain +Yields little profit, but much more of bane. +The miser's always needy: draw a line +Within whose bound your wishes to confine. +His neighbour's fatness makes the envious lean: +No tyrant e'er devised a pang so keen. +Who governs not his wrath will wish undone +The deeds he did "when the rash mood was on." +Wrath is a short-lived madness: curb and bit +Your mind: 'twill rule you, if you rule not it + +While the colt's mouth is soft, the trainer's skill +Moulds it to follow at the rider's will. +Soon as the whelp can bay the deer's stuffed skin, +He takes the woods, and swells the hunters' din. +Now, while your system's plastic, ope each pore; +Now seek wise friends, and drink in all their lore: +The smell that's first imparted will adhere +To seasoned jars through many an after year. + +But if you lag behind or head me far, +Don't think I mean to mend my pace, or mar; +In my own jog-trot fashion on I go, +Not vying with the swift, not waiting for the slow. + + + + +III. TO JULIUS FLORUS. + +JULI FLORE. + + +Florus, I wish to learn, but don't know how, +Where Claudius and his troops are quartered now. +Say, is it Thrace and Haemus' winter snows, +Or the famed strait 'twixt tower and tower that flows, +Or Asia's rich exuberance of plain +And upland slope, that holds you in its chain? +Inform me too (for that, you will not doubt, +Concerns me), what the ingenious staff's about: +Who writes of Caesar's triumphs, and portrays +The tale of peace and war for future days? +How thrives friend Titius, who will soon become +A household word in the saloons of Rome; +Who dares to drink of Pindar's well, and looks +With scorn on our cheap tanks and vulgar brooks? +Wastes he a thought on Horace? does he suit +The strains of Thebes or Latium's virgin lute, +By favour of the Muse, or grandly rage +And roll big thunder on the tragic stage? +What is my Celsus doing? oft, in truth, +I've warned him, and he needs it yet, good youth, +To trust himself, nor touch the classic stores +That Palatine Apollo keeps indoors, +Lest when some day the feathered tribe resumes +(You know the tale) the appropriated plumes, +Folks laugh to see him act the jackdaw's part, +Denuded of the dress that looked so smart. + +And you, what aims are yours? what thymy ground +Allures the bee to hover round and round? +Not small your wit, nor rugged and unkempt; +'Twill answer bravely to a bold attempt: +Whether you train for pleading, or essay +To practise law, or frame some graceful lay, +The ivy-wreath awaits you. Could you bear +To leave quack nostrums, that but palliate care, +Then might you lean on heavenly wisdom's hand +And use her guidance to a loftier land. +Be this our task, whate'er our station, who +To country and to self would fain be true. + +This too concerns me: does Munatius hold +In Florus' heart the place he held of old, +Or is that ugly breach in your good will +We hoped had closed unhealed and gaping still? +Well, be it youth or ignorance of life +That sets your hot ungoverned bloods at strife, +Where'er you bide, 'twere shame to break the ties +Which made you once sworn brethren and allies: +So, when your safe return shall come to pass, +I've got a votive heifer out at grass. + + + + +IV. TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS + +ALBI, NOSTRORUM. + + +Albius, kind critic of my satires, say, +What do you down at Pedum far away? +Are you composing what will dim the shine +Of Cassius' works, so delicately fine, +Or sauntering, calm and healthful, through the wood, +Bent on such thoughts as suit the wise and good? +No brainless trunk is yours: a form to please, +Wealth, wit to use it, Heaven vouchsafes you these. +What could fond nurse wish more for her sweet pet +Than friends, good looks, and health without a let, +A shrewd clear head, a tongue to speak his mind, +A seemly household, and a purse well-lined? + +Let hopes and sorrows, fears and angers be, +And think each day that dawns the last you'll see; +For so the hour that greets you unforeseen +Will bring with it enjoyment twice as keen. + +Ask you of me? you'll laugh to find me grown +A hog of Epicurus, full twelve stone. + + + + +V. TO TORQUATUS. + +SI POTES ARCHIACIS. + + +If you can lie, Torquatus, when you take +Your meal, upon a couch of Archias' make, +And sup off potherbs, gathered as they come, +You'll join me, please, by sunset at my home. +My wine, not far from Sinuessa grown, +Is but six years in bottle, I must own: +If you've a better vintage, send it here, +Or take your cue from him who finds the cheer. +My hearth is swept, my household looks its best, +And all my furniture expects a guest. +Forego your dreams of riches and applause, +Forget e'en Moschus' memorable cause; +To-morrow's Caesar's birthday, which we keep +By taking, to begin with, extra sleep; +So, if with pleasant converse we prolong +This summer night, we scarcely shall do wrong. + +Why should the Gods have put me at my ease, +If I mayn't use my fortune as I please? +The man who stints and pinches for his heir +Is next-door neighbour to a fool, I'll swear. +Here, give me flowers to strew, my goblet fill, +And let men call me mad-cap if they will. +O, drink is mighty! secrets it unlocks, +Turns hope to fact, sets cowards on to box, +Takes burdens from the careworn, finds out parts +In stupid folks, and teaches unknown arts. +What tongue hangs fire when quickened by the bowl? +What wretch so poor but wine expands his soul? + +Meanwhile, I'm bound in duty, nothing both, +To see that nought in coverlet or cloth +May give you cause to sniff, that dish and cup +May serve you as a mirror while you sup; +To have my guests well-sorted, and take care +That none is present who'll tell tales elsewhere. +You'll find friend Butra and Septicius here, +Ditto Sabinus, failing better cheer: +And each might bring a friend or two as well, +But then, you know, close packing's apt to smell. +Come, name your number, and elude the guard +Your client keeps by slipping through the yard. + + + + +VI. TO NUMICIUS. + +NIL ADMIRARI. + + +Not to admire, Numicius, is the best, +The only way, to make and keep men blest. +The sun, the stars, the seasons of the year +That come and go, some gaze at without fear: +What think you of the gifts of earth and sea, +The untold wealth of Ind or Araby, +Or, to come nearer home, our games and shows, +The plaudits and the honours Rome bestows? +How should we view them? ought they to convulse +The well-strung frame and agitate the pulse? +Who fears the contrary, or who desires +The things themselves, in either case admires; +Each way there's flutter; something unforeseen +Disturbs the mind that else had been serene. +Joy, grief, desire or fear, whate'er the name +The passion bears, its influence is the same; +Where things exceed your hope or fall below, +You stare, look blank, grow numb from top to toe. +E'en virtue's self, if followed to excess, +Turns right to wrong, good sense to foolishness. + +Go now, my friend, drink in with all your eyes +Bronze, silver, marble, gems, and Tyrian dyes, +Feel pride when speaking in the sight of Rome, +Go early out to 'Change and late come home, +For fear your income drop beneath the rate +That comes to Mutus from his wife's estate, +And (shame and scandal!), though his line is new, +You give the pas to him, not he to you. +Whate'er is buried mounts at last to light, +While things get hid in turn that once looked bright. +So when Agrippa's mall and Appius' way +Have watched your well-known figure day by day, +At length the summons comes, and you must go +To Numa and to Ancus down below. + +Your side's in pain; a doctor hits the blot: +You wish to live aright (and who does not?); +If virtue holds the secret, don't defer; +Be off with pleasure, and be on with her. +But no; you think all morals sophists' tricks, +Bring virtue down to words, a grove to sticks; +Then hey for wealth! quick, quick, forestall the trade +With Phrygia and the East, your fortune's made. +One thousand talents here--one thousand there-- +A third--a fourth, to make the thing four-square. +A dowried wife, friends, beauty, birth, fair fame, +These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame: +Be but a moneyed man, persuasion tips +Your tongue, and Venus settles on your lips. +The Cappadocian king has slaves enow, +But gold he lacks: so be it not with you. +Lucullus was requested once, they say, +A hundred scarves to furnish for the play: +"A hundred!" he replied, "'tis monstrous; still +I'll look; and send you what I have, I will." +Ere long he writes: "Five thousand scarves I find; +Take part of them, or all if you're inclined." +That's a poor house where there's not much to spare +Which masters never miss and servants wear. +So, if 'tis wealth that makes and keeps us blest, +Be first to start and last to drop the quest. + +If power and mob-applause be man's chief aims, +Let's hire a slave to tell us people's names, +To jog us on the side, and make us reach, +At risk of tumbling down, a hand to each: +"This rules the Fabian, that the Veline clan; +Just as he likes, he seats or ousts his man:" +Observe their ages, have your greeting pat, +And duly "brother" this, and "father" that. + +Say that the art to live's the art to sup, +Go fishing, hunting, soon as sunlight's up, +As did Gargilius, who at break of day +Swept with his nets and spears the crowded way, +Then, while all Rome looked on in wonder, brought +Home on a single mule a boar he'd bought. +Thence pass on to the bath-room, gorged and crude, +Our stomachs stretched with undigested food, +Lost to all self-respect, all sense of shame, +Disfranchised freemen, Romans but in name, +Like to Ulysses' crew, that worthless band, +Who cared for pleasure more than fatherland. + +If, as Mimnermus tells you, life is flat +With nought to love, devote yourself to that. + +Farewell: if you can mend these precepts, do: +If not, what serves for me may serve for you. + + + + +VII. TO MAECENAS. + +QUINQUE DIES TIBI POLLICITUS. + + +Five days I told you at my farm I'd stay, +And lo! the whole of August I'm away. +Well, but, Maecenas, yon would have me live, +And, were I sick, my absence you'd forgive; +So let me crave indulgence for the fear +Of falling ill at this bad time of year, +When, thanks to early figs and sultry heat, +The undertaker figures with his suite, +When fathers all and fond mammas grow pale +At what may happen to their young heirs male, +And courts and levees, town-bred mortals' ills, +Bring fevers on, and break the seals of wills. +When winter strews the Alban fields with snow, +Down to the sea your chilly bard will go, +There keep the house and study at his ease, +All huddled up together, nose and knees: +With the first swallow, if you'll have him then, +He'll come, dear friend, and visit you again. + +Not like the coarse Calabrian boor, who pressed +His store of pears upon a sated guest, +Have you bestowed your favours. "Eat them, pray." +"I've done." "Then carry all you please away." +"I thank you, no." "Your boys won't like you less +For taking home a sack of them, I guess." +"I could not thank you more if I took all." +"Ah well, if you won't eat them, the pigs shall." +'Tis silly prodigality, to throw +Those gifts broadcast whose value you don't know: +Such tillage yields ingratitude, and will, +While human nature is the soil you till. +A wise good man has ears for merit's claim, +Yet does not reckon brass and gold the same. +I also will "assume desert," and prove +I value him whose bounty speaks his love. + +If you would keep me always, give me back +My sturdy sides, my clustering locks of black, +My pleasant voice and laugh, the tears I shed +That night when Cinara from the table fled. +A poor pinched field-mouse chanced to make its way +Through a small rent in a wheat-sack one day, +And, having gorged and stuffed, essayed in vain +To squeeze its body through the hole again: +"Ah!" cried a weasel, "wait till you get thin; +Then, if you will, creep out as you crept in." +Well, if to me the story folks apply, +I give up all I've got without a sigh: +Not mine to cram down guinea-fowls, and then +Heap praises on the sleep of labouring men; +Give me a country life and leave me free, +I would not choose the wealth of Araby. + +I've called you Father, praised your royal grace +Behind your back as well as to your face; +You've owned I have a conscience: try me now +If I can quit your gifts with cheerful brow. +That was a prudent answer which, we're told, +The son of wise Ulysses made of old: +"Our Ithaca is scarce the place for steeds; +It has no level plains, no grassy meads: +Atrides, if you'll let me, I'll decline +A gift that better meets your wants than mine." +Small things become small folks: imperial Rome +Is all too large, too bustling for a home; +The empty heights of Tibur, or the bay +Of soft Tarentum, more are in my way. + +Philip, the famous counsel, years ago, +Was moving home at two, sedate and slow, +Old, and fatigued with pleading at the bar, +And grumbling that he lived away so far, +When suddenly he chanced his eye to drop +On a spruce personage in a barber's shop, +Who in the shopman's absence lounged at ease, +Paring his nails as calmly as you please. +"Demetrius"--so was called the slave he kept +To do his errands, a well-trained adept-- +"Find out about that man for me; enquire +His name and rank, his patron or his sire." +He soon brings word that Mena is the name, +An auction-crier, poor, but without blame, +One who can work or idle, get or spend, +Who loves his home and likes to see a friend, +Enjoys the circus, and when work's got through, +Hies to the field, and does as others do. +"I'll hear the details from himself: go say +I'll thank him if he'll sup with me to-day." +Mena can scarce believe it; posed and mum +He ponders; then, with thanks, declines to come. +"What? does he dare to say me nay?" "Just so; +Be it reserve or disrespect, 'tis no." +Philip next morn finds Mena at a sale +"Where odds and ends are going by retail, +And greets him first. He, stammeringly profuse, +Alleges ties of business in excuse +For not by day-break knocking at his door, +And last, for not observing him before. +"Well, bygones shall be bygones, if so be +You'll come this afternoon and sup with me." +"I'm at your service." "Then 'twixt four and five +You'll come: now go, and do your best to thrive." +He's there in time; what comes into his head +He chatters, right or wrong; then off to bed. +So, when he'd learnt to nibble at the bait, +At levee early and at supper late, +One holiday he's bidden to come down +With Philip to his villa out of town. +Astride on horseback, both, he vows, are rare, +The Sabine country and the Sabine air. +Philip looks on and chuckles, his one aim +To get a laugh by keeping up the game, +Lends him seven hundred, gives him out of hand +Seven more, and leads him on to buy some land. +'Tis bought: to make a lengthy tale concise, +The man becomes a clown who once was nice, +Talks all of elms and vineyards, ploughs and soil, +And ages fast with struggling and sheer toil; +Till, when his sheep are stolen, his bullock drops, +His goats die off, a blight destroys his crops, +One night he takes a waggon-horse, and sore +With all his losses, rides to Philip's door. +Philip perceives him squalid and unshorn, +And cries, "Why, Mena! surely you look worn; +You work too hard." "Nay, call me wretch," says he, +"Good patron; 'tis the only name for me. +So now, by all that's binding among men, +I beg you, give me my old life again." + +He that finds out he's changed his lot for worse, +Let him betimes the untoward choice reverse: +For still, when all is said, the rule stands fast, +That each man's shoe be made on his own last. + + + + +VIII. TO CELSUS ALBINOVANUS. + +CELSO GAUDERE. + + +Health to friend Celsus--so, good Muse, report-- +Who holds the pen in Nero's little court! +If asked about me, say, I plan and plan, +Yet live a useless and unhappy man: +Sunstrokes have spared my olives, hail my vines; +No herd of mine in far-off pasture pines: +Yet ne'ertheless I suffer; hourly teased +Less by a body than a mind diseased, +No ear have I to hear, no heart to heed +The words of wisdom that might serve my need, +Frown on my doctors, with the friends am wroth +Who fain would rouse me from my fatal sloth, +Seek what has harmed me, shun what looks of use, +Town-bird at Tibur, and at Rome recluse. +Then ask him how his health is, how he fares, +How prospers with the prince and his confreres. +If he says Well, first tell him you rejoice, +Then add one little hint (but drop your voice), +"As Celsus bears his fortune well or ill, +So bear with Celsus his acquaintance will." + + + + +IX. TO TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO. + +SEPTIMIUS, CLAUDI. + + +Septimius, Nero, seems to comprehend, +As none else does, how you esteem your friend: +For when he begs, nay, forces me, good man, +To move you in his favour, if I can, +As not unfit the heart and home to share +Of Claudius, who selects his staff with care, +Bidding me act as though I filled the place +Of one you honour with your special grace, +He sees and knows what I may safely try +By way of influence better e'en than I. +Believe me, many were the pleas I used +In the vain hope to get myself excused: +But then there came a natural fear, you know, +Lest I should seem to rate my powers too low, +To make a snug peculium of my own, +And keep my influence for myself alone: +So, fearing to incur more serious blame, +I bronze my front, step down, and play my game. +If then you praise the sacrifice I make +In waiving modesty for friendship's sake, +Admit him to your circle, when you've read +These lines, and trust me for his heart and head. + + + + +X. TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS. + +URBIS AMATOREM. + + +To Fuscus, lover of the city, I +Who love the country, wish prosperity: +In this one thing unlike, in all beside +We might be twins, so nearly we're allied; +Sharing each other's hates, each other's loves, +We bill and coo, like two familiar doves. +You keep the nest: I love the rural scene, +Fresh runnels, moss-grown rocks, and woodland green. +What would you more? once let me leave the things +You praise so much, my life is like a king's: +Like the priest's runaway, I cannot eat +Your cakes, but pine for bread of wholesome wheat. + +Now say that it behoves us to adjust +Our lives to nature (wisdom says we must): +You want a site for building: can you find +A place that's like the country to your mind? +Where have you milder winters? where are airs +That breathe more grateful when the Dogstar glares, +Or when the Lion feels in every vein +The sun's sharp thrill, and maddens with the pain? +Is there a spot where care contrives to keep +At further distance from the couch of sleep? +Is springing grass less sweet to nose or eyes +Than Libyan marble's tesselated dyes? +Does purer water strain your pipes of lead +Than that which ripples down the brooklet's bed? +Why, 'mid your Parian columns trees you train, +And praise the house that fronts a wide domain. +Drive Nature forth by force, she'll turn and rout +The false refinements that would keep her out. + +The luckless wight who can't tell side by side +A Tyrian fleece from one Aquinum-dyed, +Is not more surely, keenly, made to smart +Than he who knows not truth and lies apart. +Take too much pleasure in good things, you'll feel +The shock of adverse fortune makes you reel. +Regard a thing with wonder, with a wrench +You'll give it up when bidden to retrench. +Keep clear of courts: a homely life transcends +The vaunted bliss of monarchs and their friends. + +The stag was wont to quarrel with the steed, +Nor let him graze in common on the mead: +The steed, who got the worst in each attack, +Asked help from man, and took him on his back: +But when his foe was quelled, he ne'er got rid +Of his new friend, still bridled and bestrid. +So he who, fearing penury, loses hold +Of independence, better far than gold, +Will toil, a hopeless drudge, till life is spent, +Because he'll never, never learn content. +Means should, like shoes, be neither large nor small; +Too wide, they trip us up, too strait, they gall. + +Then live contented, Fuscus, nor be slow +To give a friendly rap to one you know, +Whene'er you find me struggling to increase +My neat sufficiency, and ne'er at peace. +Gold will be slave or master: 'tis more fit +That it be led by us than we by it. + +From tumble-down Vacuna's fane I write, +Wanting but you to make me happy quite. + + + + +XI. TO BULLATIUS. + +QUID TIBI VISA CHIOS? + + +How like you Chios, good Bullatius? what +Think you of Lesbos, that world-famous spot? +What of the town of Samos, trim and neat, +And what of Sardis, Croesus' royal seat? +Of Smyrna what and Colophon? are they +Greater or less than travellers' stories say? +Do all look poor beside our scenes at home, +The field of Mars, the river of old Rome? +Say, is your fancy fixed upon some town +Which formed a gem in Attalus's crown? +Or would you turn to Lebedus for ease +In mere disgust at weary roads and seas? +You know what Lebedus is like; so bare, +With Gabii or Fidenae 'twould compare; +Yet there, methinks, I would accept my lot, +My friends forgetting, by my friends forgot, +Stand on the cliff at distance, and survey +The stormy sea-god's wild Titanic play. +Yet he that comes from Capua, dashing in +To Rome, all splashed and wetted to the skin, +Though in a tavern glad one night to bide, +Would not be pleased to live there till he died: +If he gets cold, he lets his fancy rove +In quest of bliss beyond a bath or stove: +And you, though tossed just now by a stiff breeze, +Don't therefore sell your vessel beyond seas. + +But what are Rhodes and Lesbos, and the rest, +E'en let a traveller rate them at their best? +No more the wants of healthy minds they meet +Than does a jersey in a driving sleet, +A cloak in summer, Tiber through the snow, +A chafing-dish in August's midday glow. +So, while health lasts, and Fortune keeps her smiles, +We'll pay our devoir to your Grecian isles, +Praise them on this condition--that we stay +In our own land, a thousand miles away. + +Seize then each happy hour the gods dispense, +Nor fix enjoyment for a twelvemonth hence. +So may you testify with truth, where'er +You're quartered, 'tis a pleasure to be there: +For if the cure of mental ills is due +To sense and wisdom, not a fine sea-view, +We come to this; when o'er the world we range +'Tis but our climate, not our mind we change. +What active inactivity is this, +To go in ships and cars to search for bliss! +No; what you seek, at Ulubrae you'll find, +If to the quest you bring a balanced mind. + + + + +XII. TO Iccitus. + +FRUCTIBUS AGRIPPAE. + + +If, worthy Iccius, properly you use +What you collect, Agrippa's revenues, +You're well supplied: and Jove himself could tell +No way to make you better off than well. +A truce to murmuring: with another's store +To use at pleasure, who shall call you poor? +Sides, stomach, feet, if these are all in health, +What more could man procure with princely wealth? + +If, with a well-spread table, when you dine, +To plain green food your eating you confine, +Though some fine day a rich Pactolian rill +Should flood your house, you'd munch your pot-herbs still, +From habit or conviction, which o'er-ride +The power of gold, and league on virtue's side. +No need to marvel at the stories told +Of simple-sage Democritus of old, +How, while his soul was soaring in the sky, +The sheep got in and nibbled down his rye, +When, spite of lucre's strong contagion, yet +On lofty problems all your thoughts are set,-- +What checks the sea, what heats and cools the year, +If law or impulse guides the starry sphere, +"What power presides o'er lunar wanderings, +What means the jarring harmony of things, +Which after all is wise, and which the fool, +Empedooles or the Stertinian school. + +But whether you're for taking fishes' life, +Or against leeks and onions whet your knife, +Let Grosphus be your friend, and should he plead +For aught he wants, anticipate his need: +He'll never outstep reason; and you know, +When good men lack, the price of friends is low. + +But what of Rome? Agrippa has increased +Her power in Spain, Tiberius in the East: +Phraates, humbly bending on his knee, +Submits himself to Csesar's sovereignty: +While golden Plenty from her teeming horn +Pours down on Italy abundant corn. + + + + +XIII. TO VINIUS ASELLA. + +UT PROFICISCENTEM. + + +As I have told you oft, deliver these, +My sealed-up volumes, to Augustus, please, +Friend Vinius, if he's well and in good trim, +And (one proviso more) if asked by him: +Beware of over-zeal, nor discommend +My works, by playing the impetuous friend. +Suppose my budget, ere you get to town, +Should gall you, better straightway throw it down +Than, when you've reached the palace, fling the pack +With animal impatience from your back, +And so be thought in nature as in name +Tour father's colt, and made some joker's game. +Tour powers of tough endurance will avail +With brooks and ponds to ford and hills to scale: +But when you've quelled the perils of the road, +Take special care how you adjust your load: +Don't tuck beneath your arm these precious gifts, +As drunken Pyrrhia does the wool she lifts, +As rustics do a lamb, as humble wights +Their cap and slippers when asked out at nights. +Don't tell the world you've toiled and sweated hard +In carrying lays which Caesar may regard: +Push on, nor stop for questions. Now good bye; +But pray don't trip, and smash the poetry. + + + + +XIV. TO HIS BAILIFF. + +VILLICE SILVARUM. + + +Good bailiff of my farm, that snug domain +Which makes its master feel himself again, +Which, though you sniff at it, could once support +Five hearths, and send five statesmen to the court, +Let's have a match in husbandry; we'll try +Which can do weeding better, you or I, +And see if Horace more repays the hand +That clears him of his thistles, or his land. +Though here I'm kept administering relief +To my poor Lamia's broken-hearted grief +For his lost brother, ne'ertheless my thought +Flies to my woods, and counts the distance nought. +You praise the townsman's, I the rustic's state: +Admiring others' lots, our own we hate: +Each blames the place he lives in: but the mind +Is most in fault, which ne'er leaves self behind. +A town-house drudge, for farms you used to sigh; +Now towns and shows and baths are all your cry: +But I'm consistent with myself: you know +I grumble, when to Rome I'm forced to go. +Truth is, our standards differ: what your taste +Condemns, forsooth, as so much savage waste, +The man who thinks with Horace thinks divine, +And hates the things which you believe so fine. +I know your secret: 'tis the cook-shop breeds +That lively sense of what the country needs: +You grieve because this little nook of mine +Would bear Arabian spice as soon as wine; +Because no tavern happens to be nigh +Where you can go and tipple on the sly, +No saucy flute-girl, at whose jigging sound +You bring your feet down lumbering to the ground. +And yet, methinks, you've plenty on your hands +In breaking up these long unharrowed lands; +The ox, unyoked and resting from the plough, +Wants fodder, stripped from elm or poplar bough; +You've work too at the river, when there's rain, +As, but for a strong bank,'twould flood the plain. +Now have a little patience, you shall see +What makes the gulf between yourself and me: +I, who once wore gay clothes and well-dressed hair, +I, who, though poor, could please a greedy fair, +I, who could sit from mid-day o'er Falern, +Now like short meals and slumbers by the burn: +No shame I deem it to have had my sport; +The shame had been in frolics not cut short. +There at my farm I fear no evil eye; +No pickthank blights my crops as he goes by; +My honest neighbours laugh to see me wield +A heavy rake, or dibble my own field. +Were wishes wings, you'd join my slaves in town, +And share the rations that they swallow down; +While that sharp footboy envies you the use +Of what my garden, flocks, and woods produce. +The horse would plough, the ox would draw the car. +No; do the work you know, and tarry where you are. + + + + +XV. TO C. NUMONIUS VALA. + +QUAE SIT HIEMS VELIAE. + + +If Velia and Salernum tell me, pray, +The climate, and the natives, and the way: +For Baiae now is lost on me, and I, +Once its staunch friend, am turned its enemy, +Through Musa's fault, who makes me undergo +His cold-bath treatment, spite of frost and snow. +Good sooth, the town is filled with spleen, to see +Its myrtle-groves attract no company; +To find its sulphur-wells, which forced out pain +From joint and sinew, treated with disdain +By tender chests and heads, now grown so bold, +They brave cold water in the depth of cold, +And, finding down at Clusium what they want, +Or Gabii, say, make that their winter haunt. +Yes, I must change my quarters; my good horse +Must pass the inns where once he stopped of course. +"How now, you creature? I'm not bound to-day +For Cumae or for Baiae," I shall say, +Pulling the left rein angrily, because +A horse when bridled listens through his jaws. +Which place is best supplied with corn, d'ye think? +Have they rain-water or fresh springs to drink? +Their wines I care not for: when at my farm +I can drink any sort without much harm; +But at the sea I need a generous kind +To warm my veins and pass into my mind, +Enrich me with new hopes, choice words supply, +And make me comely in a lady's eye. +Which tract is best for game, on which sea-coast +Urchins and other fish abound the most, +That so, when I return, my friends may see +A sleek Phaeacian come to life in me: +These things you needs must tell me, Vala dear, +And I no less must act on what I hear. + +When Maenius, after nobly gobbling down +His fortune, took to living on the town, +A social beast of prey, with no fixed home, +He ranged and ravened o'er the whole of Rome; +His maw unfilled, he'd turn on friend and foe; +None was too high for worrying, none too low; +The scourge and murrain of each butcher's shop, +Whate'er he got, he stuffed into his crop. +So, when he'd failed in getting e'er a bit +From those who liked or feared his wicked wit, +Then down a throat of three-bear power he'd cram +Plate after plate of offal, tripe or lamb, +And swear, as Bestius might, your gourmand knaves +Should have their stomachs branded like a slave's. +But give the brute a piece of daintier prey, +When all was done, he'd smack his lips and say, +"In faith I cannot wonder, when I hear +Of folks who waste a fortune on good cheer, +For there's no treat in nature more divine +Than a fat thrush or a big paunch of swine." +I'm just his double: when my purse is lean +I hug myself, and praise the golden mean, +Stout when not tempted; but suppose some day +A special titbit comes into my way, +I vow man's happiness is ne'er complete +Till based on a substantial country seat. + + + + +XVI. TO QUINCTIUS. + +NE PERCONTERIS. + + +About my farm, dear Quinctius; you would know +What sort of produce for its lord 'twill grow; +Plough-land is it, or meadow-land, or soil +For apples, vine-clad elms, or olive oil? +So (but you'll think me garrulous) I'll write +A full description of its form and site. +In long continuous line the mountains run, +Cleft by a valley which twice feels the sun, +Once on the right when first he lifts his beams, +Once on the left, when he descends in steams. +You'd praise the climate: well, and what d'ye say +To sloes and cornels hanging from the spray? +What to the oak and ilex, that afford +Fruit to the cattle, shelter to their lord? +What, but that rich Tarentum must have been +Transplanted nearer Rome with all its green? +Then there's a fountain of sufficient size +To name the river that takes thence its rise, +Not Thracian Hebrus colder or more pure, +Of power the head's and stomach's ills to cure. +This sweet retirement--nay, 'tis more than sweet-- +Ensures my health e'en in September's heat. + +And how fare you? if you deserve in truth +The name men give you, you're a happy youth: +Rome's thousand tongues, agreed at least in this, +Ascribe to you a plenitude of bliss. +Yet, when you judge of self, I fear you're prone +To take another's word before your own, +To think of happiness as 'twere a prize +That men may win though neither good nor wise: +Just so the glutton whom the world thinks well +Keeps dark his fever till the dinner-bell; +Then, as he's eating, with his hands well greased, +Shivering comes on, and proves the fool diseased. +O, 'tis a false, false shame that would conceal +From doctors' eyes the sores it cannot heal! + +Suppose a man should trumpet your success +By land and sea, and make you this address: +"May Jove, who watches with the same good-will +O'er you and Rome, preserve the secret still, +Whether the heart within you beats more true +To Rome and to her sons, or theirs to you!" +Howe'er your ears might flatter you, you'd say +The praise was Caesar's, and had gone astray. +Yet should the town pronounce you wise and good, +You'd take it to yourself, you know you would. +"Take it? of course I take it," you reply; +"You love the praise yourself, then why not I?" +Aye, but the town, that gives you praise to-day, +Next week can snatch it, if it please, away, +As in elections it can mend mistakes, +And whom it makes one year, the next unmakes. +"Lay down the fasces," it exclaims; "they're mine:" +I lay them down, and sullenly resign. +Well now, if "Thief" and "Profligate" they roar, +Or lay my father's murder at my door, +Am I to let their lying scandals bite +And change my honest cheeks from red to white? +Trust me, false praise has charms, false blame has pains +But for vain hearts, long ears, and addled brains. + +Whom call we good? The man who keeps intact +Each law, each right, each statute and each act, +Whose arbitration terminates dispute, +Whose word's a bond, whose witness ends a suit. +Yet his whole house and all the neighbours know +He's bad at heart, despite his decent show. +"I," says a slave, "ne'er ran away nor stole:" +Well, what of that? say I: your skin is whole. +"I've shed no blood." You shall not feed the orow. +"I'm good and true." We Sabine folks say No: +The wolf avoids the pit, the hawk the snare, +And hidden hooks teach fishes to beware. +'Tis love of right that keeps the good from wrong; +You do no harm because you fear the thong; +Could you be sure that no one would detect, +E'en sacrilege might tempt you, I suspect. +Steal but one bean, although the loss be small, +The crime's as great as if you stole them all. + +See your good man, who oft as he appears +In court commands all judgments and all ears; +Observe him now, when to the gods he pays +His ox or swine, and listen what he says: +"Great Janus, Phoebus"--this he speaks aloud; +The rest is muttered all and unavowed-- +"Divine Laverna, grant me safe disguise; +Let me seem just and upright in men's eyes; +Shed night upon my crimes, a glamour o'er my lies." + +Say, what's a miser but a slave complete +When he'd pick up a penny in the street? +Fearing's a part of coveting, and he +Who lives in fear is no freeman for me. +The wretch whose thoughts by gain are all engrossed +Has flung away his sword, betrayed his post. +Don't kill your captive: keep him: he will sell; +Some things there are the creature will do well: +He'll plough and feed the cattle, cross the deep +And traffic, carry corn, make produce cheap. + +The wise and good, like Bacchus in the play, +When Fortune threats, will have the nerve to say: +"Great king of Thebes, what pains can you devise +The man who will not serve you to chastise?" +"I'll take your goods." "My flocks, my land, to wit, +My plate, my couches: do, if you think fit." +"I'll keep you chained and guarded in close thrall." +"A god will come to free me when I call." +Yes, he will die; 'tis that the bard intends; +For when Death comes, the power of Fortune ends. + + + + +XVII. TO SCAEVA. + +QUAMVIS, SCAEVA. + + +Though instinct tells you, Scaeva, how to act, +And makes you live among the great with tact, +Yet hear a fellow-student; 'tis as though +The blind should point you out the way to go, +But still give heed, and see if I produce +Aught that hereafter you may find of use. + +If rest is what you like, and sleep till eight, +If dust and rumbling wheels are what you hate, +If tavern-life disgusts you, then repair +To Ferentinum, and turn hermit there; +For wealth has no monopoly of bliss, +And life unnoticed is not lived amiss: +But if you'd help your friends, and like a treat, +Then drop dry bread, and take to juicy meat. +"If Aristippus could but dine off greens, +He'd cease to cultivate his kings and queens." +"If that rude snarler knew but queens and kings, +He'd find his greens unpalatable things." +Thus far the rival sages. Tell me true, +Whose words you think the wiser of the two, +Or hear (to listen is a junior's place) +Why Aristippus has the better case; +For he, the story goes, with this remark +Once stopped the Cynic's aggravating bark: +"Buffoon I may be, but I ply my trade +For solid value; you ply yours unpaid. +I pay my daily duty to the great, +That I may ride a horse and dine in state; +You, though you talk of independence, yet, +Each time you beg for scraps, contract a debt." +All lives sat well on Aristippus; though +He liked the high, he yet could grace the low; +But the dogged sage whose blanket folds in two +Would be less apt in changing old for new. +Take from the one his robe of costly red, +He'll not refuse to dress, or keep his bed; +Clothed as you please, he'll walk the crowded street, +And, though not fine, will manage to look neat. +Put purple on the other, not the touch +Of toad or asp would startle him so much; +Give back his blanket, or he'll die of chill: +Yes, give it back; he's too absurd to kill. + +To win great fights, to lead before men's eyes +A captive foe, is half way to the skies: +Just so, to gain by honourable ways +A great man's favour is no vulgar praise: +You know the proverb, "Corinth town is fair, +But 'tis not every man that can get there." +One man sits still, not hoping to succeed; +One makes the journey; he's a man indeed! +'Tis that we look for; not to shift a weight +Which little frames and little souls think great, +But stoop and bear it. Virtue's a mere name, +Or 'tis high venture that achieves high aim. + +Those who have tact their poverty to mask +Before their chief get more than those who ask; +It makes, you see, a difference, if you take +As modest people do, or snatch your cake; +Yet that's the point from which our question starts, +By what way best to get at patrons' hearts. +"My mother's poor, my sister's dower is due, +My farm won't sell or yield us corn enow," +What is all this but just the beggar's cry, +"I'm starving; give me food for charity"? +"Ah!" whines another in a minor key, +"The loaf's in out; pray spare a slice for me." +But if in peace the raven would have fed, +He'd have had less of clawing, more of bread. + +A poor companion whom his friend takes down +To fair Surrentum or Brundisium's town, +If he makes much of cold, bad roads, and rain, +Or moans o'er cash-box forced and money ta'en, +Reminds us of a girl, some artful thing, +Who cries for a lost bracelet or a ring, +With this result, that when she comes to grieve +For real misfortunes, no one will believe. +So, hoaxed by one impostor, in the street +A man won't set a cripple on his feet, +Though he invoke Osiris, and appeal +With streaming tears to hearts that will not feel, +"Lift up a poor lame man! I tell no lie;" +"Treat foreigners to that," the neighbours cry. + + + + +XVIII. TO LOLLIUS. + +SI BENE TE NOVI. + + +You'd blush, good Lollius, if I judge you right, +To mix the parts of friend and parasite. +'Twixt parasite and friend a gulf is placed, +Wide as between the wanton and the chaste; +Yet think not flattery friendship's only curse: +A different vice there is, perhaps a worse, +A brutal boorishness, which fain would win +Regard by unbrushed teeth and close-shorn skin, +Yet all the while is anxious to be thought +Pure independence, acting as it ought. +Between these faults 'tis Virtue's place to stand, +At distance from the extreme on either hand. +The flatterer by profession, whom you see +At every feast among the lowest three, +Hangs on his patron's looks, takes up each word +Which, dropped by chance, might else expire unheard, +Like schoolboys echoing what their masters say +In sing-song drawl, or Gnatho in the play: +While your blunt fellow battles for a straw, +As though he'd knock you down or take the law: +"How now, good sir? you mean my word to doubt? +When I once think a thing, I mayn't speak out? +Though living on your terms were living twice, +Instead of once, 'twere dear at such a price." +And what's the question that brings on these fits?-- +Does Dolichos or Castor make more hits? +Or, starting for Brundisium, will it pay +To take the Appian or Minucian way? + +Him that gives in to dice or lewd excess, +Who apes rich folks in equipage and dress, +Who meanly covets to increase his store, +And shrinks as meanly from the name of poor, +That man his patron, though on all those heads +Perhaps a worse offender, hates and dreads, +Or says to him what tender parents say, +Who'd have their children better men than they: +"Don't vie with me," he says, and he says true; +"My wealth will bear the silly things I do; +Yours is a slender pittance at the best; +A wise man cuts his coat--you know the rest." +Eutrapelus, whene'er a grudge he owed +To any, gave him garments a la mode; +Because, said he, the wretch will feel inspired +With new conceptions when he's new attired; +He'll sleep through half the day, let business go +For pleasure, teach a usurer's cash to grow; +At last he'll turn a fencer, or will trudge +Beside a cart, a market-gardener's drudge. + +Avoid all prying; what you're told, keep back, +Though wine or anger put you on the rack; +Nor puff your own, nor slight your friend's pursuits, +Nor court the Muses when he'd chase the brutes. +'Twas thus the Theban brethren jarred, until +The harp that vexed the stern one became still. +Amphion humoured his stern brother: well, +Your friend speaks gently; do not you rebel: +No; when he gives the summons, and prepares +To take the field with hounds, and darts, and snares, +Leave your dull Muse to sulkiness and sloth, +That both may feast on dainties earned by both. +'Tis a true Roman pastime, and your frame +Will gain thereby, no less than your good name: +Besides, you're strong; in running you can match +The dogs, and kill the fiercest boar you catch: +Who plays like you? you have but to appear +In Mars's field to raise a general cheer: +Remember too, you served a hard campaign, +When scarce past boyhood, in the wars of Spain, +Beneath his lead who brings our standards home, +And makes each nook of earth a prize for Rome. +Just one thing more, lest still you should refuse +And show caprice that nothing can excuse: +Safe as you are from doing aught unmeet, +You sometimes trifle at your father's seat; +The Actian fight in miniature you play, +With boats for ships, your lake for Hadria's bay, +Your brother for your foe, your slaves for crews, +And so you battle till you win or lose. +Let your friend see you share his taste, he'll vow +He never knew what sport was like till now. + +Well, to proceed; beware, if there is room +For warning, what you mention, and to whom; +Avoid a ceaseless questioner; he burns +To tell the next he talks with what he learns; +Wide ears retain no secrets, and you know +You can't get back a word you once let go. + +Look round and round the man you recommend, +For yours will be the shame should he offend. +Sometimes we're duped; a protege dragged down +By his own fault must e'en be left to drown, +That you may help another known and tried, +And show yourself his champion if belied; +For when 'gainst him detraction forks her tongue, +Be sure she'll treat you to the same ere long. +No time for sleeping with a fire next door; +Neglect such things, they only blaze the more. + +A patron's service is a strange career; +The tiros love it, but the experts fear. +You, while you're sailing on a prosperous tack, +Look out for squalls which yet may drive you back. +The gay dislike the grave, the staid the pert, +The quick the slow, the lazy the alert; +Hard drinkers hate the sober, though he swear +Those bouts at night are more than he can bear. +Unknit your brow; the silent man is sure +To pass for crabbed, the modest for obscure. + +Meantime, while thoughts like these your mind engage, +Neglect not books nor converse with the sage; +Ply them with questions; lead them on to tell +What things make life go happily and well; +How cure desire, the soul's perpetual dearth? +How moderate care for things of trifling worth? +Is virtue raised by culture or self-sown? +What soothes annoy, and makes your heart your own? +Is peace procured by honours, pickings, gains, +Or, sought in highways, is she found in lanes? + +For me, when freshened by my spring's pure cold +Which makes my villagers look pinched and old, +What prayers are mine? "O may I yet possess +The goods I have, or, if Heaven pleases, less! +Let the few years that Fate may grant me still +Be all my own, not held at others' will! +Let me have books, and stores for one year hence, +Nor make my life one flutter of suspense!" + +But I forbear: sufficient 'tis to pray +To Jove for what he gives and takes away: +Grant life, grant fortune, for myself I'll find +That best of blessings, a contented mind. + + + + +XIX. TO MAECENAS. + +PRISCO SI CREDIS. + + +If truth there be in old Cratinus' song, +No verse, you know, Maecenas, can live long +Writ by a water-drinker. Since the day +When Bacchus took us poets into pay +With fauns and satyrs, the celestial Nine +Have smelt each morning of last evening's wine. +The praises heaped by Homer on the bowl +At once convict him as a thirsty soul: +And father Ennius ne'er could be provoked +To sing of battles till his lips were soaked. +"Let temperate folk write verses in the hall +Where bonds change hands, abstainers not at all;" +So ran my edict: now the clan drinks hard, +And vinous breath distinguishes a bard. + +What if a man appeared with gown cut short, +Bare feet, grim visage, after Cato's sort? +Would you respect him, hail him from henceforth +The heir of Cato's mind, of Cato's worth? +The wretched Moor, who matched himself in wit +With keen Timagenes, in sunder split. +Faults are soon copied: should my colour fail, +Our bards drink cummin, hoping to look pale. +Mean, miserable apes! the coil you make +Oft gives my heart, and oft my sides, an ache. + +Erect and free I walk the virgin sod, +Too proud to tread the paths by others trod. +The man who trusts himself, and dares step out, +Soon sets the fashion to the inferior rout. +'Tis I who first to Italy have shown +Iambics, quarried from the Parian stone; +Following Archilochus in rhythm and stave, +But not the words that dug Lycambes' grave. +Yet think not that I merit scantier bays, +Because in form I reproduce his lays: +Strong Sappho now and then adopts a tone +From that same lyre, to qualify her own; +So does Alcaeus, though in all beside, +Style, order, thought, the difference is wide; +'Gainst no false fair he turns his angry Muse, +Nor for her guilty father twists the noose. +Aye, and Alcaeus' name, before unheard, +My Latian harp has made a household word. +Well may the bard feel proud, whose pen supplies +Unhackneyed strains to gentle hands and eyes. + +Ask you what makes the uncourteous reader laud +My works at home, but run them down abroad? +I stoop not, I, to catch the rabble's votes +By cheap refreshments or by cast-off coats, +Nor haunt the benches where your pedants swarm, +Prepared by turns to listen and perform. +That's what this whimpering means. Suppose I say +"Your theatres have ne'er been in my way, +Nor I in theirs: large audiences require +Some heavier metal than my thin-drawn wire:" +"You put me off," he answers, "with a sneer: +Your works are kept for Jove's imperial ear: +Yes, you're a paragon of bards, you think, +And no one else brews nectar fit to drink." +What can I do? 'tis an unequal match; +For if my nose can sniff, his nails can scratch: +I say the place won't snit me, and cry shame; +"E'en fencers get a break 'twixt game and game." +Games oft have ugly issue: they beget +Unhealthy competition, fume and fret: +And fume and fret engender in their turn +Battles that bleed, and enmities that burn. + + + + +XX. TO HIS BOOK. + +VERTUMNUM JANUMQUE. + + +To street and market-place I see you look +With wistful longing, my adventurous book, +That on the stalls for sale you may be seen, +Rubbed by the binder's pumice smooth and clean. +You chafe at look and key, and court the view +Of all the world, disdainful of the few. +Was this your breeding? go where you would go; +When once sent out, you won't come back, you know. +"What mischief have I done?" I hear you whine, +When some one hurts those feelings, now so fine; +For hurt you're sure to be; when people pall +Of reading you, they'll crush and fold you small. +If my prophetic soul be not at fault +From indignation at your rude revolt, +Your doom, methinks, is easy to foretell: +While you've your gloss on, Rome will like you well: +Then, when you're thumbed and soiled by vulgar hands, +You'll feed the moths, or go to distant lands. +Ah, then you'll mind your monitor too late, +While he looks on and chuckles at your fate, +Like him who, pestered by his donkey's vice, +Got off and pushed it down the precipice; +For who would lose his temper and his breath +To keep a brute alive that's bent on death? +Yet one thing more: your fate may be to teach +In some suburban school the parts of speech, +And, maundering over grammar day by day, +Lisp, prattle, drawl, grow childish, and decay. + +Well, when in summer afternoons you see +Men fain to listen, tell them about me: +Tell them that, born a freedman's son, possessed +Of slender means, I soared beyond my nest, +That so whate'er's deducted for my birth +May count as assets on the score of worth; +Say that I pleased the greatest of my day: +Then draw my picture;--prematurely grey, +Of little person, fond of sunny ease, +Lightly provoked, but easy to appease. +Last, if my age they ask you, let them know +That I was forty-four not long ago, +In the December of last year, the same +That goes by Lepidus' and Lollius' name. + + + + +THE EPISTLES + +BOOK II. + + +I. TO AUGUSTUS. + +CUM TOT SUSTINEAS. + + +Since you, great Caesar, singly wield the charge +Of Rome's concerns, so manifold and large, +With sword and shield the commonwealth protect, +With morals grace it, and with laws correct, +The bard, methinks, would do a public wrong +Who, having gained your ear, should keep it long. + +Quirinus, Bacchus, and the Jove-born pair, +Though now invoked with in cense, gifts, and prayer, +While yet on earth they civilized their kind, +Tilled lands, built cities, properties assigned, +Oft mourned for man's ingratitude, and found +The race they served less thankful than the ground. +The prince whose fated vassalage subdued +Fell Hydra's power and all the monster brood, +Soon found that envy, worse than all beside, +Could only be extinguished when he died. +He that outshines his age is like a torch, +Which, when it blazes high, is apt to scorch: +Men hate him while he lives: at last, no doubt, +He wins affection--when his light is out. + +You, while in life, are honoured as divine, +And vows and oaths are taken at your shrine; +So Rome pays homage to her man of men, +Ne'er seen on earth before, ne'er to be seen again. +But this wise nation, which for once thinks true, +That nought in Greece or here can rival you, +To all things else a different test applies, +And looks on living worth with jaundiced eyes: +While, as for ancient models, take the code +Which to the ten wise men our fathers owed, +The treaties made 'twixt Gabii's kings and Home's, +The pontiffs' books, the bards' forgotten tomes, +They'll swear the Muses framed them every one +In close divan on Alba's Helicon. + +But what's the argument? the bards of Greece +And those of Rome must needs be of a piece; +As there the oldest hold the foremost place, +So here, 'twould seem, the same will be the case. +Is this their reasoning? they may prove as well +An olive has no stone, a nut no shell. +Soon, flattered by such dexterous logic, we +Shall think we've gained the summit of the tree; +In art, in song our rivals we outdo, +And, spite of all their oil, in wrestling too. + +Or is it said that poetry's like wine +Which age, we know, will mellow and refine? +Well, let me grant the parallel, and ask +How many years a work must be in cask. +A bard who died a hundred years ago, +With whom should he be reckoned, I would know? +The priceless early or the worthless late? +Come, draw a line which may preclude debate. +"The bard who makes his century up has stood +The test: we call him sterling, old, and good." +Well, here's a poet now, whose dying day +Fell one month later, or a twelvemonth, say: +Whom does he count with? with the old, or them +Whom we and future times alike contemn? +"Aye, call him old, by favour of the court, +Who falls a month, or e'en a twelvemonth short." +Thanks for the kind permission! I go on, +And pull out years, like horse-hairs, one by one, +While all forlorn the baffled critic stands, +Fumbling a naked stump between his hands, +Who looks for worth in registers, and knows +No inspiration but what death bestows. + +Ennius, the stout and wise, in critic phrase +The analogue of Homer in these days, +Enjoys his ease, nor cares how he redeems +The gorgeous promise of his peacock dreams. +Who reads not Naevius? still he lives enshrined +A household god in every Roman mind. +So as we reckon o'er the heroic band +We call Pacuvius learned, Accius grand; +Afranius wears Menander's robe with grace; +Plautus moves on at Epicharmus' pace; +In force and weight Caecilius bears the palm; +While Terence--aye, refinement is his charm. +These are Rome's classics; these to see and hear +She throngs the bursting playhouse year by year: +'Tis these she musters, counts, reviews, displays, +From Livius' time to our degenerate days. + +Sometimes the public sees like any lynx; +Sometimes, if 'tis not blind, at least it blinks. +If it extols the ancient sous of song +As though they were unrivalled, it goes wrong: +If it allows there's much that's obsolete, +Much hasty work, much rough and incomplete, +'Tis just my view; 'tis judging as one ought; +And Jove was present when that thought was thought. +Not that I'd act the zealot, and desire +To fling the works of Livius on the fire, +Which once Orbilius, old and not too mild, +Made me repeat by whipping when a child; +But when I find them deemed high art, and praised +As only not perfection, I'm amazed, +That here and there a thought not ill expressed, +A verse well turned, should carry off the rest; +Just as an unfair sample, set to catch +The heedless customer, will sell the batch. + +I chafe to hear a poem called third-rate +Not as ill written, but as written late; +To hear your critics for their ancients claim +Not charity, but honour and high fame. +Suppose I doubt if Atta's humorous show +Moves o'er the boards with best leg first or no, +The fathers of the city all declare +That shame has fled from Rome, and gone elsewhere; +"What! show no reverence to his sacred shade +Whose scenes great Roscius and Aesopus played?" +Perhaps with selfish prejudice they deem +That nought but what they like deserves esteem, +Or, jealous of their juniors, won't allow +That what they learnt in youth is rubbish now. +As for the pedant whose preposterous whim +Finds poetry in Numa's Salian hymn, +Who would be thought to have explored alone +A land to him and me alike unknown, +'Tis not that buried genius he regards: +No; 'tis mere spleen and spite to living bards. +Had Greece but been as carping and as cold +To new productions, what would now be old? +What standard works would there have been, to come +Beneath the public eye, the public thumb? + +When, having done with fighting, Greece began +To care for trifles that refine the man, +And, borne aloft on Fortune's full flood-tide, +Went drifting on to luxury and pride, +Of athletes and of steeds by turns she raved, +Loved ivory, bronze, and marble deftly graved, +Hung raptured on a painting, mind and eye, +Now leant to music, now to tragedy, +Like a young child that hankers for a toy, +Then throws it down when it begins to cloy. +With change of fortune nations change their minds: +So much for happy peace and prosperous winds. +At Rome erewhile men rose by day-break, saw +Their clients at their homes, laid down the law, +Put money at good interest out to loan +Secured by names responsible and known, +Explained to younger folk, or learned from old, +How wealth might be increased, expense controlled. +Now our good town has taken a new fit: +Each man you meet by poetry is bit; +Pert boys, prim fathers dine in, wreaths of bay, +And 'twixt the courses warble out their lay. +E'en I, who vow I never write a verse, +Am found as false as Parthia, maybe worse; +Before the dawn I rouse myself, and call +For pens and parchment, writing-desk and all. +None dares be pilot who ne'er steered a craft; +No untrained nurse administers a draught; +None but skilled workmen handle workmen's tools: +But verses all men scribble, wise or fools. + +And yet this scribbling is a harmless craze, +And boasts in fact some few redeeming traits. +Avarice will scarce find lodging in a heart +Whose every thought is centred on its art; +He lays no subtle schemes, your dreamy bard, +To circumvent his partner or his ward; +Content with pulse and bread of ration corn, +Mres, losses, runaways he laughs to scorn; +Useless in camp, at home he serves the state, +That is, if small can minister to great. +His lessons form the child's young lips, and wean +The boyish ear from words and tales unclean; +As years roll on, he moulds the ripening mind, +And makes it just and generous, sweet and kind; +He tells of worthy precedents, displays +The example of the past to after days, +Consoles affliction, and disease allays. +Had Rome no poets, who would teach the train +Of maids and spotless youths their ritual strain? +Schooled by the bard, they lift their voice to heaven, +And feel the wished-for aid already given, +Prom brazen skies call down abundant showers, +Are heard when sickness threats or danger lowers, +Win for a war-worn land the smiles of peace, +And crown the year with plentiful increase. +Song checks the hand of Jove in act to smite; +Song soothes the dwellers in abysmal night. + +Our rustic forefathers in days of yore, +Robust though frugal, and content though poor, +When, after harvest done, they sought repair +From toils which hope of respite made them bear, +Were wont their hard-earned leisure to enjoy +With those who shared their labour, wife and boy; +With porker's blood the Earth they would appease, +With milk Silvanus, guardian of their trees, +With flowers and wine the Genius, who repeats +That life is short, and so should have its sweets. +'Twas hence Fescennia's privilege began, +Where wit had licence, and man bantered man; +And the wild sport, though countrified and rough, +Passed off each year acceptably enough; +Till jokes grew virulent, and rabid spite +Ran loose through houses, free to bark and bite. +The wounded shrieked; the unwounded came to feel +That things looked serious for the general weal: +So laws were passed with penalties and pains +To guard the lieges from abusive strains, +And poets sang thenceforth in sweeter tones, +Compelled to please by terror for their bones. + +Greece, conquered Greece, her conqueror subdued, +And Rome grew polished, who till then was rude; +The rough Saturnian measure had its day, +And gentler arts made savagery give way: +Yet traces of the uncouth past lived on +For many a year, nor are they wholly gone, +For 'twas not till the Punic wars were o'er +That Rome found time Greek authors to explore, +And try, by digging in that virgin field, +What Sophocles and Aeschylus could yield. +Nay, she essayed a venture of her own, +And liked to think she'd caught the tragic tone; +And so she has:--the afflatus comes on hot; +But out, alas! she deems it shame to blot. + +'Tis thought that comedy, because its source +Is common life, must be a thing of course, +Whereas there's nought so difficult, because +There's nowhere less allowance made for flaws. +See Plautus now: what ill-sustained affairs +Are his close fathers and his love-sick heirs! +How farcical his parasites! how loose +And down at heel he wears his comic shoes! +For, so he fills his pockets, nought he heeds +Whether the play's a failure or succeeds. + +Drawn to the house in glory's car, the bard +Is made by interest, by indifference marred: +So slight the cause that prostrates or restores +A mind that lives for plaudits and encores. +Nay, I forswear the drama, if to win +Or lose the prize can make me plump or thin. +Then too it tries an author's nerve, to find +The class in numbers strong, though weak in mind, +The brutal brainless mob, who, if a knight +Disputes their judgment, bluster and show fight, +Call in the middle of a play for bears +Or boxers;--'tis for such the rabble cares. +But e'en the knights have changed, and now they prize +Delighted ears far less than dazzled eyes. +The curtain is kept down four hours or more, +While horse and foot go hurrying o'er the floor, +While crownless majesty is dragged in chains, +Chariots succeed to chariots, wains to wains, +Whole fleets of ships in long procession pass, +And captive ivory follows captive brass. +O, could Democritus return to earth, +In truth 'twould wake his wildest peals of mirth, +To see a milkwhite elephant, or shape +Half pard, half camel, set the crowd agape! +He'd eye the mob more keenly than the shows, +And find less food for sport in these than those; +While the poor authors--he'd suppose their play +Addressed to a deaf ass that can but bray. +For where's the voice so strong as to o'ercome +A Roman theatre's discordant hum? +You'd think you heard the Gargan forest roar +Or Tuscan billows break upon the shore, +So loud the tumult waxes, when they see +The show, the pomp, the foreign finery. +Soon as the actor, thus bedizened, stands +In public view, clap go ten thousand hands. +"What said he?" Nought. "Then what's the attraction? "Why, +That woollen mantle with the violet dye. + +But lest you think 'tis niggard praise I fling +To bards who soar where I ne'er stretched a wing, +That man I hold true master of his art +Who with fictitious woes can wring my heart, +Can rouse me, soothe me, pierce me with the thrill +Of vain alarm, and, as by magic skill, +Bear me to Thebes, to Athens, where he will. + +Now turn to us shy mortals, who, instead +Of being hissed and acted, would be read: +We claim your favour, if with worthy gear +You'd fill the temple Phoebus holds so dear, +And give poor bards the stimulus of hope +To aid their progress up Parnassus' slope. +Poor bards! much harm to our own cause we do +(It tells against myself, but yet 'tis true), +When, wanting you to read us, we intrude +On times of business or of lassitude, +When we lose temper if a friend thinks fit +To find a fault or two with what we've writ, +When, unrequested, we again go o'er +A passage we recited once, before, +When we complain, forsooth, our laboured strokes, +Our dexterous turns, are lost on careless folks, +When we expect, so soon as you're informed +That ours are hearts by would-be genius warmed, +You'll send for us instanter, end our woes +With a high hand, and make us all compose. + +Yet greatness, proved in war and peace divine, +Had best be jealous who should keep its shrine: +The sacred functions of the temple-ward +Were ill conferred on an inferior bard. +A blunderer was Choerilus; and yet +This blunderer was Alexander's pet, +And for the ill-stamped lines that left his mint +Received good money with the royal print. +Ink spoils what touches it: indifferent lays +Blot out the exploits they pretend to praise. +Yet the same king who bought bad verse so dear +In other walks of art saw true and clear; +None but Lysippus, so he willed by law, +Might model him, none but Apelles draw. +But take this mind, in paintings and in bronze +So ready to distinguish geese from swans, +And bid it judge of poetry, you'd swear +"Twas born and nurtured in Boeotian air. + +Still, bards there are whose excellence commends +The sovereign judgment that esteems them friends, +Virgil and Varius; when your hand confers +Its princely bounty, all the world concurs. +And, trust me, human features never shone +With livelier truth through brass or breathing stone +Than the great genius of a hero shines +Through the clear mirror of a poet's lines. +Nor is it choice (ah, would that choice were all!) +Makes my dull Muse in prose-like numbers crawl, +When she might sing of rivers and strange towns, +Of mountain fastnesses and barbarous crowns, +Of battles through the world compelled to cease, +Of bolts that guard the God who guards the peace, +And haughty Parthia through defeat and shame +By Caesar taught to fear the Roman name: +'Tis strength that lacks: your dignity disdains +The mean support of ineffectual strains, +And modesty forbids me to essay +A theme whose weight would make my powers give way. +Officious zeal is apt to be a curse +To those it loves, especially in verse; +For easier 'tis to learn and recollect +What moves derision than what claims respect. +He's not my friend who hawks in every place +A waxwork parody of my poor face; +Nor were I flattered if some silly wight +A stupid poem in my praise should write: +The gift would make me blush, and I should dread +To travel with my poet, all unread, +Down to the street where spice and pepper's sold, +And all the wares waste paper's used to fold. + + + + +II. TO JULIUS FLORUS. + +FLORE BONO CLAROQUE. + + +Dear Florus, justly high in the good grace +Of noble Nero, let's suppose a case; +A man accosts you with a slave for sale, +Born, say, at Gabii, and begins his tale: +"See, here's a lad who's comely, fair, and sound; +I'll sell him, if you will, for sixty pound. +He's quick, and answers to his master's look, +Knows Greek enough to read a simple book +Set him to what you like, he'll learn with ease; +Soft clay, you know, takes any form you please; +His voice is quite untrained, but still, I think, +You'll like his singing, as you sit and drink. +Excuse professions; they're but stale affairs, +Which chapmen use for getting off their waves. +I'm quite indifferent if you buy or no: +Though I'm but poor, there's nothing that I owe. +No dealer'd use you thus; nay, truth to tell, +I don't treat all my customers so well. +He loitered once, and fearing whipping, did +As boys will do, sneaked to the stairs and hid. +So, if this running off be not a, vice +Too bad to pardon, let me have my price." +The man would get his money, I should say, +Without a risk of having to repay. +You make the bargain knowing of the flaw; +'Twere mere vexatiousness to take the law. + +'Tis so with me; before you left, I said +That correspondence was my rock ahead, +Lest, when you found that ne'er an answer came +To all your letters, you should call it shame. +But where's my vantage if you won't agree +To go by law, because the law's with me? +Nay more, you say I'm faithless to my vow +In sending you no verses. Listen now: + +A soldier of Lucullus's, they say, +Worn out at night by marching all the day, +Lay down to sleep, and, while at ease he snored, +Lost to a farthing all his little hoard. +This woke the wolf in him;--'tis strange how keen +The teeth will grow with but the tongue between;-- +Mad with the foe and with himself, off-hand +He stormed a treasure-city, walled and manned, +Destroys the garrison, becomes renowned, +Gets decorations and two hundred pound. +Soon after this the general had in view +To take some fortress, where I never knew; +He singles out our friend, and makes a speech +That e'en might drive a coward to the breach: +"Go, my fine fellow! go where valour calls! +There's fame and money too inside those walls." +"I'm not your man," returned the rustic wit: +"He makes a hero who has lost his kit." + +At Rome I had my schooling, and was taught +Achilles' wrath, and all the woes it brought; +At classic Athens, where I went erelong, +I learnt to draw the line 'twixt right and wrong, +And search for truth, if so she might be seen, +In academic groves of blissful green; +But soon the stress of civil strife removed +My adolescence from the scenes it loved, +And ranged me with a force that could not stand +Before the might of Caesar's conquering hand. +Then when Philippi turned me all adrift +A poor plucked fledgeling, for myself to shift, +Bereft of property, impaired in purse, +Sheer penury drove me into scribbling verse: +But now, when times are altered, having got +Enough, thank heaven, at least to boil my pot, +I were the veriest madman if I chose +To write a poem rather than to doze. + +Our years keep taking toll as they move on; +My feasts, my frolics are already gone, +And now, it seems, my verses must go too: +Bestead so sorely, what's a man to do? +Aye, and besides, my friends who'd have me chant +Are not agreed upon the thing they want: +You like an ode; for epodes others cry, +While some love satire spiced and seasoned high. +Three guests, I find, for different dishes call, +And how's one host to satisfy them all? +I bring your neighbour what he asks, you glower: +Obliging you, I turn two stomachs sour. + +Think too of Rome: can I write verses here, +Where there's so much to tease and interfere? +One wants me for his surety; one, still worse, +Bids me leave work to hear him just rehearse; +One's ill on Aventine, the farthest end, +One on Quirinal; both must see their friend. +Observe the distance. "What of that?" you say, +"The streets are clear; make verses by the way." +There goes a builder's gang, all haste and steam; +Yon crane lifts granite, or perhaps a beam; +Waggons and funerals jostle; a mad dog +Ran by just now; that splash was from a hog: +Go now, abstract yourself from outward things, +And "hearken what the inner spirit sings." +Bards fly from town and haunt the wood and glade; +Bacchus, their chief, likes sleeping in the shade; +And how should I, with noises all about, +Tread where they tread and make their footprints out? +Take idle Athens now; a wit who's spent +Seven years in studying there, on books intent, +Turns out as stupid as a stone, and shakes +The crowd with laughter at his odd mistakes: +Here, in this roaring, tossing, weltering sea, +To tune sweet lyrics, is that work for me? + +Two brothers, counsellor and pleader, went +Through life on terms of mutual compliment; +That thought the other Gracchus, this supposed +His brother Mucius; so they praised and prosed. +Our tuneful race the selfsame madness goads: +My friend writes elegies, and I write odes: +O how we puff each other! "'Tis divine; +The Muses had a hand in every line." +Remark our swagger as we pass the dome +Built to receive the future bards of Rome; +Then follow us and listen what we say, +How each by turns awards and takes the bay. +Like Samnite fencers, with elaborate art +We hit in tierce to be hit back in quart. +I'm dubbed Alcaeus, and retire in force: +And who is he? Callimachus of course: +Or, if 'tis not enough, I bid him rise +Mimnermus, and he swells to twice his size. +Writing myself, I'm tortured to appease +Those wasp-like creatures, our poetic bees: +But when my pen's laid down, my sense restored, +I rest from boring, rest from being bored. + +Bad poets are our jest: yet they delight, +Just like their betters, in whate'er they write, +Hug their fool's paradise, and if you're slack +To give them praise, themselves supply the lack. +But he who meditates a work of art, +Oft as he writes, will act the censor's part: +Is there a word wants nobleness and grace, +Devoid of weight, unworthy of high place? +He bids it go, though stiffly it decline, +And cling and cling, like suppliant to a shrine: +Choice terms, long hidden from the general view, +He brings to day and dignifies anew, +Which, once on Cato's and Cethegus' lips, +Now pale their light and suffer dim eclipse; +New phrases, in the world of books unknown, +So use but father them, he makes his own: +Fluent and limpid, like a crystal stream, +He makes Rome's soil with genial produce teem: +He checks redundance, harshnesses improves +By wise refinement, idle weeds removes; +Like an accomplished dancer, he will seem +By turns a Satyr and a Polypheme; +Yet all the while 'twill be a game of skill, +Where sport means toil, and muscle bends to will. + +Yet, after all, I'd rather far be blind +To my own faults, though patent to mankind, +Nay, live in the belief that foul is fair, +Than see and grin in impotent despair. +There was an Argive nobleman, 'tis said, +Who all day long had acting in his head: +Great characters on shadowy boards appeared, +While he looked on and listened, clapped and cheered: +In all things else he fairly filled his post, +Friendly as neighbour, amiable as host; +Kind to his wife, indulgent to his slave, +He'd find a bottle sweated and not rave; +He'd scorn to run his head against a wall; +Show him a pit, and he'd avoid the fall. +At last, when quarts of hellebore drunk neat, +Thanks to his kin, had wrought a cure complete, +Brought to himself again, "Good friends," quoth he, +"Call you this saving? why, 'tis murdering me; +Your stupid zeal has spoilt my golden days, +And robbed me of a most delicious craze." + +Wise men betimes will bid adieu to toys, +And give up idle games to idle boys; +Not now to string the Latian lyre, but learn +The harmony of life, is my concern. +So, when I commune with myself, I state +In words like these my side in the debate: +"If no amount of water quenched your thirst, +You'd tell the doctor, not go on and burst: +Experience shows you, as your riches swell +Your wants increase; have you no friend to tell? +A healing simple for a wound you try; +It does no good; you put the simple by: +You're told that silly folk whom heaven may bless +With ample means get rid of silliness; +You test it, find 'tis not the case with you: +Then why not change your Mentor for a new? +Did riches make you wiser, set you free +From idle fear, insane cupidity, +You'd blush, and rightly too, if earth contained +Another man more fond of what he gained. +Now put the matter thus: whate'er is bought +And duly paid for, is our own, we're taught: +Consult a lawyer, and he'll soon produce +A case where property accrues from use. +The land by which you live is yours; most true, +And Orbius' bailiff really works for you; +He, while he ploughs the acres that afford +Flour for your table, owns you for his lord; +You pay your price, whate'er the man may ask, +Get grapes and poultry, eggs and wine in cask; +Thus, by degrees, proceeding at this rate, +You purchase first and last the whole estate, +Which, when it last was in the market, bore +A good stiff price, two thousand say, or more. +What matters it if, when you eat your snack, +'Twas paid for yesterday, or ten years back? +There's yonder landlord, living like a prince +On manors near Aricia, bought long since; +He eats bought cabbage, though he knows it not; +He burns bought sticks at night to boil his pot; +Yet all the plain, he fancies, to the stone +That stands beside the poplars, is his own. +But who can talk of property in lands +Exposed to ceaseless risk of changing hands, +Whose owner purchase, favour, lawless power, +And lastly death, may alter in an hour? +So, with heirs following heirs like waves at sea, +And no such thing as perpetuity, +What good are farmsteads, granaries, pasture-grounds +That stretch long leagues beyond Calabria's bounds, +If Death, unbribed by riches, mows down all +With his unsparing sickle, great and small? + +"Gems, marbles, ivory, Tuscan statuettes, +Pictures, gold plate, Gaetulian coverlets, +There are who have not; one there is, I trow, +Who cares not greatly if he has or no. +This brother loves soft couches, perfumes, wine, +More than the groves of palmy Palestine; +That toils all day, ambitious to reclaim +A rugged wilderness with axe and flame; +And none but he who watches them from birth, +The Genius, guardian of each child of earth, +Born when we're born and dying when we die, +Now storm, now sunshine, knows the reason why +I will not hoard, but, though my heap be scant, +Will take on each occasion what I want, +Nor fear what my next heir may think, to find +There's less than he expected left behind; +While, ne'ertheless, I draw a line between +Mirth and excess, the frugal and the mean. +'Tis not extravagance, but plain good sense, +To cease from getting, grudge no fair expense, +And, like a schoolboy out on holiday, +Take pleasure as it comes, and snatch one's play. + +"So 'twill not sink, what matter if my boat +Be big or little? still I keep afloat, +And voyage on contented, with the wind +Not always contrary, nor always kind, +In strength, wit, worth, rank, prestige, money-bags, +Behind the first, yet not among the lags. + +"You're not a miser: has all other vice +Departed in the train of avarice, +Or do ambitious longings, angry fret, +The terror of the grave, torment you yet? +Can you make sport of portents, gipsy crones, +Hobgoblins, dreams, raw head and bloody bones? +Do you count up your birthdays year by year, +And thank the gods with gladness and blithe cheer, +O'erlook the failings of your friends, and grow +Gentler and better as your sand runs low? +Where is the gain in pulling from the mind +One thorn, if all the rest remain behind? +If live you cannot as befits a man, +Make room, at least, you may for those that can. +You've frolicked, eaten, drunk to the content +Of human appetite; 'tis time you went, +Lest, when you've tippled freely, youth, that wears +Its motley better, hustle you down stairs." + + + + +THE ART OF POETRY. + +TO THE PISOS, FATHER AND SONS. + +HUMANO CAPITI. + + +Suppose some painter, as a tour de force, +Should couple head of man with neck of horse, +Invest them both with feathers, 'stead of hair, +And tack on limbs picked up from here and there, +So that the figure, when complete, should show +A maid above, a hideous fish below: +Should you be favoured with a private view, +You'd laugh, my friends, I know, and rightly too. +Yet trust me, Pisos, not less strange would look, +To a discerning eye, the foolish book +Where dream-like forms in sick delirium blend, +And nought is of a piece from end to end. +"Poets and painters (sure you know the plea) +Have always been allowed their fancy free." +I own it; 'tis a fair excuse to plead; +By turns we claim it, and by turns concede; +But 'twill not screen the unnatural and absurd, +Unions of lamb with tiger, snake with bird. + +When poets would be lofty, they commence +With some gay patch of cheap magnificence: +Of Dian's altar and her grove we read, +Or rapid streams meandering through the mead; +Or grand descriptions of the river Rhine, +Or watery bow, will take up many a line. +All in their way good things, but not just now: +You're happy at a cypress, we'll allow; +But what of that? you're painting by command +A shipwrecked sailor, striking out for land: +That crockery was a jar when you began; +It ends a pitcher: you an artist, man! +Make what you will, in short, so, when 'tis done, +'Tis but consistent, homogeneous, one. + +Ye worthy trio! we poor sons of song +Oft find 'tis fancied right that leads us wrong. +I prove obscure in trying to be terse; +Attempts at ease emasculate my verse; +Who aims at grandeur into bombast falls; +Who fears to stretch his pinions creeps and crawls; +Who hopes by strange variety to please +Puts dolphins among forests, boars in seas. +Thus zeal to 'scape from error, if unchecked +By sense of art, creates a new defect. +Fix on some casual sculptor; he shall know +How to give nails their sharpness, hair its flow; +Yet he shall fail, because he lacks the soul +To comprehend and reproduce the whole. +I'd not be he; the blackest hair and eye +Lose all their beauty with the nose awry. + +Good authors, take a brother bard's advice: +Ponder your subject o'er not once nor twice, +And oft and oft consider, if the weight +You hope to lift be or be not too great. +Let but our theme be equal to our powers, +Choice language, clear arrangement, both are ours. +Would you be told how best your pearls to thread? +Why, say just now what should just now be said, +But put off other matter for to-day, +To introduce it later by the way. + +In words again be cautious and select, +And duly pick out this, and that reject. +High praise and honour to the bard is due +Whose dexterous setting makes an old word new. +Nay more, should some recondite subject need +Fresh signs to make it clear to those who read, +A power of issuing terms till now unused, +If claimed with modesty, is ne'er refused. +New words will find acceptance, if they flow +Forth from the Greek, with just a twist or so. +But why should Rome capriciously forbid +Our bards from doing what their fathers did? +Or why should Plautus and Caecilius gain +What Virgil or what Varius asks in vain? +Nay, I myself, if with my scanty wit +I coin a word or two, why grudge me it, +When Ennius and old Cato boldly flung +Their terms broadcast, and amplified our tongue? +To utter words stamped current by the mill +Has always been thought right and always will. + +When forests shed their foliage at the fall, +The earliest born still drops the first of all: +So fades the elder race of words, and so +The younger generations bloom and grow. +Death claims humanity and human things, +Aye, e'en "imperial works and worthy kings:" +What though the ocean, girdled by the shore, +Gives shelter to the ships it tossed before? +What though the marsh, once waste and watery, now +Feeds neighbour towns, and groans beneath the plough? +What though the river, late the corn-field's dread, +Rolls fruit and blessing down its altered bed? +Man's works must perish: how should words evade +The general doom, and flourish undecayed? +Yes, words long faded may again revive, +And words may fade now blooming and alive, +If usage wills it so, to whom belongs +The rule, the law, the government of tongues. + +For metres, Homer shows you how to write +Heroic deeds and incidents of fight. + +Complaint was once the Elegiac's theme; +From thence 'twas used to sing of love's young dream: +But who that dainty measure first put out, +Grammarians differ, and 'tis still in doubt. + +Archilochus, inspired by fiery rage, +Called forth Iambics: now they tread the stage +In buskin or in sock, conduct discourse, +Lead action on, and awe the mob perforce. + +The glorious gods, the gods' heroic seed, +The conquering boxer, the victorious steed, +The joys of wine, the lover's fond desire, +Such themes the Muse appropriates to the lyre. + +Why hail me poet, if I fail to seize +The shades of style, its fixed proprieties? +Why should false shame compel me to endure +An ignorance which common pains would cure? + +A comic subject steadily declines +To be related in high tragic lines. +The Thyestean feast no less disdains +The vulgar vehicle of comic strains. +Each has its place allotted; each is bound +To keep it, nor invade its neighbour's ground. +Yet Comedy sometimes will raise her note: +See Chremes, how he swells his angry throat! +And when a tragic hero tells his woes, +The terms he chooses are akin to prose. +Peleus or Telephus, suppose him poor +Or driven to exile, talks in tropes no more; +His yard-long words desert him, when he tries +To draw forth tears from sympathetic eyes. + +Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill +The hearer's soul, and move it at its will. +Smiles are contagious; so are tears; to see +Another sobbing, brings a sob from me. +No, no, good Peleus; set the example, pray, +And weep yourself; then weep perhaps I may: +But if no sorrow in your speech appear, +I nod or laugh; I cannot squeeze a tear. +Words follow looks: wry faces are expressed +By wailing, scowls by bluster, smiles by jest, +Grave airs by saws, and so of all the rest. +For nature forms our spirits to receive +Each bent that outward circumstance can give: +She kindles pleasure, bids resentment glow, +Or bows the soul to earth in hopeless woe; +Then, as the tide of feeling waxes strong, +She vents it through her conduit-pipe, the tongue. + +Unless the speaker's words and fortune suit, +All Rome will join to jeer him, horse and foot. +Gods should not talk like heroes, nor again +Impetuous youth like grave and reverend men; +Lady and nurse a different language crave, +Sons of the soil and rovers o'er the wave; +Assyrian, Colchian, Theban, Argive, each +Has his own style, his proper cast of speech. + +In painting characters, adhere to fame, +Or study keeping in the type you frame: +If great Achilles figure in the scene, +Make him impatient, fiery, ruthless, keen; +All laws, all covenants let him still disown, +And test his quarrel by the sword alone. +Still be Medea all revenge and scorn, +Ino still sad, Ixion still forsworn, +Io a wanderer still, Orestes still forlorn. + +If you would be original, and seek +To frame some character ne'er seen in Greek, +See it be wrought on one consistent plan, +And end the same creation it began. +'Tis hard, I grant, to treat a subject known +And hackneyed so that it may look one's own; +Far better turn the Iliad to a play +And carve out acts and scenes the readiest way, +Than alter facts and characters, and tell +In a strange form the tale men know so well. +But, with some few precautions, you may set +Your private mark on public chattels yet: +Avoid careering and careering still +In the old round, like carthorse in a mill; +Nor, bound too closely to the Grecian Muse, +Translate the words whose soul you should transfuse, +Nor act the copyist's part, and work in chains +Which, once put on by rashness, shame retains. + +Don't open like the cyclic, with a burst: +"Troy's war and Priam's fate are here rehearsed." +What's coming, pray, that thus he winds his horn? +The mountain labours, and a mouse is born. +Far better he who enters at his ease, +Nor takes your breath with empty nourishes: +"Sing, Muse, the man who, after Troy was burned, +Saw divers cities, and their manners learned." +Not smoke from fire his object is to bring, +But fire from smoke, a very different thing; +Yet has he dazzling miracles in store, +Cyclops, and Laestrygons, and fifty more. +He sings not, he, of Diomed's return, +Starting from Meleager's funeral urn, +Nor when he tells the Trojan story, begs +Attention first for Leda and her eggs. +He hurries to the crisis, lets you fall +Where facts crowd thick, as though you knew them all, +And what he judges will not turn to gold +Beneath his touch, he passes by untold. +And all this glamour, all this glorious dream, +Truth blent with fiction in one motley scheme, +He so contrives, that, when 'tis o'er, you see +Beginning, middle, end alike agree. + +Now listen, dramatists, and I will tell +What I expect, and all the world as well. +If you would have your auditors to stay +Till curtain-rise and plaudit end the play, +Observe each age's temper, and impart +To each the grace and finish of your art. + +Note first the boy who just knows how to talk +And feels his feet beneath him in his walk: +He likes his young companions, loves a game, +Soon vexed, soon soothed, and not two hours the same. + +The beardless youth, at last from tutor freed, +Loves playing-field and tennis, dog and steed: +Pliant as wax to those who lead him wrong, +But all impatience with a faithful tongue; +Imprudent, lavish, hankering for the moon, +He takes things up and lays them down as soon. + +His nature revolutionized, the man +Makes friends and money when and how he can: +Keen-eyed and cool, though on ambition bent, +He shuns all acts of which he may repent. + +Grey hairs have many evils: without end +The old man gathers what he dares not spend, +While, as for action, do he what he will, +'Tis all half-hearted, spiritless, and chill: +Inert, irresolute, his neck he cranes +Into the future, grumbles, and complains, +Extols his own young years with peevish praise, +But rates and censures these degenerate days. + +Years, as they come, bring blessings in their train; +Years, as they go, take blessings back again: +Yet haste or chance may blink the obvious truth, +Make youth discourse like age, and age like youth: +Attention fixed on life alone can teach +The traits and adjuncts which pertain to each. + +Sometimes an action on the stage is shown, +Sometimes 'tis done elsewhere, and there made known. +A thing when heard, remember, strikes less keen +On the spectator's mind than when 'tis seen. +Yet 'twere not well in public to display +A business best transacted far away, +And much may be secluded from the eye +For well-graced tongues to tell of by and by. +Medea must not shed her children's blood, +Nor savage Atreus cook man's flesh for food, +Nor Philomel turn bird or Cadmus snake, +With people looking on and wide awake. +If scenes like these before my eyes be thrust, +They shock belief and generate disgust. + +Would you your play should prosper and endure? +Then let it have five acts, nor more nor fewer. +Bring in no god save as a last resource, +Nor make four speakers join in the discourse. + +An actor's part the chorus should sustain +And do their best to get the plot in train: +And whatsoe'er between the acts they chant +Should all be apt, appropriate, relevant. +Still let them give sage counsel, back the good, +Attemper wrath, and cool impetuous blood, +Praise the spare meal that pleases but not sates, +Justice, and law, and peace with unbarred gates, +Conceal all secrets, and the gods implore +To crush the proud and elevate the poor. + +Not trumpet-tongued, as now, nor brass-belayed, +The flute was used to lend the chorus aid: +Simple and slight and moderately loud, +It charmed the ears of not too large a crowd, +Which, frugal, rustic, primitive, severe, +Flocked in those early days to see and hear. + +Then, when the city gained increase of land, +And wider walls its waxing greatness spanned, +When the good Genius, frolicsome and gay, +Was soothed at festivals with cups by day, +Change spread to scenic measures: breadth, and ease, +And freedom unrestrained were found in these: +For what (said men) should jovial rustic, placed +At random 'mid his betters, know of taste? + +So graceful dance went hand in hand with song, +And robes of kingly splendour trailed along: +So by the side of music words upgrew, +And eloquence came rolling, prompt and new: +Shrewd in things mundane, wise in things divine, +Its voice was like the voice of Delphi's shrine. + +The aspiring bard who served the tragic muse, +A paltry goat the summit of his views, +Soon brought in Satyrs from the woods, and tried +If grave and gay could nourish side by side, +That the spectator, feasted to his fill, +Noisy and drunk, might ne'ertheless sit still. + +Yet, though loud laugh and frolic jest commend +Your Satyr folk, and mirth and morals blend, +Let not your heroes doff their robes of red +To talk low language in a homely shed, +Nor, in their fear of crawling, mount too high, +Catching at clouds and aiming at the sky. +Melpomene, when bidden to be gay, +Like matron dancing on a festal day, +Deals not in idle banter, nor consorts +Without reserve with Satyrs and their sports. + +In plays like these I would not deal alone +In words and phrases trite and too well known, +Nor, stooping from the tragic height, drop down +To the low level of buffoon and clown, +As though pert Davus, or the saucy jade +Who sacks the gold and jeers the gull she made, +Were like Silenus, who, though quaint and odd, +Is yet the guide and tutor of a god. +A hackneyed subject I would take and treat +So deftly, all should hope to do the feat, +Then, having strained and struggled, should concede +To do the feat were difficult indeed. +So much may order and arrangement do +To make the cheap seem choice, the threadbare new. + +Your rustic Fauns, methinks, should have a care +Lest people deem them bred in city air; +Should shun the cant of exquisites, and shun +Coarse ribaldry no less and blackguard fun. +For those who have a father or a horse +Or an estate will take offence of course, +Nor think they're bound in duty to admire +What gratifies the vetch-and-chestnut-buyer + +The Iambic foot is briefly thus defined: +Two syllables, a short with long behind: +Repeat it six times o'er, so quick its beat, +'Tis trimeter, three measures for six feet: +At first it ran straight on; but, years ago, +Its hearers begged that it would move more slow; +On which it took, with a good-natured air, +Stout spondees in, its native rights to share, +Yet so that none should ask it to resign +The sixth, fourth, second places in the line. +But search through Attius' trimeters, or those +Which Ennius took such pleasure to compose, +You'll rarely find it: on the boards they groan, +Laden with spondees, like a cart with stone, +And brand our tragedy with want of skill +Or want of labour, call it which you will. +What then? false rhythm few judges can detect, +And Roman bards of course are all correct. + +What shall a poet do? make rules his sport, +And dash through thick and thin, through long and short? +Or pick his steps, endeavour to walk clean, +And fancy every mud-stain will be seen? +What good were that, if though I mind my ways +And shun all blame, I do not merit praise? +My friends, make Greece your model when you write, +And turn her volumes over day and night. + +"But Plautus pleased our sires, the good old folks; +They praised his numbers, and they praised his jokes." +They did: 'twas mighty tolerant in them +To praise where wisdom would perhaps condemn; +That is, if you and I and our compeers +Can trust our tastes, our fingers, and our ears, +Know polished wit from horse-play, and can tell +What verses do, and what do not, run well. + +Thespis began the drama: rumour says +In travelling carts he carried round his plays, +Where actors, smeared with lees, before the throng +Performed their parts with gesture and with song. +Then AEschylus brought in the mask and pall, +Put buskins on his men to make them tall, +Turned boards into a platform, not too great, +And taught high monologue and grand debate. +The elder Comedy had next its turn, +Nor small the glory it contrived to earn: +But freedom passed into unbridled spite, +And law was soon invoked to set things right: +Law spoke: the chorus lost the power to sting, +And (shame to say) thenceforth refused to sing. + +Our poets have tried all things; nor do they +Deserve least praise, who follow their own way, +And tell in comedy or history-piece +Some story of home growth, not drawn from Greece. +Nor would the land we love be now more strong +In warrior's prowess than in poet's song, +Did not her bards with one consent decline +The tedious task, to alter and refine. +Dear Pisos! as you prize old Numa's blood, +Set down that work, and that alone, as good, +Which, blurred and blotted, checked and counter- +checked, +Has stood all tests, and issued forth correct. + +Because Democritus thinks fit to say, +That wretched art to genius must give way, +Stands at the gate of Helicon, and guards +Its precinct against all but crazy bards, +Our witlings keep long nails and untrimmed hair, +Much in brown studies, in the bath-room rare. +For things are come to this; the merest dunce, +So but he choose, may start up bard at once, +Whose head, too hot for hellebore to cool, +Was ne'er submitted to a barber's tool. +What ails me now, to dose myself each spring? +Else had I been a very swan to sing. +Well, never mind: mine be the whetstone's lot, +Which makes steel sharp, though cut itself will not. +Although no writer, I may yet impart +To writing folk the precepts of their art, +Whence come its stores, what trains and forms a bard, +And how a work is made, and how 'tis marred. + +Of writing well, be sure, the secret lies +In wisdom: therefore study to be wise. +The page of Plato may suggest the thought, +Which found, the words will come as soon as sought. +The man who once has learned to comprehend +His duty to his country and his friend, +The love that parent, brother, guest may claim. +The judge's, senator's, or general's aim, +That man, when need occurs, will soon invent +For every part its proper sentiment. +Look too to life and manners, as they lie +Before you: these will living words supply. +A play, devoid of beauty, strength, and art, +So but the thoughts and morals suit each part, +Will catch men's minds and rivet them when caught +More than the clink of verses without thought. + +To Greece, fair Greece, ambitious but of praise, +The Muse gave ready wit, and rounded phrase. +Our Roman boys, by puzzling days and nights, +Bring down a shilling to a hundred mites. +Come, young Albinus, tell us, if you take +A penny from a sixpence, what 'twill make. +Fivepence. Good boy! you'll come to wealth one day. +Now add a penny. Sevenpence, he will say. +O, when this cankering rust, this greed of gain, +Has touched the soul and wrought into its grain, +What hope that poets will produce such lines +As cedar-oil embalms and cypress shrines? + +A bard will wish to profit or to please, +Or, as a tertium quid, do both of these. +Whene'er you lecture, be concise: the soul +Takes in short maxims, and retains them whole: +But pour in water when the vessel's filled, +It simply dribbles over and is spilled. + +Keep near to truth in a fictitious piece, +Nor treat belief as matter of caprice. +If on a child you make a vampire sup, +It must not be alive when she's ripped up. +Dry seniors scout an uninstructive strain; +Young lordlings treat grave verse with tall disdain: +But he who, mixing grave and gay, can teach +And yet give pleasure, gains a vote from each: +His works enrich the vendor, cross the sea, +And hand the author down to late posterity. + +Some faults may claim forgiveness: for the lyre +Not always gives the note that we desire; +We ask a flat; a sharp is its reply; +And the best bow will sometimes shoot awry. +But when I meet with beauties thickly sown, +A blot or two I readily condone, +Such as may trickle from a careless pen, +Or pass unwatched: for authors are but men. +What then? the copyist who keeps stumbling still +At the same word had best lay down his quill: +The harp-player, who for ever wounds the ear +With the same discord, makes the audience jeer: +So the poor dolt who's often in the wrong +I rank with Choerilus, that dunce of song, +Who, should he ever "deviate into sense," +Moves but fresh laughter at his own expense: +While e'en good Homer may deserve a tap, +If, as he does, he drop his head and nap. +Yet, when a work is long, 'twere somewhat hard +To blame a drowsy moment in a bard. + +Some poems, like some paintings, take the eye +Best at a distance, some when looked at nigh. +One loves the shade; one would be seen in light, +And boldly challenges the keenest sight: +One pleases straightway; one, when it has passed +Ten times before the mind, will please at last. + +Hope of the Pisos! trained by such a sire, +And wise yourself, small schooling you require; +Yet take this lesson home; some things admit +A moderate point of merit, e'en in wit. +There's yonder counsellor; he cannot reach +Messala's stately altitudes of speech, +He cannot plumb Cascellius' depth of lore, +Yet he's employed, and makes a decent score: +But gods, and men, and booksellers agree +To place their ban on middling poetry. +At a great feast an ill-toned instrument, +A sour conserve, or an unfragrant scent +Offends the taste: 'tis reason that it should; +We do without such things, or have them good: +Just so with verse; you seek but to delight; +If by an inch you fail, you fail outright. + +He who knows nought of games abstains from all, +Nor tries his hand at quoit, or hoop, or ball, +Lest the thronged circle, witnessing the play, +Should laugh outright, with none to say them nay: +He who knows nought of verses needs must try +To write them ne'ertheless. "Why not?" men cry: +"Free, gently born, unblemished and correct, +His means a knight's, what more can folks expect?" +But you, my friend, at least have sense and grace; +You will not fly in queen Minerva's face +In action or in word. Suppose some day +You should take courage and compose a lay, +Entrust it first to Maecius' critic ears, +Your sire's and mine, and keep it back nine years. +What's kept at home you cancel by a stroke: +What's sent abroad you never can revoke. + +Orpheus, the priest and harper, pure and good, +Weaned savage tribes from deeds and feasts of blood, +Whence he was said to tame the monsters of the wood. +Amphion too, men said, at his desire +Moved massy stones, obedient to the lyre, +And Thebes arose. 'Twas wisdom's province then +To judge 'twixt states and subjects, gods and men, +Check vagrant lust, give rules to wedded folk, +Build cities up, and grave a code in oak. +So came great honour and abundant praise, +As to the gods, to poets and their lays. +Then Homer and Tyrtaeus, armed with song, +Made manly spirits for the combat strong: +Verse taught life's duties, showed the future clear, +And won a monarch's favour through his ear: +Verse gave relief from labour, and supplied +Light mirth for holiday and festal tide. +Then blush not for the lyre: Apollo sings +In unison with her who sweeps its strings. + +But here occurs a question some men start, +If good verse comes from nature or from art. +For me, I cannot see how native wit +Can e'er dispense with art, or art with it. +Set them to pull together, they're agreed, +And each supplies what each is found to need. + +The youth who suns for prizes wisely trains, +Bears cold and heat, is patient and abstains: +The flute-player at a festival, before +He plays in public, has to learn his lore. +Not so our bardlings: they come bouncing in-- +"I'm your true poet: let them laugh that win: +Plague take the last! although I ne'er was taught, +Is that a cause for owning I know nought?" + +As puffing auctioneers collect a throng, +Rich poets bribe false friends to hear their song: +Who can resist the lord of so much rent, +Of so much money at so much per cent.? +Is there a wight can give a grand regale, +Act as a poor man's counsel or his bail? +Blest though he be, his wealth will cloud his view, +Nor suffer him to know false friends from true. +Don't ask a man whose feelings overflow +For kindness that you've shown or mean to show +To listen to your verse: each line you read, +He'll cry, "Good! bravo! exquisite indeed!" +He'll change his colour, let his eyes run o'er +With tears of joy, dance, beat upon the floor. +Hired mourners at a funeral say and do +A little more than they whose grief is true: +'Tis just so here: false flattery displays +More show of sympathy than honest praise. +'Tis said when kings a would-be friend will try, +With wine they rack him and with bumpers ply: +If you write poems, look beyond the skin +Of the smooth fox, and search the heart within. + +Read verses to Quintilius, he would say, +"I don't like this and that: improve it, pray:" +Tell him you found it hopeless to correct; +You'd tried it twice or thrice without effect: +He'd calmly bid you make the three times four, +And take the unlicked cub in hand once more. +But if you chose to vindicate the crime, +Not mend it, he would waste no further time, +But let you live, untroubled by advice, +Sole tenant of your own fool's paradise. + +A wise and faithful counsellor will blame +Weak verses, note the rough, condemn the lame, +Retrench luxuriance, make obscureness plain, +Cross-question this, bid that be writ again: +A second Aristarch, he will not ask, +"Why for such trifles take my friend to task?" +Such trifles bring to serious grief ere long +A hapless bard, once flattered and led wrong. + +See the mad poet! never wight, though sick +Of itch or jaundice, moon-struck, fanatic, +Was half so dangerous: men whose mind is sound +Avoid him; fools pursue him, children hound. +Suppose, while spluttering verses, head on high, +Like fowler watching blackbirds in the sky, +He falls into a pit; though loud he shout +"Help, neighbours, help!" let no man pull him out: +Should some one seem disposed a rope to fling, +I will strike in with, "Pray do no such thing: +I'll warrant you he meant it," and relate +His brother bard Empedocles's fate, +Who, wishing to be thought a god, poor fool, +Leapt down hot AEtna's crater, calm and cool. +"Leave poets free to perish as they will: +Save them by violence, you as good as kill. +'Tis not his first attempt: if saved to-day, +He's sure to die in some outrageous way. +Beside, none knows the reason why this curse +Was sent on him, this love of making verse, +By what offence heaven's anger he incurred, +A grave denied, a sacred boundary stirred: +So much is plain, he's mad: like bear that beats +His prison down and ranges through the streets, +This terrible reciter puts to flight +The learned and unlearned left and right: +Let him catch one, he keeps him till he kills, +As leeches stick till they have sucked their fills." + + + + +NOTES. + +PAGE 6. + + Enough: you'll think I've rifled the scrutore + Of blind Crispinus, if I prose on more. + +Howes has a very similar couplet:-- + + But hold! you'll think I've pillaged the scrutore + Of blear Crispinus: not one word then more! + +I believe it however to be a mere coincidence on my part. +The word "scrutore" is an uncommon one; but it was the +recollection of an altogether different passage which suggested +it to me here. At any rate, Howes is not the first +who has used it in translating the present lines. + + Now 'tis enough: lest you should think + I've dipt in blear-eyed Crispin's ink, + And stolen my work from his scrutore, + I will not add a sentence more. + + SMART. + + +PAGE 9. + + Gives Varus' name to knock-kneed boys, and dubs + His club-foot youngster Scaurus, king of clubs. + +This is, of course, in no sense a translation: it is simply +an attempt (a desperate one, I fear) to give point to a sentence +which otherwise to an English reader would have no point +at all. + + +PAGE 13. + + Heal to your majesty! yet, ne'ertheless, + Rude boys are pulling at your beard, I guess. + +Those commentators are clearly right who understand +"vellunt," not of what the boys are apt to do, but of what +they are actually doing, while the Stoic is talking and +making himself out to be a king. + + +PAGE 17. + + Say, you're first cousin to that goodly pair, + Caelius and Birrius, and their foibles share. + +Caelius and Birrius were a couple of robbers, a fact distinctly +mentioned in the Latin, and, I hope, capable of being +inferred from the context of the English. + + +PAGE 35. + + After life's endless babble they sleep well. + +I need hardly refer to the well-known line in Macbeth. + + +PAGE 44. + + Cassius the rake, and Maenius the buffoon. + +This is nearly identical with a line in Howes, of which it +may very possibly be an unconscious remembrance. Here +and in other places I have called Nomentanus, metri gratia, +by his family name Cassius, though it is nowhere, I believe, +applied to him by Horace. Pantolabus is supposed to be +the same as Maenius, whom Horace mentions elsewhere, +and I have been only too glad to take the supposition for +granted. Generally, where a Horatian personage is known +to have had two names, I have used that one which the +exigences of the verse recommended. + + +PAGE 61. + + O heaven-abandoned wretch! is all this care. + O inconsistent wretch! is all this coil. + GIFFORD'S Juvenal, Sat. xiv. + +PAGE 94. + + And each man's lips are at his neighbour's ear. + +Perhaps a recollection of Pope's line (Satires of Dr. +Donne), "When half his nose is in his prince's ear." + + +PAGE 98. + + Of studying truths that rick and poor concern, + Which young and old are lost unless they learn. + +This may seem borrowed from Cowper's "Tirocinium," + --truths on which depend our main concern, + That 'tis our shame and misery not to learn; +but I believe the resemblance to be purely accidental. It +may serve however to show that the more serious passages +in Horace, as well as the lighter ones, are not unlike Cowper. + + +PAGE 103. + + That makes Atrides and Achilles foes. + +Almost verbatim from a line in Pope's "Odyssey," which +is itself probably from one in Maynwaring's First Book of +the "Iliad." + + +PAGE 110. + + Not to admire, Numicius, is the best, + The only way, to make and keep men blest. + +Slightly altered from the later editions of Francis: + Not to admire is of all means the best, + The only means, to make and keep us blest. +Ten lines lower down I have a couplet nearly coincident +with one in Howes, but not intentionally so. + + +PAGE 124. + + But what are Rhodes and Lesbos, and the rest. + +This and the nine following lines are a considerable +expansion of the Latin: but I was apprehensive of not +bringing out the connexion, if I translated more closely. + + +PAGE 126. + + Empedocles or the Stertinian school. + +As Horace has chosen to take Stertinius here as a type of +the Stoics, I thought I might avail myself of a similar +licence, and call the Stoics as a school by his name. + + +PAGE 129. + + The ox, unyoked and resting from the plough, + Wants fodder, stripped from elm or poplar bough. + +Horace merely has "strictis frondibus:" but the writers +De Re Rustica, quoted by the commentators, tell us what +the leaves in use were. + + +PAGE 131. + + When Maenius, after nobly gobbling down + His fortune, took to living on the town. + +"Took to living on the town" is not meant as a version +of "urbanus coepit haberi," but rather as an equivalent +suggested by the context. + + +PAGE 134. + + Each law, each right, each statute and each act. + +Horace's object is evidently to give an exhaustive notion +of the various parts of the law: and I have tried to produce +the same impression by accumulating terms, without caring +how far they can severally be discriminated. + + +PAGE 135. + + I've shed no blood. You shall not feed the crow. + + I'll have thee hanged to feed the crow. + SCOTT, Lay of the Last Minstrel. + + +PAGE 136. + + The wise and good, like Bacchus in the play. + +Borrowed from Francis, with a slight change in the +order of the words. + + +PAGE 140. + + In sing-song drawl, or Gnatho in the play. + +"Partes mimum tractare secundas" seems to mean "to +act the stage parasite," who, according to Festus, wag the +second character in almost every mime. I thought therefore +that I might substitute for the general description the +name of a particular parasite in Roman comedy. + + +PAGE 144. + + Let temperate folk write verses in the hall + Where bonds change hands. + +Strictly speaking, there does not seem to have been a hall +of exchange at the Puteal, which was apparently open to the +sky: but the inaccuracy is not a serious one. + + +PAGE 151. + + While all forlorn the baffled critic stands, + Fumbling a naked stump between his hands. + +I had originally written + + By the old puzzle of the dwindling mound + Bringing at last the critic to the ground, + +which of course represents the Latin better: but it occurred +to me that the allusion to the sophism of the heap, following +immediately on the similar figure of the horse's tail, could +only embarrass an English reader, and would therefore be +out of place in a passage intended to be idiomatic. Howes +has got over the difficulty neatly:-- + + Till my opponent, by fair logic beat, + Shall find the ground sink fast beneath his feet. + + +PAGE 151. + + Enjoys his ease, nor cares how he redeems + The gorgeous promise of his peacock dreams. + +I suppose the meaning to be this: Ennius, as appears +from his own remains and the notices of him in other +writers, began his Annals with a dream in which the spirit +of Homer appeared to him, and told him that, after passing +through various other bodies, including those of Pythagoras +and a peacock, it was now animating that of the Roman +poet himself. How this was connected with the subject of +the Annals we do not know; probably not very artificially: +Horace, as I understand him, means to ridicule this want +of connexion, while he says that the critics are so +indiscriminate in their praises that Ennius may well repose on +his laurels, and not trouble himself as to whether there +is any real connexion or no. + + +PAGE 152. + + Just as an unfair sample, set to catch + The heedless customer, mil sell the batch. + +I believe I have given the exact force of the original, +though the metaphor there is from a gang of slaves, where +the best-looking is placed in front to carry off the rest. +This interpretation, which the phrase "ducere familiam" +seems to place beyond doubt, is as old as Torrentius: but +the commentators in general reject or ignore it. + + +PAGE 157. + + For, so he fills his pockets, nought he heeds + Whether the play's a failure or succeeds. + +Modern readers may wonder how the poet comes to fill +his pockets if the play does not succeed. The answer is +that he sold his play to the aediles before its performance. +For the benefit of the same persons it may be mentioned, +with reference to a passage a few lines lower down, that in +a Roman theatre the curtain was kept down during the +representation, raised when the play was over. + + +PAGE 166. + + New phrases, in the world of books unknown, + So use but father them, he makes his own. + +I understand "quae genitor produxerit usus" not, with +Orelli, "which shall be adopted into use at once, so that +people shall fancy that they have been in use long before," +but, with Ritter, "which shall have been already sanctioned +by usage," the distinction being between words not only in +common use but used in literature, and words in use, but +not yet adopted into literature, and so relatively "nova." +"Father" of course I use less strictly than Pope uses it in +his well-known imitation of the passage, "For use will +father what's begot by sense." + + +PAGE 172. + + Attempts at ease emasculate my verse. + +I find Dean Bagot has a line, "A want of nerve effeminates +my speech." + + +PAGE 173. + + In words again be cautious and select, + And duly pick out this, and that reject. + +I have adopted Bentley's transposition, simply because it +happened to be convenient in translating. + + +PAGE 177. + + Than alter facts and characters, and tell + In a strange form the tale men know so well. + +Many years ago I proposed this solution of a passage of +admitted difficulty in the Classical Museum. I take +"Difficile est proprie communia dicere" in its ordinary +sense, "It is hard to treat hackneyed subjects with originality." +Horace then goes on to say that it is better to give +up the attempt altogether and simply copy (say) Homer, +than to run the risk of outraging popular feeling by a new +treatment of (say) the Trojan story, or a new view of the +chief characters: but that if a writer still wishes to make +the attempt, he may succeed by attending to certain rules, +"si nec circa vilem," &c. &c. Thus I make "publica +materies" identical with "communia," and "privati juris" +with "proprie," contrary to Orelli's opinion. + + +PAGE 179. + + Yet haste and chance may blink the obvious truth. + +I am not sure whether this was the connecting link in +Horace's mind; but I felt that the absence of any link +would make the transition between the two sentences intolerably +abrupt in English, and go I supplied a link as I +best could. Macleane seems right in remarking that the +remark "multa ferunt" &c. seems to be drawn forth by +the dark picture of old age contained in the preceding +verses, and has not much otherwise to do with the subject. +Horace doubtless felt that he was passing middle life himself. + + +PAGE 182. + + Yet so that none should ask it to resign + The sixth, fourth, second places in the line. + +Horace does not mention the sixth place: I have introduced +it for the benefit of persons who, as actually happened +to me when very young, may attempt to write Iambic +trimeters with no guide but this passage, and may be in +consequence in danger of making them scazons, as I actually +did. + + +PAGE 188. + + Entrust it first to Maecius' critic ears, + Your sire's, and mine, and keep it back nine years. + +Almost a verbal coincidence with Howes, but a coincidence +only. + + +PAGE 189. + + Then blush not for the lyre: Apollo sings + In unison with her who sweeps its strings. + +It is difficult to say whether the paragraph of which these +lines are the conclusion is a sketch of the history of poetry +in general or of lyric poetry in particular. The former +would be rather inartistic after the other historical notices +of poetry that have occurred in the poem: the latter is not +easily reconciled with the mention of Homer. On the other +hand, Horace's inexactness elsewhere makes either supposition +quite possible. I have translated so as to leave the +ground open to either. + + +PAGE 191. + + A second Aristarch. + +Before them marched that awful Aristarch. + POPE, Dunciad, Book iv. + + +PAGE 191. + + Leave poets free to perish as they will. + +Following Mr. Howes and probably others who have +written on the Ars Poetica, though apparently not the +latest editors, I regard all the words from "Deus immortalis +haberi" to the end as part of Horace's speech to the +man who thinks of rescuing the mad poet. Much of the +humour of what follows, e. g. "Nec semel hoc fecit," "Nec +satis apparet," &c. would, it seems to me, be lost on any +other supposition. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Satires, Epistles, and Art of +Poetry, by Horace +a.k.a. Quintus Horatius Flaccus +Translated by John Conington, M. A. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATIRES OF HORACE *** + +This file should be named 5419.txt or 5419.zip + +Produced by David Moynihan, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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