What I am going to tell you
happened
when I was an old man.
Horace - Works
What, while I am alive? That you may live, therefore, awake; do this.
What would you have me do? Why your blood will fail you that are so much
reduced, unless food and some great restorative be administered to your
decaying stomach. Do you hesitate? come on; take this ptisan made of
rice. How much did it cost? A trifle. How much then? Eight asses. Alas!
what does it matter, whether I die of a disease, or by theft and rapine?
Who then is sound? He, who is not a fool. What is the covetous man? Both
a fool and a madman. What--if a man be not covetous, is he immediately
[to be deemed] sound? By no means. Why so, Stoic? I will tell you. Such
a patient (suppose Craterus [the physician] said this) is not sick at
the heart. Is he therefore well, and shall he get up? No, he will forbid
that; because his side or his reins are harassed with an acute disease.
[In like manner], such a man is not perjured, nor sordid; let him then
sacrifice a hog to his propitious household gods. But he is ambitious
and assuming. Let him make a voyage [then] to Anticyra. For what is the
difference, whether you fling whatever you have into a gulf, or make no
use of your acquisitions?
Servius Oppidius, rich in the possession of an ancient estate, is
reported when dying to have divided two farms at Canusium between his
two sons, and to have addressed the boys, called to his bed-side, [in
the following manner]: When I saw you, Aulus, carry your playthings and
nuts carelessly in your bosom, [and] to give them and game them away;
you, Tiberius, count them, and anxious hide them in holes; I was afraid
lest a madness of a different nature should possess you: lest you
[Aulus], should follow the example of Nomentanus, you, [Tiberius], that
of Cicuta. Wherefore each of you, entreated by our household gods, do
you (Aulus) take care lest you lessen; you (Tiberius) lest you make that
greater, which your father thinks and the purposes of nature determine
to be sufficient. Further, lest glory should entice you, I will bind
each of you by an oath: whichever of you shall be an aedile or a
praetor, let him be excommunicated and accursed. Would you destroy your
effects in [largesses of] peas, beans, and lupines, that you may stalk
in the circus at large, or stand in a statue of brass, O madman,
stripped of your paternal estate, stripped of your money? To the end,
forsooth, that you may gain those applauses, which Agrippa gains, like a
cunning fox imitating a generous lion?
O Agamemnon, why do you prohibit any one from burying Ajax? I am a king.
I, a plebeian, make no further inquiry. And I command a just thing: but,
if I seem unjust to any one, I permit you to speak your sentiments with
impunity. Greatest of kings, may the gods grant that, after the taking
of Troy, you may conduct your fleet safe home: may I then have the
liberty to ask questions, and reply in my turn? Ask. Why does Ajax, the
second hero after Achilles, rot [above ground], so often renowned for
having saved the Grecians; that Priam and Priam's people may exult in
his being unburied, by whose means so many youths have been deprived of
their country's rites of sepulture. In his madness he killed a thousand
sheep, crying out that he was destroying the famous Ulysses and
Menelaus, together with me. When you at Aulis substituted your sweet
daughter in the place of a heifer before the altar, and, O impious one,
sprinkled her head with the salt cake; did you preserve soundness of
mind? Why do you ask? What then did the mad Ajax do, when he slew the
flock with his sword? He abstained from any violence to his wife and
child, though he had imprecated many curses on the sons of Atreus: he
neither hurt Teucer, nor even Ulysses himself. But I, out of prudence,
appeased the gods with blood, that I might loose the ships detained on
an adverse shore. Yes, madman! with your own blood. With my own
[indeed], but I was not mad. Whoever shall form images foreign from
reality, and confused in the tumult of impiety, will always be reckoned
disturbed in mind: and it will not matter, whether he go wrong through
folly or through rage. Is Ajax delirious, while he kills the harmless
lambs? Are you right in your head, when you willfully commit a crime for
empty titles? And is your heart pure, while it is swollen with the vice?
If any person should take a delight to carry about with him in his sedan
a pretty lambkin; and should provide clothes, should provide maids and
gold for it, as for a daughter, should call it Rufa and Rufilla, and
should destine it a wife for some stout husband; the praetor would
take power from him being interdicted, and the management of him would
devolve to his relations, that were in their senses. What, if a man
devote his daughter instead of a dumb lambkin, is he right of mind?
Never say it. Therefore, wherever there is a foolish depravity, there
will be the height of madness. He who is wicked, will be frantic too:
Bellona, who delights in bloodshed, has thundered about him, whom
precarious fame has captivated.
Now, come on, arraign with me luxury and Nomentanus; for reason will
evince that foolish spendthrifts are mad. This fellow, as soon as he
received a thousand talents of patrimony, issues an order that the
fishmonger, the fruiterer, the poulterer, the perfumer, and the impious
gang of the Tuscan alley, sausage-maker, and buffoons, the whole
shambles, together with [all] Velabrum, should come to his house in the
morning. What was the consequence? They came in crowds. The pander makes
a speech: "Whatever I, or whatever each of these has at home, believe it
to be yours: and give your order for it either directly, or to-morrow. "
Hear what reply the considerate youth made: "You sleep booted in
Lucanian snow, that I may feast on a boar: you sweep the wintry seas for
fish: I am indolent, and unworthy to possess so much. Away with it: do
you take for your share ten hundred thousand sesterces; you as much; you
thrice the sum, from whose house your spouse runs, when called for, at
midnight. " The son of Aesopus, [the actor] (that he might, forsooth,
swallow a million of sesterces at a draught), dissolved in vinegar a
precious pearl, which he had taken from the ear of Metella: how much
wiser was he [in doing this,] than if he had thrown the same into a
rapid river, or the common sewer? The progeny of Quintius Arrius, an
illustrious pair of brothers, twins in wickedness and trifling and the
love of depravity, used to dine upon nightingales bought at a vast
expense: to whom do these belong? Are they in their senses? Are they to
be marked With chalk, or with charcoal?
If an [aged person] with a long beard should take a delight to build
baby-houses, to yoke mice to a go-cart, to play at odd and even, to ride
upon a long cane, madness must be his motive. If reason shall evince,
that to be in love is a more childish thing than these; and that there
is no difference whether you play the same games in the dust as when
three years old, or whine in anxiety for the love of a harlot: I beg to
know, if you will act as the reformed Polemon did of old? Will you lay
aside those ensigns of your disease, your rollers, your mantle, your
mufflers; as he in his cups is said to have privately torn the chaplet
from his neck, after he was corrected by the speech of his fasting
master? When you offer apples to an angry boy, he refuses them: here,
take them, you little dog; he denies you: if you don't give them, he
wants them. In what does an excluded lover differ [from such a boy];
when he argues with himself whether he should go or not to that very
place whither he was returning without being sent for, and cleaves to
the hated doors? "What shall I not go to her now, when she invites me of
her own accord? or shall I rather think of putting an end to my pains?
She has excluded me; she recalls me: shall I return? No, not if she
would implore me. " Observe the servant, not a little wiser: "O master,
that which has neither moderation nor conduct, can not be guided by
reason or method. In love these evils are inherent; war [one while],
then peace again. If any one should endeavor to ascertain these things,
that are various as the weather, and fluctuating by blind chance; he
will make no more of it, than if he should set about raving by right
reason and rule. " What--when, picking the pippins from the Picenian
apples, you rejoice if haply you have hit the vaulted roof; are you
yourself? What--when you strike out faltering accents from your
antiquated palate, how much wiser are you than [a child] that builds
little houses? To the folly [of love] add bloodshed, and stir the fire
with a sword. I ask you, when Marius lately, after he had stabbed
Hellas, threw himself down a precipice, was he raving mad? Or will you
absolve the man from the imputation of a disturbed mind, and condemn him
for the crime, according to your custom, imposing, on things named that
have an affinity in signification?
There was a certain freedman, who, an old man, ran about the streets in
a morning fasting, with his hands washed, and prayed thus: "Snatch me
alone from death" (adding some solemn vow), "me alone, for it is an easy
matter for the gods:" this man was sound in both his ears and eyes; but
his master, when he sold him, would except his understanding, unless he
were fond of law-suits. This crowd too Chrysippus places in the fruitful
family of Menenius.
O Jupiter, who givest and takest away great afflictions, (cries the
mother of a boy, now lying sick abed for five months), if this cold
quartan ague should leave the child, in the morning of that day on which
you enjoy a fast, he shall stand naked in the Tiber. Should chance or
the physician relieve the patient from his imminent danger, the
infatuated mother will destroy [the boy] placed on the cold bank, and
will bring back the fever. With what disorder of the mind is she
stricken? Why, with a superstitious fear of the gods.
These arms Stertinius, the eighth of the wise men, gave to me, as to a
friend, that for the future I might not be roughly accosted without
avenging myself. Whosoever shall call me madman, shall hear as much from
me [in return]; and shall learn to look back upon the bag that hangs
behind him.
O Stoic, so may you, after your damage, sell all your merchandise the
better: what folly (for, [it seems,] there are more kinds than one) do
you think I am infatuated with? For to myself I seem sound. What--when
mad Agave carries the amputated head of her unhappy son, does she then
seem mad to herself? I allow myself a fool (let me yield to the truth)
and a madman likewise: only declare this, with what distemper of mind
you think me afflicted. Hear, then: in the first place you build; that
is, though from top to bottom you are but of the two-foot size you
imitate the tall: and you, the same person, laugh at the spirit and
strut of Turbo in armor, too great for his [little] body: how are you
less ridiculous than him? What--is it fitting that, in every thing
Maecenas does, you, who are so very much unlike him and so much his
inferior, should vie with him? The young ones of a frog being in her
absence crushed by the foot of a calf, when one of them had made his
escape, he told his mother what a huge beast had dashed his brethren to
pieces. She began to ask, how big? Whether it were so great? puffing
herself up. Greater by half. What, so big? when she had swelled herself
more and more. If you should burst yourself, says he, you will not be
equal to it. This image bears no great dissimilitude to you. Now add
poems (that is, add oil to the fire), which if ever any man in his
senses made, why so do you. I do not mention your horrid rage. At
length, have done--your way of living beyond your fortune--confine
yourself to your own affairs, Damasippus--those thousand passions for
the fair, the young. Thou greater madman, at last, spare thy inferior.
* * * * *
SATIRE IV.
_He ridicules the absurdity of one Catius, who placed the summit of
human felicity in the culinary art_.
Whence, and whither, Catius? I have not time [to converse with you],
being desirous of impressing on my memory some new precepts; such as
excel Pythagoras, and him that was accused by Anytus, and the learned
Plato. I acknowledge my offense, since I have interrupted you at so
unlucky a juncture: but grant me your pardon, good sir, I beseech you.
If any thing should have slipped you now, you will presently recollect
it: whether this talent of yours be of nature, or of art, you are
amazing in both. Nay, but I was anxious, how I might retain all [these
precepts]; as being things of a delicate nature, and in a delicate
style. Tell me the name of this man; and at the same time whether he is
a Roman, or a foreigner? As I have them by heart, I will recite the
precepts: the author shall be concealed.
Remember to serve up those eggs that are of an oblong make, as being of
sweeter flavor and more nutritive than the round ones: for, being
tough-shelled, they contain a male yelk. Cabbage that grows in dry
lands, is sweeter than that about town: nothing is more insipid than a
garden much watered. If a visitor should come unexpectedly upon you in
the evening, lest the tough old hen prove disagreeable to his palate,
you must learn to drown it in Falernian wine mixed [with water]: this
will make it tender. The mushrooms that grow in meadows, are of the best
kind: all others are dangerously trusted. That man shall spend his
summers healthy who shall finish his dinners with mulberries black [with
ripeness], which he shall have gathered from the tree before the sun
becomes violent. Aufidius used to mix honey with strong Falernian
injudiciously; because it is right to commit nothing to the empty veins,
but what is emollient: you will, with more propriety, wash your stomach
with soft mead. If your belly should be hard bound, the limpet and
coarse cockles will remove obstructions, and leaves of the small sorrel;
but not without Coan white wine. The increasing moons swell the
lubricating shell-fish. But every sea is not productive of the exquisite
sorts. The Lucrine muscle is better than the Baian murex: [The best]
oysters come from the Circaean promontory; cray-fish from Misenum: the
soft Tarentum plumes herself on her broad escalops. Let no one
presumptuously arrogate to himself the science of banqueting, unless the
nice doctrine of tastes has been previously considered by him with exact
system. Nor is it enough to sweep away a parcel of fishes from the
expensive stalls, [while he remains] ignorant for what sort stewed sauce
is more proper, and what being roasted, the sated guest will presently
replace himself on his elbow. Let the boar from Umbria, and that which
has been fed with the acorns of the scarlet oak, bend the round dishes
of him who dislikes all flabby meat: for the Laurentian boar, fattened
with flags and reeds, is bad. The vineyard does not always afford the
most eatable kids. A man of sense will be fond of the shoulders of a
pregnant hare. What is the proper age and nature of fish and fowl,
though inquired after, was never discovered before my palate. There are
some, whose genius invents nothing but new kinds of pastry. To waste
one's care upon one thing, is by no means sufficient; just as if any
person should use all his endeavors for this only, that the wine be not
bad; quite careless what oil he pours upon his fish. If you set out
Massic wine in fair weather, should there be any thing thick in it, it
will be attenuated by the nocturnal air, and the smell unfriendly to the
nerves will go off: but, if filtrated through linen, it will lose its
entire flavor. He, who skillfully mixes the Surrentine wine with
Falernian lees, collects the sediment with a pigeon's egg: because the
yelk sinks to the bottom, rolling down with it all the heterogeneous
parts. You may rouse the jaded toper with roasted shrimps and African
cockles; for lettuce after wine floats upon the soured stomach: by ham
preferably, and by sausages, it craves to be restored to its appetite:
nay, it will prefer every thing which is brought smoking hot from the
nasty eating-houses. It is worth while to be acquainted with the two
kinds of sauce. The simple consists of sweet oil; which it will be
proper to mix with rich wine and pickle, but with no other pickle than
that by which the Byzantine jar has been tainted. When this, mingled
with shredded herbs, has boiled, and sprinkled with Corycian saffron,
has stood, you shall over and above add what the pressed berry of the
Venafran olive yields. The Tiburtian yield to the Picenian apples in
juice, though they excel in look. The Venusian grape is proper for
[preserving in] pots. The Albanian you had better harden in the smoke. I
am found to be the first that served up this grape with apples in neat
little side-plates, to be the first [likewise that served up] wine-lees
and herring-brine, and white pepper finely mixed with black salt. It is
an enormous fault to bestow three thousand sesterces on the fish-market,
and then to cramp the roving fishes in a narrow dish. It causes a great
nausea in the stomach, if even the slave touches the cup with greasy
hands, while he licks up snacks, or if offensive grime has adhered to
the ancient goblet. In trays, in mats, in sawdust, [that are so] cheap,
what great expense can there be? But, if they are neglected, it is a
heinous shame. What, should you sweep Mosaic pavements with a dirty
broom made of palm, and throw Tyrian carpets over the unwashed furniture
of your couch! forgetting, that by how much less care and expense these
things are attended, so much the more justly may [the want of them] be
censured, than of those things which can not be obtained but at the
tables of the rich?
Learned Catius, entreated by our friendship and the gods, remember to
introduce me to an audience [with this great man], whenever you shall go
to him. For, though by your memory you relate every thing to me, yet as
a relater you can not delight me in so high a degree. Add to this the
countenance and deportment of the man; whom you, happy in having seen,
do not much regard, because it has been your lot: but I have no small
solicitude, that I may approach the distant fountain-heads, and imbibe
the precepts of [such] a blessed life.
* * * * *
SATIRE V.
_In a humorous dialogue between Ulysses and Tiresias, he exposes those
arts which the fortune hunters make use of, in order to be appointed the
heirs of rich old men_.
Beside what you have told me, O Tiresias, answer to this petition of
mine: by what arts and expedients may I be able to repair my ruined
fortunes--why do you laugh? Does it already seem little to you, who are
practiced in deceit, to be brought back to Ithaca, and to behold [again]
your family household gods? O you who never speak falsely to anyone, you
see how naked and destitute I return home, according to your prophecy:
nor is either my cellar, or my cattle there, unembezzled by the suitors
[of Penelope]. But birth and virtue, unless [attended] with substance,
is viler than sea weed.
Since (circumlocutions apart) you are in dread of poverty hear by what
means you may grow wealthy. If a thrush, or any [nice] thing for your
own private [eating], shall be given you; it must wing way to that
place, where shines a great fortune, the possessor being an old man:
delicious apples, and whatever dainties your well-cultivated ground
brings forth for you, let the rich man, as more to be reverenced than
your household god, taste before him: and, though he be perjured, of no
family, stained with his brother's blood, a runaway; if he desire it, do
not refuse to go along with him, his companion on the outer side. What,
shall I walk cheek by jole with a filthy Damas? I did not behave myself
in that manner at Troy, contending always with the best. You must then
be poor. I will command my sturdy soul to bear this evil; I have
formerly endured even greater. Do thou, O prophet, tell me forthwith how
I may amass riches and heaps of money. In troth I have told you, and
tell you again. Use your craft to lie at catch for the last wills of old
men: nor, if one or two cunning chaps escape by biting the bait off the
hook, either lay aside hope, or quit the art, though disappointed in
your aim. If an affair, either of little or great consequence, shall be
contested at any time at the bar; whichever of the parties live wealthy
without heirs, should he be a rogue, who daringly takes the law of a
better man, be thou his advocate: despise the citizen, who is superior
in reputation, and [the justness of] his cause, if at home he has a son
or a fruitful wife. [Address him thus:] "Quintus, for instance, or
Publius (delicate ears delight in the prefixed name), your virtue has
made me your friend. I am acquainted with the precarious quirks of the
law; I can plead causes. Any one shall sooner snatch my eyes from me,
than he shall despise or defraud you of an empty nut. This is my care,
that you lose nothing, that you be not made a jest of. " Bid him go home,
and make much of himself. Be his solicitor yourself: persevere, and be
steadfast: whether the glaring dog-star shall cleave the infant statues;
or Furius, destined with his greasy paunch, shall spue white snow over
the wintery Alps. Do not you see (shall someone say, jogging the person
that stands next to him by the elbow) how indefatigable he is, how
serviceable to his friends, how acute? [By this means] more tunnies
shall swim in, and your fish-ponds will increase.
Further, if any one in affluent circumstances has reared an ailing son,
lest a too open complaisance to a single man should detect you, creep
gradually into the hope [of succeeding him], and that you may be set
down as second heir; and, if any casualty ahould dispatch the boy to
Hades, you may come into the vacancy. This die seldom fails. Whoever
delivers his will to you to read, be mindful to decline it, and push the
parchment from you: [do it] however in such a manner, that you may catch
with an oblique glance, what the first page intimates to be in the
second clause: run over with a quick eye, whether you are sole heir, or
co-heir with many. Sometimes a well-seasoned lawyer, risen from a
Quinquevir, shall delude the gaping raven; and the fortune-hunter Nasica
shall be laughed at by Coranus.
What, art thou in a [prophetic] raving; or dost thou play upon me
designedly, by uttering obscurities? O son of Laertes, whatever I shall
say will come to pass, or it will not: for the great Apollo gives me the
power to divine. Then, if it is proper, relate what that tale means.
At that time when the youth dreaded by the Parthians, an offspring
derived from the noble Aeneas, shall be mighty by land and sea; the tall
daughter of Nasica, averse to pay the sum total of his debt, shall wed
the stout Coranus. Then the son-in-law shall proceed thus: he shall
deliver his will to his father-in-law, and entreat him to read it;
Nasica will at length receive it, after it has been several times
refused, and silently peruse it; and will find no other legacy left to
him and his, except leave to lament.
To these [directions I have already given], I subjoin the [following]:
if haply a cunning woman or a freedman have the management of an old
driveler, join with them as an associate: praise them, that you may be
praised in your absence. This too is of service; but to storm [the
capital] itself excels this method by far. Shall he, a dotard, scribble
wretched verses? Applaud them. Shall he be given to pleasure? Take care
[you do not suffer him] to ask you: of your own accord complaisantly
deliver up your Penelope to him, as preferable [to yourself]. What--do
you think so sober and so chaste a woman can be brought over, whom [so
many] wooers could not divert from the right course. Because, forsooth,
a parcel of young fellows came, who were too parsimonious to give a
great price, nor so much desirous of an amorous intercourse, as of the
kitchen. So far your Penelope is a good woman: who, had she once tasted
of one old [doting gallant], and shared with you the profit, like a
hound, will never be frighted away from the reeking skin [of the new
killed game].
What I am going to tell you happened when I was an old man. A wicked hag
at Thebes was, according to her will, carried forth in this manner: her
heir bore her corpse, anointed with a large quantity of oil, upon his
naked shoulders; with the intent that, if possible, she might escape
from him even when dead: because, I imagine, he had pressed upon her too
much when living. Be cautious in your addresses: neither be wanting in
your pains, nor immoderately exuberant. By garrulity you will offend the
splenetic and morose. You must not, however, be too silent. Be Davus in
the play; and stand with your head on one side, much like one who is in
great awe. Attack him with complaisance: if the air freshens, advise him
carefully to cover up his precious head: disengage him from the crowd by
opposing your shoulders to it: closely attach your ear to him if chatty.
Is he immoderately fond of being praised? Pay him home, till he shall
cry out, with his hands lifted up to heaven, "Enough:" and puff up the
swelling bladder with tumid speeches. When he shall have [at last]
released you from your long servitude and anxiety; and being certainly
awake, you shall hear [this article in his will]? "Let Ulysses be heir
to one fourth of my estate:" "is then my companion Damas now no more?
where shall I find one so brave and so faithful? " Throw out [something
of this kind] every now and then: and if you can a little, weep for him.
It is fit to disguise your countenance, which [otherwise] would betray
your joy. As for the monument, which is left to your own discretion,
erect it without meanness. The neighborhood will commend the funeral
handsomely performed. If haply any of your co-heirs, being advanced in
years, should have a dangerous cough; whether he has a mind to be a
purchaser of a farm or a house out of your share, tell him, you will
[come to any terms he shall propose, and] make it over to him gladly for
a trifling sum. But the Imperious Proserpine drags me hence. Live, and
prosper.
* * * * *
SATIRE VI.
_He sets the conveniences of a country retirement in opposition to the
troubles of a life in town_.
This was [ever] among the number of my wishes: a portion of ground not
over large, in which was a garden, and a fountain with a continual
stream close to my house, and a little Woodland besides. The gods have
done more abundantly, and better, for me [than this]. It is well: O son
of Maia, I ask nothing more save that you would render these donations
lasting to me. If I have neither made my estate larger by bad means, nor
am in a way to make it less by vice or misconduct; if I do not foolishly
make any petition of this sort--"Oh that that neighboring angle, which
now spoils the; regularity of my field, could be added! Oh that some
accident would discover to me an urn [full] of money! as it did to him,
who having found a treasure, bought that very ground he before tilled in
the capacity of an hired servant, enriched by Hercules' being his
friend;" if what I have at present satisfies me grateful, I supplicate
you with this prayer: make my cattle fat for the use of their master,
and every thing else, except my genius: and, as you are wont, be present
as my chief guardian. Wherefore, when I have removed myself from the
city to the mountains and my castle, (what can I polish, preferably to
my satires and prosaic muse? ) neither evil ambition destroys me, nor the
heavy south wind, nor the sickly autumn, the gain of baleful Libitina.
Father of the morning, or Janus, if with more pleasure thou hearest
thyself [called by that name], from whom men commence the toils of
business, and of life (such is the will of the gods), be thou the
beginning of my song. At Rome you hurry me away to be bail; "Away,
dispatch, [you cry,] lest any one should be beforehand with you in doing
that friendly office:" I must go, at all events, whether the north wind
sweep the earth, or winter contracts the snowy day into a narrower
circle. After this, having uttered in a clear and determinate manner
[the legal form], which may be a detriment to me, I must bustle through
the crowd; and must disoblige the tardy. "What is your will, madman, and
what are you about, impudent fellow? " So one accosts me with his
passionate curses. "You jostle every thing that is in your way, if with
an appointment full in your mind you are away to Maecenas. " This pleases
me, and is like honey: I will not tell a lie. But by the time I reached
the gloomy Esquiliae, a hundred affairs of other people's encompass me
on every side: "Roscius begged that you would be with him at the
court-house to-morrow before the second hour. " "The secretaries
requested you would remember, Quintus, to return to-day about an affair
of public concern, and of great consequence. " "Get Maecenas to put his
signet to these tablets. " Should one say, "I will endeavor at it:" "If
you will, you can," adds he; and is more earnest. The seventh year
approaching to the eighth is now elapsed, from the time that Maecenas
began to reckon me in the number of his friends; only thus far, as one
he would like to take along with him in his chariot, when he went a
journey, and to whom he would trust such kind of trifles as these: "What
is the hour? " "Is Gallina, the Thracian, a match for [the gladiator]
Syrus? " "The cold morning air begins to pinch those that are ill
provided against it;"--and such things-as are well enough intrusted to a
leaky ear. For all this time, every day and hour, I have been more
subjected to envy. "Our son of fortune here, says every body, witnessed
the shows in company with [Maecenas], and played with him in the Campus
Martius. " Does any disheartening report spread from the rostrum through
the streets, whoever comes in my way consults me [concerning it]: "Good
sir, have you (for you must know, since you approach nearer the gods)
heard any thing relating to the Dacians? " "Nothing at all for my part,"
[I reply]. "How you ever are a sneerer! " "But may all the gods torture
me, if I know any thing of the matter. " "What? will Caesar give the
lands he promised the soldiers, in Sicily, or in Italy? " As I am
swearing I know nothing about it, they wonder at me, [thinking] me, to
be sure, a creature of profound and extraordinary secrecy.
Among things of this nature the day is wasted by me, mortified as I am,
not without such wishes as these: O rural retirement, when shall I
behold thee? and when shall it be in my power to pass through the
pleasing oblivion of a life full of solicitude, one while with the books
of the ancients, another while in sleep and leisure? O when shall the
bean related to Pythagoras, and at the same time herbs well larded with
fat bacon, be set before me? O evenings, and suppers fit for gods! with
which I and my friends regale ourselves in the presence of my household
gods; and feed my saucy slaves with viands, of which libations have been
made. The guest, according to every one's inclination, takes off the
glasses of different sizes, free from mad laws: whether one of a strong
constitution chooses hearty bumpers; or another more joyously gets
mellow with moderate ones. Then conversation arises, not concerning
other people's villas and houses, nor whether Lepos dances well or not;
but we debate on what is more to our purpose, and what it is pernicious
not to know--whether men are made happier by riches or by virtue; or
what leads us into intimacies, interest or moral rectitude; and what is
the nature of good, and what its perfection. Meanwhile, my neighbor
Cervius prates away old stories relative to the subject. For, if any one
ignorantly commends the troublesome riches of Aurelius, he thus begins:
"On a time a country-mouse is reported to have received a city-mouse
into his poor cave, an old host, his old acquaintance; a blunt fellow
and attentive to his acquisitions, yet so as he could [on occasion]
enlarge his narrow soul in acts of hospitality. What need of many words?
He neither grudged him the hoarded vetches, nor the long oats; and
bringing in his mouth a dry plum, and nibbled scraps of bacon, presented
them to him, being desirous by the variety of the supper to get the
better of the daintiness of his guest, who hardly touched with his
delicate tooth the several things: while the father of the family
himself, extended on fresh straw, ate a spelt and darnel leaving that
which was better [for his guest]. At length the citizen addressing him,
'Friend,' says he, 'what delight have you to live laboriously on the
ridge of a rugged thicket? Will you not prefer men and the city to the
savage woods? Take my advice, and go along with me: since mortal lives
are allotted to all terrestrial animals, nor is there any escape from
death, either for the great or the small. Wherefore, my good friend,
while it is in your power, live happy in joyous circumstances: live
mindful of how brief an existence you are. ' Soon as these speeches had
wrought upon the peasant, he leaps nimbly from his cave: thence they
both pursue their intended journey, being desirous to steal under the
city walls by night. And now the night possessed the middle region of
the heavens, when each of them set foot in a gorgeous palace, where
carpets dyed with crimson grain glittered upon ivory couches, and many
baskets of a magnificent entertainment remained, which had yesterday
been set by in baskets piled upon one another. After he had placed the
peasant then, stretched at ease upon a splendid carpet; he bustles about
like an adroit host, and keeps bringing up one dish close upon another,
and with an affected civility performs all the ceremonies, first tasting
of every thing he serves up. He, reclined, rejoices in the change of his
situation, and acts the part of a boon companion in the good cheer: when
on a sudden a prodigious rattling of the folding doors shook them both
from their couches. Terrified they began to scamper all about the room,
and more and more heartless to be in confusion, while the lofty house
resounded with [the barking of] mastiff dogs; upon which, says the
country-mouse, 'I have no desire for a life like this; and so farewell:
my wood and cave, secure from surprises, shall with homely tares comfort
me. '"
* * * * *
SATIRE VII.
_One of Horace's slaves, making use of that freedom which was allowed
them at the Saturnalia, rates his master in a droll and severe manner_.
I have a long while been attending [to you], and would fain speak a few
words [in return; but, being] a slave, I am afraid. What, Davus? Yes,
Davus, a faithful servant to his master and an honest one, at least
sufficiently so: that is, for you to think his life in no danger. Well
(since our ancestors would have it so), use the freedom of December
speak on.
One part of mankind are fond of their vices with some constancy and
adhere to their purpose: a considerable part fluctuates; one while
embracing the right, another while liable to depravity. Priscus,
frequently observed with three rings, sometimes with his left hand bare,
lived so irregularly that he would change his robe every hour; from a
magnificent edifice, he would on a sudden hide himself in a place,
whence a decent freedman could scarcely come out in a decent manner; one
while he would choose to lead the life of a rake at Rome, another while
that of a teacher at Athens; born under the evil influence of every
Vertumnus. That buffoon, Volanerius, when the deserved gout had crippled
his fingers, maintained [a fellow] that he had hired at a daily price,
who took up the dice and put them into a box for him: yet by how much
more constant was he in his vice, by so much less wretched was he than
the former person, who is now in difficulties by too loose, now by too
tight a rein.
"Will you not tell to-day, you varlet, whither such wretched stuff as
this tends? " "Why, to you, I say. " "In what respect to me, scoundrel? "
"You praise the happiness and manners of the ancient [Roman] people; and
yet, if any god were on a sudden to reduce you to to them, you, the same
man, would earnestly beg to be excused; either because you are not
really of opinion that what you bawl about is right; or because you are
irresolute in defending the right, and hesitate, in vain desirous to
extract your foot from the mire. At Rome, you long for the country; when
you are in the country, fickle, you extol the absent city to the skies.
If haply you are invited out nowhere to supper, you praise your quiet
dish of vegetables; and as if you ever go abroad upon compulsion, you
think yourself so happy, and do so hug yourself, that you are obliged to
drink out nowhere. Should Maecenas lay his commands on you to come late,
at the first lighting up of the lamps, as his guest; 'Will nobody bring
the oil with more expedition? Does any body hear? ' You stutter with a
mighty bellowing, and storm with rage. Milvius, and the buffoons [who
expected to sup with you], depart, after having uttered curses not
proper to be repeated. Any one may say, for I own [the truth], that I am
easy to be seduced by my appetite; I snuff up my nose at a savory smell:
I am weak, lazy; and, if you have a mind to add any thing else, I am a
sot. But seeing you are as I am, and perhaps something worse, why do you
willfully call me to an account as if you were the better man; and, with
specious phrases, disguise your own vice? What, if you are found out to
be a greater fool than me, who was purchased for five hundred drachmas?
Forbear to terrify me with your looks; restrain your hand and your
anger, while I relate to you what Crispinus' porter taught me.
"Another man's wife captivates you; a harlot, Davus: which of us sins
more deservingly of the cross? When keen nature inflames me, any common
wench that picks me up, dismisses me neither dishonored, nor caring
whether a richer or a handsomer man enjoys her next. You, when you have
cast off your ensigns of dignity, your equestrian ring and your Roman
habit, turn out from a magistrate a wretched Dama, hiding with a cape
your perfumed head: are you not really what you personate? You are
introduced, apprehensive [of consequences]; and, as you are altercating
With your passions, your bones shake with fear. What is the difference
whether you go condemned [like a gladiator], to be galled with scourges,
or slain with the sword; or be closed up in a filthy chest, where [the
maid], concious of her mistress' crime, has stowed you? Has not the
husband of the offending dame a just power over both; against the
seducer even a juster? But she neither changes her dress, nor place, nor
sins to that excess [which you do]; since the woman is in dread of you,
nor gives any credit to you, though you profess to love her. You must go
under the yoke knowingly, and put all your fortune, your life, and
reputation, together with your limbs, into the power of an enraged
husband. Have you escaped? I suppose, then, you will be afraid [for the
future]; and, being warned, will be cautious. No, you will seek occasion
when you may be again in terror, and again may be likely to perish. O so
often a slave! What beast, when it has once escaped by breaking its
toils, absurdly trusts itself to them again? You say, "I am no
adulterer. " Nor, by Hercules, am I a thief, when I wisely pass by the
silver vases. Take away the danger, and vagrant nature will spring
forth, when restraints are removed. Are you my superior, subjected as
you are, to the dominion of so many things and persons, whom the
praetor's rod, though placed on your head three or four times over, can
never free from this wretched solicitude? Add, to what has been said
above, a thing of no less weight; whether he be an underling, who obeys
the master-slave (as it is your custom to affirm), or only a
fellow-slave, what am I in respect of you? You, for example, who have
the command of me, are in subjection to other things, and are led about,
like a puppet movable by means of wires not its own.
"Who then is free? The wise man, who has dominion over himself; whom
neither poverty, nor death, nor chains affright; brave in the checking
of his appetites, and in contemning honors; and, perfect in himself,
polished and round as a globe, so that nothing from without can retard,
in consequence of its smoothness; against whom misfortune ever advances
ineffectually. Can you, out of these, recognize any thing applicable to
yourself? A woman demands five talents of you, plagues you, and after
you are turned out of doors, bedews you with cold water: she calls you
again. Rescue your neck from this vile yoke; come, say, I am free, I am
free. You are not able: for an implacable master oppresses your mind,
and claps the sharp spurs to your jaded appetite, and forces you on
though reluctant. When you, mad one, quite languish at a picture by
Pausias; how are you less to blame than I, when I admire the combats of
Fulvius and Rutuba and Placideianus, with their bended knees, painted in
crayons or charcoal, as if the men were actually engaged, and push and
parry, moving their weapons? Davus is a scoundrel and a loiterer; but
you have the character of an exquisite and expert connoisseur in
antiquities. If I am allured by a smoking pasty, I am a good-for-nothing
fellow: does your great virtue and soul resist delicate entertainments?
Why is a tenderness for my belly too destructive for me? For my back
pays for it. How do you come off with more impunity, since you hanker
after such dainties as can not be had for a little expense? Then those
delicacies, perpetually taken, pall upon the stomach; and your mistaken
feet refuse to support your sickly body. Is that boy guilty, who by
night pawns a stolen scraper for some grapes? Has he nothing servile
about him, who in indulgence to his guts sells his estates? Add to this,
that you yourself can not be an hour by yourself, nor dispose of your
leisure in a right manner; and shun yourself as a fugitive and vagabond,
one while endeavoring with wine, another while with sleep, to cheat
care--in vain: for the gloomy companion presses upon you, and pursues
you in your flight.
"Where can I get a stone? " "What occasion is there for it? " "Where some
darts? " "The man is either mad, or making verses. " "If you do not take
yourself away in an instant, you shall go [and make] a ninth laborer at
my Sabine estate. "
* * * * *
SATIRE VIII.
_A smart description of a miser ridiculously acting the extravagant. _
How did the entertainment of that happy fellow Nasidienus please you?
for yesterday, as I was seeking to make you my guest, you were said to
be drinking there from mid-day. [It pleased me so], that I never was
happier in my life. Say (if it be not troublesome) what food first
calmed your raging appetite.
In the first place, there was a Lucanian boar, taken when the gentle
south wind blew, as the father of the entertainment affirmed; around it
sharp rapes, lettuces, radishes; such things as provoke a languid
appetite; skirrets, anchovies, dregs of Coan wine. These once removed,
one slave, tucked high with a purple cloth, wiped the maple table, and a
second gathered up whatever lay useless, and whatever could offend the
guests; swarthy Hydaspes advances like an Attic maid with Ceres' sacred
rites, bearing wines of Caecubum; Alcon brings those of Chios, undamaged
by the sea. Here the master [cries], "Maecenas, if Alban or Falernian
wine delight you more than those already brought, we have both. "
Ill-fated riches! But, Fundanius, I am impatient to know, who were
sharers in this feast where you fared so well.
I was highest, and next me was Viscus Thurinus, and below, if I
remember, was Varius; with Servilius Balatro, Vibidius, whom Maecenas
had brought along with him, unbidden guests. Above [Nasidienus] himself
was Nomentanus, below him Porcius, ridiculous for swallowing whole cakes
at once. Nomentanus [was present] for this purpose, that if any thing
should chance to be unobserved, he might show it with his pointing
finger. For the other company, we, I mean, eat [promiscuously] of fowls,
oysters, fish, which had concealed in them a juice far different from
the known: as presently appeared, when he reached to me the entrails of
a plaice and of a turbot, such as had never been tasted before. After
this he informed me that honey-apples were most ruddy when gathered
under the waning moon. What difference this makes you will hear best
from himself. Then [says] Vibidius to Balatro; "If we do not drink to
his cost, we shall die in his debt;" and he calls for larger tumblers. A
paleness changed the countenance of our host, who fears nothing so much
as hard drinkers: either because they are more freely censorious; or
because heating wines deafen the subtle [judgment of the] palate.
Vibidius and Balatro, all following their example, pour whole casks into
Alliphanians; the guests of the lowest couch did no hurt to the flagons.
A lamprey is brought in, extended in a dish, in the midst of floating
shrimps. Whereupon, "This," says the master, "was caught when pregnant;
which, after having young, would have been less delicate in its flesh. "
For these a sauce is mixed up; with oil which the best cellar of
Venafrum pressed, with pickle from the juices of the Iberian fish, with
wine of five years old, but produced on this side the sea, while it is
boiling (after it is boiled, the Chian wine suits it so well, that no
other does better than it) with white pepper, and vinegar which, by
being vitiated, turned sour the Methymnean grape. I first showed the way
to stew in it the green rockets and bitter elecampane: Curtillus, [to
stew in it] the sea-urchins unwashed, as being better than the pickle
which the sea shell-fish yields.
In the mean time the suspended tapestry made a heavy downfall upon the
dish, bringing along with it more black dust than the north wind ever
raises on the plains of Campania. Having been fearful of something
worse, as soon as we perceive there was no danger, we rise up. Rufus,
hanging his head, began to weep, as if his son had come to an untimely
death: what would have been the end, had not the discreet Nomentanus
thus raised his friend! "Alas! O fortune, what god is more cruel to us
than thou? How dost thou always take pleasure in sporting with human
affairs! " Varius could scarcely smother a laugh with his napkin.
Balatro, sneering at every thing, observed: "This is the condition of
human life, and therefore a suitable glory will never answer your labor.
Must you be rent and tortured with all manner of anxiety, that I may be
entertained sumptuously; lest burned bread, lest ill-seasoned soup
should be set before us; that all your slaves should wait, properly
attired and neat? Add, besides, these accidents; if the hangings should
tumble down, as just now, if the groom slipping with his foot should
break a dish. But adversity is wont to disclose, prosperity to conceal,
the abilities of a host as well as of a general. " To this Nasidienus:
"May the gods give you all the blessings, whatever you can pray for, you
are so good a man and so civil a guest;" and calls for his sandals. Then
on every couch you might see divided whispers buzzing in each secret
ear.
I would not choose to have seen any theatrical entertainments sooner
than these things. But come, recount what you laughed at next. While
Vibidius is inquiring of the slaves, whether the flagon was also broken,
because cups were not brought when he called for them; and while a laugh
is continued on feigned pretences, Balatro seconding it; you Nasidienus,
return with an altered countenance, as if to repair your ill-fortune by
art. Then followed the slaves, bearing on a large charger the several
limbs of a crane besprinkled with much salt, not without flour, and the
liver of a white goose fed with fattening figs, and the wings of hares
torn off, as a much daintier dish than if one eats them with the loins.
Then we saw blackbirds also set before us with scorched breasts, and
ring-doves without the rumps: delicious morsels! did not the master give
us the history of their causes and natures: whom we in revenge fled
from, so as to taste nothing at all; as if Canidia, more venomous than
African serpents, had poisoned them with her breath.
* * * * *
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE EPISTLES OF HORACE.
EPISTLE I.
TO MAECENAS.
_The poet renounces all verses of a ludicrous turn, and resolves to
apply himself wholly to the study of philosophy, which teaches to bridle
the desires, and to postpone every thing to virtue. _
Maecenas, the subject of my earliest song, justly entitled to my latest,
dost thou seek to engage me again in the old lists, having been tried
sufficiently, and now presented with the foils? My age is not the same,
nor is my genius. Veianius, his arms consecrated on a pillar of
Hercules' temple, lives snugly retired in the country, that he may not
from the extremity of the sandy amphitheater so often supplicate the
people's favor. Some one seems frequently to ring in my purified ear:
"Wisely in time dismiss the aged courser, lest, an object of derision,
he miscarry at last, and break his wind. " Now therefore I lay aside both
verses, and all other sportive matters; my study and inquiry is after
what is true and fitting, and I am wholly engaged in this: I lay up, and
collect rules which I may be able hereafter to bring into use. And lest
you should perchance ask under what leader, in what house [of
philosophy], I enter myself a pupil: addicted to swear implicitly to the
ipse-dixits of no particular master, wherever the weather drives me, I
am carried a guest. One while I become active, and am plunged in the
waves of state affairs, a maintainer and a rigid partisan of strict
virtue; then again I relapse insensibly into Aristippus' maxims, and
endeavor to adapt circumstances to myself, not myself to circumstances.
As the night seems long to those with whom a mistress has broken her
appointment, and the day slow to those who owe their labor; as the year
moves lazy with minors, whom the harsh guardianship of their mothers
confines; so all that time to me flows tedious and distasteful, which
delays my hope and design of strenuously executing that which is of
equal benefit to the poor and to the rich, which neglected will be of
equal detriment to young and to old. It remains, that I conduct and
comfort myself by these principles; your sight is not so piercing as
that of Lynceus; you will not however therefore despise being anointed,
if you are sore-eyed: nor because you despair of the muscles of the
invincible Glycon, will you be careless of preserving your body from the
knotty gout. There is some point to which we may reach, if we can go no
further. Does your heart burn with avarice, and a wretched desire of
more? Spells there are, and incantations, with which you may mitigate
this pain, and rid yourself of a great part of the distemper. Do you
swell with the love of praise? There are certain purgations which can
restore you, a certain treatise, being perused thrice with purity of
mind. The envious, the choleric, the indolent, the slave to wine, to
women--none is so savage that he can not be tamed, if he will only lend
a patient ear to discipline.
It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom, to have lived free
from folly. You see with what toil of mind and body you avoid those
things which you believe to be the greatest evils, a small fortune and a
shameful repulse. An active merchant, you run to the remotest Indies,
fleeing poverty through sea, through rocks, through flames. And will you
not learn, and hear, and be advised by one who is wiser, that you may no
longer regard those things which you foolishly admire and wish for?
