But this [kind of measure] rarely makes its appearance in the
notable trimeters of Accius, and brands the verse of Ennius brought upon
the stage with a clumsy weight of spondees, with the imputation of being
too precipitate and careless, or disgracefully accuses him of ignorance
in his art.
notable trimeters of Accius, and brands the verse of Ennius brought upon
the stage with a clumsy weight of spondees, with the imputation of being
too precipitate and careless, or disgracefully accuses him of ignorance
in his art.
Horace - Works
You would think the groves of
Garganus, or the Tuscan Sea, was roaring; with so great noise are viewed
the shows and contrivances, and foreign riches: with which the actor
being daubed over, as soon as he appears upon the stage, each right hand
encounters with the left. Has he said any thing yet? Nothing at all.
What then pleases? The cloth imitating [the color of] violets, with the
dye of Tarentum.
And, that you may not think I enviously praise those kinds of writing
which I decline undertaking, when others handle them well: that poet to
me seems able to walk upon an extended rope, who with his fictions
grieves my soul, enrages, soothes, fills it with false terrors, as an
enchanter; and sets me now in Thebes, now in Athens.
But of those too, who had rather trust themselves with a reader, than
bear the disdain of an haughty spectator, use a little care; if you
would fill with books [the library you have erected], an offering worthy
of Apollo, and add an incentive to the poets, that with greater
eagerness they may apply to verdant Helicon.
We poets, it is true (that I may hew down my own vineyards), often do
ourselves many mischiefs, when we present a work to you while thoughtful
or fatigued; when we are pained, if my friend has dared to find fault
with one line; when, unasked, we read over again passages already
repeated: when we lament that our labors do not appear, and war poems,
spun out in a fine thread: when we hope the thing will come to this,
that as soon as you are apprised we are penning verses, you will kindly
of yourself send for us and secure us from want, and oblige us to write.
But yet it is worth while to know, who shall be the priests of your
virtue signalized in war and at home, which is not to be trusted to an
unworthy poet. A favorite of king Alexander the Great was that
Choerilus, who to his uncouth and ill-formed verses owed the many pieces
he received of Philip's royal coin. But, as ink when touched leaves
behind it a mark and a blot, so writers as it were stain shining actions
with foul poetry. That same king, who prodigally bought so dear so
ridiculous a poem, by an edict forbade that any one beside Apelles
should paint him, or that any other than Lysippus should mold brass for
the likeness of the valiant Alexander. But should you call that faculty
of his, so delicate in discerning other arts, to [judge of] books and of
these gifts of the muses, you would swear he had been born in the gross
air of the Boeotians. Yet neither do Virgil and Varius, your beloved
poets, disgrace your judgment of them, and the presents which they have
received with great honor to the donor; nor do the features of
illustrious men appear more lively when expressed by statues of brass,
than their manners and minds expressed by the works of a poet. Nor would
I rather compose such tracts as these creeping on the ground, than
record deeds of arms, and the situations of countries, and rivers, and
forts reared upon mountains, and barbarous kingdoms, and wars brought to
a conclusion through the whole world under your auspices, and the
barriers that confine Janus the guardian of peace, and Rome treaded by
the Parthians under your government, if I were but able to do as much as
I could wish. But neither does your majesty admit of humble poetry, nor
dares my modesty attempt a subject which my strength is unable to
support. Yet officiousness foolishly disgusts the person whom it loves;
especially when it recommends itself by numbers, and the art [of
writing]. For one learns sooner, and more willingly remembers, that
which a man derides, than that which he approves and venerates. I value
not the zeal that gives me uneasiness; nor do I wish to be set out any
where in wax with a face formed for the worse, nor to be celebrated in
ill-composed verses; lest I blush, when presented with the gross gift;
and, exposed in an open box along with my author, be conveyed into the
street that sells frankincense, and spices, and pepper, and whatever is
wrapped up in impertinent writings.
* * * * *
EPISTLE II.
TO JULIUS FLORUS.
_In apologizing for not having written to him, he shows that the
well-ordering of life is of more importance than the composition of
verses_.
O Florus, faithful friend to the good and illustrious Nero, if by chance
any one should offer to sell you a boy born at Tibur and Gabii, and
should treat with you in this manner; "This [boy who is] both
good-natured and well-favored from head to foot, shall become and be
yours for eight thousand sesterces; a domestic slave, ready in his
attendance at his master's nod; initiated in the Greek language, of a
capacity for any art; you may shape out any thing with [such] moist
clay; besides, he will sing in an artless manner, but yet entertaining
to one drinking. Lavish promises lessen credit, when any one cries up
extravagantly the wares he has for sale, which he wants to put off. No
emergency obliges me [to dispose of him]: though poor, I am in nobody's
debt. None of the chapmen would do this for you; nor should every body
readily receive the same favor from me. Once, [in deed,] he [loitered on
an errand]; and (as it happens) absconded, being afraid of the lash that
hangs in the staircase. Give me your money, if this runaway trick, which
I have expected, does not offend you. " In my opinion, the man may take
his price, and be secure from any punishment: you wittingly purchased a
good-for-nothing boy: the condition of the contract was told you.
Nevertheless you prosecute this man, and detain him in an unjust suit.
I told you, at your setting out, that I was indolent: I told you I was
almost incapable of such offices: that you might not chide me in angry
mood, because no letter [from me] came to hand. What then have I
profited, if you nevertheless arraign the conditions that make for me?
On the same score too you complain, that, being worse than my word, I do
not send you the verses you expected.
A soldier of Lucullus, [having run through] a great many hardships, was
robbed of his collected stock to a penny, as he lay snoring in the night
quite fatigued: after this, like a ravenous wolf, equally exasperated at
himself and the enemy, eager, with his hungry fangs, he beat off a royal
guard from a post (as they report) very strongly fortified, and well
supplied with stores. Famous on account of this exploit, he is adorned
with honorable rewards, and receives twenty thousand sesterces into the
bargain. It happened about this time that his officer being inclined to
batter down a certain fort, began to encourage the same man, with words
that might even have given courage to a coward: "Go, my brave fellow,
whither your valor calls you: go with prosperous step, certain to
receive ample rewards for your merit. Why do you hesitate? " Upon this,
he arch, though a rustic: "He who has lost his purse, will go whither
you wish," says he.
It was my lot to have Rome for my nurse, and to be instructed [from the
Iliad] how much the exasperated Achilles prejudiced the Greeks. Good
Athens give me some additional learning: that is to say, to be able to
distinguish a right line from a curve, and seek after truth in the
groves of Academus. But the troublesome times removed me from that
pleasant spot; and the tide of a civil war carried me away,
unexperienced as I was, into arms, [into arms] not likely to be a match
for the sinews of Augustus Caesar. Whence, as soon as [the battle of]
Philippi dismissed me in an abject condition, with my wings clipped, and
destitute both of house and land, daring poverty urged me on to the
composition of verses: but now, having more than is wanted, what
medicines would be efficacious enough to cure my madness, if I did not
think it better to rest than to write verses.
The advancing years rob us of every thing: they have taken away my
mirth, my gallantry, my revelings, and play: they are now proceeding to
force poetry from me. What would you have me do?
In short, all persons do not love and admire the same things. Ye delight
in the ode: one man is pleased with iambics; another with satires
written in the manner of Bion, and virulent wit. Three guests scarcely
can be found to agree, craving very different dishes with various
palate. What shall I give? What shall I not give? You forbid, what
another demands: what you desire, that truly is sour and disgustful to
the [other] two.
Beside other [difficulties], do you think it practicable for me to
write poems at Rome, amid so many solicitudes and so many fatigues? One
calls me as his security, another to hear his works, all business else
apart; one lives on the mount of Quirinus, the other in the extremity of
the Aventine; both must be waited on. The distances between them, you
see, are charmingly commodious. "But the streets are clear, so that
there can be no obstacle to the thoughtful. "--A builder in heat hurries
along with his mules and porters: the crane whirls aloft at one time a
stone, at another a great piece of timber: the dismal funerals dispute
the way with the unwieldy carriages: here runs a mad dog, there rushes a
sow begrimed with mire. Go now, and meditate with yourself your
harmonious verses. All the whole choir of poets love the grove, and
avoid cities, due votaries to Bacchus delighting in repose and shade.
Would you have me, amid so great noise both by night and day, [attempt]
to sing, and trace the difficult footsteps of the poets? A genius who
has chosen quiet Athens for his residence, and has devoted seven years
to study, and has grown old in books and study, frequently walks forth
more dumb than a statue, and shakes the people's sides with laughter:
here, in the midst of the billows and tempests of the city, can I be
thought capable of connecting words likely to wake the sound of the
lyre?
At Rome there was a rhetorician, brother to a lawyer: [so fond of each
other were they,] that they would hear nothing but the mere praises of
each other: insomuch, that the latter appeared a Gracchus to the former,
the former a Mucius to the latter. Why should this frenzy affect the
obstreperous poets in a less degree? I write odes, another elegies: a
work wonderful to behold, and burnished by the nine muses! Observe
first, with what a fastidious air, with what importance we survey the
temple [of Apollo] vacant for the Roman poets. In the next place you may
follow (if you are at leisure) and hear what each produces, and
wherefore each weaves for himself the crown. Like Samnite gladiators in
slow duel, till candle-light, we are beaten and waste out the enemy with
equal blows: I came off Alcaeus, in his suffrage; he is mine, who? Why
who but Callimachus? Or, if he seems to make a greater demand, he
becomes Mimnermus, and grows in fame by the chosen appellation. Much do
I endure in order to pacify this passionate race of poets, when I am
writing; and submissive court the applause of the people; [but,] having
finished my studies and recovered my senses, I the same man can now
boldly stop my open ears against reciters.
Those who make bad verses are laughed at: but they are pleased in
writing, and reverence themselves; and if you are silent, they, happy,
fall to praising of their own accord whatever they have written. But he
who desires to execute a genuine poem, will with his papers assume the
spirit of an honest critic: whatever words shall have but little
clearness and elegance, or shall be without weight and held unworthy of
estimation, he will dare to displace: though they may recede with
reluctance, and still remain in the sanctuary of Vesta: those that have
been long hidden from the people he kindly will drag forth, and bring to
light those expressive denominations of things that were used by the
Catos and Cethegi of ancient times, though now deformed dust and
neglected age presses upon them: he will adopt new words, which use, the
parent [of language], shall produce: forcible and perspicuous, and
bearing the utmost similitude to a limpid stream, he will pour out his
treasures, and enrich Latium with a comprehensive language. The
luxuriant he will lop, the too harsh he will soften with a sensible
cultivation: those void of expression he will discard: he will exhibit
the appearance of one at play; and will be [in his invention] on the
rack, like [a dancer on the stage], who one while affects the motions of
a satyr, at another of a clumsy cyclops.
I had rather be esteemed a foolish and dull writer, while my faults
please myself, or at least escape my notice, than be wise and smart for
it. There lived at Argos a man of no mean rank, who imagined that he was
hearing some admirable tragedians, a joyful sitter and applauder in an
empty theater: who [nevertheless] could support the other duties of life
in a just manner; a truly honest neighbor, an amiable host, kind toward
his wife, one who could pardon his slaves, nor would rave at the
breaking of a bottle-seal: one who [had sense enough] to avoid a
precipice, or an open well. This man, being cured at the expense and by
the care of his relations, when he had expelled by the means of pure
hellebore the disorder and melancholy humor, and returned to himself;
"By Pollux, my friends (said he), you have destroyed, not saved me; from
whom my pleasure is thus taken away, and a most agreeable delusion of
mind removed by force. "
In a word, it is of the first consequence to be wise in the rejection
of trifles, and leave childish play to boys for whom it is in season,
and not to scan words to be set to music for the Roman harps, but
[rather] to be perfectly an adept in the numbers and proportions of real
life. Thus therefore I commune with myself, and ponder these things in
silence: "If no quantity of water would put an end to your thirst, you
would tell it to your physicians. And is there none to whom you dare
confess, that the more you get the more you crave? If you had a wound
which was not relieved by a plant or root prescribed to you, you would
refuse being doctored with a root or plant that did no good. You have
heard that vicious folly left the man, on whom the gods conferred
wealth; and though you are nothing wiser, since you become richer, will
you nevertheless use the same monitors as before? But could riches make
you wise, could they make you less covetous and mean-spirited, you well
might blush, if there lived on earth one more avaricious than yourself. "
If that be any man's property, which he has bought by the pound and
penny, [and] there be some things to which (if you give credit to the
lawyers) possession gives a claim, [then] the field that feeds you is
your own; and Orbius' steward, when he harrows the corn which is soon to
give you flour, finds you are [in effect] the proper master. You give
your money; you receive grapes, pullets, eggs, a hogshead of strong
wine: certainly in this manner you by little and little purchase that
farm, for which perhaps the owner paid three hundred thousand sesterces,
or more. What does it signify, whether you live on what was paid for the
other day, or a long while ago? He who purchased the Aricinian and
Veientine fields some time since, sups on bought vegetables, however he
may think otherwise; boils his pot with bought wood at the approach of
the chill evening. But he calls all that his own, as far as where the
planted poplar prevents quarrels among neighbors by a determinate
limitation: as if anything were a man's property, which in a moment of
the fleeting hour, now by solicitations, now by sale, now by violence,
and now by the supreme lot [of all men], may change masters and come
into another's jurisdiction. Thus since the perpetual possession is
given to none, and one man's heir urges on another's, as wave impels
wave, of what importance are houses, or granaries; or what the Lucanian
pastures joined to the Calabrian; if Hades, inexorable to gold, mows
down the great together with the small?
Gems, marble, ivory, Tuscan statues, pictures, silver-plate, robes dyed
with Getulian purple, there are who can not acquire; and there are
others, who are not solicitous of acquiring. Of two brothers, why one
prefers lounging, play, and perfume, to Herod's rich palm-tree groves;
why the other, rich and uneasy, from the rising of the light to the
evening shade, subdues his woodland with fire and steel: our attendant
genius knows, who governs the planet of our nativity, the divinity [that
presides] over human nature, who dies with each individual, of various
complexion, white and black.
I will use, and take out from my moderate stock, as much as my exigence
demands: nor will I be under any apprehensions what opinion my heir
shall hold concerning me, when he shall, find [I have left him] no more
than I had given me. And yet I, the same man, shall be inclined to know
how far an open and cheerful person differs from a debauchee, and how
greatly the economist differs from the miser. For there is some
distinction whether you throw away your money in a prodigal manner, or
make an entertainment without grudging, nor toil to accumulate more; or
rather, as formerly in Minerva's holidays, when a school-boy, enjoys by
starts the short and pleasant vacation.
Let sordid poverty be far away. I, whether borne in a large or small
vessel, let me be borne uniform and the same. I am not wafted with
swelling sail before the north wind blowing fair: yet I do not bear my
course of life against the adverse south. In force, genius, figure,
virtue, station, estate, the last of the first-rate, [yet] still before
those of the last.
You are not covetous, [you say]:--go to. --What then? Have the rest of
your vices fled from you, together with this? Is your breast free from
vain ambition? Is it free from the fear of death and from anger? Can you
laugh at dreams, magic terrors, wonders, witches, nocturnal goblins, and
Thessalian prodigies? Do you number your birth-days with a grateful
mind? Are you forgiving to your friends? Do you grow milder and better
as old age approaches? What profits you only one thorn eradicated out of
many? If you do not know how to live in a right manner, make way for
those that do. You have played enough, eaten and drunk enough, it is
time for you to walk off: lest having tippled too plentifully, that age
which plays the wanton with more propriety, and drive you [off the
stage].
* * * * *
HORACE'S BOOK UPON THE ART OF POETRY.
TO THE PISOS.
If a painter should wish to unite a horse's neck to a human head, and
spread a variety of plumage over limbs [of different animals] taken from
every part [of nature], so that what is a beautiful woman in the upper
part terminates unsightly in an ugly fish below; could you, my friends,
refrain from laughter, were you admitted to such a sight? Believe, ye
Pisos, the book will be perfectly like such a picture, the ideas of
which, like a sick man's dreams, are all vain and fictitious: so that
neither head nor foot can correspond to any one form. "Poets and
painters [you will say] have ever had equal authority for attempting any
thing. " We are conscious of this, and this privilege we demand and allow
in turn: but not to such a degree, that the tame should associate with
the savage; nor that serpents should be coupled with birds, lambs with
tigers.
In pompous introductions, and such as promise a great deal, it generally
happens that one or two verses of purple patch-work, that may make a
great show, are tagged on; as when the grove and the altar of Diana and
the meandering of a current hastening through pleasant fields, or the
river Rhine, or the rainbow is described. But here there was no room for
these [fine things]: perhaps, too, you know how to draw a cypress: but
what is that to the purpose, if he, whe is painted for the given price,
is [to be represented as] swimming hopeless out of a shipwreck? A large
vase at first was designed: why, as the wheel revolves, turns out a
little pitcher? In a word, be your subject what it will, let it be
merely simple and uniform.
The great majority of us poets, father, and youths worthy such a
father, are misled by the appearance of right. I labor to be concise, I
become obscure: nerves and spirit fail him, that aims at the easy: one,
that pretends to be sublime, proves bombastical: he who is too cautious
and fearful of the storm, crawls along the ground: he who wants to vary
his subject in a marvelous manner, paints the dolphin in the woods, the
boar in the sea. The avoiding of an error leads to a fault, if it lack
skill.
A statuary about the Aemilian school shall of himself, with singular
skill, both express the nails, and imitate in brass the flexible hair;
unhappy yet in the main, because he knows not how to finish a complete
piece. I would no more choose to be such a one as this, had I a mind to
compose any thing, than to live with a distorted nose, [though]
remarkable for black eyes and jetty hair.
Ye who write, make choice of a subject suitable to your abilities; and
revolve in your thoughts a considerable time what your strength
declines, and what it is able to support. Neither elegance of style, nor
a perspicuous disposition, shall desert the man, by whom the subject
matter is chosen judiciously.
This, or I am mistaken, will constitute the merit and beauty of
arrangement, that the poet just now say what ought just now to be said,
put off most of his thoughts, and waive them for the present.
In the choice of his words, too, the author of the projected poem must
be delicate and cautious, he must embrace one and reject another: you
will express yourself eminently well, if a dexterous combination should
give an air of novelty to a well-known word. If it happen to be
necessary to explain some abstruse subjects by new invented terms; it
will follow that you must frame words never heard of by the
old-fashioned Cethegi: and the license will be granted, if modestly
used: and the new and lately-formed words will have authority, if they
descend from a Greek source, with a slight deviation. But why should the
Romans grant to Plutus and Caecilius a privilege denied to Virgil and
Varius? Why should I be envied, if I have it in my power to acquire a
few words, when the language of Cato and Ennius has enriched our native
tongue, and produced new names of things? It has been, and ever will be,
allowable to coin a word marked with the stamp in present request. As
leaves in the woods are changed with the fleeting years; the earliest
fall off first: in this manner words perish with old age, and those
lately invented nourish and thrive, like men in the time of youth. We,
and our works, are doomed to death: Whether Neptune, admitted into the
continent, defends our fleet from the north winds, a kingly work; or the
lake, for a long time unfertile and fit for oars, now maintains its
neighboring cities and feels the heavy plow; or the river, taught to run
in a more convenient channel, has changed its course which was so
destructive to the fruits. Mortal works must perish: much less can the
honor and elegance of language be long-lived. Many words shall revive,
which now have fallen off; and many which are now in esteem shall fall
off, if it be the will of custom, in whose power is the decision and
right and standard of language.
Homer has instructed us in what measure the achievements of kings, and
chiefs, and direful war might be written.
Plaintive strains originally were appropriated to the unequal numbers
[of the elegiac]: afterward [love and] successful desires were included.
Yet what author first published humble elegies, the critics dispute, and
the controversy still waits the determination of a judge.
Rage armed Archilochus with the iambic of his own invention. The sock
and the majestic buskin assumed this measure as adapted for dialogue,
and to silence the noise of the populace, and calculated for action.
To celebrate gods, and the sons of gods, and the victorious wrestler,
and the steed foremost in the race, and the inclination of youths, and
the free joys of wine, the muse has alotted to the lyre.
If I am incapable and unskilful to observe the distinction described,
and the complexions of works [of genius], why am I accosted by the name
of "Poet? " Why, out of false modesty, do I prefer being ignorant to
being learned?
A comic subject will not be handled in tragic verse: in like manner the
banquet of Thyestes will not bear to be held in familiar verses, and
such as almost suit the sock. Let each peculiar species [of writing]
fill with decorum its proper place. Nevertheless sometimes even comedy
exalts her voice, and passionate Chremes rails in a tumid strain: and a
tragic writer generally expresses grief in a prosaic style. Telephus and
Peleus, when they are both in poverty and exile, throw aside their rants
and gigantic expressions if they have a mind to move the heart of the
spectator with their complaint.
It is not enough that poems be beautiful; let them be tender and
affecting, and bear away the soul of the auditor whithersoever they
please. As the human countenance smiles on those that smile, so does it
sympathize with those that weep. If you would have me weep you must
first express the passion of grief yourself; then, Telephus or Peleus,
your misfortunes hurt me: if you pronounce the parts assigned you ill, I
shall either fall asleep or laugh.
Pathetic accents suit a melancholy countenance; words full of menace, an
angry one; wanton expressions, a sportive look; and serious matter, an
austere one. For nature forms us first within to every modification of
circumstances; she delights or impels us to anger, or depresses us to
the earth and afflicts us with heavy sorrow: then expresses those
emotions of the mind by the tongue, its interpreter. If the words be
discordant to the station of the speaker, the Roman knights and plebians
will raise an immoderate laugh. It will make a wide difference, whether
it be Davus that speaks, or a hero; a man well-stricken in years, or a
hot young fellow in his bloom; and a matron of distinction, or an
officious nurse; a roaming merchant, or the cultivator of a verdant
little farm; a Colchian, or an Assyrian; one educated at Thebes, or one
at Argos.
You, that write, either follow tradition, or invent such fables as are
congruous to themselves. If as poet you have to represent the renowned
Achilles; let him be indefatigable, wrathful, inexorable, courageous,
let him deny that laws were made for him, let him arrogate every thing
to force of arms. Let Medea be fierce and untractable, Ino an object of
pity, Ixion perfidious, Io wandering, Orestes in distress.
If you offer to the stage any thing unattempted, and venture to form a
new character; let it be preserved to the last such as it set out at the
beginning, and be consistent with itself. It is difficult to write with
propriety on subjects to which all writers have a common claim; and you
with more prudence will reduce the Iliad into acts, than if you first
introduce arguments unknown and never treated of before. A public story
will become your own property, if you do not dwell upon the whole circle
of events, which is paltry and open to every one; nor must you be so
faithful a translator, as to take the pains of rendering [the original]
word for word; nor by imitating throw yourself into straits, whence
either shame or the rules of your work may forbid you to retreat.
Nor must you make such an exordium, as the Cyclic writer of old: "I will
sing the fate of Priam, and the noble war. " What will this boaster
produce worthy of all this gaping? The mountains are in labor, a
ridiculous mouse will be brought forth. How much more to the purpose he,
who attempts nothing improperly? "Sing for me, my muse, the man who,
after the time of the destruction of Troy, surveyed the manners and
cities of many men. " He meditates not [to produce] smoke from a flash,
but out of smoke to elicit fire, that he may thence bring forth his
instances of the marvelous with beauty, [such as] Antiphates, Scylla,
the Cyclops, and Charybdis. Nor does he date Diomede's return from
Meleager's death, nor trace the rise of the Trojan war from [Leda's]
eggs: he always hastens on to the event; and hurries away his reader in
the midst of interesting circumstances, no otherwise than as if they
were [already] known; and what he despairs of, as to receiving a polish
from his touch, he omits; and in such a manner forms his fictions, so
intermingles the false with the true, that the middle is not
inconsistent with the beginning, nor the end with the middle.
Do you attend to what I, and the public in my opinion, expect from you
[as a dramatic writer]. If you are desirous of an applauding spectator,
who will wait for [the falling of] the curtain, and till the chorus
calls out "your plaudits;" the manners of every age must be marked by
you, and a proper decorum assigned to men's varying dispositions and
years. The boy, who is just able to pronounce his words, and prints the
ground with a firm tread, delights to play with his fellows, and
contracts and lays aside anger without reason, and is subject to change
every hour. The beardless youth, his guardian being at length
discharged, joys in horses, and dogs, and the verdure of the sunny
Campus Martius; pliable as wax to the bent of vice, rough to advisers, a
slow provider of useful things, prodigal of his money, high-spirited,
and amorous, and hasty in deserting the objects of his passion. [After
this,] our inclinations being changed, the age and spirit of manhood
seeks after wealth, and [high] connections, is subservient to points of
honor; and is cautious of committing any action, which he would
subsequently be industrious to correct. Many inconviences encompass a
man in years; either because he seeks [eagerly] for gain, and abstains
from what he has gotten, and is afraid to make use of it; or because he
transacts every thing in a timorous and dispassionate manner, dilatory,
slow in hope, remiss, and greedy of futurity. Peevish, querulous, a
panegyrist of former times when he was a boy, a chastiser and censurer
of his juniors. Our advancing years bring many advantages along with
them. Many our declining ones take away. That the parts [therefore]
belonging to age may not be given to youth, and those of a man to a boy,
we must dwell upon those qualities which are joined and adapted to each
person's age.
An action is either represented on the stage, or being done elsewhere is
there related. The things which enter by the ear affect the mind more
languidly, than such as are submitted to the faithful eyes, and what a
spectator presents to himself. You must not, however, bring upon the
stage things fit only to be acted behind the scenes: and you must take
away from view many actions, which elegant description may soon after
deliver in presence [of the spectators]. Let not Medea murder her sons
before the people; nor the execrable Atreus openly dress human entrails:
nor let Progue be metamorphosed into a bird, Cadmus into a serpent.
Whatever you show to me in this manner, not able to give credit to, I
detest.
Let a play which would be inquired after, and though seen, represented
anew, be neither shorter nor longer than the fifth act. Neither let a
god interfere, unless a difficulty worthy a god's unraveling should
happen; nor let a fourth person be officious to speak.
Let the chorus sustain the part and manly character of an actor: nor let
them sing any thing between the acts which is not conducive to, and
fitly coherent with, the main design. Let them both patronize the good,
and give them friendly advice, and regulate the passionate, and love to
appease those who swell [with rage]: let them praise the repast of a
short meal, and salutary effects of justice, laws, and peace with her
open gates; let them conceal what is told to them in confidence, and
supplicate and implore the gods that prosperity may return to the
wretched, and abandon the haughty. The flute, (not as now, begirt with
brass and emulous of the trumpet, but) slender and of simple form, with
few stops, was of service to accompany and assist the chorus, and with
its tone was sufficient to fill the rows that were not as yet too
crowded, where an audience, easily numbered, as being small and sober,
chaste and modest, met together. But when the victorious Romans began to
extend their territories, and an ampler wall encompassed the city, and
their genius was indulged on festivals by drinking wine in the day-time
without censure; a greater freedom arose both, to the numbers [of
poetry], and the measure [of music]. For what taste could an unlettered
clown and one just dismissed from labors have, when in company with the
polite; the base, with the man of honor? Thus the musician added now
movements and a luxuriance to the ancient art, and strutting backward
and forward, drew a length of train over the stage; thus likewise new
notes were added to the severity of the lyre, and precipitate eloquence
produced an unusual language [in the theater]: and the sentiments [of
the chorus, then] expert in teaching useful things and prescient of
futurity, differ hardly from the oracular Delphi.
The poet, who first tried his skill in tragic verse for the paltry
[prize of a] goat, soon after exposed to view wild satyrs naked, and
attempted raillery with severity, still preserving the gravity [of
tragedy]: because the spectator on festivals, when heated with wine and
disorderly, was to be amused with captivating shows and agreeable
novelty. But it will be expedient so to recommend the bantering, so the
rallying satyrs, so to turn earnest into jest; that none who shall be
exhibited as a god, none who is introduced as a hero lately conspicuous
in regal purple and gold, may deviate into the low style of obscure,
mechanical shops; or, [on the contrary,] while he avoids the ground,
effect cloudy mist and empty jargon. Tragedy disdaining to prate forth
trivial verses, like a matron commanded to dance on the festival days,
will assume an air of modesty, even in the midst of wanton satyrs. As a
writer of satire, ye Pisos, I shall never be fond of unornamented and
reigning terms: nor shall I labor to differ so widely from the
complexion of tragedy, as to make no distinction, whether Davus be the
speaker. And the bold Pythias, who gained a talent by gulling Simo; or
Silenus, the guardian and attendant of his pupil-god [Bacchus]. I would
so execute a fiction taken from a well-known story, that any body might
entertain hopes of doing the same thing; but, on trial, should sweat and
labor in vain. Such power has a just arrangement and connection of the
parts: such grace may be added to subjects merely common. In my
judgment the Fauns, that are brought out of the woods, should not be too
gamesome with their tender strains, as if they were educated in the
city, and almost at the bar; nor, on the other hand; should blunder out
their obscene and scandalous speeches. For [at such stuff] all are
offended, who have a horse, a father, or an estate: nor will they
receive with approbation, nor give the laurel crown, as the purchasers
of parched peas and nuts are delighted with.
A long syllable put after a short one is termed an iambus, a lively
measure, whence also it commanded the name of trimeters to be added to
iambics, though it yielded six beats of time, being similar to itself
from first to last. Not long ago, that it might come somewhat slower and
with more majesty to the ear, it obligingly and contentedly admitted
into its paternal heritage the steadfast spondees; agreeing however, by
social league, that it was not to depart from the second and fourth
place.
But this [kind of measure] rarely makes its appearance in the
notable trimeters of Accius, and brands the verse of Ennius brought upon
the stage with a clumsy weight of spondees, with the imputation of being
too precipitate and careless, or disgracefully accuses him of ignorance
in his art.
It is not every judge that discerns inharmonious verses, and an
undeserved indulgence is [in this case] granted to the Roman poets. But
shall I on this account run riot and write licentiously? Or should not I
rather suppose, that all the world are to see my faults; secure, and
cautious [never to err] but with hope of being pardoned? Though,
perhaps, I have merited no praise, I have escaped censure.
Ye [who are desirous to excel,] turn over the Grecian models by night,
turn them by day. But our ancestors commended both the numbers of
Plautus, and his strokes of pleasantry; too tamely, I will not say
foolishly, admiring each of them; if you and I but know how to
distinguish a coarse joke from a smart repartee, and understand the
proper cadence, by [using] our fingers and ears.
Thespis is said to have invented a new kind of tragedy, and to have
carried his pieces about in carts, which [certain strollers], who had
their faces besmeared with lees of wine, sang and acted. After him
Aeschylus, the inventor of the vizard mask and decent robe, laid the
stage over with boards of a tolerable size, and taught to speak in lofty
tone, and strut in the buskin. To these succeeded the old comedy, not
without considerable praise: but its personal freedom degenerated into
excess and violence, worthy to be regulated by law; a law was made
accordingly, and the chorus, the right of abusing being taken away,
disgracefully became silent.
Our poets have left no species [of the art] unattempted; nor have those
of them merited the least honor, who dared to forsake the footsteps of
the Greeks, and celebrate domestic facts; whether they have instructed
us in tragedy, of comedy. Nor would Italy be raised higher by valor and
feats of arms, than by its language, did not the fatigue and tediousness
of using the file disgust every one of our poets. Do you, the decendants
of Pompilius, reject that poem, which many days and many a blot have not
ten times subdued to the most perfect accuracy. Because Democritus
believes that genius is more successful than wretched art, and excludes
from Helicon all poets who are in their senses, a great number do not
care to part with their nails or beard, frequent places of solitude,
shun the baths. For he will acquire, [he thinks,] the esteem and title
of a poet, if he neither submits his head, which is not to be cured by
even three Anticyras, to Licinius the barber. What an unlucky fellow am
I, who am purged for the bile in spring-time! Else nobody would compose
better poems; but the purchase is not worth the expense. Therefore I
will serve instead of a whetstone, which though not able of itself to
cut, can make steel sharp: so I, who can write no poetry myself, will
teach the duty and business [of an author]; whence he may be stocked
with rich materials; what nourishes and forms the poet; what gives
grace, what not; what is the tendency of excellence, what that of error.
To have good sense, is the first principle and fountain of writing well.
The Socratic papers will direct you in the choice of your subjects; and
words will spontaneously accompany the subject, when it is well
conceived. He who has learned what he owes to his country, and what to
his friends; with what affection a parent, a brother, and a stranger,
are to be loved; what is the duty of a senator, what of a judge; what
the duties of a general sent out to war; he, [I say,] certainly knows
how to give suitable attributes to every character. I should direct the
learned imitator to have a regard to the mode of nature and manners, and
thence draw his expressions to the life. Sometimes a play, that is
showy with common-places, and where the manners are well marked, though
of no elegance, without force or art, gives the people much higher
delight and more effectually commands their attention, than verse void
of matter, and tuneful trifles.
To the Greeks, covetous of nothing but praise, the muse gave genius; to
the Greeks the power of expressing themselves in round periods. The
Roman youth learn by long computation to subdivide a pound into an
hundred parts. Let the son of Albinus tell me, if from five ounces one
be subtracted, what remains? He would have said the third of a
pound. --Bravely done! you will be able to take care of your own affairs.
An ounce is added: what will that be? Half a pound. When this sordid
rust and hankering after wealth has once tainted their minds, can we
expect that such verses should be made as are worthy of being anointed
with the oil of cedar, and kept in the well-polished cypress?
Poets wish either to profit or to delight; or to deliver at once both
the pleasures and the necessaries of life. Whatever precepts you give,
be concise; that docile minds may soon comprehend what is said, and
faithfully retain it. All superfluous instructions flow from the too
full memory. Let what ever is imagined for the sake of entertainment,
have as much likeness to truth as possible; let not your play demand
belief for whatever [absurdities] it is inclinable [to exhibit]: nor
take out of a witch's belly a living child that she had dined upon. The
tribes of the seniors rail against every thing that is void of
edification: the exalted knights disregard poems which are austere. He
who joins the instructive with the agreeable, carries off every vote, by
delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader. This book gains
money for the Sosii; this crosses the sea, and continues to its renowned
author a lasting duration.
Yet there are faults, which we should be ready to pardon: for neither
does the string [always] form the sound which the hand and conception
[of the performer] intends, but very often returns a sharp note when he
demands a flat; nor will the bow always hit whatever mark it threatens.
But when there is a great majority of beauties in a poem, I will not be
offended with a few blemishes, which either inattention has dropped, or
human nature has not sufficiently provided against. What therefore [is
to be determined in this matter]? As a transcriber, if he still commits
the same fault though he has been reproved, is without excuse; and the
harper who always blunders on the same string, is sure to be laughed at;
so he who is excessively deficient becomes another Choerilus; whom, when
I find him tolerable in two or three places, I wonder at with laughter;
and at the same time am I grieved whenever honest Homer grows drowsy?
But it is allowable, that sleep should steal upon [the progress of] a
king work.
As is painting, so is poetry: some pieces will strike you more if you
stand near, and some, if you are at a greater distance: one loves the
dark; another, which is not afraid of the critic's subtle judgment,
chooses to be seen in the light; the one has pleased once, the other
will give pleasure if ten times repeated.
O ye elder of the youths, though you are framed to a right judgment by
your father's instructions, and are wise in yourself, yet take this
truth along with you, [and] remember it; that in certain things a medium
and tolerable degree of eminence may be admitted: a counselor and
pleader at the bar of the middle rate is far removed from the merit of
eloquent Messala, nor has so much knowledge of the law as Casselius
Aulus, but yet he is in request; [but] a mediocrity in poets neither
gods, nor men, nor [even] the booksellers' shops have endured. As at an
agreeable entertainment discordant music, and muddy perfume, and poppies
mixed with Sardinian honey give offense, because the supper might have
passed without them; so poetry, created and invented for the delight of
our souls, if it comes short ever so little of the summit, sinks to the
bottom.
He who does not understand the game, abstains from the weapons of the
Campus Martius: and the unskillful in the tennis-ball, the quoit, and
the troques keeps himself quiet; lest the crowded ring should raise a
laugh at his expense: notwithstanding this, he who knows nothing of
verses presumes to compose. Why not! He is free-born, and of a good
family; above all, he is registered at an equestrian sum of moneys, and
clear from every vice. You, [I am persuaded,] will neither say nor do
any thing in opposition to Minerva: such is your judgment, such your
disposition. But if ever you shall write anything, let it be submitted
to the ears of Metius [Tarpa], who is a judge, and your father's, and
mine; and let it be suppressed till the ninth year, your papers being
held up within your own custody. You will have it in your power to blot
out what you have not made public: a word ice sent abroad can never
return.
Orpheus, the priest and Interpreter of the gods, deterred the savage
race of men from slaughters and inhuman diet; once said to tame tigers
and furious lions: Amphion too, the builder of the Theban wall, was said
to give the stones moon with the sound of his lyre, and to lead them
whithersover he would, by engaging persuasion. This was deemed wisdom of
yore, to distinguish the public from private weal; things sacred from
things profane; to prohibit a promiscuous commerce between the sexes; to
give laws to married people; to plan out cities; to engrave laws on
[tables of] wood. Thus honor accrued to divine poets, and their songs.
After these, excellent Homer and Tyrtaeus animated the manly mind to
martial achievements with their verses. Oracles were delivered in
poetry, and the economy of life pointed out, and the favor of sovereign
princes was solicited by Pierian drains, games were instituted, and a
[cheerful] period put to the tedious labors of the day; [this I remind
you of,] lest haply you should be ashamed of the lyric muse, and Apollo
the god of song.
It has been made a question, whether good poetry be derived from nature
or from art. For my part, I can neither conceive what study can do
without a rich [natural] vein, nor what rude genius can avail of itself:
so much does the one require the assistance of the other, and so
amicably do they conspire [to produce the same effect]. He who is
industrious to reach the wished-for goal, has done and suffered much
when a boy; he has sweated and shivered with cold; he has abstained from
love and wine; he who sings the Pythian strains, was a learner first,
and in awe of a master. But [in poetry] it is now enough for a man to
say of himself: "I make admirable verses: a murrain seize the hindmost:
it is scandalous for me to be outstripped, and fairly to Acknowledge
that I am ignorant of that which I never learned. "
As a crier who collects the crowd together to buy his goods, so a poet
rich in land, rich in money put out at interest, invites flatterers to
come [and praise his works] for a reward. But if he be one who is well
able to set out an elegant table, and give security for a poor man, and
relieve when entangled in glaomy law-suits; I shall wonder if with his
wealth he can distinguish a true friend from false one. You, whether
you have made, or intend to make, a present to any one, do not bring him
full of joy directly to your finished verses: for then he will cry out,
"Charming, excellent, judicious," he will turn pale; at some parts he
will even distill the dew from his friendly eyes; he will jump about; he
will beat the ground [with ecstasy]. As those who mourn at funerals for
pay, do and say more than those that are afflicted from their hearts; so
the sham admirer is more moved than he that praises with sincerity.
Certain kings are said to ply with frequent bumpers, and by wine make
trial of a man whom they are sedulous to know whether he be worthy of
their friendship or not. Thus, if you compose verses, let not the fox's
concealed intentions impose upon you.
If you had recited any thing to Quintilius, he would say, "Alter, I
pray, this and this:" if you replied, you could do it no better, having
made the experiment twice or thrice in vain; he would order you to blot
out, and once more apply to the anvil your ill-formed verses: if you
choose rather to defend than correct a fault, he spent not a word more
nor fruitless labor, but you alone might be fond of yourself and your
own works, without a rival. A good and sensible man will censure
spiritless verses, he will condemn the rugged, on the incorrect he will
draw across a black stroke with his pen; he will lop off ambitious [and
redundant] ornaments; he will make him throw light on the parts that are
not perspicuous; he will arraign what is expressed ambiguously; he will
mark what should be altered; [in short,] he will be an Aristarchus: he
will not say, "Why should I give my friend offense about mere trifles? "
These trifles will lead into mischiefs of serious consequence, when once
made an object of ridicule, and used in a sinister manner.
Like one whom an odious plague or jaundice, fanatic phrensy or lunacy,
distresses; those who are wise avoid a mad poet, and are afraid to touch
him; the boys jostle him, and the incautious pursue him. If, like a
fowler intent upon his game, he should fall into a well or a ditch while
he belches out his fustian verses and roams about, though he should cry
out for a long time, "Come to my assistance, O my countrymen;" not one
would give himself the trouble of taking him up. Were any one to take
pains to give him aid, and let down a rope; "How do you know, but he
threw himself in hither on purpose? " I shall say: and will relate the
death of the Sicilian poet. Empedocles, while he was ambitious of being
esteemed an immortal god, in cold blood leaped into burning Aetna. Let
poets have the privilege and license to die [as they please]. He who
saves a man against his will, does the same with him who kills him
[against his will]. Neither is it the first time that he has behaved in
this manner; nor, were he to be forced from his purposes, would he now
become a man, and lay aside his desire of such a famous death. Neither
does it appear sufficiently, why he makes verses: whether he has defiled
his father's ashes, or sacrilegiously removed the sad enclosure of the
vindictive thunder: it is evident that he is mad, and like a bear that
has burst through the gates closing his den, this unmerciful rehearser
chases the learned and unlearned. And whomsoever he seizes, he fastens
on and assassinates with recitation: a leech that will not quit the
skin, till satiated with blood.
Garganus, or the Tuscan Sea, was roaring; with so great noise are viewed
the shows and contrivances, and foreign riches: with which the actor
being daubed over, as soon as he appears upon the stage, each right hand
encounters with the left. Has he said any thing yet? Nothing at all.
What then pleases? The cloth imitating [the color of] violets, with the
dye of Tarentum.
And, that you may not think I enviously praise those kinds of writing
which I decline undertaking, when others handle them well: that poet to
me seems able to walk upon an extended rope, who with his fictions
grieves my soul, enrages, soothes, fills it with false terrors, as an
enchanter; and sets me now in Thebes, now in Athens.
But of those too, who had rather trust themselves with a reader, than
bear the disdain of an haughty spectator, use a little care; if you
would fill with books [the library you have erected], an offering worthy
of Apollo, and add an incentive to the poets, that with greater
eagerness they may apply to verdant Helicon.
We poets, it is true (that I may hew down my own vineyards), often do
ourselves many mischiefs, when we present a work to you while thoughtful
or fatigued; when we are pained, if my friend has dared to find fault
with one line; when, unasked, we read over again passages already
repeated: when we lament that our labors do not appear, and war poems,
spun out in a fine thread: when we hope the thing will come to this,
that as soon as you are apprised we are penning verses, you will kindly
of yourself send for us and secure us from want, and oblige us to write.
But yet it is worth while to know, who shall be the priests of your
virtue signalized in war and at home, which is not to be trusted to an
unworthy poet. A favorite of king Alexander the Great was that
Choerilus, who to his uncouth and ill-formed verses owed the many pieces
he received of Philip's royal coin. But, as ink when touched leaves
behind it a mark and a blot, so writers as it were stain shining actions
with foul poetry. That same king, who prodigally bought so dear so
ridiculous a poem, by an edict forbade that any one beside Apelles
should paint him, or that any other than Lysippus should mold brass for
the likeness of the valiant Alexander. But should you call that faculty
of his, so delicate in discerning other arts, to [judge of] books and of
these gifts of the muses, you would swear he had been born in the gross
air of the Boeotians. Yet neither do Virgil and Varius, your beloved
poets, disgrace your judgment of them, and the presents which they have
received with great honor to the donor; nor do the features of
illustrious men appear more lively when expressed by statues of brass,
than their manners and minds expressed by the works of a poet. Nor would
I rather compose such tracts as these creeping on the ground, than
record deeds of arms, and the situations of countries, and rivers, and
forts reared upon mountains, and barbarous kingdoms, and wars brought to
a conclusion through the whole world under your auspices, and the
barriers that confine Janus the guardian of peace, and Rome treaded by
the Parthians under your government, if I were but able to do as much as
I could wish. But neither does your majesty admit of humble poetry, nor
dares my modesty attempt a subject which my strength is unable to
support. Yet officiousness foolishly disgusts the person whom it loves;
especially when it recommends itself by numbers, and the art [of
writing]. For one learns sooner, and more willingly remembers, that
which a man derides, than that which he approves and venerates. I value
not the zeal that gives me uneasiness; nor do I wish to be set out any
where in wax with a face formed for the worse, nor to be celebrated in
ill-composed verses; lest I blush, when presented with the gross gift;
and, exposed in an open box along with my author, be conveyed into the
street that sells frankincense, and spices, and pepper, and whatever is
wrapped up in impertinent writings.
* * * * *
EPISTLE II.
TO JULIUS FLORUS.
_In apologizing for not having written to him, he shows that the
well-ordering of life is of more importance than the composition of
verses_.
O Florus, faithful friend to the good and illustrious Nero, if by chance
any one should offer to sell you a boy born at Tibur and Gabii, and
should treat with you in this manner; "This [boy who is] both
good-natured and well-favored from head to foot, shall become and be
yours for eight thousand sesterces; a domestic slave, ready in his
attendance at his master's nod; initiated in the Greek language, of a
capacity for any art; you may shape out any thing with [such] moist
clay; besides, he will sing in an artless manner, but yet entertaining
to one drinking. Lavish promises lessen credit, when any one cries up
extravagantly the wares he has for sale, which he wants to put off. No
emergency obliges me [to dispose of him]: though poor, I am in nobody's
debt. None of the chapmen would do this for you; nor should every body
readily receive the same favor from me. Once, [in deed,] he [loitered on
an errand]; and (as it happens) absconded, being afraid of the lash that
hangs in the staircase. Give me your money, if this runaway trick, which
I have expected, does not offend you. " In my opinion, the man may take
his price, and be secure from any punishment: you wittingly purchased a
good-for-nothing boy: the condition of the contract was told you.
Nevertheless you prosecute this man, and detain him in an unjust suit.
I told you, at your setting out, that I was indolent: I told you I was
almost incapable of such offices: that you might not chide me in angry
mood, because no letter [from me] came to hand. What then have I
profited, if you nevertheless arraign the conditions that make for me?
On the same score too you complain, that, being worse than my word, I do
not send you the verses you expected.
A soldier of Lucullus, [having run through] a great many hardships, was
robbed of his collected stock to a penny, as he lay snoring in the night
quite fatigued: after this, like a ravenous wolf, equally exasperated at
himself and the enemy, eager, with his hungry fangs, he beat off a royal
guard from a post (as they report) very strongly fortified, and well
supplied with stores. Famous on account of this exploit, he is adorned
with honorable rewards, and receives twenty thousand sesterces into the
bargain. It happened about this time that his officer being inclined to
batter down a certain fort, began to encourage the same man, with words
that might even have given courage to a coward: "Go, my brave fellow,
whither your valor calls you: go with prosperous step, certain to
receive ample rewards for your merit. Why do you hesitate? " Upon this,
he arch, though a rustic: "He who has lost his purse, will go whither
you wish," says he.
It was my lot to have Rome for my nurse, and to be instructed [from the
Iliad] how much the exasperated Achilles prejudiced the Greeks. Good
Athens give me some additional learning: that is to say, to be able to
distinguish a right line from a curve, and seek after truth in the
groves of Academus. But the troublesome times removed me from that
pleasant spot; and the tide of a civil war carried me away,
unexperienced as I was, into arms, [into arms] not likely to be a match
for the sinews of Augustus Caesar. Whence, as soon as [the battle of]
Philippi dismissed me in an abject condition, with my wings clipped, and
destitute both of house and land, daring poverty urged me on to the
composition of verses: but now, having more than is wanted, what
medicines would be efficacious enough to cure my madness, if I did not
think it better to rest than to write verses.
The advancing years rob us of every thing: they have taken away my
mirth, my gallantry, my revelings, and play: they are now proceeding to
force poetry from me. What would you have me do?
In short, all persons do not love and admire the same things. Ye delight
in the ode: one man is pleased with iambics; another with satires
written in the manner of Bion, and virulent wit. Three guests scarcely
can be found to agree, craving very different dishes with various
palate. What shall I give? What shall I not give? You forbid, what
another demands: what you desire, that truly is sour and disgustful to
the [other] two.
Beside other [difficulties], do you think it practicable for me to
write poems at Rome, amid so many solicitudes and so many fatigues? One
calls me as his security, another to hear his works, all business else
apart; one lives on the mount of Quirinus, the other in the extremity of
the Aventine; both must be waited on. The distances between them, you
see, are charmingly commodious. "But the streets are clear, so that
there can be no obstacle to the thoughtful. "--A builder in heat hurries
along with his mules and porters: the crane whirls aloft at one time a
stone, at another a great piece of timber: the dismal funerals dispute
the way with the unwieldy carriages: here runs a mad dog, there rushes a
sow begrimed with mire. Go now, and meditate with yourself your
harmonious verses. All the whole choir of poets love the grove, and
avoid cities, due votaries to Bacchus delighting in repose and shade.
Would you have me, amid so great noise both by night and day, [attempt]
to sing, and trace the difficult footsteps of the poets? A genius who
has chosen quiet Athens for his residence, and has devoted seven years
to study, and has grown old in books and study, frequently walks forth
more dumb than a statue, and shakes the people's sides with laughter:
here, in the midst of the billows and tempests of the city, can I be
thought capable of connecting words likely to wake the sound of the
lyre?
At Rome there was a rhetorician, brother to a lawyer: [so fond of each
other were they,] that they would hear nothing but the mere praises of
each other: insomuch, that the latter appeared a Gracchus to the former,
the former a Mucius to the latter. Why should this frenzy affect the
obstreperous poets in a less degree? I write odes, another elegies: a
work wonderful to behold, and burnished by the nine muses! Observe
first, with what a fastidious air, with what importance we survey the
temple [of Apollo] vacant for the Roman poets. In the next place you may
follow (if you are at leisure) and hear what each produces, and
wherefore each weaves for himself the crown. Like Samnite gladiators in
slow duel, till candle-light, we are beaten and waste out the enemy with
equal blows: I came off Alcaeus, in his suffrage; he is mine, who? Why
who but Callimachus? Or, if he seems to make a greater demand, he
becomes Mimnermus, and grows in fame by the chosen appellation. Much do
I endure in order to pacify this passionate race of poets, when I am
writing; and submissive court the applause of the people; [but,] having
finished my studies and recovered my senses, I the same man can now
boldly stop my open ears against reciters.
Those who make bad verses are laughed at: but they are pleased in
writing, and reverence themselves; and if you are silent, they, happy,
fall to praising of their own accord whatever they have written. But he
who desires to execute a genuine poem, will with his papers assume the
spirit of an honest critic: whatever words shall have but little
clearness and elegance, or shall be without weight and held unworthy of
estimation, he will dare to displace: though they may recede with
reluctance, and still remain in the sanctuary of Vesta: those that have
been long hidden from the people he kindly will drag forth, and bring to
light those expressive denominations of things that were used by the
Catos and Cethegi of ancient times, though now deformed dust and
neglected age presses upon them: he will adopt new words, which use, the
parent [of language], shall produce: forcible and perspicuous, and
bearing the utmost similitude to a limpid stream, he will pour out his
treasures, and enrich Latium with a comprehensive language. The
luxuriant he will lop, the too harsh he will soften with a sensible
cultivation: those void of expression he will discard: he will exhibit
the appearance of one at play; and will be [in his invention] on the
rack, like [a dancer on the stage], who one while affects the motions of
a satyr, at another of a clumsy cyclops.
I had rather be esteemed a foolish and dull writer, while my faults
please myself, or at least escape my notice, than be wise and smart for
it. There lived at Argos a man of no mean rank, who imagined that he was
hearing some admirable tragedians, a joyful sitter and applauder in an
empty theater: who [nevertheless] could support the other duties of life
in a just manner; a truly honest neighbor, an amiable host, kind toward
his wife, one who could pardon his slaves, nor would rave at the
breaking of a bottle-seal: one who [had sense enough] to avoid a
precipice, or an open well. This man, being cured at the expense and by
the care of his relations, when he had expelled by the means of pure
hellebore the disorder and melancholy humor, and returned to himself;
"By Pollux, my friends (said he), you have destroyed, not saved me; from
whom my pleasure is thus taken away, and a most agreeable delusion of
mind removed by force. "
In a word, it is of the first consequence to be wise in the rejection
of trifles, and leave childish play to boys for whom it is in season,
and not to scan words to be set to music for the Roman harps, but
[rather] to be perfectly an adept in the numbers and proportions of real
life. Thus therefore I commune with myself, and ponder these things in
silence: "If no quantity of water would put an end to your thirst, you
would tell it to your physicians. And is there none to whom you dare
confess, that the more you get the more you crave? If you had a wound
which was not relieved by a plant or root prescribed to you, you would
refuse being doctored with a root or plant that did no good. You have
heard that vicious folly left the man, on whom the gods conferred
wealth; and though you are nothing wiser, since you become richer, will
you nevertheless use the same monitors as before? But could riches make
you wise, could they make you less covetous and mean-spirited, you well
might blush, if there lived on earth one more avaricious than yourself. "
If that be any man's property, which he has bought by the pound and
penny, [and] there be some things to which (if you give credit to the
lawyers) possession gives a claim, [then] the field that feeds you is
your own; and Orbius' steward, when he harrows the corn which is soon to
give you flour, finds you are [in effect] the proper master. You give
your money; you receive grapes, pullets, eggs, a hogshead of strong
wine: certainly in this manner you by little and little purchase that
farm, for which perhaps the owner paid three hundred thousand sesterces,
or more. What does it signify, whether you live on what was paid for the
other day, or a long while ago? He who purchased the Aricinian and
Veientine fields some time since, sups on bought vegetables, however he
may think otherwise; boils his pot with bought wood at the approach of
the chill evening. But he calls all that his own, as far as where the
planted poplar prevents quarrels among neighbors by a determinate
limitation: as if anything were a man's property, which in a moment of
the fleeting hour, now by solicitations, now by sale, now by violence,
and now by the supreme lot [of all men], may change masters and come
into another's jurisdiction. Thus since the perpetual possession is
given to none, and one man's heir urges on another's, as wave impels
wave, of what importance are houses, or granaries; or what the Lucanian
pastures joined to the Calabrian; if Hades, inexorable to gold, mows
down the great together with the small?
Gems, marble, ivory, Tuscan statues, pictures, silver-plate, robes dyed
with Getulian purple, there are who can not acquire; and there are
others, who are not solicitous of acquiring. Of two brothers, why one
prefers lounging, play, and perfume, to Herod's rich palm-tree groves;
why the other, rich and uneasy, from the rising of the light to the
evening shade, subdues his woodland with fire and steel: our attendant
genius knows, who governs the planet of our nativity, the divinity [that
presides] over human nature, who dies with each individual, of various
complexion, white and black.
I will use, and take out from my moderate stock, as much as my exigence
demands: nor will I be under any apprehensions what opinion my heir
shall hold concerning me, when he shall, find [I have left him] no more
than I had given me. And yet I, the same man, shall be inclined to know
how far an open and cheerful person differs from a debauchee, and how
greatly the economist differs from the miser. For there is some
distinction whether you throw away your money in a prodigal manner, or
make an entertainment without grudging, nor toil to accumulate more; or
rather, as formerly in Minerva's holidays, when a school-boy, enjoys by
starts the short and pleasant vacation.
Let sordid poverty be far away. I, whether borne in a large or small
vessel, let me be borne uniform and the same. I am not wafted with
swelling sail before the north wind blowing fair: yet I do not bear my
course of life against the adverse south. In force, genius, figure,
virtue, station, estate, the last of the first-rate, [yet] still before
those of the last.
You are not covetous, [you say]:--go to. --What then? Have the rest of
your vices fled from you, together with this? Is your breast free from
vain ambition? Is it free from the fear of death and from anger? Can you
laugh at dreams, magic terrors, wonders, witches, nocturnal goblins, and
Thessalian prodigies? Do you number your birth-days with a grateful
mind? Are you forgiving to your friends? Do you grow milder and better
as old age approaches? What profits you only one thorn eradicated out of
many? If you do not know how to live in a right manner, make way for
those that do. You have played enough, eaten and drunk enough, it is
time for you to walk off: lest having tippled too plentifully, that age
which plays the wanton with more propriety, and drive you [off the
stage].
* * * * *
HORACE'S BOOK UPON THE ART OF POETRY.
TO THE PISOS.
If a painter should wish to unite a horse's neck to a human head, and
spread a variety of plumage over limbs [of different animals] taken from
every part [of nature], so that what is a beautiful woman in the upper
part terminates unsightly in an ugly fish below; could you, my friends,
refrain from laughter, were you admitted to such a sight? Believe, ye
Pisos, the book will be perfectly like such a picture, the ideas of
which, like a sick man's dreams, are all vain and fictitious: so that
neither head nor foot can correspond to any one form. "Poets and
painters [you will say] have ever had equal authority for attempting any
thing. " We are conscious of this, and this privilege we demand and allow
in turn: but not to such a degree, that the tame should associate with
the savage; nor that serpents should be coupled with birds, lambs with
tigers.
In pompous introductions, and such as promise a great deal, it generally
happens that one or two verses of purple patch-work, that may make a
great show, are tagged on; as when the grove and the altar of Diana and
the meandering of a current hastening through pleasant fields, or the
river Rhine, or the rainbow is described. But here there was no room for
these [fine things]: perhaps, too, you know how to draw a cypress: but
what is that to the purpose, if he, whe is painted for the given price,
is [to be represented as] swimming hopeless out of a shipwreck? A large
vase at first was designed: why, as the wheel revolves, turns out a
little pitcher? In a word, be your subject what it will, let it be
merely simple and uniform.
The great majority of us poets, father, and youths worthy such a
father, are misled by the appearance of right. I labor to be concise, I
become obscure: nerves and spirit fail him, that aims at the easy: one,
that pretends to be sublime, proves bombastical: he who is too cautious
and fearful of the storm, crawls along the ground: he who wants to vary
his subject in a marvelous manner, paints the dolphin in the woods, the
boar in the sea. The avoiding of an error leads to a fault, if it lack
skill.
A statuary about the Aemilian school shall of himself, with singular
skill, both express the nails, and imitate in brass the flexible hair;
unhappy yet in the main, because he knows not how to finish a complete
piece. I would no more choose to be such a one as this, had I a mind to
compose any thing, than to live with a distorted nose, [though]
remarkable for black eyes and jetty hair.
Ye who write, make choice of a subject suitable to your abilities; and
revolve in your thoughts a considerable time what your strength
declines, and what it is able to support. Neither elegance of style, nor
a perspicuous disposition, shall desert the man, by whom the subject
matter is chosen judiciously.
This, or I am mistaken, will constitute the merit and beauty of
arrangement, that the poet just now say what ought just now to be said,
put off most of his thoughts, and waive them for the present.
In the choice of his words, too, the author of the projected poem must
be delicate and cautious, he must embrace one and reject another: you
will express yourself eminently well, if a dexterous combination should
give an air of novelty to a well-known word. If it happen to be
necessary to explain some abstruse subjects by new invented terms; it
will follow that you must frame words never heard of by the
old-fashioned Cethegi: and the license will be granted, if modestly
used: and the new and lately-formed words will have authority, if they
descend from a Greek source, with a slight deviation. But why should the
Romans grant to Plutus and Caecilius a privilege denied to Virgil and
Varius? Why should I be envied, if I have it in my power to acquire a
few words, when the language of Cato and Ennius has enriched our native
tongue, and produced new names of things? It has been, and ever will be,
allowable to coin a word marked with the stamp in present request. As
leaves in the woods are changed with the fleeting years; the earliest
fall off first: in this manner words perish with old age, and those
lately invented nourish and thrive, like men in the time of youth. We,
and our works, are doomed to death: Whether Neptune, admitted into the
continent, defends our fleet from the north winds, a kingly work; or the
lake, for a long time unfertile and fit for oars, now maintains its
neighboring cities and feels the heavy plow; or the river, taught to run
in a more convenient channel, has changed its course which was so
destructive to the fruits. Mortal works must perish: much less can the
honor and elegance of language be long-lived. Many words shall revive,
which now have fallen off; and many which are now in esteem shall fall
off, if it be the will of custom, in whose power is the decision and
right and standard of language.
Homer has instructed us in what measure the achievements of kings, and
chiefs, and direful war might be written.
Plaintive strains originally were appropriated to the unequal numbers
[of the elegiac]: afterward [love and] successful desires were included.
Yet what author first published humble elegies, the critics dispute, and
the controversy still waits the determination of a judge.
Rage armed Archilochus with the iambic of his own invention. The sock
and the majestic buskin assumed this measure as adapted for dialogue,
and to silence the noise of the populace, and calculated for action.
To celebrate gods, and the sons of gods, and the victorious wrestler,
and the steed foremost in the race, and the inclination of youths, and
the free joys of wine, the muse has alotted to the lyre.
If I am incapable and unskilful to observe the distinction described,
and the complexions of works [of genius], why am I accosted by the name
of "Poet? " Why, out of false modesty, do I prefer being ignorant to
being learned?
A comic subject will not be handled in tragic verse: in like manner the
banquet of Thyestes will not bear to be held in familiar verses, and
such as almost suit the sock. Let each peculiar species [of writing]
fill with decorum its proper place. Nevertheless sometimes even comedy
exalts her voice, and passionate Chremes rails in a tumid strain: and a
tragic writer generally expresses grief in a prosaic style. Telephus and
Peleus, when they are both in poverty and exile, throw aside their rants
and gigantic expressions if they have a mind to move the heart of the
spectator with their complaint.
It is not enough that poems be beautiful; let them be tender and
affecting, and bear away the soul of the auditor whithersoever they
please. As the human countenance smiles on those that smile, so does it
sympathize with those that weep. If you would have me weep you must
first express the passion of grief yourself; then, Telephus or Peleus,
your misfortunes hurt me: if you pronounce the parts assigned you ill, I
shall either fall asleep or laugh.
Pathetic accents suit a melancholy countenance; words full of menace, an
angry one; wanton expressions, a sportive look; and serious matter, an
austere one. For nature forms us first within to every modification of
circumstances; she delights or impels us to anger, or depresses us to
the earth and afflicts us with heavy sorrow: then expresses those
emotions of the mind by the tongue, its interpreter. If the words be
discordant to the station of the speaker, the Roman knights and plebians
will raise an immoderate laugh. It will make a wide difference, whether
it be Davus that speaks, or a hero; a man well-stricken in years, or a
hot young fellow in his bloom; and a matron of distinction, or an
officious nurse; a roaming merchant, or the cultivator of a verdant
little farm; a Colchian, or an Assyrian; one educated at Thebes, or one
at Argos.
You, that write, either follow tradition, or invent such fables as are
congruous to themselves. If as poet you have to represent the renowned
Achilles; let him be indefatigable, wrathful, inexorable, courageous,
let him deny that laws were made for him, let him arrogate every thing
to force of arms. Let Medea be fierce and untractable, Ino an object of
pity, Ixion perfidious, Io wandering, Orestes in distress.
If you offer to the stage any thing unattempted, and venture to form a
new character; let it be preserved to the last such as it set out at the
beginning, and be consistent with itself. It is difficult to write with
propriety on subjects to which all writers have a common claim; and you
with more prudence will reduce the Iliad into acts, than if you first
introduce arguments unknown and never treated of before. A public story
will become your own property, if you do not dwell upon the whole circle
of events, which is paltry and open to every one; nor must you be so
faithful a translator, as to take the pains of rendering [the original]
word for word; nor by imitating throw yourself into straits, whence
either shame or the rules of your work may forbid you to retreat.
Nor must you make such an exordium, as the Cyclic writer of old: "I will
sing the fate of Priam, and the noble war. " What will this boaster
produce worthy of all this gaping? The mountains are in labor, a
ridiculous mouse will be brought forth. How much more to the purpose he,
who attempts nothing improperly? "Sing for me, my muse, the man who,
after the time of the destruction of Troy, surveyed the manners and
cities of many men. " He meditates not [to produce] smoke from a flash,
but out of smoke to elicit fire, that he may thence bring forth his
instances of the marvelous with beauty, [such as] Antiphates, Scylla,
the Cyclops, and Charybdis. Nor does he date Diomede's return from
Meleager's death, nor trace the rise of the Trojan war from [Leda's]
eggs: he always hastens on to the event; and hurries away his reader in
the midst of interesting circumstances, no otherwise than as if they
were [already] known; and what he despairs of, as to receiving a polish
from his touch, he omits; and in such a manner forms his fictions, so
intermingles the false with the true, that the middle is not
inconsistent with the beginning, nor the end with the middle.
Do you attend to what I, and the public in my opinion, expect from you
[as a dramatic writer]. If you are desirous of an applauding spectator,
who will wait for [the falling of] the curtain, and till the chorus
calls out "your plaudits;" the manners of every age must be marked by
you, and a proper decorum assigned to men's varying dispositions and
years. The boy, who is just able to pronounce his words, and prints the
ground with a firm tread, delights to play with his fellows, and
contracts and lays aside anger without reason, and is subject to change
every hour. The beardless youth, his guardian being at length
discharged, joys in horses, and dogs, and the verdure of the sunny
Campus Martius; pliable as wax to the bent of vice, rough to advisers, a
slow provider of useful things, prodigal of his money, high-spirited,
and amorous, and hasty in deserting the objects of his passion. [After
this,] our inclinations being changed, the age and spirit of manhood
seeks after wealth, and [high] connections, is subservient to points of
honor; and is cautious of committing any action, which he would
subsequently be industrious to correct. Many inconviences encompass a
man in years; either because he seeks [eagerly] for gain, and abstains
from what he has gotten, and is afraid to make use of it; or because he
transacts every thing in a timorous and dispassionate manner, dilatory,
slow in hope, remiss, and greedy of futurity. Peevish, querulous, a
panegyrist of former times when he was a boy, a chastiser and censurer
of his juniors. Our advancing years bring many advantages along with
them. Many our declining ones take away. That the parts [therefore]
belonging to age may not be given to youth, and those of a man to a boy,
we must dwell upon those qualities which are joined and adapted to each
person's age.
An action is either represented on the stage, or being done elsewhere is
there related. The things which enter by the ear affect the mind more
languidly, than such as are submitted to the faithful eyes, and what a
spectator presents to himself. You must not, however, bring upon the
stage things fit only to be acted behind the scenes: and you must take
away from view many actions, which elegant description may soon after
deliver in presence [of the spectators]. Let not Medea murder her sons
before the people; nor the execrable Atreus openly dress human entrails:
nor let Progue be metamorphosed into a bird, Cadmus into a serpent.
Whatever you show to me in this manner, not able to give credit to, I
detest.
Let a play which would be inquired after, and though seen, represented
anew, be neither shorter nor longer than the fifth act. Neither let a
god interfere, unless a difficulty worthy a god's unraveling should
happen; nor let a fourth person be officious to speak.
Let the chorus sustain the part and manly character of an actor: nor let
them sing any thing between the acts which is not conducive to, and
fitly coherent with, the main design. Let them both patronize the good,
and give them friendly advice, and regulate the passionate, and love to
appease those who swell [with rage]: let them praise the repast of a
short meal, and salutary effects of justice, laws, and peace with her
open gates; let them conceal what is told to them in confidence, and
supplicate and implore the gods that prosperity may return to the
wretched, and abandon the haughty. The flute, (not as now, begirt with
brass and emulous of the trumpet, but) slender and of simple form, with
few stops, was of service to accompany and assist the chorus, and with
its tone was sufficient to fill the rows that were not as yet too
crowded, where an audience, easily numbered, as being small and sober,
chaste and modest, met together. But when the victorious Romans began to
extend their territories, and an ampler wall encompassed the city, and
their genius was indulged on festivals by drinking wine in the day-time
without censure; a greater freedom arose both, to the numbers [of
poetry], and the measure [of music]. For what taste could an unlettered
clown and one just dismissed from labors have, when in company with the
polite; the base, with the man of honor? Thus the musician added now
movements and a luxuriance to the ancient art, and strutting backward
and forward, drew a length of train over the stage; thus likewise new
notes were added to the severity of the lyre, and precipitate eloquence
produced an unusual language [in the theater]: and the sentiments [of
the chorus, then] expert in teaching useful things and prescient of
futurity, differ hardly from the oracular Delphi.
The poet, who first tried his skill in tragic verse for the paltry
[prize of a] goat, soon after exposed to view wild satyrs naked, and
attempted raillery with severity, still preserving the gravity [of
tragedy]: because the spectator on festivals, when heated with wine and
disorderly, was to be amused with captivating shows and agreeable
novelty. But it will be expedient so to recommend the bantering, so the
rallying satyrs, so to turn earnest into jest; that none who shall be
exhibited as a god, none who is introduced as a hero lately conspicuous
in regal purple and gold, may deviate into the low style of obscure,
mechanical shops; or, [on the contrary,] while he avoids the ground,
effect cloudy mist and empty jargon. Tragedy disdaining to prate forth
trivial verses, like a matron commanded to dance on the festival days,
will assume an air of modesty, even in the midst of wanton satyrs. As a
writer of satire, ye Pisos, I shall never be fond of unornamented and
reigning terms: nor shall I labor to differ so widely from the
complexion of tragedy, as to make no distinction, whether Davus be the
speaker. And the bold Pythias, who gained a talent by gulling Simo; or
Silenus, the guardian and attendant of his pupil-god [Bacchus]. I would
so execute a fiction taken from a well-known story, that any body might
entertain hopes of doing the same thing; but, on trial, should sweat and
labor in vain. Such power has a just arrangement and connection of the
parts: such grace may be added to subjects merely common. In my
judgment the Fauns, that are brought out of the woods, should not be too
gamesome with their tender strains, as if they were educated in the
city, and almost at the bar; nor, on the other hand; should blunder out
their obscene and scandalous speeches. For [at such stuff] all are
offended, who have a horse, a father, or an estate: nor will they
receive with approbation, nor give the laurel crown, as the purchasers
of parched peas and nuts are delighted with.
A long syllable put after a short one is termed an iambus, a lively
measure, whence also it commanded the name of trimeters to be added to
iambics, though it yielded six beats of time, being similar to itself
from first to last. Not long ago, that it might come somewhat slower and
with more majesty to the ear, it obligingly and contentedly admitted
into its paternal heritage the steadfast spondees; agreeing however, by
social league, that it was not to depart from the second and fourth
place.
But this [kind of measure] rarely makes its appearance in the
notable trimeters of Accius, and brands the verse of Ennius brought upon
the stage with a clumsy weight of spondees, with the imputation of being
too precipitate and careless, or disgracefully accuses him of ignorance
in his art.
It is not every judge that discerns inharmonious verses, and an
undeserved indulgence is [in this case] granted to the Roman poets. But
shall I on this account run riot and write licentiously? Or should not I
rather suppose, that all the world are to see my faults; secure, and
cautious [never to err] but with hope of being pardoned? Though,
perhaps, I have merited no praise, I have escaped censure.
Ye [who are desirous to excel,] turn over the Grecian models by night,
turn them by day. But our ancestors commended both the numbers of
Plautus, and his strokes of pleasantry; too tamely, I will not say
foolishly, admiring each of them; if you and I but know how to
distinguish a coarse joke from a smart repartee, and understand the
proper cadence, by [using] our fingers and ears.
Thespis is said to have invented a new kind of tragedy, and to have
carried his pieces about in carts, which [certain strollers], who had
their faces besmeared with lees of wine, sang and acted. After him
Aeschylus, the inventor of the vizard mask and decent robe, laid the
stage over with boards of a tolerable size, and taught to speak in lofty
tone, and strut in the buskin. To these succeeded the old comedy, not
without considerable praise: but its personal freedom degenerated into
excess and violence, worthy to be regulated by law; a law was made
accordingly, and the chorus, the right of abusing being taken away,
disgracefully became silent.
Our poets have left no species [of the art] unattempted; nor have those
of them merited the least honor, who dared to forsake the footsteps of
the Greeks, and celebrate domestic facts; whether they have instructed
us in tragedy, of comedy. Nor would Italy be raised higher by valor and
feats of arms, than by its language, did not the fatigue and tediousness
of using the file disgust every one of our poets. Do you, the decendants
of Pompilius, reject that poem, which many days and many a blot have not
ten times subdued to the most perfect accuracy. Because Democritus
believes that genius is more successful than wretched art, and excludes
from Helicon all poets who are in their senses, a great number do not
care to part with their nails or beard, frequent places of solitude,
shun the baths. For he will acquire, [he thinks,] the esteem and title
of a poet, if he neither submits his head, which is not to be cured by
even three Anticyras, to Licinius the barber. What an unlucky fellow am
I, who am purged for the bile in spring-time! Else nobody would compose
better poems; but the purchase is not worth the expense. Therefore I
will serve instead of a whetstone, which though not able of itself to
cut, can make steel sharp: so I, who can write no poetry myself, will
teach the duty and business [of an author]; whence he may be stocked
with rich materials; what nourishes and forms the poet; what gives
grace, what not; what is the tendency of excellence, what that of error.
To have good sense, is the first principle and fountain of writing well.
The Socratic papers will direct you in the choice of your subjects; and
words will spontaneously accompany the subject, when it is well
conceived. He who has learned what he owes to his country, and what to
his friends; with what affection a parent, a brother, and a stranger,
are to be loved; what is the duty of a senator, what of a judge; what
the duties of a general sent out to war; he, [I say,] certainly knows
how to give suitable attributes to every character. I should direct the
learned imitator to have a regard to the mode of nature and manners, and
thence draw his expressions to the life. Sometimes a play, that is
showy with common-places, and where the manners are well marked, though
of no elegance, without force or art, gives the people much higher
delight and more effectually commands their attention, than verse void
of matter, and tuneful trifles.
To the Greeks, covetous of nothing but praise, the muse gave genius; to
the Greeks the power of expressing themselves in round periods. The
Roman youth learn by long computation to subdivide a pound into an
hundred parts. Let the son of Albinus tell me, if from five ounces one
be subtracted, what remains? He would have said the third of a
pound. --Bravely done! you will be able to take care of your own affairs.
An ounce is added: what will that be? Half a pound. When this sordid
rust and hankering after wealth has once tainted their minds, can we
expect that such verses should be made as are worthy of being anointed
with the oil of cedar, and kept in the well-polished cypress?
Poets wish either to profit or to delight; or to deliver at once both
the pleasures and the necessaries of life. Whatever precepts you give,
be concise; that docile minds may soon comprehend what is said, and
faithfully retain it. All superfluous instructions flow from the too
full memory. Let what ever is imagined for the sake of entertainment,
have as much likeness to truth as possible; let not your play demand
belief for whatever [absurdities] it is inclinable [to exhibit]: nor
take out of a witch's belly a living child that she had dined upon. The
tribes of the seniors rail against every thing that is void of
edification: the exalted knights disregard poems which are austere. He
who joins the instructive with the agreeable, carries off every vote, by
delighting and at the same time admonishing the reader. This book gains
money for the Sosii; this crosses the sea, and continues to its renowned
author a lasting duration.
Yet there are faults, which we should be ready to pardon: for neither
does the string [always] form the sound which the hand and conception
[of the performer] intends, but very often returns a sharp note when he
demands a flat; nor will the bow always hit whatever mark it threatens.
But when there is a great majority of beauties in a poem, I will not be
offended with a few blemishes, which either inattention has dropped, or
human nature has not sufficiently provided against. What therefore [is
to be determined in this matter]? As a transcriber, if he still commits
the same fault though he has been reproved, is without excuse; and the
harper who always blunders on the same string, is sure to be laughed at;
so he who is excessively deficient becomes another Choerilus; whom, when
I find him tolerable in two or three places, I wonder at with laughter;
and at the same time am I grieved whenever honest Homer grows drowsy?
But it is allowable, that sleep should steal upon [the progress of] a
king work.
As is painting, so is poetry: some pieces will strike you more if you
stand near, and some, if you are at a greater distance: one loves the
dark; another, which is not afraid of the critic's subtle judgment,
chooses to be seen in the light; the one has pleased once, the other
will give pleasure if ten times repeated.
O ye elder of the youths, though you are framed to a right judgment by
your father's instructions, and are wise in yourself, yet take this
truth along with you, [and] remember it; that in certain things a medium
and tolerable degree of eminence may be admitted: a counselor and
pleader at the bar of the middle rate is far removed from the merit of
eloquent Messala, nor has so much knowledge of the law as Casselius
Aulus, but yet he is in request; [but] a mediocrity in poets neither
gods, nor men, nor [even] the booksellers' shops have endured. As at an
agreeable entertainment discordant music, and muddy perfume, and poppies
mixed with Sardinian honey give offense, because the supper might have
passed without them; so poetry, created and invented for the delight of
our souls, if it comes short ever so little of the summit, sinks to the
bottom.
He who does not understand the game, abstains from the weapons of the
Campus Martius: and the unskillful in the tennis-ball, the quoit, and
the troques keeps himself quiet; lest the crowded ring should raise a
laugh at his expense: notwithstanding this, he who knows nothing of
verses presumes to compose. Why not! He is free-born, and of a good
family; above all, he is registered at an equestrian sum of moneys, and
clear from every vice. You, [I am persuaded,] will neither say nor do
any thing in opposition to Minerva: such is your judgment, such your
disposition. But if ever you shall write anything, let it be submitted
to the ears of Metius [Tarpa], who is a judge, and your father's, and
mine; and let it be suppressed till the ninth year, your papers being
held up within your own custody. You will have it in your power to blot
out what you have not made public: a word ice sent abroad can never
return.
Orpheus, the priest and Interpreter of the gods, deterred the savage
race of men from slaughters and inhuman diet; once said to tame tigers
and furious lions: Amphion too, the builder of the Theban wall, was said
to give the stones moon with the sound of his lyre, and to lead them
whithersover he would, by engaging persuasion. This was deemed wisdom of
yore, to distinguish the public from private weal; things sacred from
things profane; to prohibit a promiscuous commerce between the sexes; to
give laws to married people; to plan out cities; to engrave laws on
[tables of] wood. Thus honor accrued to divine poets, and their songs.
After these, excellent Homer and Tyrtaeus animated the manly mind to
martial achievements with their verses. Oracles were delivered in
poetry, and the economy of life pointed out, and the favor of sovereign
princes was solicited by Pierian drains, games were instituted, and a
[cheerful] period put to the tedious labors of the day; [this I remind
you of,] lest haply you should be ashamed of the lyric muse, and Apollo
the god of song.
It has been made a question, whether good poetry be derived from nature
or from art. For my part, I can neither conceive what study can do
without a rich [natural] vein, nor what rude genius can avail of itself:
so much does the one require the assistance of the other, and so
amicably do they conspire [to produce the same effect]. He who is
industrious to reach the wished-for goal, has done and suffered much
when a boy; he has sweated and shivered with cold; he has abstained from
love and wine; he who sings the Pythian strains, was a learner first,
and in awe of a master. But [in poetry] it is now enough for a man to
say of himself: "I make admirable verses: a murrain seize the hindmost:
it is scandalous for me to be outstripped, and fairly to Acknowledge
that I am ignorant of that which I never learned. "
As a crier who collects the crowd together to buy his goods, so a poet
rich in land, rich in money put out at interest, invites flatterers to
come [and praise his works] for a reward. But if he be one who is well
able to set out an elegant table, and give security for a poor man, and
relieve when entangled in glaomy law-suits; I shall wonder if with his
wealth he can distinguish a true friend from false one. You, whether
you have made, or intend to make, a present to any one, do not bring him
full of joy directly to your finished verses: for then he will cry out,
"Charming, excellent, judicious," he will turn pale; at some parts he
will even distill the dew from his friendly eyes; he will jump about; he
will beat the ground [with ecstasy]. As those who mourn at funerals for
pay, do and say more than those that are afflicted from their hearts; so
the sham admirer is more moved than he that praises with sincerity.
Certain kings are said to ply with frequent bumpers, and by wine make
trial of a man whom they are sedulous to know whether he be worthy of
their friendship or not. Thus, if you compose verses, let not the fox's
concealed intentions impose upon you.
If you had recited any thing to Quintilius, he would say, "Alter, I
pray, this and this:" if you replied, you could do it no better, having
made the experiment twice or thrice in vain; he would order you to blot
out, and once more apply to the anvil your ill-formed verses: if you
choose rather to defend than correct a fault, he spent not a word more
nor fruitless labor, but you alone might be fond of yourself and your
own works, without a rival. A good and sensible man will censure
spiritless verses, he will condemn the rugged, on the incorrect he will
draw across a black stroke with his pen; he will lop off ambitious [and
redundant] ornaments; he will make him throw light on the parts that are
not perspicuous; he will arraign what is expressed ambiguously; he will
mark what should be altered; [in short,] he will be an Aristarchus: he
will not say, "Why should I give my friend offense about mere trifles? "
These trifles will lead into mischiefs of serious consequence, when once
made an object of ridicule, and used in a sinister manner.
Like one whom an odious plague or jaundice, fanatic phrensy or lunacy,
distresses; those who are wise avoid a mad poet, and are afraid to touch
him; the boys jostle him, and the incautious pursue him. If, like a
fowler intent upon his game, he should fall into a well or a ditch while
he belches out his fustian verses and roams about, though he should cry
out for a long time, "Come to my assistance, O my countrymen;" not one
would give himself the trouble of taking him up. Were any one to take
pains to give him aid, and let down a rope; "How do you know, but he
threw himself in hither on purpose? " I shall say: and will relate the
death of the Sicilian poet. Empedocles, while he was ambitious of being
esteemed an immortal god, in cold blood leaped into burning Aetna. Let
poets have the privilege and license to die [as they please]. He who
saves a man against his will, does the same with him who kills him
[against his will]. Neither is it the first time that he has behaved in
this manner; nor, were he to be forced from his purposes, would he now
become a man, and lay aside his desire of such a famous death. Neither
does it appear sufficiently, why he makes verses: whether he has defiled
his father's ashes, or sacrilegiously removed the sad enclosure of the
vindictive thunder: it is evident that he is mad, and like a bear that
has burst through the gates closing his den, this unmerciful rehearser
chases the learned and unlearned. And whomsoever he seizes, he fastens
on and assassinates with recitation: a leech that will not quit the
skin, till satiated with blood.
