Despise pleasures,
pleasure
bought with
pain is hurtful.
pain is hurtful.
Horace - Works
O evenings, and suppers fit for gods!
with
which I and my friends regale ourselves in the presence of my household
gods; and feed my saucy slaves with viands, of which libations have been
made. The guest, according to every one's inclination, takes off the
glasses of different sizes, free from mad laws: whether one of a strong
constitution chooses hearty bumpers; or another more joyously gets
mellow with moderate ones. Then conversation arises, not concerning
other people's villas and houses, nor whether Lepos dances well or not;
but we debate on what is more to our purpose, and what it is pernicious
not to know--whether men are made happier by riches or by virtue; or
what leads us into intimacies, interest or moral rectitude; and what is
the nature of good, and what its perfection. Meanwhile, my neighbor
Cervius prates away old stories relative to the subject. For, if any one
ignorantly commends the troublesome riches of Aurelius, he thus begins:
"On a time a country-mouse is reported to have received a city-mouse
into his poor cave, an old host, his old acquaintance; a blunt fellow
and attentive to his acquisitions, yet so as he could [on occasion]
enlarge his narrow soul in acts of hospitality. What need of many words?
He neither grudged him the hoarded vetches, nor the long oats; and
bringing in his mouth a dry plum, and nibbled scraps of bacon, presented
them to him, being desirous by the variety of the supper to get the
better of the daintiness of his guest, who hardly touched with his
delicate tooth the several things: while the father of the family
himself, extended on fresh straw, ate a spelt and darnel leaving that
which was better [for his guest]. At length the citizen addressing him,
'Friend,' says he, 'what delight have you to live laboriously on the
ridge of a rugged thicket? Will you not prefer men and the city to the
savage woods? Take my advice, and go along with me: since mortal lives
are allotted to all terrestrial animals, nor is there any escape from
death, either for the great or the small. Wherefore, my good friend,
while it is in your power, live happy in joyous circumstances: live
mindful of how brief an existence you are. ' Soon as these speeches had
wrought upon the peasant, he leaps nimbly from his cave: thence they
both pursue their intended journey, being desirous to steal under the
city walls by night. And now the night possessed the middle region of
the heavens, when each of them set foot in a gorgeous palace, where
carpets dyed with crimson grain glittered upon ivory couches, and many
baskets of a magnificent entertainment remained, which had yesterday
been set by in baskets piled upon one another. After he had placed the
peasant then, stretched at ease upon a splendid carpet; he bustles about
like an adroit host, and keeps bringing up one dish close upon another,
and with an affected civility performs all the ceremonies, first tasting
of every thing he serves up. He, reclined, rejoices in the change of his
situation, and acts the part of a boon companion in the good cheer: when
on a sudden a prodigious rattling of the folding doors shook them both
from their couches. Terrified they began to scamper all about the room,
and more and more heartless to be in confusion, while the lofty house
resounded with [the barking of] mastiff dogs; upon which, says the
country-mouse, 'I have no desire for a life like this; and so farewell:
my wood and cave, secure from surprises, shall with homely tares comfort
me. '"
* * * * *
SATIRE VII.
_One of Horace's slaves, making use of that freedom which was allowed
them at the Saturnalia, rates his master in a droll and severe manner_.
I have a long while been attending [to you], and would fain speak a few
words [in return; but, being] a slave, I am afraid. What, Davus? Yes,
Davus, a faithful servant to his master and an honest one, at least
sufficiently so: that is, for you to think his life in no danger. Well
(since our ancestors would have it so), use the freedom of December
speak on.
One part of mankind are fond of their vices with some constancy and
adhere to their purpose: a considerable part fluctuates; one while
embracing the right, another while liable to depravity. Priscus,
frequently observed with three rings, sometimes with his left hand bare,
lived so irregularly that he would change his robe every hour; from a
magnificent edifice, he would on a sudden hide himself in a place,
whence a decent freedman could scarcely come out in a decent manner; one
while he would choose to lead the life of a rake at Rome, another while
that of a teacher at Athens; born under the evil influence of every
Vertumnus. That buffoon, Volanerius, when the deserved gout had crippled
his fingers, maintained [a fellow] that he had hired at a daily price,
who took up the dice and put them into a box for him: yet by how much
more constant was he in his vice, by so much less wretched was he than
the former person, who is now in difficulties by too loose, now by too
tight a rein.
"Will you not tell to-day, you varlet, whither such wretched stuff as
this tends? " "Why, to you, I say. " "In what respect to me, scoundrel? "
"You praise the happiness and manners of the ancient [Roman] people; and
yet, if any god were on a sudden to reduce you to to them, you, the same
man, would earnestly beg to be excused; either because you are not
really of opinion that what you bawl about is right; or because you are
irresolute in defending the right, and hesitate, in vain desirous to
extract your foot from the mire. At Rome, you long for the country; when
you are in the country, fickle, you extol the absent city to the skies.
If haply you are invited out nowhere to supper, you praise your quiet
dish of vegetables; and as if you ever go abroad upon compulsion, you
think yourself so happy, and do so hug yourself, that you are obliged to
drink out nowhere. Should Maecenas lay his commands on you to come late,
at the first lighting up of the lamps, as his guest; 'Will nobody bring
the oil with more expedition? Does any body hear? ' You stutter with a
mighty bellowing, and storm with rage. Milvius, and the buffoons [who
expected to sup with you], depart, after having uttered curses not
proper to be repeated. Any one may say, for I own [the truth], that I am
easy to be seduced by my appetite; I snuff up my nose at a savory smell:
I am weak, lazy; and, if you have a mind to add any thing else, I am a
sot. But seeing you are as I am, and perhaps something worse, why do you
willfully call me to an account as if you were the better man; and, with
specious phrases, disguise your own vice? What, if you are found out to
be a greater fool than me, who was purchased for five hundred drachmas?
Forbear to terrify me with your looks; restrain your hand and your
anger, while I relate to you what Crispinus' porter taught me.
"Another man's wife captivates you; a harlot, Davus: which of us sins
more deservingly of the cross? When keen nature inflames me, any common
wench that picks me up, dismisses me neither dishonored, nor caring
whether a richer or a handsomer man enjoys her next. You, when you have
cast off your ensigns of dignity, your equestrian ring and your Roman
habit, turn out from a magistrate a wretched Dama, hiding with a cape
your perfumed head: are you not really what you personate? You are
introduced, apprehensive [of consequences]; and, as you are altercating
With your passions, your bones shake with fear. What is the difference
whether you go condemned [like a gladiator], to be galled with scourges,
or slain with the sword; or be closed up in a filthy chest, where [the
maid], concious of her mistress' crime, has stowed you? Has not the
husband of the offending dame a just power over both; against the
seducer even a juster? But she neither changes her dress, nor place, nor
sins to that excess [which you do]; since the woman is in dread of you,
nor gives any credit to you, though you profess to love her. You must go
under the yoke knowingly, and put all your fortune, your life, and
reputation, together with your limbs, into the power of an enraged
husband. Have you escaped? I suppose, then, you will be afraid [for the
future]; and, being warned, will be cautious. No, you will seek occasion
when you may be again in terror, and again may be likely to perish. O so
often a slave! What beast, when it has once escaped by breaking its
toils, absurdly trusts itself to them again? You say, "I am no
adulterer. " Nor, by Hercules, am I a thief, when I wisely pass by the
silver vases. Take away the danger, and vagrant nature will spring
forth, when restraints are removed. Are you my superior, subjected as
you are, to the dominion of so many things and persons, whom the
praetor's rod, though placed on your head three or four times over, can
never free from this wretched solicitude? Add, to what has been said
above, a thing of no less weight; whether he be an underling, who obeys
the master-slave (as it is your custom to affirm), or only a
fellow-slave, what am I in respect of you? You, for example, who have
the command of me, are in subjection to other things, and are led about,
like a puppet movable by means of wires not its own.
"Who then is free? The wise man, who has dominion over himself; whom
neither poverty, nor death, nor chains affright; brave in the checking
of his appetites, and in contemning honors; and, perfect in himself,
polished and round as a globe, so that nothing from without can retard,
in consequence of its smoothness; against whom misfortune ever advances
ineffectually. Can you, out of these, recognize any thing applicable to
yourself? A woman demands five talents of you, plagues you, and after
you are turned out of doors, bedews you with cold water: she calls you
again. Rescue your neck from this vile yoke; come, say, I am free, I am
free. You are not able: for an implacable master oppresses your mind,
and claps the sharp spurs to your jaded appetite, and forces you on
though reluctant. When you, mad one, quite languish at a picture by
Pausias; how are you less to blame than I, when I admire the combats of
Fulvius and Rutuba and Placideianus, with their bended knees, painted in
crayons or charcoal, as if the men were actually engaged, and push and
parry, moving their weapons? Davus is a scoundrel and a loiterer; but
you have the character of an exquisite and expert connoisseur in
antiquities. If I am allured by a smoking pasty, I am a good-for-nothing
fellow: does your great virtue and soul resist delicate entertainments?
Why is a tenderness for my belly too destructive for me? For my back
pays for it. How do you come off with more impunity, since you hanker
after such dainties as can not be had for a little expense? Then those
delicacies, perpetually taken, pall upon the stomach; and your mistaken
feet refuse to support your sickly body. Is that boy guilty, who by
night pawns a stolen scraper for some grapes? Has he nothing servile
about him, who in indulgence to his guts sells his estates? Add to this,
that you yourself can not be an hour by yourself, nor dispose of your
leisure in a right manner; and shun yourself as a fugitive and vagabond,
one while endeavoring with wine, another while with sleep, to cheat
care--in vain: for the gloomy companion presses upon you, and pursues
you in your flight.
"Where can I get a stone? " "What occasion is there for it? " "Where some
darts? " "The man is either mad, or making verses. " "If you do not take
yourself away in an instant, you shall go [and make] a ninth laborer at
my Sabine estate. "
* * * * *
SATIRE VIII.
_A smart description of a miser ridiculously acting the extravagant. _
How did the entertainment of that happy fellow Nasidienus please you?
for yesterday, as I was seeking to make you my guest, you were said to
be drinking there from mid-day. [It pleased me so], that I never was
happier in my life. Say (if it be not troublesome) what food first
calmed your raging appetite.
In the first place, there was a Lucanian boar, taken when the gentle
south wind blew, as the father of the entertainment affirmed; around it
sharp rapes, lettuces, radishes; such things as provoke a languid
appetite; skirrets, anchovies, dregs of Coan wine. These once removed,
one slave, tucked high with a purple cloth, wiped the maple table, and a
second gathered up whatever lay useless, and whatever could offend the
guests; swarthy Hydaspes advances like an Attic maid with Ceres' sacred
rites, bearing wines of Caecubum; Alcon brings those of Chios, undamaged
by the sea. Here the master [cries], "Maecenas, if Alban or Falernian
wine delight you more than those already brought, we have both. "
Ill-fated riches! But, Fundanius, I am impatient to know, who were
sharers in this feast where you fared so well.
I was highest, and next me was Viscus Thurinus, and below, if I
remember, was Varius; with Servilius Balatro, Vibidius, whom Maecenas
had brought along with him, unbidden guests. Above [Nasidienus] himself
was Nomentanus, below him Porcius, ridiculous for swallowing whole cakes
at once. Nomentanus [was present] for this purpose, that if any thing
should chance to be unobserved, he might show it with his pointing
finger. For the other company, we, I mean, eat [promiscuously] of fowls,
oysters, fish, which had concealed in them a juice far different from
the known: as presently appeared, when he reached to me the entrails of
a plaice and of a turbot, such as had never been tasted before. After
this he informed me that honey-apples were most ruddy when gathered
under the waning moon. What difference this makes you will hear best
from himself. Then [says] Vibidius to Balatro; "If we do not drink to
his cost, we shall die in his debt;" and he calls for larger tumblers. A
paleness changed the countenance of our host, who fears nothing so much
as hard drinkers: either because they are more freely censorious; or
because heating wines deafen the subtle [judgment of the] palate.
Vibidius and Balatro, all following their example, pour whole casks into
Alliphanians; the guests of the lowest couch did no hurt to the flagons.
A lamprey is brought in, extended in a dish, in the midst of floating
shrimps. Whereupon, "This," says the master, "was caught when pregnant;
which, after having young, would have been less delicate in its flesh. "
For these a sauce is mixed up; with oil which the best cellar of
Venafrum pressed, with pickle from the juices of the Iberian fish, with
wine of five years old, but produced on this side the sea, while it is
boiling (after it is boiled, the Chian wine suits it so well, that no
other does better than it) with white pepper, and vinegar which, by
being vitiated, turned sour the Methymnean grape. I first showed the way
to stew in it the green rockets and bitter elecampane: Curtillus, [to
stew in it] the sea-urchins unwashed, as being better than the pickle
which the sea shell-fish yields.
In the mean time the suspended tapestry made a heavy downfall upon the
dish, bringing along with it more black dust than the north wind ever
raises on the plains of Campania. Having been fearful of something
worse, as soon as we perceive there was no danger, we rise up. Rufus,
hanging his head, began to weep, as if his son had come to an untimely
death: what would have been the end, had not the discreet Nomentanus
thus raised his friend! "Alas! O fortune, what god is more cruel to us
than thou? How dost thou always take pleasure in sporting with human
affairs! " Varius could scarcely smother a laugh with his napkin.
Balatro, sneering at every thing, observed: "This is the condition of
human life, and therefore a suitable glory will never answer your labor.
Must you be rent and tortured with all manner of anxiety, that I may be
entertained sumptuously; lest burned bread, lest ill-seasoned soup
should be set before us; that all your slaves should wait, properly
attired and neat? Add, besides, these accidents; if the hangings should
tumble down, as just now, if the groom slipping with his foot should
break a dish. But adversity is wont to disclose, prosperity to conceal,
the abilities of a host as well as of a general. " To this Nasidienus:
"May the gods give you all the blessings, whatever you can pray for, you
are so good a man and so civil a guest;" and calls for his sandals. Then
on every couch you might see divided whispers buzzing in each secret
ear.
I would not choose to have seen any theatrical entertainments sooner
than these things. But come, recount what you laughed at next. While
Vibidius is inquiring of the slaves, whether the flagon was also broken,
because cups were not brought when he called for them; and while a laugh
is continued on feigned pretences, Balatro seconding it; you Nasidienus,
return with an altered countenance, as if to repair your ill-fortune by
art. Then followed the slaves, bearing on a large charger the several
limbs of a crane besprinkled with much salt, not without flour, and the
liver of a white goose fed with fattening figs, and the wings of hares
torn off, as a much daintier dish than if one eats them with the loins.
Then we saw blackbirds also set before us with scorched breasts, and
ring-doves without the rumps: delicious morsels! did not the master give
us the history of their causes and natures: whom we in revenge fled
from, so as to taste nothing at all; as if Canidia, more venomous than
African serpents, had poisoned them with her breath.
* * * * *
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE EPISTLES OF HORACE.
EPISTLE I.
TO MAECENAS.
_The poet renounces all verses of a ludicrous turn, and resolves to
apply himself wholly to the study of philosophy, which teaches to bridle
the desires, and to postpone every thing to virtue. _
Maecenas, the subject of my earliest song, justly entitled to my latest,
dost thou seek to engage me again in the old lists, having been tried
sufficiently, and now presented with the foils? My age is not the same,
nor is my genius. Veianius, his arms consecrated on a pillar of
Hercules' temple, lives snugly retired in the country, that he may not
from the extremity of the sandy amphitheater so often supplicate the
people's favor. Some one seems frequently to ring in my purified ear:
"Wisely in time dismiss the aged courser, lest, an object of derision,
he miscarry at last, and break his wind. " Now therefore I lay aside both
verses, and all other sportive matters; my study and inquiry is after
what is true and fitting, and I am wholly engaged in this: I lay up, and
collect rules which I may be able hereafter to bring into use. And lest
you should perchance ask under what leader, in what house [of
philosophy], I enter myself a pupil: addicted to swear implicitly to the
ipse-dixits of no particular master, wherever the weather drives me, I
am carried a guest. One while I become active, and am plunged in the
waves of state affairs, a maintainer and a rigid partisan of strict
virtue; then again I relapse insensibly into Aristippus' maxims, and
endeavor to adapt circumstances to myself, not myself to circumstances.
As the night seems long to those with whom a mistress has broken her
appointment, and the day slow to those who owe their labor; as the year
moves lazy with minors, whom the harsh guardianship of their mothers
confines; so all that time to me flows tedious and distasteful, which
delays my hope and design of strenuously executing that which is of
equal benefit to the poor and to the rich, which neglected will be of
equal detriment to young and to old. It remains, that I conduct and
comfort myself by these principles; your sight is not so piercing as
that of Lynceus; you will not however therefore despise being anointed,
if you are sore-eyed: nor because you despair of the muscles of the
invincible Glycon, will you be careless of preserving your body from the
knotty gout. There is some point to which we may reach, if we can go no
further. Does your heart burn with avarice, and a wretched desire of
more? Spells there are, and incantations, with which you may mitigate
this pain, and rid yourself of a great part of the distemper. Do you
swell with the love of praise? There are certain purgations which can
restore you, a certain treatise, being perused thrice with purity of
mind. The envious, the choleric, the indolent, the slave to wine, to
women--none is so savage that he can not be tamed, if he will only lend
a patient ear to discipline.
It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom, to have lived free
from folly. You see with what toil of mind and body you avoid those
things which you believe to be the greatest evils, a small fortune and a
shameful repulse. An active merchant, you run to the remotest Indies,
fleeing poverty through sea, through rocks, through flames. And will you
not learn, and hear, and be advised by one who is wiser, that you may no
longer regard those things which you foolishly admire and wish for? What
little champion of the villages and of the streets would scorn being
crowned at the great Olympic games, who had the hopes and happy
opportunity of victory without toil? Silver is less valuable than gold,
gold than virtue. "O citizens, citizens, money is to be sought first;
virtue after riches:" this the highest Janus from the lowest inculcates;
young men and old repeat these maxims, having their bags and
account-books hung on the left arm. You have soul, have breeding, have
eloquence and honor: yet if six or seven thousand sesterces be wanting
to complete your four hundred thousand, you shall be a plebeian. But
boys at play cry, "You shall be king, if you will do right. " Let this be
a [man's] brazen wall, to be conscious of no ill, to turn pale with no
guilt. Tell me, pray is the Roscian law best, or the boy's song which
offers the kingdom to them that do right, sung by the manly Curii and
Camilli? Does he advise you best, who says, "Make a fortune; a fortune,
if you can, honestly; if not, a fortune by any means"--that you may view
from a nearer bench the tear-moving poems of Puppius; or he, who still
animates and enables you to stand free and upright, a match for haughty
fortune?
If now perchance the Roman people should ask me, why I do not enjoy the
same sentiments with them, as [I do the same] porticoes, nor pursue or
fly from whatever they admire or dislike; I will reply, as the cautious
fox once answered the sick lion: "Because the foot-marks all looking
toward you, and none from you, affright me. " Thou art a monster with
many heads. For what shall I follow, or whom? One set of men delight to
farm the public revenues: there are some, who would inveigle covetous
widows with sweet-meats and fruits, and insnare old men, whom they would
send [like fish] into their ponds: the fortunes of many grow by
concealed usury. But be it, that different men are engaged in different
employments and pursuits: can the same persons continue an hour together
approving the same things? If the man of wealth has said, "No bay in the
world outshines delightful Baiae," the lake and the sea presently feel
the eagerness of their impetuous master: to whom, if a vicious humor
gives the omen, [he will cry,]--"to-morrow, workmen, ye shall convey
hence your tools to Teanum. " Has he in his hall the genial bed? He says
nothing is preferable to, nothing better than a single life. If he has
not, he swears the married only are happy. With what noose can I hold
this Proteus, varying thus his forms? What does the poor man? Laugh [at
him too]: is he not forever changing his garrets, beds, baths, barbers?
He is as much surfeited in a hired boat, as the rich man is, whom his
own galley conveys.
If I meet you with my hair cut by an uneven barber, you laugh [at me]:
if I chance to have a ragged shirt under a handsome coat, or if my
disproportioned gown fits me ill, you laugh. What [do you do], when my
judgment contradicts itself? it despises what it before desired; seeks
for that which lately it neglected; is all in a ferment, and is
inconsistent in the whole tenor of life; pulls down, builds up, changes
square to round. In this case, you think I am mad in the common way, and
you do not laugh, nor believe that I stand in need of a physician, or
of a guardian assigned by the praetor; though you are the patron of my
affairs, and are disgusted at the ill-pared nail of a friend that
depends upon you, that reveres you.
In a word, the wise man is inferior to Jupiter alone, is rich, free,
honorable, handsome, lastly, king of kings; above all, he is sound,
unless when phlegm is troublesome.
* * * * *
EPISTLE II.
TO LOLLIUS.
_He prefers Homer to all the philosophers, as a moral writer, and
advises an early cultivation of virtue_.
While you, great Lollius, declaim at Rome, I at Praeneste have perused
over again the writer of the Trojan war; who teaches more clearly, and
better than Chrysippus and Crantor, what is honorable, what shameful,
what profitable, what not so. If nothing hinders you, hear why I have
thus concluded. The story is which, on account of Paris's intrigue,
Greece is stated to be wasted in a tedious war with the barbarians,
contains the tumults of foolish princes and people. Antenor gives his
opinion for cutting off the cause of the war. What does Paris? He can
not be brought to comply, [though it be in order] that he may reign
safe, and live happy. Nestor labors to compose the differences between
Achilles and Agamemnon: love inflames one; rage both in common. The
Greeks suffer for what their princes act foolishly. Within the walls of
Ilium, and without, enormities are committed by sedition, treachery,
injustice, and lust, and rage.
Again, to show what virtue and what wisdom can do, he has propounded
Ulysses an instructive pattern: who, having subdued Troy, wisely got an
insight into the constitutions and customs of many nations; and, while
for himself and his associates he is contriving a return, endured many
hardships on the spacious sea, not to be sunk by all the waves of
adversity. You are well acquainted with the songs of the Sirens, and
Circe's cups: of which, if he had foolishly and greedily drunk along
with his attendants, he had been an ignominious and senseless slave
under the command of a prostitute: he had lived a filthy dog, or a hog
delighting in mire.
We are a mere number and born to consume the fruits of the earth; like
Penelope's suitors, useless drones; like Alcinous' youth, employed above
measure in pampering their bodies; whose glory was to sleep till
mid-day, and to lull their cares to rest by the sound of the harp.
Robbers rise by night, that they may cut men's throats; and will not you
awake to save yourself? But, if you will not when you are in health, you
will be forced to take exercise when you are in a dropsy; and unless
before day you call for a book with a light, unless you brace your mind
with study and honest employments, you will be kept awake and tormented
with envy or with love. For why do you hasten to remove things that hurt
your eyes, but if any thing gnaws your mind, defer the time of curing it
from year to year? He has half the deed done, who has made a beginning.
Boldly undertake the study of true wisdom: begin it forthwith. He who
postpones the hour of living well, like the hind [in the fable], waits
till [all the water in] the river be run off: whereas it flows, and will
flow, ever rolling on.
Money is sought, and a wife fruitful in bearing children, and wild
woodlands are reclaimed by the plow. [To what end all this? ] He, that
has got a competency, let him wish for no more. Not a house and farm,
nor a heap of brass and gold, can remove fevers from the body of their
sick master, or cares from his mind. The possessor must be well, if he
thinks of enjoying the things which he has accumulated. To him that is a
slave to desire or to fear, house and estate do just as much good as
paintings to a sore-eyed person, fomentations to the gout, music to ears
afflicted with collected matter. Unless the vessel be sweet, whatever
you pour into it turns sour.
Despise pleasures, pleasure bought with
pain is hurtful. The covetous man is ever in want; set a certain limit
to your wishes. The envious person wastes at the thriving condition of
another: Sicilian tyrants never invented a greater torment than envy. He
who will not curb his passion, will wish that undone which his grief and
resentment suggested, while he violently plies his revenge with unsated
rancor. Rage is a short madness. Rule your passion, which commands, if
it do not obey; do you restrain it with a bridle, and with fetters. The
groom forms the docile horse, while his neck is yet tender, to go the
way which his rider directs him: the young hound, from the time that he
barked at the deer's skin in the hall, campaigns it in the woods. Now,
while you are young, with an untainted mind Imbibe instruction: now
apply yourself to the best [masters of morality]. A cask will long
preserve the flavor, with which when new it was once impregnated. But if
you lag behind, or vigorously push on before, I neither wait for the
loiterer, nor strive to overtake those that precede me.
* * * * *
EPISTLE III.
TO JULIUS FLORUS.
_After inquiring about Claudius Tiberius Nero, and some of his friends,
he exhorts Florus to the study of philosophy_.
I long to know, Julius Florus, in what regions of the earth Claudius,
the step-son of Augustus, is waging war. Do Thrace and Hebrus, bound
with icy chains, or the narrow sea running between the neighboring
towers, or Asia's fertile plains and hills detain you? What works is the
studious train planning? In this too I am anxious--who takes upon
himself to write the military achievements of Augustus? Who diffuses
into distant ages his deeds in war and peace? What is Titius about, who
shortly will be celebrated by every Roman tongue; who dreaded not to
drink of the Pindaric spring, daring to disdain common waters and open
streams: how does he do? How mindful is he of me? Does he employ himself
to adapt Theban measures to the Latin lyre, under the direction of his
muse? Or does he storm and swell in the pompous style of traffic art?
What is my Celsus doing? He has been advised, and the advice is still
often to be repeated, to acquire stock of his own, and forbear to touch
whatever writings the Palatine Apollo has received: lest, if it chance
that the flock of birds should some time or other come to demand their
feathers, he, like the daw stripped of his stolen colors, be exposed to
ridicule. What do you yourself undertake? What thyme are you busy
hovering about? Your genius is not small, is not uncultivated nor
inelegantly rough. Whether you edge your tongue for [pleading] causes,
or whether you prepare to give counsel in the civil law, or whether you
compose some lovely poem; you will bear off the first prize of the
victorious ivy. If now you could quit the cold fomentations of care;
whithersoever heavenly wisdom would lead you, you would go. Let us,
both small and great, push forward in this work, in this pursuit: if to
our country, if to ourselves we would live dear.
You must also write me word of this, whether Munatiua is of as much
concern to you as he ought to be? Or whether the ill-patched
reconciliation in vain closes, and is rent asunder again? But, whether
hot blood, or inexperience in things, exasperates you, wild as coursers
with unsubdued neck, in whatever place you live, too worthy to break the
fraternal bond, a devoted heifer is feeding against your return.
* * * * *
EPISTLE IV.
TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS.
_He declares his accomplishments; and, after proposing the thought of
death, converts it into an occasion of pleasantry_.
Albius, thou candid critic of my discourses, what shall I say you are
now doing in the country about Pedum? Writing what may excel the works
of Cassius Parmensis; or sauntering silently among the healthful groves,
concerning yourself about every thing worthy a wise and good man? You
were not a body without a mind. The gods have given you a beautiful
form, the gods [have given] you wealth, and the faculty of enjoying it.
What greater blessing could a nurse solicit for her beloved child, than
that he might be wise, and able to express his sentiments; and that
respect, reputation, health might happen to him in abundance, and decent
living, with a never-failing purse?
In the midst of hope and care, in the midst of fears and disquietudes,
think every day that shines upon you is the last. [Thus] the hour, which
shall not be expected, will come upon you an agreeable addition.
When you have a mind to laugh, you shall see me fat and sleek with good
keeping, a hog of Epicurus' herd.
* * * * *
EPISTLE V.
TO TORQUATUS.
_He invites him to a frugal entertainment, but a cleanly and cheerful
one_.
If you can repose yourself as my guest upon Archias' couches, and are
not afraid to make a whole meal on all sorts of herbs from a moderate
dish; I will expect you, Torquatus, at my house about sun set. You shall
drink wine poured into the vessel in the second consulship of Taurus,
produced between the fenny Minturnae and Petrinum of Sinuessa. If you
have any thing better, send for it; or bring your commands. Bright
shines my hearth, and my furniture is clean for you already. Dismiss
airy hopes, and contests about riches, and Moschus' cause. To-morrow, a
festal day on account of Caesar's birth, admits of indulgence and
repose. We shall have free liberty to prolong the summer evening with
friendly conversation. To what purpose have I fortune, if I may not use
it? He that is sparing out of regard to his heir, and too niggardly, is
next neighbor to a madman. I will begin to drink and scatter flowers,
and I will endure even to be accounted foolish. What does not wine
freely drunken enterprise? It discloses secrets; commands our hopes to
be ratified; pushes the dastard on to the fight; removes the pressure
from troubled minds; teaches the arts. Whom have not plentiful cups made
eloquent? Whom have they not [made] free and easy under pinching
poverty?
I, who am both the proper person and not unwilling, am charged to take
care of these matters; that no dirty covering on the couch, no foul
napkin contract your nose into wrinkles; and that the cup and the dish
may show you to yourself; that there be no one to carry abroad what is
said among faithful friends; that equals may meet and be joined with
equals I will add to you Butra, and Septicius, and Sabinus, unless a
better entertainment and a mistress more agreeable detain him. There is
room also for many introductions: but goaty ramminess is offensive in
over-crowded companies.
Do you write word, what number you would be; and setting aside business,
through the back-door give the slip to your client who keeps guard in
your court.
* * * * *
EPISTLE VI.
TO NUMICIUS.
_That a wise man is in love with nothing but virtue_.
To admire nothing is almost the one and only thing, Numicius, which can
make and keep a man happy. There are who view this sun, and the stars,
and the seasons retiring at certain periods, untainted with any fear.
What do you think of the gifts of the earth? What of the sea, that
enriches the remote Arabians and Indians? What of scenical shows, the
applause and favors of the kind Roman? In what manner do you think they
are to be looked upon, with what apprehensions and countenance? He that
dreads the reverse of these, admires them almost in the same way as he
that desires them; fear alike disturbs both ways: an unforeseen turn of
things equally terrifies each of them: let a man rejoice or grieve,
desire or fear; what matters it--if, whatever he perceives better or
worse than his expectations, with downcast look he be stupefied in mind
and body? Let the wise man bear the name of fool, the just of unjust; if
he pursue virtue itself beyond proper bounds.
Go now, look with transport upon silver, and antique marble, and brazen
statues, and the arts: admire gems, and Tyrian dyes: rejoice, that a
thousand eyes are fixed upon you while you speak: industrious repair
early to the forum, late to your house, that Mutus may not reap more
grain [than you] from his lands gained in dowry, and (unbecoming, since
he sprung from meaner parents) that he may not be an object of
admiration to you rather than you to him. Whatever is in the earth, time
will bring forth into open day light; will bury and hide things, that
now shine brightest. When Agrippa's portico, and the Appian way, shall
have beheld you well known; still it remains for you to go where Numa
and Ancus are arrived. If your side or your reins are afflicted with an
acute disease, seek a remedy from the disease. Would you live happily?
Who would not? If virtue alone can confer this, discarding pleasures,
strenuously pursue it. Do you think virtue mere words, as a grove is
trees? Be it your care that no other enter the port before you; that you
lose not your traffic with Cibyra, with Bithynia. Let the round sum of a
thousand talents be completed; as many more; further, let a third
thousand succeed, and the part which may square the heap. For why,
sovereign money gives a wife with a [large] portion, and credit, and
friends, and family, and beauty; and [the goddesses], Persuasion and
Venus, graced the well-moneyed man. The king of the Cappadocians, rich
in slaves, is in want of coin; be not you like him. Lucullus, as they
say, being asked if he could lend a hundred cloaks for the stage, "How
can I so many? " said he: "yet I will see, and send as many as I have;" a
little after he writes that he had five thousand cloaks in his house;
they might take part of them, or all. It is a scanty house, where there
are not many things superfluous, and which escape the owner's notice,
and are the gain of pilfering slaves. If then wealth alone can make and
keep a man happy, be first in beginning this work, be last in leaving it
off. If appearances and popularity make a man fortunate, let as purchase
a slave to dictate [to us] the names [of the citizens], to jog us on the
left-side, and to make us stretch our hand over obstacles: "This man has
much interest in the Fabian, that in the Veline tribe; this will give
the fasces to any one, and, indefatigably active, snatch the curule
ivory from whom he pleases; add [the names of] father, brother:
according as the age of each is, so courteously adopt him. If he who
feasts well, lives well; it is day, let us go whither our appetite leads
us: let us fish, let us hunt, as did some time Gargilius: who ordered
his toils, hunting-spears, slaves, early in the morning to pass through
the crowded forum and the people: that one mule among many, in the sight
of the people, might return loaded with a boar purchased with money. Let
us bathe with an indigested and full-swollen stomach, forgetting what is
becoming, what not; deserving to be enrolled among the citizens of
Caere; like the depraved crew of Ulysses of Ithaca, to whom forbidden
pleasure was dearer than their country. If, as Mimnermus thinks, nothing
is pleasant without love and mirth, live in love and mirth.
Live: be happy. If you know of any thing preferable to these maxims,
candidly communicate it: if not, with me make use of these.
* * * * *
EPISTLE VII.
TO MAECENAS.
_He apologizes to Maecenas for his long absence from Rome; and
acknowledges his favors to him in such a manner as to declare liberty
preferable to all other blessings_.
Having promised you that I would be in the country but five days, false
to my word, I am absent the whole of August. But, if you would have me
live sound and in perfect health, the indulgence which you grant me,
Maecenas, when I am ill, you will grant me [also] when I am afraid of
being ill: while [the time of] the first figs, and the [autumnal] heat
graces the undertaker with his black attendants; while every father and
mother turn pale with fear for their children; and while over-acted
diligence, and attendance at the forum, bring on fevers and unseal
wills. But, if the winter shall scatter snow upon the Alban fields, your
poet will go down to the seaside, and be careful of himself, and read
bundled up; you, dear friend, he will revisit with the zephyrs, if you
will give him leave, and with the first swallow.
You have made me rich, not in the manner in which the Calabrian host
bids [his guest] eat of his pears. "Eat, pray, sir. " "I have had
enough. " "But take away with you what quantity you will. " "You are very
kind. " "You will carry them no disagreeable presents to your little
children. " "I am as much obliged by your offer, as if I were sent away
loaded. " "As you please: you leave them to be devoured to-day by the
hogs. " The prodigal and fool gives away what he despises and hates; the
reaping of favors like these has produced, and ever will produce,
ungrateful men. A good and wise man professes himself ready to do
kindness to the deserving; and yet is not ignorant, how true coins
differ from lupines. I will also show myself deserving of the honor of
being grateful. But if you would not have me depart any whither, you
must restore my vigorous constitution, the black locks [that grew] on my
narrow forehead: you must restore to me the power of talking pleasantly:
you must restore to me the art of laughing with becoming ease, and
whining over my liquor at the jilting of the wanton Cynara.
A thin field-mouse had by chance crept through a narrow cranny into a
chest of grain; and, having feasted itself, in vain attempted to come
out again, with its body now stuffed full. To which a weasel at a
distance cries, "If you would escape thence, repair lean to the narrow
hole which you entered lean. " If I be addressed with this similitude, I
resign all; neither do I, sated with delicacies, cry up the calm repose
of the vulgar, nor would I change my liberty and ease for the riches of
the Arabians. You have often commended me for being modest; when present
you heard [from me the appellations of] king and father, nor am I a word
more sparing in your absence. Try whether I can cheerfully restore what
you have given me. Not amiss [answered] Telemachus, son of the patient
Ulysses: "The country of Ithaca is not proper for horses, as being
neither extended into champaign fields, nor abounding with much grass:
Atrides, I will leave behind me your gifts, [which are] more proper for
yourself. " Small things best suit the small. No longer does imperial
Rome please me, but unfrequented Tibur, and unwarlike Tarentum.
Philip, active and strong, and famed for pleading causes, while
returning from his employment about the eighth hour, and now of a great
age, complaining that the Carinae were too far distant from the forum;
spied, as they say, a person clean shaven in a barber's empty shed,
composedly paring his own nails with a knife. "Demetrius," [says he,]
(this slave dexterously received his master's orders,) "go inquire, and
bring me word from what house, who he is, of what fortune, who is his
father, or who is his patron. " He goes, returns, and relates, that "he
is by name, Vulteius Maena, an auctioneer, of small fortune, of a
character perfectly unexceptionable, that he could upon occasion ply
busily, and take his ease, and get, and spend; delighting in humble
companions and a settled dwelling, and (after business ended) in the
shows, and the Campus Martius. "
"I would inquire of him himself all this, which you report; bid him come
to sup with me. " Maena can not believe it; he wonders silently within
himself. Why many words? He answers, "It is kind. " "Can he deny me? "
"The rascal denies, and disregards or dreads you. " In the morning Philip
comes unawares upon Vulteius, as he is selling brokery-goods to the
tunic'd populace, and salutes him first. He pleads to Philip his
employment, and the confinement of his business, in excuse for not
having waited upon him in the morning; and afterward, for not seeing him
first. "Expect that I will excuse you on this condition, that you sup
with me to-day. " "As you please. " "Then you will come after the ninth
hour: now go: strenuously increase your stock. " When they were come to
supper, having discoursed of things of a public and private nature, at
length he is dismissed to go to sleep. When he had often been seen, to
repair like a fish to the concealed hook, in the morning a client, and
now as a constant guest; he is desired to accompany [Philip] to his
country-seat near the city, at the proclaiming of the Latin festivals.
Mounted on horseback, he ceases not to cry up the Sabine fields and air.
Philip sees it, and smiles: and, while he is seeking amusement and
diversion for himself out of every thing, while he makes him a present
of seven thousand sesterces, and promises to lend him seven thousand
more: he persuades him to purchase a farm: he purchases one. That I may
not detain you with a long story beyond what is necessary, from a smart
cit he becomes a downright rustic, and prates of nothing but furrows and
vineyards; prepares his elms; is ready to die with eager diligence, and
grows old through a passionate desire of possessing. But when his sheep
were lost by theft, his goats by distemper, his harvest deceived his
hopes, his ox was killed with plowing; fretted with these losses, at
midnight he snatches his nag, and in a passion makes his way to Philip's
house. Whom as soon as Philip beheld, rough and unshaven, "Vulteius,"
said he, "you seem to me to be too laborious and earnest. " "In truth,
patron," replied he, "you would call me a wretch, if you would apply to
me my true name. I beseech and conjure you then, by your genius and your
right hand and your household gods, restore me to my former life. " As
soon as a man perceives, how much the things he has discarded excel
those which he pursues, let him return in time, and resume those which
he relinquished.
It is a truth, that every one ought to measure himself by his own proper
foot and standard.
* * * * *
EPISTLE VIII.
TO CELSUS ALBINOVANUS.
_That he was neither well in body, nor in mind; that Celtics should bear
his prosperity with moderation_.
My muse at my request, give joy and wish success to Celsus Albinovanus,
the attendant and the secretary of Nero. If he shall inquire, what I am
doing, say that I, though promising many and fine things, yet live
neither well [according to the rules of strict philosophy], nor
agreeably; not because the hail has crushed my vines, and the heat has
nipped my olives; nor because my herds are distempered in distant
pastures; but because, less sound in my mind than in my whole body, I
will hear nothing, learn nothing which may relieve me, diseased as I am;
that I am displeased with my faithful physicians, am angry with my
friends for being industrious to rouse me from a fatal lethargy; that I
pursue things which have done me hurt, avoid things which I am persuaded
would be of service, inconstant as the wind, at Rome am in love with
Tibur, at Tibur with Rome. After this, inquire how he does; how he
manages his business and himself; how he pleases the young prince and
his attendants. If he shall say, well; first congratulate him, then
remember to whisper this admonition in his ears: As you, Celsus, bear
your fortunes, so will we bear you.
* * * * *
EPISTLE IX.
TO CLAUDIUS TIBERIUS NERO.
_He recommends Septimius to him_.
Of all the men in the world Septimius surely, O Claudius, knows how much
regard you have for me. For when he requests, and by his entreaties in a
manner compels me, to undertake to recommend and introduce him to you,
as one worthy of the confidence and the household of Nero, who is wont
to choose deserving objects, thinking I discharge the office of an
intimate friend; he sees and knows better than myself what I can do. I
said a great deal, indeed, in order that I might come off excused: but I
was afraid, lest I should be suspected to pretend my interest was less
than it is, to be a dissembler of my own power, and ready to serve
myself alone. So, avoiding the reproach of a greater fault, I have put
in for the prize of town-bred confidence. If then you approve of modesty
being superseded at the pressing entreaties of a friend, enrol this
person among your retinue, and believe him to be brave and good.
EPISTLE X.
TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS.
_He praises a country before a city life, as more agreeable to nature,
and more friendly to liberty_.
We, who love the country, salute Fuscus that loves the town; in this
point alone [being] much unlike, but in other things almost twins, of
brotherly sentiments: whatever one denies the other too [denies]; we
assent together: like old and constant doves, you keep the nest; I
praise the rivulets, the rocks overgrown with moss, and the groves of
the delightful country. Do you ask why? I live and reign, as soon as I
have quitted those things which you extol to the skies with joyful
applause. And, like a priest's, fugitive slave I reject luscious wafers,
I desire plain bread, which is more agreeable now than honied cakes.
If we must live suitably to nature, and a plot of ground is to be first
sought to raise a house upon, do you know any place preferable to the
blissful country? Is there any spot where the winters are more
temperate? where a more agreeable breeze moderates the rage of the
Dog-star, and the season of the Lion, when once that furious sign has
received the scorching sun? Is there a place where envious care less
disturbs our slumbers? Is the grass inferior in smell or beauty to the
Libyan pebbles? Is the water, which strives to burst the lead in the
streets, purer than that which trembles in murmurs down its sloping
channel? Why, trees are nursed along the variegated columns [of the
city]; and that house is commended, which has a prospect of distant
fields. You may drive out nature with a fork, yet still she will return,
and, insensibly victorious, will break through [men's] improper
disgusts.
Not he who is unable to compare the fleeces that drink up the dye of
Aquinum with the Sidonian purple, will receive a more certain damage
and nearer to his marrow, than he who shall not be able to distinguish
false from true. He who has been overjoyed by prosperity, will be
shocked by a change of circumstances. If you admire any thing [greatly],
you will be unwilling to resign it. Avoid great things; under a mean
roof one may outstrip kings, and the favorites of kings, in one's life.
The stag, superior in fight, drove the horse from the common pasture,
till the latter, worsted in the long contest, implored the aid of man
and received the bridle; but after he had parted an exulting conqueror
from his enemy, he could not shake the rider from his back, nor the bit
from his mouth. So he who, afraid of poverty, forfeits his liberty, more
valuable than mines, avaricious wretch, shall carry a master, and shall
eternally be a slave, for not knowing how to use a little. When a man's
condition does not suit him, it will be as a shoe at any time; which, if
too big for his foot, will throw him down; if too little, will pinch
him. [If you are] cheerful under your lot, Aristius, you will live
wisely; nor shall you let me go uncorrected, if I appear to scrape
together more than enough and not have done. Accumulated money is the
master or slave of each owner, and ought rather to follow than to lead
the twisted rope.
These I dictated to thee behind the moldering temple of Vacuna; in all
other things happy, except that thou wast not with me.
* * * * *
EPISTLE XI.
TO BULLATIUS.
_Endeavoring to recall him back to Rome from Asia, whither he had
retreated through his weariness of the civil wars, he advises him to
ease the disquietude of his mind not by the length of his journey, but
by forming his mind into a right disposition_.
What, Bullatius, do you think of Chios, and of celebrated Lesbos? What
of neat Samos? What of Sardis, the royal residence of Croesus? What of
Smyrna, and Colophon? Are they greater or less than their fame? Are they
all contemptible in comparison of the Campus Martius and the river
Tiber? Does one of Attalus' cities enter into your wish? Or do you
admire Lebedus, through a surfeit of the sea and of traveling? You know
what Lebedus is; it is a more unfrequented town than Gabii and Fidenae;
yet there would I be willing to live; and, forgetful of my friends and
forgotten by them, view from land Neptune raging at a distance. But
neither he who comes to Rome from Capua, bespattered with rain and mire,
would wish to live in an inn; nor does he, who has contracted a cold,
cry up stoves and bagnios as completely furnishing a happy life: nor, if
the violent south wind has tossed you in the deep, will you therefore
sell your ship on the other side of the Aegean Sea.
which I and my friends regale ourselves in the presence of my household
gods; and feed my saucy slaves with viands, of which libations have been
made. The guest, according to every one's inclination, takes off the
glasses of different sizes, free from mad laws: whether one of a strong
constitution chooses hearty bumpers; or another more joyously gets
mellow with moderate ones. Then conversation arises, not concerning
other people's villas and houses, nor whether Lepos dances well or not;
but we debate on what is more to our purpose, and what it is pernicious
not to know--whether men are made happier by riches or by virtue; or
what leads us into intimacies, interest or moral rectitude; and what is
the nature of good, and what its perfection. Meanwhile, my neighbor
Cervius prates away old stories relative to the subject. For, if any one
ignorantly commends the troublesome riches of Aurelius, he thus begins:
"On a time a country-mouse is reported to have received a city-mouse
into his poor cave, an old host, his old acquaintance; a blunt fellow
and attentive to his acquisitions, yet so as he could [on occasion]
enlarge his narrow soul in acts of hospitality. What need of many words?
He neither grudged him the hoarded vetches, nor the long oats; and
bringing in his mouth a dry plum, and nibbled scraps of bacon, presented
them to him, being desirous by the variety of the supper to get the
better of the daintiness of his guest, who hardly touched with his
delicate tooth the several things: while the father of the family
himself, extended on fresh straw, ate a spelt and darnel leaving that
which was better [for his guest]. At length the citizen addressing him,
'Friend,' says he, 'what delight have you to live laboriously on the
ridge of a rugged thicket? Will you not prefer men and the city to the
savage woods? Take my advice, and go along with me: since mortal lives
are allotted to all terrestrial animals, nor is there any escape from
death, either for the great or the small. Wherefore, my good friend,
while it is in your power, live happy in joyous circumstances: live
mindful of how brief an existence you are. ' Soon as these speeches had
wrought upon the peasant, he leaps nimbly from his cave: thence they
both pursue their intended journey, being desirous to steal under the
city walls by night. And now the night possessed the middle region of
the heavens, when each of them set foot in a gorgeous palace, where
carpets dyed with crimson grain glittered upon ivory couches, and many
baskets of a magnificent entertainment remained, which had yesterday
been set by in baskets piled upon one another. After he had placed the
peasant then, stretched at ease upon a splendid carpet; he bustles about
like an adroit host, and keeps bringing up one dish close upon another,
and with an affected civility performs all the ceremonies, first tasting
of every thing he serves up. He, reclined, rejoices in the change of his
situation, and acts the part of a boon companion in the good cheer: when
on a sudden a prodigious rattling of the folding doors shook them both
from their couches. Terrified they began to scamper all about the room,
and more and more heartless to be in confusion, while the lofty house
resounded with [the barking of] mastiff dogs; upon which, says the
country-mouse, 'I have no desire for a life like this; and so farewell:
my wood and cave, secure from surprises, shall with homely tares comfort
me. '"
* * * * *
SATIRE VII.
_One of Horace's slaves, making use of that freedom which was allowed
them at the Saturnalia, rates his master in a droll and severe manner_.
I have a long while been attending [to you], and would fain speak a few
words [in return; but, being] a slave, I am afraid. What, Davus? Yes,
Davus, a faithful servant to his master and an honest one, at least
sufficiently so: that is, for you to think his life in no danger. Well
(since our ancestors would have it so), use the freedom of December
speak on.
One part of mankind are fond of their vices with some constancy and
adhere to their purpose: a considerable part fluctuates; one while
embracing the right, another while liable to depravity. Priscus,
frequently observed with three rings, sometimes with his left hand bare,
lived so irregularly that he would change his robe every hour; from a
magnificent edifice, he would on a sudden hide himself in a place,
whence a decent freedman could scarcely come out in a decent manner; one
while he would choose to lead the life of a rake at Rome, another while
that of a teacher at Athens; born under the evil influence of every
Vertumnus. That buffoon, Volanerius, when the deserved gout had crippled
his fingers, maintained [a fellow] that he had hired at a daily price,
who took up the dice and put them into a box for him: yet by how much
more constant was he in his vice, by so much less wretched was he than
the former person, who is now in difficulties by too loose, now by too
tight a rein.
"Will you not tell to-day, you varlet, whither such wretched stuff as
this tends? " "Why, to you, I say. " "In what respect to me, scoundrel? "
"You praise the happiness and manners of the ancient [Roman] people; and
yet, if any god were on a sudden to reduce you to to them, you, the same
man, would earnestly beg to be excused; either because you are not
really of opinion that what you bawl about is right; or because you are
irresolute in defending the right, and hesitate, in vain desirous to
extract your foot from the mire. At Rome, you long for the country; when
you are in the country, fickle, you extol the absent city to the skies.
If haply you are invited out nowhere to supper, you praise your quiet
dish of vegetables; and as if you ever go abroad upon compulsion, you
think yourself so happy, and do so hug yourself, that you are obliged to
drink out nowhere. Should Maecenas lay his commands on you to come late,
at the first lighting up of the lamps, as his guest; 'Will nobody bring
the oil with more expedition? Does any body hear? ' You stutter with a
mighty bellowing, and storm with rage. Milvius, and the buffoons [who
expected to sup with you], depart, after having uttered curses not
proper to be repeated. Any one may say, for I own [the truth], that I am
easy to be seduced by my appetite; I snuff up my nose at a savory smell:
I am weak, lazy; and, if you have a mind to add any thing else, I am a
sot. But seeing you are as I am, and perhaps something worse, why do you
willfully call me to an account as if you were the better man; and, with
specious phrases, disguise your own vice? What, if you are found out to
be a greater fool than me, who was purchased for five hundred drachmas?
Forbear to terrify me with your looks; restrain your hand and your
anger, while I relate to you what Crispinus' porter taught me.
"Another man's wife captivates you; a harlot, Davus: which of us sins
more deservingly of the cross? When keen nature inflames me, any common
wench that picks me up, dismisses me neither dishonored, nor caring
whether a richer or a handsomer man enjoys her next. You, when you have
cast off your ensigns of dignity, your equestrian ring and your Roman
habit, turn out from a magistrate a wretched Dama, hiding with a cape
your perfumed head: are you not really what you personate? You are
introduced, apprehensive [of consequences]; and, as you are altercating
With your passions, your bones shake with fear. What is the difference
whether you go condemned [like a gladiator], to be galled with scourges,
or slain with the sword; or be closed up in a filthy chest, where [the
maid], concious of her mistress' crime, has stowed you? Has not the
husband of the offending dame a just power over both; against the
seducer even a juster? But she neither changes her dress, nor place, nor
sins to that excess [which you do]; since the woman is in dread of you,
nor gives any credit to you, though you profess to love her. You must go
under the yoke knowingly, and put all your fortune, your life, and
reputation, together with your limbs, into the power of an enraged
husband. Have you escaped? I suppose, then, you will be afraid [for the
future]; and, being warned, will be cautious. No, you will seek occasion
when you may be again in terror, and again may be likely to perish. O so
often a slave! What beast, when it has once escaped by breaking its
toils, absurdly trusts itself to them again? You say, "I am no
adulterer. " Nor, by Hercules, am I a thief, when I wisely pass by the
silver vases. Take away the danger, and vagrant nature will spring
forth, when restraints are removed. Are you my superior, subjected as
you are, to the dominion of so many things and persons, whom the
praetor's rod, though placed on your head three or four times over, can
never free from this wretched solicitude? Add, to what has been said
above, a thing of no less weight; whether he be an underling, who obeys
the master-slave (as it is your custom to affirm), or only a
fellow-slave, what am I in respect of you? You, for example, who have
the command of me, are in subjection to other things, and are led about,
like a puppet movable by means of wires not its own.
"Who then is free? The wise man, who has dominion over himself; whom
neither poverty, nor death, nor chains affright; brave in the checking
of his appetites, and in contemning honors; and, perfect in himself,
polished and round as a globe, so that nothing from without can retard,
in consequence of its smoothness; against whom misfortune ever advances
ineffectually. Can you, out of these, recognize any thing applicable to
yourself? A woman demands five talents of you, plagues you, and after
you are turned out of doors, bedews you with cold water: she calls you
again. Rescue your neck from this vile yoke; come, say, I am free, I am
free. You are not able: for an implacable master oppresses your mind,
and claps the sharp spurs to your jaded appetite, and forces you on
though reluctant. When you, mad one, quite languish at a picture by
Pausias; how are you less to blame than I, when I admire the combats of
Fulvius and Rutuba and Placideianus, with their bended knees, painted in
crayons or charcoal, as if the men were actually engaged, and push and
parry, moving their weapons? Davus is a scoundrel and a loiterer; but
you have the character of an exquisite and expert connoisseur in
antiquities. If I am allured by a smoking pasty, I am a good-for-nothing
fellow: does your great virtue and soul resist delicate entertainments?
Why is a tenderness for my belly too destructive for me? For my back
pays for it. How do you come off with more impunity, since you hanker
after such dainties as can not be had for a little expense? Then those
delicacies, perpetually taken, pall upon the stomach; and your mistaken
feet refuse to support your sickly body. Is that boy guilty, who by
night pawns a stolen scraper for some grapes? Has he nothing servile
about him, who in indulgence to his guts sells his estates? Add to this,
that you yourself can not be an hour by yourself, nor dispose of your
leisure in a right manner; and shun yourself as a fugitive and vagabond,
one while endeavoring with wine, another while with sleep, to cheat
care--in vain: for the gloomy companion presses upon you, and pursues
you in your flight.
"Where can I get a stone? " "What occasion is there for it? " "Where some
darts? " "The man is either mad, or making verses. " "If you do not take
yourself away in an instant, you shall go [and make] a ninth laborer at
my Sabine estate. "
* * * * *
SATIRE VIII.
_A smart description of a miser ridiculously acting the extravagant. _
How did the entertainment of that happy fellow Nasidienus please you?
for yesterday, as I was seeking to make you my guest, you were said to
be drinking there from mid-day. [It pleased me so], that I never was
happier in my life. Say (if it be not troublesome) what food first
calmed your raging appetite.
In the first place, there was a Lucanian boar, taken when the gentle
south wind blew, as the father of the entertainment affirmed; around it
sharp rapes, lettuces, radishes; such things as provoke a languid
appetite; skirrets, anchovies, dregs of Coan wine. These once removed,
one slave, tucked high with a purple cloth, wiped the maple table, and a
second gathered up whatever lay useless, and whatever could offend the
guests; swarthy Hydaspes advances like an Attic maid with Ceres' sacred
rites, bearing wines of Caecubum; Alcon brings those of Chios, undamaged
by the sea. Here the master [cries], "Maecenas, if Alban or Falernian
wine delight you more than those already brought, we have both. "
Ill-fated riches! But, Fundanius, I am impatient to know, who were
sharers in this feast where you fared so well.
I was highest, and next me was Viscus Thurinus, and below, if I
remember, was Varius; with Servilius Balatro, Vibidius, whom Maecenas
had brought along with him, unbidden guests. Above [Nasidienus] himself
was Nomentanus, below him Porcius, ridiculous for swallowing whole cakes
at once. Nomentanus [was present] for this purpose, that if any thing
should chance to be unobserved, he might show it with his pointing
finger. For the other company, we, I mean, eat [promiscuously] of fowls,
oysters, fish, which had concealed in them a juice far different from
the known: as presently appeared, when he reached to me the entrails of
a plaice and of a turbot, such as had never been tasted before. After
this he informed me that honey-apples were most ruddy when gathered
under the waning moon. What difference this makes you will hear best
from himself. Then [says] Vibidius to Balatro; "If we do not drink to
his cost, we shall die in his debt;" and he calls for larger tumblers. A
paleness changed the countenance of our host, who fears nothing so much
as hard drinkers: either because they are more freely censorious; or
because heating wines deafen the subtle [judgment of the] palate.
Vibidius and Balatro, all following their example, pour whole casks into
Alliphanians; the guests of the lowest couch did no hurt to the flagons.
A lamprey is brought in, extended in a dish, in the midst of floating
shrimps. Whereupon, "This," says the master, "was caught when pregnant;
which, after having young, would have been less delicate in its flesh. "
For these a sauce is mixed up; with oil which the best cellar of
Venafrum pressed, with pickle from the juices of the Iberian fish, with
wine of five years old, but produced on this side the sea, while it is
boiling (after it is boiled, the Chian wine suits it so well, that no
other does better than it) with white pepper, and vinegar which, by
being vitiated, turned sour the Methymnean grape. I first showed the way
to stew in it the green rockets and bitter elecampane: Curtillus, [to
stew in it] the sea-urchins unwashed, as being better than the pickle
which the sea shell-fish yields.
In the mean time the suspended tapestry made a heavy downfall upon the
dish, bringing along with it more black dust than the north wind ever
raises on the plains of Campania. Having been fearful of something
worse, as soon as we perceive there was no danger, we rise up. Rufus,
hanging his head, began to weep, as if his son had come to an untimely
death: what would have been the end, had not the discreet Nomentanus
thus raised his friend! "Alas! O fortune, what god is more cruel to us
than thou? How dost thou always take pleasure in sporting with human
affairs! " Varius could scarcely smother a laugh with his napkin.
Balatro, sneering at every thing, observed: "This is the condition of
human life, and therefore a suitable glory will never answer your labor.
Must you be rent and tortured with all manner of anxiety, that I may be
entertained sumptuously; lest burned bread, lest ill-seasoned soup
should be set before us; that all your slaves should wait, properly
attired and neat? Add, besides, these accidents; if the hangings should
tumble down, as just now, if the groom slipping with his foot should
break a dish. But adversity is wont to disclose, prosperity to conceal,
the abilities of a host as well as of a general. " To this Nasidienus:
"May the gods give you all the blessings, whatever you can pray for, you
are so good a man and so civil a guest;" and calls for his sandals. Then
on every couch you might see divided whispers buzzing in each secret
ear.
I would not choose to have seen any theatrical entertainments sooner
than these things. But come, recount what you laughed at next. While
Vibidius is inquiring of the slaves, whether the flagon was also broken,
because cups were not brought when he called for them; and while a laugh
is continued on feigned pretences, Balatro seconding it; you Nasidienus,
return with an altered countenance, as if to repair your ill-fortune by
art. Then followed the slaves, bearing on a large charger the several
limbs of a crane besprinkled with much salt, not without flour, and the
liver of a white goose fed with fattening figs, and the wings of hares
torn off, as a much daintier dish than if one eats them with the loins.
Then we saw blackbirds also set before us with scorched breasts, and
ring-doves without the rumps: delicious morsels! did not the master give
us the history of their causes and natures: whom we in revenge fled
from, so as to taste nothing at all; as if Canidia, more venomous than
African serpents, had poisoned them with her breath.
* * * * *
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE EPISTLES OF HORACE.
EPISTLE I.
TO MAECENAS.
_The poet renounces all verses of a ludicrous turn, and resolves to
apply himself wholly to the study of philosophy, which teaches to bridle
the desires, and to postpone every thing to virtue. _
Maecenas, the subject of my earliest song, justly entitled to my latest,
dost thou seek to engage me again in the old lists, having been tried
sufficiently, and now presented with the foils? My age is not the same,
nor is my genius. Veianius, his arms consecrated on a pillar of
Hercules' temple, lives snugly retired in the country, that he may not
from the extremity of the sandy amphitheater so often supplicate the
people's favor. Some one seems frequently to ring in my purified ear:
"Wisely in time dismiss the aged courser, lest, an object of derision,
he miscarry at last, and break his wind. " Now therefore I lay aside both
verses, and all other sportive matters; my study and inquiry is after
what is true and fitting, and I am wholly engaged in this: I lay up, and
collect rules which I may be able hereafter to bring into use. And lest
you should perchance ask under what leader, in what house [of
philosophy], I enter myself a pupil: addicted to swear implicitly to the
ipse-dixits of no particular master, wherever the weather drives me, I
am carried a guest. One while I become active, and am plunged in the
waves of state affairs, a maintainer and a rigid partisan of strict
virtue; then again I relapse insensibly into Aristippus' maxims, and
endeavor to adapt circumstances to myself, not myself to circumstances.
As the night seems long to those with whom a mistress has broken her
appointment, and the day slow to those who owe their labor; as the year
moves lazy with minors, whom the harsh guardianship of their mothers
confines; so all that time to me flows tedious and distasteful, which
delays my hope and design of strenuously executing that which is of
equal benefit to the poor and to the rich, which neglected will be of
equal detriment to young and to old. It remains, that I conduct and
comfort myself by these principles; your sight is not so piercing as
that of Lynceus; you will not however therefore despise being anointed,
if you are sore-eyed: nor because you despair of the muscles of the
invincible Glycon, will you be careless of preserving your body from the
knotty gout. There is some point to which we may reach, if we can go no
further. Does your heart burn with avarice, and a wretched desire of
more? Spells there are, and incantations, with which you may mitigate
this pain, and rid yourself of a great part of the distemper. Do you
swell with the love of praise? There are certain purgations which can
restore you, a certain treatise, being perused thrice with purity of
mind. The envious, the choleric, the indolent, the slave to wine, to
women--none is so savage that he can not be tamed, if he will only lend
a patient ear to discipline.
It is virtue, to fly vice; and the highest wisdom, to have lived free
from folly. You see with what toil of mind and body you avoid those
things which you believe to be the greatest evils, a small fortune and a
shameful repulse. An active merchant, you run to the remotest Indies,
fleeing poverty through sea, through rocks, through flames. And will you
not learn, and hear, and be advised by one who is wiser, that you may no
longer regard those things which you foolishly admire and wish for? What
little champion of the villages and of the streets would scorn being
crowned at the great Olympic games, who had the hopes and happy
opportunity of victory without toil? Silver is less valuable than gold,
gold than virtue. "O citizens, citizens, money is to be sought first;
virtue after riches:" this the highest Janus from the lowest inculcates;
young men and old repeat these maxims, having their bags and
account-books hung on the left arm. You have soul, have breeding, have
eloquence and honor: yet if six or seven thousand sesterces be wanting
to complete your four hundred thousand, you shall be a plebeian. But
boys at play cry, "You shall be king, if you will do right. " Let this be
a [man's] brazen wall, to be conscious of no ill, to turn pale with no
guilt. Tell me, pray is the Roscian law best, or the boy's song which
offers the kingdom to them that do right, sung by the manly Curii and
Camilli? Does he advise you best, who says, "Make a fortune; a fortune,
if you can, honestly; if not, a fortune by any means"--that you may view
from a nearer bench the tear-moving poems of Puppius; or he, who still
animates and enables you to stand free and upright, a match for haughty
fortune?
If now perchance the Roman people should ask me, why I do not enjoy the
same sentiments with them, as [I do the same] porticoes, nor pursue or
fly from whatever they admire or dislike; I will reply, as the cautious
fox once answered the sick lion: "Because the foot-marks all looking
toward you, and none from you, affright me. " Thou art a monster with
many heads. For what shall I follow, or whom? One set of men delight to
farm the public revenues: there are some, who would inveigle covetous
widows with sweet-meats and fruits, and insnare old men, whom they would
send [like fish] into their ponds: the fortunes of many grow by
concealed usury. But be it, that different men are engaged in different
employments and pursuits: can the same persons continue an hour together
approving the same things? If the man of wealth has said, "No bay in the
world outshines delightful Baiae," the lake and the sea presently feel
the eagerness of their impetuous master: to whom, if a vicious humor
gives the omen, [he will cry,]--"to-morrow, workmen, ye shall convey
hence your tools to Teanum. " Has he in his hall the genial bed? He says
nothing is preferable to, nothing better than a single life. If he has
not, he swears the married only are happy. With what noose can I hold
this Proteus, varying thus his forms? What does the poor man? Laugh [at
him too]: is he not forever changing his garrets, beds, baths, barbers?
He is as much surfeited in a hired boat, as the rich man is, whom his
own galley conveys.
If I meet you with my hair cut by an uneven barber, you laugh [at me]:
if I chance to have a ragged shirt under a handsome coat, or if my
disproportioned gown fits me ill, you laugh. What [do you do], when my
judgment contradicts itself? it despises what it before desired; seeks
for that which lately it neglected; is all in a ferment, and is
inconsistent in the whole tenor of life; pulls down, builds up, changes
square to round. In this case, you think I am mad in the common way, and
you do not laugh, nor believe that I stand in need of a physician, or
of a guardian assigned by the praetor; though you are the patron of my
affairs, and are disgusted at the ill-pared nail of a friend that
depends upon you, that reveres you.
In a word, the wise man is inferior to Jupiter alone, is rich, free,
honorable, handsome, lastly, king of kings; above all, he is sound,
unless when phlegm is troublesome.
* * * * *
EPISTLE II.
TO LOLLIUS.
_He prefers Homer to all the philosophers, as a moral writer, and
advises an early cultivation of virtue_.
While you, great Lollius, declaim at Rome, I at Praeneste have perused
over again the writer of the Trojan war; who teaches more clearly, and
better than Chrysippus and Crantor, what is honorable, what shameful,
what profitable, what not so. If nothing hinders you, hear why I have
thus concluded. The story is which, on account of Paris's intrigue,
Greece is stated to be wasted in a tedious war with the barbarians,
contains the tumults of foolish princes and people. Antenor gives his
opinion for cutting off the cause of the war. What does Paris? He can
not be brought to comply, [though it be in order] that he may reign
safe, and live happy. Nestor labors to compose the differences between
Achilles and Agamemnon: love inflames one; rage both in common. The
Greeks suffer for what their princes act foolishly. Within the walls of
Ilium, and without, enormities are committed by sedition, treachery,
injustice, and lust, and rage.
Again, to show what virtue and what wisdom can do, he has propounded
Ulysses an instructive pattern: who, having subdued Troy, wisely got an
insight into the constitutions and customs of many nations; and, while
for himself and his associates he is contriving a return, endured many
hardships on the spacious sea, not to be sunk by all the waves of
adversity. You are well acquainted with the songs of the Sirens, and
Circe's cups: of which, if he had foolishly and greedily drunk along
with his attendants, he had been an ignominious and senseless slave
under the command of a prostitute: he had lived a filthy dog, or a hog
delighting in mire.
We are a mere number and born to consume the fruits of the earth; like
Penelope's suitors, useless drones; like Alcinous' youth, employed above
measure in pampering their bodies; whose glory was to sleep till
mid-day, and to lull their cares to rest by the sound of the harp.
Robbers rise by night, that they may cut men's throats; and will not you
awake to save yourself? But, if you will not when you are in health, you
will be forced to take exercise when you are in a dropsy; and unless
before day you call for a book with a light, unless you brace your mind
with study and honest employments, you will be kept awake and tormented
with envy or with love. For why do you hasten to remove things that hurt
your eyes, but if any thing gnaws your mind, defer the time of curing it
from year to year? He has half the deed done, who has made a beginning.
Boldly undertake the study of true wisdom: begin it forthwith. He who
postpones the hour of living well, like the hind [in the fable], waits
till [all the water in] the river be run off: whereas it flows, and will
flow, ever rolling on.
Money is sought, and a wife fruitful in bearing children, and wild
woodlands are reclaimed by the plow. [To what end all this? ] He, that
has got a competency, let him wish for no more. Not a house and farm,
nor a heap of brass and gold, can remove fevers from the body of their
sick master, or cares from his mind. The possessor must be well, if he
thinks of enjoying the things which he has accumulated. To him that is a
slave to desire or to fear, house and estate do just as much good as
paintings to a sore-eyed person, fomentations to the gout, music to ears
afflicted with collected matter. Unless the vessel be sweet, whatever
you pour into it turns sour.
Despise pleasures, pleasure bought with
pain is hurtful. The covetous man is ever in want; set a certain limit
to your wishes. The envious person wastes at the thriving condition of
another: Sicilian tyrants never invented a greater torment than envy. He
who will not curb his passion, will wish that undone which his grief and
resentment suggested, while he violently plies his revenge with unsated
rancor. Rage is a short madness. Rule your passion, which commands, if
it do not obey; do you restrain it with a bridle, and with fetters. The
groom forms the docile horse, while his neck is yet tender, to go the
way which his rider directs him: the young hound, from the time that he
barked at the deer's skin in the hall, campaigns it in the woods. Now,
while you are young, with an untainted mind Imbibe instruction: now
apply yourself to the best [masters of morality]. A cask will long
preserve the flavor, with which when new it was once impregnated. But if
you lag behind, or vigorously push on before, I neither wait for the
loiterer, nor strive to overtake those that precede me.
* * * * *
EPISTLE III.
TO JULIUS FLORUS.
_After inquiring about Claudius Tiberius Nero, and some of his friends,
he exhorts Florus to the study of philosophy_.
I long to know, Julius Florus, in what regions of the earth Claudius,
the step-son of Augustus, is waging war. Do Thrace and Hebrus, bound
with icy chains, or the narrow sea running between the neighboring
towers, or Asia's fertile plains and hills detain you? What works is the
studious train planning? In this too I am anxious--who takes upon
himself to write the military achievements of Augustus? Who diffuses
into distant ages his deeds in war and peace? What is Titius about, who
shortly will be celebrated by every Roman tongue; who dreaded not to
drink of the Pindaric spring, daring to disdain common waters and open
streams: how does he do? How mindful is he of me? Does he employ himself
to adapt Theban measures to the Latin lyre, under the direction of his
muse? Or does he storm and swell in the pompous style of traffic art?
What is my Celsus doing? He has been advised, and the advice is still
often to be repeated, to acquire stock of his own, and forbear to touch
whatever writings the Palatine Apollo has received: lest, if it chance
that the flock of birds should some time or other come to demand their
feathers, he, like the daw stripped of his stolen colors, be exposed to
ridicule. What do you yourself undertake? What thyme are you busy
hovering about? Your genius is not small, is not uncultivated nor
inelegantly rough. Whether you edge your tongue for [pleading] causes,
or whether you prepare to give counsel in the civil law, or whether you
compose some lovely poem; you will bear off the first prize of the
victorious ivy. If now you could quit the cold fomentations of care;
whithersoever heavenly wisdom would lead you, you would go. Let us,
both small and great, push forward in this work, in this pursuit: if to
our country, if to ourselves we would live dear.
You must also write me word of this, whether Munatiua is of as much
concern to you as he ought to be? Or whether the ill-patched
reconciliation in vain closes, and is rent asunder again? But, whether
hot blood, or inexperience in things, exasperates you, wild as coursers
with unsubdued neck, in whatever place you live, too worthy to break the
fraternal bond, a devoted heifer is feeding against your return.
* * * * *
EPISTLE IV.
TO ALBIUS TIBULLUS.
_He declares his accomplishments; and, after proposing the thought of
death, converts it into an occasion of pleasantry_.
Albius, thou candid critic of my discourses, what shall I say you are
now doing in the country about Pedum? Writing what may excel the works
of Cassius Parmensis; or sauntering silently among the healthful groves,
concerning yourself about every thing worthy a wise and good man? You
were not a body without a mind. The gods have given you a beautiful
form, the gods [have given] you wealth, and the faculty of enjoying it.
What greater blessing could a nurse solicit for her beloved child, than
that he might be wise, and able to express his sentiments; and that
respect, reputation, health might happen to him in abundance, and decent
living, with a never-failing purse?
In the midst of hope and care, in the midst of fears and disquietudes,
think every day that shines upon you is the last. [Thus] the hour, which
shall not be expected, will come upon you an agreeable addition.
When you have a mind to laugh, you shall see me fat and sleek with good
keeping, a hog of Epicurus' herd.
* * * * *
EPISTLE V.
TO TORQUATUS.
_He invites him to a frugal entertainment, but a cleanly and cheerful
one_.
If you can repose yourself as my guest upon Archias' couches, and are
not afraid to make a whole meal on all sorts of herbs from a moderate
dish; I will expect you, Torquatus, at my house about sun set. You shall
drink wine poured into the vessel in the second consulship of Taurus,
produced between the fenny Minturnae and Petrinum of Sinuessa. If you
have any thing better, send for it; or bring your commands. Bright
shines my hearth, and my furniture is clean for you already. Dismiss
airy hopes, and contests about riches, and Moschus' cause. To-morrow, a
festal day on account of Caesar's birth, admits of indulgence and
repose. We shall have free liberty to prolong the summer evening with
friendly conversation. To what purpose have I fortune, if I may not use
it? He that is sparing out of regard to his heir, and too niggardly, is
next neighbor to a madman. I will begin to drink and scatter flowers,
and I will endure even to be accounted foolish. What does not wine
freely drunken enterprise? It discloses secrets; commands our hopes to
be ratified; pushes the dastard on to the fight; removes the pressure
from troubled minds; teaches the arts. Whom have not plentiful cups made
eloquent? Whom have they not [made] free and easy under pinching
poverty?
I, who am both the proper person and not unwilling, am charged to take
care of these matters; that no dirty covering on the couch, no foul
napkin contract your nose into wrinkles; and that the cup and the dish
may show you to yourself; that there be no one to carry abroad what is
said among faithful friends; that equals may meet and be joined with
equals I will add to you Butra, and Septicius, and Sabinus, unless a
better entertainment and a mistress more agreeable detain him. There is
room also for many introductions: but goaty ramminess is offensive in
over-crowded companies.
Do you write word, what number you would be; and setting aside business,
through the back-door give the slip to your client who keeps guard in
your court.
* * * * *
EPISTLE VI.
TO NUMICIUS.
_That a wise man is in love with nothing but virtue_.
To admire nothing is almost the one and only thing, Numicius, which can
make and keep a man happy. There are who view this sun, and the stars,
and the seasons retiring at certain periods, untainted with any fear.
What do you think of the gifts of the earth? What of the sea, that
enriches the remote Arabians and Indians? What of scenical shows, the
applause and favors of the kind Roman? In what manner do you think they
are to be looked upon, with what apprehensions and countenance? He that
dreads the reverse of these, admires them almost in the same way as he
that desires them; fear alike disturbs both ways: an unforeseen turn of
things equally terrifies each of them: let a man rejoice or grieve,
desire or fear; what matters it--if, whatever he perceives better or
worse than his expectations, with downcast look he be stupefied in mind
and body? Let the wise man bear the name of fool, the just of unjust; if
he pursue virtue itself beyond proper bounds.
Go now, look with transport upon silver, and antique marble, and brazen
statues, and the arts: admire gems, and Tyrian dyes: rejoice, that a
thousand eyes are fixed upon you while you speak: industrious repair
early to the forum, late to your house, that Mutus may not reap more
grain [than you] from his lands gained in dowry, and (unbecoming, since
he sprung from meaner parents) that he may not be an object of
admiration to you rather than you to him. Whatever is in the earth, time
will bring forth into open day light; will bury and hide things, that
now shine brightest. When Agrippa's portico, and the Appian way, shall
have beheld you well known; still it remains for you to go where Numa
and Ancus are arrived. If your side or your reins are afflicted with an
acute disease, seek a remedy from the disease. Would you live happily?
Who would not? If virtue alone can confer this, discarding pleasures,
strenuously pursue it. Do you think virtue mere words, as a grove is
trees? Be it your care that no other enter the port before you; that you
lose not your traffic with Cibyra, with Bithynia. Let the round sum of a
thousand talents be completed; as many more; further, let a third
thousand succeed, and the part which may square the heap. For why,
sovereign money gives a wife with a [large] portion, and credit, and
friends, and family, and beauty; and [the goddesses], Persuasion and
Venus, graced the well-moneyed man. The king of the Cappadocians, rich
in slaves, is in want of coin; be not you like him. Lucullus, as they
say, being asked if he could lend a hundred cloaks for the stage, "How
can I so many? " said he: "yet I will see, and send as many as I have;" a
little after he writes that he had five thousand cloaks in his house;
they might take part of them, or all. It is a scanty house, where there
are not many things superfluous, and which escape the owner's notice,
and are the gain of pilfering slaves. If then wealth alone can make and
keep a man happy, be first in beginning this work, be last in leaving it
off. If appearances and popularity make a man fortunate, let as purchase
a slave to dictate [to us] the names [of the citizens], to jog us on the
left-side, and to make us stretch our hand over obstacles: "This man has
much interest in the Fabian, that in the Veline tribe; this will give
the fasces to any one, and, indefatigably active, snatch the curule
ivory from whom he pleases; add [the names of] father, brother:
according as the age of each is, so courteously adopt him. If he who
feasts well, lives well; it is day, let us go whither our appetite leads
us: let us fish, let us hunt, as did some time Gargilius: who ordered
his toils, hunting-spears, slaves, early in the morning to pass through
the crowded forum and the people: that one mule among many, in the sight
of the people, might return loaded with a boar purchased with money. Let
us bathe with an indigested and full-swollen stomach, forgetting what is
becoming, what not; deserving to be enrolled among the citizens of
Caere; like the depraved crew of Ulysses of Ithaca, to whom forbidden
pleasure was dearer than their country. If, as Mimnermus thinks, nothing
is pleasant without love and mirth, live in love and mirth.
Live: be happy. If you know of any thing preferable to these maxims,
candidly communicate it: if not, with me make use of these.
* * * * *
EPISTLE VII.
TO MAECENAS.
_He apologizes to Maecenas for his long absence from Rome; and
acknowledges his favors to him in such a manner as to declare liberty
preferable to all other blessings_.
Having promised you that I would be in the country but five days, false
to my word, I am absent the whole of August. But, if you would have me
live sound and in perfect health, the indulgence which you grant me,
Maecenas, when I am ill, you will grant me [also] when I am afraid of
being ill: while [the time of] the first figs, and the [autumnal] heat
graces the undertaker with his black attendants; while every father and
mother turn pale with fear for their children; and while over-acted
diligence, and attendance at the forum, bring on fevers and unseal
wills. But, if the winter shall scatter snow upon the Alban fields, your
poet will go down to the seaside, and be careful of himself, and read
bundled up; you, dear friend, he will revisit with the zephyrs, if you
will give him leave, and with the first swallow.
You have made me rich, not in the manner in which the Calabrian host
bids [his guest] eat of his pears. "Eat, pray, sir. " "I have had
enough. " "But take away with you what quantity you will. " "You are very
kind. " "You will carry them no disagreeable presents to your little
children. " "I am as much obliged by your offer, as if I were sent away
loaded. " "As you please: you leave them to be devoured to-day by the
hogs. " The prodigal and fool gives away what he despises and hates; the
reaping of favors like these has produced, and ever will produce,
ungrateful men. A good and wise man professes himself ready to do
kindness to the deserving; and yet is not ignorant, how true coins
differ from lupines. I will also show myself deserving of the honor of
being grateful. But if you would not have me depart any whither, you
must restore my vigorous constitution, the black locks [that grew] on my
narrow forehead: you must restore to me the power of talking pleasantly:
you must restore to me the art of laughing with becoming ease, and
whining over my liquor at the jilting of the wanton Cynara.
A thin field-mouse had by chance crept through a narrow cranny into a
chest of grain; and, having feasted itself, in vain attempted to come
out again, with its body now stuffed full. To which a weasel at a
distance cries, "If you would escape thence, repair lean to the narrow
hole which you entered lean. " If I be addressed with this similitude, I
resign all; neither do I, sated with delicacies, cry up the calm repose
of the vulgar, nor would I change my liberty and ease for the riches of
the Arabians. You have often commended me for being modest; when present
you heard [from me the appellations of] king and father, nor am I a word
more sparing in your absence. Try whether I can cheerfully restore what
you have given me. Not amiss [answered] Telemachus, son of the patient
Ulysses: "The country of Ithaca is not proper for horses, as being
neither extended into champaign fields, nor abounding with much grass:
Atrides, I will leave behind me your gifts, [which are] more proper for
yourself. " Small things best suit the small. No longer does imperial
Rome please me, but unfrequented Tibur, and unwarlike Tarentum.
Philip, active and strong, and famed for pleading causes, while
returning from his employment about the eighth hour, and now of a great
age, complaining that the Carinae were too far distant from the forum;
spied, as they say, a person clean shaven in a barber's empty shed,
composedly paring his own nails with a knife. "Demetrius," [says he,]
(this slave dexterously received his master's orders,) "go inquire, and
bring me word from what house, who he is, of what fortune, who is his
father, or who is his patron. " He goes, returns, and relates, that "he
is by name, Vulteius Maena, an auctioneer, of small fortune, of a
character perfectly unexceptionable, that he could upon occasion ply
busily, and take his ease, and get, and spend; delighting in humble
companions and a settled dwelling, and (after business ended) in the
shows, and the Campus Martius. "
"I would inquire of him himself all this, which you report; bid him come
to sup with me. " Maena can not believe it; he wonders silently within
himself. Why many words? He answers, "It is kind. " "Can he deny me? "
"The rascal denies, and disregards or dreads you. " In the morning Philip
comes unawares upon Vulteius, as he is selling brokery-goods to the
tunic'd populace, and salutes him first. He pleads to Philip his
employment, and the confinement of his business, in excuse for not
having waited upon him in the morning; and afterward, for not seeing him
first. "Expect that I will excuse you on this condition, that you sup
with me to-day. " "As you please. " "Then you will come after the ninth
hour: now go: strenuously increase your stock. " When they were come to
supper, having discoursed of things of a public and private nature, at
length he is dismissed to go to sleep. When he had often been seen, to
repair like a fish to the concealed hook, in the morning a client, and
now as a constant guest; he is desired to accompany [Philip] to his
country-seat near the city, at the proclaiming of the Latin festivals.
Mounted on horseback, he ceases not to cry up the Sabine fields and air.
Philip sees it, and smiles: and, while he is seeking amusement and
diversion for himself out of every thing, while he makes him a present
of seven thousand sesterces, and promises to lend him seven thousand
more: he persuades him to purchase a farm: he purchases one. That I may
not detain you with a long story beyond what is necessary, from a smart
cit he becomes a downright rustic, and prates of nothing but furrows and
vineyards; prepares his elms; is ready to die with eager diligence, and
grows old through a passionate desire of possessing. But when his sheep
were lost by theft, his goats by distemper, his harvest deceived his
hopes, his ox was killed with plowing; fretted with these losses, at
midnight he snatches his nag, and in a passion makes his way to Philip's
house. Whom as soon as Philip beheld, rough and unshaven, "Vulteius,"
said he, "you seem to me to be too laborious and earnest. " "In truth,
patron," replied he, "you would call me a wretch, if you would apply to
me my true name. I beseech and conjure you then, by your genius and your
right hand and your household gods, restore me to my former life. " As
soon as a man perceives, how much the things he has discarded excel
those which he pursues, let him return in time, and resume those which
he relinquished.
It is a truth, that every one ought to measure himself by his own proper
foot and standard.
* * * * *
EPISTLE VIII.
TO CELSUS ALBINOVANUS.
_That he was neither well in body, nor in mind; that Celtics should bear
his prosperity with moderation_.
My muse at my request, give joy and wish success to Celsus Albinovanus,
the attendant and the secretary of Nero. If he shall inquire, what I am
doing, say that I, though promising many and fine things, yet live
neither well [according to the rules of strict philosophy], nor
agreeably; not because the hail has crushed my vines, and the heat has
nipped my olives; nor because my herds are distempered in distant
pastures; but because, less sound in my mind than in my whole body, I
will hear nothing, learn nothing which may relieve me, diseased as I am;
that I am displeased with my faithful physicians, am angry with my
friends for being industrious to rouse me from a fatal lethargy; that I
pursue things which have done me hurt, avoid things which I am persuaded
would be of service, inconstant as the wind, at Rome am in love with
Tibur, at Tibur with Rome. After this, inquire how he does; how he
manages his business and himself; how he pleases the young prince and
his attendants. If he shall say, well; first congratulate him, then
remember to whisper this admonition in his ears: As you, Celsus, bear
your fortunes, so will we bear you.
* * * * *
EPISTLE IX.
TO CLAUDIUS TIBERIUS NERO.
_He recommends Septimius to him_.
Of all the men in the world Septimius surely, O Claudius, knows how much
regard you have for me. For when he requests, and by his entreaties in a
manner compels me, to undertake to recommend and introduce him to you,
as one worthy of the confidence and the household of Nero, who is wont
to choose deserving objects, thinking I discharge the office of an
intimate friend; he sees and knows better than myself what I can do. I
said a great deal, indeed, in order that I might come off excused: but I
was afraid, lest I should be suspected to pretend my interest was less
than it is, to be a dissembler of my own power, and ready to serve
myself alone. So, avoiding the reproach of a greater fault, I have put
in for the prize of town-bred confidence. If then you approve of modesty
being superseded at the pressing entreaties of a friend, enrol this
person among your retinue, and believe him to be brave and good.
EPISTLE X.
TO ARISTIUS FUSCUS.
_He praises a country before a city life, as more agreeable to nature,
and more friendly to liberty_.
We, who love the country, salute Fuscus that loves the town; in this
point alone [being] much unlike, but in other things almost twins, of
brotherly sentiments: whatever one denies the other too [denies]; we
assent together: like old and constant doves, you keep the nest; I
praise the rivulets, the rocks overgrown with moss, and the groves of
the delightful country. Do you ask why? I live and reign, as soon as I
have quitted those things which you extol to the skies with joyful
applause. And, like a priest's, fugitive slave I reject luscious wafers,
I desire plain bread, which is more agreeable now than honied cakes.
If we must live suitably to nature, and a plot of ground is to be first
sought to raise a house upon, do you know any place preferable to the
blissful country? Is there any spot where the winters are more
temperate? where a more agreeable breeze moderates the rage of the
Dog-star, and the season of the Lion, when once that furious sign has
received the scorching sun? Is there a place where envious care less
disturbs our slumbers? Is the grass inferior in smell or beauty to the
Libyan pebbles? Is the water, which strives to burst the lead in the
streets, purer than that which trembles in murmurs down its sloping
channel? Why, trees are nursed along the variegated columns [of the
city]; and that house is commended, which has a prospect of distant
fields. You may drive out nature with a fork, yet still she will return,
and, insensibly victorious, will break through [men's] improper
disgusts.
Not he who is unable to compare the fleeces that drink up the dye of
Aquinum with the Sidonian purple, will receive a more certain damage
and nearer to his marrow, than he who shall not be able to distinguish
false from true. He who has been overjoyed by prosperity, will be
shocked by a change of circumstances. If you admire any thing [greatly],
you will be unwilling to resign it. Avoid great things; under a mean
roof one may outstrip kings, and the favorites of kings, in one's life.
The stag, superior in fight, drove the horse from the common pasture,
till the latter, worsted in the long contest, implored the aid of man
and received the bridle; but after he had parted an exulting conqueror
from his enemy, he could not shake the rider from his back, nor the bit
from his mouth. So he who, afraid of poverty, forfeits his liberty, more
valuable than mines, avaricious wretch, shall carry a master, and shall
eternally be a slave, for not knowing how to use a little. When a man's
condition does not suit him, it will be as a shoe at any time; which, if
too big for his foot, will throw him down; if too little, will pinch
him. [If you are] cheerful under your lot, Aristius, you will live
wisely; nor shall you let me go uncorrected, if I appear to scrape
together more than enough and not have done. Accumulated money is the
master or slave of each owner, and ought rather to follow than to lead
the twisted rope.
These I dictated to thee behind the moldering temple of Vacuna; in all
other things happy, except that thou wast not with me.
* * * * *
EPISTLE XI.
TO BULLATIUS.
_Endeavoring to recall him back to Rome from Asia, whither he had
retreated through his weariness of the civil wars, he advises him to
ease the disquietude of his mind not by the length of his journey, but
by forming his mind into a right disposition_.
What, Bullatius, do you think of Chios, and of celebrated Lesbos? What
of neat Samos? What of Sardis, the royal residence of Croesus? What of
Smyrna, and Colophon? Are they greater or less than their fame? Are they
all contemptible in comparison of the Campus Martius and the river
Tiber? Does one of Attalus' cities enter into your wish? Or do you
admire Lebedus, through a surfeit of the sea and of traveling? You know
what Lebedus is; it is a more unfrequented town than Gabii and Fidenae;
yet there would I be willing to live; and, forgetful of my friends and
forgotten by them, view from land Neptune raging at a distance. But
neither he who comes to Rome from Capua, bespattered with rain and mire,
would wish to live in an inn; nor does he, who has contracted a cold,
cry up stoves and bagnios as completely furnishing a happy life: nor, if
the violent south wind has tossed you in the deep, will you therefore
sell your ship on the other side of the Aegean Sea.
