shameful and obscene picture but also in general to depict whatever is
cheap, ugly, and unwelcome. Hence those epigrams cannot be regarded as
beautiful and polished whose subject is a toothless hag, a poetaster
with a threadbare cloak, a rank old goat, a filthy nose, or a glutton
vomiting on the table--all of which are a fertile ground of jokes for
actors--since ugliness of that sort can never be redeemed by the
point.
For this reason we have admitted none of such kind in the epigrams of
Martial which we have subjoined to this treatise, and a good many
epigrams that we have run across we have put aside, such as Buchanan's
in which he depicts the unattractive and unpleasant picture of a lank
old man:
While Naevolus yells he can outbellow Stentor,
And roars and roars, "All men are animals,"
He has slipped by almost his ninetieth year
And bent senility shakes his weak step.
Now three hairs only cling to his smooth head,
And he sees what a night-owl sees at dawn.
The snot is dripping from his frosty nose,
And stringed saliva falls on his wet breast--
Not an odd tooth in his defenceless gums,
Not an old ape so engraved with wrinkles.
Naevolus, for shame leave this frivolity
And no more cry, "All men," since you are none.[19]
Again, the baseness of the subject and the hardly pleasant or
civilized image of a hanging man is a fault in this epigram of
Sannazaro's, although it has an element of humor:
In your desire to learn your fortune, sir,
You questioned every tripod, every rune;
"You'll stand out above gods and men," at last
Answered the god in truth-revealing voice.
What arrogance you drew from this! You were
Immediately lord of the universe.
Now you ascend the cross. God was no cheat:
The whole world lies spread out beneath your feet.[20]
This is fairly respectable and merely low. But the cynical license of
Martial and Catullus, by which they speak of many things that are not
simply morally foul but such as decent society demands be removed from
sight and hearing, must be regarded as altogether shameless and
vulgar. For this reason men of taste never mention favorably Catullus'
_Annales Volusi cacata charta_, or Martial's
et desiderio coacta ventris
gutta pallia non fefellit una[21]
And there are many others a good deal more despicable which cannot be
adduced even as examples of a fault. Assuredly Antiquity was too
forbearing toward this sort of thing, and I have often wondered how
Cicero could have been tolerated in the Roman Senate when he inveighed
against Piso:
Do you not remember, blank, when I came to see you about the
fifth hour with Gaius Piso, you were coming out of some dirty
shack, slippers on your feet and your face and beard covered; and
when you breathed on us that low tavern air from your fetid
mouth, you apologized on grounds of ill health, saying that you
were taking a kind of wine treatment? When we had accepted your
explanation--what else could we do?--we stood a while in the
smell and fume of the joints you patronize until you kicked us
out by the impudence of your answers and the stench of your
belches.[22]
_On spiteful epigrams._
Men with some gentleness of nature have an inborn hatred of spite,
especially of such as mocks bodily flaws or reversals of fortune, or,
finally, anything that happens beyond the individual's responsibility.
For, since no man feels himself free of such strokes of chance, he
will not take it easily when they are torn down and laughed at. The
Vergilian Dido spoke with human feeling when she said: _Not unaware of
ill I learned to aid misfortune._[23] and the good will of the reader
rises quietly in her favor. Likewise, Seneca says nicely: _It is not
witty to be spiteful._[24] On the other hand they act inhumanely who
triumph over misfortune and upbraid what was not guiltily effected, to
such an extent that they arouse a feeling of aversion and alienation
in the hearts of their readers.
Accordingly we have admitted only a few of this kind, and have
rejected a great many, as, for example, Owen's frigid and spiteful
epigram:
Look, not a hair remains on your bright skull.
The hairs on your inconstant brow are null.
With every last hair lost behind, ahead,
What has the bald man left to lose? His head.[25]
Nor do we greatly care for many of the same kind in Martial, which
nevertheless were not omitted for the reasons given above.[26]
_On wordy epigrams._
It would be a long task to assemble all the natural aversions,
nevertheless we may add a few more which have removed a whole host of
epigrams from this anthology. Beyond those already mentioned, nature
finds distasteful long circumlocutions and the piling up of a single
point with varying phrase; for nature burns with a desire to find out,
ever hastens to the conclusion, and is impatient at being detained by
much talk unless there is a special reward. Consequently wordy
epigrams beget a good deal of loathing, especially those that do not
sufficiently balance their length with the magnitude of the idea. Some
of Martial's are burdened with this fault; sometimes they accumulate
too many commonplace compliments or are too petty in enumeration. For
example, in this epigram to what point are so many trite similes piled
up?
Her voice was sweeter than the aged swan,
None would prefer the Eastern pearl before her,
Or the new-polished tooth of Indic beasts,
Or the first snow, lilies untouched by hand;
She who breathed fragrance of the Paestan rose,
Compared with whom the peacock was but dull,
The squirrel uncharming, and unrare the phoenix,
Erotion, is still warm on a new pyre.[27]
Similarly, why in another well-known epigram is the same idea repeated
again and again?
Oh not unvalued object of my love,
Flaccus, the darling of Antenor's hearth,
Forego Pierian songs, the sisters' dances:
No girl among them ever gave a dime.
Phoebus is nought; Minerva has the cash,
Is shrewd, is only usurer to the gods.
What's there in Bacchus' ivy? The black tree
Of Pallas bends with mottled leaves and weight.
On Helicon there's only water, wreaths,
The divine lyres, and profitless applause.
Why do you dream of Cirrha, bare Permessis?
The forum is more Roman and more rich.
There the coins clink, but round the sterile chairs
And desks of poets only kisses rustle.[28]
In the same way that nature is displeased with wordiness, she is
displeased with ideas that are too commonplace, for it is a kind of
loquacity to bubble on with the commonplace and trite, since it is the
purpose of speech to reveal what isn't known, not to repeat what is
known and worn-out. Countless epigrams have been excluded from this
selection for this fault, but since there is nothing more common I
will omit offering examples.
_On trifling wit, and plays on words._
Not a little displeasing, also, is an assiduity in trifling which
withdraws the mind from solid subject-matter out of which true beauty
springs. Plays on words, puns and other playing around of that kind,
unless they come to the judgement of the pen within the bounds of art,
are not so much figures of speech as faults of style, and in those
epigrams where the point rests solely in these there is nothing
thinner, especially when they are so peculiar to one language that
they cannot be translated into another. On this basis we have passed
over such frivolous witticisms as Owen's:
Rope ends the robber, death is his last haul;
The gallows gets the gangster--if not all,
If many get away, God gives no hope:
It's an odd thief dies with no coffin rope.[29]
A little more humorous is that of another poet on the Swiss killed at
night, though it too is faulty:
Annihilated in night snow by a nut stick,
I snow, night, nut, now, and annihilation know.[30]
_In what way natural inclinations are to be gratified._
We must carefully avoid all these natural sources of aversion and no
less gratify natural inclinations if we wish to attain that beauty we
aim at. For self-love is so strong in men that they can hear nothing
with pleasure unless it flatters them with their own feelings. For
which reason those epigrams have correctly been judged best that
penetrate deeper into those feelings and present to the reader's mind
an idea recognised not only by the interior light but also by the
interior feeling as quite true, so that he can be seduced into
embracing it: for example, Martial's:
I scorn the fame purchased with easy blood
And praise the man who can be praised alive.[31]
For, since everyone hates death and longs for praise and glory, there
is no one who would not be glad if he could be praised without dying.
Another example is that of the old poet:
Put high disdain, deciduous hope put by:
Live with yourself who with yourself must die.[32]
For nature has, as Quintilian said, a kind of elevation intolerant of
anything above it[33] that fawns on anyone who bids it be contemptuous
of a pride in riches.
This much on the general sources of beauty and ugliness will be
sufficient for passing judgement on any _genre_ of poems.
Nevertheless, this should be adapted to the particular nature, laws,
and principles of the epigram, and so it will not be out of point to
add a few remarks on the epigram itself.
_The origin of the name epigram. Its definition, form, and laws._
"Epigram", as Scaliger observes, is the same thing as "inscription";
but since there are inscriptions of a good many things the former word
has been applied to short poems inasmuch as epigrams of that sort used
to be inscribed on monuments and statues;[34] and from this the word
has been extended generally to short poems. The epigram is defined,
then, as a short poem directly pointing out some thing, person, or
deed.[35]
There are those who locate its formal principle in the serious or
witty idea that forms the conclusion, and so insist on this that they
deny anything is an epigram that lacks such a conclusion.[36] But this
is an error. There are some epigrams, and highly cultivated ones, that
have an equable elevation throughout and nothing of especial note in
the conclusion, as in this of a contemporary writer:
That on insurgent serpents breathing peace,
On unplumed eagles trembling, on tame pards,
And lions whose low necks accept the yoke,
Louis looks out, sublime on a bronze horse,
Nor fingers shaped this nor the craftsman's forge
But worth and God's fortune accomplished it.
The armed venger of faith, trustee of peace,
Ordained, for all to reverence, this, and bade
Rise in the royal place the reverend bronze,
That, the long perils past of civil strife,
And enemies subdued by prosperous arms,
Louis should ever triumph in the master city.[37]
Again, in some epigrams there is a straightforward neatness and a
gentle and dry humor that pleases, as may be seen in some of Catullus'
epigrams which we have put in this anthology.
Some go to the contrary extreme and not only do not require such
conclusions but even scorn them. These are for the most part the
outrageous lovers of Catullus who, as long as they finish off some
limp little dirge in hendecasyllabics, feel that they are marvellously
charming and polished, although there is nothing more empty than such
verses or nothing easier to do if a man has acquired a little practice
in Latin.
How little effort, for instance, shall we imagine the conclusion of
this epigram cost Borbonius, fashioned as it is according to the model
of Catullus?
Wherefore come, O Roman muses,
Full of honey and of graces,
Learned verses of good Pino;
I embrace you, just Camenae,
All day long I read you gladly
In this mortifying season,
Time of tears and time of penance,
Harsh and troublesome, by Jupiter![38]
You can see where the perverse imitation of Catullus has conducted a
Christian, in other respects devout, so that in discussing a Christian
fast day he had no fear of using the profane name of Jove. But,
leaving this aside, what is more inept than the verse _Harsh and
troublesome, by Jupiter!_, however Catullan. Nevertheless, Borbonius
thought his epigram concluded elegantly in that line because he found
in Catullus a similar one.[39] But, leaving aside such spiritless
imitators, one can truly affirm of those ideas that conclude epigrams
that there is a good deal of elegance in them when they are themselves
distinguished and nicely cohere with the preceding chain of thought.
For, since nothing so sticks in the reader's mind as the conclusion,
what is better than to put there what especially you want to fix in
his soul. Consequently, those epigrams are rightly censured as faulty
that go in the order of anti-climax or in which the conclusion is sort
of added on or appended to the rest and does not neatly develop out of
the preceding verses. This fault is discernible in the following
epigram, though in other respects it is distinguished:
You that a stranger in mid-Rome seek Rome
And can find nothing in mid-Rome of Rome,
Behold this mass of walls, these abrupt rocks,
Where the vast theatre lies overwhelmed.
Here, here is Rome! Look how the very corpse
Of greatness still imperiously breathes threats!
The world she conquered, strove herself to conquer,
Conquered that nothing be unconquered by her.
Now conqueror Rome's interred in conquered Rome,
And the same Rome conquered and conqueror.
Still Tiber stays, witness of Roman fame,
Still Tiber flows on swift waves to the sea.
Learn hence what Fortune can: the unmoved falls,
And the ever-moving will remain forever.[40]
The last four verses are completely unnecessary and contain a frigid
point by which the lustre of the preceding is dimmed.
_The material of epigrams; thence the division into different kinds.
The first kind and the second._
The material of epigrams comprises any subject and anything that can
be said on it--in fact, there are as many kinds of epigrams as there
are kinds of things that can be said. We will notice here particularly
those kinds from which the special powers of each can be understood.
There is, then, a kind of epigram that is elevated, weighty, sublime,
pursuing a noble subject in noble lines and concluding with a noble
sentiment. Such is Martial's on Scaevola:
That hand that sought a king and found a slave
Was thrust to burn up in the sacred fire:
So cruel a portent the good enemy
Appalled, who bade him carried from the fire.
The hand the regicide endured to burn,
The king could not endure to see it done.
Greater the glory of the hand deceived!
Had it not erred it had accomplished less.[41]
Of the same sort are Grotius' epigrams on Ostend and on the sailing
carriages, and Barclay's on Margaret of Valois.[42]
There is another sort somewhat lower in style but weighty and
profitable in idea: for example, that truly distinguished one of
Martial:
In that you follow the strict rules of Cato
And yet are willing to remain alive
And will not run bare-breasted on the sword
You do exactly as I'd have you do:
I scorn the fame purchased with easy blood
And praise the man who can be praised alive.[43]
And this:
In private she mourns not the late-lamented;
If someone's by her tears leap forth on call.
Sorrow, my dear, is not so easily rented.
They are true tears that without witness fall.[44]
And that genuinely golden epigram:
That I now call you by your name
Who used to call you sir and master,
You needn't think it impudence.
I bought myself with all I had.
He ought to sir a sir and master
Who's not himself, and wants to have
Whatever sirs and masters want.
Who can get by without a slave
Can get by, too, without a master.[45]
However, of all kinds of epigram that kind is generally thought to be
most properly epigrammatic which is distinguished by a witty and
ingenious turn that deeply penetrates the soul. Martial excels in this
kind, as in this one:
You serve the best wines always, my dear sir,
And yet they say your wines are not so good.
They say you are four times a widower.
They say ... A drink? I don't believe I would.[46]
and in this:
Though you send presents to old men and widows
Why should I call you, sir, munificent?
There's nothing lower, dirtier than you only
Who can denominate enticements gifts.
These are the sly hooks for the greedy fish,
These are the clever baits for the wild beasts.
I will instruct you what it is to give
If you are ignorant: give, sir, to me. [47]
Some are lower in style but witty and pleasant, and have a glowing
simplicity, as can be illustrated by another of Martial's:
"An epic epigram," I heard you say.
Others have written them, and so I may.
"But this one is too long." Others are too.
You want them short? I'll write two lines for you:
_As for long epigrams let us agree
They may be skipped by you, written by me._[48]
And, indeed, of all the special capabilities of the epigram none is
more difficult to realise or more rarely achieved than the adroit
handling, the suitable and easy unfolding, of the subject so that
nothing is redundant, nothing wanting, nothing out of order, obscure,
or tangled up in verbiage, and yet at the same time nothing too
unexpected, nothing not adequately prepared for. Martial is
pre-eminent in this; he develops his subjects so aptly, clearly, and
perceptively that he obtains for ideas of no special note otherwise a
good deal of distinction by the charm of the handling. For example,
what could be more resourcefully developed than this epigram?
Believe me, sir, I'd like to spend whole days,
Yes, and whole evenings in your company,
But the two miles between your house and mine
Are four miles when I go there to come back.
You're seldom home, and when you are deny it,
Engrossed with business or with yourself.
Now, I don't mind the two mile trip to see you;
What I do mind is going four to not to.[49]
And what would the following epigram be if it had not been perfected
and prepared for by the handling?
That no one meets you willingly,
That where you come they go, that vast
Areas of silence circle you--
Why so? you ask. Too much the bard.
This makes it terribly, terribly hard.
Who would put up with what I do?
You read verse if I stand or sit;
You read it if I run or sing;
And in the baths you read me verse;
I try the pool, and swim in verse;
I haste to dine, you go my way;
I order, and you read me out;
Worn out, I take my rest with verse.
You want to know what harm you do?
Just, upright, harmless, you're a pest.[50]
The conclusion is pleasantly witty, but the special charm of the poem
derives from the preceding enumeration.
This finishes the account of what we looked to in selecting these
epigrams. You will find what else is pertinent to this book in the
preface.
_Notes_
I have silently emended a few passages; otherwise the text translated
is that of _Epigrammatum Delectus_, Paris, 1659. It is regrettable
that the Latin text, at least of the poems cited, could not be printed
with the translation.
[1] _De nat. deor._ 2.2.5
[2] _Aen._ 5.481 and 8.596
[3] 177-8, 173
[4] All three passages are from epigrams by Gaspar Conrad in Janus
Gruter, _Delitiae poetarum germanorum_, 6 v., Frankfort, 1612: II,
1065-6, lines 1-6 of a twelve line epigram, "In symbolum Iacobi
Monavi"; II, 1077, the concluding lines of an eight line epigram, "Ad
Valentinum Maternum"; and II, 1079, the concluding couplet of a six
line epigram, "Ad Georgum Menhadum Philophilum." The second passage is
hardly construable.
[5] _Ars. poet._ 141-2, the paraphrase of Homer, and 143-4. The other
quotations in this passage are from the opening of the _Aeneid_,
_Thebaid_, _Rape of Proserpine_, and the _Pharsalia_.
[6] _Inst. orat._ 8.6.14
[7] "Manes Dousici," IV "Ad solem" and V "Ad sidera," _Poemata_,
Leyden, 1613, p. 166. Nicole reads _tandem_ for _rursus_ in the last
line of the second poem. Douza is the younger Janus Douza (1571-1596).
Nicole's criticism of these poems is just but superficial. The
difficulty with such poems lies in the method, which consists in the
establishment by amplification of one pole, followed by the briefest
statement of the contrary pole. But the latter is of personal concern
and is the essential subject of the poem. Thus the subject is
deliberately avoided for the greater part of the poem, and hence there
is in the amplification no principle of order to control the detail
and its accumulation. This accounts for the features Nicole censures;
however, he himself makes a similar point below in condemning negative
descriptions.
[8] I have been unable to find this among Grotius' poems.
[9] Joannes Vulteius (c.1510-1542), "De ignobili Aruerno in sepulchro
nobili posito," _Hendecasyllaborum libri iv_, Paris, 1538, Ni., p. 97.
[10] "Ad Rudolphum Imp. florum picturae dedicatio," _Poemata_, Leyden,
1637, p. 326.
[11] Epig. 1.50, "De Jucundo architecto," _Poemata_, Pavia, 1719, p.
189.
[12] I have been unable to identify this epigram.
[13] A translation of _Anth. Pal._ 11.104 and printed as Ausonius in
the Renaissance, but probably by Girogio Merula (c.1424-1494): see
James Hutton, _The Greek Anthology In Italy to the year 1800_,
"Cornell Studies in English," XXIII (1935), pp. 23-4, 102-5, and
Ausonius, _Opuscula_, ed. Rudolphus Peiper, Leipzig, 1886, p. 428. The
younger Scaliger strongly condemns this epigram on the same grounds:
Joseph Scaliger, _Ausoniarum lectionum libri ii_, 2.20, Heidelberg,
1688, p. 204.
[14] 3.66
[15] Epig. libri tres, ad D. Mariam Neville, 2.211. _Epigrammata_,
Amsterdam, 1647, p. 47. Translated by Thomas Harvey, _John Owen's
Latin Epigrams_, London, 1677, p. 36: "Sith th' Harps discording
Strings concording be, / Is't not a shame for men to disagree?" and by
Thomas Pecke, _Parnassi puerperium_, London, 1659: "Can there be many
strings; and yet no Jars? / And are not men asham'd of dismal wars?"
[16] Nicole's text follows what are now regarded as inferior mss: see
Germanious Caesar, _Aratea_, ed. Alfred Breysig, 2nd. ed., Leipzig,
1899, p. 58. The poem corresponds to _Anth. Pal._ 7.542. Nicole's
comment recalls Dr. Johnson on Gray's cat.
[17] The dedicatory poem, addressed to Louis XIII, to Caspar Barlaeus'
_Poematum editio nova_, Leyden, 1631, sig.*8.
[18] 22.10
[19] Epig. 1.25, _Opera Omnia_, 2 v., Leyden, 1725, II, 365. Nicole's
text presents several variants and cuts the next to the last couplet,
which I translate: "Already at the tomb, He beats the gates / Of Dis,
and Libertina waits his torches."
[20] Epig. 3.5, _op. cit._, p. 233.
[21] Catullus 36 and Martial 1.109. 10-11
[22] _Pis._ 13
[23] _Aen._ 1.630
[24] _Anthologia Latina_, ed. Alexander Riese, 412.17, Leipzig, 1894,
I, 1, p.319. The epigram, from which this phrase is quoted, was
ascribed to Seneca by Pithoeus.
[25] Epig.... ad ... Neville, 2.126, _op. cit._, p. 38. Harvey, p. 36,
translates: "Lo, not an hair thine heads bald Crown doth crown: / Thy
Faithless Front hath not one hair thine own: / Before, Behind thine
hair's blown off with Blast, / What's left thee to be lost? thine Head
at last."
[26] In the preface, _Delectus_, Paris, 1659, ch. 2. The problem was
whether to print a large collection of epigrams, rejecting merely the
obscene ones, or to choose only the best. A middle way was taken for
these reasons: 1) there are so few first-class epigrams that a reader
who had his own opinions might think the selection too choosy; 2) the
best shines out only in comparison with what is not so good, and
examples of vice are as useful as examples of virtue, since judgement
in large measure consists in knowing what to avoid; 3) finally and
principally, the curiosity of young men would not be sufficiently
satisfied by the selection if they knew that a good many witty and
polished epigrams were to be found elsewhere. Since it was especially
necessary to keep youth from the unspeakable filth of Catullus and
Martial, who are at the same time the best writers, everything of
theirs is included except the cheapest odds and ends and filthiest
obscenities. For the writers after Martial stricter standards were
applied, for the book would have grown beyond bounds if everything
tolerable had been admitted.
[27] Martial 5.37, 1, 4-6, 9, 12-14. The lines that Nicole cuts
contain only more of the same.
[28] Martial 1.76
[29] Epig. libri tres ad Henricum ... ded. 1.67, _op. cit._, p. 131.
[30] Unidentified. The text reads: "In nive nocte vagans nuceo cado
stipite nectus, / Sic mihi nix, nox, nux, nex fuit ante diem."
[31] 1.8. 5-6.