_He sets the conveniences of a country retirement in opposition to the
troubles of a life in town_.
This was [ever] among the number of my wishes: a portion of ground not
over large, in which was a garden, and a fountain with a continual
stream close to my house, and a little Woodland besides. The gods have
done more abundantly, and better, for me [than this]. It is well: O son
of Maia, I ask nothing more save that you would render these donations
lasting to me. If I have neither made my estate larger by bad means, nor
am in a way to make it less by vice or misconduct; if I do not foolishly
make any petition of this sort--"Oh that that neighboring angle, which
now spoils the; regularity of my field, could be added! Oh that some
accident would discover to me an urn [full] of money! as it did to him,
who having found a treasure, bought that very ground he before tilled in
the capacity of an hired servant, enriched by Hercules' being his
friend;" if what I have at present satisfies me grateful, I supplicate
you with this prayer: make my cattle fat for the use of their master,
and every thing else, except my genius: and, as you are wont, be present
as my chief guardian. Wherefore, when I have removed myself from the
city to the mountains and my castle, (what can I polish, preferably to
my satires and prosaic muse?) neither evil ambition destroys me, nor the
heavy south wind, nor the sickly autumn, the gain of baleful Libitina.
Father of the morning, or Janus, if with more pleasure thou hearest
thyself [called by that name], from whom men commence the toils of
business, and of life (such is the will of the gods), be thou the
beginning of my song. At Rome you hurry me away to be bail; "Away,
dispatch, [you cry,] lest any one should be beforehand with you in doing
that friendly office:" I must go, at all events, whether the north wind
sweep the earth, or winter contracts the snowy day into a narrower
circle. After this, having uttered in a clear and determinate manner
[the legal form], which may be a detriment to me, I must bustle through
the crowd; and must disoblige the tardy. "What is your will, madman, and
what are you about, impudent fellow?" So one accosts me with his
passionate curses. "You jostle every thing that is in your way, if with
an appointment full in your mind you are away to Maecenas." This pleases
me, and is like honey: I will not tell a lie. But by the time I reached
the gloomy Esquiliae, a hundred affairs of other people's encompass me
on every side: "Roscius begged that you would be with him at the
court-house to-morrow before the second hour." "The secretaries
requested you would remember, Quintus, to return to-day about an affair
of public concern, and of great consequence." "Get Maecenas to put his
signet to these tablets." Should one say, "I will endeavor at it:" "If
you will, you can," adds he; and is more earnest. The seventh year
approaching to the eighth is now elapsed, from the time that Maecenas
began to reckon me in the number of his friends; only thus far, as one
he would like to take along with him in his chariot, when he went a
journey, and to whom he would trust such kind of trifles as these: "What
is the hour?" "Is Gallina, the Thracian, a match for [the gladiator]
Syrus?" "The cold morning air begins to pinch those that are ill
provided against it;"--and such things-as are well enough intrusted to a
leaky ear. For all this time, every day and hour, I have been more
subjected to envy. "Our son of fortune here, says every body, witnessed
the shows in company with [Maecenas], and played with him in the Campus
Martius." Does any disheartening report spread from the rostrum through
the streets, whoever comes in my way consults me [concerning it]: "Good
sir, have you (for you must know, since you approach nearer the gods)
heard any thing relating to the Dacians?" "Nothing at all for my part,"
[I reply]. "How you ever are a sneerer!" "But may all the gods torture
me, if I know any thing of the matter." "What? will Caesar give the
lands he promised the soldiers, in Sicily, or in Italy?" As I am
swearing I know nothing about it, they wonder at me, [thinking] me, to
be sure, a creature of profound and extraordinary secrecy.
Among things of this nature the day is wasted by me, mortified as I am,
not without such wishes as these: O rural retirement, when shall I
behold thee? and when shall it be in my power to pass through the
pleasing oblivion of a life full of solicitude, one while with the books
of the ancients, another while in sleep and leisure? O when shall the
bean related to Pythagoras, and at the same time herbs well larded with
fat bacon, be set before me? O evenings, and suppers fit for gods! with
which I and my friends regale ourselves in the presence of my household
gods; and feed my saucy slaves with viands, of which libations have been
made. The guest, according to every one's inclination, takes off the
glasses of different sizes, free from mad laws: whether one of a strong
constitution chooses hearty bumpers; or another more joyously gets
mellow with moderate ones. Then conversation arises, not concerning
other people's villas and houses, nor whether Lepos dances well or not;
but we debate on what is more to our purpose, and what it is pernicious
not to know--whether men are made happier by riches or by virtue; or
what leads us into intimacies, interest or moral rectitude; and what is
the nature of good, and what its perfection. Meanwhile, my neighbor
Cervius prates away old stories relative to the subject. For, if any one
ignorantly commends the troublesome riches of Aurelius, he thus begins:
"On a time a country-mouse is reported to have received a city-mouse
into his poor cave, an old host, his old acquaintance; a blunt fellow
and attentive to his acquisitions, yet so as he could [on occasion]
enlarge his narrow soul in acts of hospitality. What need of many words?
He neither grudged him the hoarded vetches, nor the long oats; and
bringing in his mouth a dry plum, and nibbled scraps of bacon, presented
them to him, being desirous by the variety of the supper to get the
better of the daintiness of his guest, who hardly touched with his
delicate tooth the several things: while the father of the family
himself, extended on fresh straw, ate a spelt and darnel leaving that
which was better [for his guest]. At length the citizen addressing him,
'Friend,' says he, 'what delight have you to live laboriously on the
ridge of a rugged thicket? Will you not prefer men and the city to the
savage woods? Take my advice, and go along with me: since mortal lives
are allotted to all terrestrial animals, nor is there any escape from
death, either for the great or the small. Wherefore, my good friend,
while it is in your power, live happy in joyous circumstances: live
mindful of how brief an existence you are.' Soon as these speeches had
wrought upon the peasant, he leaps nimbly from his cave: thence they
both pursue their intended journey, being desirous to steal under the
city walls by night. And now the night possessed the middle region of
the heavens, when each of them set foot in a gorgeous palace, where
carpets dyed with crimson grain glittered upon ivory couches, and many
baskets of a magnificent entertainment remained, which had yesterday
been set by in baskets piled upon one another. After he had placed the
peasant then, stretched at ease upon a splendid carpet; he bustles about
like an adroit host, and keeps bringing up one dish close upon another,
and with an affected civility performs all the ceremonies, first tasting
of every thing he serves up. He, reclined, rejoices in the change of his
situation, and acts the part of a boon companion in the good cheer: when
on a sudden a prodigious rattling of the folding doors shook them both
from their couches. Terrified they began to scamper all about the room,
and more and more heartless to be in confusion, while the lofty house
resounded with [the barking of] mastiff dogs; upon which, says the
country-mouse, 'I have no desire for a life like this; and so farewell:
my wood and cave, secure from surprises, shall with homely tares comfort
me.'"
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