_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.
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