_In apologizing for not having written to him, he shows that the
well-ordering of life is of more importance than the composition of
verses_.
O Florus, faithful friend to the good and illustrious Nero, if by chance
any one should offer to sell you a boy born at Tibur and Gabii, and
should treat with you in this manner; "This [boy who is] both
good-natured and well-favored from head to foot, shall become and be
yours for eight thousand sesterces; a domestic slave, ready in his
attendance at his master's nod; initiated in the Greek language, of a
capacity for any art; you may shape out any thing with [such] moist
clay; besides, he will sing in an artless manner, but yet entertaining
to one drinking. Lavish promises lessen credit, when any one cries up
extravagantly the wares he has for sale, which he wants to put off. No
emergency obliges me [to dispose of him]: though poor, I am in nobody's
debt. None of the chapmen would do this for you; nor should every body
readily receive the same favor from me. Once, [in deed,] he [loitered on
an errand]; and (as it happens) absconded, being afraid of the lash that
hangs in the staircase. Give me your money, if this runaway trick, which
I have expected, does not offend you." In my opinion, the man may take
his price, and be secure from any punishment: you wittingly purchased a
good-for-nothing boy: the condition of the contract was told you.
Nevertheless you prosecute this man, and detain him in an unjust suit.
I told you, at your setting out, that I was indolent: I told you I was
almost incapable of such offices: that you might not chide me in angry
mood, because no letter [from me] came to hand. What then have I
profited, if you nevertheless arraign the conditions that make for me?
On the same score too you complain, that, being worse than my word, I do
not send you the verses you expected.
A soldier of Lucullus, [having run through] a great many hardships, was
robbed of his collected stock to a penny, as he lay snoring in the night
quite fatigued: after this, like a ravenous wolf, equally exasperated at
himself and the enemy, eager, with his hungry fangs, he beat off a royal
guard from a post (as they report) very strongly fortified, and well
supplied with stores. Famous on account of this exploit, he is adorned
with honorable rewards, and receives twenty thousand sesterces into the
bargain. It happened about this time that his officer being inclined to
batter down a certain fort, began to encourage the same man, with words
that might even have given courage to a coward: "Go, my brave fellow,
whither your valor calls you: go with prosperous step, certain to
receive ample rewards for your merit. Why do you hesitate?" Upon this,
he arch, though a rustic: "He who has lost his purse, will go whither
you wish," says he.
It was my lot to have Rome for my nurse, and to be instructed [from the
Iliad] how much the exasperated Achilles prejudiced the Greeks. Good
Athens give me some additional learning: that is to say, to be able to
distinguish a right line from a curve, and seek after truth in the
groves of Academus. But the troublesome times removed me from that
pleasant spot; and the tide of a civil war carried me away,
unexperienced as I was, into arms, [into arms] not likely to be a match
for the sinews of Augustus Caesar. Whence, as soon as [the battle of]
Philippi dismissed me in an abject condition, with my wings clipped, and
destitute both of house and land, daring poverty urged me on to the
composition of verses: but now, having more than is wanted, what
medicines would be efficacious enough to cure my madness, if I did not
think it better to rest than to write verses.
The advancing years rob us of every thing: they have taken away my
mirth, my gallantry, my revelings, and play: they are now proceeding to
force poetry from me. What would you have me do?
In short, all persons do not love and admire the same things. Ye delight
in the ode: one man is pleased with iambics; another with satires
written in the manner of Bion, and virulent wit. Three guests scarcely
can be found to agree, craving very different dishes with various
palate. What shall I give? What shall I not give? You forbid, what
another demands: what you desire, that truly is sour and disgustful to
the [other] two.
Beside other [difficulties], do you think it practicable for me to
write poems at Rome, amid so many solicitudes and so many fatigues? One
calls me as his security, another to hear his works, all business else
apart; one lives on the mount of Quirinus, the other in the extremity of
the Aventine; both must be waited on. The distances between them, you
see, are charmingly commodious. "But the streets are clear, so that
there can be no obstacle to the thoughtful."--A builder in heat hurries
along with his mules and porters: the crane whirls aloft at one time a
stone, at another a great piece of timber: the dismal funerals dispute
the way with the unwieldy carriages: here runs a mad dog, there rushes a
sow begrimed with mire. Go now, and meditate with yourself your
harmonious verses. All the whole choir of poets love the grove, and
avoid cities, due votaries to Bacchus delighting in repose and shade.
Would you have me, amid so great noise both by night and day, [attempt]
to sing, and trace the difficult footsteps of the poets? A genius who
has chosen quiet Athens for his residence, and has devoted seven years
to study, and has grown old in books and study, frequently walks forth
more dumb than a statue, and shakes the people's sides with laughter:
here, in the midst of the billows and tempests of the city, can I be
thought capable of connecting words likely to wake the sound of the
lyre?
At Rome there was a rhetorician, brother to a lawyer: [so fond of each
other were they,] that they would hear nothing but the mere praises of
each other: insomuch, that the latter appeared a Gracchus to the former,
the former a Mucius to the latter. Why should this frenzy affect the
obstreperous poets in a less degree? I write odes, another elegies: a
work wonderful to behold, and burnished by the nine muses! Observe
first, with what a fastidious air, with what importance we survey the
temple [of Apollo] vacant for the Roman poets. In the next place you may
follow (if you are at leisure) and hear what each produces, and
wherefore each weaves for himself the crown. Like Samnite gladiators in
slow duel, till candle-light, we are beaten and waste out the enemy with
equal blows: I came off Alcaeus, in his suffrage; he is mine, who? Why
who but Callimachus? Or, if he seems to make a greater demand, he
becomes Mimnermus, and grows in fame by the chosen appellation. Much do
I endure in order to pacify this passionate race of poets, when I am
writing; and submissive court the applause of the people; [but,] having
finished my studies and recovered my senses, I the same man can now
boldly stop my open ears against reciters.
Those who make bad verses are laughed at: but they are pleased in
writing, and reverence themselves; and if you are silent, they, happy,
fall to praising of their own accord whatever they have written. But he
who desires to execute a genuine poem, will with his papers assume the
spirit of an honest critic: whatever words shall have but little
clearness and elegance, or shall be without weight and held unworthy of
estimation, he will dare to displace: though they may recede with
reluctance, and still remain in the sanctuary of Vesta: those that have
been long hidden from the people he kindly will drag forth, and bring to
light those expressive denominations of things that were used by the
Catos and Cethegi of ancient times, though now deformed dust and
neglected age presses upon them: he will adopt new words, which use, the
parent [of language], shall produce: forcible and perspicuous, and
bearing the utmost similitude to a limpid stream, he will pour out his
treasures, and enrich Latium with a comprehensive language. The
luxuriant he will lop, the too harsh he will soften with a sensible
cultivation: those void of expression he will discard: he will exhibit
the appearance of one at play; and will be [in his invention] on the
rack, like [a dancer on the stage], who one while affects the motions of
a satyr, at another of a clumsy cyclops.
I had rather be esteemed a foolish and dull writer, while my faults
please myself, or at least escape my notice, than be wise and smart for
it. There lived at Argos a man of no mean rank, who imagined that he was
hearing some admirable tragedians, a joyful sitter and applauder in an
empty theater: who [nevertheless] could support the other duties of life
in a just manner; a truly honest neighbor, an amiable host, kind toward
his wife, one who could pardon his slaves, nor would rave at the
breaking of a bottle-seal: one who [had sense enough] to avoid a
precipice, or an open well. This man, being cured at the expense and by
the care of his relations, when he had expelled by the means of pure
hellebore the disorder and melancholy humor, and returned to himself;
"By Pollux, my friends (said he), you have destroyed, not saved me; from
whom my pleasure is thus taken away, and a most agreeable delusion of
mind removed by force."
In a word, it is of the first consequence to be wise in the rejection
of trifles, and leave childish play to boys for whom it is in season,
and not to scan words to be set to music for the Roman harps, but
[rather] to be perfectly an adept in the numbers and proportions of real
life. Thus therefore I commune with myself, and ponder these things in
silence: "If no quantity of water would put an end to your thirst, you
would tell it to your physicians. And is there none to whom you dare
confess, that the more you get the more you crave? If you had a wound
which was not relieved by a plant or root prescribed to you, you would
refuse being doctored with a root or plant that did no good. You have
heard that vicious folly left the man, on whom the gods conferred
wealth; and though you are nothing wiser, since you become richer, will
you nevertheless use the same monitors as before? But could riches make
you wise, could they make you less covetous and mean-spirited, you well
might blush, if there lived on earth one more avaricious than yourself."
If that be any man's property, which he has bought by the pound and
penny, [and] there be some things to which (if you give credit to the
lawyers) possession gives a claim, [then] the field that feeds you is
your own; and Orbius' steward, when he harrows the corn which is soon to
give you flour, finds you are [in effect] the proper master. You give
your money; you receive grapes, pullets, eggs, a hogshead of strong
wine: certainly in this manner you by little and little purchase that
farm, for which perhaps the owner paid three hundred thousand sesterces,
or more. What does it signify, whether you live on what was paid for the
other day, or a long while ago? He who purchased the Aricinian and
Veientine fields some time since, sups on bought vegetables, however he
may think otherwise; boils his pot with bought wood at the approach of
the chill evening. But he calls all that his own, as far as where the
planted poplar prevents quarrels among neighbors by a determinate
limitation: as if anything were a man's property, which in a moment of
the fleeting hour, now by solicitations, now by sale, now by violence,
and now by the supreme lot [of all men], may change masters and come
into another's jurisdiction. Thus since the perpetual possession is
given to none, and one man's heir urges on another's, as wave impels
wave, of what importance are houses, or granaries; or what the Lucanian
pastures joined to the Calabrian; if Hades, inexorable to gold, mows
down the great together with the small?
Gems, marble, ivory, Tuscan statues, pictures, silver-plate, robes dyed
with Getulian purple, there are who can not acquire; and there are
others, who are not solicitous of acquiring. Of two brothers, why one
prefers lounging, play, and perfume, to Herod's rich palm-tree groves;
why the other, rich and uneasy, from the rising of the light to the
evening shade, subdues his woodland with fire and steel: our attendant
genius knows, who governs the planet of our nativity, the divinity [that
presides] over human nature, who dies with each individual, of various
complexion, white and black.
I will use, and take out from my moderate stock, as much as my exigence
demands: nor will I be under any apprehensions what opinion my heir
shall hold concerning me, when he shall, find [I have left him] no more
than I had given me. And yet I, the same man, shall be inclined to know
how far an open and cheerful person differs from a debauchee, and how
greatly the economist differs from the miser. For there is some
distinction whether you throw away your money in a prodigal manner, or
make an entertainment without grudging, nor toil to accumulate more; or
rather, as formerly in Minerva's holidays, when a school-boy, enjoys by
starts the short and pleasant vacation.
Let sordid poverty be far away. I, whether borne in a large or small
vessel, let me be borne uniform and the same. I am not wafted with
swelling sail before the north wind blowing fair: yet I do not bear my
course of life against the adverse south. In force, genius, figure,
virtue, station, estate, the last of the first-rate, [yet] still before
those of the last.
You are not covetous, [you say]:--go to.--What then? Have the rest of
your vices fled from you, together with this? Is your breast free from
vain ambition? Is it free from the fear of death and from anger? Can you
laugh at dreams, magic terrors, wonders, witches, nocturnal goblins, and
Thessalian prodigies? Do you number your birth-days with a grateful
mind? Are you forgiving to your friends? Do you grow milder and better
as old age approaches? What profits you only one thorn eradicated out of
many? If you do not know how to live in a right manner, make way for
those that do. You have played enough, eaten and drunk enough, it is
time for you to walk off: lest having tippled too plentifully, that age
which plays the wanton with more propriety, and drive you [off the
stage].
* * * * *