Horace is aware of his qualities as a poet. In an interesting blend, of
which the first and larger part is detached and judicial estimation of
his work, a second part literary convention, and the third and least a
smiling and inoffensive self-assertion, he prophesies his own
immortality.
From infancy he has been set apart as the child of the Muses. At birth
Melpomene marked him for her own. The doves of ancient story covered him
over with the green leaves of the Apulian wood as, lost and overcome by
weariness, he lay in peaceful slumber, and kept him safe from creeping
and four-footed things, a babe secure in the favor of heaven. The sacred
charm that rests upon him preserved him in the rout at Philippi, rescued
him from the Sabine wolf, saved him from death by the falling tree and
the waters of shipwreck. He will abide under its shadow wherever he may
go,--to his favorite haunts in Latium, to the far north where fierce
Britons offer up the stranger to their gods, to the far east and the
blazing sands of the Syrian desert, to rude Spain and the streams of
Scythia, to the treeless, naked fields of the frozen pole, to homeless
lands under the fiery car of the too-near sun. He will rise superior to
the envy of men. The pinions that bear him aloft through the clear ether
will be of no usual or flagging sort. For him there shall be no death,
no Stygian wave across which none returns:
F_orego the dirge; let no one raise the cry_,
O_r make unseemly show of grief and gloom_,
N_or think o'er me, who shall not really die_,
T_o rear the empty honor of the tomb_.
His real self will remain among men, ever springing afresh in their
words of praise:
N_ot lasting bronze nor pyramid upreared_
B_y princes shall outlive my powerful rhyme_.
T_he monument I build, to men endeared_,
N_ot biting rain, nor raging wind, nor time_,
E_ndlessly flowing through the countless years_,
S_hall e'er destroy. I shall not wholly die_;
T_he grave shall have of me but what appears_;
F_or me fresh praise shall ever multiply_.
A_s long as priest and silent Vestal wind_
T_he Capitolian steep, tongues shall tell o'er_
H_ow humble Horace rose above his kind_
W_here Aufidus's rushing waters roar_
I_n the parched land where rustic Daunus reigned_,
A_nd first taught Grecian numbers how to run_
I_n Latin measure. Muse! the honor gained_
I_s thine, for I am thine till time is done_.
G_racious Melpomene, O hear me now_,
A_nd with the Delphic bay gird round my brow_.
Yet Horace does not always refer to his poetry in this serious vein; if
indeed we are to call serious a manner of literary prophecy which has
always been more or less conventional. His frequent disclaimers of the
higher inspiration are well known. The Muse forbids him to attempt the
epic strain or the praise of Augustus and Agrippa. In the face of grand
themes like these, his genius is slight. He will not essay even the
strain of Simonides in the lament for an Empire stained by land and sea
with the blood of fratricidal war. His themes shall be rather the feast
and the mimic battles of revelling youths and maidens, the making of
love in the grots of Venus. His lyre shall be jocose, his plectrum of
the lighter sort.
He not only half-humorously disclaims the capacity for lofty themes,
but, especially as he grows older and more philosophic, and perhaps less
lyric, half-seriously attributes whatever he does to persevering effort.
He has
"N_or the pride nor ample pinion_
T_hat the Theban eagle bear_,
S_ailing with supreme dominion_
T_hrough the azure deep of air_;"
he is the bee, with infinite industry flitting from flower to flower,
the unpretending maker of verse, fashioning his songs with only toil and
patience. He believes in the file, in long delay before giving forth to
the world the poem that henceforth can never be recalled. The only
inspiration he claims for _Satire_ and _Epistle_, which, he says,
approximate the style of spoken discourse, lies in the aptness and
patience with which he fashions his verses from language in ordinary
use, giving to words new dignity by means of skillful combination. Let
anyone who wishes to be convinced undertake to do the same; he will find
himself perspiring in a vain attempt.
And if Horace did not always conceive of his inspiration as purely
ethereal, neither did he always dream of the path to immortality as
leading through the spacious reaches of the upper air. At forty-four, he
is already aware of a more pedestrian path. He has observed the ways of
the public with literature, as any writer must observe them still, and
knows also of a certain use to which his poems are being put. Perhaps
with some secret pride, but surely with a philosophic resignation that
is like good-humored despair, he sees that the path is pedagogical. In
reproachful tones, he addresses the book of _Epistles_ that is so eager
to try its fortune in the big world: But if the prophet is not blinded
by disgust at your foolishness, you will be prized at Rome until the
charm of youth has left you. Then, soiled and worn by much handling of
the common crowd, you will either silently give food to vandal worms, or
seek exile in Utica, or be tied up and sent to Ilerda. The monitor you
did not heed will laugh, like the man who sent his balky ass headlong
over the cliff; for who would trouble to save anyone against his will?
This lot, too, you may expect: for a stammering old age to come upon you
teaching children to read in the out-of-the-way parts of town.