O, drink is mighty! secrets it unlocks, Turns hope to fact, sets cowards on to box, Takes burdens from the careworn, finds out parts In stupid folks, and teaches unknown arts.

What tongue hangs fire when quickened by the bowl?

What wretch so poor but wine expands his soul?

Meanwhile, I'm bound in duty, nothing both, To see that nought in coverlet or cloth May give you cause to sniff, that dish and cup May serve you as a mirror while you sup; To have my guests well-sorted, and take care That none is present who'll tell tales elsewhere.

You'll find friend Butra and Septicius here, Ditto Sabinus, failing better cheer: And each might bring a friend or two as well, But then, you know, close packing's apt to smell.

Come, name your number, and elude the guard Your client keeps by slipping through the yard.

VI. TO NUMICIUS.

NIL ADMIRARI.

Not to admire, Numicius, is the best, The only way, to make and keep men blest.

The sun, the stars, the seasons of the year That come and go, some gaze at without fear: What think you of the gifts of earth and sea, The untold wealth of Ind or Araby, Or, to come nearer home, our games and shows, The plaudits and the honours Rome bestows?

How should we view them? ought they to convulse The well-strung frame and agitate the pulse?

Who fears the contrary, or who desires The things themselves, in either case admires; Each way there's flutter; something unforeseen Disturbs the mind that else had been serene.

Joy, grief, desire or fear, whate'er the name The pa.s.sion bears, its influence is the same; Where things exceed your hope or fall below, You stare, look blank, grow numb from top to toe.

E'en virtue's self, if followed to excess, Turns right to wrong, good sense to foolishness.

Go now, my friend, drink in with all your eyes Bronze, silver, marble, gems, and Tyrian dyes, Feel pride when speaking in the sight of Rome, Go early out to 'Change and late come home, For fear your income drop beneath the rate That comes to Mutus from his wife's estate, And (shame and scandal!), though his line is new, You give the pas to him, not he to you.

Whate'er is buried mounts at last to light, While things get hid in turn that once looked bright.

So when Agrippa's mall and Appius' way Have watched your well-known figure day by day, At length the summons comes, and you must go To Numa and to Ancus down below.

Your side's in pain; a doctor hits the blot: You wish to live aright (and who does not?); If virtue holds the secret, don't defer; Be off with pleasure, and be on with her.

But no; you think all morals sophists' tricks, Bring virtue down to words, a grove to sticks; Then hey for wealth! quick, quick, forestall the trade With Phrygia and the East, your fortune's made.

One thousand talents here--one thousand there-- A third--a fourth, to make the thing four-square.

A dowried wife, friends, beauty, birth, fair fame, These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame: Be but a moneyed man, persuasion tips Your tongue, and Venus settles on your lips.

The Cappadocian king has slaves enow, But gold he lacks: so be it not with you.

Lucullus was requested once, they say, A hundred scarves to furnish for the play: "A hundred!" he replied, "'tis monstrous; still I'll look; and send you what I have, I will."

Ere long he writes: "Five thousand scarves I find; Take part of them, or all if you're inclined."

That's a poor house where there's not much to spare Which masters never miss and servants wear.

So, if 'tis wealth that makes and keeps us blest, Be first to start and last to drop the quest.

If power and mob-applause be man's chief aims, Let's hire a slave to tell us people's names, To jog us on the side, and make us reach, At risk of tumbling down, a hand to each: "This rules the Fabian, that the Veline clan; Just as he likes, he seats or ousts his man:"

Observe their ages, have your greeting pat, And duly "brother" this, and "father" that.

Say that the art to live's the art to sup, Go fishing, hunting, soon as sunlight's up, As did Gargilius, who at break of day Swept with his nets and spears the crowded way, Then, while all Rome looked on in wonder, brought Home on a single mule a boar he'd bought.

Thence pa.s.s on to the bath-room, gorged and crude, Our stomachs stretched with undigested food, Lost to all self-respect, all sense of shame, Disfranchised freemen, Romans but in name, Like to Ulysses' crew, that worthless band, Who cared for pleasure more than fatherland.

If, as Mimnermus tells you, life is flat With nought to love, devote yourself to that.

Farewell: if you can mend these precepts, do: If not, what serves for me may serve for you.

VII. TO MAECENAS.

QUINQUE DIES TIBI POLLICITUS.

Five days I told you at my farm I'd stay, And lo! the whole of August I'm away.

Well, but, Maecenas, yon would have me live, And, were I sick, my absence you'd forgive; So let me crave indulgence for the fear Of falling ill at this bad time of year, When, thanks to early figs and sultry heat, The undertaker figures with his suite, When fathers all and fond mammas grow pale At what may happen to their young heirs male, And courts and levees, town-bred mortals' ills, Bring fevers on, and break the seals of wills.

When winter strews the Alban fields with snow, Down to the sea your chilly bard will go, There keep the house and study at his ease, All huddled up together, nose and knees: With the first swallow, if you'll have him then, He'll come, dear friend, and visit you again.

Not like the coa.r.s.e Calabrian boor, who pressed His store of pears upon a sated guest, Have you bestowed your favours. "Eat them, pray."

"I've done." "Then carry all you please away."

"I thank you, no." "Your boys won't like you less For taking home a sack of them, I guess."

"I could not thank you more if I took all."

"Ah well, if you won't eat them, the pigs shall."

'Tis silly prodigality, to throw Those gifts broadcast whose value you don't know: Such tillage yields ingrat.i.tude, and will, While human nature is the soil you till.

A wise good man has ears for merit's claim, Yet does not reckon bra.s.s and gold the same.

I also will "a.s.sume desert," and prove I value him whose bounty speaks his love.

If you would keep me always, give me back My st.u.r.dy sides, my cl.u.s.tering locks of black, My pleasant voice and laugh, the tears I shed That night when Cinara from the table fled.

A poor pinched field-mouse chanced to make its way Through a small rent in a wheat-sack one day, And, having gorged and stuffed, essayed in vain To squeeze its body through the hole again: "Ah!" cried a weasel, "wait till you get thin; Then, if you will, creep out as you crept in."

Well, if to me the story folks apply, I give up all I've got without a sigh: Not mine to cram down guinea-fowls, and then Heap praises on the sleep of labouring men; Give me a country life and leave me free, I would not choose the wealth of Araby.

I've called you Father, praised your royal grace Behind your back as well as to your face; You've owned I have a conscience: try me now If I can quit your gifts with cheerful brow.

That was a prudent answer which, we're told, The son of wise Ulysses made of old: "Our Ithaca is scarce the place for steeds; It has no level plains, no gra.s.sy meads: Atrides, if you'll let me, I'll decline A gift that better meets your wants than mine."

Small things become small folks: imperial Rome Is all too large, too bustling for a home; The empty heights of Tibur, or the bay Of soft Tarentum, more are in my way.

Philip, the famous counsel, years ago, Was moving home at two, sedate and slow, Old, and fatigued with pleading at the bar, And grumbling that he lived away so far, When suddenly he chanced his eye to drop On a spruce personage in a barber's shop, Who in the shopman's absence lounged at ease, Paring his nails as calmly as you please.

"Demetrius"--so was called the slave he kept To do his errands, a well-trained adept-- "Find out about that man for me; enquire His name and rank, his patron or his sire."

He soon brings word that Mena is the name, An auction-crier, poor, but without blame, One who can work or idle, get or spend, Who loves his home and likes to see a friend, Enjoys the circus, and when work's got through, Hies to the field, and does as others do.

"I'll hear the details from himself: go say I'll thank him if he'll sup with me to-day."

Mena can scarce believe it; posed and mum He ponders; then, with thanks, declines to come.

"What? does he dare to say me nay?" "Just so; Be it reserve or disrespect, 'tis no."

Philip next morn finds Mena at a sale "Where odds and ends are going by retail, And greets him first. He, stammeringly profuse, Alleges ties of business in excuse For not by day-break knocking at his door, And last, for not observing him before.

"Well, bygones shall be bygones, if so be You'll come this afternoon and sup with me."

"I'm at your service." "Then 'twixt four and five You'll come: now go, and do your best to thrive."

He's there in time; what comes into his head He chatters, right or wrong; then off to bed.

So, when he'd learnt to nibble at the bait, At levee early and at supper late, One holiday he's bidden to come down With Philip to his villa out of town.

Astride on horseback, both, he vows, are rare, The Sabine country and the Sabine air.

Philip looks on and chuckles, his one aim To get a laugh by keeping up the game, Lends him seven hundred, gives him out of hand Seven more, and leads him on to buy some land.

'Tis bought: to make a lengthy tale concise, The man becomes a clown who once was nice, Talks all of elms and vineyards, ploughs and soil, And ages fast with struggling and sheer toil; Till, when his sheep are stolen, his bullock drops, His goats die off, a blight destroys his crops, One night he takes a waggon-horse, and sore With all his losses, rides to Philip's door.

Philip perceives him squalid and unshorn, And cries, "Why, Mena! surely you look worn; You work too hard." "Nay, call me wretch," says he, "Good patron; 'tis the only name for me.

So now, by all that's binding among men, I beg you, give me my old life again."

He that finds out he's changed his lot for worse, Let him betimes the untoward choice reverse: For still, when all is said, the rule stands fast, That each man's shoe be made on his own last.

VIII. TO CELSUS ALBINOVa.n.u.s.