The praises heaped by Homer on the bowl At once convict him as a thirsty soul: And father Ennius ne'er could be provoked To sing of battles till his lips were soaked.

"Let temperate folk write verses in the hall Where bonds change hands, abstainers not at all;"

So ran my edict: now the clan drinks hard, And vinous breath distinguishes a bard.

What if a man appeared with gown cut short, Bare feet, grim visage, after Cato's sort?

Would you respect him, hail him from henceforth The heir of Cato's mind, of Cato's worth?

The wretched Moor, who matched himself in wit With keen Timagenes, in sunder split.

Faults are soon copied: should my colour fail, Our bards drink c.u.mmin, hoping to look pale.

Mean, miserable apes! the coil you make Oft gives my heart, and oft my sides, an ache.

Erect and free I walk the virgin sod, Too proud to tread the paths by others trod.

The man who trusts himself, and dares step out, Soon sets the fashion to the inferior rout.

'Tis I who first to Italy have shown Iambics, quarried from the Parian stone; Following Archilochus in rhythm and stave, But not the words that dug Lycambes' grave.

Yet think not that I merit scantier bays, Because in form I reproduce his lays: Strong Sappho now and then adopts a tone From that same lyre, to qualify her own; So does Alcaeus, though in all beside, Style, order, thought, the difference is wide; 'Gainst no false fair he turns his angry Muse, Nor for her guilty father twists the noose.

Aye, and Alcaeus' name, before unheard, My Latian harp has made a household word.

Well may the bard feel proud, whose pen supplies Unhackneyed strains to gentle hands and eyes.

Ask you what makes the uncourteous reader laud My works at home, but run them down abroad?

I stoop not, I, to catch the rabble's votes By cheap refreshments or by cast-off coats, Nor haunt the benches where your pedants swarm, Prepared by turns to listen and perform.

That's what this whimpering means. Suppose I say "Your theatres have ne'er been in my way, Nor I in theirs: large audiences require Some heavier metal than my thin-drawn wire:"

"You put me off," he answers, "with a sneer: Your works are kept for Jove's imperial ear: Yes, you're a paragon of bards, you think, And no one else brews nectar fit to drink."

What can I do? 'tis an unequal match; For if my nose can sniff, his nails can scratch: I say the place won't snit me, and cry shame; "E'en fencers get a break 'twixt game and game."

Games oft have ugly issue: they beget Unhealthy compet.i.tion, fume and fret: And fume and fret engender in their turn Battles that bleed, and enmities that burn.

XX. TO HIS BOOK.

VERTUMNUM JANUMQUE.

To street and market-place I see you look With wistful longing, my adventurous book, That on the stalls for sale you may be seen, Rubbed by the binder's pumice smooth and clean.

You chafe at look and key, and court the view Of all the world, disdainful of the few.

Was this your breeding? go where you would go; When once sent out, you won't come back, you know.

"What mischief have I done?" I hear you whine, When some one hurts those feelings, now so fine; For hurt you're sure to be; when people pall Of reading you, they'll crush and fold you small.

If my prophetic soul be not at fault From indignation at your rude revolt, Your doom, methinks, is easy to foretell: While you've your gloss on, Rome will like you well: Then, when you're thumbed and soiled by vulgar hands, You'll feed the moths, or go to distant lands.

Ah, then you'll mind your monitor too late, While he looks on and chuckles at your fate, Like him who, pestered by his donkey's vice, Got off and pushed it down the precipice; For who would lose his temper and his breath To keep a brute alive that's bent on death?

Yet one thing more: your fate may be to teach In some suburban school the parts of speech, And, maundering over grammar day by day, Lisp, prattle, drawl, grow childish, and decay.

Well, when in summer afternoons you see Men fain to listen, tell them about me: Tell them that, born a freedman's son, possessed Of slender means, I soared beyond my nest, That so whate'er's deducted for my birth May count as a.s.sets on the score of worth; Say that I pleased the greatest of my day: Then draw my picture;--prematurely grey, Of little person, fond of sunny ease, Lightly provoked, but easy to appease.

Last, if my age they ask you, let them know That I was forty-four not long ago, In the December of last year, the same That goes by Lepidus' and Lollius' name.

THE EPISTLES

BOOK II.

I. TO AUGUSTUS.

c.u.m TOT SUSTINEAS.

Since you, great Caesar, singly wield the charge Of Rome's concerns, so manifold and large, With sword and shield the commonwealth protect, With morals grace it, and with laws correct, The bard, methinks, would do a public wrong Who, having gained your ear, should keep it long.

Quirinus, Bacchus, and the Jove-born pair, Though now invoked with in cense, gifts, and prayer, While yet on earth they civilized their kind, Tilled lands, built cities, properties a.s.signed, Oft mourned for man's ingrat.i.tude, and found The race they served less thankful than the ground.

The prince whose fated va.s.salage subdued Fell Hydra's power and all the monster brood, Soon found that envy, worse than all beside, Could only be extinguished when he died.

He that outshines his age is like a torch, Which, when it blazes high, is apt to scorch: Men hate him while he lives: at last, no doubt, He wins affection--when his light is out.

You, while in life, are honoured as divine, And vows and oaths are taken at your shrine; So Rome pays homage to her man of men, Ne'er seen on earth before, ne'er to be seen again.

But this wise nation, which for once thinks true, That nought in Greece or here can rival you, To all things else a different test applies, And looks on living worth with jaundiced eyes: While, as for ancient models, take the code Which to the ten wise men our fathers owed, The treaties made 'twixt Gabii's kings and Home's, The pontiffs' books, the bards' forgotten tomes, They'll swear the Muses framed them every one In close divan on Alba's Helicon.

But what's the argument? the bards of Greece And those of Rome must needs be of a piece; As there the oldest hold the foremost place, So here, 'twould seem, the same will be the case.

Is this their reasoning? they may prove as well An olive has no stone, a nut no sh.e.l.l.

Soon, flattered by such dexterous logic, we Shall think we've gained the summit of the tree; In art, in song our rivals we outdo, And, spite of all their oil, in wrestling too.

Or is it said that poetry's like wine Which age, we know, will mellow and refine?

Well, let me grant the parallel, and ask How many years a work must be in cask.

A bard who died a hundred years ago, With whom should he be reckoned, I would know?

The priceless early or the worthless late?

Come, draw a line which may preclude debate.

"The bard who makes his century up has stood The test: we call him sterling, old, and good."

Well, here's a poet now, whose dying day Fell one month later, or a twelvemonth, say: Whom does he count with? with the old, or them Whom we and future times alike contemn?

"Aye, call him old, by favour of the court, Who falls a month, or e'en a twelvemonth short."

Thanks for the kind permission! I go on, And pull out years, like horse-hairs, one by one, While all forlorn the baffled critic stands, Fumbling a naked stump between his hands, Who looks for worth in registers, and knows No inspiration but what death bestows.

Ennius, the stout and wise, in critic phrase The a.n.a.logue of Homer in these days, Enjoys his ease, nor cares how he redeems The gorgeous promise of his peac.o.c.k dreams.

Who reads not Naevius? still he lives enshrined A household G.o.d in every Roman mind.

So as we reckon o'er the heroic band We call Pacuvius learned, Accius grand; Afranius wears Menander's robe with grace; Plautus moves on at Epicharmus' pace; In force and weight Caecilius bears the palm; While Terence--aye, refinement is his charm.

These are Rome's cla.s.sics; these to see and hear She throngs the bursting playhouse year by year: 'Tis these she musters, counts, reviews, displays, From Livius' time to our degenerate days.

Sometimes the public sees like any lynx; Sometimes, if 'tis not blind, at least it blinks.

If it extols the ancient sous of song As though they were unrivalled, it goes wrong: If it allows there's much that's obsolete, Much hasty work, much rough and incomplete, 'Tis just my view; 'tis judging as one ought; And Jove was present when that thought was thought.

Not that I'd act the zealot, and desire To fling the works of Livius on the fire, Which once Orbilius, old and not too mild, Made me repeat by whipping when a child; But when I find them deemed high art, and praised As only not perfection, I'm amazed, That here and there a thought not ill expressed, A verse well turned, should carry off the rest; Just as an unfair sample, set to catch The heedless customer, will sell the batch.

I chafe to hear a poem called third-rate Not as ill written, but as written late; To hear your critics for their ancients claim Not charity, but honour and high fame.

Suppose I doubt if Atta's humorous show Moves o'er the boards with best leg first or no, The fathers of the city all declare That shame has fled from Rome, and gone elsewhere; "What! show no reverence to his sacred shade Whose scenes great Roscius and Aesopus played?"

Perhaps with selfish prejudice they deem That nought but what they like deserves esteem, Or, jealous of their juniors, won't allow That what they learnt in youth is rubbish now.

As for the pedant whose preposterous whim Finds poetry in Numa's Salian hymn, Who would be thought to have explored alone A land to him and me alike unknown, 'Tis not that buried genius he regards: No; 'tis mere spleen and spite to living bards.

Had Greece but been as carping and as cold To new productions, what would now be old?

What standard works would there have been, to come Beneath the public eye, the public thumb?

When, having done with fighting, Greece began To care for trifles that refine the man, And, borne aloft on Fortune's full flood-tide, Went drifting on to luxury and pride, Of athletes and of steeds by turns she raved, Loved ivory, bronze, and marble deftly graved, Hung raptured on a painting, mind and eye, Now leant to music, now to tragedy, Like a young child that hankers for a toy, Then throws it down when it begins to cloy.

With change of fortune nations change their minds: So much for happy peace and prosperous winds.

At Rome erewhile men rose by day-break, saw Their clients at their homes, laid down the law, Put money at good interest out to loan Secured by names responsible and known, Explained to younger folk, or learned from old, How wealth might be increased, expense controlled.

Now our good town has taken a new fit: Each man you meet by poetry is bit; Pert boys, prim fathers dine in, wreaths of bay, And 'twixt the courses warble out their lay.

E'en I, who vow I never write a verse, Am found as false as Parthia, maybe worse; Before the dawn I rouse myself, and call For pens and parchment, writing-desk and all.