Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookade behind your back! What is the people's verdict? What should it be, but that now at length verses flow in harmonious numbers, and the skillful joining[1240] allows the critical nails to glide over its polished surface: he knows how to carry on his verse as if he were drawing a ruddle line with one eye[1241] closed. Whether he has occasion to write against public morals, against luxury, or the banquets of the great, the Muses vouchsafe to our Poet[1242] the saying brilliant things. And see! now we see those introducing heroic[1243] sentiments, that were wont to trifle in Greek: that have not even skill enough to describe a grove. Nor praise the bountiful country, where are baskets,[1244] and the hearth, and porkers, and the smoky palilia with the hay: whence Remus sprung, and thou, O Quintius,[1245] wearing away the plow-boards in the furrow, when thy wife with trembling haste invested thee with the dictatorship in front of thy team, and the lictor bore thy plow home--Bravo, poet! Some even now delight in the turgid book of Brisæan Accius,[1246] and in Pacuvius, and warty[1247] Antiopa, "her dolorific heart propped up with woe." When you see purblind sires instilling these precepts into their sons, do you inquire whence came this gallimaufry[1248] of speech into our language? Whence that disgrace,[1249] in which the effeminate Trossulus[1250] leaps up in ecstasy at you, from his bench. Are you not ashamed[1251] that you can not ward off danger from a hoary head, without longing to hear the lukewarm "Decently[1252] said!" "You are a thief!" says the accuser to Pedius. What says Pedius?[1253] He balances the charge in polished antitheses. He gets the praise of introducing learned figures. "That is fine!" Fine, is it?[1254] O Romulus, dost thou wag thy tail?[1255] Were the shipwrecked man to sing, would he move my pity, forsooth, or should I bring forth my penny? Do you sing, while you are carrying about a picture[1256] of yourself on a fragment of wood, hanging from your shoulders. He that aims at bowing me down by his piteous complaint, must whine out what is real,[1257] and not studied and got up of a night. A. But the numbers have grace, and crude as you call them, there is a judicious combination. P. He has learned thus to close his line. "Berecynthean Atys;"[1258] and, "The Dolphin that clave the azure Nereus." So again, "We filched away a chine from long-extending Apennine." A. "Arms and the man."[1259] Is not this frothy, with a pithless rind? P. Like a huge branch, well seasoned, with gigantic bark! A. What then is a tender strain, and that should be read with neck relaxed?[1260] P. "With Mimallonean[1261] hums they filled their savage horns; and Bassaris, from the proud steer about to rive the ravished head, and Mænas, that would guide the lynx with ivy-clusters, re-echoes Evion; and reproductive Echo reverberates the sound!" Could such verses be written, did one spark of our fathers' vigor still exist in us? This nerveless stuff dribbles on the lips, on the topmost spittle. In drivel vests this Mænas and Attis. It neither beats the desk,[1262] nor savors of bitten nails. A. But what need is there to grate on delicate ears with biting truth? Take care, I pray, lest haply the thresholds of the great[1263] grow cold to you. Here the dog's letter[1264] sounds from the nostril. For me[1265] then, henceforth, let all be white. I'll not oppose it. Bravo! For you shall all be very wonderful productions! Does that please you? "Here, you say, I forbid any one's committing a nuisance." Then paint up two snakes. Boys, go farther away: the place is sacred! I go away. P. Yet Lucilius lashed[1266] the city, and thee, O Lupus,[1267] and thee too, Mucius,[1268] and broke his jaw-bone[1269] on them. Sly Flaccus touches every failing of his smiling friend, and, once admitted, sports around his heart; well skilled in sneering[1270] at the people with well-dissembled[1271] sarcasm. And is it then a crime for me to mutter, secretly, or in a hole? A. You must do it nowhere. P. Yet here I will bury it! I saw, I saw with my own[1272] eyes, my little book! Who has not asses' ears?[1273] This my buried secret, this my sneer, so valueless, I would not sell you for any Iliad.[1274] Whoever thou art, that art inspired[1275] by the bold Cratinus, and growest pale over the wrathful Eupolis and the old man sublime, turn thine eyes on these verses also, if haply thou hearest any thing more refined.[1276] Let my reader glow with ears warmed by their strains. Not he that delights, like a mean fellow as he is, in ridiculing the sandals of the Greeks, and can say to a blind man, Ho! you blind fellow! Fancying himself to be somebody, because vain[1277] of his rustic honors, as Ædile[1278] of Arretium,[1279] he breaks up the false measures[1280] there. Nor again, one who has just wit enough to sneer at the arithmetic boards,[1281] and the lines in the divided dust; quite ready to be highly delighted, if a saucy wench[1282] plucks[1283] a Cynic's[1284] beard. To such as these I recommend[1285] the prætor's edict[1286] in the morning, and after dinner--Callirhoe. FOOTNOTES: [1181] _Oh curas!_ These are the opening lines of his Satire, which Persius is reading aloud, and is interrupted by his "Adversarius." He represents himself as having meditated on all mundane things, and, like Solomon, having discovered their emptiness, "Vanitas vanitatum!" Cf. Juv., Sat. i., 85, "Quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, Gaudia, discursus; nostri est farrago libelli." It is an adaptation of the old Greek proverb, ὅσον τὸ κένον. [1182] _Adversarius._ "Interpretes plerique hunc Persii amicum seu monitorem volunt: ego vero et morosum adversarium, et ridiculum senem intelligo." D'Achaintre. [1183] _Quis legit hæc?_ The old Gloss. says this line is taken from the first book of Lucilius. [1184] _Næ mihi Polydamas._ Taken from Hector's speech, where he dreads the reproaches of his brother-in-law Polydamas, and the Trojan men and women, if he were to retire within the walls of Troy. Il., x., 105, 108, Πουλυδάμας μοι πρῶτος ἐλεγχείην ἀναθήσει--αἰδέομαι Τρῶας καὶ Τρωάδας ἑλκεσιπέπλους. Cicero has introduced the same lines in his Epistle to Atticus: "Aliter sensero? αἰδέομαι non Pompeium modo, sed Τρῶας καὶ Τρωάδας· Πουλυδάμας μοι πρῶτος ἐλεγχείην ἀναθήσει: Quis? Tu ipse scilicet; laudator et scriptorum et factorum meorum," vii., 1. By Polydamas, he intends Nero; by Troïades, the effeminate Romans, who prided themselves on their Trojan descent. Cf. Juv., i., 100, "Jubet a præcone vocari ipsos Trojugenas." viii., 181, "At vos Trojugenæ vobis ignoscitis, et quæ turpia cerdoni Volesos Brutosque decebunt." Attius Labeo was a miserable court-poet, a favorite of Nero, who applied himself to translate Homer word for word. Casaubon giv |