The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (44 page)

 

Lyce, the gods have listened to my prayer:
The gods have listened, Lyce. Thou art grey
And still would‘st thou seem fair;
Still unshamed drink, and play,

 

And, wine-flushed, woo slow-answering Love with weak
Shrill pipings. With young Chia He doth dwell,
Queen of the harp; her cheek
Is his sweet citadel:

 

He marked the withered oak, and on he flew
Intolerant; shrank from Lyce grim and wrinkled,
Whose teeth are ghastly-blue,
Whose temples snow-besprinkled:

 

Not purple, not the brightest gem that glows,
Brings back to her the years which, fleeting fast,
Time hath once shut in those
Dark annals of the Past.

 

Oh, where is all thy loveliness? soft hue
And motions soft? Oh, what of Her doth rest,
Her, who breathed love, who drew
My heart out of my breast?

 

Fair, and far-famed, and subtly sweet, thy face
Ranked next to Cinara’s. But to Cinara fate
Gave but a few years’ grace;
And lets live, all too late,

 

Lyce, the rival of the beldam crow:
That fiery youth may see with scornful brow
The torch that long ago
Beamed bright, a cinder now.

 

It chanced that I was walking on a day
Along the Sacred Street; as is my way,
Thinking some trifle over, wholly too
Absorbed in it: a man ran up to me—
A man I knew by name alone—and he,
Seizing my hand, cried out: “Ah! how d‘ye do,
My dearest friend on earth?” “As times go now,
I’m pretty well,” say I; “the same to you.”
Close clung he to me, so I said “Good-bye!”
Anticipating him. He made reply:
“You can’t but know me: I’m a scholar, I.”
“The more,” say I, “I’ll hold you in esteem.”
Sadly impatient to get off from him,
I walked at times apace, and there and here
I stopped and whispered in my lackey’s ear,
Whilst to my very heels the sweat did run.
And to myself I said: “0 happy one,
Bolanus, for a temper boiling hot!”
While still my man kept chattering Heaven knows what
About the streets, the City. No reply.
Whereon said he: “You’re longing mightily
To get away; I saw it some time past;
But ’tis no use; I will to you stick fast;
I’ll dog your steps: where are you going, pray?”
“No need for you to wander from your way:
I’m going to see a man unknown to you;
He’s ill in bed, beyond the Tiber far,
Near Cæsar’s gardens.” “I have nought to do;
I walk quite briskly: on, and there we are!”
I hang my head, like sullen ass with pack
He finds too heavy for his youthful back.

 

He starts again: “If I myself well know,
You will not higher confidence bestow
On Viscus or on Varius as a friend;
For where’s the other man that can pretend
To write more verses in the time than I?
Or who can foot a dance more gracefully?
And then I sing so well Hermogenes
May envy me.” Then in a word I squeeze:
“Have you a mother? Have you any kin
To take an interest in your precious skin?”
“Not one; for I have laid them all to rest.”
“0 happy they! Now I am left. ‘Twere best
You finish me at once; for my sad doom
Is close at hand, to lay me in the tomb—
The doom that a Sabellian crone foretold,
On shaking duly the divining urn,
I yet a boy: ’This boy nor poisons dire
Nor sword of foe from life shall ever spurn,
Nor pleurisy, nor gout, nor cough nor cold;
A babbler’s clack will drive him to expire
One day or other: if the boy have sense,
As soon as he attains adolescence,
When chatterers appear, let him go hence.‘”

 

A quarter of the day already past,
To Vesta’s temple had we come at last;
And, as the best of luck would have it, he
Was bound just then to answer to his bail:
Unless he did so, then his case would fail.
“0, as you love me,” said he, “stand by me
A moment here.” “Nay, on my life,” I said,
“I can’t stand here; the law I’ve never read.
Besides, I’m hurrying on to where you know.”
“I am in doubt,” said he, “what I’m to do—
My case abandon, or abandon you.”
“Me, me,” said I. Said he: “I won’t do so”;
And then proceeded on in front to go.
I—for it is not easy to contend
With one that vanquishes you—after wend.
And then he starts again: “Now, tell me true:
What are the terms Mæcenas holds with you?”
“Choice in his friends, a man of sober sense,
No man has used with more intelligence
His chances.” “You would have a powerful stay,
Well fit the second part to you to play,
Me would you introduce. Ay, by my fay,
You’d sweep all rivals from your path away.”

 

Then I replied: “Of quite another kind
Our life is there than what you have in mind:
There’s not a house where reigns a purer tone;
There such annoyances are never known;
Ne‘er jars it on me, has one greater pelf,
Or is more learnèd than I am myself:
We have our several places, every one.”
“News marvellous, beyond belief almost!”
“Yet so it is.” “You fire my wish to boast
Close friendship with him.” “Just you try it—warm:
Your merit’s such you’ll take him straight by storm;
Moreover, he’s a man that may be won,
And this is why approach, when first begun,
Is not so very easy.” Then said he:
“No effort on my part shall wanting be:
I’ll bribe the slaves; if in my face the door
Be shut today, for that I’ll not give o’er;
I’ll watch my opportunities—I’ll meet
My man about the comers of each street;
I’ll wait upon him home and to his haunts:
Without great toil life nought to mortals grants.”

 

While he is this way running on in talk,
Fuscus Aristius meets us in our walk—
Dear friend of mine, and like to know the man.
We stop; exchange “Good day!” then I began
To twitch his robe, and next his arms to seize—
Arms irresponsive; and, to get release,
I nod, I wink. With wit unkind and bland,
He laughed, and feigned he did not understand.
My heart with anger surges. “Sure,” quoth I,
“You said you wished to tell me privately

About some matter.“ ”I remember well,
But at a better season I will tell
You all about it: thirtieth Sabbath this;
You would not want to scandalise, ywis,
The circumcised Jews?“ ”For that,“ say I,
”I have no scruple.“ ”I have, though,“ says he;
”I’m rather a weak brother—as many be;
You’ll pardon me; some opportunity
Will soon occur, when we will talk it o‘er.“
To think this very day the sun should lower
So dark on me! And off the rascal got,
And left me with the knife upon my throat.

 

Just then by chance the plaintiff meets my man,
And shouts to him as loud as e‘er he can:
“Where are you off to, scoundrel? Do you hear?
May I call you to witness?”—this to me;
And with alacrity I lend my ear.
He drags my man to court; then shouts ring free
This side and that; the crowd keeps gathering fast:
And so Apollo saved me at the last.
Book 1, Chapter 9

 

Suppose a painter should at fancy’s beck
Join to a human head a horse’s neck,
And, bringing limbs of every beast together,
Stick on them plumes of parti-coloured feather,
So that a woman beautiful and nesh
Should tail off to a shocking ugly fish,
Could you, my friends, admitted to the sight,
Refrain from laughing at the thing outright?
Believe, my Pisos, such a sketch would be
The very moral of a book where we
Should find the ideas vague, unreal, vain,
Like dreams disordered of a sick man’s brain,
So neither head nor foot finds proper place
In form precise in any single case.

 

“Always have painters, yea and poets too,
Been privileged whate‘er they like to do.”

 

Ay, true! This privilege the bard demands,
The critic grants it, each at other’s hands;
But there’s a limit: for one must not bring
A tame in union with a savage thing—
Pair birds and serpents, lambs and tigers join.
Upon a work of weight and promise fine
Are purple patches, brilliant meant to shine,
Ofttimes sewed on, now here now there:
When Dian’s grove and Dian’s altar fair,
And hurrying waters that meandering twine
Through pleasant fields, or when the river Rhine
Or else the rainbow is portrayed. But now
Was not the time such pictures to bestow.
And maybe you can draw a cypress tree:
But where comes in the use of it, tell me,
If he that paid to have his portrait painted
Is swimming hopeless from a wreck presented?
The thing was first intended for a vase:
Why does it leave the wheel a pitcher base?
Nay, let the subject, be it what it may,
Be simple and a unity alway.

 

The most of us touched with poetic fire,
Both sire and sons—sons worthy of their sire—
Mistake apparent right for rightness pure.
I labour to be brief, I end obscure;
Pursue the easy, nerves and spirit fail;
Try the sublime, you are bombastical.
If one too cautious is, too timid found
To face the storm, he creeps upon the ground;
If one a monstrous variation craves,
Dolphins in woods he paints, and boars in waves.
To flee from error is in fault to rush,
If skill is lacking to the painter’s brush.
Beside the Æmilian school a sculptor great
In bronze will nails express and imitate
Soft hair, yet in the ensemble he will fail
Because he can’t dispose the whole to scale.
A man like this, cared I but to compose,
No more I’d be than sport a crooked nose—
Distinguished with black eyes and with black hair.
All ye that write, material select
That suits your powers, and see you long reflect
What weight your shoulders will refuse to bear,
What strength they have in them. Choose, then, with
care,
A fitting subject well within your border,
You’ll ne‘er lack matter nor a lucid order.
The worth and charm of order will be this,
Unless my judgment should be much amiss,
To say just now what just now should be said,
Most things deferred, aside at present laid.
Yea, let the author of the piece in hand
This point prefer, that other point remand.

 

In planting words too, cautious, using care,
You will express yourself right well indeed
If by an artful junction you suceed
In giving common words a novel air.
And, should it happen that you have to mark
Things that have hitherto lain in the dark,
Then will it fall to you to coin a word
Cethegi with their cinctures never heard;
And licence will be granted if you use
The freedom you have ta‘en without abuse.
And words quite novel, words but lately coined,
Will very readily acceptance find,
If taken from the Greek with little change.
Why should the Roman people ever yield
To Plautus and Cæcilius a range
From Virgil and from Varius withheld?
And why should I, if it be in my power
A few such words to gather, grudge incur,
When Cato’s, Ennius‘, language has made rich
By new words introduced our native speech?
It has been lawful, lawful will be ever,
A word with current stamp on’t to deliver.
As forests change their leaves as wanes the year,
The earliest fall, so words grown ancient perish,
And words but newly born in vigour flourish,
As flourish men in blooming youth’s career.