The Portable Roman Reader (Portable Library) (46 page)

 

To Thespis is assigned as being his own
A form of tragedy before unknown.
His plays ‘tis said that he conveyed on carts
Whereon the actors sang and played their parts,
Their faces smeared with wine-lees from the cask.
Next Æschylus, the inventor of the mask
And of the stately robe, the stage o’erlaid
With boards some moderate extent outspread,
And taught to speak in a commanding tone
And strut in buskins up the stage and down.
And then the Old Comedy came after these,
And managed fairly well the folk to please;
Its freedom, though, declined into excess
And violence law only could repress:
Accordingly, a law was passed, and straight
The chorus, having lost the right to rate,
Fell into silence, to its deep disgrace.
No form our bards have left untried indeed:
Nor have deserved the smallest honour’s meed
Such of them as have ventured to neglect
The footsteps of the Greeks and to affect
Domestic subjects, whether tragedies
They have exhibited or comedies.
Not more impressive would be Latium’s charms
By noble deeds or famous feats of arms
Than by its language, but for the recoil
Of all our poets from the exacting toil
And long time spent in using of the file.
Pompilius’ descendants, turn away
A poem that has not for many a day
Severe correction borne, and without fail
Been ten times polished to the very nail.
Because Democritus thinks in his heart
That native gift excelleth wretched art,
And off from Helicon severely fences
All poets still considered in their senses,
A goodly part refuse their nails to pare
Or shave their beards; indeed they oft repair
To lonely places; and the baths they shun.
For name and fame of poet they’ll have won
Provided they take care not to be lured
To place their heads i’ th’ hands of Licinus,
The barber—heads that never can be cured
By medicine of three Anticyras.

 

Ah! what a fool am I, who for the bile
Am purged in springtime! Else, no man the while
Could better poems make. But, after all,
What does it matter? Therefore I will fall
To act the whetstone, which, although it fails
Itself to cut, to sharpen iron avails:
And, though myself nought of the kind I write,
To such as do I’ll teach the business quite—
Where plenty matter may be got, what feeds
And forms the bard, what’s fitting, what’s not right,
And whither skill, and whither error, leads.

 

Sound sense is the first principle and source
Of writing well. Materials of course
Socratic works will amply you supply.
And, when the subject has been studied close,
The words will follow on spontaneously.
He that has learnt how deep a debt he owes
His country and his friends—the man that knows
What love is due to father, brother, guest,
What duties rest on judge or senator
Or on a general sent forth to war—
Undoubtedly he knows how to present
Each character in its true lineament.
The skilful imitator I’ll enjoin
To mark the pattern life and manners show
And thence descriptions to the life to draw.
Sometimes a play, with commonplaces fine,
Expressing manners with exactness meet,
Though void of elegance, of force, of art,
With higher pleasure moves the people’s heart
Than tuneful trifles, verses void of meat.

 

Unto the Greeks—yea, unto all and each—
The Muse gave native power and finished speech—
The Greeks, who cared for nothing but for fame,
To win themselves an everlasting name.
The Roman boys with long sums rend their hearts
To split a pound into a hundred parts.
“Here you, Albinus’ son, cudgel your brains:
From ounces five take one, and what remains?
Come, out with it!” ... “Third of a pound.” ...
‘Well done!
You’ll manage well your own affairs, my son.
Now turn the case about, and one ounce add:
What then?“ ... ”Why, half a pound.“ ... ”Good
lad!“
What! Can we then expect, when day by day
This lust of avarice and slavish greed
Has stamped its taint on people’s minds indeed,
That poems will be written such as may
Be rubbed with cedar oil and stored away
In cases of smoothed cypress-wood to stay?

 

The poets aim to profit and amuse,
Or what in life is pleasant and of use
To say at once. The precepts you lay down,
Let them be brief; so docile minds may soon
Lay hold of them, and faithful them retain.
Superfluous instructions are in vain:
From minds too full they simply overflow.
Whate‘er is feigned some pleasure to bestow,
Feign it as near as may be to the truth.
Let not a play e’er claim belief, forsooth,
For every marvel it may choose to feign:
Let it not from a Lamia’s stomach draw
A living child when she has staunched her maw.
The centuries of elders damn a play
That nothing that’s instructive has to say;
The haughty Ramnes scout the austere alway;
But every vote polls he that knows to blend
The pleasant with the useful, and to lend
The reader counsel and delight together.
Such books for Sosii the money gather;
They make their way across the ocean faem,
And they immortalise the author’s name.
Yet faults there are whereat we would not carp:
Not always does the string give back the note
The player’s mind, the player’s hand, hath sought,
But for a flat there oft returns a sharp;
Nor always bow will hit the mark designed.
So, when the beauties dominant I find,
Rare blemishes I shall not greatly mind—
Such blemishes as rose from lack of care
Or human nature weakly failed to spare.

 

How stands the case, then? As a copyist
That, howsoever warned, will yet persist
To make the same mistake, finds no excuse,
And as a harpist falling in the use
Of blundering always on the self-same note
Is thus to ridicule most surely brought,
E‘en so the poet that falls much a-lee
Becomes another Chœrilus to me,
Whom, though I find him good or here or there,
I marvel at and laugh at; and, whene’er
The good Homerus nods, it grieves me deep—
And yet it is permissible that sleep
Upon a work of vast extent should creep.

 

As ‘tis with painting, ’tis with poesy:
One piece will take you more if near you be,
And others if you stand somewhat away;
One loves the dark, another loves the day,
Not dreading what the keenest judge may say;
One piece has once pleased, and another piece,
If ten times viewed, will ten times also please.

 

O elder Piso, though you have been trained
To judgment right by teaching of your sire,
And have keen insiglit of your own engrained,
Yet take to you this saying, nor e‘er tire
To bear it well in mind: in certain cases
E’en middling and but passable successes
Are properly allowed. A man of law
And barrister of mediocre power
Is far below the talent and the skill
Of eloquent Messalla and the lore
Cascellius Aulus has in ample store,
And yet the man is held of value still.
But mediocrity in poets, sure,
Nor men nor gods nor bookstalls can endure.

 

As pleasure at a feast is sadly marred
By music from discordant voices jarred,
By unguents thick and coarse, by poppy blent
With honey from Sardinian meadows sent,
Because they are not needed for the feast,
E‘en so a poem for all men’s delight
Devised and made, if in the very least
It chances to fall short of merit’s height,
Is little better than at bottom quite.

 

The man that knows not how the games to play
From contests in the Campus keeps away;
The man that has not learnt to play the ball,
The quoit, the hoop, he does not play at all,
For fear the crowded circles at him laugh
While he is helpless to resent their chaff;
And yet a man that nought of verses knows
Adventures boldly verses to compose.
Why not? He’s free, and free he saw the light,
Ay, more than that, he’s rated as a knight,
And then his character is spotless white.
But nothing either say or do will you,
Piso, but with consideration due:
Such is your judgment, such your disposition.
But, should you ever make a composition,
Submit it to some Mæcius as judge,
Or to your father, or to me; and lay
The copy in your desk, nor let it budge
Until the ninth year shall have passed away.
What you have never published you may blot;
The word you have sent forth returneth not.

 

Orpheus, the priest, the mouthpiece of the gods,
Deterred wild men from murders and foul foods,
And hence was said to tame the raging moods
Of tigers and of lions; and ‘twas said
Amphion, founder of the city Thebes,
Made stones to move with tunes his cithern played
And led them where he willed with gentle art.
In times of yore it was the poet’s part—
The part of sapience—to distinguish plain
Between the public and the private things,
Between the sacred things and things profane,
To check the ills that sexual straying brings,
To show how laws for married people stood,
To build the towns, to carve the laws in wood:
And so to bards divine and to their lays
Came honour and renown. In later days
Homerus’ and Tyrtæus’ verse of charms
Their manly spirit stirred to deeds of arms;
In form of verse were oracles declared;
The path of life to all men’s eyes was bared;
In strains Pierian princes’ grace was sought,
And festivals were into fashion brought,
Closing the long-drawn labours of the year.
And so you need not feel or shame or fear
To cultivate the Muse skilled with the lyre
And god Apollo, Lord of lyric fire.
A question has been raised: Comes poetry
Deserving praise from nature or from art?
I never have been able, for my part,
To see what can be done by industry
Without a vein of rich poetic tone,
Nor what can untaught genius all alone:
So much does each demand the other’s aid,
And both conspire as friends to act as one.
The man that has his mind upmade
To reach the wished-for goal, in early days
Hath much endured and done, borne cold and heat,
Abstained from wine and women; he that plays
The flute at Pythian games first learnt the feat
And bore a master’s harshness. Nowadays
Enough to say: “I make fine verses, I;
Deuce take the hindmost; it is shameful—fie!—
For me to lag behind, and to confess
No scrap of what I learnt not to possess.”

E‘en as a huckster draws to him a crowd
To buy his wares by shouting long and loud,
A poet rich in lands and rich in coin
Put out at interest bids flatterers join
His circle, something as reward to gain;
But, though he be a man can entertain
In proper style, and stand security
For poor and needy men, and set them free
From meshes of vexatious suits at law,
Yet shall I be surprised if—happy man!—
False friend from true friend he distinguish can.
Have you bestowed, or mean you to bestow,
On any one a gift, you’ll be to blame
If e’er you show him verses made by you
When he is blithe and gay, for then he’ll hail
“Charming!” “Well done!” “First rate!” He’ll then turn
pale
In contemplation of them; e‘en the dew
Will from his friendly eyes to drop be found,
Yea, he’ll jump up, and stamp upon the ground.

As those that mourn at funerals for hire
Make greater fuss and lamentation dire
That those that in their hearts are sore afflicted,
E‘en so the flatterer is more affected
Than those whose admiration is sincere.
With bumper upon bumper, as we hear,
Princes will ply one, so they throughly know
To trust him as a friend or let him go.
If poems you compose, be not deceived
By latent wiles a fox may have conceived.

 

If you read verses to Quintilius,
“Pray, alter that,” he’d say, “and alter this.”
If you replied that you could do no more,
For you had tried, yea twice and three times o‘er,
But all in vain, he’d bid you “out them score”
And place your ill-turned verses once again
Upon the anvil. But, if you preferred
Your fault not to correct but to maintain,
He would not spend on you another word
Nor waste his efforts, but would leave you there
Yourself to fancy and your verses fair,
Without corrival, by yourself, alone.
An honest and discriminating man
Will censure verses that are weak and tame,
Harsh verses likewise he will mark with blame,
Inelegant with lines of black he’ll score,
Pretentious ornaments he’ll cut away,
He’ll have made clear what was obscure before,
Ambiguous expressions shall not stay,
He’ll point the changes that the verses need,
He’ll prove an Aristarchus: he’ll not say,
“Why with mere trifles should I vex my friend?”
Ah! trifles will to serious troubles lead
A man that once has been befooled indeed
By friends uncandid for a dubious end.

 

Like one that suffers from a nasty itch,
Or jaundice, or wild frenzy, madness plain,
So men of sense avoid and shrink to touch
A crazy poet: boys torment the man,
And people follow him, a heedless rout.
If he, while head in air he stalks about
And spouts his verses, e‘er should chance to fall,
Like to a fowler on his game intent,
Into a well or pit, though loud he call,
“Ho, citizens, help! help!” none would consent,
None would take pains, to help the fellow out;
But, should one take the pains aid to convey
And let him down a rope, then I should say,
“How know you that he did not with intention
Throw himself down, nor wants your intervention?”
And I will tell how a Sicilian poet
Came by his death—already you may know it:
Empedocles, fain to be deemed a god,
Leapt into flaming Ætna in cold blood.
If bards there be that such ambition cherish,
Leave them the right and liberty to perish.
He that would save a man against his will
Is on a par with one that would him kill.
Besides, the man has done the thing before,
Nor, if you rescue him, will he give o’er:
E‘en then he’ll not become a sober man,
Nor cease for a notorious death to plan.
And why on earth does he so keenly crave
To write? Has he befouled his father’s grave?
Or has he with unhallowed feet been found
In impious trespass on polluted ground?
At any rate, he’s mad; and, like a bear
That bursts the gates that pen him in his lair,
This merciless reciter puts to flight
Alike the learned and the unlearned wight;
But, let him catch one, then he holds him fast
And with his verses kills him at the last:
A very leech he is, and won’t let go
Till with the captive’s blood he fills his maw.