Complete Works of Horace (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics)

by Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus

  As is painting, so is poetry: some pieces will strike you more if you stand near, and some, if you are at a greater distance: one loves the dark; another, which is not afraid of the critic’s subtle judgment, chooses to be seen in the light; the one has pleased once, the other will give pleasure if ten times repeated.

  O ye elder of the youths, though you are framed to a right judgment by your father’s instructions, and are wise in yourself, yet take this truth along with you, [and] remember it; that in certain things a medium and tolerable degree of eminence may be admitted: a counselor and pleader at the bar of the middle rate is far removed from the merit of eloquent Messala, nor has so much knowledge of the law as Casselius Aulus, but yet he is in request; [but] a mediocrity in poets neither gods, nor men, nor [even] the booksellers’ shops have endured. As at an agreeable entertainment discordant music, and muddy perfume, and poppies mixed with Sardinian honey give offense, because the supper might have passed without them; so poetry, created and invented for the delight of our souls, if it comes short ever so little of the summit, sinks to the bottom.

  He who does not understand the game, abstains from the weapons of the Campus Martius: and the unskillful in the tennis-ball, the quoit, and the troques keeps himself quiet; lest the crowded ring should raise a laugh at his expense: notwithstanding this, he who knows nothing of verses presumes to compose. Why not! He is free-born, and of a good family; above all, he is registered at an equestrian sum of moneys, and clear from every vice. You, [I am persuaded,] will neither say nor do any thing in opposition to Minerva: such is your judgment, such your disposition. But if ever you shall write anything, let it be submitted to the ears of Metius [Tarpa], who is a judge, and your father’s, and mine; and let it be suppressed till the ninth year, your papers being held up within your own custody. You will have it in your power to blot out what you have not made public: a word ice sent abroad can never return.

  Orpheus, the priest and Interpreter of the gods, deterred the savage race of men from slaughters and inhuman diet; once said to tame tigers and furious lions: Amphion too, the builder of the Theban wall, was said to give the stones moon with the sound of his lyre, and to lead them whithersover he would, by engaging persuasion. This was deemed wisdom of yore, to distinguish the public from private weal; things sacred from things profane; to prohibit a promiscuous commerce between the sexes; to give laws to married people; to plan out cities; to engrave laws on [tables of] wood. Thus honor accrued to divine poets, and their songs. After these, excellent Homer and Tyrtaeus animated the manly mind to martial achievements with their verses. Oracles were delivered in poetry, and the economy of life pointed out, and the favor of sovereign princes was solicited by Pierian drains, games were instituted, and a [cheerful] period put to the tedious labors of the day; [this I remind you of,] lest haply you should be ashamed of the lyric muse, and Apollo the god of song.

  It has been made a question, whether good poetry be derived from nature or from art. For my part, I can neither conceive what study can do without a rich [natural] vein, nor what rude genius can avail of itself: so much does the one require the assistance of the other, and so amicably do they conspire [to produce the same effect]. He who is industrious to reach the wished-for goal, has done and suffered much when a boy; he has sweated and shivered with cold; he has abstained from love and wine; he who sings the Pythian strains, was a learner first, and in awe of a master. But [in poetry] it is now enough for a man to say of himself: “I make admirable verses: a murrain seize the hindmost: it is scandalous for me to be outstripped, and fairly to Acknowledge that I am ignorant of that which I never learned.”

  As a crier who collects the crowd together to buy his goods, so a poet rich in land, rich in money put out at interest, invites flatterers to come [and praise his works] for a reward. But if he be one who is well able to set out an elegant table, and give security for a poor man, and relieve when entangled in glaomy law-suits; I shall wonder if with his wealth he can distinguish a true friend from false one. You, whether you have made, or intend to make, a present to any one, do not bring him full of joy directly to your finished verses: for then he will cry out, “Charming, excellent, judicious,” he will turn pale; at some parts he will even distill the dew from his friendly eyes; he will jump about; he will beat the ground [with ecstasy]. As those who mourn at funerals for pay, do and say more than those that are afflicted from their hearts; so the sham admirer is more moved than he that praises with sincerity. Certain kings are said to ply with frequent bumpers, and by wine make trial of a man whom they are sedulous to know whether he be worthy of their friendship or not. Thus, if you compose verses, let not the fox’s concealed intentions impose upon you.

  If you had recited any thing to Quintilius, he would say, “Alter, I pray, this and this:” if you replied, you could do it no better, having made the experiment twice or thrice in vain; he would order you to blot out, and once more apply to the anvil your ill-formed verses: if you choose rather to defend than correct a fault, he spent not a word more nor fruitless labor, but you alone might be fond of yourself and your own works, without a rival. A good and sensible man will censure spiritless verses, he will condemn the rugged, on the incorrect he will draw across a black stroke with his pen; he will lop off ambitious [and redundant] ornaments; he will make him throw light on the parts that are not perspicuous; he will arraign what is expressed ambiguously; he will mark what should be altered; [in short,] he will be an Aristarchus: he will not say, “Why should I give my friend offense about mere trifles?” These trifles will lead into mischiefs of serious consequence, when once made an object of ridicule, and used in a sinister manner.

  Like one whom an odious plague or jaundice, fanatic phrensy or lunacy, distresses; those who are wise avoid a mad poet, and are afraid to touch him; the boys jostle him, and the incautious pursue him. If, like a fowler intent upon his game, he should fall into a well or a ditch while he belches out his fustian verses and roams about, though he should cry out for a long time, “Come to my assistance, O my countrymen;” not one would give himself the trouble of taking him up. Were any one to take pains to give him aid, and let down a rope; “How do you know, but he threw himself in hither on purpose?” I shall say: and will relate the death of the Sicilian poet. Empedocles, while he was ambitious of being esteemed an immortal god, in cold blood leaped into burning Aetna. Let poets have the privilege and license to die [as they please]. He who saves a man against his will, does the same with him who kills him [against his will]. Neither is it the first time that he has behaved in this manner; nor, were he to be forced from his purposes, would he now become a man, and lay aside his desire of such a famous death. Neither does it appear sufficiently, why he makes verses: whether he has defiled his father’s ashes, or sacrilegiously removed the sad enclosure of the vindictive thunder: it is evident that he is mad, and like a bear that has burst through the gates closing his den, this unmerciful rehearser chases the learned and unlearned. And whomsoever he seizes, he fastens on and assassinates with recitation: a leech that will not quit the skin, till satiated with blood.

  THE END

  ARS POETICA (VERSE)

  Translated by John Conington

  TO THE PISOS, FATHER AND SONS.

  HUMANO CAPITI.

  Suppose some painter, as a tour de force,

  Should couple head of man with neck of horse,

  Invest them both with feathers, ‘stead of hair,

  And tack on limbs picked up from here and there,

  So that the figure, when complete, should show

  A maid above, a hideous fish below:

  Should you be favoured with a private view,

  You’d laugh, my friends, I know, and rightly too.

  Yet trust me, Pisos, not less strange would look,

  To a discerning eye, the foolish book

  Where dream-like forms in sick delirium blend,

  And nought is of a piece from end to end.

  “Poets and painters (sure y
ou know the plea)

  Have always been allowed their fancy free.”

  I own it; ’tis a fair excuse to plead;

  By turns we claim it, and by turns concede;

  But ‘twill not screen the unnatural and absurd,

  Unions of lamb with tiger, snake with bird.

  When poets would be lofty, they commence

  With some gay patch of cheap magnificence:

  Of Dian’s altar and her grove we read,

  Or rapid streams meandering through the mead;

  Or grand descriptions of the river Rhine,

  Or watery bow, will take up many a line.

  All in their way good things, but not just now:

  You’re happy at a cypress, we’ll allow;

  But what of that? you’re painting by command

  A shipwrecked sailor, striking out for land:

  That crockery was a jar when you began;

  It ends a pitcher: you an artist, man!

  Make what you will, in short, so, when ’tis done,

  ’Tis but consistent, homogeneous, one.

  Ye worthy trio! we poor sons of song

  Oft find ’tis fancied right that leads us wrong.

  I prove obscure in trying to be terse;

  Attempts at ease emasculate my verse;

  Who aims at grandeur into bombast falls;

  Who fears to stretch his pinions creeps and crawls;

  Who hopes by strange variety to please

  Puts dolphins among forests, boars in seas.

  Thus zeal to ‘scape from error, if unchecked

  By sense of art, creates a new defect.

  Fix on some casual sculptor; he shall know

  How to give nails their sharpness, hair its flow;

  Yet he shall fail, because he lacks the soul

  To comprehend and reproduce the whole.

  I’d not be he; the blackest hair and eye

  Lose all their beauty with the nose awry.

  Good authors, take a brother bard’s advice:

  Ponder your subject o’er not once nor twice,

  And oft and oft consider, if the weight

  You hope to lift be or be not too great.

  Let but our theme be equal to our powers,

  Choice language, clear arrangement, both are ours.

  Would you be told how best your pearls to thread?

  Why, say just now what should just now be said,

  But put off other matter for to-day,

  To introduce it later by the way.

  In words again be cautious and select,

  And duly pick out this, and that reject.

  High praise and honour to the bard is due

  Whose dexterous setting makes an old word new.

  Nay more, should some recondite subject need

  Fresh signs to make it clear to those who read,

  A power of issuing terms till now unused,

  If claimed with modesty, is ne’er refused.

  New words will find acceptance, if they flow

  Forth from the Greek, with just a twist or so.

  But why should Rome capriciously forbid

  Our bards from doing what their fathers did?

  Or why should Plautus and Caecilius gain

  What Virgil or what Varius asks in vain?

  Nay, I myself, if with my scanty wit

  I coin a word or two, why grudge me it,

  When Ennius and old Cato boldly flung

  Their terms broadcast, and amplified our tongue?

  To utter words stamped current by the mill

  Has always been thought right and always will.

  When forests shed their foliage at the fall,

  The earliest born still drops the first of all:

  So fades the elder race of words, and so

  The younger generations bloom and grow.

  Death claims humanity and human things,

  Aye, e’en “imperial works and worthy kings:”

  What though the ocean, girdled by the shore,

  Gives shelter to the ships it tossed before?

  What though the marsh, once waste and watery, now

  Feeds neighbour towns, and groans beneath the plough?

  What though the river, late the corn-field’s dread,

  Rolls fruit and blessing down its altered bed?

  Man’s works must perish: how should words evade

  The general doom, and flourish undecayed?

  Yes, words long faded may again revive,

  And words may fade now blooming and alive,

  If usage wills it so, to whom belongs

  The rule, the law, the government of tongues.

  For metres, Homer shows you how to write

  Heroic deeds and incidents of fight.

  Complaint was once the Elegiac’s theme;

  From thence ’twas used to sing of love’s young dream:

  But who that dainty measure first put out,

  Grammarians differ, and ’tis still in doubt.

  Archilochus, inspired by fiery rage,

  Called forth Iambics: now they tread the stage

  In buskin or in sock, conduct discourse,

  Lead action on, and awe the mob perforce.

  The glorious gods, the gods’ heroic seed,

  The conquering boxer, the victorious steed,

  The joys of wine, the lover’s fond desire,

  Such themes the Muse appropriates to the lyre.

  Why hail me poet, if I fail to seize

  The shades of style, its fixed proprieties?

  Why should false shame compel me to endure

  An ignorance which common pains would cure?

  A comic subject steadily declines

  To be related in high tragic lines.

  The Thyestean feast no less disdains

  The vulgar vehicle of comic strains.

  Each has its place allotted; each is bound

  To keep it, nor invade its neighbour’s ground.

  Yet Comedy sometimes will raise her note:

  See Chremes, how he swells his angry throat!

  And when a tragic hero tells his woes,

  The terms he chooses are akin to prose.

  Peleus or Telephus, suppose him poor

  Or driven to exile, talks in tropes no more;

  His yard-long words desert him, when he tries

  To draw forth tears from sympathetic eyes.

  Mere grace is not enough: a play should thrill

  The hearer’s soul, and move it at its will.

  Smiles are contagious; so are tears; to see

  Another sobbing, brings a sob from me.

  No, no, good Peleus; set the example, pray,

  And weep yourself; then weep perhaps I may:

  But if no sorrow in your speech appear,

  I nod or laugh; I cannot squeeze a tear.

  Words follow looks: wry faces are expressed

  By wailing, scowls by bluster, smiles by jest,

  Grave airs by saws, and so of all the rest.

  For nature forms our spirits to receive

  Each bent that outward circumstance can give:

  She kindles pleasure, bids resentment glow,

  Or bows the soul to earth in hopeless woe;

  Then, as the tide of feeling waxes strong,

  She vents it through her conduit-pipe, the tongue.

  Unless the speaker’s words and fortune suit,

  All Rome will join to jeer him, horse and foot.

  Gods should not talk like heroes, nor again

  Impetuous youth like grave and reverend men;

  Lady and nurse a different language crave,

  Sons of the soil and rovers o’er the wave;

  Assyrian, Colchian, Theban, Argive, each

  Has his own style, his proper cast of speech.

  In painting characters, adhere to fame,

  Or study keeping in the type you frame:

  If great Achilles figure in the scene,

  Make him impatient, fier
y, ruthless, keen;

  All laws, all covenants let him still disown,

  And test his quarrel by the sword alone.

  Still be Medea all revenge and scorn,

  Ino still sad, Ixion still forsworn,

  Io a wanderer still, Orestes still forlorn.

  If you would be original, and seek

  To frame some character ne’er seen in Greek,

  See it be wrought on one consistent plan,

  And end the same creation it began.

  ’Tis hard, I grant, to treat a subject known

  And hackneyed so that it may look one’s own;

  Far better turn the Iliad to a play

  And carve out acts and scenes the readiest way,

  Than alter facts and characters, and tell

  In a strange form the tale men know so well.

  But, with some few precautions, you may set

  Your private mark on public chattels yet:

  Avoid careering and careering still

  In the old round, like carthorse in a mill;

  Nor, bound too closely to the Grecian Muse,

  Translate the words whose soul you should transfuse,

  Nor act the copyist’s part, and work in chains

  Which, once put on by rashness, shame retains.

  Don’t open like the cyclic, with a burst:

  “Troy’s war and Priam’s fate are here rehearsed.”

  What’s coming, pray, that thus he winds his horn?

  The mountain labours, and a mouse is born.

  Far better he who enters at his ease,

  Nor takes your breath with empty nourishes:

  “Sing, Muse, the man who, after Troy was burned,

  Saw divers cities, and their manners learned.”

  Not smoke from fire his object is to bring,

  But fire from smoke, a very different thing;