by Horace
If I questioned whether a play of Atta’s still stood up
80 as it rambled on through the flowers and saffron, all our elders
would cry that shame was dead – because I’d ventured to fault
what the grave Aesopus and accomplished Roscius once appeared in.
They seem to object to whatever hasn’t appealed to them,
or they’re ashamed to heed their juniors and will not admit
that things they learnt in their youth should now be treated as rubbish.
In fact the man who praises Numa’s Salian Hymn
and likes to pose as the expert on a work which he understands
as little as I do is not the champion of the mighty dead
but our opponent; he’s jealous, and hates us and our works.
90 Suppose the Greeks had resented newness as much as we do,
what would now be old? And what would the people have
to read and thumb with enjoyment, each man to his taste?
As soon as Greece abandoned war and turned to amusements,
lapsing into frivolity as fortune smiled upon her,
she developed a feverish craze for either athletes or horses,
or fell in love with craftsmen in ivory, bronze, or marble;
she acquired a hang-up gazing at surfaces covered with paint,
and became enraptured with pipers or else with tragic actors.
Just like a baby playing under her nurse’s eye,
100 she’d clamour for something, and then grow bored and leave it alone.
Such were the blessings brought by the prosperous winds of peace.
At Rome for years they had the agreeable habit of rising
early, opening the door, and telling the client his rights.
They would lend cash to reliable people with good collateral,
hear from their elders and tell the youngsters various ways
of increasing assets and cutting down on ruinous pleasures.
But what likes and dislikes are not subject to change?
Now the fickle public has changed; the only hobby
that turns it on is writing; boys and their stern progenitors
110 bind their hair with leaves and dictate verse over dinner.
I myself, after swearing that I’m writing no more poetry,
prove a worse than Parthian liar; for there I am,
awake before dawn and asking for pen, paper and files.
If he knows nothing of sailing, a man avoids the helm;
no one risks giving wormwood to a patient, unless he’s trained;
doctors doctor; carpenters handle carpenters’ tools;
but qualified or not we all go in for scribbling verses!
Yet this aberration (or if you like, this mild insanity)
has certain merits; for just think: the soul of a poet
120 can hardly be greedy; verse is his only love and concern.
Fires, losses, runaway slaves – he smiles at the lot.
He never works out plans to cheat his partner in business
or the boy in his charge. He lives on pulse and second-rate bread.
He’s too idle to be much of a soldier; yet he serves his country –
if you grant that minor activities further major ends.
The poet shapes the tender faltering speech of a child,
already turning the ear away from coarse expressions.
Later he moulds the disposition by kindly maxims,
using his voice to correct cruelty, envy and temper.
He recounts noble actions, equips the new generation
130 with old examples, and brings relief to the poor and sick.
Where would innocent boys and girls who are still unmarried
have learnt their prayers if the Muse had not vouchsafed them a poet?
The choir asks for aid and feels the deities’ presence;
by the poet’s prayers it coaxes heaven to send us showers;
it averts disease and drives away appalling dangers;
it gains the gift of peace and a year of bumper harvests.
Song is what soothes the gods above and the spirits below.
Farmers of old – sturdy men, well off with a little –
140 when the crops were in, at holiday time relaxed the body
and the mind as well (which bears a lot when it has an end
in sight) with the sons and loyal wives who had shared the work.
They used to placate Silvanus with milk and Earth with a pig,
and the Genius who knows the shortness of life with wine and flowers.
These occasions saw the beginning of wild Fescennines –
verses in which they exchanged volleys of rustic abuse.
Freedom was gladly given a place in the year’s cycle,
and people enjoyed the fun, until the joking began
to get vicious and turned into sheer madness, becoming a menace
150 and running unchecked through decent houses; its tooth drew blood,
and the victims smarted; even those who escaped were worried
about the state of society. At last a law was enacted
involving penalties; no one, it said, should be traduced
in scurrilous verse. They changed their tune, and in fear of the cudgel
returned to decent language and the business of giving pleasure.
When Greece was taken she took control of her rough invader,
and brought the arts to rustic Latium. Then the primitive
metre of Saturn dried up; and the fetid smell gave way
to cleaner air; nevertheless for many a year
160 there remained, and still remain today, signs of the farmyard.
It was late when the Roman applied his brains to Greek writing.
In the peace which followed the Punic wars he began to wonder
if Aeschylus, Thespis and Sophocles had anything useful to offer,
and if he himself could produce an adequate version. He tried,
and liked the result, having grand ideas and natural keenness.
(His spirit was tragic enough, and his daring strokes succeeded,
but he had the novice’s guilty dread of using a rubber.)
As Comedy draws its themes from daily life, they say
it doesn’t require much sweat. In fact it’s heavier work
170 because it is judged more strictly. Look at the feeble way
Plautus presents his characters – the teenage boy in love,
the parsimonious father and the shifty devious pimp.
What a buffoon he is in handling his famished spongers!
And think of the slipshod style in which he blunders along.
He’s keen to pocket the cash; after that, who worries
whether the play is a steady success or a hopeless flop?
The man who is brought to the stage by Glory’s windy car
collapses when given a cool reception, expands at a warm one.
Such is the tiny and trivial thing that breaks or repairs
the heart set on applause. To hell with the stage if a palm-leaf,
180 withheld or given, sends me away haggard or healthy!
Often even the resolute poet is daunted and routed
when those superior in numbers but not in worth or status –
stupid illiterate men who are ready to start a fight
if the knights oppose their wishes – call for a bear or boxers
in the middle of a play. That’s the stuff that appeals to the masses.
Nowadays even the knights have stopped listening, and all their
interest is taken up with inane and ephemeral pageants.
The curtain is up for four-hour periods, if not longer,
190 as squadrons of cavalry and hordes of infantry hurtle past;
fallen kings are dragged across with their hands pinioned;
chariots, carriages, wagons and ships rumble along,
carrying work
s of bronze and ivory taken from Corinth.
If he were still alive, wouldn’t Democritus laugh
to see the people turning to gape at a white elephant
or a giraffe, that beast made up of camel and leopard?
He’d watch the crowd more closely than the actual show,
for they would offer him far more astonishing things to look at.
As for the writers, he’d think they were telling their stories
200 to a deaf ass. For who was ever born with a voice
that could rise above the din you get in a Roman theatre?
You’d think it came from the Gargan forest or the Tuscan Sea.
That’s the noise through which they watch the production, including
the expensive foreign jewellery with which the actor is smothered.
He walks on stage and at once is greeted with frenzied applause.
‘Has he said something already?’
‘No.’
‘Then why are they clapping?’
‘It’s his woollen coat, dyed in Tarentum to rival a violet.’
You mustn’t think I’m too mean to admit admiration
for things which I would never try and others excel at.
210 Take the playwright who fills my heart with imaginary grief,
illusory rage or fear, and then with peace; to me
that’s as hard as walking a tightrope; like a magician,
he whisks me away – one day to Thebes, another to Athens.
I would ask you now to spare a moment’s thought for the men
who trust themselves to a reader rather than face the contempt
and snubs of an audience – if, that is, you intend to fill
the shelves of that gift so worthy of Phoebus and to spur our poets
to stretch with greater zeal for the green slopes of Helicon.
We writers, it’s true, frequently harm our cause
220 (says he, hacking his own vines) when, though you are worried
or weary, we thrust a book at you; when we are cut to the quick
if a friend dares to see any fault in a single line;
when, unasked, we repeat sections we’ve read before;
when we complain that the pieces we’ve shaped with exquisite art
and infinite pains have failed to win the least recognition;
when we hope that eventually things will reach the point
where as soon as you’ve heard we’re writing you’ll kindly invite us to court,
relieve our financial worries and urge us to carry on.
Nevertheless, it’s worth considering what type of custodian
230 ought to guard that valour proven in peace and war –
a task not to be given to a poet who doesn’t deserve it.
King Alexander the Great, who much admired the wretched
Choerilus, paid him golden sovereigns from the royal mint
by way of reward for all those crude misbegotten effusions.
People who dabble in ink leave blots and stains on the paper;
so your average writer defiles illustrious deeds
with his horrid scrawls. And yet that very monarch who purchased
such a fatuous poem at such a reckless price,
laid it down that no one except Apelles should paint
240 his portrait, and no one except Lysippus should cast in bronze
Alexander’s martial features. If, however, you had asked
that judgement which handled visual arts with such acumen
to pronounce on books and poetic creations of the kind described,
you’d have sworn the man was reared in the thick Boeotian climate.
Your own judgement of poets, however, is fully upheld
by your favourite writers Virgil and Varius; also the presents
they have received reflect the greatest credit on you.
The truth is that the mind and character of famous men
come through as clearly in a poet’s work as the features do
250 in a bronze statue. For my part, rather than writing talks
that creep on the ground I’d sooner celebrate mighty deeds,
describing the lie of the land, the course of rivers, the setting
of forts on mountain tops, barbarous kingdoms, and then
the ending of strife throughout the world by your command,
Janus guardian of peace locked behind his bars,
and the Parthian foe overawed by your imperial Rome –
if only my powers matched my yearning; but a minor poem
is not in keeping with your pre-eminence, and I should be rash
to venture upon a task so far beyond my abilities.
260 The centre of stupid and fawning attention finds it vexatious,
most of all when it seeks his favour through the art of poetry;
for a thing that causes merriment is always sooner learnt
and longer remembered than what commands respect and approval.
I’ve no time for the service that irks me, nor do I want to
be shown in wax with a face that has taken a turn for the worse,
nor to have my virtues extolled in hideous lines.
I’d probably flush on receiving so coarse a tribute; in no time
I’d be laid in a closed box beside my poetic admirer,
then carried down to the street’ that deals in perfume and incense
270 and pepper, and anything else that’s wrapped in useless pages.
EPISTLE 2
An apology for not writing lyric poetry.
To Florus: loyal friend of the good and gallant Nero.
Suppose somebody wanted to sell you a slave who was born
at Tibur or Gabii, and said to you: ‘Here’s an attractive lad
with a fair skin, beautifully built from head to toe.
Eight thousand and he’s yours, signed, sealed and delivered.
He’s home bred, quick to obey his master’s orders;
he has had a touch of basic Greek, and will turn his hand to
any skill that’s required; wet clay can be moulded;
he’ll even sing you a simple song to go with your wine.
10 Too many claims reduce credibility. Only a salesman
who wants to get rid of his goods will praise them above their worth.
I’m not obliged to sell; I’m poor, but not in the red.
None of the dealers would make you this offer. I’ll do it for you, sir –
but no one else. Once he dodged his work and, as usual,
hid under the stairs in fear of the strap on the wall.
So let’s shake – if you’re not put off by the lapse I mentioned.’
The man, I fancy, would be in the clear. The goods were faulty,
but you bought them with your eyes open; the terms were stated.
Will you still sue him and waste his time with false allegations?
20 I told you when you were leaving that I was lazy; I told you
I was almost physically incapable of such a commitment (I dreaded
your angry recriminations if your letters went unanswered).
I might have saved my breath; for although the law’s on my side
you still contest the case. On top of that you complain
I have let you down by failing to send the lyrics I promised.
One of Lucullus’ soldiers had, with enormous efforts,
saved some money. One night, as he snored in exhaustion,
he lost the lot. In a rage at himself as much as at the enemy,
like a savage wolf with teeth sharpened by hunger, he then
30 dislodged the king’s troops from a well-defended position,
which also, they say, contained a large amount of treasure.
The exploit won him much acclaim and high decorations.
He also received a cash sum of twenty thousand.
Shortly after, as it happened, the general was anxious to capture
>
some fort or other; so he addressed the man again
in words which might have inspired even a coward with courage:
‘Go, my lad, where your brave heart leads you. Go, and good luck!
Your deeds will win you a handsome reward. Well – what’s keeping you?’
‘If you want someone to go, go, wherever you tell him,’
40 said the crafty yokel, ‘find a man who has lost his wallet!’
I had the luck to be raised in Rome, where I learned from my teacher
how much harm was done to the Greeks by the wrath of Achilles.
Then a little more training was added by Athens the good,
so that at least I was keen to distinguish straight from crooked
and to go in search of truth among the Academy’s trees.
But harsh times tore me away from that pleasant spot,
and the billows swept the raw recruit into a force
which would prove no match for the brawny arms of Caesar Augustus.
Discharged by Philippi, there I was with my wings clipped,
50 no longer a flyer and without my family hearth and home.
At once our Lady Poverty, daring as ever, impelled me
to turn out verses; but now that I have enough to live on
my brain would surely be addled beyond the power of hemlock
if I scribbled verses instead of enjoying a night’s sleep!
As the years go by they rob us of one thing after another.
Already they’ve taken fun, sex, parties and sport;
now they’re pulling away my poems. What shall I do then?
Moreover, not everyone likes and admires the same thing.
You put lyric poetry first – he’s for iambics –
60 he prefers the tangy wit of Bion’s homilies.
You’re rather like a trio who can’t agree on a menu
asking for different dishes to suit their different tastes.
What should I serve or avoid? You spurn what he has requested,
while your own choice is horrid and foul to the other two.
Apart from that, how can you ask me to turn out poetry
in Rome, with so many worries and so many onerous duties?
One man wants me to act as a sponsor, another to cancel
all my engagements and hear his work; this one is poorly
on the Quirinal, that one across the Aventine; both expect
70 a visit. (Note how conveniently close they are!) ‘The streets,
you say, ‘are clear; there’s nothing to block your inspiration.’
A feverish builder charges past with his mules and workmen;