by Horace
a huge contraption heaves a beam and then a boulder;
wailing funerals smash their way through lumbering wagons.
There goes a mad dog; here is a muddy pig.
Try composing tuneful lines in the middle of that!
The poet’s company loves the woods and abhors the city
in fealty to Bacchus their lord, who enjoys the drowsy shade.
Am I expected to sing with a din going on around me
80 night and day, and to follow the minstrels’ narrow path?
The soul who chooses to live in the peace of Athens, devoting
seven years to his work, turning haggard from study
and the problems of writing, often emerges as dumb as a statue
and becomes a public joke. Here, tossed as I am
in the storms of city life, why should I make the effort
to weave words which will summon forth the sound of the lyre?
A lawyer in Rome and his fan (a teacher of rhetoric) never
conversed except in terms of mutual glorification.
They even addressed one another as ‘Gracchus’ and ‘Mucius’. Well now –
90 doesn’t the same delusion affect our warbling poets?
I write lyrics, my friend elegiacs. ‘A dazzling achievement;
a work of the purest inspiration!’ Note in the first place
the lordly mien and portentous expression we wear as we gaze a–
round the temple with its spaces ready for the bards of Rome.
Then, if you’ve time, follow, and hear from a tactful distance
what each provides, and how he contrives to win his laurels.
Like Samnites in the arena, giving and taking blows,
we exhaust the foe in a weary duel that lasts till nightfall.
I emerge as ‘Alcaeus’ on his verdict, and he as
100 ‘Callimachus’, of course, on mine. If he seems unhappy with that,
he at once becomes ‘Mimnermus’ and swells at the coveted title.
When writing and humbly bidding for popular favour, I suffered
a lot to placate the poets – that hypersensitive species.
Now that my work is over and my mind restored to sanity
I can safely block my spreading ears to our friends’ recitations.
People who write incompetent verse are a joke; however,
they enjoy composing and treat themselves with sincere respect,
and if you say nothing they’ll actually praise their own productions.
But the man who wants to achieve a poem of genuine quality
110 will take, along with his notebook, the mind of a rigorous Censor.
Any words deficient in lustre or lacking solidity,
or those which he deems unworthy of honour, he will have the courage
to expel from their place, although they may be reluctant to leave
and still hang back, seeking refuge in Vesta’s temple.
He will do well to unearth words which have long been hidden
from the people’s view, bringing to light some splendid terms
employed in earlier days by Cato, Cethegus and others,
which now lie buried by grimy dust and the years’ neglect.
He will also admit some new ones, proposed by their father Need.
120 Flowing strong and clear like an unpolluted river
he will spread prosperity, enriching the land with the wealth of his language.
He will show his skill and care by pruning the over dense,
stripping untidy pieces, and taking out the feeble.
In spite of the strain he will make it seem like fun, as a dancer
who switches with ease from nimble satyr to blundering Cyclops.
I’d sooner be thought a cracked and incompetent writer
(provided my faults gave me pleasure or escaped my notice)
than know the truth, and grimace. A well-known figure in Argos
used to think he was watching a splendid tragic performance
130 as he sat alone excitedly clapping in the empty theatre.
Apart from that he coped with the daily business of life
perfectly well – a good neighbour, a charming host,
kind to his wife, the sort who managed to forgive his servants
and not go mad with rage if the seal of a jar were broken,
who had no trouble avoiding a cliff or an open well.
He was finally cured thanks to his relatives’ care and expense.
But when the potent drug had done its work, expelling
the harmful bile, and the man recovered, he cried: ‘Ah god!
You’ve killed me, my friends, not cured me; for now you’ve ruined my pleasure
140 by driving away the illusion which gave me such delight.’
And yet it’s best to be sensible – to throw away one’s toys
and leave to children the sort of games that suit their age,
and instead of hunting for words to set to the lyre’s music
to practise setting one’s life to the tunes and rhythms of truth.
And so in silence I recall and repeat to myself what follows:
If no amount of water could put an end to your thirst,
you’d see a doctor. What of the fact that the more you’ve got
the more you want? Shouldn’t you ask advice about that?
Suppose you’ve a wound which fails to heal with the cream or powder
150 that has been recommended, you cease to employ that cream or powder,
because it has proved no good. No doubt you’ve heard the assertion
that when a person is blessed with wealth he is cured of the curse
of folly. But a thicker wallet hasn’t succeeded in making
you any wiser; so why do you still believe those voices?
If, however, money brought a sensible outlook,
reducing your lust and fear, why then you would blush with shame
if the whole world contained a greedier man than yourself!
Though personal property is that which is bought with bronze and balance,
sometimes, the lawyers tell us, things are conveyed by use.
160 Orbius’ land, which provides your food, is yours, and his steward
thinks of you as the owner, as he harrows the field that will shortly
supply you with grain. In return for cash you are given
grapes, poultry, eggs and a jar of wine; so in that way
you are gradually buying a farm which once was purchased
for a price of three hundred thousand, or possibly higher.
What does it matter when you paid for the food you live on?
The buyer (long ago) of a farm at Aricia or Veii
eats, though he doesn’t know it, bought greens for his dinner,
and he boils his kettle in the chilly evening on bought logs.
170 But he calls it all his own, up to the line of poplars
which marks the boundary, thus avoiding neighbourly wrangles –
as if any thing were ‘ours’, which at a point in the movement
of time changes owners by gift or purchase or force
or at last by death, and passes into another’s control.
Therefore, as no one is granted use in perpetuity
and one heir follows another as wave on wave, what advantage
are barns and tenants’ houses or those Lucanian pastures
stretching into Calabria, if large and small alike
fall to the scythe of Orcus who cannot be coaxed by gold?
180 Jewels, ivory, marble, paintings, Etruscan bronzes,
silver plate, material dyed in African purple –
some never have such things; some, I know, never want them.
Of two brothers one prefers an oil massage
and a life of ease and pleasure to the palms of Herod; the other,
rich and persistent, tames his woodland property, burning
and diggin
g from dawn to dusk. The cause of the contrast is known
to none but the Genius – the friend who controls the star of our birth,
the mortal god of human nature who looks with a different
expression, bright or gloomy, on each individual person.
190 I shall enjoy what I have and draw on my modest supplies
as needed, without any fears about what my heir may think of me
when he finds the estate has not increased; and yet I shall also
try to observe the line which divides generous giving
from waste and marks the point where thrift turns into meanness.
For it makes a difference whether you splash your money around,
or without striving to acquire more are not reluctant
to spend, but are eager, in fact, to make the most of the short
and beautiful time, as schoolboys do in the Easter vacation;
(let’s not think of a poor and squalid household). For my part,
200 whether sailing in cruiser or dinghy, I’ll remain one and the same.
My sails are not puffed out with the north wind in my favour,
nor am I beating into the southern gales of affliction.
In strength, talent, appearance, valour, status and riches
my place is behind the leaders; but I stay ahead of the last.
You aren’t a miser, you say; very well, have you banished the other
vices along with that? Is your heart no longer obsessed
with futile ambition, with fear and rage at the prospect of death?
Dreams and the terrors of magic, miracles, ghosts at night-time,
witches, Thessalian portents – do you treat them all as a joke?
210 Are you glad to count your birthdays, quick to forgive your friends?
Are you improving and growing more mellow as the years go by?
Why take out a single thorn and ignore the others?
If you can’t live as you ought, give way to those who can.
You’ve eaten and drunk; you’ve had your fun; it’s time to be going.
Or else, when you’ve drunk too much, you may be pushed
aside and mocked by youngsters, whose wild behaviour is less out of place.
THE ARS POETICA
Horace’s young friends are offered advice on the craft of writing poetry. Innate ability is taken for granted (409–10), but does not lend itself to analysis.
Suppose a painter decided to set a human head
on a horse’s neck, and to cover the body with coloured feathers,
combining limbs so that the top of a lovely woman
came to a horrid end in the tail of an inky fish –
when invited to view the piece, my friends, could you stifle your laughter?
Well, dear Pisos, I hope you’ll agree that a book containing
fantastic ideas, like those conceived by delirious patients,
where top and bottom never combine to form a whole,
is exactly like that picture.
‘Painters and poets alike
10 have always enjoyed the right to take what risks they please.’
I know; I grant that freedom and claim the same in return,
but not to the point of allowing wild to couple with tame,
or showing a snake and a bird, or a lamb and tiger, as partners.
Often you’ll find a serious work of large pretensions
with here and there a purple patch that is sewn on
to give a vivid and striking effect – lines describing
Diana’s grove and altar, or a stream which winds and hurries
along its beauteous vale, or the river Rhine, or a rainbow.
But here they are out of place. Perhaps you can draw a cypress;
20 what good is that, if the subject you’ve been engaged to paint
is a shipwrecked sailor swimming for his life? The job began
as a wine-jar; why as the wheel revolves does it end as a jug?
So make what you like, provided the thing is a unified whole.
Poets in the main (I’m speaking to a father and his excellent sons)
are baffled by the outer form of what’s right. I strive to be brief,
and become obscure; I try for smoothness, and instantly lose
muscle and spirit; to aim at grandeur invites inflation;
excessive caution or fear of the wind induces grovelling.
The man who brings in marvels to vary a simple theme
30 is painting a dolphin among the trees, a boar in the billows.
Avoiding a fault will lead to error if art is missing.
Any smith in the area round Aemilius’ school
will render nails in bronze and imitate wavy hair;
the final effect eludes him because he doesn’t know how
to shape a whole. If I wanted to do a piece of sculpture,
I’d no more copy him than I’d welcome a broken nose,
when my jet black eyes and jet black hair had won admiration.
You writers must pick a subject that suits your powers,
giving lengthy thought to what your shoulders are built for
40 and what they aren’t. If your choice of theme is within your scope,
you won’t have to seek for fluent speech or lucid arrangement.
Arrangement’s virtue and value reside, if I’m not mistaken,
in this: to say right now what has to be said right now,
postponing and leaving out a great deal for the present.
The writer pledged to produce a poem must also be subtle
and careful in linking words, preferring this to that.
When a skilful collocation renews a familiar word,
that is distinguished writing. If novel terms are demanded
to introduce obscure material, then you will have the
50 chance to invent words which the apron-wearing Cethegi
never heard; such a right will be given, if it’s not abused.
New and freshly created words are also acceptable
when channelled from Greek, provided the trickle is small. For why
should Romans refuse to Virgil and Varius what they’ve allowed
to Caecilius and Plautus? And why should they grumble if I succeed
in bringing a little in, when the diction of Ennius and Cato
showered wealth on our fathers’ language and gave us unheard of
names for things? We have always enjoyed and always will
the right to produce terms which are marked with the current stamp.
60 Just as the woods change their leaves as year follows year
60a (the earliest fall, and others spring up to take their place)
so the old generation of words passes away,
and the newly arrived bloom and flourish like human children.
We and our works are owed to death, whether our navy
is screened from the northern gales by Neptune welcomed ashore –
a royal feat – or a barren swamp which knew the oar
feeds neighbouring cities and feels the weight of the plough,
or a river which used to damage the crops has altered its course
and learned a better way. Man’s structures will crumble;
so how can the glory and charm of speech remain for ever?
70 Many a word long dead will be born again, and others
which now enjoy prestige will fade, if Usage requires it.
She controls the laws and rules and standards of language.
The feats of kings and captains and the grim battles they fought –
the proper metre for such achievements was shown by Homer.
The couplet of longer and shorter lines provided a framework,
first for lament, then for acknowledging a prayer’s fulfilment.
Scholars, however, dispute the name of the first poet
to compose small elegiacs; the case is still undecided.
&nb
sp; Fury gave Archilochus her own missile – the iambus.
70 The foot was found to fit the sock and the stately buskin,
because it conveyed the give and take of dialogue; also
it drowned the noise of the pit and was naturally suited to action.
The lyre received from the Muse the right to celebrate gods
and their sons, victorious boxers, horses first in the race,
the ache of a lover’s heart, and uninhibited drinking.
If, through lack of knowledge or talent, I fail to observe
the established genres and styles, then why am I hailed as a poet?
And why, from misplaced shyness, do I shrink from learning the trade?
A comic subject will not be presented in tragic metres.
90 Likewise Thyestes’ banquet is far too grand a tale
for verse of an everyday kind which is more akin to the sock.
Everything has its appropriate place, and it ought to stay there.
Sometimes, however, even Comedy raises her voice,
as angry Chremes storms along in orotund phrases;
and sometimes a tragic actor grieves in ordinary language –
Peleus and Telephus (one an exile, the other a beggar)
both abandon their bombast and words of a foot and a half
when they hope to touch the listener’s heart with their sad appeals.
Correctness is not enough in a poem; it must be attractive,
100 leading the listener’s emotions in whatever way it wishes.
When a person smiles, people’s faces smile in return;
when he weeps, they show concern. Before you can move me to tears,
you must grieve yourself. Only then will your woes distress me,
Peleus or Telephus. If what you say is out of character,
I’ll either doze or laugh. Sad words are required
by a sorrowful face; threats come from one that is angry,
jokes from one that is jolly, serious words from the solemn.
Nature adjusts our inner feelings to every variety
of fortune, giving us joy, goading us on to anger,
110 making us sink to the ground under a load of suffering.
Then, with the tongue as her medium, she utters the heart’s emotions.
If what a speaker says is out of tune with his state,
the Roman audience, box and pit, will bellow with laughter.
A lot depends on whether the speaker is a god or a hero,
a ripe old man, or one who is still in the flush and flower
of youth, a lady of high degree, or a bustling nurse,
a roaming merchant, or one who tills a flourishing plot,