PROLOGUE.
I have neither steeped[1168] my lips in the fountain of the Horse;[1169] nor do I remember to have dreamt on the double-peaked[1170] Parnassus, that so I might on a sudden come forth a poet. The nymphs of Helicon, and pale Pirene,[1171] I resign to those around whose statues[1172] the clinging ivy twines.[1173] I myself, half a clown,[1174] bring[1175] my verses as a contribution to the inspired effusions of the poets.
Who made[1176] the parrot[1177] so ready with his salutation, and taught magpies to emulate our words?—That which is the master of all art,[1178] the bounteous giver of genius—the belly: that artist that trains them to copy sounds that nature has denied[1179] them. But if the hope of deceitful money shall have shone forth, you may believe that ravens turned poets, and magpies poetesses, give vent to strains of Pegaseian nectar.[1180]