The material of epigrams; thence the division into different kinds. The first kind and the second.
The material of epigrams comprises any subject and anything that can be said on it—in fact, there are as many kinds of epigrams as there are kinds of things that can be said. We will notice here particularly those kinds from which the special powers of each can be understood.
There is, then, a kind of epigram that is elevated, weighty, sublime, pursuing a noble subject in noble lines and concluding with a noble sentiment. Such is Martial's on Scaevola:
That hand that sought a king and found a slave
Was thrust to burn up in the sacred fire:
So cruel a portent the good enemy
Appalled, who bade him carried from the fire.
The hand the regicide endured to burn,
The king could not endure to see it done.
Greater the glory of the hand deceived!
Had it not erred it had accomplished less.[41]
Of the same sort are Grotius' epigrams on Ostend and on the sailing carriages, and Barclay's on Margaret of Valois.[42]
There is another sort somewhat lower in style but weighty and profitable in idea: for example, that truly distinguished one of Martial:
In that you follow the strict rules of Cato
And yet are willing to remain alive
And will not run bare-breasted on the sword
You do exactly as I'd have you do:
I scorn the fame purchased with easy blood
And praise the man who can be praised alive.[43]
And this:
In private she mourns not the late-lamented;
If someone's by her tears leap forth on call.
Sorrow, my dear, is not so easily rented.
They are true tears that without witness fall.[44]
And that genuinely golden epigram:
That I now call you by your name
Who used to call you sir and master,
You needn't think it impudence.
I bought myself with all I had.
He ought to sir a sir and master
Who's not himself, and wants to have
Whatever sirs and masters want.
Who can get by without a slave
Can get by, too, without a master.[45]
However, of all kinds of epigram that kind is generally thought to be most properly epigrammatic which is distinguished by a witty and ingenious turn that deeply penetrates the soul. Martial excels in this kind, as in this one:
You serve the best wines always, my dear sir,
And yet they say your wines are not so good.
They say you are four times a widower.
They say ... A drink? I don't believe I would.[46]
and in this:
Though you send presents to old men and widows
Why should I call you, sir, munificent?
There's nothing lower, dirtier than you only
Who can denominate enticements gifts.
These are the sly hooks for the greedy fish,
These are the clever baits for the wild beasts.
I will instruct you what it is to give
If you are ignorant: give, sir, to me. [47]
Some are lower in style but witty and pleasant, and have a glowing simplicity, as can be illustrated by another of Martial's:
"An epic epigram," I heard you say.
Others have written them, and so I may.
"But this one is too long." Others are too.
You want them short? I'll write two lines for you:
As for long epigrams let us agree
They may be skipped by you, written by me.[48]
And, indeed, of all the special capabilities of the epigram none is more difficult to realise or more rarely achieved than the adroit handling, the suitable and easy unfolding, of the subject so that nothing is redundant, nothing wanting, nothing out of order, obscure, or tangled up in verbiage, and yet at the same time nothing too unexpected, nothing not adequately prepared for. Martial is pre-eminent in this; he develops his subjects so aptly, clearly, and perceptively that he obtains for ideas of no special note otherwise a good deal of distinction by the charm of the handling. For example, what could be more resourcefully developed than this epigram?
Believe me, sir, I'd like to spend whole days,
Yes, and whole evenings in your company,
But the two miles between your house and mine
Are four miles when I go there to come back.
You're seldom home, and when you are deny it,
Engrossed with business or with yourself.
Now, I don't mind the two mile trip to see you;
What I do mind is going four to not to.[49]
And what would the following epigram be if it had not been perfected and prepared for by the handling?
That no one meets you willingly,
That where you come they go, that vast
Areas of silence circle you—
Why so? you ask. Too much the bard.
This makes it terribly, terribly hard.
Who would put up with what I do?
You read verse if I stand or sit;
You read it if I run or sing;
And in the baths you read me verse;
I try the pool, and swim in verse;
I haste to dine, you go my way;
I order, and you read me out;
Worn out, I take my rest with verse.
You want to know what harm you do?
Just, upright, harmless, you're a pest.[50]
The conclusion is pleasantly witty, but the special charm of the poem derives from the preceding enumeration.
This finishes the account of what we looked to in selecting these epigrams. You will find what else is pertinent to this book in the preface.
Notes
I have silently emended a few passages; otherwise the text translated is that of Epigrammatum Delectus, Paris, 1659. It is regrettable that the Latin text, at least of the poems cited, could not be printed with the translation.
[1] De nat. deor. 2.2.5
[2] Aen. 5.481 and 8.596
[3] 177-8, 173
[4] All three passages are from epigrams by Gaspar Conrad in Janus Gruter, Delitiae poetarum germanorum, 6 v., Frankfort, 1612: II, 1065-6, lines 1-6 of a twelve line epigram, "In symbolum Iacobi Monavi"; II, 1077, the concluding lines of an eight line epigram, "Ad Valentinum Maternum"; and II, 1079, the concluding couplet of a six line epigram, "Ad Georgum Menhadum Philophilum." The second passage is hardly construable.
[5] Ars. poet. 141-2, the paraphrase of Homer, and 143-4. The other quotations in this passage are from the opening of the Aeneid, Thebaid, Rape of Proserpine, and the Pharsalia.
[6] Inst. orat. 8.6.14
[7] "Manes Dousici," IV "Ad solem" and V "Ad sidera," Poemata, Leyden, 1613, p. 166. Nicole reads tandem for rursus in the last line of the second poem. Douza is the younger Janus Douza (1571-1596).
Nicole's criticism of these poems is just but superficial. The difficulty with such poems lies in the method, which consists in the establishment by amplification of one pole, followed by the briefest statement of the contrary pole. But the latter is of personal concern and is the essential subject of the poem. Thus the subject is deliberately avoided for the greater part of the poem, and hence there is in the amplification no principle of order to control the detail and its accumulation. This accounts for the features Nicole censures; however, he himself makes a similar point below in condemning negative descriptions.
[8] I have been unable to find this among Grotius' poems.
[9] Joannes Vulteius (c.1510-1542), "De ignobili Aruerno in sepulchro nobili posito," Hendecasyllaborum libri iv, Paris, 1538, Ni., p. 97.
[10] "Ad Rudolphum Imp. florum picturae dedicatio," Poemata, Leyden, 1637, p. 326.
[11] Epig. 1.50, "De Jucundo architecto," Poemata, Pavia, 1719, p. 189.
[12] I have been unable to identify this epigram.
[13] A translation of Anth. Pal. 11.104 and printed as Ausonius in the Renaissance, but probably by Girogio Merula (c.1424-1494): see James Hutton, The Greek Anthology In Italy to the year 1800, "Cornell Studies in English," XXIII (1935), pp. 23-4, 102-5, and Ausonius, Opuscula, ed. Rudolphus Peiper, Leipzig, 1886, p. 428. The younger Scaliger strongly condemns this epigram on the same grounds: Joseph Scaliger, Ausoniarum lectionum libri ii, 2.20, Heidelberg, 1688, p. 204.
[14] 3.66
[15] Epig. libri tres, ad D. Mariam Neville, 2.211. Epigrammata, Amsterdam, 1647, p. 47. Translated by Thomas Harvey, John Owen's Latin Epigrams, London, 1677, p. 36: "Sith th' Harps discording Strings concording be, / Is't not a shame for men to disagree?" and by Thomas Pecke, Parnassi puerperium, London, 1659: "Can there be many strings; and yet no Jars? / And are not men asham'd of dismal wars?"
[16] Nicole's text follows what are now regarded as inferior mss: see Germanious Caesar, Aratea, ed. Alfred Breysig, 2nd. ed., Leipzig, 1899, p. 58. The poem corresponds to Anth. Pal. 7.542. Nicole's comment recalls Dr. Johnson on Gray's cat.
[17] The dedicatory poem, addressed to Louis XIII, to Caspar Barlaeus' Poematum editio nova, Leyden, 1631, sig.*8.
[18] 22.10
[19] Epig. 1.25, Opera Omnia, 2 v., Leyden, 1725, II, 365. Nicole's text presents several variants and cuts the next to the last couplet, which I translate: "Already at the tomb, He beats the gates / Of Dis, and Libertina waits his torches."
[20] Epig. 3.5, op. cit., p. 233.
[21] Catullus 36 and Martial 1.109. 10-11
[22] Pis. 13
[23] Aen. 1.630
[24] Anthologia Latina, ed. Alexander Riese, 412.17, Leipzig, 1894, I, 1, p.319. The epigram, from which this phrase is quoted, was ascribed to Seneca by Pithoeus.
[25] Epig.... ad ... Neville, 2.126, op. cit., p. 38. Harvey, p. 36, translates: "Lo, not an hair thine heads bald Crown doth crown: / Thy Faithless Front hath not one hair thine own: / Before, Behind thine hair's blown off with Blast, / What's left thee to be lost? thine Head at last."
[26] In the preface, Delectus, Paris, 1659, ch. 2. The problem was whether to print a large collection of epigrams, rejecting merely the obscene ones, or to choose only the best. A middle way was taken for these reasons: 1) there are so few first-class epigrams that a reader who had his own opinions might think the selection too choosy; 2) the best shines out only in comparison with what is not so good, and examples of vice are as useful as examples of virtue, since judgement in large measure consists in knowing what to avoid; 3) finally and principally, the curiosity of young men would not be sufficiently satisfied by the selection if they knew that a good many witty and polished epigrams were to be found elsewhere. Since it was especially necessary to keep youth from the unspeakable filth of Catullus and Martial, who are at the same time the best writers, everything of theirs is included except the cheapest odds and ends and filthiest obscenities. For the writers after Martial stricter standards were applied, for the book would have grown beyond bounds if everything tolerable had been admitted.
[27] Martial 5.37, 1, 4-6, 9, 12-14. The lines that Nicole cuts contain only more of the same.
[28] Martial 1.76
[29] Epig. libri tres ad Henricum ... ded. 1.67, op. cit., p. 131.
[30] Unidentified. The text reads: "In nive nocte vagans nuceo cado stipite nectus, / Sic mihi nix, nox, nux, nex fuit ante diem."
[31] 1.8. 5-6.
[32] The conclusion of an epigram of ten lines, ascribed to Seneca in Delectus, pp. 326-7. Lines 1-8 correspond to Anth. Lat., op. cit., 407. 5-12. The younger Scaliger had begun a new epigram with line 5, as also with lines 9 and 11 (ed., Vergil, Appendix, cum supplemento ..., Lyons, 1572, pp. 196-7.) The concluding sententia, however, which Nicole quotes here and praises later in the notes to the anthology, is from the conclusion of the next epigram, Anth. Lat., 408. 7-8, which is a response to the preceding one. But the first two-thirds of the couplet has been rewritten with the aid of something like a Gradus ad Parnassum. The ms reads, "nunc et reges tantum fuge! vivere doctus / uni vive tibi nam moriare tibi." Nicole reads, "Mitte superba pati fastidia, spemque caducam / Despice: vive tibi, nam moriere tibi." superba pati fastidia corresponds to Vergil, Ecl. 2.15; spem ... caducam to Ovid, Epist. 15 (sive 16, "Paris Helenae"). 169 (sive 171).
The epigram as it stands in the anthology, then, is a result of Scaliger's disintegration of Anth. Lat. 407, which suggested beginning with line 5 and adding 408. 7-8 from the responsory poem. But this couplet is subjected to improvement to adjust it to the sense, to sustain the level of feeling, and to enhance the sententious point. Thus, with the aid of phrases from Vergil and Ovid, using mitte and despice as fillers and helpers, the epigram is concluded "with a noble, exalted and true thought," as the editor says in the notes.
[33] Inst. orat. 11.1.16.
[34] J. C. Scaliger, Poeticas libri vii, 3.125, 5th. ed., 1607, p. 389.
[35] loc. cit., p. 390: "An epigram, therefore, is a short poem directly pointing out some thing, person, or deed, or deducing something from premises. This definition includes also the principle of division—so let no one condemn it as prolix." Nicole, however, uses only the first half of the definition, since he rejects the principle of division.
[36] loc. cit.: "Brevity is a property; point the soul and, so to speak, the form." For a full account of the Renaissance theory of the epigram and the contemporary controversies, see Hutton, op. cit., pp. 55-73, and The Greek Anthology in France and in the Latin writers of the Netherlands to the year 1800, "Cornell studies in classical philology," XXVIII (1946), passim.
[37] Anon., "In statuam equestrem Ludouici XIII positam Parisiis in circo regali," Delectus, pp. 409-10.
[38] Nicolas Borbon, the younger, Poematia exposita, Paris, 1630, pp. 144-5, the concluding lines (lines 23-30) of an epigram, "In versus v.c. Iacobi Pinonis."
[39] Catullus 1.7
[40] Ianus Vitalis Panomitanus (c.1485-1560), "Antiquae Romae ruinae illustres," Delectus, p. 366; see also Delitiae delitiarum, ed. Ab. Wright, Oxford, 1637, p. 104, with textual variants.
[41] 1.21
[42] Delectus, pp. 396-7, 399-400, and 405. See Grotius, op. cit., pp. 341-2, and 383.
[43] 1.8
[44] 1.33
[45] 2.68
[46] 4.69
[47] 4.56
[48] 6.65
[49] 2.5
[50] 3.44. 1-5, 9-18. The lines cut, 6-8, read in translation: "No tigress wild for her lost cubs, / No viper burned by the noon sun, / No scorpion begets such fear." In line 11, line 8 of the translation, Nicole reads canenti for the received cacanti. The latter reading will yield in translation a rhyme with the preceding line.
The Editors of THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
are pleased to announce that
THE WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
of The University of California, Los Angeles
will become the publisher of the Augustan Reprints in May, 1949. The editorial policy of the Society will continue unchanged. As in the past, the editors will strive to furnish members inexpensive reprints of rare seventeenth and eighteenth century works.
All correspondence concerning subscriptions in the United States and Canada should be addressed to the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 2205 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles 7, California. Correspondence concerning editorial matters may be addressed to any of the general editors. Membership fee continues $2.50 per year ($2.75 in Great Britain and the continent). British and European subscribers should address B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street, Oxford, England.
Publications for the fourth year (1949-1950)
(At least six items will be printed in the main from the following list)
|
Series IV: Men, Manners, and Critics John Dryden, His Majesties Declaration Defended (1681) Daniel Defoe (?), Vindication of the Press (1718) Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) |
Series VI: Poetry and Language Andre Dacier, Essay on Lyric Poetry Poems by Thomas Sprat Poems by the Earl of Dorset Samuel Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), and one of the 1750 Rambler papers. |
|
Series V: Drama Thomas Southerne, Oroonoko (1696) Mrs. Centlivre, The Busie Body (1709) Charles Johnson, Caelia (1733) Charles Macklin, Man of the World (1781) |
Extra Series: Lewis Theobald, Preface to Shakespeare's Works (1733) A few copies of the early publications of the Society are still available at the original rate. |
| GENERAL EDITORS | |
| H. Richard Archer, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library | E. N. Hooker, University of California, Los Angeles |
| R. C. Boys, University of Michigan | H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles |
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PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY
First Year (1946-1947)
1. Richard Blackmore's Essay upon Wit (1716), and Addison's Freeholder No. 45 (1716). (I, 1)
2. Samuel Cobb's Of Poetry and Discourse on Criticism (1707). (II, 1)
3. Letter to A. H. Esq.; concerning the Stage (1698), and Richard Willis's Occasional Paper No. IX (1698). (III, 1)
4. Essay on Wit (1748), together with Characters by Flecknoe, and Joseph Warton's Adventurer Nos. 127 and 133. (I, 2)
5. Samuel Wesley's Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and Essay on Heroic Poetry (1693). (II, 2)
6. Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the Stage (1704) and Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage (1704). (III, 2)
Second Year (1947-1948)
7. John Gay's The Present State of Wit (1711); and a section on Wit from The English Theophrastus (1702). (I, 3)
8. Rapin's De Carmine Pastorali, translated by Creech (1684). (II, 3)
9. T. Hanmer's (?) Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet (1736). (III, 3)
10. Corbyn Morris' Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, etc. (1744). (I, 4)
11. Thomas Purney's Discourse on the Pastoral (1717). (II, 4)
12. Essays on the Stage, selected, with an Introduction by Joseph Wood Krutch. (III, 4)
Third Year (1948-1949)
13. Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), The Theatre (1720). (IV, 1)
14 Edward Moore's The Gamester (1753). (V, 1)
15. John Oldmixon's Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712); and Arthur Mainwaring's The British Academy (1712). (VI, 1)
16. Nevil Payne's Fatal Jealousy (1673). (V, 2)
17. Nicholas Rowe's Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709). (Extra Series, 1)
18. Aaron Hill's Preface to The Creation; and Thomas Brereton's Preface to Esther. (IV, 2)
Transcriber's Notes
On p. 23, a letter was missing in one of the words;
it was changed as follows:
From: "when they are orn down and laughed at."
To: "when they are torn down and laughed at."
On p. 35, footnote #24, removed the repeated word "is":
From: "from which this phrase is is quoted"
To: "from which this phrase is quoted"