"Let me see—let me see—" He thumbed the book for a while, murmuring words which I could not catch; then thrust it behind his back with a finger between its pages, straightened himself up, and declaimed:
"Next of aerial honey, gift divine,
I sing. Maecenas, be once more benign!"
"Next of aerial honey, gift divine,
I sing. Maecenas, be once more benign!"
He paused and instructed me how to spell "aerial" and "Maecenas." The orthography of these having been settled, I asked his advice upon "benign," which, as written down by me (I forget how) did not seem convincing.
"You are indisputably an honest boy," said he; "but I have yet to acquire that degree of patience which, by all accounts, consorts with my affliction. Continue, pray:
"Prepare the pomp of trifles to behold:
Proud peers—a nation's polity unrolled—
Customs, pursuits—its clans, and how they fight,
Slight things I labour; not for glory slight,
If Heaven attend and Phoebus hearken me.
First, then, for site. Seek and instal your Bee—"
"Prepare the pomp of trifles to behold:
Proud peers—a nation's polity unrolled—
Customs, pursuits—its clans, and how they fight,
Slight things I labour; not for glory slight,
If Heaven attend and Phoebus hearken me.
First, then, for site. Seek and instal your Bee—"
—"With a capital B, if you please. The poet says 'bees': but the singular, especially if written with a capital, adds in my opinion that mock-heroic touch which, as the translator must frequently miss it for all his pains, he had better insert where he can. By the way, how have you spelt 'Phoebus'?"
"F.e.b.u.s," I answered.
"I feared so," he sighed. "And 'site'?"