‘His poetry is not so very bad,’ said Seneca.
‘Oh! it is magnificent,’ answered Lucan, and, with mock rapture, he repeated some of Nero’s lines:—
‘Witness thou, Attis! thou, whose lovely eyes
Could e’en surprise the mother of the skies!
Witness the dolphin, too, who cleaves the tides,
And flouncing rides on Nereus’ sea-green sides;
Witness thou likewise, Hannibal divine,
Thou who didst chine the long ribb’d Apennine!’[7]
What assonance! What realism! What dainty euphuistic audacity! As Persius says, ‘It all seems to swim and melt in the mouth!’
‘Well, well,’ replied the philosopher, ‘at least you will admit that he might be worse employed than in singing and versifying?’