In sooth, we all thus err, nor man there be
But in some matter a Suffenus see
20
Thou canst: his lache allotted none shall lack
Yet spy we nothing of our back-borne pack.
That Suffenus, Varus, whom thou know'st right well, is a man fair spoken, witty and urbane, and one who makes of verses lengthy store. I think he has writ at full length ten thousand or more, nor are they set down, as of custom, on palimpsest: regal paper, new boards, unused bosses, red ribands, lead-ruled
parchment, and all most evenly pumiced. But when thou readest these, that refined and urbane Suffenus is seen on the contrary to be a mere goatherd or ditcher-lout, so great and shocking is the change. What can we think of this? he who just now was seen a professed droll, or e'en shrewder than such in gay speech, this same becomes more boorish than a country boor immediately he touches poesy, nor is the dolt e'er as self-content as when he writes in verse,—so greatly is he pleased with himself, so much does he himself admire. Natheless, we all thus go astray, nor is there any man in whom thou canst not see a Suffenus in some one point. Each of us has his assigned delusion: but we see not what's in the wallet on our back.
XXIII.
Furei, quoi neque servos est neque arca
Nec cimex neque araneus neque ignis,