Suppose the world of Rome accosts me thus:
"You walk where we walk; why not think with us,
Be ours for better or for worse, pursue
The things we love, the things we hate eschew?"
I answer as sly Reynard answered, when
The ailing lion asked him to his den:
"I'm frightened at those footsteps: every track
Leads to your home, but ne'er a one leads back."
Nay, you're a perfect Hydra: who shall choose
Which view to follow out of all your views?
Some farm the taxes; some delight to see
Their money grow by usury, like a tree;
Some bait a widow-trap with fruits and cakes,
And net old men, to stock their private lakes.
But grant that folks have different hobbies; say,
Does one man ride one hobby one whole day?
"Baiae's the place!" cries Croesus: all is haste;
The lake, the sea, soon feel their master's taste:
A new whim prompts: 'tis "Pack your tools tonight!
Off for Teanum with the dawn of light!"
The nuptial bed is in his hall; he swears
None but a single life is free from cares:
Is he a bachelor? all human bliss,
He vows, is centred in a wedded kiss.
How shall I hold this Proteus in my gripe?
How fix him down in one enduring type?
Turn to the poor: their megrims are as strange;
Bath, cockloft, barber, eating-house, they change;
They hire a boat; your born aristocrat
Is not more squeamish, tossing in his yacht.
If, when we meet, I'm cropped in awkward style
By some uneven barber, then you smile;
You smile, if, as it haps, my gown's askew,
If my shirt's ragged while my tunic's new:
How, if my mind's inconsequent, rejects
What late it longed for, what it loathed affects,
Shifts every moment, with itself at strife,
And makes a chaos of an ordered life,
Builds castles up, then pulls them to the ground,
Keeps changing round for square and square for round?
You smile not; 'tis an every-day affair;
I need no doctor's, no, nor keeper's care:
Yet you're my patron, and would blush to fail
In taking notice of an ill-pared nail.
So, to sum up: the sage is half divine,
Rich, free, great, handsome, king of kings, in fine;
A miracle of health from toe to crown,
Mind, heart, and head, save when his nose runs down.
II. TO LOLLIUS.
TROJANI BELLI SCRIPTOREM.
While you at Rome, dear Lollius, train your tongue,
I at Praeneste read what Homer sung:
What's good, what's bad, what helps, what hurts, he shows
Better in verse than Crantor does in prose.
The reason why I think so, if you'll spare
A moment from your business, I'll declare.
The tale that tells how Greece and Asia strove
In tedious battle all for Paris' love,
Talks of the passions that excite the brain
Of mad-cap kings and peoples not more sane.
Antenor moves to cut away the cause
Of all their sufferings: does he gain applause?
No; none shall force young Paris to enjoy
Life, power and riches in his own fair Troy.
Nestor takes pains the quarrel to compose
That makes Atrides and Achilles foes:
In vain; their passions are too strong to quell;
Both burn with wrath, and one with love as well.
Let kings go mad and blunder as they may,
The people in the end are sure to pay.
Strife, treachery, crime, lust, rage, 'tis error all,
One mass of faults within, without the wall.
Turn to the second tale: Ulysses shows
How worth and wisdom triumph over woes:
He, having conquered Troy, with sharp shrewd ken
Explores the manners and the towns of men;
On the broad ocean, while he strives to win
For him and his return to home and kin,
He braves untold calamities, borne down
By Fortune's waves, but never left to drown.
The Sirens' song you know, and Circe's bowl:
Had that sweet draught seduced his stupid soul
As it seduced his fellows, he had been
The senseless chattel of a wanton queen,
Sunk to the level of his brute desire,
An unclean dog, a swine that loves the mire.
But what are we? a mere consuming class,
Just fit for counting roughly in the mass,
Like to the suitors, or Alcinous' clan,
Who spent vast pains upon the husk of man,
Slept on till mid-day, and enticed their care
To rest by listening to a favourite air.
Robbers get up by night, men's throats to knive:
Will you not wake to keep yourself alive?
Well, if you will not stir when sound, at last,
When dropsical, you'll be for moving fast:
Unless you light your lamp ere dawn and read
Some wholesome book that high resolves may breed,
You'll find your sleep go from you, and will toss
Upon your pillow, envious, lovesick, cross.
You lose no time in taking out a fly,
Or straw, it may be, that torments your eye;
Why, when a thing devours your mind, adjourn
Till this day year all thought of the concern?
Come now, have courage to be wise: begin:
You're halfway over when you once plunge in:
He who puts off the time for mending, stands
A clodpoll by the stream with folded hands,
Waiting till all the water be gone past;
But it runs on, and will, while time shall last.
"Aye, but I must have money, and a bride
To bear me children, rich and well allied:
Those uncleared lands want tilling." Having got
What will suffice you, seek no happier lot.
Not house or grounds, not heaps of brass or gold
Will rid the frame of fever's heat and cold.
Or cleanse the heart of care. He needs good health,
Body and mind, who would enjoy his wealth:
Who fears or hankers, land and country-seat
Soothe just as much as tickling gouty feet,
As pictures charm an eye inflamed and blear,
As music gratifies an ulcered ear.