FLORE BONO CLAROQUE.
Dear Florus, justly high in the good grace
Of noble Nero, let's suppose a case;
A man accosts you with a slave for sale,
Born, say, at Gabii, and begins his tale:
"See, here's a lad who's comely, fair, and sound;
I'll sell him, if you will, for sixty pound.
He's quick, and answers to his master's look,
Knows Greek enough to read a simple book
Set him to what you like, he'll learn with ease;
Soft clay, you know, takes any form you please;
His voice is quite untrained, but still, I think,
You'll like his singing, as you sit and drink.
Excuse professions; they're but stale affairs,
Which chapmen use for getting off their waves.
I'm quite indifferent if you buy or no:
Though I'm but poor, there's nothing that I owe.
No dealer'd use you thus; nay, truth to tell,
I don't treat all my customers so well.
He loitered once, and fearing whipping, did
As boys will do, sneaked to the stairs and hid.
So, if this running off be not a, vice
Too bad to pardon, let me have my price."
The man would get his money, I should say,
Without a risk of having to repay.
You make the bargain knowing of the flaw;
'Twere mere vexatiousness to take the law.
'Tis so with me; before you left, I said
That correspondence was my rock ahead,
Lest, when you found that ne'er an answer came
To all your letters, you should call it shame.
But where's my vantage if you won't agree
To go by law, because the law's with me?
Nay more, you say I'm faithless to my vow
In sending you no verses. Listen now:
A soldier of Lucullus's, they say,
Worn out at night by marching all the day,
Lay down to sleep, and, while at ease he snored,
Lost to a farthing all his little hoard.
This woke the wolf in him;—'tis strange how keen
The teeth will grow with but the tongue between;—
Mad with the foe and with himself, off-hand
He stormed a treasure-city, walled and manned,
Destroys the garrison, becomes renowned,
Gets decorations and two hundred pound.
Soon after this the general had in view
To take some fortress, where I never knew;
He singles out our friend, and makes a speech
That e'en might drive a coward to the breach:
"Go, my fine fellow! go where valour calls!
There's fame and money too inside those walls."
"I'm not your man," returned the rustic wit:
"He makes a hero who has lost his kit."
At Rome I had my schooling, and was taught
Achilles' wrath, and all the woes it brought;
At classic Athens, where I went erelong,
I learnt to draw the line 'twixt right and wrong,
And search for truth, if so she might be seen,
In academic groves of blissful green;
But soon the stress of civil strife removed
My adolescence from the scenes it loved,
And ranged me with a force that could not stand
Before the might of Caesar's conquering hand.
Then when Philippi turned me all adrift
A poor plucked fledgeling, for myself to shift,
Bereft of property, impaired in purse,
Sheer penury drove me into scribbling verse:
But now, when times are altered, having got
Enough, thank heaven, at least to boil my pot,
I were the veriest madman if I chose
To write a poem rather than to doze.
Our years keep taking toll as they move on;
My feasts, my frolics are already gone,
And now, it seems, my verses must go too:
Bestead so sorely, what's a man to do?
Aye, and besides, my friends who'd have me chant
Are not agreed upon the thing they want:
You like an ode; for epodes others cry,
While some love satire spiced and seasoned high.
Three guests, I find, for different dishes call,
And how's one host to satisfy them all?
I bring your neighbour what he asks, you glower:
Obliging you, I turn two stomachs sour.
Think too of Rome: can I write verses here,
Where there's so much to tease and interfere?
One wants me for his surety; one, still worse,
Bids me leave work to hear him just rehearse;
One's ill on Aventine, the farthest end,
One on Quirinal; both must see their friend.
Observe the distance. "What of that?" you say,
"The streets are clear; make verses by the way."
There goes a builder's gang, all haste and steam;
Yon crane lifts granite, or perhaps a beam;
Waggons and funerals jostle; a mad dog
Ran by just now; that splash was from a hog:
Go now, abstract yourself from outward things,
And "hearken what the inner spirit sings."
Bards fly from town and haunt the wood and glade;
Bacchus, their chief, likes sleeping in the shade;
And how should I, with noises all about,
Tread where they tread and make their footprints out?
Take idle Athens now; a wit who's spent
Seven years in studying there, on books intent,
Turns out as stupid as a stone, and shakes
The crowd with laughter at his odd mistakes:
Here, in this roaring, tossing, weltering sea,
To tune sweet lyrics, is that work for me?
Two brothers, counsellor and pleader, went
Through life on terms of mutual compliment;
That thought the other Gracchus, this supposed
His brother Mucius; so they praised and prosed.
Our tuneful race the selfsame madness goads:
My friend writes elegies, and I write odes:
O how we puff each other! "'Tis divine;
The Muses had a hand in every line."
Remark our swagger as we pass the dome
Built to receive the future bards of Rome;
Then follow us and listen what we say,
How each by turns awards and takes the bay.
Like Samnite fencers, with elaborate art
We hit in tierce to be hit back in quart.
I'm dubbed Alcaeus, and retire in force:
And who is he? Callimachus of course:
Or, if 'tis not enough, I bid him rise
Mimnermus, and he swells to twice his size.
Writing myself, I'm tortured to appease
Those wasp-like creatures, our poetic bees:
But when my pen's laid down, my sense restored,
I rest from boring, rest from being bored.
Bad poets are our jest: yet they delight,
Just like their betters, in whate'er they write,
Hug their fool's paradise, and if you're slack
To give them praise, themselves supply the lack.
But he who meditates a work of art,
Oft as he writes, will act the censor's part:
Is there a word wants nobleness and grace,
Devoid of weight, unworthy of high place?
He bids it go, though stiffly it decline,
And cling and cling, like suppliant to a shrine:
Choice terms, long hidden from the general view,
He brings to day and dignifies anew,
Which, once on Cato's and Cethegus' lips,
Now pale their light and suffer dim eclipse;
New phrases, in the world of books unknown,
So use but father them, he makes his own:
Fluent and limpid, like a crystal stream,
He makes Rome's soil with genial produce teem:
He checks redundance, harshnesses improves
By wise refinement, idle weeds removes;
Like an accomplished dancer, he will seem
By turns a Satyr and a Polypheme;
Yet all the while 'twill be a game of skill,
Where sport means toil, and muscle bends to will.
Yet, after all, I'd rather far be blind
To my own faults, though patent to mankind,
Nay, live in the belief that foul is fair,
Than see and grin in impotent despair.
There was an Argive nobleman, 'tis said,
Who all day long had acting in his head:
Great characters on shadowy boards appeared,
While he looked on and listened, clapped and cheered:
In all things else he fairly filled his post,
Friendly as neighbour, amiable as host;
Kind to his wife, indulgent to his slave,
He'd find a bottle sweated and not rave;
He'd scorn to run his head against a wall;
Show him a pit, and he'd avoid the fall.
At last, when quarts of hellebore drunk neat,
Thanks to his kin, had wrought a cure complete,
Brought to himself again, "Good friends," quoth he,
"Call you this saving? why, 'tis murdering me;
Your stupid zeal has spoilt my golden days,
And robbed me of a most delicious craze."