And why would'st thou these mighty morsels chuse,
Of words unchewed, and fit to choke the muse?
Let fustian poets with their stuff begone,
And suck the mists that hang o'er Helicon;
When Progne,[229] or Thyestes'[230] feast they write;
And, for the mouthing actor, verse indite.
Thou neither like a bellows swell'st thy face,
As if thou wert to blow the burning mass
Of melting ore; nor canst thou strain thy throat,
Or murmur in an undistinguished note,
Like rolling thunder, till it breaks the cloud,
And rattling nonsense is discharged aloud.
Soft elocution does thy style renown,
And the sweet accents of the peaceful gown:
Gentle or sharp, according to thy choice,
To laugh at follies, or to lash at vice.
Hence draw thy theme, and to the stage permit
Raw-head and bloody-bones, and hands and feet,
Ragouts for Tereus or Thyestes drest;
'Tis task enough for thee t' expose a Roman feast.
PERSIUS.
'Tis not, indeed, my talent to engage
In lofty trifles, or to swell my page
With wind and noise; but freely to impart,
As to a friend, the secrets of my heart,
And, in familiar speech, to let thee know
How much I love thee, and how much I owe.
Knock on my heart; for thou hast skill to find }
If it sound solid, or be filled with wind; }
And, through the veil of words, thou view'st the naked mind. }
For this a hundred voices I desire,
To tell thee what an hundred tongues would tire,
Yet never could be worthily exprest,—
How deeply thou art seated in my breast.
When first my childish robe[231] resigned the charge,
And left me, unconfined, to live at large;
When now my golden bulla (hung on high }
To household gods) declared me past a boy, }
And my white shield proclaimed my liberty;[232]}
When, with my wild companions, I could roll
From street to street, and sin without controul;
Just at that age, when manhood set me free,
I then deposed myself, and left the reins to thee;
On thy wise bosom I reposed my head,
And by my better Socrates was bred.[233]
Then thy straight rule set virtue in my sight,
The crooked line reforming by the right.
My reason took the bent of thy command,
Was formed and polished by thy skilful hand;
Long summer-days thy precepts I rehearse,
And winter-nights were short in our converse;
One was our labour, one was our repose,
One frugal supper did our studies close.
Sure on our birth some friendly planet shone;
And, as our souls, our horoscope[234] was one:
Whether the mounting Twins[235] did heaven adorn,
Or with the rising Balance[236] we were born;
Both have the same impressions from above.
And both have Saturn's rage, repelled by Jove.[237]
What star I know not, but some star, I find,
Has given thee an ascendant o'er my mind.
CORNUTUS.
Nature is ever various in her frame;
Each has a different will, and few the same.
The greedy merchants, led by lucre, run
To the parched Indies, and the rising sun;
From thence hot pepper and rich drugs they bear,
Bartering for spices their Italian ware;
The lazy glutton, safe at home, will keep,
Indulge his sloth, and batten with his sleep:
One bribes for high preferments in the state;
A second shakes the box, and sits up late;
Another shakes the bed, dissolving there,
Till knots upon his gouty joints appear,
And chalk is in his crippled fingers found;
Rots, like a doddered oak, and piecemeal falls to ground;
Then his lewd follies he would late repent,
And his past years, that in a mist were spent.
PERSIUS.
But thou art pale in nightly studies grown,
To make the Stoic institutes thy own:[238]
Thou long, with studious care, hast tilled our youth,
And sown our well-purged ears with wholesome truth.
From thee both old and young with profit learn }
The bounds of good and evil to discern. }
CORNUTUS.