A. To what purpose is your learning, unless this leaven, and this wild fig-tree[1203] which has once taken life within, shall burst through your liver and shoot forth?
P. See that pallor and premature old age![1204] Oh Morals![1205] Is then your knowledge so absolutely naught, unless another know you have that knowledge?[1206]
A. But it is a fine thing to be pointed at with the finger,[1207] and that it should be said, "That's he!" Do you value it at nothing, that your works should form the studies[1208] of a hundred curly-headed[1209] youths?
P. See![1210] over their cups,[1211] the well-filled Romans[1212] inquire of what the divine poems tell. Here some one, who has a hyacinthine robe round his shoulders, snuffling through his nose[1213] some stale ditty, distills and from his dainty palate lisps trippingly[1214] his Phyllises,[1215] Hypsipyles, and all the deplorable strains of the poets. The heroes hum assent![1216] Now are not the ashes[1217] of the poet blest? Does not a tomb-stone press with lighter weight[1218] upon his bones? The guests applaud. Now from those Manes of his, now from his tomb and favored ashes, will not violets spring?[1219]
A. You are mocking and indulging in too scornful a sneer.[1220] Lives there the man who would disown the wish to deserve the people's praise,[1221] and having uttered words worthy of the cedar,[1222] to leave behind him verses that dread neither herrings[1223] nor frankincense?
P. Whoever thou art that hast just spoken, and that hast a fair right[1224] to plead on the opposite side, I, for my part, when I write, if any thing perchance comes forth[1225] aptly expressed (though this is, I own, a rare bird[1226]), yet if any thing does come forth, I would not shrink from being praised: for indeed my heart is not of horn. But I deny that that "excellently!" and "beautifully!"[1227] of yours is the end and object of what is right. For sift thoroughly all this "beautifully!" and what does it not comprise within it! Is there not to be found in it the Iliad of Accius,[1228] intoxicated with hellebore? are there not all the paltry sonnets our crude[1229] nobles have dictated? in fine, is there not all that is composed on couches of citron?[1230] You know how to set before your guests the hot paunch;[1231] and how to make a present of your threadbare cloak to your companion shivering with cold,[1232] and then you say, "I do love the truth![1233] tell me the truth about myself!" How is that possible? Would you like me to tell it you? Thou drivelest,[1234] Bald-pate, while thy bloated paunch projects a good foot and a half hanging in front! O Janus! whom no stork[1235] pecks at from behind, no hand that with rapid motion imitates the white ass's ears, no tongue mocks, projecting as far as that of the thirsting hound of Apulia! Ye, O patrician blood![1236] whose privilege[1237] it is to live with no eyes at the back of your head, prevent[1238] the scoffs[1239] that are made behind your back!
What is the people's verdict? What should it be, but that now at length verses flow in harmonious numbers, and the skillful joining[1240] allows the critical nails to glide over its polished surface: he knows how to carry on his verse as if he were drawing a ruddle line with one eye[1241] closed. Whether he has occasion to write against public morals, against luxury, or the banquets of the great, the Muses vouchsafe to our Poet[1242] the saying brilliant things. And see! now we see those introducing heroic[1243] sentiments, that were wont to trifle in Greek: that have not even skill enough to describe a grove. Nor praise the bountiful country, where are baskets,[1244] and the hearth, and porkers, and the smoky palilia with the hay: whence Remus sprung, and thou, O Quintius,[1245] wearing away the plow-boards in the furrow, when thy wife with trembling haste invested thee with the dictatorship in front of thy team, and the lictor bore thy plow home—Bravo, poet!
Some even now delight in the turgid book of Brisæan Accius,[1246] and in Pacuvius, and warty[1247] Antiopa, "her dolorific heart propped up with woe." When you see purblind sires instilling these precepts into their sons, do you inquire whence came this gallimaufry[1248] of speech into our language? Whence that disgrace,[1249] in which the effeminate Trossulus[1250] leaps up in ecstasy at you, from his bench.
Are you not ashamed[1251] that you can not ward off danger from a hoary head, without longing to hear the lukewarm "Decently[1252] said!" "You are a thief!" says the accuser to Pedius. What says Pedius?[1253] He balances the charge in polished antitheses. He gets the praise of introducing learned figures. "That is fine!" Fine, is it?[1254] O Romulus, dost thou wag thy tail?[1255] Were the shipwrecked man to sing, would he move my pity, forsooth, or should I bring forth my penny? Do you sing, while you are carrying about a picture[1256] of yourself on a fragment of wood, hanging from your shoulders. He that aims at bowing me down by his piteous complaint, must whine out what is real,[1257] and not studied and got up of a night.