AD FURIUM.
You, Furius, ask against what wind
My little villa stands—
If Auster, or Favonius kind
Who comes o'er western lands,
Or cruel Boreas, or that one
That rises with the morning sun?
Alas—it stands against a breeze
Which beats against the door,
Of fifteen thousand sesterces,
And twice a hundred more.
I challenge you on earth to find
So foul and pestilent a wind.
Aquilius.—What! do you look for a wind on earth,—it blows over it; and catch it who can.
Gratian.—It blows every where. The worst I know is that which blows down the chimney. And that reminds me to tell you what a town-bred chimney-sweeper said, the other day, to a friend of mine, in the valley yonder, who wanted to have a smoky chimney cured. My friend inquired if he could teach it not to smoke. "How can I tell?" said he, "I must take out a brick first and look into his intellects."
Curate.—Not the march—but the sweep of intellect spoke there.
Aquilius.—And spoke not amiss; it was merely to see if he had a mind to be cured.
Gratian.—Perhaps you have translated that sweep's language better than your passages from Catullus.
Aquilius.—I did not attempt to translate that little piece,—but ran quite out of course, as the Curate would tell me, in a long paraphrase. The idea is, however, furnished by Catullus,—so I dedicate it