Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A DIALOGUE: JOHN AND RICHARD, by JOHN BYROM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A DIALOGUE: JOHN AND RICHARD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: John: what! Must maecenas, when he sups
Last Line: Does horace's intent remain!
Subject(s): Friendship; Poetry & Poets


JOHN AND RICHARD.

John. WHAT! must Mæcenas, when he sups
With Horace, drink a hundred cups?
A hundred cups Mæcenas drink!
Where must he put them all, d'ye think?
Pray, have the critics all so blund'red,
That none of them corrects this HUNDRED?

Richard. Not that I know has any one
Had any scruple thereupon.
And for what reason, pray, should you?
The reading, to be sure, is true;
A hundred cups—that is to say—
"Mæcenas! come, and drink away."

John. If that was all the poet meant,
It is express'd without the Cent.
Sume, Mæcenas, cyathos—
Does it full well without the dose,
The monstrous dose in cup or can,
That suits with neither bard nor man.

Richard. Nay, why so monstrous? Is it told
How much the cyathus would hold?
You think, perhaps, it was a mug,
As round as any Jonian Jug.
They drank all night; if small the glass,
Would centum mount to such a mass?

John. Small as you will, if 'twas a bumper,
Centum for one would be a thumper.
Its bulk Horatian terms define,
Vates attonitus with nine;
Gratia forbidding more than three—
They were no thimbles you may see.

Richard. Not in that ode; in this they might
Intend a more diminish'd plight;
And then Mæcenas and the bard
That night, I warrant ye, drank hard;
Perfer in lucem, Horace cries—
To what a pitch might numbers rise!

John. A desperate long night, my friend,
Before their hundred cups could end;
Nor does the verse invite, throughout,
Mæcenas to a drunken bout:—
Perfer in lucem comes in view
With procul omnis clamor too.

Richard. Was it no bout, because no noise
Should interrupt their midnight joys?
Horace, you read, with annual tap,
Notes his escape from dire mishap:
Must he, and friends conven'd, be sober,
Because 'twas March and not October?

John. Sober or drunk is not the case,
But word and meaning to replace,
Both here demolish'd. Did they, pray,
Do nothing else but drink away?
For friends conven'd had Horace got
No entertainment but to sot?

Richard. Yes, to be sure, he might rehearse
Some new or entertaining verse;
Might touch the lyre, invoke the Muse,
Or twenty things that he might choose;
No doubt but he would mix along
With cup and talk, the joyous SONG.

John. Doubtless he would; and that's the word,
For which a centum so absurd
Has been inserted, by mistake
Of his transcribers, scarce awake;
Which all the critics when they keep,
Are, quoad hoc, quite fast asleep.

Richard. "And that's the word"—What word d'ye mean?
For song does centum intervene?
Song would be—O, I take your hint—
Cantum not centum you would print;
Sospitis cantum—but the clause
Can have no sense with such a pause.

John. Pause then at sospitis, nor strike
The three caesuras all alike;
One cup of Helicon but quaff,
The point is plain as a pikestaff;
"The wine, the song, the lustre's light"—
The verse, the pause, the sense is right.

Richard. Stay, let me read the Sapphic out
Both ways, and then resolve the doubt—
Sume, Mæcenas, cyathos amici
Sospitis centum—et vigiles lucernas
Perfer in lucem—procul omnis esto
Clamor et Ira.
Sume, Mæcenas, cyathos amici
Sospitis, cantum, et vigiles lucernas
Perfer in lucem: procul omnis esto
Clamor et ira.
Well, I confess, now I have read,
The thing is right that you have said:
One vowel rectified how plain
Does Horace's intent remain!





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