Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OF THE ART OF POETRY, by QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OF THE ART OF POETRY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: If to a woman's head a painter would
Last Line: Till he drop off, a horse-leech, full of blood.
Alternate Author Name(s): Horace
Subject(s): Poetry & Poets


If to a woman's head a painter would
Set a horse-neck, and diverse feathers fold
On every limb, ta'en from a several creature,
Presenting up wards, a fair female feature,
Which in some swarthy fish uncomely ends:
Admitted to the sight, although his friends,
Could you contain your laughter? Credit me,
This piece, my Pisos, and that book agree,
Whose shapes, like sick men's dreams, are feigned so vain,
As neither head, nor foot, one form retain.
But equal power, to painter, and to poet,
Of daring all, hath still been given; we know it:
And both do crave, and give again, this leave.
Yet, not as therefore wild and tame should cleave
Together: not that we should serpents see
With doves; or lambs, with tigers coupled be.
In grave beginnings, and great things professed,
Ye have ofttimes, that may o'er-shine the rest,
A scarlet piece, or two, stitched in: when or
Diana's grove, or altar, with the bor --
Dering circles of swift waters that entwine
The pleasant grounds, or when the river Rhine,
Or rainbow is described. But here was now
No place for these. And, painter, haply, thou
Know'st only well to paint a cypress tree.
What's this? If he whose money hireth thee
To paint him, hath by swimming, hopeless, scaped,
The whole fleet wrecked? A great jar to be shaped,
Was meant at first. Why, forcing still about
Thy labouring wheel, comes scarce a pitcher out?
In short; I bid, let what thou work'st upon,
Be simple, quite throughout, and wholly one.
Most writers, noble sire, and either son,
Are, with the likeness of the truth, undone.
Myself for shortness labour; and I grow
Obscure. This, striving to run smooth, and flow,
Hath neither soul, nor sinews. Lofty he
Professing greatness, swells: that, low by lee
Creeps on the ground; too safe, too afraid of storm.
This, seeking in a various kind, to form
One thing prodigiously, paints in the woods
A dolphin, and a boar amid the floods.
So, shunning faults, to greater fault doth lead,
When in a wrong, and artless way we tread.
The worst of statuaries, here about
The Aemelian school, in brass can fashion out
The nails, and every curled hair disclose;
But in the main work hapless: since he knows
Not to design the whole. Should I aspire
To form a work, I would no more desire
To be that smith; than live, marked one of those,
With fair black eyes, and hair; and a wry nose.
Take, therefore, you that write, still, matter fit
Unto your strength, and long examine it,
Upon your shoulders. Prove what they will bear,
And what they will not. Him, whose choice doth rear
His matter to his power, in all he makes,
Nor language, nor clear order e'er forsakes.
The virtue of which order, and true grace,
Or I am much deceived, shall be to place
Invention. Now, to speak; and then differ
Much, that mought now be spoke: omitted here
Till fitter season. Now, to like of this,
Lay that aside, the epic's office is.
In using also of new words, to be
Right spare, and wary: then thou speak'st to me
Most worthy praise, when words that common grew,
Are, by thy cunning placing, made mere new.
Yet, if by chance, in uttering things abstruse,
Thou need new terms; thou may'st without excuse,
Feign words, unheard of to the well-trussed race
Of the Cethegi; and all men will grace,
And give, being taken modestly, this leave,
And those thy new, and late-coined words receive,
So they fall gently from the Grecian spring,
And come not too much wrested. What's that thing,
A Roman to Caecilius will allow,
Or Plautus, and in Virgil disavow,
Or Varius? Why am I now envied so,
If I can give some small increase? When, lo,
Cato's and Ennius' tongues have lent much worth,
And wealth unto our language; and brought forth
New names of things. It hath been ever free,
And ever will, to utter terms that be
Stamped to the time. As woods whose change appears
Still in their leaves, throughout the sliding years,
The first-born dying; so the aged state
Of words decay, and phrases born but late
Like tender buds shoot up, and freshly grow.
Ourselves, and all that's ours, to death we owe:
Whether the sea received into the shore,
That from the north, the navy safe doth store,
A kingly work; or that long-barren fen
Once rowable, but now doth nourish men
In neighbour towns, and feels the weighty plough;
Or the wild river, who hath changed now
His course so hurtful both to grain, and seeds,
Being taught a better way. All mortal deeds
Shall perish: so far off it is, the state,
Or grace of speech, should hope a lasting date.
Much phrase that now is dead, shall be revived;
And much shall die, that now is nobly lived,
If custom please; at whose disposing will
The power, and rule of speaking resteth still.
The gests of kings, great captains, and sad wars,
What number best can fit, Homer declares.
In verse unequal matched, first sour laments,
After, men's wishes, crowned in their events,
Were also closed: but, who the man should be,
That first sent forth the dapper elegy,
All the grammarians strive; and yet in court
Before the judge, it hangs, and waits report.
Unto the lyric strings, the muse gave grace
To chant the gods, and all their god-like race,
The conquering champion, the prime horse in course,
Fresh lover's business, and the wine's free source.
The iambic armed Archilochus to rave,
This foot the socks took up, and buskins grave,
As fit to exchange discourse; a verse to win
On popular noise with, and do business in.
The comic matter will not be expressed
In tragic verse; no less Thyestes' feast
Abhors low numbers, and the private strain
Fit for the sock: each subject should retain
The place allotted it, with decent thews:
If now the turns, the colours, and right hues
Of poems here described, I can, nor use,
Nor know to observe: why (in the muse's name)
Am I called poet? Wherefore with wrong shame,
Perversely modest, had I rather owe
To ignorance still, than either learn, or know?
Yet, sometime, doth the comedy excite
Her voice, and angry Chremes chafes outright
With swelling throat: and, oft, the tragic wight
Complains in humble phrase. Both Telephus,
And Peleus, if they seek to heart-strike us
That are spectators, with their misery,
When they are poor, and banished, must throw by
Their bombard-phrase, and foot-and-half-foot words.
'Tis not enough, the elaborate muse affords
Her poems beauty, but a sweet delight
To work the hearers' minds, still, to their plight.
Men's faces, still, with such as laugh, are prone
To laughter; so they grieve with those that moan.
If thou wouldst have me weep, be thou first drowned
Thyself in tears, then me thy loss will wound,
Peleus, or Telephus. If you speak vile
And ill-penned things, I shall or sleep, or smile.
Sad language fits sad looks; stuffed menacings,
The angry brow; the sportive, wanton things;
And the severe, speech ever serious.
For Nature, first, within doth fashion us
To every state of fortune; she helps on,
Or urgeth us to anger; and anon
With weighty sorrow hurls us all along,
And tortures us: and, after, by the tongue
Her truch-man, she reports the mind's each throe.
If now the phrase of him that speaks, shall flow,
In sound, quite from his fortune; both the rout,
And Roman gentry, jeering, will laugh out.
It much will differ, if a God speak, then,
Or a hero; if a ripe old man,
Or some hot youth, yet in his flourishing course;
Where some great lady, or her diligent nurse;
A venturing merchant, or the farmer free
Of some small thankful land: whether he be
Of Colchis born; or in Assyria bred;
Or, with the milk of Thebes or Argus, fed.
Or follow fame, thou that dost write, or feign
Things in themselves agreeing: if again
Honoured Achilles chance by thee be seized,
Keep him still active, angry, unappeased;
Sharp, and contemning laws, at him should aim,
Be naught so above him but his sword let claim.
Medea make brave with impetuous scorn;
Ino bewailed; Ixion false, forsworn;
Poor Io wandering; wild Orestes mad:
If something strange, that never yet was had
Unto the scene thou bring'st, and dar'st create
A mere new person, look he keep his state
Unto the last, as when he first went forth,
Still to be like himself, and hold his worth.
'Tis hard, to speak things common, properly:
And thou mayst better bring a rhapsody
Of Homer's forth in acts, than of thine own
First publish things unspoken, and unknown.
Yet common matter thou thine own mayst make,
If thou the vile, broad-trodden ring forsake.
For, being a poet, thou mayst feign, create,
Not care, as thou wouldst faithfully translate,
To render word for word: nor with thy sleight
Of imitation, leap into a strait,
From whence thy modesty, or poem's law
Forbids thee forth again thy foot to draw.
Nor so begin, as did that circler late,
'I sing a noble war, and Priam's fate.'
What doth this promiser such gaping worth
Afford? The mountains travailed, and brought forth
A scorned mouse! O, how much better this,
Who naught essays unaptly, or amiss?
Speak to me, muse, the man, who, after Troy was sacked,
Saw many towns, and men, and could their manners tract.
He thinks not, how to give you smoke from light,
But light from smoke; that he may draw his bright
Wonders forth after: as Antiphates,
Scylla, Charybdis, Polypheme, with these.
Nor from the brand, with which the life did burn
Of Meleager, brings he the return
Of Diomede; nor Troy's sad war begins
From the two eggs, that did disclose the twins.
He ever hastens to the end, and so
(As if he knew it) raps his hearer to
The middle of his matter: letting go
What he despairs, being handled, might not show.
And so well feigns, so mixeth cunningly
Falsehood with truth, as no man can espy
Where the midst differs from the first: or where
The last doth from the midst disjoined appear.
Hear, what it is the people, and I desire:
If such a one's applause thou dost require,
That tarries till the hangings be ta'en down,
And sits, till the epilogue says clap, or crown;
The customs of each age thou must observe,
And give their years, and natures, as they swerve,
Fit rites. The child, that now knows how to say,
And can tread firm, longs with like lads to play;
Soon angry, and soon pleased, is sweet, or sour,
He knows not why, and changeth every hour.
The unbearded youth, his guardian once being gone,
Loves dogs, and horses; and is ever one
In the open field; is wax like to be wrought
To every vice, as hardly to be brought
To endure council: a provider slow
For his own good, a careless letter-go
Of money, haughty, to desire soon moved,
And then as swift to leave what he hath loved.
These studies alter now, in one, grown man;
His bettered mind seeks wealth, and friendship: then
Looks after honours, and bewares to act
What straightway he must labour to retract.
The old man many evils do girt round;
Either because he seeks, and, having found,
Doth wretchedly the use of things forbear,
Or does all business coldly, and with fear;
A great deferrer, long in hope, grown numb
With sloth, yet greedy still of what's to come:
Froward, complaining, a commender glad
Of the times past, when he was a young lad;
And still correcting youth, and censuring.
Man's coming years much good with them do bring:
At his departing take much thence: lest, then,
The parts of age to youth be given; or men
To children; we must always dwell, and stay
In fitting proper adjuncts to each day.
The business either on the stage is done,
Or acted told. But, ever, things that run
In at the ear, do stir the mind more slow
Than those the faithful eyes take in by show,
And the beholder to himself doth render.
Yet, to the stage, at all thou mayst not tender
Things worthy to be done within, but take
Much from the sight, which fair report will make
Present anon: Medea must not kill
Her sons before the people; nor the ill-Natured,
and wicked Atreus cook, to the eye,
His nephew's entrails; nor must Progne fly
Into a swallow there; nor Cadmus take,
Upon the stage, the figure of a snake.
What so is shown, I not believe, and hate.
Nor must the fable, that would hope the fate,
Once seen, to be again called for, and played,
Have more or less than just five acts: nor laid,
To have a god come in; except a knot
Worth his untying happen there: and not
Any fourth man, to speak at all, aspire.
An actor's parts, and office too, the choir
Must maintain manly; not be heard to sing,
Between the acts, a quite clean other thing
Than to the purpose leads, and fitly 'grees.
It still must favour good men, and to these
Be won a friend; it must both sway, and bend
The angry, and love those that fear to offend.
Praise the spare diet, wholesome justice, laws,
Peace, and the open ports, that peace doth cause.
Hide faults, pray to the gods, and wish aloud
Fortune would love the poor, and leave the proud.
The hautboy, not as now with latten bound,
And rival with the trumpet for his sound,
But soft, and simple, at few holes breathed time
And tune too, fitted to the chorus' rhyme,
As loud enough to fill the seats, not yet
So over-thick, but, where the people met,
They might with ease be numbered, being a few
Chaste, thrifty, modest folk, that came to view.
But, as they conquered, and enlarged their bound,
That wider walls embraced their city round,
And the uncensured might at feasts, and plays
Steep the glad genius in the wine, whole days,
Both in their tunes, the licence greater grew,
And in their numbers; for, alas, what knew
The idiot, keeping holiday, or drudge,
Clown, townsman, base, and noble, mixed, to judge?
Thus, to his ancient art the piper lent
Gesture, and riot, whilst he swooping went
In his trained gown about the stage: so grew
In time to tragedy, a music new.
The rash, and headlong eloquence brought forth
Unwonted language; and that sense of worth
That found out profit, and foretold each thing,
Now differed not from Delphic riddling.
Thespis is said to be the first found out
The tragedy, and carried it about,
Till then unknown, in carts, wherein did ride
Those that did sing, and act: their faces dyed
With lees of wine. Next Aeschylus, more late,
Brought in the visor, and the robe of state,
Built a small-timbered stage, and taught them talk
Lofty, and grave; and in the buskin stalk.
He too, that did in tragic verse contend
For the vile goat, soon after, forth did send
The rough rude satyrs naked; and would try,
Though sour, with safety of his gravity,
How he could jest, because he marked and saw,
The free spectators, subject to no law,
Having well ate, and drunk (the rites being done)
Were to be stayed with softnesses, and won
With something that was acceptably new.
Yet so the scoffing satyrs to men's view,
And so their prating to present was best,
And so to turn all earnest into jest,
As neither any god were brought in there,
Or semi-god, that late was seen to wear
A royal crown, and purple, be made hop,
With poor base terms, through every baser shop:
Or, whilst he shuns the earth, to catch at air
And empty clouds. For tragedy is fair,
And far unworthy to blurt out light rhymes;
But, as a matron drawn at solemn times
To dance, so she should, shamefaced, differ far
From what the obscene, and petulant satyrs are.
Nor I, when I write satires, will so love
Plain phrase, my Pisos, as alone, to approve
Mere reigning words: nor will I labour so
Quite from all face of tragedy to go,
As not make difference, whether Davus speak,
And the bold Pythias, having cheated weak
Simo; and of a talent wiped his purse;
Or old Silenus, Bacchus' guard, and nurse.
I can out of known gear, a fable frame,
And so, as every man may hope the same;
Yet he that offers at it may sweat much,
And toil in vain: the excellence is such
Of order, and connection; so much grace
There comes sometimes to things of meanest place.
But, let the fauns, drawn from their groves, beware,
Be I their judge, they do at no time dare
Like men street-born, and near the hall, rehearse
Their youthful tricks in over-wanton verse;
Or crack out bawdy speeches, and unclean.
The Roman gentry, men of birth, and mean,
Will take offence, at this: nor, though it strike
Him that buys chiches blanched, or chance to like
The nut-crackers throughout, will they therefore
Receive, or give it an applause, the more.
To these succeeded the old comedy,
And not without much praise; till liberty
Fell into fault so far, as now they saw
Her licence fit to be restrained by law:
Which law received, the chorus held his peace,
His power of foully hurting made to cease.
Two rests, a short and long, the Iambic frame;
A foot, whose swiftness gave the verse the name
Of trimeter, when yet it was six-paced,
But mere iambics all, from first to last.
Nor is it long since they did with patience take
Into their birth-right, and for fitness' sake,
The steady spondees; so themselves to bear
More slow, and come more weighty to the ear:
Provided, ne'er to yield, in any case
Of fellowship, the fourth, or second place.
This foot yet, in the famous trimeters
Of Accius, and Ennius, rare appears:
So rare, as with some tax it doth engage
Those heavy verses, sent so to the stage,
Of too much haste, and negligence in part,
Or a worse crime, the ignorance of art.
But every judge hath not the faculty
To note, in poems, breach of harmony;
And there is given too unworthy leave
To Roman poets. Shall I therefore weave
My verse at random, and licentiously?
Or rather, thinking all my faults may spy,
Grow a safe writer, and be wary-driven
Within the hope of having all forgiven?
'Tis clear, this way I have got off from blame,
But, in conclusion, merited no fame.
Take you the Greek examples, for your light,
In hand, and turn them over, day, and night.
Our ancestors did Plautus' numbers praise,
And jests; and both to admiration raise
Too patiently, that I not fondly say;
If either you, or I, know the right way
To part scurrility from wit; or can
A lawful verse, by the ear, or finger scan.
Our poets, too, left naught unproved here;
Nor did they merit the less crown to wear,
In daring to forsake the Grecian tracts,
And celebrating our own home-born facts;
Whether the guarded tragedy they wrought,
Or 'twere the gowned comedy they taught.
Nor had our Italy more glorious been
In virtue, and renown of arms, than in
Her language, if the stay, and care to have mended,
Had not our every poet like offended.
But you, Pompilius' offspring, spare you not
To tax that verse, which many a day, and blot
Have not kept in; and (lest perfection fail)
Not, ten times o'er, corrected to the nail.
Because Democritus believes a wit
Happier than wretched art, and doth, by it,
Exclude all sober poets, from their share
In Helicon; a great sort will not pare
Their nails, nor shave their beards, but to by-paths
Retire themselves, avoid the public baths;
For so, they shall not only gain the worth,
But fame of poets, they think, if they come forth,
And from the barber Licinus conceal
Their heads, which three Anticyras cannot heal.
O, I left-witted, that purge every spring
For choler! If I did not, who could bring
Out better poems? But I cannot buy
My title, at their rate: I had rather, I,
Be like a whetstone, that an edge can put
On steel, though itself be dull, and cannot cut.
I, writing naught myself, will teach them yet
Their charge, and office, whence their wealth to fet,
What nourisheth, what formed, what begot
The poet, what becometh, and what not:
Whether truth may, and whether error bring.
The very root of writing well, and spring
Is to be wise; thy matter first to know;
Which the Socratic writings best can show:
And, where the matter is provided still,
There words will follow, not against their will.
He, that hath studied well the debt, and knows
What to his country, what his friends he owes,
What height of love, a parent will fit best,
What brethren, what a stranger, and his guest,
Can tell a statesman's duty, what the arts
And office of a judge are, what the parts
Of a brave chief sent to the wars: he can,
Indeed, give fitting dues to every man.
And I still bid the learned maker look
On life, and manners, and make those his book,
Thence draw forth true expressions. For, sometimes,
A poem, of no grace, weight, art, in rhymes,
With specious places, and being humoured right,
More strongly takes the people with delight,
And better stays them there, than all fine noise
Of verse mere matterless, and tinkling toys.
The muse not only gave the Greeks a wit,
But a well-compassed mouth to utter it;
Being men were covetous of naught, but praise.
Our Roman youths they learn the subtle ways
How to divide, into a hundred parts,
A pound, or piece, by their long counting arts:
There's Albin's son will say, subtract an ounce
From the five ounces; what remains? Pronounce
A third of twelve, you may: four ounces. Glad,
He cries, good boy, thou'lt keep thine own. Now, add
An ounce, what makes it then? The half pound just;
Six ounces. O, when once the cankered rust,
And care of getting, thus, our minds hath stained,
Think we, or hope, there can be verses feigned
In juice of cedar worthy to be steeped,
And in smooth Cypress boxes to be kept?
Poets would either profit, or delight,
Or mixing sweet, and fit, teach life the right.
Orpheus, a priest, and speaker for the gods,
First frighted men, that wildly lived, at odds,
From slaughters, and foul life; and for the same
Was tigers said, and lions fierce, to tame.
Amphion, too, that built the Theban towers,
Was said to move the stones, by his lute's powers,
And lead them with soft songs, where that he would.
This was the wisdom, that they had of old,
Things sacred, from profane to separate;
The public, from the private; to abate
Wild ranging lusts; prescribe the marriage good;
Build towns, and carve the laws in leaves of wood.
And thus, at first, an honour, and a name
To divine poets, and their verses came.
Next these great Homer and Tyrtaeus set
On edge the masculine spirits, and did whet
Their minds to wars, with rhymes they did rehearse;
The oracles, too, were given out in verse;
All way of life was shown; the grace of kings
Attempted by the muse's tunes, and strings;
Plays were found out; and rest, the end, and crown
Of their long labours, was in verse set down:
All which I tell, lest when Apollo's named,
Or muse, upon the lyre, thou chance be ashamed.
Be brief, in what thou wouldst command, that so
The docile mind may soon thy precepts know,
And hold them faithfully; for nothing rests,
But flows out, that o'er-swelleth in full breasts.
Let what thou feign'st for pleasure's sake, be near
The truth; nor let thy fable think, whate'er
It would, must be: lest it alive would draw
The child, when Lamia has dined, out of her maw.
The poems void of profit, our grave men
Cast out by voices; want they pleasure, then
Our gallants give them none, but pass them by:
But he hath every sufferage, can apply
Sweet mixed with sour, to his reader, so
As doctrine, and delight together go.
This book will get the Sosii money; this
Will pass the seas, and long as nature is,
With honour make the far-known author live.
There are yet faults, which we would well forgive,
For, neither doth the string still yield that sound
The hand, and mind would, but it will resound
Oft times a sharp, when we require a flat:
Nor always doth the loosed bow hit that
Which it doth threaten. Therefore, where I see
Much in the poem shine, I will not be
Offended with few spots, which negligence
Hath shed, or human frailty not kept thence.
How then? Why, as a scrivener, if he offend
Still in the same, and warned will not mend,
Deserves no pardon; or who'd play, and sing
Is laughed at, that still jarreth on one string:
So he that flaggeth much, becomes to me
A Choerilus, in whom if I but see
Twice, or thrice good, I wonder: but am more
Angry. Sometimes, I hear good Homer snore.
But, I confess, that, in a long work, sleep
May, with some right, upon an author creep.
As painting, so is poesy. Some man's hand
Will take you more, the nearer that you stand;
As some the farther off: this loves the dark;
This, fearing not the subtlest judge's mark,
Will in the light be viewed: this, once, the sight
Doth please: this, ten times over will delight.
You, sir, the elder brother, though you are
Informed rightly, by your father's care,
And, of yourself too, understand; yet mind
This saying: to some things there is assigned
A mean, and toleration, which does well:
There may a lawyer be, may not excel;
Or pleader at the bar, that may come short
Of eloquent Messalla's power in court,
Or knows not what Cassellius Aulus can;
Yet, there's a value given to this man.
But neither, men, nor gods, nor pillars meant,
Poets should ever be indifferent.
As jarring music doth, at jolly feasts,
Or thick gross ointment, but offend the guests:
As poppy, and Sardane honey; 'cause without
These, the free meal might have been well drawn out:
So, any poem, fancied, or forth-brought
To bettering of the mind of man, in aught,
If ne'er so little it depart the first,
And highest; sinketh to the lowest, and worst.
He, that not knows the games, nor how to use
His arms in Mars his field, he doth refuse;
Or, who's unskilful at the quoit, or ball,
Or trundling wheel, he can sit still, from all;
Lest the thronged heaps should on a laughter take:
Yet who's most ignorant, dares verses make.
Why not? I'm gentle, and free-born, do hate
Vice, and, am known to have a knight's estate.
Thou, such thy judgement is, thy knowledge too,
Wilt nothing against nature speak, or do:
But, if hereafter thou shalt write, not fear
To send it to be judged by Metius' ear,
And, to your father's, and to mine; though it be
Nine years kept in, your papers by, you are free
To change, and mend, what you not forth do set.
The writ, once out, never returned yet.
'Tis now inquired, which makes the nobler verse,
Nature, or art. My judgement will not pierce
Into the profits, what a mere rude brain
Can; or all toil, without a wealthy vein:
So doth the one, the other's help require,
And friendly should unto one end conspire.
He, that's ambitious in the race to touch
The wished goal, both did, and suffered much
While he was young; he sweat; and freezed again:
And both from wine, and women did abstain.
Who, since, to sing the Pythian rites is heard,
Did learn them first, and once a master feared.
But, now, it is enough to say; I make
An admirable verse. The great scurf take
Him that is last, I scorn to come behind,
Or, of the things that ne'er came in my mind,
To say, I'm ignorant. Just as a crier
That to the sale of wares calls every buyer;
So doth the poet, who is rich in land,
Or great in monies out at use, command
His flatterers to their gain. But say, he can
Make a great supper; or for some poor man
Will be a surety; or can help him out
Of an entangling suit; and bring it about:
I wonder how this happy man should know,
Whether his soothing friend speak truth, or no.
But you, my Piso, carefully beware,
(Whether you are given to, or giver are)
You do not bring, to judge your verses, one,
With joy of what is given him, over-gone:
For he'll cry 'Good, brave, better, excellent!'
Look pale, distil a shower (was never meant)
Out at his friendly eyes, leap, beat the groun'.
As those that hired to weep at funerals, swoon,
Cry, and do more than the true mourners: so
The scoffer, the true praiser doth outgo.
Rich men are said with many cups to ply,
And rack, with wine, the man whom they would try,
If of their friendship he be worthy, or no:
When you write verses, with your judge do so:
Look through him, and be sure, you take not mocks
For praises, where the mind conceals a fox.
If to Quintilius, you recited aught;
He'd say, 'Mend this, good friend, and this; 'tis naught.'
If you denied, you had no better strain,
And twice, or thrice, had 'ssayed it, still in vain:
He'll bid, blot all: and to the anvil bring
Those ill-turned verses, to new hammering.
Then: if your fault you rather had defend
Than change; no word, or work, more would he spend
In vain, but you, and yours, you should love still
Alone, without a rival, by his will.
A wise, and honest man will cry out shame
On artless verse; the hard ones he will blame;
Blot out the careless, with his turned pen;
Cut off superfluous ornaments; and when
They're dark, bid clear this: all that's doubtful wrote
Reprove; and, what is to be changed, note:
Become an Aristarchus. And, not say,
Why should I grieve my friend this trifling way?
These trifles into serious mischiefs lead
The man once mocked, and suffered wrong to tread.
Wise, sober folk, a frantic poet fear,
And shun to touch him, as a man that were
Infected with the leprosy or had
The yellow jaundice, or were furious mad
According to the moon. But, then the boys
They vex, and follow him with shouts, and noise;
The while he belcheth lofty verses out,
And stalketh, like a fowler, round about,
Busy to catch a blackbird; if he fall
Into a pit, or hole; although he call,
And cry aloud, 'Help, gentle countrymen',
There's none will take the care, to help him then;
For, if one should, and with a rope make haste
To let it down, who knows, if he did cast
Himself there purposely, or no; and would
Not thence be saved, although indeed he could?
I'll tell you but the death, and the disease
Of the Sicilian poet Empedocles,
He, while he laboured to be thought a god
Immortal, took a melancholic, odd
Conceit, and into burning Etna leaped.
Let poets perish, that will not be kept.
He that preserves a man, against his will,
Doth the same thing with him, that would him kill.
Nor did he do this once; for if you can
Recall him yet, he'd be no more a man:
Or love of this so famous death lay by.
His cause of making verses none knows why:
Whether he pissed upon his father's grave;
Or the sad thunder-strucken thing he have
(Defiled) touched; but certain he was mad,
And, as a bear, if he the strength but had
To force the grates, that hold him in, would fright
All; so this grievous writer puts to flight

Learned and unlearned; holding whom once he takes;
And, there an end of him, reciting makes;
Not letting go his hold, where he draws food,
Till he drop off, a horse-leech, full of blood.





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