Epistle VIII. — Ausonius to Paulus

To Axius. worthy - participant in Hellenic poesy and Roman song, I, Ausonius, send playful greeting in a medley of the two tongues.

Muses, what do we? Wherefore with empty hopes do I sport idly, heedless of growing older day by day? O'er the Santonic plains, where frost accords chill welcome, I wander shivering with cold, a frigid bard indeed, a servant unemployed of the soft-tressed Pierides. Cold feet and chattering of teeth are each man's lot, because no hearth gives warmth in this snowy country, and men redouble all the cold with meditating their frigid verse. Yet even so, at the beginning of the new month and on the first of January let me send to Paulus the firstfruits of my song.

Ye songful children of Mnemosyne with tresses coiffed, nine wordy maids with locks begarlanded, come now with chant ridiculous and macaronic - lay, wear winged triumph on your brows — for 'tis on you I call, a clumsy bottle-bard — compose for Paulus some mixed barbarian strain I For I may not, albeit tarrying in these parts, leave worthy Axius lacking my poesy. He shareth all with me, and knoweth all sorts of tricks for wrestling with my serious and my jesting verse. And now retired in the lonely country of Crebennus he hath his heart-vexing dwelling in a grapeless land, remote alike from his dear friends and from all dinner-tables. There, sick at heart, he chides the heart-soothing Muses for his loneliness.

Enough experience have I had of toil ere now, friend Paulus, both as a pleader in the courts and in the thankless professorial chair at Schools of Rhetoric, and got therefrom no profit. But now has all that youthful energy oozed from these limbs, trembling old age is nigh, and my strong-box grown light furnishes means for outlay less readily. For the helpless draws no salary from the Exchequer, and the bed-ridden dotard earns no golden fees. Yet if only thou wilt be of unruffled mind and rather see good in everything, thy toil and poverty will find oblivion. But this is the very best of all, from all the Muses everywhere — not without bowl and wine, comrade of the true Muses — to seek soothing consolation for a troubled heart. Here shalt thou find the fruit of Demeter, rich in crops, here fat swine, here capacious goblets if thou wouldst mix the nectar of good wine. So shall we twain cheer the blank hours of our life, so long as means and age allow and the Three Sisters spin their purple thread.