Epistle XIV. — Ausonius to Theon

Ausonius, whose rod now overawes a sceptre, sends greeting to rustic Theon at Medoc.

What dost thou, dwelling on earth's farthest verge, poetic tiller of the sands, who must plough the shore next Ocean's border and the setting sun, whom a poor hovel, thatched with reeds, confines, and a peasant's hut smothers with sooty smoke that brings tears to the eyes? What can the Muses be doing, and songster Apollo — Muses not sprung from Helicon nor from the Horse's Spring, but those which, springing from Clementinus' eloquent breast, inspire empty-headed bards with borrowed thoughts? And rightly so: for who would rather have verses called his when he can safely rend thee with his laughter? These verses also, lest they may force my blushes, do thou recite: and truly they will easily seem thy very words.

Yet what life dost thou pursue on the coasts of Medoc? Art busy trafficking, snapping up for a clipped coinage goods presently to be sold in dear salerooms at outrageous prices — as balls of sickly tallow, greasy lumps of wax, Narycian pitch, torn paper, and rank-smoking torches, your country lights?

Or art thou busy about greater matters, chasing the thieves who roam through all thy neighbourhood, until they fear the worst and invite thee to share their spoils? Dost thou through tenderness and hatred of bloodshed compound felonies for cash, call them mistakes, levy fines for cattle rieved, and leave the part of judge to share the crime?

Or with thy brother amid impenetrable thickets dost thou surround the wandering harts with mesh and feathers in wide circle? Or dost thou urge on with shouts the foaming boar's career and lay wait for the monster? Yet I warn thee ever to avoid wielding thy spear at close quarters with a bolt-like foe. Take warning from thy brother, who pulls back his clothes displaying ugly scars near his privy parts, and bares his breech to show how awkwardly 'twas pierced. Then to display his wounds he flits away to be admired by Gedippa, and his friend Ursinus, and Jovinus' young hopeful, and Taurinus who ranks him with ancient heroes such as was the Calydonian conqueror of the boar in Olenus, or the Attic stripling victorious o'er the Erymanthian monster.

But do thou give up the chase and shun the well-known tragedies of the woods, lest thou be as the son of Cinyras and become a second Adonis for Venus to mourn. Like him, assuredly, fair-haired and snowy-white of arms, thou dost let stream ruddy locks over a gleaming neck; like him soft of breast, like him slender as a reed with shapely body, dost thou pass lower into smoothly curving hips and shining ankles, beauteous from top to toe — even such as of old the ravisher in flowery Aetna, who from amid maiden throngs carried off Deo's daughter — Orcus, arisen from his Stygian furnaces!

Or, because thou avoidest the chase by reason of such great dangers, does zeal for fishing draw thee? For all the gear at Dumnitonus is wont to display such treasures as the knotty wraps of Nereus' creatures, casting-nets, drag-nets, lines with rustic names, wears, and stitched hooks for earthworms. On this outfit dost thou proudly rely? The whole house is rich to overflowing with the spoils of the sea-shore. From the waves are brought home sturgeon, the deadly sting-ray, soft tender plaice, bitter tunnies, spindle-fish ill-guarded by their spines, and grayling which will not keep above twice three hours.

Or dost thou delight to outrage with thy verses the songful daughters of Mnemosyne, be they sisters three or eight. And since we are come to this, if thou wouldst learn what is midway between learned verse and verse ridiculous, take this trumped-up rubbish, this trifling mystery, though with the sheet unrolled thou wilt not be able to comprehend it unless thou dost purge thy wits ten times over with vinegar seasoned with squills, or at Anticyra drink in the sagacity of the Samian nabob.

Or let thy interpreter come to thy aid, he who read my riddles and revealed to thee the secret of "Cadmus' little darky-girls, Melo's white page, the marks of the swart cuttlefish, and the knots of Cnidos." Let him now come to thy help, and certainly once appointed literary dictator, he will worry out forthwith what I write playfully.

I am making up verses, Master Poet, well known to thee, and which thou knowest are called hendecasyllables, though thou knowest not that they move to three measures. Those were composed by Phalaecus of old, in which a penthemimeris is followed by a half-foot after two iambi. Others are so formed from a mutilated hexameter that the penthemimeris is placed first, and then, what left after the bucolic caesura. There are also those which the girl Sappho brought forth where first reigns a second hippius leaving an antibacchius to cap a choriambus.

But thou wilt no longer be able to learn, Theon, and 'tis not lawful for me, a royal schoolmaster, to teach prosody to common clay.

But forthwith produce what I demand. I ask for naught but what thy notebooks hold and unsoiled sheets contain. If thou. Sir Poet, wilt pay me this trifle, all Vacuna do I cede to thee outright, and no more hereafter shalt thou dread the universal cry: "This is that feigned poet, Theon, the bad Laverna of good poetry."