Epistles 1.7 (Fairclough)

Only a week was I to stay in the country—such was my promise—but, false to my word, I am missed the whole of August. And yet, if you would have me live sound and in good health, the indulgence which you grant me when ill you will grant me when I fear to become ill, while the first figs and the heat adorn the undertaker with his black attendants, while every father and fond mother turns pale with fear for the children, and while diligence in courtesies and the Forum’s petty business bring on fevers and unseal wills. But if winter shall strew the Alban fields with snow, your poet will go down to the sea, will be careful of himself and, huddled up, will take to his reading: you, dear friend, he will—if you permit—revisit along with the zephyrs and the first swallow.

’Twas not in the way a Calabrian host invites you to eat his pears that you have made me rich. “Eat some, pray.” “I’ve had enough.” “Well, take away all you please.” “No, thanks.” “Your tiny tots will love the little gifts you take them.” “I’m as much obliged for your offer as if you sent me away loaded down.” “As you please; you’ll be leaving them for the swine to gobble up to-day.”

The foolish prodigal gives away what he despises and dislikes: the field thus sown has always yielded, and always will yield, a crop of ingratitude. Your good and wise man claims to be ready to help the worthy, and yet he knows well how coins and counters differ. Worthy I, too, will show myself, as the glory of your good deed demands. But if you will never suffer me to leave you, you must give me back strength of lung, and black locks on a narrow brow; you must give back a pleasant prattle, give back graceful laughter and laments amid our cups o’er saucy Cinara’s flight.

Once it chanced that a pinched little fox had crept through a narrow chink into a bin of corn, and when well fed was trying with stuffed stomach to get out again, but in vain. To him quoth a weasel hard by: “If you wish to escape from there, you must go back lean to the narrow gap which you entered when lean.” If challenged by this fable, I give up all. I neither praise the poor man’s sleep, when I am fed full on capons, nor would I barter my ease and my freedom for all the wealth of Araby. Often have you praised my modesty, and have been called “king” and “father” to your face, nor do I stint my words behind your back. Try me, whether I can restore your gifts, and cheerfully too. ’Twas no poor answer of Telemachus, son of enduring Ulysses: “Ithaca is no land meet for steeds, for it has no level courses outspread, nor is it lavish of much herbage. Son of Atreus, I will leave you your gifts, as being more meet for you.” Small things befit small folk; my own delight to-day is not queenly Rome, but quiet Tibur or peaceful Tarentum.

Philippus, the famous pleader, a man of vigour and courage, was returning home from work about two o’clock. Being now somewhat on in years, he was grumbling at the Carinae being too far from the Forum, when (so the story goes) he caught sight of a man close-shaven, sitting in a barber’s empty booth, and with pocket-knife quietly cleaning his nails for himself. “Demetrius” (this lad was not slow to catch his master’s orders), “go, ask, and bring me word, where that man’s from, who he is, and what’s his standing, who is his father, or who his patron.” He goes, and comes back with the tale that his name is Volteius Mena, a crier at auctions, of modest fortune and blameless record, known to work hard and idle in season, to make money and spend it, taking pleasure in his humble friends and a home of his own and, when business is over, in the games and in the field of Mars. “I’d like to hear from his own lips all you tell me. Bid him come to supper.” Mena cannot really believe it; he marvels in thoughtful silence. To be brief, “No, thank you,” he answers. “Would he refuse me?” “He does, the rascal, and either slights or dreads you.”

Next morning Philippus comes on Volteius selling cheap odds and ends to the common folk in tunics and is first to give a greeting. The other makes work and the ties of his trade an excuse to Philippus for not having come to his house that morning, in fine for not seeing him first. “You’re to take it that I’ve pardoned you only if you sup with me to-day.” “As you please.” “You will come then after three o’clock. Now go, set to and add to your wealth!” On coming to supper, he chatted about anything and everything, and then at last was sent off to bed.

When he had often been seen to run like a fish to the hidden hook, in the morning a client and now a constant guest, he was invited to come as companion, when the Latin games were proclaimed, to a country estate near Rome. Mounted behind the ponies, he is ever praising the Sabine soil and climate. Philippus notes and smiles, and what with looking for his own relief and amusement from any source, and what with giving him seven thousand sesterces, and offering him a loan of seven thousand more, he persuades him to buy a little farm. He does so. Not to hold you too long with a rambling tale, our spruce cit becomes a rustic and chatters about nothing but furrows and vineyards, makes ready his elms, nearly kills himself over his hobbies, and grows old with his passion for getting. But when he has lost his sheep by theft and his goats by disease, when his crops have fooled his hopes and his ox is worn to death with ploughing, fretting over his losses, in the middle of the night he seizes his nag and in a rage makes straight for the house of Philippus. He, soon as he saw him, rough and unshorn, “Volteius,” cries he, “you seem to me too hard-worked and over-strained.” “Egad! my patron,” said he, “you would call me miserable wretch, if you could give me my true name. But by your genius, by your right hand and household gods, I implore and entreat you, put me back in my former life.”

Let him, who once has seen how far what he has given up excels what he has sought, go back in time and seek again the things he has left. ’Tis right that each should measure himself by his own rule and standard.