Epistles 2.1 (Fairclough)

Seeing that you alone carry the weight of so many great charges, guarding our Italian state with arms, gracing her with morals, and reforming her with laws, I should sin against the public weal if with long talk, O Caesar, I were to delay your busy hours.

Romulus, father Liber, Pollux and Castor, who, after mighty deeds, were welcomed into the temples of the gods, so long as they had care for earth and human kind, settling fierce wars, assigning lands, and founding towns, lamented that the goodwill hoped for matched not their deserts. He who crushed the fell Hydra and laid low with fated toil the monsters of story found that Envy is quelled only by death that comes at last. For a man scorches with his brilliance who outweighs merits lowlier than his own, yet he, too, will win affection when his light is quenched. Upon you, however, while still among us, we bestow honours betimes, set up altars to swear by in your name, and confess that nought like you will hereafter arise or has arisen ere now.

Yet this people of yours, so wise and just in one respect, in ranking you above our own, above Greek leaders, judges all other things by a wholly different rule and method, and scorns and detests all save what it sees has passed from earth and lived its days. So strong is its bias toward things ancient, that the Tables forbidding transgression, which the ten men enacted, treaties in which our kings made equal terms with Gabii or the sturdy Sabines, the Pontiffs’ records, the mouldy scrolls of seers—these, it tells us over and over, were spoken by the Muses on the Alban mount.

If, because among Greek writings the oldest are quite the best, we are to weigh Roman writers in the same balance, there is no need of many words. The olive has no hardness within, the nut has none without; we have come to fortune’s summit; we paint, we play and sing, we wrestle with more skill than the well-oiled Greeks.

If poems are like wine which time improves, I should like to know what is the year that gives to writings fresh value. A writer who dropped off a hundred years ago, is he to be reckoned among the perfect and ancient, or among the worthless and modern? Let some limit banish disputes. “He is ancient,” you say, “and good, who completes a hundred years.” “What of one who passed away a month or a year short of that, in what class is he to be reckoned? The ancient poets, or those whom to-day and to-morrow must treat with scorn?” He surely will find a place of honour among the ancients, who is short by a brief month or even a whole year. I take what you allow, and like hairs in a horse’s tail, first one and then another I pluck and pull away little by little, till, after the fashion of the falling heap, he is baffled and thrown down, who looks back upon the annals, and values worth by years, and admires nothing but what the goddess of funerals has hallowed.

Ennius, the wise and valiant, the second Homer (as the critics style him), seems to care but little what becomes of his promises and Pythagorean dreams. Is not Naevius in our hands, and clinging to our minds, almost as of yesterday? So holy a thing is every ancient poem. As often as the question is raised, which is the better of the two, Pacuvius gains fame as the learned old writer, Accius as the lofty one. The gown of Afranius, ’tis said, was of Menander’s fit; Plautus hurries along like his model, Epicharmus of Sicily. Caecilius wins the prize for dignity, Terence for art. These authors mighty Rome learns by heart; these she views, when packed in her narrow theatre; these she counts as her muster-roll of poets from the days of Livius the writer to our own.

At times the public see straight; sometimes they make mistakes. If they admire the ancient poets and cry them up so as to put nothing above them, nothing on their level, they are wrong. If they hold that sometimes their diction is too quaint, and ofttimes too harsh, if they admit that much of it is flat, then they have taste, they take my side, and give a verdict with Jove’s assent. Mark you! I am not crying down the poems of Livius—I would not doom to destruction verses which I remember Orbilius of the rod dictated to me as a boy: but that they should be held faultless, and beautiful, and well-nigh perfect, amazes me. Among them, it may be a pleasing phrase shines forth, or one or two lines are somewhat better turned—then these unfairly carry off and sell the whole poem.

I am impatient that any work is censured, not because it is thought to be coarse or inelegant in style, but because it is modern, and that what is claimed for the ancients should be, not indulgence, but honour and rewards. If I were to question whether a play of Atta’s keeps its legs or not amidst the saffron and flowers, nearly all our elders would cry out that modesty is dead, when I attempt to blame what stately Aesopus and learned Roscius once acted; either because they think nothing can be right save what has pleased themselves, or because they hold it a shame to yield to their juniors, and to confess in their old age that what they learned in beardless youth should be destroyed. Indeed, whoever cries up Numa’s Salian hymn, and would alone seem to understand what he knows as little of as I do, that man does not favour and applaud the genius of the dead, but assails ours to-day, spitefully hating us and everything of ours.

But if novelty had been as offensive to the Greeks as it is to us, what in these days would be ancient? What would the public have to read and thumb, each according to his taste?

From the day she dropped her wars, Greece took to trifling, and amid fairer fortunes drifted into folly: she was all aglow with passion, now for athletes, now for horses; she raved over workers in marble or ivory or bronze; with eyes and soul she hung enraptured on the painted panel; her joy was now in flautists, and now in actors of tragedy. Like a baby-girl playing at its nurse’s feet, what she wanted in impatience, she soon, when satisfied, cast off. What likes and dislikes are there that you would not think easily changed? Such was the effect of happy times of peace and prosperous gales.

At Rome it was long a pleasure and habit to be up at dawn with open doors, to set forth the law for clients, to pay out to sound debtors money under bonds, to give ear to one’s elders and to tell one’s juniors how an estate might be increased and ruinous indulgence curbed. The fickle public has changed its taste and is fired throughout with a scribbling craze; sons and grave sires sup crowned with leaves and dictate their lines. I myself, who declare that I write no verses, prove to be more of a liar than the Parthians: before sunrise I wake, and call for pen, paper, and writing-case. A man who knows nothing of a ship fears to handle one; no one dares to give southernwood to the sick unless he has learnt its use; doctors undertake a doctor’s work; carpenters handle carpenters’ tools: but, skilled or unskilled, we scribble poetry, all alike.

And yet this craze, this mild madness, has its merits. How great these are, now consider. Seldom is the poet’s heart set on gain: verses he loves; this is his one passion. Money losses, runaway slaves, fires—he laughs at all. To cheat partner or youthful ward he never plans. His food is pulse and coarse bread. Though a poor soldier, and slow in the field, he serves the State, if you grant that even by small things are great ends helped. The poet fashions the tender, lisping lips of childhood; even then he turns the ear from unseemly words; presently, too, he moulds the heart by kindly precepts, correcting roughness and envy and anger. He tells of noble deeds, equips the rising age with famous examples, and to the helpless and sick at heart brings comfort. Whence, in company with chaste boys, would the unwedded maid learn the suppliant hymn, had the Muse not given them a bard? Their chorus asks for aid and feels the presence of the gods, calls for showers from heaven, winning favour with the prayer he has taught, averts disease, drives away dreaded dangers, gains peace and a season rich in fruits. Song wins grace with the gods above, song wins it with the gods below.

The farmers of old, a sturdy folk with simple wealth, when, after harvesting the grain, they sought relief at holiday time for the body, as well as for the soul, which bore its toils in hope of the end, together with slaves and faithful wife, partners of their labours, used to propitiate Earth with swine, Silvanus with milk, and with flowers and wine the Genius who is ever mindful of the shortness of life. Through this custom came into use the Fescennine licence, which in alternate verse poured forth rustic taunts; and the freedom, welcomed each returning year, was innocently gay, till jest, now growing cruel, turned to open frenzy, and stalked amid the homes of honest folk, fearless in its threatening. Stung to the quick were they who were bitten by a tooth that drew blood; even those untouched felt concern for the common cause, and at last a law was carried with a penalty, forbidding the portrayal of any in abusive strain. Men changed their tune, and terror of the cudgel led them back to goodly and gracious forms of speech.

Greece, the captive, made her savage victor captive, and brought the arts into rustic Latium. Thus the stream of that rude Saturnian measure ran dry and good taste banished the offensive poison; yet for many a year lived on, and still live on, traces of our rustic past. For not till late did the Roman turn his wit to Greek writings, and in the peaceful days after the Punic wars he began to ask what service Sophocles could render, and Thespis and Aeschylus. He also made essay, whether he could reproduce in worthy style, and took pride in his success, being gifted with spirit and vigour; for he has some tragic inspiration, and is happy in his ventures, but in ignorance, deeming it disgraceful, hesitates to blot.

’Tis thought that Comedy, drawing its themes from daily life, calls for less labour; but in truth it carries a heavier burden, as the indulgence allowed is less. See how poorly Plautus maintains the part of the youthful lover, how he plays that of the close father, or of the tricky pander; what a Dossennus he is among his greedy parasites; with what a loose sock he scours the scene. Yes, he is eager to drop a coin into his pocket and, that done, he cares not whether his play fall or stand square on its feet.

The man whom Glory carries to the stage in her windy car, the listless spectator leaves spiritless, the eager one exultant; so light, so small is what casts down or upbuilds a soul that craves for praise. Farewell the comic stage, if denial of the palm sends me home lean, its bestowal plump!

Often even the bold poet is frightened and put to rout, when those who are stronger in number, but weaker in worth and rank, unlearned and stupid and ready to fight it out if the knights dispute with them, call in the middle of a play for a bear or for boxers: ’tis in such things the rabble delights. But nowadays all the pleasure even of the knights has passed from the ear to the vain delights of the wandering eye. For four hours or more the curtains are kept down, while troops of horse and files of foot sweep by: anon are dragged in kings, once fortune’s favourites, their hands bound behind them: with hurry and scurry come chariots, carriages, wains, and ships; and borne in triumph are spoils of ivory, spoils of Corinthian bronze. Were Democritus still on earth, he would laugh; whether it were some hybrid monster—a panther crossed with a camel—or a white elephant, that drew the eyes of the crowd—he would gaze more intently on the people than on the play itself, as giving him more by far worth looking at. But for the authors—he would suppose that they were telling their tale to a deaf ass. For what voices have ever prevailed to drown the din with which our theatres resound? One might think it was the roaring of the Garganian forest or of the Tuscan Sea: amid such clamour is the entertainment viewed, the works of art, and the foreign finery, and when, overlaid with this, the actor steps upon the stage, the right hand clashes with the left. “Has he yet said anything?” Not a word. “Then what takes them so?” “’Tis the woollen robe that vies with the violet in its Tarentine dye.” And lest, perchance, you may think that I begrudge praise when others are handling well what I decline to try myself, methinks that poet is able to walk a tight rope, who with airy nothings wrings my heart, inflames, soothes, fills it with vain alarms like a magician, and sets me down now at Thebes, now at Athens.

But come, upon those, too, who prefer to put themselves in a reader’s hands, rather than brook the disdain of a scornful spectator, bestow a moment’s attention, if you wish to fill with volumes that gift so worthy of Apollo, and to spur on our bards to seek with greater zeal Helicon’s verdant lawns.

We poets doubtless often do much mischief to our own cause—let me hack at my own vines—when you are anxious or weary and we offer you our book; when we are hurt if a friend has dared to censure a single verse; when, unasked, we turn back to passages already read; when we complain that men lose sight of our labours, and of our poems so finely spun; when we hope it will come to this, that, as soon as you hear we are composing verses, you will go so far as kindly to send for us, banish our poverty, and compel us to write. None the less, ’tis worth inquiring what manner of ministrants attend on Merit, tried at home and in the field, and never to be entrusted to an unworthy poet. Well-pleasing to the great king Alexander was that poor Choerilus, who could thank his uncouth and misbegotten verses for the philips—good royal coin—that he received; but as ink when handled leaves mark and stain, so ofttimes with unseemly verse poets put a blot on bright exploits. That same king who lavishly paid so dearly for a poem so foolish, by an edict forbade anyone save Apelles to paint him, or any other than Lysippus to model bronze in copying the features of brave Alexander. But call that judgement, so nice for viewing works of art, to books and to these gifts of the Muses, and you’d swear that he’d been born in Boeotia’s heavy air.

But Virgil and Varius, those poets whom you love, discredit not your judgement of them nor the gifts which, to the giver’s great renown, they have received; and features are seen with no more truth, when moulded in statues of bronze, than are the manners and minds of famous heroes, when set forth in the poet’s work. And for myself, I should not prefer my “chats,” that crawl along the ground, to the story of great exploits, the tale of distant lands and rivers, of forts on mountain tops, of barbaric realms, of the ending of wars under your auspices throughout the world, of bars that close on Janus, guardian of peace, and of that Rome who under your sway has become a terror to Parthians—if only I had power equal to my longing; but neither does your majesty admit of a lowly strain, nor does my modesty dare to essay a task beyond my strength to bear. Nay, zeal is foolish to worry those it loves, above all when it commends itself by numbers and by art; for men more quickly learn and more gladly recall what they deride than what they approve and esteem. Not for me attentions that are burdensome, and I want neither to be displayed anywhere in wax, with my features misshaped, nor to be praised in verses ill-wrought, lest I have to blush at the stupid gift, and then, along with my poet, outstretched in a closed chest, be carried into the street where they sell frankincense and perfumes and pepper and everything else that is wrapped in sheets of useless paper.