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 moneys 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't about:
I wonder how this happy man should know
Whether his soothing friend speak truth

or no.

But you, my Piso, carefully beware (Whether yo'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

swoun,

Cry, and do more than the true mourners: so The scoffer the true praiser doth out-go.

Tibicen, didicit, priùs, extimuitque magis

trum.

Nunc satis est dixisse, Ego mira poëmata pango:

Occupet extremum scabies, mihi turpe relinqui est,

Et quod non didici, sanè nescire fateri.

'ft præco ad merces turbam qui cogit emendas,

Adsentatores jubet ad lucrum ire poëta Dives agris, dives positis in fœnore nummis. Si verò est, unctum qui rectè ponere possit, Et spondere levi pro paupere, et eripere atris

Litibus implicitum; mirabor, si sciet internoscere mendacem verumque beatus ami

cum.

Tu seu donaris, seu quid donare voles cui, Nolito ad versus tibi factos ducere plenum Lætitiæ clamabit enim, Pulchrè, benè, rectè.

Pallescit super his: etiam stillabit amicis Ex oculis rorem, saliet, tundet pede terram. Ut qui conducti plorant in funere, dicunt,

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'd bid blot all, and to the anvil bring These ill-torned 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

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 Ætna leapt.
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

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 black-bird, if he fall
Into a pit or hole, although he call
And cry aloud, Help, gentle country-
men !

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?

Arguet ambiguè dictum, mutanda notabit : Fiet Aristarchus, nec dicet, Cur ego ami

cum

Offendam in nugis? hæ nugæ seria ducent In mala, semel derisum, exceptumque sinistré.

Ut mala quem scabies, aut morbus regius urget,

Aut fanaticus error, et iracunda Diana, Vesanum tetigisse timent, fugiuntque poetam,

Qui sapiunt: agitant pueri, incautique sequuntur.

Hic dum sublimes versus ructatur, et errat
Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps
In puteum, foveamve, licet Succurrite,
longum

Clamet Iò cives ! non sit qui tollere curet. Si quis curet opem ferre, et demittere funem,

Qut scis, an prudens huc se dejecerit, etque

Servari noiit? dican, Siculique poetæ

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-stroken thing he have Defiléd, 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.

Narrabo interitum. Deus immortalis ha-
beri
Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus
Ætnam

Insiluit. Sit jus, liceatque perire poëtis.
Invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti.
Nec semel hoc fecit: nec si retractus erit,
jam

Fiet homo: et ponet famosæ mortis amo

rem.

Nec satis apparet, cur versus factitet: utrum

Minxerit in patrios cineres, an triste bidental

Moverit incestus: certè furit, ac, velut

ursus,

Objectos caveæ valuit si frangere clathros, Indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus.

Quem verò arripuit, tenet occiditque legendo

Non missura cutem nisi plena cuoris birtid

THE PRAISES OF A COUNTRY

LIFE.

Happy is he, that from all business clear,
As the old race of mankind were,
With his own oxen tills his sire's left lands,
And is not in the usurer's bands:
Nor soldier-like, started with rough alarms,
Nor dreads the sea's enraged harms :
But flies the bar and courts, with the proud
boards,

And waiting-chambers of great lords.
The poplar tail he then doth marrying twine
With the grown issue of the vine;
And with his hook lops off the fruitless race,
And sets more happy in the place:
Or in the bending vale beholds afar

The lowing herds there grazing are: Or the prest honey in pure pots doth keep Of earth, and shears the tender sheep: Or when that autumn through the fields lifts round

His head, with mellow apples crowned, How plucking pears, his own hand grafted

had,

And purple-matching grapes, he's glad! With which, Priapus, he may thank thy hands,

And, Sylvan, thine, that kept'st his lands! Then now beneath some ancient oak he may Now in the rooted grass him lay, Whilst from the higher banks do slide the floods;

The soft birds quarrel in the woods, The fountains murmur as the streams do creep,

And all invite to easy sleep. Then when the thund'ring Jove, his snow

and showers

IIORAT. OD. LIB. V. OD. II.

VITE RUSTICE LAUDES.
Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis,
Ut prisca gens mortalium,
Paterna rura bobus exercet suis,

Solutus omni fœnore:
Nec excitatur classico miles truci,
Nec horret iratum mare:
Forumque vitat, et superba civium
Potentiorum limina.

Ergo aut adultâ vitium propagine
Altas maritat populos:
Inutilesque falce ramos amputans,
Feliciores inseret :

Aut in reducta valle mugientium

Prospectat errantes greges:

Aut pressa puris mella condit amphoris, Aut tondet infirmas oves :

Vel cum decorum mitibus pomis caput
Autumnus arvis extulit:

Ut gaudet insitiva decerpens pyra,
Certantem et uvam purpuræ,

Qua muneretur te, Priape, et te, pater
Sylvane, tutor finium

Libet jacere modò sub antiqua ilice;
Modò in tenaci gramine.
Labuntur altis interim ripis aquæ :
Queruntur in sylvis aves,

Fontesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus,
Somnos quod invitet leves.

At cum tonentis annus hibernus Jovis
Imbres nivesque comparat;

Aut trudit acres hinc, et hinc multâ cane
Apros in obstantes plagas :
Aut amite levi rara tendit retia ;
Turdis edacibus dolos;
Pavidumque leporem, et advenam laqueo
gruem,

Jucunda captat præmia :

Quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet, Hæc inter obliviscitur?

to a strict and rigid fidelity. As these versions have no date, it is not possible to say whether they were the exercises of the schoolboy or the productions of riper age. None of them were committed to the press by the poet.

and admired it."-F. C.] [Jonson read this translation to Drummond,

meet

For household aid, and children sweet; Such as the Sabines, or a sun-burnt blowse, Some lusty quick Apulian's spouse,

To deck the hallowed hearth with old wood fired

Against the husband comes home tired; That penning he glad flock in hurdles by, Their swelling udders doth draw dry: And from the sweet tub wine of this year takes,

And unbought viands ready makes. Not Lucrine oysters I could then more prize,

Nor turbot, nor bright golden-eyes: If with bright floods, the winter troubled much,

Into our seas send any such :

The Ionian godwit, nor the ginny hen
Could not go down my belly then
More sweet than olives, that new-gathered
be

From fattest branches of the tree:

Or the herb sorrel, that loves meadows still, Or mallows loosing bodies ill :

Or at the feast of bounds, the lamb then slain,

Or kid forced from the wolf again, Among these cates how glad the sight doth

come

Of the fed flocks approaching home : To view the weary oxen draw, with bare And fainting necks, the turned share! The wealthy household swarm of bondmen met,

And 'bout the steaming chimney set ! These thoughts when usurer Alphius, now about

To turn mere farmer, had spoke out; 'Gainst the ides, his moneys he gets in with pain.

At the calends puts all out again.

ODE I. BOOK IV.

TO VENUS.

Venus, again thou mov'st a war

Long intermitted, pray thee, pray thee spare:

I am not such, as in the reign

Of the good Cynara I was: refrain Sour mother of sweet Loves, forbear

To bend a man now at his fiftieth year Too stubborn for commands so slack: Go where youths' soft entreaties call thee back.

VOL. III.

HORACE, ODE I. LIB. IV.
AD VENEREM.

Intermissa Venus diu,

Rursus bella moves: parce precor, precor: Non sum qualis eram bonæ

Sub regno Cynara desine dulcium Mater sæva Cupidinum,

Circa lustra decem flectere mollibus

Jam durum imperiis: abi

Quò blandæ juvenum te revocant preces.

cc

More timely hie thee to the house,
With thy bright swans, of Paulus Maxi-

mus:

There jest and feast, make him thine host, If a fit liver thou dost seek to toast; For he's both noble, lovely, young,

Tempestivius in domo

Pauli purpureis ales oloribus, Comessabere Maximi,

Si torrere jecur quæris idoneum. Namque et nobilis, et decens,

Et pro solicitis non tacitus reis.

Shall verse be set to harp and lute,

Late signa feret militiæ tuæ. Et quandoque potentior

Largi muneribus riserit æmuli, Albanos prope te lacus

Ponet marmoream sub trabe cyprea.

Illic plurima naribus

Duces tura, lyræque, et Berecynthia Delectabere tibiâ

Mistis carminibus non sine fistula.

flute.

There twice a day in sacred lays,

The youths and tender maids shall sing thy praise:

And in the Salian manner meet

Thrice 'bout thy altar with their ivory feet.

Me now, nor wench, nor wanton boy, Delights, nor credulous hope of mutual joy;

Nor care I now healths to propound,

Or with fresh flowers to girt my temples round.

But why, oh why, my Ligurine,

Flow my thin tears down these pale cheeks of mine?

Or why my well-graced words among With an uncomely silence fails my tongue?

Hard-hearted, I dream every night

I hold thee fast! but fled hence, with the light,

Whether in Mars his field thou be,

Or Tyber's winding streams, I follow thee.

Numen cum teneris virginibus tuum Laudantes, pede candido

In morem Salium ter quatient humum. Me nec fœmina nec puer

Jam, nec spes animi credula mutui, Nec certare juvat mero :

Nec vincire novis tempora floribus.

Sed cur, heu! Ligurine, cur

Manat rara meas lachryma per genas? Cur facunda parum decoro

Inter verba cadit lingua silentio ? Nocturnis te ego somniis

Jam captum teneo, jam volucrem sequor: Te per gramina Martii

Campi, te per aquas, dure, volubiles.