Art of Poetry an Epistle to the Pisos | Page 8

us'd to roam?Trading abroad, or ploughs his field at home:?If Colchian, or Assyrian, fill the scene,?Theban, or Argian, note the shades between!?Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge,?Scriptor. Honoratum si forte reponis Achillem,?Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,?Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis.?Sit Medea ferox invictaque, flebilis Ino,?Perfidus Ixion, Io vaga, tristis Orestes.
Si quid inexpertum scenae committis, et audes?Personam formare novam; servetur ad imum?Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.
Difficile est propri�� communia dicere: tuque?Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,?Qu��m si proferres ignota indictaque primus.?Publica materies privati juris erit, si?Non circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem;?Follow the Voice of Fame; or if you feign,?The fabled plan consistently sustain!?If great Achilles you bring back to view,?Shew him of active spirit, wrathful too;?Eager, impetuous, brave, and high of soul,?Always for arms, and brooking no controul:?Fierce let Medea seem, in horrors clad;?Perfidious be Ixion, Ino sad;?Io a wand'rer, and Orestes mad!
Should you, advent'ring novelty, engage?Some bold Original to walk the Stage,?Preserve it well; continu'd as begun;?True to itself in ev'ry scene, and one!
Yet hard the task to touch on untried facts:?Safer the Iliad to reduce to acts,?Than be the first new regions to explore,?And dwell on themes unknown, untold before.
Quit but the vulgar, broad, and beaten round,?The publick field becomes your private ground:?Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus?Interpres; nec desilies imitator in arctum,?Unde pedem proferre pudor vetet aut operis lex.
Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:?fortunam priami cantabo, et nobile bellum.?Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu??Parturiunt montes: nascetur ridiculus mus.?Quanto rectius hic, qui nil molitur inepte!?dic mihi, musa, virum, captae post moenia trojae,?qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.?Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem?Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat,?Antiphaten, Scyllamque, et cum Cylope Charibdin.?Nor word for word too faithfully translate;?Nor leap at once into a narrow strait,?A copyist so close, that rule and line?Curb your free march, and all your steps confine!
Be not your opening fierce, in accents bold,?Like the rude ballad-monger's chaunt of old;?"The fall of Priam, the great Trojan King!?Of the right noble Trojan War, I sing!"?Where ends this Boaster, who, with voice of thunder,?Wakes Expectation, all agape with wonder??The mountains labour! hush'd are all the spheres!?And, oh ridiculous! a mouse appears.?How much more modestly begins HIS song,?Who labours, or imagines, nothing wrong!?"Say, Muse, the Man, who, after Troy's disgrace,?In various cities mark'd the human race!"?Not flame to smoke he turns, but smoke to light,?Kindling from thence a stream of glories bright:?Antiphates, the Cyclops, raise the theme;?Scylla, Charibdis, fill the pleasing dream.?Nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri,?Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo:?Semper ad eventum festinat; et in medias res,?Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit: et quae?Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit:?Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet,?Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.
Tu, quid ego et populus mecum desideret, audi;?Si fautoris eges aulea manentis, et usque?Sessuri, donec cantor, Vos plaudite, dicat:?Aetatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores,?Mobilibusque decor naturis dandus et annis.?Reddere qui voces jam scit puer, et pede certo?Signat humum; gestit paribus colludere, et iram?Colligit ac ponit temer��, et mutatur in horas.?He goes not back to Meleager's death,?With Diomed's return to run you out of breath;?Nor from the Double Egg, the tale to mar,?Traces the story of the Trojan War:?Still hurrying to th' event, at once he brings?His hearer to the heart and soul of things;?And what won't bear the light, in shadow flings.?So well he feigns, so well contrives to blend?Fiction and Truth, that all his labours tend?True to one point, persu'd from end to end.
Hear now, what I expect, and all the town,?If you would wish applause your play to crown,?And patient sitters, 'till the cloth goes down!
Man's several ages with attention view,?His flying years, and changing nature too.
The Boy who now his words can freely sound,?And with a steadier footstep prints the ground,?Places in playfellows his chief delight,?Quarrels, shakes hands, and cares not wrong or right:?Sway'd by each fav'rite bauble's short-liv'd pow'r,?In smiles, in tears, all humours ev'ry hour.?Imberbus juvenis, tandem custode remoto,?Gaudet equis canibusque et aprici gramine campi;?Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper,?Utilium tardus provisor, prodigus aeris,?Sublimis, cupidusque, et amata relinquere pernix.
Conversis studiis, aetas animusque virilis?Quaerit opes et amicitias, infervit honori;?Conmisisse cavet qu��d mox mutare laboret.
Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda; vel quod?Quaerit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti;?Vel qu��d res omnes timid�� gelid��que ministrat,?Dilator, spe lentus, iners, pavidusque futuri;?The beardless Youth, at length from tutor free,?Loves horses, hounds, the field, and liberty:?Pliant as wax, to vice his easy soul,?Marble to wholesome counsel and controul;?Improvident of good, of wealth profuse;?High; fond, yet fickle; generous, yet loose.
To graver studies, new pursuits inclin'd,?Manhood, with growing years, brings change of mind:?Seeks riches, friends; with thirst of honour glows;?And all the meanness of ambition knows;?Prudent, and wary, on each deed intent,?Fearful to act, and afterwards repent.
Evil in various shapes Old Age surrounds;?Riches his aim, in riches he abounds;?Yet what