Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry | Page 9

Crispinus, that
distempered brain;
While I find pleasant friends to screen me, when

I chance to err, like other foolish men;
Bearing and borne with, so
the change we ring,
More blest as private folks than you as king.
SATIRE IV.
EUPOLIS ATQUE CRATINUS.
Cratinus, Aristophanes, and all
The elder comic poets, great and
small,
If e'er a worthy in those ancient times

Deserved peculiar
notice for his crimes,
Adulterer, cut-throat, ne'er-do-well, or thief,

Portrayed him without fear in strong relief.
From these, as lineal heir,

Lucilius springs,
The same in all points save the tune he sings,
A
shrewd keen satirist, yet somewhat hard
And rugged, if you view him
as a bard.
For this was his mistake: he liked to stand,
One leg before
him, leaning on one hand,
Pour forth two hundred verses in an hour,

And think such readiness a proof of power.
When like a torrent he
bore down, you'd find
He left a load of refuse still behind:
Fluent,
yet indolent, he would rebel
Against the toil of writing, writing
WELL,
Not writing MUCH; for that I grant you. See,
Here comes
Crispinus, wants to bet with me,
And offers odds: "A meeting, if you
please:
Take we our tablets each, you those, I these:
Name place,
and time, and umpires: let us try
Who can compose the faster, you or
I."
Thank Heaven, that formed me of unfertile mind,
My speech not
copious, and my thoughts confined!
But you, be like the bellows, if
you choose,
Still puffing, puffing, till the metal fuse,
And vent your
windy nothings with a sound
That makes the depth they come from
seem profound.
Happy is Fannius, with immortals classed,
His bust and bookcase
canonized at last,
While, as for me, none reads the things I write.

Loath as I am in public to recite,
Knowing that satire finds small
favour, since
Most men want whipping, and who want it, wince.

Choose from the crowd a casual wight, 'tis seen
He's place-hunter or
miser, vain or mean:
One raves of others' wives: one stands agaze

At silver dishes: bronze is Albius' craze:
Another barters goods the
whole world o'er,
From distant east to furthest western shore,

Driving along like dust-cloud through the air
To increase his capital
or not impair:
These, one and all, the clink of metre fly,
And look
on poets with a dragon's eye.
"Beware! he's vicious: so he gains his
end,
A selfish laugh, he will not spare a friend:
Whate'er he scrawls,
the mean malignant rogue
Is all alive to get it into vogue:
Give him
a handle, and your tale is known
To every giggling boy and
maundering crone."
A weighty accusation! now, permit
Some few
brief words, and I will answer it:
First, be it understood, I make no

claim
To rank with those who bear a poet's name:
'Tis not enough
to turn out lines complete,
Each with its proper quantum of five feet;

Colloquial verse a man may write like me,
But (trust an author)'tis
not poetry.
No; keep that name for genius, for a soul
Of Heaven's
own fire, for words that grandly roll.
Hence some have questioned if
the Muse we call
The Comic Muse be really one at all:
Her subject
ne'er aspires, her style ne'er glows,
And, save that she talks metre, she
talks prose.
"Aye, but the angry father shakes the stage,
When on
his graceless son he pours his rage,
Who, smitten with the mistress of
the hour,
Rejects a well-born wife with ample dower,
Gets drunk,
and (worst of all) in public sight
Keels with a blazing flambeau while
'tis light."
Well, could Pomponius' sire to life return,
Think you he'd
rate his son in tones less stern?
So then 'tis not sufficient to combine

Well-chosen words in a well-ordered line,
When, take away the
rhythm, the self-same words
Would suit an angry father off the
boards.
Strip what I write, or what Lucilius wrote,
Of cadence and
succession, time and note,
Reverse the order, put those words behind

That went before, no poetry you'll find:
But break up this, "When
Battle's brazen door
Blood-boltered Discord from its fastenings tore,"

'Tis Orpheus mangled by the Maenads: still
The bard remains,
unlimb him as you will.
Enough of this: some other time we'll see
If Satire is or is not poetry:

Today I take the question, if 'tis just
That men like you should view
it with distrust.
Sulcius and Caprius promenade in force,
Each with
his papers, virulently hoarse,
Bugbears to robbers both: but he that's
true
And decent-living may defy the two.
Say, you're first cousin to
that goodly pair

Caelius and Birrius, and their foibles share:
No
Sulcius nor yet Caprius here you see
In your unworthy servant: why
fear ME?
No books of mine on stall or counter stand,
To tempt
Tigellius' or some clammier hand,
Nor read I save to friends, and that
when pressed,
Not to chance auditor or casual guest.
Others are less
fastidious: some will air
Their last production in the public square:


Some choose the bathroom, for the walls all round
Make the voice
sweeter and improve the sound:
Weak brains, to whom the question
ne'er occurred
If what they do be vain, ill-timed, absurd.
"But you
give pain: your habit is to bite,"
Rejoins the foe, "of sot deliberate
spite."
Who broached that slander? of the men I know,
With whom
I live, have any told you