PROLOGUS AD SATIRAM I. ARGUMENT. "The design of the author was to conceal his name and quality. -He lived in the dangerous times of Nero, and aims particularly at him in most of his Satires: for which reason, though he was of equestrian dignity, and of a plentiful fortune, he would appear, in this Prologue, but a beggarly poet, who NEC fonte labra prolui Caballino : Line 1. Caballine fountain.] A fountain near Helicon, a hill in Boeotia, sacred to the Muses and Apollo, which the horse Pegasus is said to have opened with his hoof: therefore sometimes called Hippocrene, from the Gr. izmos, an horse, and xenon, a fountain. The poet in derision calls it caballinus, from caballus, which is a name for a sorry horse, a jade, a packhorse, and the like. The poets feigned, that drinking of this sacred fountain inspired, as it were, poetic fancy, imagination, and abilities. Thus VIRG. En. vii. 641; and En. x. 163. Pandite nunc Helicona, Dca, cantusque movete. 5 Persius means to ridicule this notion. 2. Have dreamed, &c.] Parnassus is a mountain of Phocis, in Achaia, in which is the Castalian spring, and temple of Apollo. It was a notion, that whosoever ascended this hill, and stayed there for any time, immediately became a poet. It hath two tops, Cyrrha and Nisa, or, as others, Helicon and Cytheron, the former sacred to Apollo and the Muses, the latter to Bacchus. Hence our poet says bicipiti Parnasso. He is supposed to allude to the poet Ennius, who is said to have dreamed that he was on mount Parnassus, and that the soul of Homer entered into him. 3. Suddenly.] i. e. All on a sudden PROLOGUE TO SATIRE I.. ARGUMENT. writes for bread. After this he breaks into the business of the first Satire, which is chiefly to decry the poetry then in fashion, and the impudence of those who were endeavouring to pass their stuff upon the world." DRYDEN. I HAVE neither moistened my lips with the Caballine fountain, Nor to have dreamed in two-headed Parnassus, Do I remember, that thus I should suddenly come forth a poet. Both the Heliconides, and pale Pirene, I leave to those, whose images the pliant ivy-boughs without any pains or study-by immediate inspiration, as it were. 4. Heliconides.] The Muses, so called from Helicon. See l. 1, note. - Pirene.] Pirene was another fountain near Corinth, sacred to the Muses; so called from Pirene, the daughter of Achelous, who is fabled to have wept forth from her eyes the fountain called by her name. The epithet pale may refer to the complexion of Pirene pale with grief or, as some think, is to be understood figuratively, to denote the paleness of those poets who studied and laboured hard to make their verses. See sat. i. 1. 124, and note. 5. Those, whose images, &c.] The poet feigns himself to be an untutored rustic, and to write merely from his own rude genius, without those assistances which 5 |