99 66 noble writers" and taking my revenge," deign to court the tribes of lecturing professors. "Hence those tears." I say, "I am ashamed to recite my worthless writings in your crowded halls, and give undue weight to trifles, You are in merry mood," says one," and keep your lines for the ears of Jove.d Fair in your own eyes you are, and believe that you, and you alone, distil the honey of poesy." At this I am afraid to turn up a scornful nose, and lest, if he wrestle with me, I be torn by his sharp nails, "The place you choose suits me not," I cry, and call for a truce in the sports. For such sport begets tumultuous strife and wrath, and wrath begets fierce quarrels, and war to the death. This expression, first used literally by Terence in his Andria (1. 125), where Pamphilus shed tears of sympathy at the funeral of Chrysis, became proverbial in Latin literature, and was used, as here, even when there were no actual tears; cf. Cic. Pro Cael. 25. 61. di.e. Augustus. Cf. Sat. ii. 6. 52. The battle of wits has become a gladiatorial contest. In this, a combatant, if he thought his opponent had an unfair advantage in position, might call for a pause in the struggle (diludia), and an adjustment of conditions. XX TO HIS BOOK THIS is an Epilogue to the collection of Epistles, now ready for publication. The poet addresses his Book, as if it were a young and handsome slave, who is eager to escape from his master's house and to see something of the great world. There are untold perils in the path. After a brief vogue, the book will be neglected or sent to the provinces, and finally its doom will be sealed when it becomes a school-book for lads to learn their letters from! Yet, when the book finds an audience, the poet would have it impart some information about his own life and characteristics. XX. Vertumnum Ianumque, liber, spectare videris, scilicet ut1 prostes Sosiorum pumice mundus.2 odisti clavis et grata sigilla pudico; 66 paucis ostendi gemis et communia laudas, Quod si non odio peccantis desipit augur, qui male parentem in rupes protrusit5 asellum iratus quis enim invitum servare laboret ? 5 10 15 hoc quoque te manet, ut pueros elementa docentem occupet extremis in vicis balba senectus. 3 quid Mss. 1 ut omitted by E. 2 nudus 0. 5 protrudit E. 6 bella E. a i.e. the booksellers' quarters in Rome. There is a double entendre in prostes, pumice mundus and in other expressions in ll. 1-8. The pumice was used to smooth the ends of the roll. For the Socii, well-known as booksellers, see Ars Poet. 345. Referring to the scrinia or cases, in which books were kept under lock or seal. rolled up As applied to the book, in breve cogi means EPISTLE XX You seem, my book, to be looking wistfully toward Vertumnus and Janus," in order, forsooth, that you may go on sale, neatly polished with the pumice of the Sosii. You hate the keys and seals, so dear to the modest; you grieve at being shown to few, and praise a life in public, though I did not rear you thus. Off with you, down to where you itch to go. When you are once let out, there will be no coming back. What, alas! have I done? What did I want? you will say, when someone hurts you, and you find yourself packed into a corner,d whenever your sated lover grows languid. 66 9 But unless hatred of your error makes the prophet lose his cunning, you will be loved in Rome till your youth leave you; when you've been well thumbed by vulgar hands and begin to grow soiled, you will either in silence be food for vandal moths, or will run away to Utica, or be sent in bonds to Ilerda. Your monitor, from whom you turned away your ear, will then have his laugh, like the man who in anger pushed his stubborn ass over the cliff: for who would care to save an ass against his will? This fate, too, awaits you, that stammering age will come upon you as you teach boys their A B C in the city's outskirts. 66 small." With reference to the slave, it means poverty." • i.e. sent to the provinces. brought to |
