DE ARTE POETICA1 5 Humano capiti2 cervicem pictor equinam iungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne, spectatum admissi3 risum teneatis, amici ? credite, Pisones, isti tabulae fore librum persimilem, cuius, velut aegri5 somnia, vanae fingentur species, ut nec pes nec caput uni reddatur formae. pictoribus atque poetis quidlibet audendis semper fuit acqua potestas." 10 scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim ; 66 sed non ut placidis coeant immitia, non ut serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni. Inceptis gravibus plerumque et magna professis purpureus, late qui splendeat, unus et alter adsuitur pannus, cum lucus et ara Dianae et properantis aquae per amoenos ambitus agros aut flumen Rhenum aut pluvius9 describitur arcus. sed nunc non erat his locus. et fortasse cupressum scis simulare 15 quid hoc, si fractis enatat exspes10 20 1 For the Ars Poetica class I of the MSS. includes aBCKM, while class II includes Rφψδλίπ. 2 pectori B1. 3 missi BC. 4 pisonis, II. 5 aegris a1BR. 6 funguntur B: fingentur or finguntur. 7 quodlibet T. 9 fluvius, II. 8 audiendi B. 10 expers, II. THE ART OF POETRY If a painter chose to join a human head to the neck of a horse, and to spread feathers of many a hue over limbs picked up now here now there, so that what at the top is a lovely woman ends below in a black and ugly fish, could you, my friends, if favoured with a private view, refrain from laughing? Believe me, dear Pisos, quite like such pictures would be a book, whose idle fancies shall be shaped like a sick man's dreams, so that neither head nor foot can be assigned to a single shape. Painters and poets," you say, "have always had an equal right in hazarding anything." We know it: this licence we poets claim and in our turn we grant the like; but not so far that savage should mate with tame, or serpents couple with birds, lambs with tigers. 14 Works with noble beginnings and grand promises often have one or two purple patches so stitched on as to glitter far and wide, when Diana's grove and altar, and The winding stream a-speeding 'mid fair fields or the river Rhine, or the rainbow is being described." For such things there is a place, but not just now. Perhaps, too, you can draw a cypress. But what of that, if you are paid to paint a sailor swimming from a These examples are doubtless taken from poems current in Horace's day. navibus, aere dato qui pingitur? amphora coepit institui currente rota cur urceus exit? 25 30 denique sit quod vis,1 simplex dumtaxat et unum. Maxima pars vatum, pater et iuvenes patre digni, decipimur specie recti. brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio; sectantem levia2 nervi deficiunt animique; professus grandia turget; serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procellae : qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam, delphinum silvis appingit, fluctibus aprum. in vitium ducit culpae fuga, si caret arte. Aemilium circa ludum faber imus3 et unguis exprimet et mollis imitabitur aere capillos, infelix operis summa, quia ponere totum nesciet. hunc ego me, si quid componere curem, non magis esse velim, quam naso vivere pravo,5 spectandum nigris oculis nigroque capillo. Sumite materiam vestris, qui scribitis, aequam viribus et versate diu, quid ferre recusent, quid valeant umeri. cui lecta potenter erit res, nec facundia deseret hunc nec lucidus ordo. ordinis haec virtus erit et venus, aut ego fallor, ut iam nunc dicat iam nunc debentia dici, 35 40 a One who has been saved from a shipwreck wants to put a picture of the scene as a votive offering in a temple. So the scholiasts, imus being local amd meaning his wrecked vessel in despair ? a That was a winejar, when the moulding began: why, as the wheel runs round, does it turn out a pitcher? In short, be the work what you will, let it at least be simple and uniform. 24 Most of us poets, O father and ye sons worthy of the father, deceive ourselves by the semblance of truth. Striving to be brief, I become obscure. Aiming at smoothness, I fail in force and fire. One promising grandeur, is bombastic; another, overcautious and fearful of the gale, creeps along the ground. The man who tries to vary a single subject in monstrous fashion, is like a painter adding a dolphin to the woods, a boar to the waves. Shunning a fault may lead to error, if there be lack of art. 32 Near the Aemilian School, at the bottom of the row, there is a craftsman who in bronze will mould nails and imitate waving locks, but is unhappy in the total result, because he cannot represent a whole figure. Now if I wanted to write something, I should no more wish to be like him, than to live with my nose turned askew, though admired for my black eyes and black hair. 38 Take a subject, ye writers, equal to your strength; and ponder long what your shoulders refuse, and what they are able to bear. Whoever shall choose a theme within his range, neither speech will fail him, nor clearness of order. Of order, this, if I mistake not, will be the excellence and charm that the author of the long-promised poem shall say at the moment what at that moment should be said, "the last" of a number of shops. Some, however, take it in the sense of " humblest." Bentley's unus is to be taken closely with exprimet, " mould better than any others." pleraque differat et praesens in tempus omittat, 45 50 55 60 65 2 Bentley transposed ll. 45 and 46, and has been followed by most editors. The scholiasts, however, had l. 45 preceding l. 46. Servius, too, though he cites l. 45 three times (on Aeneid, iv. 412, 415; Georgics, ii. 475) nowhere applies it to diction. 3 dixerit B. 4 rerum et, II. 5 factaque. 6 cadant a, Servius on Virg. Aen. vi. 34. 7 Varoque 48. 8 procudere Bentley. 9 folia in silvis Diomedes. 10 sterilisque, I (except a). a Bentley's transposition of lines 45 and 46, making hoc... hoc refer to verbis, seems unnecessary. The traditional order is retained by Wickham and Rolfe. Horace deals first with the arrangement of argumentative material, |
