cloud from your brow; shyness oft gets the look of secrecy, silence of sour temper.

96 Amid all this you must read and question the wise,a a how you may be able to pass your days in tranquillity. Is greed, ever penniless, to drive and harass you, or fears and hopes about things that profit little ? Does wisdom beget virtue, or Nature bring her as a gift? What will lessen care? What will make you a friend to yourself? What gives you unruffled calm-honour, or the sweets of dear gain, or a secluded journey along the pathway of a life unnoticed a ?

104 For me, oft as Digentia refreshes me, the icy brook of which Mandela drinks, that village wrinkled with cold, what deem you to be my feelings? What, think you, my friend, are my prayers? May I have my present store, or even less; may I live to myself for what remains of life, if the gods will that aught remain. May I have a goodly supply of books and of food to last the year; nor may I waver to and fro with the hopes of each uncertain hour.

e

111 But 'tis enough to pray Jove, who gives and takes away, that he grant me life, and grant me means: a mind well balanced I will myself provide.

a Cf. Epist. i. 17. 10.

e

Cf. Epist. i. 16. 5, with its note b. Mandela, now Cantalupo Bardella, is a lofty village, whose people came down to the Digentia for their water.

fi.e. the gods may give me life, and the means of existence, but, as Henley says, "I am the captain of my soul."

XIX

TO MAECENAS

WRITING shortly before the publication of this book, in 20 B.C., Horace replies to the adverse criticism which had been levelled against his Epodes and Odes (Books i.-iii.). These, it was claimed, lacked originality and were mere imitations of Greek exemplars. Horace therefore contrasts the rude and servile imitation, to which he has himself been subjected, with his own generous use of noble models, according to rules followed by the great Greek poets themselves (1-34).

But the real reason why Horace has been assailed lies in the fact that the poet has not tried to please the general public or his offended critics. He refuses to resort to the usual methods of winning approval, and is therefore supposed to be arrogant. This is a charge which he declines to face (35-49).

XIX.

Prisco si credis, Maecenas docte, Cratino, nulla placere diu nec vivere carmina possunt, quae scribuntur aquae potoribus.1 ut male sanos adscripsit Liber Satyris Faunisque poetas, vina fere dulces oluerunt mane Camenae. laudibus arguitur vini vinosus Homerus ; Ennius ipse pater numquam nisi potus ad arma prosiluit dicenda. "Forum Putealque Libonis mandabo siccis, adimam cantare severis": hoc simul edixi,2 non cessavere poetae nocturno certare mero, putere diurno. quid? si quis voltu torvo ferus et pede nudo exiguaeque togae simulet textore3 Catonem, virtutemne repraesentet moresque Catonis ? rupit Iarbitam Timagenis aemula lingua,1 dum studet urbanus tenditque disertus haberi.

1 potioribus ERË. 3 ex ore o extore R.

2 edixi E, Porph. : edixit a. cena aE.

5

10

15

a On Cratinus see Index. In his IIurivŋ he jested upon his own intemperance.

• Cf. Iliad, vi. 261 ἀνδρὶ δὲ κεκμηῶτι μένος μέγα οἶνος ἀέξει, and the use of epithets applied to wine, such as εὐήνωρ, ἡδύποτος, μελιηδής, μελίφρων.

numquam poetor nisi si

Ennius says of himself, " podager."

EPISTLE XIX

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If you follow old Cratinus,a my learned Maecenas, no poems can please long, nor live, which are written by water-drinkers. From the moment Liber enlisted brain-sick poets among his Satyrs and Fauns, the sweet Muses, as a rule, have had a scent of wine about them in the morning. Homer, by his praises of wine, is convicted as a winebibber. Even Father Ennius never sprang forth to tell of arms save after much drinking.o To the sober I shall assign the Forum and Libo's Wall; the stern I shall debar from song. Ever since I put forth this edict, poets have never ceased to vie in wine-drinking by night, to reek of it by day. What, if a man were to ape Cato with grim and savage look, with bare feet and the cut of a scanty gown, would he thus set before us Cato's virtue and morals? In coping with Timagenes, his tongue brought ruin to Iarbitas f; so keen was his aim and effort to be deemed a man of

""

a Cf. Sat. ii. 6. 35. The expression forum putealque Libonis denotes a life of business.

• For the terms used cf. Sat. ii. 2. 51.

The precise meaning of rupit is uncertain. Porphyrio takes it literally, as if the attempt to rival the eloquence of Timagenes (a rhetorician of the day) made Iarbitas 99 burst asunder.' More probably the word has the general sense of " ruined.”

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