TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS.

Suffenus, whom we both have known so well, No other man in manners can excel; Facetious, courteous, affable, urbane. The world’s approval he is sure to gain. But, would you think it? he has now essayed To be a bard, and countless verses made; Perhaps ten thousand, perhaps ten times more, For none but he could ever count them o’er; Not scribbled down on scraps, as one does when In careless rhymes we only try our pen, But in a gilt-edged book, all richly bound, The writing ornate with a care profound, Rich silken cords to mark each favorite part, The cover, ev’n, a monument of art. Yet as you read, Suffenus, who till then Seemed the most pleasant of all gentlemen, Becomes offensive as the country boor, Who milks rank goats beside his cottage door, Or digs foul ditches: such a change is wrought By rhymes with neither sense nor music fraught. So crazed is he with this same wretched rhyme, That never does he know so blest a time As when he writes away, and fondly deems He rivals Homer’s god-enraptured dreams; And wonders in his pride, himself to see, The very pattern-pink of poesy. Alas! Suffenus, while I laugh at thee, The world, for aught I know, may laugh at me. It is the madness of each one to pride Himself on that ’twere better far to hide; Nor know the faults in that peculiar sack Which Æsop says is hanging at his back.