BOOK XXVI.
Lewis Evans translation
ARGUMENT.
Gerlach considers this book to contain the strongest evidences of how much Horace was indebted to Lucilius, not only in the choice of his subjects, but also in his illustration and method of handling the subject when chosen. In the 105th of the Fragmenta incerta, we find the words "Valeri sententia dia" (which Horace imitates, i., Sat. ii., 32, "sententia dia Catonis"). By Valerius he here supposes Q. Valerius Soranus to be intended; a man of great learning and an intimate friend of Publius Scipio and Lucilius. He was author of a treatise on grammar, entitled ἐποπτίδων; which contained, according to Turnebe's conjecture, a discussion on the mysteries of literature and learning (ἐπόπτης being applied to one initiated into the mysteries). This is not improbable; as he is said to have lost his life for divulging the sacred and mysterious name of Rome. Vid. Plut., Qu. Rom., lxi. [Two verses of his are quoted by Varro, L. L., vii., 3, and x., 70. Cf. Plin., H. N., Præf., p. 6, Hard. A. Gell., ii., 10.]
With him, therefore, as a man of judgment and experience, Lucilius, who had already acquired some ill-will from his Satires, consults, as to the best method of avoiding all odium for the future, and as to the subjects he shall select for his compositions. This book then contains an account of this interview between the poet and his adviser; and Gerlach most ingeniously arranges the fragments in such an order as to represent in some manner the topics of discussion in a methodical sequence. These are, chiefly, the propriety of his continuing to pursue the same style of writing, and the enunciation of the opinions of both on matters relating to war, marriage, and literary pursuits.
Van Heusde and Schoenbeck give no definite idea of the subject. Petermann considers the subject matter to have been far more diversified. The book begins, in his opinion, with a vivid description of the miseries of conjugal life, introducing a very graphic matrimonial quarrel; this is followed by so infinitely diversified a farrago of sentiments that it is hopeless to attempt to establish any systematic connection between them.
Corpet considers the whole to have been a philosophical discussion of the miseries of human life, especially those attendant on the married state, which the poet illustrated by the very forcible example of Agamemnon and Clytæmnestra.
The whole of the book was composed in the Trochaic metre; consisting of tetrameters catalectic and acatalectic. A few Fragments consist of Iambic heptameters and octometers (Iambici septenarii et octonarii), unless, as is not improbable, these lines have been referred to this book, through the inadvertence of grammarians or copyists. It might, however, have been intentional, as in the succeeding books we find Iambic, Trochaic, and Dactylic metres indiscriminately employed.
1 Men, by their own act, bring upon themselves this trouble and annoyance; they marry wives, and bring up children, by which they cause these.[1831]
2 For you say indeed, that what was secretly intrusted to you, you would neither utter a single murmur, nor divulge your mysteries abroad....[1832]
3 If she were to ask me for as much iron as she does gold, I would not give it her. So again, if she were to sleep away from me, she would not get what she asks.
4 ... but Syrus himself, the Tricorian, a freedman and thorough scoundrel; with whom I become a shuffler, and change all things.[1833]
5 ... covered with filth, in the extremity of dirt and wretchedness, exciting neither envy in her enemies, nor desire in her friends.
6 ... but that I should serve under Lucilius as collector of the taxes on pasturage in Asia, no, that I would not![1834]
7 ... just as the Roman people has been conquered by superior force, and beaten in many single battles; but in war never, on which every thing depends.
8 Some woman hoping to pillage and rifle me, and filch from me my ivory mirror.[1835]
9 In throwing up a mound, if there is any occasion for bringing vineæ into play, their first care is to advance them.
10
11 Take charge of the sick man, pay his expenses, defraud his genius.[1836]
12 ... But for whom? One whom a single fever, one attack of indigestion, nay, a single draught of wine, could carry off....[1837]
13 If they commiserate themselves, take care you do not assign their case too high a place.[1838]
14 Now, in like manner ... we wish to captivate their mind ... just to the people and to authors....[1839]
15 ... you do not collect that multitude of your friends which you have entered on your list....[1840]
16 ... wherefore it is better for her to cherish this, than bestow all her regard on that....
17 ... in the first place, all natural philosophers say, that man is made up of soul and body.
18 ... to have returned and retraced his steps[1841]
19 ... and that which is greatly to your fancy is excessively disagreeable to me....
20 ... strive with the highest powers of your nature: whereas I, on the other hand ... that I may be different[1842]
21 ... whether he should hang himself, or fall on his sword, that he may not look upon the sky....[1843]
22 ... study the matter, and give your attention to my words, I beg.
23 ... in order that I may escape from that which I perceive it is the summit of your desires to attain to.[1844]
24 On the other hand, it is a disgrace not to know how to conquer in war the sturdy barbarian Hannibal.[1845]
25 ... but if they see this, they think that a wise man always aims at what is good....
26 ... delighted with your pursuit, you write an ancient history to your favorites....[1846]
27 ... who I am, and with what husk I am now enveloped, I can not....[1847]
28 ... then to oppose to my mind a body worn out with pains.
29 ... nor before he had handled a man's veins and heart....
30 Let us appear kind and courteous to our friends—[1848]
31 Why should not you too call me unlettered and uneducated?[1849]
32 ... call together the assembly, with hoarse sound and crooked horns.[1850]
33 They will of their own accord fight it out for you, and die, and will offer themselves voluntarily.
34 When I bring forth any verse from my heart—[1851]
35 He is not on that account exalted as the giver of life or of joy....[1852]
36 As each one of us has been brought forth into light from his mother's womb[1853]
37 ... if you wish to have your mind refreshed through your ears[1854]
38 ... they who drag on life for six months, vow the seventh to Orcus.
39 ... we are easily laughed at; we know that it is highly dangerous to be angry—[1855]
40 Part is blown asunder by the wind, part grows stiff with cold—[1856]
41 ... if he tastes nothing between two market days.[1857]
42 ... let it be glued with warm glue spread over it....
43 ... wherefore I quit the straight line, and gladly discharge the office of rubbish—[1858]
44 ... if I had hit upon any obsolete or questionable word
45 ... your youth, tired and tested to the highest degree by me.[1859]
46 ... when I had invigorated my body with a double stadium on the exercise-ground, and with ball....[1860]
47 ... those who will take food from a clean table must needs wash.
48 Now obscurity is to these a strange and monstrous thing—[1861]
49 ... what you would think you should beware of and chiefly avoid....
50 ... enter on that toil which will bring you both fame and profit—
51 ... what he understood, I showed that not a few could:
52 ... how disgusting and poor a thing it is to live [with loathing for food].[1862]
53 ... for my part, I am not persuaded publicly to change mine.
54 ... then my tithes, which treat me so ill, and turn out so badly
55 ... we see that he who is ill in mind gives evidence of it in his body.
56 ... make the battle of Popilius resound[1863]
57 ... Sylvanus, the driver away of wolves ... and trees struck by lightning.[1864]
58 ... that you transport yourself from the fierce storms of life into quiet.
59 Moreover, it is a friend's duty to advise well, watch over, admonish—
60 Since I found it out from great crowds of boon companions—[1865]
61 ... a faithless wife, a sluggish household, a dirty home—[1866]
62 ... nor is peace obtained ... because he dragged Cassandra from the statue[1867]
63 ... Eager to return home, we almost infringed our king's command[1868]
64 ... Let something, at all events, which I have attempted, turn out, some way....
65 ... Thither our eyes of themselves entice us, and hope hurries our mind to the spot.
66 ... he thinks by clothes to ward off cold and shivering.
67 ... unless you write of monsters and snakes with wings and feathers.[1869]
68 ... for I grow contemptuous and am weary of Agamemnon—
69 ... he is tormented with hunger, cold, dirt, unbathed filthiness, neglect.
70 ... a sieve, a colander, a lantern ... a thread for the web.[1870]
71 May the gods suggest better things, and avert madness from you
72 ... a dry, wretched, miserable stock he calls an elder—
73 ... be more learned than the rest; abandon, or change to some other direction, those faults which have become sacred with you.
74 It were better to get gold from the fire or food out of the mud with our teeth.
75 Let him chop wood, perform his task-work, sweep the house, be beaten.
76 He alone warded off Vulcan's violence from the fleet....
77 Therefore, they think all will escape sickness....
78 I therefore dispose, for money, of that which costs me dearer.