Part 1 — Boileau’s Answer to Juvenal.
Reading edition
Illustrious Ghost,
A Messenger from the Muses never fill’d me with so much transport, as the first sight of your letter; but I had not read six lines, before I wish’d you had never done me that honour. To praise my Satires and fall foul upon my Lutrin (which made me sweat more drops of water, than your drunkard St. Amant (since I must call him so) ever drank of wine) is no favour. After many laborious and fruitless endeavours, finding, to my great grief and distraction, I could not match you in wit, I resolv’d if possible to out-do you in malice, which made me take the liberty of romancing a little on St. Amant, falling foul upon people’s characters and manners, and treating several scurvy poets more roughly than you did the Theseis of Codrus, when you sang,
Semper ego auditor tantum nunquamne reponam? Vexatus toties rauci Therseide Codri?
Thus suffering the gall of my heart to flow thro’ the channel of my pen, I procur’d myself enemies in abundance, and since I must confess all to you, some stripes with a bull’s-pizzle, which was a most terrible mortification to my shoulders; but I bore all this with the patience of a philosopher, as will appear by the following lines.
Let Codrus that nauseous pretender to wit, Condemn all my works before courtier and cit; I bear all with patience, whatever he says, And value as little his scandal as praise. Vain-glory no longer my genius does fire, ’Tis interest alone tunes the strings of my lyre. Integrity’s nought but a plausible sham, For money I praise, and for money I damn. Old politic bards, for fame have no itching, The Apollo I court, is the steam of a kitchin.
The four first lines, I must own, are something against the grain; and the natural inclination I have to rail, and be thought an excellent poet, gives my tongue the lie; but the four last, which shew more prudence than wit, reconcile that matter. ’Tis certainly, illustrious bard, more difficult to please the world now than it was in your time; for if I write satire, I am beaten for it; if I praise, I am call’d a mercenary flatterer, which so disheartens me, that I address myself now to my Gardener only; and do not doubt but some busy nice critick will be censuring this poem also. Not being in the best humour when I writ it, perhaps it may appear something dark and abstruse; but I can easily excuse that, by maintaining that ’tis impossible for the best author in the world to keep up always to the same strain, Have you ever heard of the tales of the Peau d’Asne, & Grisedilis? if Proserpine had any little children, ’twould be a most agreeable diversion for them, and I wou’d send it ’em for a present. Tho’ that author furnishes you with sufficient matter to laugh at me, yet I must confess he has found the art of making something of a trifle. Every one here learns his verses by heart; and in spight of my translation of Longinus, which makes it so plainly appear, I understand Greek, and know something of poetry, my book begins to be despis’d. Wou’d it not break a Man’s heart to see such impertinent stuff preferr’d before so many sublime pieces? But, as for your glory that will eternally subsist, and nothing can destroy it, since time has not already done it.