The Art of Poetry
De Arte Poetica liber
Headnote
The Ars Poetica — the “Epistle to the Pisos,” as the ancients also knew it — is Horace’s longest single poem and the most influential work of literary criticism to come out of antiquity. It is a verse letter of some 476 hexameters, addressed to a father and his two sons of the noble Piso family, and it belongs in form and in voice to the relaxed, conversational sermo of the Satires and Epistles: practical advice on the making of poems, delivered with the ease of a man talking to friends, not the oracular pronouncement its later fame might suggest. Composed late, probably around 19–18~BC (some place it later still), it was transmitted with Book~II of the Epistles, of which it is in effect the third and largest letter, and the present edition prints it on its own.
The poem has no formal divisions, and it ambles — deliberately — by association rather than system; readers since antiquity have complained of its apparent disorder, which is itself a kind of joke, since the poem opens by demanding unity and consistency above all. Beneath the digressions a coherent program can be traced. Horace begins with the principle of organic unity (the painter’s monster; the irrelevant “purple patch”; simplex dumtaxat et unum, “simple, and one”), passes to the choice of subject within one’s powers, to diction and the right to coin new words (the famous callida iunctura, the cunning placing of a familiar word, and the simile of words that fall and revive like the leaves of a wood), and then to the meters and matter proper to each genre. A long central stretch concerns the drama — decorum of character and emotion (si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi, “if you would have me weep, you must first grieve yourself”), the handling of traditional and invented material, the economy of Homer who plunges in medias res, the four ages of man, the conventions of the stage (what to show and what to narrate, the five acts, the chorus, the satyr play), and a miniature history of Greek and Roman dramatic poetry. The closing third turns to the poet himself: against the cult of inspired madness Horace sets the labor of the file (limae labor), the demand that wisdom and knowledge of life be the source of writing well, the union of nature and art, the famous formula that the poet should aut prodesse aut delectare — profit or please, and best of all do both (omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci) — the toleration of small faults (even good Homer nods), the refusal of any mediocrity in poets, the value of an honest critic like the dead Quintilius, and, in a famous comic finale, the portrait of the deranged poet who seizes his victim and reads him to death, a leech that will not let go.
The work is dense with Greek and Roman literary reference worn lightly — Homer and Archilochus, Thespis and Aeschylus and Old Comedy, the legendary civilizing bards Orpheus and Amphion, the Roman dramatists Plautus, Accius, and Ennius, the critic Aristarchus, the philosopher-poet Empedocles — and it crystallizes, in phrase after quotable phrase, the doctrines of decorum, unity, labor, and the double end of poetry that would govern European criticism through the Renaissance and the neoclassical age. The voice is the mature Horace: urbane, ironic, self-deprecating (he casts himself as the whetstone that sharpens the blade though it cuts nothing), and serious about craft precisely because he refuses to be solemn about it.
If a painter chose to join a horse’s neck to a human head, and to lay on feathers of every color, with limbs gathered from everywhere, so that a woman, lovely above, ended foully in a black fish below — admitted to the show, could you hold back your laughter, friends? Believe me, Pisos: very like that picture would be a book in which empty shapes are fashioned, like a sick man’s dreams, so that neither foot nor head can be assigned to a single form. “Painters and poets alike have always had a fair license to dare anything.” We know it, and we both claim this indulgence and grant it in turn; but not so far that the savage couple with the gentle, not so that serpents are paired with birds, or lambs with tigers.
Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam iungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas, undique conlatis membris, ut turpiter atrum desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne, spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici? credite, Pisones, isti tabulae fore librum persimilem, cuius, velut aegri somnia, vanae fingentur species, ut nec pes nec caput uni reddatur formae. ’pictoribus atque poetis quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas.’ scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim; sed non ut placidis coeant inmitia, non ut serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.
To grave beginnings that promise great things, more often than not one purple patch or two, to shine far and wide, is stitched on — when the grove and the altar of Diana, the winding of hurrying water through pleasant fields, the river Rhine, or the rainbow is being described; but this was not the place for them. Perhaps you know how to paint a cypress: what of that, if the man who pays to be painted is swimming, hopeless, from a wreck? A wine-jar was set to be made: as the wheel runs round, why does a pitcher come off? In short, let it be what you will, only let it be simple and one.
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 pluvius describitur arcus; sed nunc non erat his locus. et fortasse cupressum scis simulare: quid hoc, si fractis enatat exspes navibus, aere dato qui pingitur? amphora coepit institui: currente rota cur urceus exit? denique sit quodvis, simplex dumtaxat et unum.
We poets, for the most part — father, and sons worthy of the father — are deceived by the look of what is right. I labor to be brief; I turn obscure. Sinew and spirit fail the man who chases smoothness; aiming at the grand, he swells; the over-cautious, the storm-shy, crawls along the ground. The man who wants to vary one subject prodigiously paints a dolphin in the woods, a boar in the waves. Flight from a fault leads into vice, if it lacks art. Down by Aemilius’ school the humblest smith will mould fingernails and imitate soft hair in bronze, luckless in the sum of his work, because he will not know how to compose the whole. If I cared to put something together, I would no more wish to be that man than to live with a crooked nose while admired for my black eyes and black hair.
maxima pars vatum, pater et iuvenes patre digni, decipimur specie recti: brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio; sectantem levia nervi deficiunt animique; professus grandia turget; serpit humi tutus nimium timidusque procellae: qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam, delphinum silvis adpingit, fluctibus aprum: in vitium ducit culpae fuga, si caret arte. Aemilium circa ludum faber imus 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, spectandum nigris oculis nigroque capillo.
You who write, take up matter equal to your strength, and weigh long what your shoulders refuse to bear, and what they can carry. The man whose chosen subject is within his power will find neither eloquence nor lucid order fail him. This will be the virtue and the charm of order, or I am deceived: to say at this moment what at this moment ought to be said, to put off much, and pass it over for the present.
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, pleraque differat et praesens in tempus omittat.
Also in setting words together, be subtle and careful; love this, spurn that, you author of a promised poem. You will have spoken superbly if a cunning setting makes a known word new. If by chance it is necessary to point out hidden matters with fresh tokens, and to coin words unheard by the kilted Cethegi, the license will be granted, taken modestly, and words newly made and freshly minted will win belief, if they fall sparingly drawn from a Greek spring. But what will a Roman grant to Caecilius and Plautus, and take away from Vergil and Varius? Why am I grudged, if I can win a few new words, when the tongue of Cato and of Ennius enriched our fathers’ speech and brought forth new names for things? It has been, and always will be, allowed to bring out a word stamped with the mint-mark of the day.
in verbis etiam tenuis cautusque serendis hoc amet, hoc spernat promissi carminis auctor. dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum reddiderit iunctura novum. si forte necesse est indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum et fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis, continget dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter, et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si Graeco fonte cadent parce detorta. quid autem Caecilio Plautoque dabit Romanus ademptum Vergilio Varioque? ego cur, adquirere pauca si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catonis et Enni sermonem patrium ditaverit et nova rerum nomina protulerit? licuit semperque licebit signatum praesente nota producere nomen.
As the woods change their leaves with the declining years, the first to fall: so the old generation of words dies out, and the newly born, like the young, flower and thrive. We are owed to death, we and all that is ours — whether Neptune, taken into the land, keeps the fleets safe from the North winds, a king’s work, or a marsh, long barren and fit for oars, feeds the neighboring towns and feels the heavy plow, or a river has changed the course that wronged the crops, taught a better way: the works of mortals will perish, much less can the honor and grace of speech stay living. Many words now fallen will be born again, and many now in honor will fall, if usage so wills, in whose hands lies the judgment, the right, and the rule of speech.
ut silvae foliis pronos mutantur in annos, prima cadunt: ita verborum vetus interit aetas, et iuvenum ritu florent modo nata vigentque. debemur morti nos nostraque: sive receptus terra Neptunus classes Aquilonibus arcet, regis opus, sterilisve diu palus aptaque remis vicinas urbes alit et grave sentit aratrum, seu cursum mutavit iniquum frugibus amnis doctus iter melius: mortalia facta peribunt, nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax. multa renascentur quae iam cecidere cadentque quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, quem penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi.
In what meter the deeds of kings and captains and grim wars could be written, Homer showed. In verses unequally yoked, lament came first, and later too the sentiment of a granted prayer was framed; yet which author first sent out the slight elegiacs, the scholars dispute, and the case is still before the judge. Fury armed Archilochus with the iambus that is his own; this foot the comic sock took up, and the grand buskin too, fit for alternating dialogue, and able to drown the people’s uproar, and born for action. To the lyre the Muse granted the singing of gods and the sons of gods, the winning boxer, the horse first in the race, the cares of young men, and the freedom of wine.
res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella quo scribi possent numero, monstravit Homerus; versibus inpariter iunctis querimonia primum, post etiam inclusa est voti sententia compos; quis tamen exiguos elegos emiserit auctor, grammatici certant et adhuc sub iudice lis est; Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo; hunc socci cepere pedem grandesque cothurni, alternis aptum sermonibus et popularis vincentem strepitus et natum rebus agendis; musa dedit fidibus Divos puerosque Deorum et pugilem victorem et equum certamine primum et iuvenum curas et libera vina referre:
If I cannot keep the appointed turns and tones of the kinds, and know them not, why am I hailed as a poet? Why, out of false shame, would I rather not know than learn? A comic theme refuses to be set out in tragic verse; likewise the feast of Thyestes scorns to be told in everyday lines, near fit for the comic sock: let each thing keep the place allotted it as fitting. Yet now and then comedy too lifts her voice, and an angry Chremes scolds with swollen mouth; and often the tragic poet grieves in the speech of the ground, when Telephus and Peleus, both poor and in exile, throw away their bombast and their words a foot and a half long, if they care to touch the spectator’s heart with their complaint.
descriptas servare vices operumque colores cur ego si nequeo ignoroque poeta salutor? cur nescire pudens prave quam discere malo? versibus exponi tragicis res comica non volt; indignatur item privatis ac prope socco dignis carminibus narrari cena Thyestae: singula quaeque locum teneant sortita decentem. interdum tamen et vocem comoedia tollit iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore; et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri, Telephus et Peleus cum pauper et exsul uterque proiicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba, si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querella.
It is not enough for poems to be beautiful: let them be sweet, and lead the hearer’s heart wherever they will. As human faces laugh with those who laugh, so they weep with those who weep. If you would have me cry, you must first grieve yourself: then your misfortunes will wound me, Telephus, or Peleus; but if you speak your part badly, I shall either doze or laugh. Sad words befit a mournful face, words full of threats an angry one, playful words the merry, grave words the stern. For nature first shapes us within to every turn of fortune: she gladdens us, or drives us to anger, or bows us to the ground with heavy grief and wrings us; then she utters the motions of the mind through the tongue’s interpreting. If the speaker’s words are out of tune with his fortunes, the Romans, knights and footmen alike, will raise a guffaw. It will matter much whether Davus is speaking or a hero, a ripe old man or one still hot with flowering youth, a powerful matron or a bustling nurse, a roving merchant or the tiller of a green little farm, a Colchian or an Assyrian, one bred at Thebes, or at Argos.
non satis est pulchra esse poemata: dulcia sunto et quocumque volent animum auditoris agunto. ut ridentibus adrident, ita flentibus adflent humani voltus. si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi: tum tua me infortunia laedent, Telephe vel Peleu; male si mandata loqueris, aut dormitabo aut ridebo. tristia maestum voltum verba decent, iratum plena minarum, ludentem lasciva, severum seria dictu. format enim natura prius nos intus ad omnem fortunarum habitum: iuvat aut inpellit ad iram aut ad humum maerore gravi deducit et angit: post effert animi motus interprete lingua. si dicentis erunt fortunis absona dicta, Romani tollent equites peditesque cachinnum. intererit multum, Davusne loquatur an heros, maturusne senex an adhuc florente iuventa fervidus, et matrona potens an sedula nutrix, mercatorne vagus cultorne virentis agelli, Colchus an Assyrius, Thebis nutritus, an Argis.
Either follow tradition, or, as a writer, invent what hangs together. If by chance you set the honored Achilles on the stage again, let him be tireless, hot-tempered, relentless, fierce, let him deny that laws were made for him, claim everything by arms. Let Medea be savage and unconquered, Ino tearful, Ixion faithless, Io a wanderer, Orestes grim. If you trust to the stage something untried, and dare to fashion a new character, let it be kept to the end such as it came forth at the start, and stay true to itself. It is hard to speak in your own way of what is common; and you do better to draw the tale of Troy out into acts than if you were the first to bring forth matter unknown and untold.
aut famam sequere aut sibi convenientia finge scriptor. honoratum si forte reponis Achillem, inpiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer iura neget sibi nata, nihil non adroget armis. sit Medea ferox invictaque, flebilis Ino, perfidus Ixion, Io vaga, tristis Orestes. si quid inexpertum scaenae conmittis et audes personam formare novam, servetur ad imum, qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet. difficile est proprie communia dicere, tuque rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus:
Common matter will become your private right, if you do not linger round the cheap and open ring, nor, a faithful translator, take pains to render word for word, nor, as an imitator, leap down into a tight place whence shame or the law of the work forbids you to stir, nor begin as the cyclic writer once did: “Of Priam’s fortune will I sing, and the famous war.” What will this promiser bring forth worthy of so wide a gape? The mountains will be in labor; a laughable mouse will be born. How much better is he who attempts nothing foolishly: “Tell me, Muse, of the man who, after the time when Troy was taken, saw the manners and the cities of many men.” He plans to give, not smoke after the flash, but light out of the smoke, that he may then bring forth dazzling marvels — Antiphates, and Scylla, the Cyclops, and Charybdis; nor does he begin Diomedes’ return from the death of Meleager, nor the Trojan war from the twin egg: always he hastens to the issue, and snatches the hearer into the midst of things as though they were known, and what he despairs of making shine under his hand, he leaves out, and so feigns, so mingles false with true, that the middle not jar with the first, nor the end with the middle.
publica materies privati iuris erit, si non circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem nec verbo verbum curabis reddere fidus interpres nec desilies imitator in artum, unde pedem proferre pudor vetet aut operis lex, nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim: ’fortunam Priami cantabo et nobile bellum.’ quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu? parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. quanto rectius hic, qui nil molitur inepte: ’dic mihi, Musa, virum, captae post tempora Troiae qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.’ non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat, Antiphaten, Scyllamque, et cum Cyclope Charybdim; nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri nec gemino bellum Troianum orditur ab ovo: semper ad eventum festinat et in medias res non secus ac notas auditorem rapit et quae desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet, primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.
You — hear what I and the people with me require, if you want an applauder who will wait for the curtain and sit right through, until the singer says, “Now clap, all of you.” You must mark the manners of each age, and grant what befits the shifting natures and the years. The child, who now knows how to give words back and with sure foot stamps the ground, longs to play with his fellows, gathers anger and lays it down on a whim, and changes hour by hour. The beardless youth, his guardian at last removed, delights in horses and hounds and the grass of the sunny field, soft as wax to be bent to vice, harsh to those who warn him, slow to provide what is useful, lavish of money, high-spirited, eager, and quick to leave what he loved. With shifted aims, the manly age and mind seeks wealth and connections, is a slave to honor, and is wary of doing what he must soon labor to undo. Many troubles beset the old man, whether because he seeks gain, and, wretch, holds off from what he has found and fears to use it, or because he handles all his affairs timidly and coldly, a procrastinator, slow to hope, sluggish and greedy for the future, peevish, querulous, a praiser of the time gone by when he was a boy, a corrector and censor of his juniors. The coming years bring many advantages with them, the receding take many away: lest by chance an old man’s part be given to a youth, or a man’s to a boy, let us always dwell on what suits and fits the age.
tu, quid ego et populus mecum desideret, audi, si plausoris eges aulaea manentis et usque sessuri, donec cantor ’vos plaudite’ dicat. aetatis cuiusque notandi sunt tibi mores, mobilibusque decor naturis dandus et annis. reddere qui voces iam scit puer et pede certo signat humum, gestit paribus conludere et iram colligit ac ponit temere et mutatur in horas. inberbis iuvenis, tandem custode remoto, gaudet equis canibusque et aprici gramine campi, cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper, utilium tardus provisor, prodigus aeris, sublimis cupidusque et amata relinquere pernix. conversis studiis aetas animusque virilis quaerit opes et amicitias, inservit honori, conmisisse cavet quod mox mutare laboret. multa senem circumveniunt incommoda, vel quod quaerit et inventis miser abstinet ac timet uti, vel quod res omnis timide gelideque ministrat, dilator, spe longus, iners avidusque futuri, difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti se puero, castigator censorque minorum. multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, multa recedentes adimunt: ne forte seniles mandentur iuveni partes pueroque viriles: semper in adiunctis aevoque morabitur aptis.
Either the action is played on stage, or it is reported as done. What is admitted through the ear stirs the mind more slowly than what is set before our faithful eyes, and what the spectator delivers to himself: yet you will not bring onto the stage what ought to be done within, and you will keep many things from sight, which an eloquent witness may soon narrate: let not Medea butcher her children before the people, nor wicked Atreus cook human flesh in the open, nor Procne be turned into a bird, Cadmus into a snake. Whatever you show me thus, I disbelieve and detest. Let the play that wants to be called for and staged again be neither shorter nor drawn out beyond the fifth act. Let no god intervene, unless a knot turn up worthy of such a deliverer, and let no fourth character strive to speak. Let the chorus uphold an actor’s part and its manly duty, and sing nothing between the acts that does not advance the plot and fit it aptly. Let it favor the good and give them friendly counsel, rule the angry, and love to calm the swelling; let it praise the fare of a frugal table, praise wholesome justice, the laws, and peace with the gates thrown open; let it keep secrets entrusted to it, and pray the gods and beseech them that fortune return to the wretched and depart from the proud.
aut agitur res in scaenis aut acta refertur. segnius inritant animos demissa per aurem quam quae sunt oculis subiecta fidelibus et quae ipse sibi tradit spectator: non tamen intus digna geri promes in scaenam multaque tolles ex oculis, quae mox narret facundia praesens: ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius atreus aut in avem Procne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem. quodcumque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi. neve minor neu sit quinto productior actu fabula quae posci volt et spectanda reponi. nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus inciderit, nec quarta loqui persona laboret. actoris partis chorus officiumque virile defendat, neu quid medios intercinat actus quod non proposito conducat et haereat apte. ille bonis faveatque et consilietur amice et regat iratos et amet pacare tumentis, ille dapes laudet mensae brevis, ille salubrem iustitiam legesque et apertis otia portis, ille tegat conmissa Deosque precetur et oret, ut redeat miseris, abeat fortuna superbis.
The pipe — not, as now, bound with brass and rivaling the trumpet, but slender and simple, with few stops — was useful to give breath to the chorus and stand by it, and to fill with its sound the benches not yet too thickly packed, where, to be sure, a people one could count, being few, and frugal and chaste and modest, gathered together. But after the conqueror began to widen his fields, and a broader wall to embrace the cities, and the Genius to be appeased with daytime wine, unpunished, on the feast days, greater license came to the rhythms and the modes. For what taste could the unschooled have, free of labor, the countryman mixed with the townsman, the base with the noble? So the piper added movement and extravagance to the old art, and trailed his robe as he roamed across the stage; so too the voices of the grave lyre grew fuller, and a headlong fluency brought an unwonted eloquence, and the thought, shrewd in useful matters and prophetic of the future, did not differ from the oracle at Delphi.
tibia non, ut nunc orichalco, vincta tubaeque aemula, sed tenuis simplexque foramine pauco adspirare et adesse choris erat utilis atque nondum spissa nimis complere sedilia flatu; quo sane populus numerabilis, utpote parvos, et frugi castusque verecundusque coibat. postquam coepit agros extendere victor et urbis latior amplecti murus vinoque diurno placari Genius festis inpune diebus, accessit numerisque modisque licentia maior. indoctus quid enim saperet liberque laborum rusticus urbano confusus, turpis honesto? sic priscae motumque et luxuriem addidit arti tibicen traxitque vagus per pulpita vestem; sic etiam fidibus voces crevere severis, et tulit eloquium insolitum facundia praeceps utiliumque sagax rerum et divina futuri sortilegis non discrepuit sententia Delphis.
He who competed with tragic song for a cheap goat soon also stripped the rustic Satyrs bare, and, rough, tried a joke with his gravity unharmed, because the spectator, his rites performed, drunk and lawless, had to be held by allurements and welcome novelty. But it will be fitting to commend the laughing, the sharp-tongued Satyrs thus, thus to turn the serious into sport, so that no god, no hero who is brought on, seen lately in royal gold and purple, should move into dark taverns with lowly speech, or, while he shuns the ground, snatch at clouds and emptiness. Tragedy, scorning to babble trifling verses, like a matron bidden to dance on the feast days, will move among the bold Satyrs a little shamefaced.
carmine qui tragico vilem certavit ob hircum, mox etiam agrestis Satyros nudavit et asper incolumi gravitate iocum temptavit eo quod inlecebris erat et grata novitate morandus spectator functusque sacris et potus et exlex. verum ita risores, ita commendare dicacis conveniet Satyros, ita vertere seria ludo, ne, quicumque Deus, quicumque adhibebitur heros, regali conspectus in auro nuper et ostro, migret in obscuras humili sermone tabernas aut, dum vitat humum, nubis et inania captet. effutire levis indigna tragoedia versus, ut festis matrona moveri iussa diebus, intererit Satyris paulum pudibunda protervis.
Not bare and dominant nouns and words alone, Pisos, will I as a writer of Satyrs love, nor will I strive so to differ from the tragic color that it makes no difference whether Davus is speaking, and bold Pythias, who has won a talent by wiping Simo’s nose, or Silenus, the guardian and servant of the god he reared. I shall follow a poem made from the known, so that anyone may hope for the same, yet sweat much and labor in vain if he dares the same: such is the power of arrangement and joinery, so much honor accrues to things taken from the common stock. The Fauns, drawn from the woods, should beware, in my judgment, lest, as though born at the crossroads and almost of the Forum, they ever play the youth in over-tender verses, or rattle off filthy and disgraceful words. For those who have a horse, a father, and an estate take offense, nor, if the buyer of roasted chickpeas and nuts approves a thing, do they receive it with even temper, or award it the crown.
non ego inornata et dominantia nomina solum verbaque, Pisones, Satyrorum scriptor amabo nec sic enitar tragico differre colori, ut nihil intersit, Davusne loquatur et audax Pythias, emuncto lucrata Simone talentum, an custos famulusque Dei Silenus alumni. ex noto fictum carmen sequar, ut sibi quivis speret idem, sudet multum frustraque laboret ausus idem: tantum series iuncturaque pollet, tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris. silvis deducti caveant, me iudice, Fauni, ne velut innati triviis ac paene forenses. aut nimium teneris iuvenentur versibus umquam aut inmunda crepent ignominiosaque dicta. offenduntur enim, quibus est equus et pater et res, nec, siquid fricti ciceris probat et nucis emptor, aequis accipiunt animis donantve corona. syllaba longa brevi subiecta vocatur Iambus, pes citus: unde etiam trimetris adcrescere iussit nomen iambeis, cum senos redderet ictus, primus ad extremum similis sibi: non ita pridem,
A long syllable set after a short is called an iamb, a quick foot: from which it bade the name of trimeters attach to iambic lines, though it gave back six beats, like itself from first to last. Not so long ago, that it might come to the ear a little slower and graver, it took the steady spondees into its ancestral rights, obliging and patient — yet not so as to yield from the second place, or the fourth, too sociably. This foot shows itself but rarely in Accius’ noble trimeters, and in Ennius it weighs down the verses sent onto the stage with great heaviness, charged with the base reproach of work either too hasty and careless, or of an art unknown. Not every judge sees unmetrical poems, and an indulgence unworthy of them has been granted to Roman poets. Shall I for that wander and write at random? Or think that all will see my faults, and so play safe and cautious within the hope of pardon? Then I have escaped blame, not earned praise. As for you — turn the Greek models over in your hand by night, turn them by day.
tardior ut paulo graviorque veniret ad auris, spondeos stabilis in iura paterna recepit commodus et patiens, non ut de sede secunda cederet aut quarta socialiter. hic et in Acci nobilibus trimetris adparet rarus et Enni in scaenam missos cum magno pondere versus aut operae celeris nimium curaque carentis aut ignoratae premit artis crimine turpi. non quivis videt inmodulata poemata iudex et data Romanis venia est indigna poetis. idcircone vager scribamque licenter? an omnis visuros peccata putem mea, tutus et intra spem veniae cautus? vitavi denique culpam, non laudem merui. vos exemplaria Graeca nocturna versate manu, versate diurna. at nostri proavi Plautinos et numeros et laudavere sales, nimium patienter utrumque, ne dicam stulte, mirati, si modo ego et vos scimus inurbanum lepido seponere dicto
But our forefathers praised the meters and the wit of Plautus — admiring both too patiently, not to say foolishly — if only you and I know how to set the boorish apart from the graceful jest, and have the skill, in our fingers and our ear, for the lawful sound. Thespis is said to have invented a kind unknown to the tragic Muse, and to have carted his poems about on wagons, to be sung and acted by men with faces smeared with lees. After him the inventor of the mask and the seemly robe, Aeschylus, laid a stage on modest beams and taught men to speak grandly and to stride on the buskin. Old Comedy succeeded these, not without much praise; but its freedom fell into vice and a violence deserving to be ruled by law: the law was accepted, and the chorus fell shamefully silent, its right to harm taken away. Our poets left nothing untried, and earned no least honor by daring to forsake the Greek footsteps and to celebrate home affairs, whether in plays of the purple-bordered robe or in plays of the toga.
legitimumque sonum digitis callemus et aure. ignotum tragicae genus invenisse Camenae dicitur et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis, quae canerent agerentque peruncti faecibus ora. post hunc personae pallaeque repertor honestae Aeschylus et modicis instravit pulpita tignis et docuit magnumque loqui nitique cothurno. successit vetus his comoedia, non sine multa laude; sed in vitium libertas excidit et vim dignam lege regi: lex est accepta chorusque turpiter obticuit sublato iure nocendi. nil intemptatum nostri liquere poetae nec minimum meruere decus vestigia Graeca ausi deserere et celebrare domestica facta vel qui praetextas vel qui docuere togatas. nec virtute foret clarisve potentius armis quam lingua Latium, si non offenderet unum quemque poetarum limae labor et mora. vos, o Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non
Latium would be no more mighty in valor or famed in arms than in its tongue, if the labor and delay of the file did not offend its poets, every one. O you, blood of Pompilius, condemn the poem that many a day and many an erasure has not pruned and ten times over chastened, pared back to the nail. Because Democritus believes that native genius is luckier than wretched art, and shuts out from Helicon the poets who are sane, a good part of them take no care to pare their nails or their beards, seek out lonely places, shun the baths. For a man will win the price and name of poet if he never entrusts to the barber Licinus a head that three Anticyras could not cure. O luckless me, who purge my bile as the springtime comes on!
multa dies et multa litura coercuit atque praesectum deciens non castigavit ad unguem. ingenium misera quia fortunatius arte credit et excludit sanos Helicone poetas Democritus, bona pars non unguis ponere curat, non barbam, secreta petit loca, balnea vitat. nanciscetur enim pretium nomenque poetae, si tribus Anticyris caput insanabile numquam tonsori Licino conmiserit. o ego laevus, qui purgor bilem sub verni temporis horam. non alius faceret meliora poemata; verum nil tanti est. ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum reddere quae ferrum valet exsors ipsa secandi; munus et officium, nil scribens ipse, docebo,
No other could make better poems; but nothing is worth so much. So I will serve as the whetstone, which can give the iron its edge, though itself it cut nothing; writing nothing myself, I will teach the function and the duty: where a poet’s resources are got, what nourishes and forms him, what is fitting and what not, where excellence leads, and where error. To know is the source and the beginning of writing well. The Socratic pages can show you the matter, and once the matter is foreseen, the words will follow unforced. The man who has learned what he owes his country and his friends, with what love a parent, a brother, and a guest are to be loved, what is the duty of a senator, of a judge, what the part of a general sent to war — he, beyond doubt, knows how to render to each character what befits it. I will bid the learned imitator look to the model of life and manners, and draw living voices from there.
unde parentur opes, quid alat formetque poetam, quid deceat, quid non, quo virtus, quo ferat error. scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons. rem tibi Socraticae poterunt ostendere chartae verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur. qui didicit, patriae quid debeat et quid amicis, quo sit amore parens, quo frater amandus et hospes, quod sit conscripti, quod iudicis officium, quae partes in bellum missi ducis, ille profecto reddere personae scit convenientia cuique. respicere exemplar vitae morumque iubebo doctum imitatorem et vivas hinc ducere voces. interdum speciosa locis morataque recte fabula nullius veneris, sine pondere et arte, valdius oblectat populum meliusque moratur quam versus inopes rerum nugaeque canorae.
To the Greeks the Muse gave genius, to the Greeks she gave to speak with a rounded mouth, greedy for nothing but praise. Roman boys learn by long divisions to split the as into a hundred parts. “Let the son of Albinus tell us: if from five-twelfths one twelfth is taken away, what remains? You could have said by now.” “A third.” “Good, you’ll be able to keep your money. Add the twelfth back — what then?” “A half.” Once this rust, this care for the cash-box, has soaked into the spirit, can we hope that poems will be made fit to be smeared with cedar oil and kept in smooth cypress?
Graiis ingenium, Graiis dedit ore rotundo Musa loqui, praeter laudem nullius avaris. Romani pueri longis rationibus assem discunt in partis centum diducere. ’dicat filius Albini: si de quincunce remota est uncia, quid superat? poteras dixisse.’ ’triens.’ ’eu, rem poteris servare tuam. redit uncia, quid fit?’ ’semis.’ an, haec animos aerugo et cura peculi cum semel imbuerit, speremus carmina fingi posse linenda cedro et levi servanda cupresso?
Poets wish either to profit or to please, or to say at once what is delightful and fit for life. Whatever you teach, be brief, so that minds may grasp your words quickly and keep them faithfully: all that is superfluous flows from a full breast. Let fictions made for pleasure stand close to the truth: the play must not demand belief for whatever it likes, nor drag a living child from the Lamia’s belly after her lunch. The centuries of the elders drive off what has no profit, the haughty Ramnes pass over poems too austere: he has carried every vote who has mixed the useful with the sweet, delighting the reader and at the same time advising him. That book earns money for the Sosii, that one crosses the sea, and prolongs for a long age the fame of its known author.
aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitae. quidquid praecipies, esto brevis, ut cito dicta percipiant animi dociles teneantque fideles: omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat. ficta voluptatis causa sint proxima veris: ne quodcumque volet poscat sibi fabula credi neu pransae Lamiae vivum puerum extrahat alvo. centuriae seniorum agitant expertia frugis, celsi praetereunt austera poemata Rhamnes: omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci lectorem delectando pariterque monendo. hic meret aera liber Sosiis, hic et mare transit et longum noto scriptori prorogat aevum.
Yet there are faults we would willingly forgive: for the string does not give back the sound the hand and mind would have, and often, when you ask for a low note, sends back a high one, nor will the bow always hit whatever it threatens. But where the most things shine in a poem, I will not take offense at a few blots, such as carelessness let fall or human nature failed to guard against. What then? As a copyist who keeps making the same mistake, though warned, is past pardon, and a lyre-player is laughed at who always stumbles on the same string, so the poet who lags much becomes that Choerilus to me, whom, good twice or three times, I marvel at with a laugh; and likewise I am vexed whenever good Homer nods; yet in a long work it is fair for sleep to creep in. A poem is like a painting: one will catch you more if you stand close, another if you stand farther off; this one loves the dark, this one will want to be seen in the light, fearing nothing from the sharp eye of the judge; this pleased once, this, ten times repeated, will please.
sunt delicta tamen, quibus ignovisse velimus: nam neque chorda sonum reddit quem volt manus et mens, poscentique gravem persaepe remittit acutum, nec semper feriet quodcumque minabitur arcus. verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit aut humana parum cavit natura. quid ergo est? ut scriptor si peccat idem librarius usque, quamvis est monitus, venia caret, et citharoedus ridetur, chorda qui semper oberrat eadem, sic mihi, qui multum cessat, fit Choerilus ille, quem bis terve bonum cum risu miror; et idem indignor, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus; verum operi longo fas est obrepere somnum. ut pictura poesis: erit quae, si propius stes, te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes; haec amat obscurum, volet haec sub luce videri, iudicis argutum quae non formidat acumen; haec placuit semel, haec deciens repetita placebit.
O elder of the young men, though you are shaped to the right by a father’s voice, and are wise of yourself, take this word and keep it: in certain things the middling and the tolerable are rightly allowed. A counsel-at-law and a middling pleader of cases falls short of the worth of eloquent Messalla, and knows less than Aulus Cascellius, yet is held in some esteem: but that poets be middling, neither men, nor gods, nor the booksellers’ pillars have allowed. As at a pleasant feast a jarring music, a coarse perfume, and poppy-seed with Sardinian honey offend, because the dinner could have gone on without them: so a poem, born and devised to delight the spirit, sinks to the bottom if it falls but a little from the top.
o maior iuvenum, quamvis et voce paterna fingeris ad rectum et per te sapis, hoc tibi dictum tolle memor, certis medium et tolerabile rebus recte concedi: consultus iuris et actor causarum mediocris abest virtute diserti Messallae nec scit quantum Cascellius Aulus, sed tamen in pretio est: mediocribus esse poetis non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae. ut gratas inter mensas symphonia discors et crassum unguentum et Sardo cum melle papaver offendunt, poterat duci quia cena sine istis: sic animis natum inventumque poema iuvandis, si paulum summo decessit, vergit ad imum.
The man who does not know how to play keeps off the arms of the Field, and one untrained in ball or discus or hoop stays quiet, lest the packed rings of spectators raise a laugh, and freely: yet the man who knows no verse dares to make it. Why not? He is free and freeborn, rated above all at the knight’s sum of money, and clear of every vice. You will say or do nothing against Minerva’s will: such is your judgment, such your mind. Yet if one day you do write something, let it come down to the ears of Maecius the judge, and your father’s, and mine, and be kept back into the ninth year, the parchments laid away within: you will be free to erase what you have not published; the word once sent out cannot return.
ludere qui nescit, campestribus abstinet armis indoctusque pilae discive trochive quiescit, ne spissae risum tollant inpune coronae: qui nescit versus, tamen audet fingere. quidni? liber et ingenuus, praesertim census equestrem summam nummorum vitioque remotus ab omni. tu nihil invita dices faciesve Minerva: id tibi iudicium est, ea mens. siquid tamen olim scripseris, in Meti descendat iudicis auris et patris et nostras nonumque prematur in annum membranis intus positis: delere licebit, quod non edideris, nescit vox missa reverti.
Orpheus, the priest and interpreter of the gods, frightened the woodland men from slaughter and foul food, and was therefore said to tame tigers and raging lions; Amphion too, the founder of the city of Thebes, was said to move stones by the sound of the tortoise-shell, and by coaxing prayer to lead them where he would. This was wisdom once: to mark off the public from the private, the sacred from the profane, to forbid promiscuous union, to give laws to the wedded, to build towns, to carve the laws on wood. So honor and a name came to the divine bards and to their songs. After these, illustrious Homer and Tyrtaeus whetted manly spirits for the wars of Mars with their verses; in songs oracles were uttered, and the way of life was shown, and the favor of kings was courted in the Pierian measures, and play was found, and the end of long labors: so let it never shame you to know the Muse skilled with the lyre, and Apollo the singer.
silvestris homines sacer interpresque Deorum caedibus et victu foedo deterruit Orpheus, dictus ob hoc lenire tigres rabidosque leones; dictus et Amphion, Thebanae conditor urbis, saxa movere sono testudinis et prece blanda ducere quo vellet. fuit haec sapientia quondam, publica privatis secernere, sacra profanis, concubitu prohibere vago, dare iura maritis, oppida moliri, leges incidere ligno. sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque carminibus venit. post hos insignis Homerus Tyrtaeusque mares animos in Martia bella versibus exacuit; dictae per carmina sortes et vitae monstrata via est et gratia regum Pieriis temptata modis ludusque repertus et longorum operum finis: ne forte pudori sit tibi Musa lyrae sollers et cantor Apollo.
Whether a praiseworthy poem comes by nature or by art has been asked: I cannot see what use is study without a rich vein, nor what use a raw native gift: so each demands the other’s help and conspires with it in friendship. The man who strives in the race to reach the longed-for goal bore and did much as a boy, sweated and froze, kept off from love and wine; the piper who plays at the Pythian games first learned, and feared his master. Now it is enough to have said, “I forge marvelous poems; the mange take the hindmost; it is a disgrace for me to be left behind, and to confess I do not know the thing I never learned.”
natura fieret laudabile carmen an arte, quaesitum est: ego nec studium sine divite vena nec rude quid prosit video ingenium: alterius sic altera poscit opem res et coniurat amice. qui studet optatam cursu contingere metam, multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit, abstinuit venere et vino; qui Pythia cantat tibicen, didicit prius extimuitque magistrum. nunc satis est dixisse ’ego mira poemata pango; occupet extremum scabies; mihi turpe relinqui est et quod non didici sane nescire fateri’.
As a crier, who herds a crowd to buy his wares, so the poet rich in lands, rich in money laid out at interest, bids flatterers come for their gain. But if there is one who can set out a rich dinner properly, and go bail for a poor man of no weight, and pluck him free when he is tangled in the lawsuits’ grim toils, I shall marvel if, blessed as he is, he can tell the lying friend from the true. You, whether you have given, or mean to give a gift to someone, do not bring him, full of joy, to the verses you have made; for he will cry, “Lovely! good! just right!” he will turn pale, will even distil dew from his friendly eyes, will leap, will beat the ground with his foot. As those who are hired to mourn at a funeral say and do almost more than those who grieve from the heart, so the mocker is more moved than the true praiser. Kings are said to ply with many cups and rack with wine the man they are at pains to see through, whether he is worthy of their friendship; if you compose poems, the spirits lurking under the fox will never deceive you.
ut praeco, ad merces turbam qui cogit emendas, adsentatores iubet ad lucrum ire poeta dives agris, dives positis in fenore nummis. si vero est, unctum qui recte ponere possit et spondere levi pro paupere et eripere artis litibus inplicitum, mirabor, si sciet inter- noscere mendacem verumque beatus amicum. tu seu donaris seu quid donare voles cui, nolito ad versus tibi factos ducere plenum laetitiae; clamabit enim ’pulchre! bene! recte!’ pallescet, super his etiam stillabit amicis ex oculis rorem, saliet, tundet pede terram. ut, qui conducti plorant in funere, dicunt et faciunt prope plura dolentibus ex animo, sic derisor vero plus laudatore movetur. reges dicuntur multis urgere culillis et torquere mero, quem perspexisse laborent an sit amicitia dignus; si carmina condes, numquam te fallent animi sub vulpe latentes.
If you recited anything to Quintilius, he would say, “Correct this, please, and this.” If you said you could do no better, having tried twice and three times in vain, he would bid you erase, and lay the ill-turned verses back upon the anvil. If you chose to defend your fault rather than mend it, he would spend no further word or wasted pains to keep you from loving yourself and your work, alone, without a rival. The good and prudent man will fault lifeless verses, blame the harsh ones, draw a black mark with the pen turned sideways across the unkempt, prune away the showy ornaments, force light upon the too-dark passages, arraign the ambiguous, note what must be changed: he will be an Aristarchus; he will not say, “Why should I offend a friend over trifles?” These trifles will lead into real harm the man once mocked and ill received.
Quintilio siquid recitares, ’corrige sodes hoc’ aiebat ’et hoc’. mulius te posse negares bis terque expertum frustra: delere iubebat et male tornatos incudi reddere versus. si defendere delictum quam vertere malles, nullum ultra verbum aut operam insumebat inanem, quin sine rivali teque et tua solus amares. vir bonus et prudens versus reprehendet inertis, culpabit duros, incomptis adlinet atrum transverso calamo signum, ambitiosa recidet ornamenta, parum claris lucem dare coget, arguet ambigue dictum, mutanda notabit: fiet Aristarchus; non dicet ’cur ego amicum offendam in nugis?’ hae nugae seria ducent in mala derisum semel exceptumque sinistre.
As men flee one whom a foul scab or the king’s disease afflicts, or fanatic frenzy and the wrath of Diana, so the wise fear to touch the mad poet and flee him; boys harry him, and the heedless follow. And if, while he belches out his lofty verses and wanders, he should fall, like a fowler intent on his blackbirds, into a well or a pit, then though he cry “Help!” long, “Ho, citizens!” let there be none to care to lift him out. If anyone should care to bring aid and let down a rope, “How do you know,” I’ll say, “but that he threw himself down on purpose, and does not want to be saved?” — and I will tell the death of the Sicilian poet. “Wishing to be held an immortal god, Empedocles in cold blood leaped into burning Etna. Let poets have the right and license to perish: he who saves a man against his will does the same as one who kills him. Not once has he done it, nor, if he is pulled back, will he now turn human and lay aside his love of a notorious death. Nor is it clear enough why he keeps making verses — whether he has pissed on his father’s ashes, or disturbed, unclean, a dread spot struck by lightning: at any rate he raves, and like a bear that has had strength to break the bars set against its cage, the relentless reciter routs learned and unlearned alike; and whomever he seizes he holds fast and kills with reading, a leech that will not let go the skin till it is full of blood.”
ut mala quem scabies aut morbus regius urget aut fanaticus error et iracunda Diana, vesanum tetigisse timent fugiuntque poetam qui sapiunt, agitant pueri incautique sequuntur. hic, dum sublimis versus ructatur et errat, si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps in puteum foveamve, licet ’succurrite’ longum clamet, ’io cives’, non sit qui tollere curet. si curet quis opem ferre et demittere funem, ’qui scis, an prudens huc se deiecerit atque servari nolit?’ dicam siculique poetae narrabo interitum. ’Deus inmortalis haberi dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam insiluit. sit ius liceatque perire poetis: invitum qui servat, idem facit occidenti. nec semel hoc fecit nec, si retractus erit, iam fiet homo et ponet famosae mortis amorem. nec satis adparet, cur versus factitet, utrum minxerit in patrios cineres an triste bidental moverit incestus: certe furit ac velut ursus, obiectos caveae valuit si frangere clatros, indoctum doctumque fugat recitator acerbus; quem vero arripuit, tenet occiditque legendo, non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo.’