The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry of Horace Part 19

Words follow looks: wry faces are expressed By wailing, scowls by bl.u.s.ter, smiles by jest, Grave airs by saws, and so of all the rest.

For nature forms our spirits to receive Each bent that outward circ.u.mstance can give: She kindles pleasure, bids resentment glow, Or bows the soul to earth in hopeless woe; Then, as the tide of feeling waxes strong, She vents it through her conduit-pipe, the tongue.

Unless the speaker's words and fortune suit, All Rome will join to jeer him, horse and foot.

G.o.ds should not talk like heroes, nor again Impetuous youth like grave and reverend men; Lady and nurse a different language crave, Sons of the soil and rovers o'er the wave; a.s.syrian, Colchian, Theban, Argive, each Has his own style, his proper cast of speech.

In painting characters, adhere to fame, Or study keeping in the type you frame: If great Achilles figure in the scene, Make him impatient, fiery, ruthless, keen; All laws, all covenants let him still disown, And test his quarrel by the sword alone.

Still be Medea all revenge and scorn, Ino still sad, Ixion still forsworn, Io a wanderer still, Orestes still forlorn.

If you would be original, and seek To frame some character ne'er seen in Greek, See it be wrought on one consistent plan, And end the same creation it began.

'Tis hard, I grant, to treat a subject known And hackneyed so that it may look one's own; Far better turn the Iliad to a play And carve out acts and scenes the readiest way, Than alter facts and characters, and tell In a strange form the tale men know so well.

But, with some few precautions, you may set Your private mark on public chattels yet: Avoid careering and careering still In the old round, like carthorse in a mill; Nor, bound too closely to the Grecian Muse, Translate the words whose soul you should transfuse, Nor act the copyist's part, and work in chains Which, once put on by rashness, shame retains.

Don't open like the cyclic, with a burst: "Troy's war and Priam's fate are here rehea.r.s.ed."

What's coming, pray, that thus he winds his horn?

The mountain labours, and a mouse is born.

Far better he who enters at his ease, Nor takes your breath with empty nourishes: "Sing, Muse, the man who, after Troy was burned, Saw divers cities, and their manners learned."

Not smoke from fire his object is to bring, But fire from smoke, a very different thing; Yet has he dazzling miracles in store, Cyclops, and Laestrygons, and fifty more.

He sings not, he, of Diomed's return, Starting from Meleager's funeral urn, Nor when he tells the Trojan story, begs Attention first for Leda and her eggs.

He hurries to the crisis, lets you fall Where facts crowd thick, as though you knew them all, And what he judges will not turn to gold Beneath his touch, he pa.s.ses by untold.

And all this glamour, all this glorious dream, Truth blent with fiction in one motley scheme, He so contrives, that, when 'tis o'er, you see Beginning, middle, end alike agree.

Now listen, dramatists, and I will tell What I expect, and all the world as well.

If you would have your auditors to stay Till curtain-rise and plaudit end the play, Observe each age's temper, and impart To each the grace and finish of your art.

Note first the boy who just knows how to talk And feels his feet beneath him in his walk: He likes his young companions, loves a game, Soon vexed, soon soothed, and not two hours the same.

The beardless youth, at last from tutor freed, Loves playing-field and tennis, dog and steed: Pliant as wax to those who lead him wrong, But all impatience with a faithful tongue; Imprudent, lavish, hankering for the moon, He takes things up and lays them down as soon.

His nature revolutionized, the man Makes friends and money when and how he can: Keen-eyed and cool, though on ambition bent, He shuns all acts of which he may repent.

Grey hairs have many evils: without end The old man gathers what he dares not spend, While, as for action, do he what he will, 'Tis all half-hearted, spiritless, and chill: Inert, irresolute, his neck he cranes Into the future, grumbles, and complains, Extols his own young years with peevish praise, But rates and censures these degenerate days.

Years, as they come, bring blessings in their train; Years, as they go, take blessings back again: Yet haste or chance may blink the obvious truth, Make youth discourse like age, and age like youth: Attention fixed on life alone can teach The traits and adjuncts which pertain to each.

Sometimes an action on the stage is shown, Sometimes 'tis done elsewhere, and there made known.

A thing when heard, remember, strikes less keen On the spectator's mind than when 'tis seen.

Yet 'twere not well in public to display A business best transacted far away, And much may be secluded from the eye For well-graced tongues to tell of by and by.

Medea must not shed her children's blood, Nor savage Atreus cook man's flesh for food, Nor Philomel turn bird or Cadmus snake, With people looking on and wide awake.

If scenes like these before my eyes be thrust, They shock belief and generate disgust.

Would you your play should prosper and endure?

Then let it have five acts, nor more nor fewer.

Bring in no G.o.d save as a last resource, Nor make four speakers join in the discourse.

An actor's part the chorus should sustain And do their best to get the plot in train: And whatsoe'er between the acts they chant Should all be apt, appropriate, relevant.

Still let them give sage counsel, back the good, Attemper wrath, and cool impetuous blood, Praise the spare meal that pleases but not sates, Justice, and law, and peace with unbarred gates, Conceal all secrets, and the G.o.ds implore To crush the proud and elevate the poor.

Not trumpet-tongued, as now, nor bra.s.s-belayed, The flute was used to lend the chorus aid: Simple and slight and moderately loud, It charmed the ears of not too large a crowd, Which, frugal, rustic, primitive, severe, Flocked in those early days to see and hear.

Then, when the city gained increase of land, And wider walls its waxing greatness spanned, When the good Genius, frolicsome and gay, Was soothed at festivals with cups by day, Change spread to scenic measures: breadth, and ease, And freedom unrestrained were found in these: For what (said men) should jovial rustic, placed At random 'mid his betters, know of taste?

So graceful dance went hand in hand with song, And robes of kingly splendour trailed along: So by the side of music words upgrew, And eloquence came rolling, prompt and new: Shrewd in things mundane, wise in things divine, Its voice was like the voice of Delphi's shrine.

The aspiring bard who served the tragic muse, A paltry goat the summit of his views, Soon brought in Satyrs from the woods, and tried If grave and gay could nourish side by side, That the spectator, feasted to his fill, Noisy and drunk, might ne'ertheless sit still.

Yet, though loud laugh and frolic jest commend Your Satyr folk, and mirth and morals blend, Let not your heroes doff their robes of red To talk low language in a homely shed, Nor, in their fear of crawling, mount too high, Catching at clouds and aiming at the sky.

Melpomene, when bidden to be gay, Like matron dancing on a festal day, Deals not in idle banter, nor consorts Without reserve with Satyrs and their sports.

In plays like these I would not deal alone In words and phrases trite and too well known, Nor, stooping from the tragic height, drop down To the low level of buffoon and clown, As though pert Davus, or the saucy jade Who sacks the gold and jeers the gull she made, Were like Silenus, who, though quaint and odd, Is yet the guide and tutor of a G.o.d.

A hackneyed subject I would take and treat So deftly, all should hope to do the feat, Then, having strained and struggled, should concede To do the feat were difficult indeed.

So much may order and arrangement do To make the cheap seem choice, the threadbare new.

Your rustic Fauns, methinks, should have a care Lest people deem them bred in city air; Should shun the cant of exquisites, and shun Coa.r.s.e ribaldry no less and blackguard fun.

For those who have a father or a horse Or an estate will take offence of course, Nor think they're bound in duty to admire What gratifies the vetch-and-chestnut-buyer

The Iambic foot is briefly thus defined: Two syllables, a short with long behind: Repeat it six times o'er, so quick its beat, 'Tis trimeter, three measures for six feet: At first it ran straight on; but, years ago, Its hearers begged that it would move more slow; On which it took, with a good-natured air, Stout spondees in, its native rights to share, Yet so that none should ask it to resign The sixth, fourth, second places in the line.

But search through Attius' trimeters, or those Which Ennius took such pleasure to compose, You'll rarely find it: on the boards they groan, Laden with spondees, like a cart with stone, And brand our tragedy with want of skill Or want of labour, call it which you will.

What then? false rhythm few judges can detect, And Roman bards of course are all correct.

What shall a poet do? make rules his sport, And dash through thick and thin, through long and short?

Or pick his steps, endeavour to walk clean, And fancy every mud-stain will be seen?

What good were that, if though I mind my ways And shun all blame, I do not merit praise?

My friends, make Greece your model when you write, And turn her volumes over day and night.

"But Plautus pleased our sires, the good old folks; They praised his numbers, and they praised his jokes."

They did: 'twas mighty tolerant in them To praise where wisdom would perhaps condemn; That is, if you and I and our compeers Can trust our tastes, our fingers, and our ears, Know polished wit from horse-play, and can tell What verses do, and what do not, run well.

Thespis began the drama: rumour says In travelling carts he carried round his plays, Where actors, smeared with lees, before the throng Performed their parts with gesture and with song.

Then AEschylus brought in the mask and pall, Put buskins on his men to make them tall, Turned boards into a platform, not too great, And taught high monologue and grand debate.

The elder Comedy had next its turn, Nor small the glory it contrived to earn: But freedom pa.s.sed into unbridled spite, And law was soon invoked to set things right: Law spoke: the chorus lost the power to sting, And (shame to say) thenceforth refused to sing.

Our poets have tried all things; nor do they Deserve least praise, who follow their own way, And tell in comedy or history-piece Some story of home growth, not drawn from Greece.

Nor would the land we love be now more strong In warrior's prowess than in poet's song, Did not her bards with one consent decline The tedious task, to alter and refine.

Dear Pisos! as you prize old Numa's blood, Set down that work, and that alone, as good, Which, blurred and blotted, checked and counter- checked, Has stood all tests, and issued forth correct.

Because Democritus thinks fit to say, That wretched art to genius must give way, Stands at the gate of Helicon, and guards Its precinct against all but crazy bards, Our witlings keep long nails and untrimmed hair, Much in brown studies, in the bath-room rare.

For things are come to this; the merest dunce, So but he choose, may start up bard at once, Whose head, too hot for h.e.l.lebore to cool, Was ne'er submitted to a barber's tool.

What ails me now, to dose myself each spring?

Else had I been a very swan to sing.

Well, never mind: mine be the whetstone's lot, Which makes steel sharp, though cut itself will not.

Although no writer, I may yet impart To writing folk the precepts of their art, Whence come its stores, what trains and forms a bard, And how a work is made, and how 'tis marred.

Of writing well, be sure, the secret lies In wisdom: therefore study to be wise.

The page of Plato may suggest the thought, Which found, the words will come as soon as sought.

The man who once has learned to comprehend His duty to his country and his friend, The love that parent, brother, guest may claim.

The judge's, senator's, or general's aim, That man, when need occurs, will soon invent For every part its proper sentiment.

Look too to life and manners, as they lie Before you: these will living words supply.

A play, devoid of beauty, strength, and art, So but the thoughts and morals suit each part, Will catch men's minds and rivet them when caught More than the clink of verses without thought.