by Horace
none better, and he’s your friend, and a prodigious talent
lurks beneath that uncouth exterior. So give yourself a shaking
in case the seeds of wickedness have already been planted in you
by nature or by some bad habit. If you once neglect a field
bracken appears which eventually has to be burnt out.
Think instead of how a young man, blindly in love,
fails to notice his girl-friend’s blemishes or even finds them
40 enchanting, as Balbinus did with the wen on Hagna’s nose.
I wish we made the same mistake when judging our friends
and our moral language had a term of praise for this delusion.
If a friend has some defect, we shouldn’t feel disgust
but behave like a father to his son. If the boy happens to squint,
his father calls him ‘Castor’; if he’s miserably undersized,
as was the case with Sisyphus the dwarf, he’s called ‘Smallie’;
if his knees knock hard together he’s ‘Pigeon’; if his bandy legs
can hardly support him, the pet name used by his father is ‘Bowie’.
So if one of your friends is a bit close-fisted, let’s say he’s thrifty;
50 if another is inclined to be tactless and loud-mouthed – well, he wants
his friends to think him sociable; or suppose he’s rather ill-mannered
and outspoken to the point of rudeness, let’s call him forthright and fearless.
Is he something of a hot-head? Then put him down as a keen type.
I really believe this habit both joins and cements friendships.
But in fact we turn the good qualities upside
down in our zeal to dirty a clean jar. If someone we know
is a decent and wholly unassuming fellow, we give him the nickname
‘Slowcoach’ or ‘Fathead’; another avoids every trap
and never leaves himself open to hostile attack, because life
60 as we live it is a battlefield where envy is sharp and slanders
fly thick and fast; instead of saying he’s jolly sensible
and no fool, we call him crafty and insincere.
If a man is rather uninhibited (the sort of fellow I would often
wish you to think me, Maecenas), breaking in
with some tiresome chatter when his friend is reading or quietly thinking,
we say ‘He’s got absolutely no savoir faire.’ How casually
we endorse a law that is against ourselves! For no one is free
from faults; the best is the man who is hampered by the smallest. A kindly
friend will weigh, as is fair, my virtues against my failings,
70 and if he wants my affection he will come down on the side
of my virtues as being more numerous (if in fact they are more numerous!).
On that principle he will be weighed in the same scales.
If you expect your friend to put up with your boils
you’ll forget about his warts. It’s fair that anyone who asks
indulgence for his faults should grant the same in return.
Since, then, anger and the other failings so deeply rooted
in human folly can’t be cut out once and for all,
why doesn’t Reason employ weights and measures of her own
and curb offences with the type of punishment suited to each?
80 Suppose a servant, told to remove a dish, has a lick
at the half-eaten fish and the lukewarm sauce; if his master hanged him
sane people would swear he was more insane than Labeo.
How much madder and graver a fault is this: a friend
commits some trivial offence which you really ought to ignore
if you’re not to appear churlish; yet you loathe him heartily and dodge him
like a fellow who owes Ruso money and is bound to scrape up
the interest or principal from somewhere before the pitiless first
of the month or else put up his hands like a prisoner of war
and listen to his creditor’s ‘Studies in History’ with teeth on edge.
90 What if a friend in a tipsy moment wets the couch
or knocks off the table a bowl which must have been worn thin
by old Evander’s fingers? Or say he is feeling hungry and
grabs a chicken that was served in my side of the dish,
shall I like him any the less for that? What would I do
if he stole, or went back on a pledge, or broke his word of honour?
Those who hold that sins are largely the same are floored
by real situations. Common sense and tradition say no,
and so does Expediency, the virtual mother of justice and fairness.
When living creatures crawled from the earth in its early days,
100 they were speechless and ugly beasts; they fought over lairs and acorns
with their nails and fists, and then with clubs, and so on
with the weapons which experience produced at each successive stage,
until they discovered nouns and verbs which gave a meaning
to their cries and feelings. Thereafter they began to avoid war,
to build towns, and to pass laws which made it a crime
for any person to engage in brigandage, theft, or adultery.
For Helen wasn’t the first bitch to cause a war
by her foul behaviour, but men in those days died in obscurity;
making hurried and promiscuous love like beasts they were done
110 to death by a stronger rival, as happens with bulls in a herd.
If you’re willing to read your way through the records of world history
you will have to admit that justice arose from the fear of its opposite.
Nature cannot distinguish between right and wrong as she does
in the case of desirable and undesirable, wholesome and harmful.
Reason will never prove that the man who breaks off a juicy
cabbage from someone’s garden and the man who makes off at night
with sacred emblems are committing one and the same offence.
Let’s have a fair penalty-scale for offences, or else
you may flay with the terrible cat something which merits the strap.
120 You might of course give a caning for a crime which called for the lash,
but that’s not what I fear when you say theft’s on a par
with armed robbery and threaten to use the same hook
for pruning every crime, great and small alike,
if you were given the crown.
But if the sage alone
is rich and handsome and a good cobbler and also a king,
why crave what you have?
‘You don’t understand,’ he says,
‘what the good Chrysippus means. The sage has never made
himself shoes or sandals, but the wise man’s still a cobbler.’
How’s that?
‘Well even when silent, Hermogenes remains a first-rate singer
130 and composer; that smart fellow Alfenus, even after throwing
all the tools of his trade away and shutting up shop,
was still a cobbler; in the same way the sage alone
is master of every craft, and hence a king.’
The cheeky
youngsters tug at your beard, and if you don’t keep them at bay
with your stick they swarm around and mob you, while you, poor devil,
howl till you burst your lungs, O highest of Royal Highnesses!
So, not to labour the point, as you tread your kingly way
to a tenpenny bath without a single attendant to escort you,
except that ass Crispinus, my kind friends will forgive me
140 if, as a result of being a fool, I do something wrong.
I in turn will gladly overlook their lapses,
and, though a commoner, s
hall live a happier life than Your Majesty.
SATIRE 4
In justifying his satire against the charge of malice Horace makes the following points: ‘the Greek comic writers and the Roman satirist Lucilius branded criminals (1–7); unlike the wordy moralist Crispinus I write very little (14–18); unlike the vain Fannius I do not seek publicity (21–3); the innocent have nothing to fear (64–8); I do not intend my poems to be sold, nor do I give public recitations (71–4); real malice is quite different – it means backbiting one’s friends and spreading scandal (81–103); I was taught to notice wicked behaviour by my father; he used individuals as examples of vice (103–131); I am really quite a good-humoured fellow (91–2, 101–4); my observations are for my own improvement (137–8); and my writings are just an amusing pastime (138–9).’
In regard to style Horace says that Lucilius was harsh and careless in his composition, and that he wrote too much (8–13). Later (39 – 62) he argues that, unlike epic, satire is not really poetry; it is more in the nature of metrical prose. Like New Comedy it remains close to the level of everyday speech.
This is not a piece of dispassionate literary theory but a lively and
polemical statement of Horace’s own conception of satire.
Take the poets Cratínus, Eúpolis, and Aristophanes,
and the other men who go to make up the Old Comedy.
Whenever a person deserved to be publicly exposed for being
a crook and a thief, a lecher or a cut-throat, or for being notorious
in any other way, they would speak right out and brand him.
Lucilius derives entirely from them; he followed their lead
changing only their rhythms and metres – a witty fellow
with a keen nose, but harsh when it came to versification.
That’s where his fault lay. As a tour de force he would often
10 dictate two hundred lines an hour standing on his head.
As he flowed muddily on, there were things you’d want to remove.
A man of many words, he disliked the effort of writing –
writing properly, that is; I don’t care a hoot for quantity.
Here’s Crispinus offering me long odds: ‘Just take
your jotter if you please and I’ll take mine. Let’s fix a time
and a place and umpires; then see which of us can write the more.’
Thank God for giving me a timid mind with few ideas,
one which seldom speaks and then says practically nothing.
But you go ahead and give your version of a goat-skin bellows,
20 panting and puffing until the iron turns soft in the fire.
Fannius is happy to present his works unasked, complete
with a case to hold them and a bust of himself. But no one reads
what I write, for I shrink from giving public recitals –
there are certain people, you see, who detest this kind of writing,
for most deserve a scolding. Pick anyone you like
from a crowd: he’s plagued with greed or else the curse of ambition.
One is obsessed with married women, another with boys.
One loves the glitter of silver; Albius stares at bronze.
One barters his wares from beneath the eastern sky
30 to lands warmed by the evening sun; he is swept along
through hardships, like dust raised by a whirlwind, in constant dread
of losing a penny of his capital or failing to make a profit.
All such men are afraid of verses and loathe poets.
‘There’s hay on his horns! Give him a wide berth! For the sake
of raising a laugh he’ll have no respect for himself or his friends.
And when he has smeared some dirt on his page, he is bursting to pass it
on to all the old women and servants on their way home
from tank and bake-house.’
Now let me say a few words in reply:
First, I’d exclude myself from those who can properly be called
40 poets. You would not consider it enough simply to turn
a metrical line. Nor, if a man wrote, as I do,
in a style rather close to prose, would you count him as a poet.
The honour of that name should be kept for someone with a natural
gift, an inspired soul, and a voice of mighty music.
That’s why people have asked whether comedy is genuine poetry,
for in language and subject-matter it lacks the fire and force
of passion, and except that it differs from prose in the regularity
of its rhythm, it is prose pure and simple.
‘But you see the father
in a blazing temper with his wastrel of a son who dotes on a call-girl,
50 refuses to accept a wife who would bring him a fat dowry,
and causes dreadful embarrassment by parading drunkenly with torches
before dusk.’
But surely young Pomponius would get
just as severe a scolding from a father in real life?
So it isn’t enough to write out a line in plain words
which, rearranged, could be spoken by any angry father
like the one in the play. As for the stuff that I’m writing now
and Lucilius wrote in earlier times, suppose you destroyed
the regular quantities and rhythm, reversing the order of words
and putting what is now at the end of a line right at the beginning,
60 it would not be the same as jumbling up ‘when loathsome Discord
smashed apart the ironed posts and portals of war’,
where you’d still find the remains of a poet, however dismembered.
But that’s enough. Some other time we’ll discuss whether this
type of writing is genuine poetry; at present I only ask
whether you’re right to regard it with such suspicion. The zealous
Sulcius and Caprius prowl about with their hoarse indictments
causing a lot of anxiety to thugs, but anyone who lives
a decent life and has a clean record can dismiss them both.
And even supposing you were a thug like Caelius or Birrius,
70 I’d never be a Caprius or Sulcius. Why should you fear me?
No stall or pillar will offer my little books to be mauled
by the sweaty hands of Hermogenes Tigellius and the rest of the mob
and I never give readings except to friends – and then only
when pressed – not anywhere and to any audience. There are numerous people
who read their work in the middle of the square, or in the baths
(a lovely resonance comes from the vaulted space). It appeals
to empty heads, who never reflect whether their behaviour
is ill-timed or in bad taste.
‘You like giving pain,’
says a voice, ‘and you do it out of sheer malice.’
Where did you get
80 that slander to throw at me? Is it endorsed by any
of my circle? The man who traduces a friend behind his back,
who won’t stand up for him when someone else is running him down,
who looks for the big laugh and wants to be thought a wit,
the man who can invent what he never saw but can’t keep a secret –
he’s the blackguard; beware of him, O son of Rome!
Often, when four are dining on each of the three couches,
you will notice one who throws all kinds of dirt at the rest
except for the host – and at him too, later on, when he’s drunk
and the truthful god of freedom unlocks his inner heart.
90 This is the fellow whom you think charming and civilized and forthright –
you, the enemy of blackguards!
If I laughed because the fatuous
Rufillus smells of sweet cachous, Gargonius of goat,
do you think I’m spiteful an
d vicious for that? If you were present
when someone happened to mention the theft carried out by Petillius
Capitolinus, you would defend him in your loyal way:
‘I’ve known Capitolinus well and valued his friendship
since we were boys. He has done me many a favour (I had only
to ask him), and I’m glad that he’s living in town as a free man.
Still – I’ll never understand how he got away with that lawsuit!’
100 Now there’s the essence of the black cuttlefish; there’s the genuine
acid of malice. Such nastiness will never appear in my pages,
or even in my thoughts.
If for myself I can promise anything surely
I promise that.
Yet if I’m a little outspoken or perhaps
too fond of a joke, I hope you’ll grant me that privilege.
My good father gave me the habit; to warn me off
he used to point out various vices by citing examples.
When urging me to practise thrift and economy and to be content
with what he himself had managed to save he used to say:
‘Notice what a miserable life young Albius leads and how Baius
110 is down and out – a salutary warning not to squander
the family’s money.’ Steering me away from a squalid attachment
to a whore he would say: ‘Don’t be like Scetanus!’ To stop me
chasing another man’s wife when legitimate sex was available:
‘It isn’t nice to get a name like that of Trebonius – he
was caught in the act.’ He would add: ‘A philosopher will give you reasons
why this is desirable and that is better avoided. For me
it’s enough to preserve the ways which our forefathers handed down,
to look after your physical safety and keep your name untarnished
while you need a guardian. When time has toughened your body and mind
120 you’ll be able to swim without a ring.’ And so by his talk
he would form my young character. Recommending something he’d say:
‘You’ve a good precedent for that,’ and point to one of the judges
selected by the Praetor; or by way of dissuading me: ‘How can you doubt,’
he’d say, ‘whether this is a wrong and foolish thing to do
when X and Y are the centre of a blazing scandal?’
The sick
who are tempted to over-eat are given a fright by the funeral
of the man next door, and the terror of death compels them to go easy;
