PERSIUS, SATIRE I
dined, are asking over their cups, 'What has divine poesy to say'? Whereupon some fellow with a purple mantle round his shoulders lisps out with a snuffle some insipid trash about a Phyllis or a Hypsipyle[1] or some other dolorous poetic theme, mincing his words, and letting them trip daintily over his palate. The great men signify their approval; will notyour poet's ashes be happy now? will not the grave-stone press more lightly upon his bones?[2] The lesser guests chime in with their assent: will not violets now spring up from those remains, from the tomb and its thrice-blessed ashes?"
F. "You are scoffing, and use your turned-up nose too freely. Do you mean to tell me that any man who has uttered words worthy of cedar oil will disown the wish to have earned a place in the mouths of men, and to leave behind him poems that will have nothing to fear from mackerel or from spice?"[3]
44P. Well, my friend, whoever you are whom I have set up to speak on the opposing side, I am the last man, if by chance when writing I let fall something good (rare bird as that would be), I am the last man, I say, to be afraid of praise. My heart is not made of horn! But I decline to admit that the final and supreme test of excellence is to be found in your 'Bravo!' and your 'Beautiful!' Just sift out all those 'Bravos': what do they not contain? Will you not find there the bedrugged Iliad of Attius,[4] and all the love-ditties spouted by your grandees while digesting their dinners—all the stuff in short that is scribbled on couches of citron-wood? You know how to serve up a sow's paunch piping hot: you know how to present a shivering client with a
- ↑ i.e. some sentimental ditty taken from heroic times; there may be an allusion to the Heroides of Ovid.
- ↑ Referring to the simple prayer often inscribed over the ashes of the dead, sit tibi terra levis (S.T.T.L.).
- ↑ A clear imitation of Cat. xcv. 7, and Hor. Epp. II. i. 269, alluding to the uses of waste paper.
- ↑ No doubt the Attius Labeo of 1. 4.
Y
