that you will be squeezed into small compass,[1] as soon as the eager reader is satiated.[2] But, if the augur be not prejudiced by resentment of your error, you shall be caressed at Rome [only] till your youth be passed.[3] When, thumbed by the hands of the vulgar, you begin to grow dirty; either you shall in silence feed the grovelling book-worms, or you shall make your escape to Utica, or shall be sent bound to Ilerda. Your disregarded adviser shall then laugh [at you]: as he, who in a passion pushed his refractory ass over the precipice. For who would save [an ass] against his will? This too awaits you, that faltering dotage shall seize on you, to teach boys their rudiments in the skirts of the city.[4] But when the abating warmth of the sun[5] shall attract more ears, you shall tell them, that I was the son of a freedman, and extended my wings beyond my nest; so that, as much as you take away from my family,[6] you may add to my merit: that I was in favor with the first men in the state, both in war and peace; of a short stature, gray before my time, calculated for
- ↑ In breve to cogi. In arctum volumen contrahi. The poet threatens his book, that it shall be tolled up as if condemned never to be read again. The books of the ancients were written on skins of parchment, which they were obliged to unfold and extend when they designed to read. Torr.
- ↑ The lover here signified a passionate reader; he seizes a book with rapture; runs it over in haste; his curiosity begins to be satisfied; his appetite is cloyed; he throws it away, and never opens it again. Fran.
- ↑ Novelty is a kind of youth, which gives to every thing a certain grace and value. Few books have a privilege of not growing old. In general, their youth is extremely short, and scarce divided from their age. San.
- ↑ There were schools in the most frequented parts of the city, where professors of abilities and reputation explained the best Greek and Latin authors. Children were taught to read in the suburbs, whither Horace presages his book should be banished in its old age. This prediction should be considered as a modest pleasantry, for our poet knew too well the value of his works to be afraid of such a destiny. Torr. San.
- ↑ Sol tepidus. M. Dacier and the rest of the commentators understand the middle of the day, when the sun is most violent; but this was a time when people usually retired into their houses to avoid the heat. Sol tepidus may therefore mean the mildness and moderate warmth of evening, when men of letters assembled, either in the public walks or shops of booksellers, to read any works lately published. San.
- ↑ Nature made Horace the son of a public crier, but his own merit made him the companion of an emperor, and gained him the friendship of the greatest, as well as most ingenious men of the Augustan age. Fran.
