Studious to please the genius of the times, With periods, points, and tropes, * he slurs his crimes: "He robbed not, but he borrowed from the poor, "And took but with intention to restore." He lards with flourishes his long harangue ; wag thy tail? PERSIUS. He seems a trap for charity to lay, FRIEND. But to raw numbers, and unfinished verse, Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse: " 'Tis tagged with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys, "The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is. † "The dolphin brave, that cuts the liquid wave, "Or he who in his line can chine the long-ribbed Appennine." Why name you Virgil with such fops as these? He's truly great, and must for ever please : Not fierce, but aweful, is his manly page; FRIEND. What poems think you soft, and to be read With languishing regards, and bending head? PERSIUS. "Their crooked horns the Mimallonian crew "With blasts inspired;* and Bassaris, who slew "The scornful calf, with sword advanced on high, "Made from his neck his haughty head to fly: "And Manas, when with ivy bridles bound, "She led the spotted lynx, then Evion rung around; "Evion from woods and floods repairing echo's sound." Could such rude lines a Roman mouth become, Were any manly greatness left in Rome? Mænas and Atys† in the mouth were bred, And never hatched within the labouring head; No blood from bitten nails those poems drew, But churned, like spittle, from the lips they flew. FRIEND. "Tis fustian all; 'tis execrably bad; But if they will be fools, must you be mad? PERSIUS. Rather than so, uncensured let them be; All, all is admirably well, for me. * My harmless rhyme shall 'scape the dire disgrace Laughed at his friend, and looked him in the face; buy ; Nor will I change for all the flashy wit, Thou, if there be a thou in this base town, Like Aristophanes, let him but smile On this my honest work, though writ in homely style; Who fortune's fault upon the poor can throw, † Who thinks all science, as all virtue, vain ; 7 NOTES ON TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS. SATIRE I. Note I. Should cry up Labeo's stuff, and cry me down.-P. 208. Nothing is remaining of Atticus Labeo (so he is called by the learned Casaubon); nor is he mentioned by any other poet, besides Persius. Casaubon, from an old commentator on Persius, says, that he made a very foolish translation of Homer's Iliads. Note II. They comb, and then they order every hair ; A gown, or white, or scoured to whiteness, wear; He describes a poet, preparing himself to rehearse his works in public, which was commonly performed in August. A room was hired, or lent, by some friend; a scaffold was raised, and a pulpit placed for him who was to hold forth; who borrowed a new gown, or scoured his old one, and adorned his ears with jewels, &c. |