Part 2 (1/2)

Moreover, falsehood occurs not only in propositions but also in the delineation of feeling, as, for instance, when feelings are ascribed to a character other than those which nature and the subject-matter demand. You will find this fault in an epigram by Vulteius, which was for this reason rejected:

I viewed one day the marble stone That hides a man in sin well-known.

I sighed and said, ”What is the point Of such expense? This tomb might serve To house kings and the blood of kings That now conceals a villainous corpse.”

I burst in tears that copiously Flowed from my eyes down both my cheeks.

A stander-by took me to task In some such words, I think, as these: ”Aren't you ashamed, be who you may, To mourn the burial of this plague?”

But I replied, ”My tears are shed For the lost tomb, not his lost head.”[9]

It was surely foreign to nature to represent a man weeping copiously because a villain and scoundrel had been buried in a n.o.ble tomb, for the funeral honors paid to scoundrels excite anger and indignation rather than pity and tears. The poet, consequently, adopted an erroneous feeling when he wept where he should have been angry and wrathful.

_On mythological epigrams._

Untruth, then, is a considerable fault, one that is quite widespread and one that embraces many sub-divisions. Under this category falls especially the use of mythological propositions, the common vehicle of poets when they have nothing to say. We have rejected many epigrams that are faulty in this kind, as, for example, Grotius on the Emperor Rudolph, which is too crowded with myths:

Not Mars alone has favored you, Invincible, At whom as enemy barbarian standards shake, But the Divine Community with gifts adore you, And with this in especial from the wife of Zephyr: She to the Dutch Apelles did perpetual spring Ordain, and meadows living by the painter's hand.

Alcinous' charm is annual, and Adonis' gardens, Nor do the Pharian roses bloom long in that air; Antique Pomona of Semiramis has boasted, And yet deep winter climbs the summit of her roof.

How shall your honors fail? The garlands that you wear Beseem Imperial triumph, which time may not touch.[10]

I know there are other things to be censured in this epigram, but I note here only that one fault which it was quoted to ill.u.s.trate.

_On puns._

To the same general category may be referred most puns, the point of which usually rises from some untruth. For example, in Sannazaro's well-known epigram:

Happy has built twin bridges on the Seine: Happy the Seine may call her Pontifex.[11]

If you take _Pontifex_ in the sense of ”builder of bridges” the thought is true, but pointless; consequently, for there to be a point the word _Pontifex_ must be taken in the sense of ”Bishop”, and in this sense it will be false that the Pontifex is happy. Similarly, in another epigram of some reputation:

They say you're treating Cosma for his deafness, And that you promised, French, a definite cure; But you can't bring it off for all your deftness: He'll hear ill of himself while tongues endure.[12]

Take _audire_ as referring to the sense of hearing and the thought is false, since that physical defect is curable; take it as referring to a good reputation, and the thought will again be false and inept, for it is false and inept that a doctor will labor in vain to cure a defect of the ears because he cannot medicine to a diseased reputation.

All puns are embarra.s.sed by such faults, while on the other hand their charm is quite thin, or rather nonexistent. Formerly, it is true, in an earlier age there was some praise for that kind of thing, and so Cicero and Quintilian are said to have derived polished witticisms from the device of double-meaning; now, however, it is rightly held in great contempt, so much so that men of taste not only do not hunt for puns but even avoid them. They are, one must admit, more bearable, or at least less objectionable when they come spontaneously; but anyone who brings out ones he has thought up or indicates that he himself is pleased with them is quite properly judged to be inexperienced in society. Hence it is that epigrams whose elegance is derived from puns are held of no account. For since verses are only composed by labor and diligence he is justly considered to be a weak and narrow spirit who wastes time in fitting such trivial wit into verse. One should add, too, that there is another disadvantage in puns, that they are so imbedded in their own language that they cannot be translated into another. For these reasons we have admitted few punning epigrams into this anthology, and those only as examples of a faulty kind.

_On hyperbolical ideas._

In the category of false ideas must be reckoned the hyperbolical.

These are not false in a given word, for we dealt with this above, but false in the whole train of thought. Of this kind is that epigram of Ausonius, the absurdity of which is unbearable:

Riding in state, as on an elephant, Faustus fell backwards off a silly ant; Abandoned, tortured to the point of death By the sharp hooves, his soul stayed on his breath And his voice broke: ”Envy,” he cried, ”begone!

Laugh not at my fall! So fell Phaethon.”[13]

Ausonius was imitating in this epigram the Greeks, who were quite open to this sort of bad imitation, as may be seen in their Anthology which is stuffed full of such hyperboles. A good many fall into the same fault either because their talent is weak or because they write for the unskilled--a consideration which should move those who have no compunction about reading, let alone praising, the silly tales of Rabelais which are filled with stupid hyperboles.

_On debatable and controvertible ideas._