Part 3 (1/2)

But it is not only faulty and unpolished to offer the reader a shameful and obscene picture but also in general to depict whatever is cheap, ugly, and unwelcome. Hence those epigrams cannot be regarded as beautiful and polished whose subject is a toothless hag, a poetaster with a threadbare cloak, a rank old goat, a filthy nose, or a glutton vomiting on the table--all of which are a fertile ground of jokes for actors--since ugliness of that sort can never be redeemed by the point.

For this reason we have admitted none of such kind in the epigrams of Martial which we have subjoined to this treatise, and a good many epigrams that we have run across we have put aside, such as Buchanan's in which he depicts the unattractive and unpleasant picture of a lank old man:

While Naevolus yells he can outbellow Stentor, And roars and roars, ”All men are animals,”

He has slipped by almost his ninetieth year And bent senility shakes his weak step.

Now three hairs only cling to his smooth head, And he sees what a night-owl sees at dawn.

The snot is dripping from his frosty nose, And stringed saliva falls on his wet breast-- Not an odd tooth in his defenceless gums, Not an old ape so engraved with wrinkles.

Naevolus, for shame leave this frivolity And no more cry, ”All men,” since you are none.[19]

Again, the baseness of the subject and the hardly pleasant or civilized image of a hanging man is a fault in this epigram of Sannazaro's, although it has an element of humor:

In your desire to learn your fortune, sir, You questioned every tripod, every rune; ”You'll stand out above G.o.ds and men,” at last Answered the G.o.d in truth-revealing voice.

What arrogance you drew from this! You were Immediately lord of the universe.

Now you ascend the cross. G.o.d was no cheat: The whole world lies spread out beneath your feet.[20]

This is fairly respectable and merely low. But the cynical license of Martial and Catullus, by which they speak of many things that are not simply morally foul but such as decent society demands be removed from sight and hearing, must be regarded as altogether shameless and vulgar. For this reason men of taste never mention favorably Catullus'

_Annales Volusi cacata charta_, or Martial's

et desiderio coacta ventris gutta pallia non fefellit una[21]

And there are many others a good deal more despicable which cannot be adduced even as examples of a fault. a.s.suredly Antiquity was too forbearing toward this sort of thing, and I have often wondered how Cicero could have been tolerated in the Roman Senate when he inveighed against Piso:

Do you not remember, blank, when I came to see you about the fifth hour with Gaius Piso, you were coming out of some dirty shack, slippers on your feet and your face and beard covered; and when you breathed on us that low tavern air from your fetid mouth, you apologized on grounds of ill health, saying that you were taking a kind of wine treatment? When we had accepted your explanation--what else could we do?--we stood a while in the smell and fume of the joints you patronize until you kicked us out by the impudence of your answers and the stench of your belches.[22]

_On spiteful epigrams._

Men with some gentleness of nature have an inborn hatred of spite, especially of such as mocks bodily flaws or reversals of fortune, or, finally, anything that happens beyond the individual's responsibility.

For, since no man feels himself free of such strokes of chance, he will not take it easily when they are torn down and laughed at. The Vergilian Dido spoke with human feeling when she said: _Not unaware of ill I learned to aid misfortune._[23] and the good will of the reader rises quietly in her favor. Likewise, Seneca says nicely: _It is not witty to be spiteful._[24] On the other hand they act inhumanely who triumph over misfortune and upbraid what was not guiltily effected, to such an extent that they arouse a feeling of aversion and alienation in the hearts of their readers.

Accordingly we have admitted only a few of this kind, and have rejected a great many, as, for example, Owen's frigid and spiteful epigram:

Look, not a hair remains on your bright skull.

The hairs on your inconstant brow are null.

With every last hair lost behind, ahead, What has the bald man left to lose? His head.[25]

Nor do we greatly care for many of the same kind in Martial, which nevertheless were not omitted for the reasons given above.[26]

_On wordy epigrams._

It would be a long task to a.s.semble all the natural aversions, nevertheless we may add a few more which have removed a whole host of epigrams from this anthology. Beyond those already mentioned, nature finds distasteful long circ.u.mlocutions and the piling up of a single point with varying phrase; for nature burns with a desire to find out, ever hastens to the conclusion, and is impatient at being detained by much talk unless there is a special reward. Consequently wordy epigrams beget a good deal of loathing, especially those that do not sufficiently balance their length with the magnitude of the idea. Some of Martial's are burdened with this fault; sometimes they acc.u.mulate too many commonplace compliments or are too petty in enumeration. For example, in this epigram to what point are so many trite similes piled up?

Her voice was sweeter than the aged swan, None would prefer the Eastern pearl before her, Or the new-polished tooth of Indic beasts, Or the first snow, lilies untouched by hand; She who breathed fragrance of the Paestan rose, Compared with whom the peac.o.c.k was but dull, The squirrel uncharming, and unrare the phoenix, Erotion, is still warm on a new pyre.[27]

Similarly, why in another well-known epigram is the same idea repeated again and again?

Oh not unvalued object of my love, Flaccus, the darling of Antenor's hearth, Forego Pierian songs, the sisters' dances: No girl among them ever gave a dime.