Part 10 (2/2)

Although this gift of the farm and other favors derived from the friendshi+p of Maecenas were so important to Horace as to color all his after life and work, he nowhere htest spirit of sycophancy toward his patron While always grateful, he makes it very clear that the favors of Maecenas cannot be accepted at the price of his own personal independence Rather than lose this, he would willingly resign all that he has received

The following satire expresses that deep content which the poet experiences upon his farhts which he enjoys there, and, by contrast, so incidents of his life in Roreat minister Maecenas The satire is in the translation of Sir Theodore Martin

My prayers with this I used to charge,-- A piece of land not over large, Wherein there should a garden be, A clear spring flowing ceaselessly, And where, to crown the whole, there should A patch be found of groood

All this and more the Gods have sent, And I am heartily content

O son of Maia,[B] that I may These bounties keep is all I pray

If ne'er by craft or base design I've swelled what little store is lect; If never from my lips a word Shall drop of wishes so absurd As, ”Had I but that little nook, Next to my land, that spoils its look!”

Or, ”Would soold, As to the man whom Hercules Enriched and settled at his ease, Who, with the treasure he had found, Bought for hiround Which he before for hire had tilled!”

If I with gratitude am filled For what I have--by this I dare Adjure you to fulfil my prayer, That you with fatness will endow My little herd of cattle now, And all things else their lord may own Except its he has, alone, And be, as heretofore, uardian, and relief!

So, when fro the hills Retreat, what better theme to choose Than Satire for my homely muse?

No fell ambition wastes me there, No, nor the south wind's leaden air, Nor Autury death

[B] Mercury, the God of gain, and protector of poets

The poet proceeds to contrast with his restful country life the vexatious bustle of the city, and the officious attentions which people thrust upon him because of his supposed influence with Maecenas

Soh lane and street Spreads from the Forum All I meet Accost me thus--”Dear friend, you're so Close to the Gods, that you s?” ”Not a word”

”You're always jesting!” ”Now reat and small, If I have heard one word!” ”Well, well But you at any rate can tell If Caesar means the lands which he Has proround, Or in Trinacria be found?”

And when I swear, as well I can, That I know nothing, for a man Of silence rare and most discreet They cry me up to all the street

Thus do h: Oh, when shall I the country see, Its woodlands green? Oh, when be free, With books of great old men, and sleep, And hours of dreaitations and its strife?

When on oras' kinsreens, and give it relish?

Oh happy nights, oh feasts divine, When, with the friends I love, I dine At ives my bluff hinds a treat!

No stupid laws our feasts control, But each guest drains or leaves the bowl, Precisely as he feels inclined

If he be strong, and have a ood! If not, he's free To sip his liquor leisurely

And then the talk our banquet rouses!

Not gossip 'bout our neighbors' houses, But what concerns us nearer, and Is harmful not to understand; Whether by wealth or worth, 'tis plain That men to happiness attain; By e're led to choose our friends,-- Regard for theood consist, and what Is the supre of neighbors as this the story of the city mouse and the country mouse would be told The poet's own athered from the fareords of the country mouse as he escapes from the splendors--and terrors of the city:

”Ho!” cries the country mouse ”This kind Of life is not for me, I find

Give h both spare And poor my food may be, rebel I never will; so, fare ye well!”

3 AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS

The mantle of the satirist preacher which had fallen from Horace found no worthy claimant for nearly half a century The successor, and, so far as in him lay, the sincere imitator of Horace, was Aulus Persius Flaccus His circureat predecessor as can well be iined Horace was the son of a freed save that which he won by his own genius; Persius was, like Lucilius, of noble equestrian rank, rich, and related by birth to some of the first men of his ti all that books and the schools could teach him, was, as we have already seen, preeht by his father to study men as they actually were Persius, on the other hand, saw little of the world except through the medium of books and teachers When the future satirist was but six years of age, his father died, and he was brought up chiefly in the society of his mother and sister, carefully shi+elded froe of twelve he was taken from his native Volaterrae in Etruria to Rome, where his formal education was continued in the saa of s do not, therefore, smack of the street and the world of men as do those of Horace, but they savor of the cloister and the library Horace preached against the sins of ined the his texts often from the more virile satires of Horace himself Horace was devoted to no school of philosophy, but accepted what seemed to him best and sanest from all schools, and jeered alike at the follies of all But Persius was by birth, education, and choice a Stoic He became an ardent preacher and expounder of the Stoic philosophy, just as Lucretius had thrown his whole heart into expounding the doctrine of Epicurus a hundred years before

Stoicism, as Tyrrell says, was the ”philosophy in which under the Roht and found an asylum It had ceased now to be a philosophy, and had becoreat as Christianity appealed to the poor and hu his early bent, as soon as he arrived at man's estate, placed himself under the care and instruction of Cornutus, a Stoic philosopher His own account of this event fores in his works, and is found in the fifth satire, which is a confession of his own ardent devotion both to his friend the Stoic, and to Stoicism as well

The lofty and alreatly ades, and he was h e of iven way, and had not yet laid hold upon the nascent doctrine of Christianity which was even now ain adoal of all living To gain her was to gain life indeed; and to lose her was to suffer loss irreparable This loss the poet invokes in a masterly apostrophe in the third satire upon those rulers who basely abuse their power

Dread sire of Gods! when lust's envenos; When store within their bosoms roll, And call in thunder for thy just control; O then relax the bolt, suspend the blow, And thus and thus alone thy vengeance show: In all her charms set Virtue in their eye, And let them see their loss, despair, and die!