Satire 6, Book I., p. 8. A large portion of this satire, which is addressed to Mæcenas, throws so much light upon the life and character of Horace, that a translation of it from line 45 to the close is subjoined.
Now to myself, the freedman's son, come I,
Whom all the mob of gaping fools decry,
Because, forsooth, I am a freedman's son;
My sin at present is, that I have won
Thy trust, Mæcenas; once in this it lay,
That o'er a Roman legion I bore sway
As Tribune, surely faults most opposite;
For though, perchance, a man with justice might
Grudge me the tribune's honours, why should he
Be jealous of the favour shewn by thee,
Thee who, unsway'd by fawning wiles, art known
To choose thy friends for honest worth alone?
Lucky I will not call myself, as though
Thy friendship I to mere good fortune owe.
No chance it was secured me thy regards;
But Virgil first, that best of friends and bards,
And then kind Varius mentioned what I was.
Before you brought, with many a faltering pause,
Dropping some few brief words, (for bashfulness
Robb'd me of utterance,) I did not profess,
That I was sprung of lineage old and great,
Or used to canter round my own estate,
On Satureian barb, but what and who
I am as plainly told. As usual, you
Brief answer make me.
I retire, and then,
Some nine months after summoning me again,
You bid me 'mongst your friends assume a place:
And proud I feel, that thus I won thy grace,
Not by an ancestry long known to fame,
But by my life, and heart devoid of blame.
Yet if some trivial faults, and these but few,
My nature, else not much amiss, imbue,
Just as you wish away, yet scarcely blame,
A mole or two upon a comely frame;
If no man may arraign me of the vice
Of lewdness, meanness, nor of avarice;
pure and innocent I live, and dear
To those I love, (self-praise is venial here,)
All this I owe my father, who, though poor,
Lord of some few lean acres, and no more,
Was loth to send me to the village school,
Whereto the sons of men of mark and rule, -
Centurions, and the like,
were wont to swarm,
With slate and satchel on sinister arm,
And the poor dole of scanty pence to pay
The starveling teacher on the quarter day;
But boldly took me when a boy to Rome,
There to be taught all arts, that grace the home
Of knight and senator. To see my dress,
And slaves attending, you'd have thought, no less
Than patrimonial fortunes old and great
Had furnish'd forth the charges of my state.
When with my tutors, he would still be by,
Nor ever let me wander from his eye;
And in a word he kept me chaste (and this
Is virtue's crown) from all that was amiss,
Nor such an act alone, but in repute,
Till even scandal's tattling voice was mute.
No dread had he, that men might taunt or jeer,
Should I, some future day, as auctioneer,
Or, like himself, as tax-collector seek
With petty vails my humble means to eke.
Nor should I then have murmur'd. Now I know,
More earnest thanks, and loftier praise I owe.
Reason must fail me, ere I cease to own
With pride, that I have such a father known;
Nor shall I stoop my birth to vindicate,
By charging, like the herd, the wrong on Fate,
That I was not of noble lineage sprung:
Far other creed inspires my heart and tongue.
For now should Nature bid all living men
Retrace their years, and live them o'er again,
Each culling, as his inclination bent,
His parents for himself, with mine content,
I would not choose, whom men endow as great
With the insignia and the seats of state;
And, though I seem'd insane to vulgar eyes,
Thou wouldst perchance esteem me truly wise,
In thus refusing to assume the care
Of irksome state I was unused to bear.
For then a larger income must be made,
Men's favour courted, and their whims obey'd,
Nor could I then indulge a lonely mood,
Away from town, in country solitude,
For the false retinue of pseudo-friends,
That all my movements servilely attends.
More slaves must then be fed, more horses too,
And chariots bought. Now have I nought to do,
If I would even to Tarentum ride,
But mount my bob-tail'd mule, my wallets tied
Across his flanks, which, flapping as we go,
With my ungainly ancles to and fro,
Work his unhappy sides a world of weary woe.
Yet who shall call me mean, as men call thee,
O Tillius, when they oft a prætor see
On the Tiburtine Way with five poor knaves,
Half-grown, half-starved, and overweighted slaves,
Bearing, to save your charges when
you dine, A travelling kitchen, and a jar of wine. Illustrious senator, more happy far,
I live than you, and hosts of others are!
I walk alone, by mine own fancy led,
Enquire the price of potherbs and of bread,
The circus cross to see its tricks and fun,
The forum, too, at times near set of sun;
With other fools there do I stand and gape
Round fortune-tellers' stalls, thence home escape
To a plain meal of pancakes, pulse, and peas;
Three young boy-slaves attend on me with these.
Upon a slab of snow-white marble stand
A goblet, and two beakers; near at hand,
A common ewer, patera, and bowl,
Campania's potteries produced the whole.
To sleep then I, unharass'd by the fear,
That I to-morrow must betimes appear
At Marsyas' base, who vows he cannot brook
Without a pang the Younger Novius' look.
I keep my couch till ten, then walk a while,
Or having read or writ what may beguile
A quiet after hour, anoint my limbs
With oil, not such as filthy Natta skims
From lamps defrauded of their unctuous fare.
And when the sunbeams, grown too hot to bear,
Warn me to quit the field, and hand-ball play,
The bath takes all my weariness away.
Then having lightly dined, just to appease
The sense of emptiness, I take mine ease,
Enjoying all home's simple luxury.
This is the life of bard unclogg'd, like me,
By stern ambition's miserable weight,
So placed, I own with gratitude, my state
Is sweeter, ay, than though a quæstor's power
From sire and grandsires' sires had been my dower.
Even in what may be assumed to be his earliest poems, the fire of genuine passion is wanting. p. 22. Horace's exquisite susceptibility to beauty of course subjected him to many transient passions, of which traces are apparent in the poems here more partic
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