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The Works of Horace
Page 9
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THE SECOND BOOK OF THE EPISTLES OF HORACE.
EPISTLE I.
TO AUGUSTUS.
He honors him with the highest compliments; then treats copiously of
poetry, its origin, character, and excellence.
Since you alone support so many and such weighty concerns, defend
Italy with your arms, adorn it by your virtue, reform it by your
laws; I should offend, O Caesar, against the public interests, if I
were to trespass upon your time with a long discourse.
Romulus, and father Bacchus, and Castor and Pollux, after great
achievements, received into the temples of the gods, while they were
improving the world and human nature, composing fierce dissensions,
settling property, building cities, lamented that the esteem which
they expected was not paid in proportion to their merits. He who
crushed the dire Hydra, and subdued the renowned monsters by his
forefated labor, found envy was to be tamed by death [alone]. For he
burns by his very splendor, whose superiority is oppressive to the
arts beneath him: after his decease, he shall be had in honor. On
you, while present among us, we confer mature honors, and rear
altars where your name is to be sworn by; confessing that nothing
equal to you has hitherto risen, or will hereafter rise. But this
your people, wise and just in one point (for preferring you to our
own, you to the Grecian heroes), by no means estimate other things
with like proportion and measure: and disdain and detest every
thing, but what they see removed from earth and already gone by;
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such favorers are they of antiquity,
as to assert that the Muses [themselves] upon Mount Alba, dictated
the twelve tables, forbidding to trangress, which the decemviri ratified; the leagues of our kings
concluded with the Gabii, or the rigid Sabines; the records of the
pontifices, and the ancient volumes of the augurs.
If, because the most ancient writings of the Greeks are also the
best, Roman authors are to be weighed in the same scale, there is no
need we should say much: there is nothing hard in the inside of an
olive, nothing [hard] in the outside of a nut. We are arrived at the
highest pitch of success [in arts]: we paint, and sing, and wrestle
more skillfully than the annointed Greeks. If length of time makes
poems better, as it does wine, I would fain know how many years will
stamp a value upon writings. A writer who died a hundred years ago,
is he to be reckoned among the perfect and ancient, or among the
mean and modern authors? Let some fixed period exclude all dispute.
He is an old and good writer who completes a hundred years. What!
one that died a month or a year later, among whom is he to be
ranked? Among the old poets, or among those whom both the present
age and posterity will disdainfully reject? He may fairly be placed
among the ancients, who is younger either by a short month only, or
even by a whole year. I take the advantage of this concession, and
pull away by little and little, as [if they were] the hairs of a
horse's tail: and I take away a single one and then again another
single one; till, like a tumbling heap, [my adversary], who has
recourse to annals and estimates excellence by the year, and admires
nothing but what Libitina has made sacred, falls to the ground.
Ennius the wise, the nervous, and (as our critics say) a second
Homer, seems lightly to regard what becomes of his promises and
Pythagorean dreams. Is not Naevius in people's hands, and sticking
almost fresh in their memory? So sacred is every ancient poem. As
often as a debate arises, whether this poet or the other be
preferable; Pacuvius bears away the character of a learned, Accius,
of a lofty writer; Afranius' gown is said to have fitted Menander;
Plautus, to hurry after the pattern of the Sicilian Epicharmus;
Caecilius, to excel in gravity, Terence in contrivance. These mighty
Rome learns by heart, and these she views crowded in her narrow
theater; these she esteems and accounts her poets from Livy the
writer's age down to our time. Sometimes the populace see right;
sometimes they are wrong. If they admire and extol the ancient poets
so as to prefer nothing before, to compare nothing with them, they
err; if they think and allow that they express some things in an
obsolete, most in a stiff, many in a careless manner; they both
think sensibly, and agree with me, and determine with the assent of
Jove himself. Not that I bear an ill-will against Livy's epics, and
would doom them to destruction, which I remember the severe Orbilius
taught me when a boy; but they should seem correct, beautiful, and
very little short of perfect, this I wonder at: among which if by
chance a bright expression shines forth, and if one line or two
[happen to be] somewhat terse and musical, this unreasonably carries
off and sells the whole poem. I am disgusted that any thing should
be found fault with, not because it is a lumpish composition or
inelegant, but because it is modern; and that not a favorable
allowance, but honor and rewards are demanded for the old writers.
Should I scruple, whether or not Atta's drama trod the saffron and
flowers in a proper manner, almost all the fathers would cry out
that modesty was lost; since I attempted to find fault with those
pieces which the pathetic Aesopus, which the skillful Roscius acted:
either because they esteem nothing right, but what has pleased
themselves; or because they think it disgraceful to submit to their
juniors, and to confess, now they are old, that what they learned
when young is deserving only to be destroyed. Now he who extols
Numa's Salian hymn, and would alone seem to understand that which,
as well as me, he is ignorant of, does not favor and applaud the
buried geniuses, but attacks ours, enviously hating us moderns and
every thing of ours. Whereas if novelty had been detested by the
Greeks as much as by us, what at this time would there have been
ancient? Or what what would there have been for common use to read
and thumb, common to every body.
When first Greece, her wars being over, began to trifle, and through
prosperity to glide into folly; she glowed with the love, one while
of wrestlers, another while of horses; was fond of artificers in
marble, or in ivory, or in brass; hung her looks and attention upon
a picture; was delighted now with musicians, now with tragedians; as
if an infant girl she sported under the nurse; soon cloyed, she
abandoned what [before] she earnestly desired. What is there that
pleases or is odious, which you may not think mutable? This effect
had happy times of peace, and favorable gales [of fortune].
At Rome it was long pleasing and customary to be up early with open
doors, to expound the laws to clients; to lay out money cautiously
upon good securities: to hear the elder, and to tell the younger by
what means their fortunes might increase and pernicious luxury be
diminished. The inconstant people have changed their mind, and glow
with a universal ardor for learning: young men and grave fathers sup
crowned with leaves, and dictate poetry. I myself, who affirm that I
write no verses, am found more false than the Parthians: and, awake
before the sun is risen, I call for my pen and papers and desk. He
that is ignorant of a ship is afraid to work a ship; none but he who
has learned, dares administer [even] southern wood to the sick;
physicians undertake what belongs to physicians; mechanics handle
tools; but we, unlearned and learned, promiscuously write poems.
Yet how great advantages this error and this slight madness has,
thus compute: the poet's mind is not easily covetous; fond of
verses, he studies this alone; he laughs at losses, flights of
slaves, fires; he contrives no fraud against his partner, or his
young ward; he lives on husks, and brown bread; though dastardly and
unfit for war, he is useful at home, if you allow this, that great
things may derive assistance from small ones. The poet fashions the
child's tender and lisping mouth, and turns his ear even at this
time from obscene language; afterward also he forms his heart with
friendly precepts, the corrector of his rudeness, and envy, and
passion; he records virtuous actions, he instructs the rising age
with approved examples, he comforts the indigent and the sick.
Whence should the virgin, stranger to a husband, with the chaste
boys, learn the solemn prayer, had not the muse given a poet? The
chorus entreats the divine aid, and finds the gods propitious; sweet
in learned prayer, they implore the waters of the heavens; avert
diseases, drive off impending dangers, obtain both peace and years
enriched with fruits. With song the gods above are appeased, with
song the gods below.
Our ancient swains, stout and happy with a little, after the grain
was laid up, regaling in a festival season their bodies and even
their minds, patient of hardships through the hope of their ending,
with their slaves and faithful wife, the partners of their labors,
atoned with a hog [the goddess] Earth, with milk Silvanus, with
flowers and wine the genius that reminds us of our short life.
Invented by this custom, the Femminine licentiousness poured forth
its rustic taunts in alternate stanzas; and this liberty, received
down through revolving years, sported pleasingly; till at length the
bitter raillery began to be turned into open rage, and threatening
with impunity to stalk through reputable families. They, who
suffered from its bloody tooth smarted with the pain; the unhurt
likewise were concerned for the common condition: further also, a
law and a penalty were enacted, which forbade that any one should be
stigmatized in lampoon. Through fear of the bastinado, they were
reduced to the necessity of changing their manner, and of praising
and delighting.
Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror, and introduced her
arts into rude Latium. Thus flowed off the rough Saturnian numbers,
and delicacy expelled the rank venom: but for a long time there
remained, and at this day remain traces of rusticity. For late [the
Roman writer] applied his genius to the Grecian pages; and enjoying
rest after the Punic wars, began to search what useful matter
Sophocles, and Thespis, and Aeschylus afforded: he tried, too, if he
could with dignity translate their works; and succeeded in pleasing
himself, being by nature [of a genius] sublime and strong; for he
breathes a spirit tragic enough, and dares successfully; but fears a
blot, and thinks it disgraceful in his writings.
Comedy is believed to require the least pains, because it fetches
its subjects from common life; but the less indulgence It meets
with, the more labor it requires. See how Plautus supports the
character of a lover under age, how that of a covetous father, how
those of a cheating pimp: how Dossennus exceeds all measure in his
voracious parasites; with how loose a sock he runs over the stage:
for he is glad to put the money in his pocket, after this regardless
whether his play stand or fall.
Him, whom glory in her airy car has brought upon the stage, the
careless spectator dispirits, the attentive renders more diligent:
so slight, so small a matter it is, which overturns or raises a mind
covetous of praise! Adieu the ludicrous business [of dramatic
writing], if applause denied brings me back meagre, bestowed [makes
me] full of flesh and spirits.
This too frequently drives away and deters even an adventurous poet?
that they who are in number more, in worth and rank inferior,
unlearned and foolish, and (if the equestrian order dissents) ready
to fall to blows, in the midst of the play, call for either a bear
or boxers; for in these the mob delight. Nay, even all the pleasures
of our knights is now transferred from the ear to the uncertain eye,
and their vain amusements. The curtains are kept down for four hours
or more, while troops of horse and companies of foot flee over the
stage: next is dragged forward the fortune of kings, with their
hands bound behind them; chariots, litters, carriages, ships hurry
on; captive ivory, captive Corinth, is borne along. Democritus, if
he were on earth, would laugh; whether a panther a different genus
confused with the camel, or a white elephant attracted the eye of
the crowd. He would view the people more attentively than the sports
themselves, as affording him more strange sights than the actor: and
for the writers, he would think they told their story to a deaf ass.
For what voices are able to overbear the din with which our theatres
resound? You would think the groves of Garganus, or the Tuscan Sea,
was roaring; with so great noise are viewed the shows and
contrivances, and foreign riches: with which the actor being daubed
over, as soon as he appears upon the stage, each right hand
encounters with the left. Has he said any thing yet? Nothing at all.
What then pleases? The cloth imitating [the color of] violets, with
the dye of Tarentum.
And, that you may not think I enviously praise those kinds of
writing which I decline undertaking, when others handle them well:
that poet to me seems able to walk upon an extended rope, who with
his fictions grieves my soul, enrages, soothes, fills it with false
terrors, as an enchanter; and sets me now in Thebes, now in Athens.
But of those too, who had rather trust themselves with a reader,
than bear the disdain of an haughty spectator, use a little care; if
you would fill with books [the library you have erected], an
offering worthy of Apollo, and add an incentive to the poets, that
with greater eagerness they may apply to verdant Helicon.
We poets, it is true (that I may hew down my own vineyards), often
do ourselves many mischiefs, when we present a work to you while
thoughtful or fatigued; when we are pained, if my friend has dared
to find fault with one line; when, unasked, we read over again
passages already repeated: when we lament that our labors do not
appear, and war poems, spun out in a fine thread: when we hope the
thing will come to this, that as soon as you are apprised we are
penning verses, you will kindly of yourself send for us and secure
us from want, and oblige us to write. But yet it is worth while to
know, who shall be the priests of your virtue signalized in war and
at home, which is not to be trusted to an unworthy poet. A favorite
of king Alexander the Great was that Choerilus, who to his uncouth
and ill-formed verses owed the many pieces he received of Philip's
royal coin. But, as ink when touched leaves behind it a mark and a
blot, so writers as it were stain shining actions with foul poetry.
That same king, who prodigally bought so dear so ridiculous a poem,
by an edict forbade that any one beside Apelles should paint him, or
that any other than Lysippus should mold brass for the likeness of
the valiant Alexander. But should you call that faculty of his, so
delicate in discerning other arts, to [judge of] books and of these
gifts of the muses, you would swear he had been born in the gross
air of the Boeotians. Yet neither do Virgil and Varius, your beloved
poets, disgrace your judgment of them, and the presents which they
have received with great honor to the donor; nor do the features of
illustrious men appear more lively when expressed by statues of
brass, than their manners and minds expressed by the works of a
poet. Nor would I rather compose such tracts as these creeping on
the ground, than record deeds of arms, and the situations of
countries, and rivers, and forts reared upon mountains, and
barbarous kingdoms, and wars brought to a conclusion through the
whole world under your auspices, and the barriers that confine Janus
the guardian of peace, and Rome treaded by the Parthians under your
government, if I were but able to do as much as I could wish. But
neither does your majesty admit of humble poetry, nor dares my
modesty attempt a subject which my strength is unable to support.
Yet officiousness foolishly disgusts the person whom it loves;
especially when it recommends itself by numbers, and the art [of
writing]. For one learns sooner, and more willingly remembers, that
which a man derides, than that which he approves and venerates. I
value not the zeal that gives me uneasiness; nor do I wish to be set
out any where in wax with a face formed for the worse, nor to be
celebrated in ill-composed verses; lest I blush, when presented with
the gross gift; and, exposed in an open box along with my author, be
conveyed into the street that sells frankincense, and spices, and
pepper, and whatever is wrapped up in impertinent writings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EPISTLE II.
TO JULIUS FLORUS.
In apologizing for not having written to him, he shows that the
well-ordering of life is of more importance than the composition of
verses.
O Florus, faithful friend to the good and illustrious Nero, if by
chance any one should offer to sell you a boy born at Tibur and
Gabii, and should treat with you in this manner; "This [boy who is]
both good-natured and well-favored from head to foot, shall become
and be yours for eight thousand sesterces; a domestic slave, ready
in his attendance at his master's nod; initiated in the Greek
language, of a capacity for any art; you may shape out any thing
with [such] moist clay; besides, he will sing in an artless manner,
but yet entertaining to one drinking. Lavish promises lessen credit,
when any one cries up extravagantly the wares he has for sale, which
he wants to put off. No emergency obliges me [to dispose of him]:
though poor, I am in nobody's debt. None of the chapmen would do
this for you; nor should every body readily receive the same favor
from me. Once, [in deed,] he [loitered on an errand]; and (as it
happens) absconded, being afraid of the lash that hangs in the
staircase. Give me your money, if this runaway trick, which I have
expected, does not offend you." In my opinion, the man may take his
price, and be secure from any punishment: you wittingly purchased a
good-for-nothing boy: the condition of the contract was told you.
Nevertheless you prosecute this man, and detain him in an unjust
suit.
I told you, at your setting out, that I was indolent: I told you I
was almost incapable of such offices: that you might not chide me in
angry mood, because no letter [from me] came to hand. What then have
I profited, if you nevertheless arraign the conditions that make for
me? On the same score too you complain, that, being worse than my
word, I do not send you the verses you expected.
A soldier of Lucullus, [having run through] a great many hardships,
was robbed of his collected stock to a penny, as he lay snoring in
the night quite fatigued: after this, like a ravenous wolf, equally
exasperated at himself and the enemy, eager, with his hungry fangs,
he beat off a royal guard from a post (as they report) very strongly
fortified, and well supplied with stores. Famous on account of this
exploit, he is adorned with honorable rewards, and receives twenty
thousand sesterces into the bargain. It happened about this time
that his officer being inclined to batter down a certain fort, began
to encourage the same man, with words that might even have given
courage to a coward: "Go, my brave fellow, whither your valor calls
you: go with prosperous step, certain to receive ample rewards for
your merit. Why do you hesitate?" Upon this, he arch, though a
rustic: "He who has lost his purse, will go whither you wish," says
he.
It was my lot to have Rome for my nurse, and to be instructed [from
the Iliad] how much the exasperated Achilles prejudiced the Greeks.
Good Athens give me some additional learning: that is to say, to be
able to distinguish a right line from a curve, and seek after truth
in the groves of Academus. But the troublesome times removed me from
that pleasant spot; and the tide of a civil war carried me away,
unexperienced as I was, into arms, [into arms] not likely to be a
match for the sinews of Augustus Caesar. Whence, as soon as [the
battle of] Philippi dismissed me in an abject condition, with my
wings clipped, and destitute both of house and land, daring poverty
urged me on to the composition of verses: but now, having more than
is wanted, what medicines would be efficacious enough to cure my
madness, if I did not think it better to rest than to write verses.
The advancing years rob us of every thing: they have taken away my
mirth, my gallantry, my revelings, and play: they are now proceeding
to force poetry from me. What would you have me do?
In short, all persons do not love and admire the same things. Ye
delight in the ode: one man is pleased with iambics; another with
satires written in the manner of Bion, and virulent wit. Three
guests scarcely can be found to agree, craving very different dishes
with various palate. What shall I give? What shall I not give? You
forbid, what another demands: what you desire, that truly is sour
and disgustful to the [other] two.
Beside other [difficulties], do you think it practicable for me to
write poems at Rome, amid so many solicitudes and so many fatigues?
One calls me as his security, another to hear his works, all
business else apart; one lives on the mount of Quirinus, the other
in the extremity of the Aventine; both must be waited on. The
distances between them, you see, are charmingly commodious. "But the
streets are clear, so that there can be no obstacle to the
thoughtful."—A builder in heat hurries along with his mules and
porters: the crane whirls aloft at one time a stone, at another a
great piece of timber: the dismal funerals dispute the way with the
unwieldy carriages: here runs a mad dog, there rushes a sow begrimed
with mire. Go now, and meditate with yourself your harmonious
verses. All the whole choir of poets love the grove, and avoid
cities, due votaries to Bacchus delighting in repose and shade.
Would you have me, amid so great noise both by night and day,
[attempt] to sing, and trace the difficult footsteps of the poets? A
genius who has chosen quiet Athens for his residence, and has
devoted seven years to study, and has grown old in books and study,
frequently walks forth more dumb than a statue, and shakes the
people's sides with laughter: here, in the midst of the billows and
tempests of the city, can I be thought capable of connecting words
likely to wake the sound of the lyre?
At Rome there was a rhetorician, brother to a lawyer: [so fond of
each other were they,] that they would hear nothing but the mere
praises of each other: insomuch, that the latter appeared a Gracchus
to the former, the former a Mucius to the latter. Why should this
frenzy affect the obstreperous poets in a less degree? I write odes,
another elegies: a work wonderful to behold, and burnished by the
nine muses! Observe first, with what a fastidious air, with what
importance we survey the temple [of Apollo] vacant for the Roman
poets. In the next place you may follow (if you are at leisure) and
hear what each produces, and wherefore each weaves for himself the
crown. Like Samnite gladiators in slow duel, till candle-light, we
are beaten and waste out the enemy with equal blows: I came off
Alcaeus, in his suffrage; he is mine, who? Why who but Callimachus?
Or, if he seems to make a greater demand, he becomes Mimnermus, and
grows in fame by the chosen appellation. Much do I endure in order
to pacify this passionate race of poets, when I am writing; and
submissive court the applause of the people; [but,] having finished
my studies and recovered my senses, I the same man can now boldly
stop my open ears against reciters.
Those who make bad verses are laughed at: but they are pleased in
writing, and reverence themselves; and if you are silent, they,
happy, fall to praising of their own accord whatever they have
written. But he who desires to execute a genuine poem, will with his
papers assume the spirit of an honest critic: whatever words shall
have but little clearness and elegance, or shall be without weight
and held unworthy of estimation, he will dare to displace: though
they may recede with reluctance, and still remain in the sanctuary
of Vesta: those that have been long hidden from the people he kindly
will drag forth, and bring to light those expressive denominations
of things that were used by the Catos and Cethegi of ancient times,
though now deformed dust and neglected age presses upon them: he
will adopt new words, which use, the parent [of language], shall
produce: forcible and perspicuous, and bearing the utmost similitude
to a limpid stream, he will pour out his treasures, and enrich
Latium with a comprehensive language. The luxuriant he will lop, the
too harsh he will soften with a sensible cultivation: those void of
expression he will discard: he will exhibit the appearance of one at
play; and will be [in his invention] on the rack, like [a dancer on
the stage], who one while affects the motions of a satyr, at another
of a clumsy cyclops.
I had rather be esteemed a foolish and dull writer, while my faults
please myself, or at least escape my notice, than be wise and smart
for it. There lived at Argos a man of no mean rank, who imagined
that he was hearing some admirable tragedians, a joyful sitter and
applauder in an empty theater: who [nevertheless] could support the
other duties of life in a just manner; a truly honest neighbor, an
amiable host, kind toward his wife, one who could pardon his slaves,
nor would rave at the breaking of a bottle-seal: one who [had sense
enough] to avoid a precipice, or an open well. This man, being cured
at the expense and by the care of his relations, when he had
expelled by the means of pure hellebore the disorder and melancholy
humor, and returned to himself; "By Pollux, my friends (said he),
you have destroyed, not saved me; from whom my pleasure is thus
taken away, and a most agreeable delusion of mind removed by force."
In a word, it is of the first consequence to be wise in the
rejection of trifles, and leave childish play to boys for whom it is
in season, and not to scan words to be set to music for the Roman
harps, but [rather] to be perfectly an adept in the numbers and
proportions of real life. Thus therefore I commune with myself, and
ponder these things in silence: "If no quantity of water would put
an end to your thirst, you would tell it to your physicians. And is
there none to whom you dare confess, that the more you get the more
you crave? If you had a wound which was not relieved by a plant or
root prescribed to you, you would refuse being doctored with a root
or plant that did no good. You have heard that vicious folly left
the man, on whom the gods conferred wealth; and though you are
nothing wiser, since you become richer, will you nevertheless use
the same monitors as before? But could riches make you wise, could
they make you less covetous and mean-spirited, you well might blush,
if there lived on earth one more avaricious than yourself."
If that be any man's property, which he has bought by the pound and
penny, [and] there be some things to which (if you give credit to
the lawyers) possession gives a claim, [then] the field that feeds
you is your own; and Orbius' steward, when he harrows the corn which
is soon to give you flour, finds you are [in effect] the proper
master. You give your money; you receive grapes, pullets, eggs, a
hogshead of strong wine: certainly in this manner you by little and
little purchase that farm, for which perhaps the owner paid three
hundred thousand sesterces, or more. What does it signify, whether
you live on what was paid for the other day, or a long while ago? He
who purchased the Aricinian and Veientine fields some time since,
sups on bought vegetables, however he may think otherwise; boils his
pot with bought wood at the approach of the chill evening. But he
calls all that his own, as far as where the planted poplar prevents
quarrels among neighbors by a determinate limitation: as if anything
were a man's property, which in a moment of the fleeting hour, now
by solicitations, now by sale, now by violence, and now by the
supreme lot [of all men], may change masters and come into another's
jurisdiction. Thus since the perpetual possession is given to none,
and one man's heir urges on another's, as wave impels wave, of what
importance are houses, or granaries; or what the Lucanian pastures
joined to the Calabrian; if Hades, inexorable to gold, mows down the
great together with the small?
Gems, marble, ivory, Tuscan statues, pictures, silver-plate, robes
dyed with Getulian purple, there are who can not acquire; and there
are others, who are not solicitous of acquiring. Of two brothers,
why one prefers lounging, play, and perfume, to Herod's rich
palm-tree groves; why the other, rich and uneasy, from the rising of
the light to the evening shade, subdues his woodland with fire and
steel: our attendant genius knows, who governs the planet of our
nativity, the divinity [that presides] over human nature, who dies
with each individual, of various complexion, white and black.
I will use, and take out from my moderate stock, as much as my
exigence demands: nor will I be under any apprehensions what opinion
my heir shall hold concerning me, when he shall, find [I have left
him] no more than I had given me. And yet I, the same man, shall be
inclined to know how far an open and cheerful person differs from a
debauchee, and how greatly the economist differs from the miser. For
there is some distinction whether you throw away your money in a
prodigal manner, or make an entertainment without grudging, nor toil
to accumulate more; or rather, as formerly in Minerva's holidays,
when a school-boy, enjoys by starts the short and pleasant vacation.
Let sordid poverty be far away. I, whether borne in a large or small
vessel, let me be borne uniform and the same. I am not wafted with
swelling sail before the north wind blowing fair: yet I do not bear
my course of life against the adverse south. In force, genius,
figure, virtue, station, estate, the last of the first-rate, [yet]
still before those of the last.
You are not covetous, [you say]:—go to.—What then? Have the rest of
your vices fled from you, together with this? Is your breast free
from vain ambition? Is it free from the fear of death and from
anger? Can you laugh at dreams, magic terrors, wonders, witches,
nocturnal goblins, and Thessalian prodigies? Do you number your
birth-days with a grateful mind? Are you forgiving to your friends?
Do you grow milder and better as old age approaches? What profits
you only one thorn eradicated out of many? If you do not know how to
live in a right manner, make way for those that do. You have played
enough, eaten and drunk enough, it is time for you to walk off: lest
having tippled too plentifully, that age which plays the wanton with
more propriety, and drive you [off the stage].
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