The First Book
of the
Epistles of Horace.
EPISTLE I.
TO MÆCENAS.
The poet renounces all verses of a ludicrous turn, and resolves to apply himself wholly to the study of philosophy, which teaches to bridle the desires, and to postpone every thing to virtue.
Mæcenas, the subject of my earliest song, justly entitled to my latest, dost thou seek to engage me again in the old lists,[1] having been tried sufficiently, and now presented with the foils?[2] My age is not the same, nor is my genius. Veianius, his arms consecrated on a pillar of Hercules’ temple,[3] lives snugly retired in the country, that he may not from the extremity of the sandy amphitheater so often supplicate the people’s favor.[4] Some one seems frequently to ring in my
- ↑ Horace began to write at about four-and-twenty years of age, and he is now past fifty, which he expresses by antiquo ludo, in allusion to the schools, where the gladiators performed their exercises. Mens may be understood either for a poetical genius, or an inclination to poetry. San. Dac.
- ↑ Donatum jam rude. The poet compares himself with a gladiator; hence the use here of the terms of that art. A gladiator, who had been relieved from the necessity of appearing before the public—who had received his discharge—is said to be donatus rude, and called rudiarius. The rudis with which he was presented, as an emblem of freemdom, was a rod, or wooden sword. M'Caul.
- ↑ After Hercules had wandered through the world-destroying monsters, he was received by Greece and Italy among the gods who presided over athletic exercises. There was generally a temple of this god near their amphitheaters, in which the ceremonies of receiving a new gladiator into the company were performed. From thence the custom of consecrating their arms to Hercules. Fran.
- ↑ Horace would authorize his resolution of writing no more, by the
