JUVENAL, SATIRE VII
at a time when poets of name and fame thought of hiring baths at Gabii, or bakehouses in Rome, while others felt no shame in becoming public criers, and starving Clio herself, bidding adieu to the vales of Aganippe,[1] was flitting to the auction rooms. For if you see no prospect of earning a groat within the Muses' grove, you had better put up with Machaera's[2] name and profits and join in the battle of the sale-room, selling to the crowd winejars, tripods, book-cases and cupboards—the Alcithoe of Paccius, the Thebes or the Tereus[3] of Faustus! How much better that than to say before a judge "I saw" what you did not see! Leave that to the Knights of Asia,[4] of Bithynia and Cappadocia—gentry that were imported bare-footed[5] from New Gaul!
17But from this day forth no man who weaves the tuneful web of song and has bitten Apollo's laurel will be compelled to endure toil unworthy of his craft. To your task, young men! Your Prince is looking around and goading you on, seeking objects for his favour. If you expect patronage from any other quarter, and in that hope are filling up the parchment of your saffron tablet, you had better order faggots at once, Telesinus, and present your productions to the spouse[6] of Venus; or else put away your tomes, and let bookworms bore holes in them where they lie. Break your pen, poor wretch; destroy the battles that have robbed you of your sleep—you that are inditing lofty strains in a tiny garret, that you may come forth worthy of a scraggy bust[7] wreathed with ivy! No hope have you beyond that; your rich miser has now learnt only to admire, only to commend the
- ↑ An inspiring spring on Mt. Helicon, sacred to the Muses.
- ↑ Apparently an auctioneer.
- ↑ Apparently names of tragedies.
- ↑ Easterns originally imported as slaves, who had risen to be equites.
- ↑ i.e. as slaves from Galatia.
- ↑ Vulcan.
- ↑ The busts of poets were wreathed with ivy (doctarum hederae praemia frontium, Hor. Od. I. i. 29).
