Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/207

To frame some character ne'er seen in Greek,
See it be wrought on one consistent plan,
And end the same creation it began.
'Tis hard, I grant, to treat a subject known
And hackneyed so that it may look one's own;
Far better turn the Iliad to a play
And carve out acts and scenes the readiest way,
Than alter facts and characters, and tell
In a strange form the tale men know so well.
But, with some few precautions, you may set
Your private mark on public chattels yet:
Avoid careering and careering still
In the old round, like carthorse in a mill;
Nor, bound too closely to the Grecian Muse,
Translate the words whose soul you should transfuse,
Nor act the copyist's part, and work in chains
Which, once put on by rashness, shame retains.
Don't open like the cyclic, with a burst:
"Troy's war and Priam's fate are here rehearsed."
What's coming, pray, that thus he winds his horn?
The mountain labours, and a mouse is born.
Far better he who enters at his ease,
Nor takes your breath with empty nourishes:
"Sing, Muse, the man who, after Troy was burned,
Saw divers cities, and their manners learned."
Not smoke from fire his object is to bring,
But fire from smoke, a very different thing;
Yet has he dazzling miracles in store,
Cyclops, and Læstrygons, and fifty more.