What! if any savage, by a stern countenance and bare feet, and the texture of a scanty gown, should imitate Cato; will he represent the virtue and morals of Cato? The tongue that imitated Timagenes was the destruction of the Moor,[1] while he affected to be humorous, and attempted to seem eloquent. The example that is imitable in its faults, deceives [the ignorant]. Soh! if I was to grow up pale by accident, [these poetasters] would drink the blood-thinning cumin.[2] O ye imitators, ye servile herd, how often your bustlings have stirred my bile, how often my mirth!
I was the original, who set my free footsteps upon the vacant sod; I trod not in the steps of others. He who depends upon himself, as leader, commands the swarm. I first showed to Italy the Parian iambics: following the numbers and spirit of Archilochus,[3] but not his subject and style, which afflicted Lycambes. You must not, however, crown me with a more sparing wreath, because I was afraid to alter the measure and structure of his verse: for the manly Sappho governs her muse[4] by the measures of Archilochus, so does
- ↑ Iarbita, says the Scholiast, was a Moor, whose name was Cordus, who attempting in vain to imitate the wit and pleasantry of Timagenes, almost burst with despair and vexation, invidiâ quodammodo ruptus est. Timagenes was a rhetorician of Alexandria, who, having provoked Augustus by too great a freedom of raillery, was forbidden to enter the palace. In resentment of such an affront he burned a history which he had written of that emperor's life. Fran.
- ↑ Dioscorides assures us, that cumin will make people pale who drink it, or wash themselves with it. Pliny says it was reported, that the disciples of Porcius Latro, a famous master of the art of speaking, used it to imitate that paleness which he had contracted by his studies. Fran.
- ↑ Horace tells us he had imitated Archilochus in taking from him some particular measure, and if we may judge from the fragments of the Grecian poet which remain to us, these three following verses are some of them.
"Pulvis et umbra sumus."
"Exitio est avidum mare nautis."
"Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam."Canidia, Cassius Severus, and some others, must acknolwedge that Horace had but too well imitated the satire and severity of Archilochus, although he did not servilely follow his expressions, or allow himself that bitterness which made Lycambes and his daughter Neobule hand themselves. San.
- ↑ ''Sappho et Alcæus Musam suam temperant pede Archilochi; and temperat signifies, "to mix," not, as is generally understood, "to soften," or "make musical," for the verses of Archilochus were more violent and
