BOOK I. EPISTLE I. TO MECENAS. HEME of my earliest lays, and of the last The theme to be, howe'er my lot be cast, I've had my day, got my discharge, then why Urge me again my trick of fence to try? ge, nor tastes, Mæcenas, are the same, en of old my heart was in the game. g his arms in Hercules' temple down, us keeps in hiding far from town, n the arena's verge he should anew ced the crowd for his discharge to sue. ere I will, unceasingly I hear e that whispers in my well-rinsed ear, ive it up for use some future day.* Epistle is now generally acknowledged to have been written ace had turned forty-five, and, having published the Third e Odes, no longer felt inclined to make further flights into of lyrical poetry. In many other passages of the Epistles he rong disclaimer of any intention to compete longer in that I hear you ask, Who is your guide elect? What the philosophy you most affect? To the mere dictates of no master sworn, Where wind and weather waft me, there I'm borne; For public honour and for public weal, I plunge in business, as though marked by fate To put down jobbing and to keep things straight; To Aristippus' less exacting sway, field at the risk of imperilling the reputation he had made. It would be well for the fame of most poets were they to be haunted by the same fear, and only to overcome it, as Horace did, under a strong inspiration, which produced poems as full of fire and as exquisite in finish as any of those on which his fame had been built. But when this Epistle was written, the poet seems to have thought the fountain of inspiration had run dry within him—that his true course for the future was to apply himself to the exposition and exercise of a wholesome practical philosophy, and to leave the lighter forms of verse to younger and fresher spirits. Youth, its passions, faculties, tastes, had slipped away, and philosophy— now so much more easy to practise for that very reason-called him to square his life to its wholesome principles. In short, he felt much like Madame de Sévigné when she wrote: "La jeunesse est si adorable qu'il faut l'adorer, si l'âme et l'esprit étaient aussi parfaits que le corps; mais quand on n'est plus jeune, c'est alors qu'il faut se perfectionner, et tâcher de regagner, par les bonnes qualités, ce qu'on perd du côté des agréables. Il y a longtemps que j'ai fait ces réflexions, et, par cette raison, je veux tous les jours travailler à mon esprit, à mon âme, à mon cœur, à mes sentiments" (Aux Rochers, 1671). The metaphors in the opening lines are borrowed from the arena. When a gladiator got his discharge, he was presented with a wooden truncheon (rude donatus). Veianus, a celebrated gladiator, who had sued the people for his discharge, and obtained it, escaped into the country, for fear of being called again into the arena to fight with younger and newer favourites, who might strip him of his laurels. Before leaving Rome, he hung up his fighting-gear in the temple of Hercules, the patron god of his class. So Horace wishes to be quit of the importunities of Mæcenas and his other friends that he should write more odes, and to be free to prosecute in the country the tastes which "the years that bring the philosophic mind" have engendered. Of course, we must not take as quite serious Horace's classification of verse as among the mere toys and trifles of life. It suits him for the |