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For whom better? He thinks my Muses are something, he
gives them his mind and his help. Nobody prizes them more, nobody reads
his own verse with a happier face than he reads mine. Go to his
friendly hands, my little page, you won’t be dearer if you have
lingered in your author’s own pocket.
These poems, which you call sallies, jokes,
witticisms, and pleasantries, but which I call affaniae, burrae,
rubbish, and black smudges on white paper, I give to you. At the same
time I ask that when you read them, Edward, you do not bear in mind
that Charles is the donor and author, do not be mindful of me, but of
the book. Doff the mask of friend, wholly assume that of severe judge,
and do not be sparing of your obols and asterisks, nor be overmodest and fear to fill up whole
pages with your copious annotations.
But you will
restrain your severe fingernail, not using your rasp or correcting pen,
marking everything which your Charles had written for you with a white
pebble.
And so, as
to what I should think of my trifles, I am torn between to judgements:
how much do I trust you, whom my loyalty forbids to deceive, and whom
my good judgement urges me to hoodwink?
No man prays to the Thunderer, beloved queen, for
your like after you, because each man desires to have you yourself. It
is less difficult for the Thunderer to keep you safe forever, than to
give us your like or your equal after you.
Fair bard, Percy, best patron of verse, and author of
the best verse, both their subject and their producer, at once
Britain’s Mycaenas and its Vergil, o you who ennoble the sacred Muses
and whom the sacred Muses ennoble, o you whom they rightly worship, and
are worshiped by you, who are Phoebus’ ornament, and also his honor, he
who duly adores you, and is adored by you, and who by a happy exchange
give back that which you receive! Phoebus advises me, as do the Muses,
to give you these putrid Phaleucians. They advise
me, and so does he, to have my verses approved by cultured Percy, if I
wish to have them approved by them, and by him. If I should not be able
to have these verses approved by them, and by him, because it should be
impossible to have them approved by Percy (which it is not), at least
let them and him approve my intention, which certainly should be (and,
behold, it certainly is) to have my verses approved by Percy.
My paper, you must seek and humbly
beg him hasten to Wiltshire, leaving behind the gown-clad city’s
tediums, for but a while, and the bold uproars of the capacious
debating hall, and the raucous quarrels of antagonists. Instead of his
lengthy gown, let him fit a cloak to his shoulders, and to his side a
sword which a Spaniard made with much exertion, to his own destruction.
So, being
careful to renounce his cares, let him speedily aspire to the
pleasurable leisures of our countryside, and to his Charles, you best
of all excellent things everywhere, who longs for your eyes, no less
impatient of delay with the hopeless passion of heart than the lark who
sweetly yearns for vernal breezes after December chills, than a tender
lass, lately betrothed to her new husband, yearns for the tardy evening
star, so she may at length discard her irksome girdle, ah so long bound
tight.
So if Vere
should be and will be as he always was, let him discharge his avowed
pact with bright Faith by eating up the road, let him reprove delays,
and know that all delays are overlong for the man who adores him.
Tell him
too, o papers, how much longing sets my heart a-boil, with what
tempests my breast is raging, nor (even if its if droughts parch
Hippocrene’s very bottom) will the
ardor of my heartsickness ever subside, unless he provides the palpable
cooling of his wholesome air, he the sole subduer of my ills, the
repose of my labors, the Epidaurian god of my
cares, while, as is his wont, he weaves sweet converse with me, with
Phoebus inspiring his mouth, but converse full of salt and sallies,
wanting these to be purchased by all my laughter, though his sides
shake with their own mirth.
If you
achieve nothing with pleasant and friendly entreaties, my papers, then
soon introduce wrath and threats, and after your light, soft little
Phaleucians, let him expect harsh savage iambics, more numerous and
more bitter than those the fierce poet gave to his father-in-law,
Lycambrus the Spartan.
Am I
mistaken? Or does he, who had been making ready to come, moved by my
gentle entreaty, delayed again, having heard these threats?
You praise all the poets, Cosmicus you miser, but
give nothing, your tongue is liberal, your hand stingy. While you wish
to save everything, miser, you lose your all, for what you yourself
give, nobody is wont to repay.
Your mouth is agape, your wallet shut tight. How much
better if your mouth were shut, and your wallet agape!
Why do you ask me so often for golden verse,
Cosmicus? Give me gold, and for you each verse will be golden. It is
not us poets’ way way to give away golden verse, Cosmicus. Our way is
that gold, having been given, be repaid afterwards. This is your way.
Recently I showed you a poem I had labored on through
winter nights, crammed with your praises, Cosmicus. O, of what quality
you were to my Muses! Of what quantity you were my Muses! I placed you
above the labors of Hercules, I placed you above the honors of Jove.
Why, Cosmicus, do you pay me no recompense for such great praises? Hey,
you have no sense! I shall add this praise to my previous one: you
think it wrong to subsidize liars, and you do not purchase falsehoods.
You have sense.
What punishment may I pray for you worthy of your
deserts, you envious fellow? Hear much, see more, live long.
A shepherd, a farmer, a knight, Vergil sang his song;
loftier than he, Sidney sang his song, a shepherd, a farmer, a knight.
Since Arcadia, and Arcadia’s sheep, and the masters
of the sheep, and the sheepmasters’ song is your love, I could rightly
call the fool who will not admire all this a sheep of Arcadia.
Edmund, you call Chaucer our Vergil. Ill done, if you
can do anything amiss. For he is our Ennius, but you our Vergil.
“While fertile England can count three hundred poets,
why is unable to count two Spensers?” Thus I asked. And Apollo of the
Thames (Spenser bade him enjoy the honor of this title) responded to this bard: “Greece is said to
bestow only one Homer, nor did Rome herself bear two Vergils.”
O you to whose genius Roman Elegy is indebted, no
less than she was before to her Ovid! He, though unwilling, brought her
from Latin climes to the Scythian land and the barbarous Getae. With you her guide, she has made her first
visit to the blue-eyed Britons, though by rights she can call this city
her own. For when your forces were shattered, Cassivelaunus, victorious
Caesar, master far and wide, master of the
world, once bade the Roman people and their Latin household gods dwell
in this city. Therefore you recall the Muses, exiled by Ovid’s crime,
to their homeland, and give them back their own.
And so, harsh father, will you be able to bury the
bright children of your genius in your deep desk forever? The offspring
your Muse has borne you, with Juno’s aid, you will forbid to enjoy the
open air? In unworthy ways will you rip into pieces your Hippolytuses
with their shredded limbs, you impious
father? What is the purpose, when you have stayed awake so many nights
upon all these labors, if you only kill them sleeping in the long
night? Or what is the purpose of having so many pleasantries born in
the summer sun, if now you forbid your offspring to enjoy the sun? Gods
make it better! Not to protect what is born from you from death and
obscurity! Eternal death will obscure your work.
If anyone should wish Spenser to be our Vergil,
Daniel, to me you will be the British Ovid. If someone should prefer he
be the British Phoebus, for me you will be our Vergil. There’s nothing
above Phoebus. If there were, Spenser would have that, and you, Daniel,
would be Phoebus. For if Phoebus chose to speak in English, I scarce
know how he could, save through your mouth.
What rumor entices me with honeyed whispering, and
flows into my ears with pleasant allure? Drayton (and, Phoebus, what a
man!) has not mocked my verses, those mockers of everything? And not
only has he not laughed at them (though this is a great thing), but he
has read them and with his rasp has approved what he read. Greater
still, he has openly praised them, called me a poet, and these temples
of mine worthy of Daphne’s foliage. Until now I have kept very quiet.
But he provokes me further, and his friendship bestows itself upon me,
though I did not ask for this! Do I foolishly believe these things?
What do lovers’ minds not believe? We are a gullible crew about things
we crave. Now I am right pleased with myself, because, great man, it
would shame me to be displeased with what pleases you, you who please
Phoebus and the Muses, who are pleased to place you first and foremost
in their Aonian choirs. Michael, worthy of your name, have Charles for
yourself: he has this one thing, that he loves, which makes him worthy
of being loved.
Jack, you charm of the lads, whom either Apollo of
the Granta ardently loves, or the Anglian Grace adores, to whom Nemesis
has given her rods, stern Rhamnusia her flail,
and Talus has rightly given her steely
weapons, and Pallas and the sacred band of the nine Boeotians have
given a genius far more sublime than armaments, use these gifts of the
gods, and let the world know that you have been given as a torment of
crime and wickedness. Let the world’s degenerate morals groan under
your lash, so they come to dread the thunderbolt of your wit. Nor
should you cease carping at the satiated in your satires, rather you
should mow down these fertile monsters with Herculean fury. Hence one
day there will arise for you a lavish harvest of praise, never to be
repaid by old age’s all-cutting scythe.
When Phoebus lately saw these anonymous satires
(previously a genre unseen in our land), he measured everything four
times with an exacting thumb, and saw that all was worthy of a greater
god. Thus he published them under his own name, and word was the
Phoebus had surpassed himself. But this plagiarist was rightly put to
shame after we learned, Hall, that you were their true father.
While you were bathing your naked body in the native
waters of the river Tamar, and
cleaving its marble floods, controlling your self with your arms and
skimming over the surface with the aid of your agile feet, am I not to
believe that the Paphian swans were
amazed as they admired your breast, gleaming with whiteness, and your
limbs? But while they were astounded by the tunefulness of your voice,
smooth as milk, I could believe they were ashamed for having been
bested. Then one of them asked, “This one, which divine Venus or winged
Cupid is eager to have among their pets, whence has this newcomer come
to our waters? Is this a swan of the Cayster or of the Thames?” To him gentle Cupid
responded, sweetly smiling with his mouth, “This swan comes from
Thule’s shore, where birdlike Jupiter said to have hidden, when he
artfully deceived Tyndarus’ girl. Now, while
with the Muse’s aid I contrive loves in this heart of mine, he is often
pleased to clap with his feathers. He sings his ardors, with my mouth.
I granted him to sing with my voice of the wounds I have inflicted.
I summon you to court, Jonson, come. I am present to
haul you before Phoebus’ bar on a charge of battery and plunder, as the
choir of the nine goddess sits in the gallery. For certain clever plays
which Plautus, that most hilarious of poets, lately wrote in Elysium’s
rosy shade, and put on for the gods in heaven’s star-spangled theater
to rouse the supernals’ ready giggles and make sober Jove laugh, as
either pole resounded with their applause, these you have filched while
the supernals were about their business, and now you’re trying to sell
them. I summon you to court, Jonson, come.
Lo the
father and king himself, Phoebus, rises to speak on your behalf,
Jonson, and openly testifies that these are seriously your plays, and
that you have written not only with his knowledge, but with his help.
So where did Plautus get his hands on them and exhibit them to Jove and
the gods? Lo, Maia’s daughter, the winged grandson of Atlas, with his swift feet and sticky fingers, that
flying boy, sly at committing all manner of playful thefts, as once for a joke he relieved Love of his
torches and quiver, thus lately (as he is often wont to play, cheer,
and joke with you) stole from you these neglected papers and bade them
accompany him to heaven. Now, overcome by embarrassment, I hold my
tongue: you win, Jonson, with Phoebus both your judge and your advocate.
Tell me, Sylvester, most cultivated tongue of the
divine Sallustius (as if the tongue of the Clarian god), in what part of Elysium’s ridge the old
man met you and taught you his sense and his words? Or, the hero’s
bodily bonds released, did his soul make you an Elysium for itself? I
for my part think so, and the old Samian’s teachings are proven. You sing things natural,
not translated. Indeed, should your title page fall silent, posterity
would doubt whether you or he were the translator.
You t have read my trash, Meres, and perhaps to have
purified my trifles somewhat? And yet not to have placed me, the least
of poets, if anybody, in your lowest category? Now I win the palm and
reward of my effort, given up as lost, as I seem not to have displeased
you. I should dare demand a triumphal chariot; come, laurel garlands,
surround my hair, since he who is approved by Phoebus and the Muses
approves of me, and deems these temples worthy of the laurel. Why
should I care about the rabble’s muttered opinions, when the patricians
and the consul himself give their approval?
While your Cardinal was aspiring, Apollo sighed and
said, “Daphne will give her wreath to this man, not to me.” And while
he was triumphing, your cheering victorious Muse, proud with the trophy
of praises, shouted “io triumph!” And then, while he was dying, your
Muse greedily swindled Libitina, so that she
stole the enduring centuries for herself.
He who was once an abyss for consuming the better
sort of wine, a murderer of goblets, a daily fever of casks, the ranter
most pointed at throughout the city, he who imagines God is an empty
word, have you heard? He has lost all his charm, Harry. Shut up in
jail, he ceases to be flighty.
When he was at liberty, he used write much “with
bound foot,” and much freely. Thrown in jail, he now has begun to write
and say everything with a bound foot.
May the kindly gods free you from fetters and prison,
Leporinus — and in their stead give you a well-deserved gallows.
Cromius added a codicil making Doctor Opheltes an
heir; don’t you think, Maret, that Cromius wants to die?
Salius sends me flowers with many a poem. Hurrah,
Muse, convey my thanks. In the sending, he showed consideration for two
of my bodily parts: the flowers are for my nose, and the verses are for
my ass.
You complain that poets are commonly held in scorn
and are cheap, because many poems cost nothing. But whoever has bought
your books for a groat thinks these paltry poems have cost him dear.
Indeed, Balbulus, whoever has purchased them gratis is unable to resell
them at the same price.
While a wolf and a tender lamb sat together at table
and the dinner-guests clustered round, why didn’t the wolf savage the
lamb with his mouth? He feared you, Matho, the dog standing by.
You wonder why I send no epigrams to Bomius? He
doesn’t want to buy them, I don’t want to give away my words.
To sell yourself to a thief as an advocate, Paetus,
this is not advocacy, but badvocacy.
If Hymen has conjoined a wedded couple under Juno’s
happy auspices, whom equality has united with a single yoke, for whom
there is one home, one bed, one table, and a single mind, single
fidelity, and single love, Hymen has wedded you two under Juno’s happy
auspices, equality has united you with a single yoke, you for whom
there is no home, scarcely any bed or table, no common mind, no
fidelity, nor any love.
Balbus is pondering a couplet on Cupid the boy; but
before the couplet is born, he has grown to manhood.
You claim that nobody dies poorer than he was born.
This, Lycus, is solemn nonsense in your mouth. Nobody leaves this world
more naked than he entered it, no matter how bright the sky under which
his limbs fail him. By this logic, Lycus, you defend and cherish
poverty, hunger and thirst as your own. But you are very wrong. For, by
God, you will die a hundred pounds the poorer, and; you will exit the
world more naked than you came into it, denuded of your two ears.
You call me prudent, Paetus, because I say little.
Therefore, Paetus, by your own admission you’re a fool.
You say, Oblymus, that the sons you are rearing are
your own; and so they are, for you know what man has given you each one.
A virago of repute not very good and upstanding, but
of evil appearance, of a countenance not very good and upstanding, but
of a character of ill grace, wanton Audria, married Pombus, a wife
worthy of no other man for a husband, and he in turn was a husband
worthy of no other wife. Cerberus would scarce want her for a consort,
Tisiphone could hardly bear him as a husband.
If the essence of companionship is to want or shun the same thing, who
could deny Andria and her darling Pombus are turtledoves of Venus, that
he is a Brutus and she truly a Portia? They want and shun the same
things. Pombus wishes never to have laid eyes on her, Audria wants the
same; Pombus does not wish ever to see her again, Audria has the same
desire.
I used to wonder, dandy, how, since you possess no
mirror, no speck of crystal, nor even a shadow of glass, how you could
so constantly preen your neatly curled locks, and comb their coils with
such art. Now I understand: for whenever you comb your locks and
tresses, you hold them before your eyes in your hands.
Your wallet is safe from a thieving hand, my one-eyed
friend: three eyes always keep vigil over it.
Showing off the golden apple, Venus said to the
Thunderer, “This is mine — behold, Paris gave it to me.” Pallas
interrupted, “Why are you swollen with pride, you hussy? Paris didn’t
give you that yellow apple. Helen did.”
Wealthy Photinus set a dinner, to which, while
through the mouth of his messenger-boy he summoned his friends from
here and there, he thought it would be a crime not to invite me, and I
thought it would be a crime not to come. Therefore, lest I turn up
empty-handed (which would be impolite), or without a gift or
contribution to the feast, I sent ahead my boy with some purchased
Falernian to add some cheer to the food. I
showed myself to be mindful of the occasion, I showed myself to be a
man of my word, arriving with due promptitude at the appointed hour.
Each man quickly took his place, as bidden, and we sat down, nine
guests, and our host made the tenth. Here, as each of us hungrily
expected the opulence of Apicius’ kitchen,
and awaited Persian luxury, he received — nor do I lie (I cite the
testimony of this gullet of mine, which unhappily remembers) a slice (o
the crime!) from a single shoulder of mutton. Nor did he serve my wine.
Our unoccupied company rose in dismay, more famished than when we sat
down. And in the future, you Photinian feast, spare me, and farewell to
you, Photinus. I shall dine at home more cheaply than I can starve at
your house, you miser.
I used marvel at the bull that transported Europa,
and thought this monster existed only in Jove’s thefts. Lo, I recently
saw a greater monstrosity in the city of Calais: there they are wont to
transport Europe’s bulls.
Come, citizens, defer to your bull. For you bear
straw on your horns, he bears gold.
Your bull strives to submit his neck to our yoke, and
if he could, if his wide horns did not prevent.
So that your genius might maintain its silence, your
face proclaims that you are poet, your brow shouts that you are a bard,
Avitus. Enough. Your beard, divided in two down where your heart beats,
has the two-horned shape of Parnassus. And
whatever your mouth sprays forth with its gaping yawn is said to be the
water of Aganippe. And, showering light from
his shining locks, Apollo planted his golden sun in your nose.
How well your morals agree with your face, Sordula!
You are unseemly of face and unseemly in morals.
Bromus the wine-seller so admires my Drake,
seeks it out, kisses it, waxes ardent, that he swears nought more terse
or elegant, nothing more refined or polished has existed in the English
tongue since the birth of the Muses, of you only except those two
Vergils, Spenser and the genius of Daniel. Forbear to pour out such praises, for in order
to please the general public my books do not require berries of your
ivy, but rather beakers of your Bacchus.
On her deathbed, your wife struck you in the breast
with this hard ramlike blow. Yet in life she struck you harder in the
forehead with a ram.
Who invites you to dinner, Murcus, will certainly set
an elegant table: for he will assuredly have a wolf — and a fat boar.
Because with his swarthy face he did not resemble his
fair mother, Clytia denied he was her son. But who would believe this?
Yet who would not believe her, if she denied he was sired by her
husband?
When you had only three teeth, Grundianus, you vast
abyss of dinners, and one of them ached badly, eaten by caries and rot,
because of your monstrous appetite you had a reputation as a wolfer
with that single mouth of yours. And soon Mateus the barber extracted
that one, hollow, dead, scarce fit for chewing mushrooms. Now neither a
swift coney’s foot, nor a thrush’s wing, nor the fin of a perch keeps
them save from your glutton’s jaws. With the strength of only two teeth
you can disjoint for the devouring huge hams and adore the chickens
lately forbidden you, and suckling pigs snatched from the breast of
their muddy mother, and (unspeakable!) the trusty guardians of the
Capitoline, and two chicks with their
fat mother. If a pair of sound, sturdy teeth have granted you this, I
wish you’d revert to the erstwhile wolf. There’s nobody, Grundianus,
who would not prefer and tolerate you as a wolf than as a two-toothed
sheep.
Saturn’s golden age has returned; I recently
perceived this, Olaus, looking at your nose.
You often reproach me for the blemish of a ruined
eye, Leporinus, and that in my misery I cannot see well. But, to be
brief, since both your ears are sound, Leporinus, tell me why you
cannot hear well.
Why, jealous man, why do you babble that this poet is
missing an eye? Hold your tongue, or in your yapping you will unhappily
perceive that he is not missing a tooth.
You scurvy buffoon, what trouble does my wretched eye
of mine, this non-eye, cause you, you frenzy of seven ranters, you
putrid latrine of pestilences, wormy dead dog, cancer of the nose,
stinking sewer of wit, abyss of tasteless jests, you greedy gobbling
glutton? For from all the crossroads, avenues, alleys and streetcorners
in the world he sweeps up and scrapes together his infamous jokes, just
as Ruffa gets her meals from graveyard tombs.
Indeed, ten, twenty times a day he flits through theaters, crossroads,
brothels, jails, together with taverns and barbershops, and whatever of
pestilence there may be anywhere, whether of hemlock or venomous wit,
he gathers and licks up, drinks down and swallows, so he may spew them
in other men’s laps, as the nereid worm, hurt by a fish-hook,
straightway vomits up its guts, its poisonous secretion.
So whenever
anything, from any source, of lurid pus, icy phlegm, diseased mucus,
toxic dregs, rancid stale wine, or nasty spittle comes flowing into
this accursed sewer (as every river flows into the bosom of Amphitrite
— what could be more natural?), come a-running bearing aid, all you to
whom Prosperity is beloved and Salvation dear, so that this unclean
world may be cleansed by a single expiatory sacrifice, and purity may
reign everywhere, and that this offscouring may be consecrated as an
offering to Sterculius the god and the goddess Cloacina.
A certain man (but one who deems himself witty and
urbane, and born to hurl bon mots of refined taste) proclaimed
me alone greater than great Homer, basely mocking Homer and myself. For
I am deprived of one eye, while Homer lacked both. Hence, presumably, I
am the greater and Homer my inferior. But in this regard Homer is my
superior, and often I curse this wretched eye, and pray, “O make me a
blind Homer, Phoebus, so I don’t have to look at your face, vain
jackanapes.” For whoever takes a good squint at this dregs, it is best
for him to be deprived of both eyes.
Balbus, read your poetry to yourself in silence, keep
it silent for our benefit: thus, Balbus, you can please both yourself
and us.
The father of the Latin race, born of a goddess,
himself bore on his shoulders his ancient father, and never did a man lift a dearer weight.
Avitus, father of a thousand bastards, and son of one himself, carries
his father on his shoulders, and never did a man lift a more welcome
weight. So now you ask how Avitus differs from Aeneas? The one carried
a living old man, the other carries a dead one.
Martinus the trickster sprays odors from his mouth,
the seed of ginger, cinnamon, frankincense, saffron. Name the grains
you choose, he sprays them out. This is not a mouth, it’s a bowl of
vinegar. Likewise, if he touches a tooth with dry thumb, he yanks it
out — would, Atilla, that he touches your tongue!
There is a certain member of the versifying flock,
whom I do not wish to name (You, clever Fabrianus, can guess whom I
mean), who pesters me with frequent entreaties, and begs that he might
live in my poems. So shouldn’t others promise him enduring fame, rather
than me, whose poems cannot achieve this for themselves? But if he has
such a desire to be in the mouths of our descendants, and to be read of
in poets’ verses, as far as I am concerned he may bother the Davises,
injure the Jonsons, and slander savage Nashe.
Scarce otherwise might he aspire to fame in poetry, scarce otherwise
has he deserved to be sung about.
Is he sane, who writes for far posterity? The letter
will never be delivered, Bardus, hold your silence.
Do you perhaps imagine, Candidus, that Corvinus, clad
in the skins of an unoffending animal and in wool, is a sheep. He is a
wolf, and a waylayer of the sheepfold, for whom the shepherd and his
flock will be prey. He gobbles up wooly sheep, and the masters of
sheep, rending their skin and flesh and devouring their bones, while by
means of usury this coinivore stores everything in his cash box, and
this voracious abyss gulps down all manner of wealth. O hand worthy of
Porsenna’s fire-belching oven, who fleeces
the sheep to dress the wolf!
You call Avitus “more than half your life.” Rightly,
for he is thought to be your father.
Collymus, you have three gods in your body. What a
divine man you are, Collymus, I’ll offer you incense! As Mercury, you
attack with your hands, and, as Love, with your eyes, and you will
become youthful Lyaaeus, with horns
on his brow.
There’s
something which each man desires to possess, but the half of this thing
is always created to destroy the whole.
100, 5, 10; insert the madness of a dog, Harpalus,
and express what the Fates have in store for you.
When Arnus was making love-talk to his Afella,
instead of calling her his other half he happened to call her his calf.
You, Afella, should pay tit for tat, and call him your bullock, so as
to escape an accusation of forbidden intercourse.
All the verses you write (and who can wonder,
Obelius?) reel along lamely on unstable feet. Tell me how your verses
can run on sound feet, since you can barely stand up when you write
them?
You are seized in your feet, but you seize and snatch
at everything with your hands — beware lest you be seized by your neck.
While you are reciting, Picus, I can’t hear enough
your verse, nor can I praise them or enough, or approve of them less.
Now, spirited Gager, doff your Sophoclean
buskins. Now, Latewar, abandon
your Daphne. Now I bid farewell to Laurence, and to Storer’s Muse. All of you cede the victor his laurel wreath. I
marvel at you Picus. Enough. You say it’s nothing. But bravo, I’m
stupefied. At what? At you, who in my view are so stupid.
Lycus pronounces that poetry is “a restful good
thing,” though he himself scarcely understands dactyls. He knows Ovid’s
dictum on poetry, “it is a virtue to abstain from restful good things.”
Why not seek out the Cittern School, o youth
for whom your Cytherea has made a
name, the school which Holborne, adroit at teaching, a master of the
lyric art, has opened for you? And you, boy, who still wears the look
of the youthful, smooth-cheeked, beardless lads, and you whose swifter,
loftier chariot has attained the roads of manhood, why not seek out the
Cittern School, o youth? And you too, o bittersweet bevy who
have just now dedicated your dolls to Venus, you maidenly chorus, why
not seek out Cittern School, o youth? Why draw back your timid
feet, you sweet little boys and girls? Here no hairy Master Orbilius sits, fearful for his gloomy expression, but
much more fearful for his rod, as he wields the stick with a menacing
hand, o Jupiter, a dire and evil stick, which with its mighty blow
savagely rends tender skin and draws blood; why not seek out the Cittern
School, o youth? Here no golden rod repels you, but the liquid
honey attracts you. For here there is no stick, save that which
caresses the sonorous cittern’s strings. And here there are no blows,
save those which strike the harmonious cittern’s strings. And here
there are no murmurs, save those which the sounds of the noble
cittern emits. Why not seek out the Cittern School, o youth?
You whose heart is scourged with seething grief, wasting away with
anxious sorrow, if your care is to tame the oppressive passion of a
heart that ebbs and flows, why not seek
out the Cittern School, o youth?
But you,
Holborne, who attracts the Graces, the Dicae, and the Horae with your
seductive quill, of a musician of the melodious lute, you will win the
prize of a blooming garland. If perchance deaf Cerberus should bark at
you with his triple-jawed grin, with the power of your harmony you will
break the fierce dog’s wretched teeth in his tooth-breaking mouth.
But you to
whom the musical juice is delightsome, why not seek out the Cittern
School, o youth?
It is nothing, Balbulus, that you write frigid
epigrams: Mulciber can easily warm them up.
Hanging Hatlowe puts a strain on the gallows he built
with his own hands and his own effort. The unfortunate man learned,
although too late, and demonstrated, that every man makes his own
fortune.
O ill done, a bad deed, Phoebus! After this, will you
be called helper of the world, father of the Epidauran snake, mighty with herbs and mighty at healing, father
of poets and also their patron, savior and father, author and
protector, champion of the chorus of nine, mighty at verse, mighty at
song? After this, will you be called the eye of the world, the ruler of
light, ruler of the day, mighty in illumination, mighty in sight? Lo,
you allow your bard Moriscus, you allow Moriscus your poet, since a
dire disease fell upon him and afflicted his ruling brain, to be
deprived of his eyes, the wretch? O ill done, a bad deed, Phoebus! Thus
you a bard, allow a bard to go to ruin? Thus you, a physician, refuse a
sufferer medicine? Thus you heal eyes, you eye of the world? But how
much better and more fitting it would have been, patron of the Clarian
crew, to spare his most wretched eyes, and
rather to have ruined that idle tongue that spews forth poisons from
his foul jaws! But if you wish to spare his tongue, Apollo, a battering
ram that knows not how to spare any man, ah, how much better it would
have been to deprive of him of his life as well as his sight! O well
done and bravely, Phoebus!
You win everybody’s vote with your writings, you are
you helpful and you give pleasure. For, Balbus, you help the pepper,
and please yourself.
Charisinus has accomplished a work which no consuming
old age, no later posterity will ever destroy. For what can posterity,
what old age can do to a work which will perish on the day it was
written?
You send me floral gifts, your love and this flower
with the beauty of the Clarian god, evidence of
your fair good disposition toward me. Accept this paper present in
exchange for you gifts, but for your fair disposition receive my fair
faith.
How well these lilies agree with sincere affection,
these lilies which sincere affection sends! The lilies and the
affection signify royal honors, the royal
lilies are white, the affection is candid. Lilies and affection both
exude pleasant odors, the sweet lilies flower, as does the affection.
Fair lilies adorn the hand, affection adorns loyal minds. The lilies
blossom, the affection blossoms. Lilies are welcome to the goddess
Flora, and affections to the high Thunderer. Lilies grow, and so does
affection. In other ways too, lilies agree with sincere affection, but
they differ in this — lilies die, affection endures.
I send you florid poems along with metrical gifts,
both sprung from my unkempt garden. The one are soaked with rosewater,
but not a drop of Clarian water dampens the other. Are you curious why
this paper embraces the snow-white flower? The paper and the flower
seek the embrace of your friendship.
Lo, a poem with this flower, a loyal mind with this
poem, my faith with this mind, and whatever I may be.
Come hither, scazon, you honeyed manner of meter,
sweetly limping iambic poem, in which the Muse of the great Matius once
gave neat and natty mimiambi (as Maurus’ Muse once brought forth). Come hither, scazon, quickly on hasty feet if
the soft little hand of the great poet takes delight in the mulsified
and the modernized, quickly on hasty foot seek out my Michelborne’s
pretty little, pleasant little chamberlet, and bring him this plaited
garland, beauty (as befits) for the bashful-beauteous. Go thither,
scazon, quickly on hasty foot. Why do you stand there, silly? Why make
delay, lazy? Why flush your cheeks with girlish bashfulness? Why stay
your step, over and over? Depart in whatever condition you may be, I’ll
keep the garland, and you give him these flowers with the Graces’
blossom. He’ll plant a hundred hundred kisslets on your half-shut lips,
a thousand thousand kisslets, nor often take the bouquet from his nose,
attracted by your nosegay’s lively odor, as at the same time he brings
you to his lips, touched by sweet affection for his Charles. So you may
be blessed by this happy lot the sooner, depart, scazon, quickly on
hasty foot.
Are you surprised to see different kinds of flower
growing from one stem, uncertain whether you have a work of art or of
nature? Are you surprised at this poem, created behind Apollo’s back,
which has nothing either of art or of nature? I shall explain the
ancestry of the poem and the flower — the flower is a piece of art, the
poem the work of an artless man.
You think nothing more thrilling than Maurus’ poem,
Aulus. Nothing is more chilling, Aulus, than your judgment.
Whatever you write in a poem comes from the tripod,
Dollius, but Bacchus is said to have his tripod too.
You ask and complain and lament and inquire, Serenus,
why every moneylender, even the one whose cash box is bursting, give no
credit to needy poets, even the best, in the absence of pledges,
whereas he will readily give credit for up to a year, trusting
butchers, carpenters, and farmers on the strength of thin parchment and
light paper. You curiously ask and complain, Serenus. We easygoing
poets are a lying crew.
Dausus, you are wise to write of your loves in books,
for there is no sane man, other than your self, such as would love your
loves.
Why, Blateranus, do you weary, vex, bother and pester
Phoebus, Phoebus’ sisters, the Graces, Minerva, and all of the gods
everywhere (infernal, of this middle earth, and supernal) with all the
prayers and in all the ways that a deranged bard is wont to invoke
them? You don’t dare compose a single distich without summoning the
holy throng of helpful divinities. And next you bury the Muses and
Graces, named individually, under boulders of invocations, you bid them
be present as you scribble, as if you were calling your maids and
serving-girls. No wonder that a single uninvoked Muse stubbornly
continues to resist you, a Muse whom holy Numa is said to have once
introduced to the Romans, and whom antiquity called Tacita. Pray to her, Blateranus, then you will please
us.
I forgive you, Arnus, for reading my books with
furrowed brow: the fault is your wife’s, not yours.
Whatever mistake Labullus makes in his verse he
passes off as poetic license. If he errs in his syllables or
quantities, he credits this to poetic license. If he has filched
someone else’s lines, he claims this is done by poetic license. If he
commits violence on Priscian or Tully, he excuses
this as poetic licence. But hey, Labellus mine, if I call Camdens’
lovely Britannia my own Britannia,
why fly at me with your glue-stained fingers, and forbid me to unglue
something from it? Is this not poetic licencs too?
Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Ithaca, Pylos, Argos,
Athens, come put an end to your ancient
quarrels; cease your rivalries about great Homer’s homeland, your
Maeonides’ nation is now England. Behold, he is given the rights of
English citizens, and he calls our walls his city. We confess, Chapman,
that this citizenship is owning to you, and he himself is indebted to
you for the homeland he has gained. This man, to whom the Muses cannot
repay their debts, nor Apollo the augur, admits he cannot repay his
debt to you alone.
Who could teach Homer English words better than the
man who was himself England’s Homer?
Marston, glory of satire next to the first, and first
if one can reckon two firsts. If one cannot double the first, at least,
Marston, you will always be the glory next to the first. Nor should you
rue this rank, Jack. When there are only two, neither is second, and
the both are equal.
You are wealthy, Puteanus, and you carp at my books,
and you detract as much as you can from my reputation. May the gods
bring it about, o Puteanus, that what you are doing to my books I may
do to yours.
I make a counter-stipulation. Who save a man whose
frown is all-destroying will reject a cup offered by Ganymede? So come,
pour me flagons of honeyed songs, pour again, I like to grow drunk on
his wine, I who am ready to repay you with more than caskfuls. Ah,
don’t ask me for drink by the cup, but by the tun. This is going badly.
For while you are toasting me with pure nectar, I shall be obliged to
respond ineptly with undiluted water.
Why, George, do you take no pleasure, as before, in
pursuing the nourishing amenities of the countryside, which my region
supplies in abundance? Thus will the rabbit, sleeping safely on either
ear, laugh at the hounds lying idly at home? Now will the deer court
the does in security, enticing them with his wanton dance? And will the
scale-wearing schools of my Lynher, and those
who drink Rous’s Tamar, safely
sport among their deepest pools? Have our erstwhile sports entirely
disappeared, since the gods have hounded to the grave that pleasant,
gentle, fair, pretty, happy little sister of yours, whom (the wrong of
it!) a German headstone covers, as
a long sleep weighs down her eyes? But I advise you, cease your tears,
safely returned to yourself and your jokes: cease to tear your hair,
rend your face with your nails, lacerate your breast, to do injury to
your head with heavy blows of your hand, and then to kill yourself:,
you cannot call her back.
Pure Iambus, gentle and sweet, be present, swollen
with poetic frenzy, be present, but without Harpalus’ savage grins, be present, but without Thoos’ cruel teeth, nor with
bloody mouth dripping foaming venom, nor a-boil with the wicked wild
ox’s blood or marks of Lycambus’ murder, but, rather, undefiled, sweet-tempered, fair,
willing, amiable, a spotless offspring, and bashful like the one
Dousa’s Thalia is wont to bestow on his
beloved friends, those blessed folk (for thrice blessed are those whom
Dousa will bless with his affection, famous Iamb-Apollo Dousa!) Being
such, o pure Iambus, gentle and sweet, be present, and go flying to my
loving Vere’s hand. You linger, why
invent naughty delays? Do you still delay, unable to depart? Silly
thing! Don’t you know that what you add to these delays, you subtract
from your own happiness?
Among the British the first to write epigrams was a
man known by your name, More. Second to him in time (although not in
art) came a man who derived his name from a field, his genius from
Delian Apollo. I am the last of these, and I fear that, even if a
thousand come after me, nobody will usurp this title.
If you see any faults in my books, Edward (as if, I
ask, you see anything but faults in them), skipping by quickly, neglect
them, nor conceal or hide them with a protective pen. Let this file of
mine smooth books that must be revised often, for whom my face and
hands are objects of dread. But you will readily forgive your friend
everything, and nobody but yourself will read my verse. Nor would you
read them either, were my name absent: you read them for the sake of
the author, not the sake of the book.
As Mercury pretended to be you under a false guise,
aping your appearance and [ . . . ], no wonder you can’t distinguish
yourself from him. The descendant of Atlas could scarce tell himself from you. Let
ankle-wings be given to Bancroft, or let them be taken from the son of
Jove, the father himself should hardly know. Thus might he know, in
this one way might he distinguish the twins: the one has a naughtier
disposition, the other is more honest.
I sing the truth. You wild folk who imagine spirits
to be nonexistent, and the gods above to be empty names, turn your eyes
hither, for you need no half-ounce of intellect, nothing but to trust
the evidence of my eyes. On horseback Maricius hastened along a
familiar road, flanked by two friends, in the greeny plain where
Salisbury, rich with its high spire, is visible to onlookers. The
energetic Thunderer rattled heaven with a horrific thunderclap, and
hurled lively missiles with their wild brimstone. Religion overcame the
two others, they vied with each other in trying to avert the fearful
deity with their prayers. But he in the middle (for godly virtue was
not in the middle, but rather the man’s sin, wickedness, and impiety)
said “You degenerate souls, why do you cravenly fear empty murmurs,
booms, and meaningless whistles?” And he proceeded to pour forth from
his breast the natural causes and origins of thunder and lightning. Lo,
a thunderbolt hissing with a fearful roar carried off his life along
with his profane words, and a thousand bits of his mangled limbs and
body went a-flying in the void. Unharmed, the other two were amazed,
and in their terror perceived the power of fearing heaven, and of pious
prayer.
“Show me a devil, and I’ll believe in divinities,”
say you. “If I see a devil, then I’ll believe that there is a God.” O
blind and impudent soul! Just look into a mirror: when you are gazing
at yourself, do you not see a devil?
Since not only the oceanic pond, but earth, heaven,
and the household of Persephone obey you, Roman, why did you wish to be
called only the Pontifex. Bah! This title derogates from your honor! So
let proper words be attached to things, and you, Father, are the
Universal Poundifex.
The shoulders of two sufficed for holding up the
heavens, nor did the burden seem excessively great. But the shoulders
of one Roman father can scarce suffice for bearing seven weights. No
wonder: they only had to bear the weight of the heaven, the weight of
heaven, earth, and Hell load down papal necks.
He claims to be head of the whole world bids the
whole world kiss his foot. And thus he demonstrates that among the
members of this particular body the further something is away from the
head, the more important it is.
Rome is the head of the world, but all the world is
evil: thus Rome is the head of all evil.
When the affairs of so many pontiffs are attested by
witnesses, why, Rome, do you deny I was Pope?
Now most clement Rome is celebrating its jubilee, and
they let you do everything, save be pious. And this too they let you
do, for I do not say they let you do only bad things. For at Rome
heaven and the saints themselves are for let.
The wolf is known by his skin, the bear by his fur,
the lion by his claw, the fox by his deceit, the dog by his bark, the
ape by his ass, the Devil by his horned face, the monk by his hood.
There’s no place, Jesippus, more fit for a windmill,
since there’s nothing at Rome but wind and air.
Having entered a church to venerate the saints, where
the images of Christ and Holy Mary were, on his knees Arno began to
utter a Paternoster to the Mother, and an Ave Maria to the Son.
Humbly and with hat removed, I requested a certain
thing of you, a thing that is right to confess, which it is wrong to
conceal, wrong to hide. Who would think I had a grain of sense then?
You refused to tell the truth, for religion bids you be a Truth-Refuser.
It is not because you derive your lineage from a
lofty house hold and trace your ancestors back to harsh Canute; it is
not that you rattle on unspeakably and swell with pride about your
knighted uncle and your father, a degenerate, unworthy heir of both
men’s characters and estates (for both are treacherous, arrogant,
greedy, sly, and you no less); it is not that hence you vaunt yourself
to be a little gentleman, and lead about a nasty train of henchmen,
servants, and tenants (so in our barbarous tongue we call those unhappy
husbandmen who occupy the idle, lazy owner’s fields, which must be
tilled and worked at their own expense, while wretchedly they stay
awake nights, toil, endure hunger and thirst, burn and freeze, and
forego their share, both them, their wives and
brats, so as to serve some arrogant Phalaris’ belly, cram his maw, stuff his fat gut, and
protect his lard-encased belly, feed his unspeakable vices, his
depraved whores, his bumboys, his buggers, his prodigious gluttons, the
luxurious display of his greedy wife and her aimless arrogance, they
subtract from themselves, their wives and their children what these
people may spend on races, hawks, hounds, the hunt, and birds of prey,
and by their own indebtedness they subsidize the calamities of their
farm) — after this long parenthesis I return to you, Albo-Vicus, but in
this parenthesis I have not digressed from you, nor strayed one inch
from my subject; it is not that you carry a great train of such folk at
your back, who at your beck bare their heads of their little caps,
worshiping you with their faces but cursing you in their hearts (and
also in their faces, when they safely can so do); it is not that I care
about these things and a thousand similar, but because I shudder at
your scurvy face, and lest perchance I see it I must hide my eyes and
face with my hat, that I greet you with head uncovered, Albo-Vicus.
Nothing, Bubulus, could be harder to bear than your
death — for your buttocks are so huge.
That popular saw is always on your pips, “Love me,
love my dog.” It is right to admit, Aulus, that you are requesting a
just and good thing: your dog is more lovable than yourself.
“Who does not despise Bavius must love your verses,
Maevius.” Who loves you, Aulus, must adore
your dog.
Champion and avenger of my injuries (though my feeble
hands are unfit for weapons and unschooled in savage war, and do not
know how to wield a sword, they know full well how to wield a pen,
since the pen itself is a sword, paper a battlefield, Minerva is my
Bellona, and the Muse my Mars), dread Iambus, fierce scion of
Archilochus, up to now never invoked by me in vain, be present, full of
rage and swelling with wrath. For you are my Theseus and my Perseus, my
Nemesis, my weapon of steel, and, to say it all at once, you are
whatever exists of avenging gods in this world or the next. Do you know
Cacula? I’ll make the introductions: he is a scurvy fellow, consecrated
to Cerberus and Dis, compounded out of dregs, flat wine, and filth,
whom nobody endowed with a refined nose or ear could once hear or speak
of unless he were to stop his ears with wax and hold his nose, unless
he wishes to emerge with both befouled.
Lo, this
vile seaweed, this fleshified mud (do you see this dire Python,
Phoebus, and not slay it with your arrows?) is grinning and, please
gods, claims both to know something and to be something. He excites a
great aura of esteem among the vulgar and his own swine (I should have
said “his own kind,” but it little matters whether I say “swine” or
“kind,” as I am of speaking of similar things), since, having gotten
perhaps three commas and a couple of cento-phrases from Tully’s
overflowing storehouse, and a like number of gnomes, and just as much
from Terence, a half-line of Vergil’s,
and your name, Catullus (I don’t know by what ways or means), how
monstrously proud he waxes, and makes noises as if he were wise.
Further, he has scraped up odd bits of shat out rotten Latin, while
once he basely licked the sewers of Louvain with his impudent tongue,
having imitated his brother, a renegade and an apostate, a very
fraternal brother indeed, save that the other is half-educated and he
unschooled, the other worships God falsely, and he worships no god at
all. So, relying on these things, he applauds and is pleased with
himself, caring not a fig for anyone else. Greatly triumphing,
boasting, he fawns on the Fates and the stars, and on his fortune, so
very favorable (it always favors such), because he had been put on
trial for extortion yet came way with both his ears intact. But his
modest destiny spared him, knowing in advance that he owes both his
ears and his life to the gallows.
But here,
Iambus, you must make your ending, lest while you brood on avenging my
injuries, the hangman seize you, because you are urging Cacula to be
his own hangman.
Both hands lifted heavenward, Crassus once extolled
eloquence to the stars, so at the same time he might extol himself. Thus Stephen endows donkeys with divine honor,
so that the common folk might imagine he has deserved heaven.
Not without reason, Stephen the Dull thus extols
donkeys and his kindred herd to the stars. Doubtless he has learned
this divine maxim, know thyself : he knows that he has first place in this choir.
As mule scratches mule, thus donkey scratches donkey, dogs often kiss
each other’s asses. But if you have any sense, Stephen, have a regard
for yourself, you fool: prodigal in your praises, do not cheat yourself
of yours. Disgusted with yourself, are you trying to remove your vain
self, you who endlessly praise these beasts of Arcady? Or, because
Silenus’ donkey yielded to its destiny, do you
desire to repeat his experience? Again I warn you, think of yourself.
Often we see a eulogist repent of his praise. don’t you see that heaven
envies every fair thing on earth, and always snatches it up to the
stars? Here a kidnapped zoo of snakes, twin bears, a dog, a Hydra, and
lions swell the starry choruses. Since the earth denies it has a
similar donkey, you too must be on your guard lest you be snatched
unawares. But why am I warning a man who is already aware? For, lest
people admit he’s a donkey, he foresightfully destines his ears for the
poles.
If your fortune was ever just to you, Stephen, in
proportion to your deserts, you would not look like a long-eared beast.
That I might flatter you with little words and
wordlets, tiny Tripp, Tripplet, Tripp, sweet diminutive words, as is
fitting for a sweet diminutive man, I call you my kisslet, my
smoochlet, my little consolation, my tiny tastelet, my wee dream and my
marrow, my heartlet, my eyelet, my minimal Mercury, my cute little
Cupid, my pretty little lip.
But, tiny
Tripp, Tripplet, while I flatter you with sweet diminutives, as fitting
for a sweet diminutive man, my words grow longer by their diminution,
but you appear to me to be shrinking, for which reason I should break
off quickly, lest my diminutives diminish you.
Sweet pair of sincere friends, my Edward and my
Harry, nature, or a single horoscope or time, did not give you
simultaneous birth, but a single virtue, a single ardor of the mind,
and love has brought you together as twins. But if those twins whom
Leda once bore to swanlike Jove were in the world, or (as someday
destiny will make it be) you were in the high stars, you would not be
lesser than Pollux, Sheward, nor you, Vernon, less than Castor, nor
could anyone tell you apart. But since you are all but twins, with
twinlike affection, minds, and loyalty, save that your days often shine
on you apart, you are always and everywhere the same.
Come, Vere. What is this delay (what an evil)? Or
should you have any long journey to your Charles? Come, Vere. Lo, a new
vernal season has come, the beats, the generations of birds, and the
crops feel the god to be present with his divine spirit. But if my Vere
does not come to me bringing a new vernal season, a severe winter comes
in the midst of the springtime. What’s the delay? Behold bright
Jupiter’s soul is serene in the sky, the rainy South wind’s wrath does
into rage, nor does his anger bend Iris’ many-hued bow, but rather the
rain has closed his dart-filled quiver. So come. A thousand jokes, a
thousand laughs, a thousand embraces, a thousand kisses await you. For
unless I get an abundance of the right I am seeking, and not quickly
gain the enjoyment of our friendship with my eyes, never again will you
have the enjoyment of me, Vere. Or will it be Vere by whom I am thus
treated so falsely?
If anything thus far has displeased you (at whose
service alone is my page), now, Edward it pleases you: most pleasing is
he who makes no beginning, next most pleasing he is who quickest
concludes what will not please. Thus I hope my works please you and
others, as they were unable to please me, save by their ending.