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JOHN STRADLING’S EPIGRAMS
BOOK TWO
Why
are you afraid to go abroad, dear book? Do you dread the censure of
troublesome men, whose habit is to be envious, whose livers are
eroded by black bile, who idly condemn hendecasyllables and evilly
rail at sweet poets? Forget them. Go, seek out friendly companions
who smile with easier countenance, and take pleasure in delicate
hendecasyllables. If these fellows take you to their snowy bosoms and
happily wear you out with constant handling, pour forth whatever
witticisms you contain, and while you rouse their light laughter you
will go everywhere in safety, and, with them your patrons, you may
scorn the frown of the more severe.
If I
have not poured forth epigrams of the sort that delight you, this is
not the fault of my intention, but of my wit. If you should say that
my epigrams are of the sort that give delight, an indication is in
them, if not of my judgment, yet of my affection.
Whatever
it is, Balbus promises to write something. Balbus, this something of
yours is deemed to be a nothing.
Would
it not be a wonder if this annus mirabilis 
were to pass with nothing miraculous occurring in all the world?
Truly this is a miraculous year for the English race, for this has
been the greatest wonder in the world. Kings have been compelled to
invade our solitary queen, and she, alone and unarmed, has routed
them in their coalition.
The
city of Priam, long shaken, his tottering realm, and the unhappy man
himself were bait for his foes. For the gods and goddesses divided
into parties, this one was friendly to the Trojans, that one
unfriendly. With united will all the gods have fought for you, and
God Himself, Who uniquely governs the gods.
Since
the cause is the same, why is not the success not also the same for
ourselves and our enemies? There is one goal for both. He, led by an
evil greed for revenge and spoils, joined his scepters in hope with
English scepters. Our men too were carried along by revenge and
plundering, both sinned, and God punished both sinners. We must not
trust overmuch in our strength. Not arms, but a good cause makes a
leader.
With
your precepts you imbue the prince’s mind. With these the prince of
this world * had previously imbued you.
* - The Devil.
Raging
with a hateful murmur, Newport, the nymph Severn shouts at you, and,
hostile to the nearby land, with a belch violently spews troublesome
sands. With equal misfortune the neighborhood feels the injury, but
the river blames as the reason your little spring, which, tracing the
shore, the maiden summons to an embrace. Summoned, he hides in a cave
and resists her. For both swell with an ebb and a flow in constant
motion, but in an order unalike. The nymph flows nearer, the spring
recedes. She ebbs, he returns. Thus there is a grudge between them,
and a constant strife.
One
may speak of things wonderful yet true: as in war force is repelled
by force thanks to stratagem, thus water is tamed by water. The water
of the sea disgorges silty sand on the shore, with which pastures,
meadows, churches, and houses abound. The sands stretch to the outer
reaches of your estate, and here they threaten ruin to your fields.
Behold your novel strategy! Waters caught up by a wheel from the
neighboring river are thrown up heavenwards. And when enough thus
collects in a pool, and rushes impetuously through a sluice, it is a
wonderful thing and laughable to see, how the sand is agitated by the
rapid currents. The stream constantly foams yellow with sands, and
the sea which belches them forth is soon burdened with them. Thus the
local crossroads stand safe thanks to your effort, and this hamlet,
lately yellow, shines renewed.
Do you
admire this huge work, the rival of a previous age? Do you mark the
marble, ivory, noble gems, gold most precious, and the angels, putti,
birds and beasts of shining brass? Then do you ask of
what god this is the shrine, gleaming with statuary on all sides? You
are mistaken, you are looking at a sepulcher, not a shrine.
Underneath lies hidden a stinking corpse, bones, the leavings of
worms, ash, and a horrid chill. Mausolus is not here, nor did noble
Queen Artemisia give it to her king. Rather, a nobody, whoever he may
be, is enclosed within, his race and kin unknown. Oh would you deem
it worthy that he may be unknown forever, who would wish to become
known in this way!
On the verge of death, my ailing
neighbor Hopkins walked into the tavern, where he had been a familiar
for all of thirty years. He took a seat, gloomier than was his wont
before. Neither beer, nor ale mixed or pure, or fine wine soothed him.
The guests and boon companions present inquired if he wished the doctor
to be fetched. He sighed, and answered “I am dying.”
But
he bade his single son be summoned, whom he sweetly and intimately
cherished. The father took his dear son by the hand. With a word
(eleven witnesses having been summoned) he made him heir of all his
goods. He gave him his brass and silver, he endowed him with his goods
of earthenware and wood. Furthermore, he added his manor and fields,
his herds of swine and kidlings. Thus the boy was made his sole and
only heir.
Then
with these words he instructed the youth: “Let your dress, habit and
diet (mark this) not be too costly. In health, drink ale, and it will
please you. In sickness, drink ale, and it will help you. Drink it when
full, it will do you no harm. If you are hungry, it will fill you up.
Drink it naked, it will serve as a garment. If you have a fever, it
will beat back the heat. On the other hand, should you take a chill, it
will warm you up. Thus, eager to obey your father’s testament, drink
ale in plenty, that noble glory of Derbyshire. Be mindful of this
precept, my son. On his deathbed my father enjoined this on me, and I
have adhered to it up to the point of death. Nor did death prevail, up
to the time I wholly neglected to heed my father’s commandments.”
Hopkins
and Mascalus, both amply endowed nasallyu are contesting which one
has the richer nose. This one’s is more swollen, that one’s more
shiny; he has a more handsome one, but the other a bigger. The one
abounds with jewels, the other with mushrooms. This contention is
simple for an experienced judge, who knows that jewels are costlier
than all mushrooms.
Are
you hiding, sad hendecasyllables? Whither have you fled, you
five-foot measures, you phaleucians, and you gloomier meters?
Anxiously hasten hither, hither, with retrograde step, you of
sluggish feet, fly together as a band, more numerous than is your
wont. Alas, pour forth what you have ever produced fit for the deaths
of the blessed. Let a thousand rivers of tears be given, let
rain-storms fall from your swollen eyes, often through ten continual
years. Woe is me! A woman, a goddess of women, a wife who was the
bulwark and hope of her husband, the only mother of her only son, the
sister of her darling of a sister, Anne, the eternal glory of her
Strouds, and the object of longing for her Stradlings, this very
woman, this goddess of women, woe is me, she has perished and crossed
over there, whence she knows not how to return. In comparison to her
Venus was unlovely, t the Graces were no more comely than her. Modesty
herself no more modest, nor the god of love more amiable. She
cherished me in her heart, yet in mine I adored her more. When
present, she blessed my eyes; in her absence my wretched eyes grew
red. Thus, oh you eyes and sad heart, melt with this longing. Hence,
go hence, jokes, japes, song, verses, laughs, and giggles, for
eternal tears, plaints and sorrows befit you more, until through ten
full years you have bemoaned my darling and yours with your wretched
howl. Let these be consolations for me and for you, to weep for your
delight and for mine.
When
you cough, as often you do, Balbus, a stench comes your mouth such as
usually arises from gastric ructions. Therefore you never cough but
that at the same a belching noise issues from your gut, and you do
that advisedly with a misleading intention. For when everybody hears
the noise and smells the stink, they imagine this is the fault of
your ass alone.
While
I see you, Mopsa, waxing over-proud and scorning the other girls, a
slattern disdaining the fair, a wanton despising the chaste, as you
scorn I wish to learn the reason. No doubt two little suitors are
courting you, and you are pregnant by the both of them. This is a
fine reason for waxing proud! Now I do not wonder, Mopsa, that you
are proud and count the girls for nothing. You are a puffed-up whore,
you are not a girl.
Gellia
laments that she has lost her reputation by a single slip. But how
could she lose what she never had?
I do
not care to learn what mere tricks a meretricious girl possesses. For a
joke involving a meretricious girl is merely truculent.
He who
grows wise late gives the appearance of having been wise all along. I
think that to have thus been wise is merely to have been foolish.
A sad
concern gripped pregnant Gallia, not to know her offspring’s destiny.
All the geomancers, the hydromancer, the haruspex, the augur, the
soothsayer, the prophetic wizard, the enchanters, the diviners,
the chiromancers were compelled to tell the fate of the child to be
born. All were confounded, and only knew to say this: a daughter will
be born, leave the rest to God. Galla grew proud, and believed of her
seed would be born a semi-divine human, a semi-human goddess. Her
handmaids clustered about her, and one, more learned than the rest,
said “The daughter will be very like her mother. A bastard will be
born to a whore, and (unless my art deceives me) the daughter will
make her living as does her mother.”
Lately
Balbus wrote some little verses. Save by his verses, he could not
show himself to be incompetent.
Gellius is
wealthy, he possesses gold, cattle, and flocks, purple garments, a
grand homestead, and a handsome wife, but he does not think she is
chaste. But she deems his sternness a torment. Discard this
sternness, it is blind madness to be swept along by transitory,
happenstance goods. Discard your fear and your heavy concern. Why
must your wife’s error torture you? If your wife sins, let her pay
the penalty.
Very
insolently, Curius shows off his wealth. He enumerates his manors,
vineyards, orchards, fields, horses, cattle, sheep, and kidlings, his
servants, to whom he adds his retainers. He boasts that they are
countless, although they are few. Therefore he is said to be blessed,
and thus he believes. You poor creature, who finds the blessed life
in these things! He is blessed whose lot does not displease him, does
not covet the goods others, and makes good use of his own. How far
from blessedness are you? As far as is a wretch.
What
fencer who was present yesterday in the circle did not laugh at you
in your defeat, Hornus, cordially loathing your art? This skilled
master of the art made his appearance, a fencing master among the
untrained students. His head was bared, and his breast was naked, he
wore a drooping loincloth and his boots were fallen down to his very
feet. He began to play a game with a stick.
Tarlton was
not his equal in action, movement, or gesticulation. He demonstrated by
what
arts a man might defend himself and threaten
another. “Now let him attack the head, then aim at the legs, now with
oblique strokes, then with corkscrewing ones. Let him present his
side — thus — then turn about — thus; let him stand now upright,
now bent over. Then let him suddenly gather himself into a spin.”
Shape-shifting
Proteus himself
did not know as many postures as this fencer assumed. Then he
threatened death
to all and sundry, a fracture of head or legs.
Everybody dreaded the vaunting fencing-master, they praised the
fencing-master’s skill, the each paid the fencing-master a fee, they
craved to be instructed in the fencing-master’s art. A rustic
arrived, ignorant of this art but accustomed to steer his cart,
skilled at the whipping of his horses, and knowledgeable at playing
about with his cudgels. He challenged Hornus and put his art to the
test, he strove to conquer by his strength. Now he lashed on this
side, now he increased his strokes on that, he pressed harder and
thumped more vigorously. Hornus’ legs, sides, and head were swollen.
He yielded, Hornus was driven from the circle. The conquered man was
ashamed of his art and talent. Then he swore that it seemed to him
better to learn the art of cudgelling.
You
never dine at home, Largus, without having many guests. I have often
heard this from your mouth. I complain, as do all my friends and boon
companions, that you do not invite me sometimes, or them. For you
have often been at my house, and at theirs, as an unwelcome guest, so
why is no friend of mine every among your guests. I imagine this is
the reason, that you are a man of charity, and you do not give to
those who have given to you. Am I wrong? Or do you deceive the naive
by a fallacious sophistry, Largus, and never dine at home?
You
say that what I have written are not epigrams. You are ignorant. For
I know that you can scarce write a gram.
A
certain man published various elegies and many epigrams, the
bookseller barely sold ten. In vain the printer complains. Bah, poet,
henceforth learn to write shorter stuff, or better.
With
envy you rail at all the poets, Battus. The reason is that no poet
envies you. But you should yourself write poems such as the others
would envy, then you would not be envious of the others.
Salt
prevents everything from being insipid, and, Balbus, your head is
insipient. Add salt, so your head may be sapient.
Since
Pollio sells me foul smoke, * it is reasonable that he put a price on
my coals.
- Tobacco.
The
reason you weep for your dead husband, Gallia, is that you fear you
won’t get another.
What
if my epigrams do not please you, Balbus? I have written for others,
I’ve written no epigram for you. What I have written against you, if
these should happen to please others, they will purvey more pleasure
to the extent they displease you.
Love
conquers all. You alone, Hermo, can be seized by no love, being
chaste. You love yourself, Hermo, whom everybody loathes. Therefore
this saying is true, love conquers all.
You
want me to give you my books gratis, Crassus, and if they please you
when you have read them, perhaps you’ll give me one. Pay me first,
read afterwards. Then return to me what you read there, and I’ll
refund your money.
Galla
has married seven men. And suddenly, the seven having died, this
adulteress is seeking a new wedding. Let it not come to pass! The
wedding-march is being played, delay is torturing this loving lady.
She imagines the day passes slower than usual. We admire the Hydra,
which, when a head is lopped off, can straightway grow new ones. And
we admire Phoebe the moon, who renews her horns. Galla renews
husbands, and horns for her husbands. So let us place the Hydra,
Phoebe, and Galla in the same category. But she is to be criticized
more than the others. For she makes ready a new head before she has
lost the old one, and on any night she is constantly manufacturing
new horns. With her for a consort, you are a marked man, and if you
survive her you will achieve a more than Herculean labor.
You
accuse me because I have not come to dinner being invited by you,
Largus, and you imagine I am swollen with arrogance. But you call
yourself sociable, because, often invited, you are always wont to
come and dine with your friends. Oh belly, a teacher of manners! By
this logic, the parrot is clever when it says its hello. But when
nobody invites you, you hasten to turn up anyway. Pray tell me by
what point of etiquette you do this? You do this according to your
own etiquette, and are called more friendly. But sometimes it would
be decent of you to be more unfriendly.
All
that you possess you put up for loan. You rent out all your silver
and all your gold, you hire out your oxen, horses and sheep, your
clothing and your furniture are for rent, you turn an usurious profit
on everything. Then, lest there be anything left which you don’t turn
to your advantage, you also hire out your wife for use.
Balbus
reckons up that he has written three hundred poems, and promises to
send them all to me tomorrow. He has frequently asked me, is he not a
poet who writes a hundred poems per month? While I keep my silence,
he presses me: “Won’t you admit I’m a poet, if I send you three
hundred verses?” “Be still, Balbus,” I reply. “The words
you have
said prove you to be a poet, or that you wish to be called a
poet.”
Though
epigrams bite with a tooth, they will lack spleen. Let filth be
absent, let them be lightly sprinkled with salt. No poems amuse one
more, or do more to sting faults. Is this not enough for an honest
reader?
Lately a
physician loitered in this region, far from his family, a gentleman
full of art and reputation. He called himself Gallus, experience has
made him learned, and he was unambitious among his peers. Chance led
him to Hopkins’ well-known house (he serves as host to all stranger).
He was pleasantly made welcome at the inn. He observed his host’s
face, and was embarrassed that it was very blotched with red. “Mine
host,” said he, “will you give me a sovereign that your face may be
whiter, without those excrescences and pustules?” “You ingrate,”
shouted back Hopkins, “ you will you repay me my good deserts with
these insults? Do you want me to lose all these badges, which I
purchased at so great expense, along with a gold sovereign?”
Within
this tomb lie quiet the bones of an unquiet man, a violent death has
granted him repose. He who disturbed everything in life died not
without disturbance. I trust he will be quiet in death. But if he
stirs up strife for the infernal shades, will Pluto settle the
smoking commotions?
The people
confer various titles on those who know, profess, and urge the laws
and statutes. They call them jurisconsults and legal experts, Doctors
of Law, and the foundations of justice. I don’t understand by what
logic the rascally commons call Petrus by another title, a justice.
For he is able to speak of the law, and pronounce what things pertain
to a statute, but this chatterbox always acts unjustly.
Since
Petrus does pretty nearly everything ill-advisedly, why do the people
keep calling him a legal advisor? Advisedly he perverts the laws and
all rights, and hence he aptly has this title.
You
will not drink, Pollus, save from a full flagon, and you are in the
habit of emptying your cups. I would like to know the reason why you
are of this persuasion, that you always drain your cups dry. Thus you
say: “All the wine’s aroma swims on the surface, its heart is in the
middle, its flavor falls down to the bottom.”
You
drink much, Pollus, and you drink often. Everything excessive does
harm, Pollus, don’t drink over-much. You answer, “He drinks over-much
who has no ability to drink any more. This is no fault of mine.”
It
happened that poet wrote against the common people’s malign vices. He
wrote with good intention, but scarcely lacked a vice. And he lacked
vice, save in this, that he railed against vices. Was this not a
minor vice, to write against vices?
Marcus possessed his wife with a foolish
love, and always anxiously kept watch on her habits. He noted her
goings and comings, her eyes and her face. The jealous fellow took
everything as grounds for fear. Now he raged, sometimes he went crazy.
Jealousy and love lured and drove him now here and now there. The more
he feared, the more reason for fearing she gave him, and encouraged her
husband in his suspicion. He tried to mitigate his offense with words,
and said “Very great love compels me. Let it not be a crime to love you
very much. There is a limit in other things, but not in love. Love
knows no limit, ant let their be no Golden Mean in for me in love.” She
noted what he said, hating his limit and Mean. And the man she had
previously loved with moderation, she now immoderately loathed. And she
complained, “Let it be proper for you love me very much. But tell me,
good Marcus, why should it not be allowed me to love you very little?”
Hernus used
to be a craftsman, now he has a coat of arms. Oh fortune, how you are
wont to vary your vicissitudes! He bears a hide for a shield, but he
has an awl for a spear. He does battle against vermin — look, there
they are!
Rightly you
are the treasurer of England, in whom alone the nation’s greatest
treasure resides. Counsel, stratagems, and loyalty: these three are
stored in one breast. Oh what a treasure-house it is!
More than
others, you are indebted to your father, he owes you more than other
fathers are wont to do. He still lives on in you, and you lived first
in him. As long as you live, he will not be able to die.
It profited
you nothing that once you were our quaestor, it should be nothing to
have accumulated these treasures. It is safer to have stored up
treasures of the soul in Christ, that He may reimburse you with
interest. You, praiseworthy old man, knew how to employ present
things, to be guided by past ones, and to pursue those in the
future.
Oh the
sorrow! Este is not. Once it was, now it is nothing. Though now it is
nothing, Este again will be.
Fostering God
gave riches and wealth to both. This one has ruined its eyes, like
the miser his wealth.
Although the
convention is not to speak anything but good words of the dead, and
not to say anything bad of the dead, why, Jacques, should I not deny
you are heaven, but imagine you are now in dark Phlegethon? Because
those who dwell in heaven feel no shame, and you are unblushing. You
cannot feel guilty about this horrendous evil.
As Cain
killed Abel, thus, inclement Brother Clement, you killed me, your
brother, and the father of your nation. I was your brother in
religion, your father in government, and so you are at once a
fratricide and a parricide.
Though Cotta
has given out verses over which labored by night and by day, and it
was the work of an entire month, he has imposed on us his reader, and
the versifier has The Work of Seven Days in this title. Though
nobody should believe Cotta, he is eager they should, and this
suffices for him, that he believes himself.
My
enemies overwhelmed, I am overwhelmed by my friends. A false friend
is worse than an armed foe.
In
taking revenge from you, the victorious foe paid you, whom
they bested, the forfeit. You were overwhelmed, not defeated. I pray
that our men not have a victory such as our enemy had here.
We
know that these men to have existed in laughing and weeping. Laughter
is human, weeping is womanly. So was the one effeminate and the other
masculine? Weeping itself demonstrates that mankind is a laugh.
Triccus
and Hillus argued which was the more learned. A greater question is
which is sillier.
Sated,
with a fully belly you praise fasting. You don’t eat your wife, but
yet thanks to her you are satiated.
You,
bountiful sister of thrice-great Philip Sidney, great in your
husband, greater in your brother (though lesser in years than you),
he is no small part of your soul, but you, the greatest part of his,
live on though he be dead to you. Which of the two you, whose
greatest part survives, lives on? Your brother lives more, and you
live less.
What I
am sending you is not merely a paper, but it bears with it unfeigned
tokens of my affection. Things written on paper endure more than what
is graven on marble, and love inscribed on the heart is more lasting
than them.
A
Gnatho-like bard
offered a lay to Basset, very uncouth and exceedingly flattering, in
which, enumerating
his race and his forefathers, he
recounted his deeds, lazily mixing much falsehood in with the truth.
When he had read this, he asked the bard if there was a copy. The
bard said no, and Basset asked if he could have the written text.
Giving the man a gold piece, he quickly cast the lay in the fire,
saying “I don’t wish there to be a copy of this thing.”
The
hostile power chased our mice from their holes, and they swelled with
pride that their trickery had been successful. Yet, lest this might
befall with impunity, by making trial of the lion’s den you both
brought home spoils. Aesop has taught us that once a mouse repaid a
favor to a fierce lion.
An
island in the ocean, once very well known, lay hidden in dark shadow,
scarcely well known to itself. By the radiant light of your genius,
Camden you banish these shadows, as clouds before the sun. Thus it
thrives reborn, nor, as it is manifest, can you remain hidden. You
make it famous, as it makes you.
Recently I chanced to dine among my
witty companions. Then some man came along of gigantic form, like a
Cyclops, with long-hanging shaggy hair. His eyes seemed to spew fire,
his nostrils breathed forth more fumes than a smoking oven, and his
very face had a certain horrible cast. His voice rang of nothing but
murder, blood, savage slaughters, and gore. “Just now I sent thirty to
their deaths with these hands,” he said, “and with this right hand I
make three hundred more die within seventeen days.” His foul hands
still dripped blood, and all of us, as many as were present, were
afraid of this monster. Hercules was not so truculent raging against
Lycus, nor Hector among the fleet
battalions of his enemy. Everybody sought to discover who this man
was, we hoped to learn his family, his race, his name, and on what
battlefields the man had thought. He kept his silence, and we were all
much more afraid. Soon sweet laughter drove the terror out of us all,
when we found out this fellow had done his fighting in a shambles, not
as a soldier, but as a butcher who slaughters unarmed cattle, pigs,
sheep, and beasts of the field.
Fear
makes manifest a degenerate mind, your virtue praises you, and it
shines forth thanks to your nobility. The fair coat of arms which
your ancestors have bequeathed to you, your posterity will receive
from you rendered the brighter. Continue to achieve new honors by new
virtue, make your ancestors’ deeds lesser than your own.
If
fortune aids the brave, chance rightly seconds you, as your virtue is
second to few. For you, joining counsel to chance, stratagem to
fortune, more carefully govern chance by art. Fortune aids you, a
brave man, with virtue governing it. Therefore the one aids you more,
the other less.
Fortune
envies you your triumphs, Martin, this fault is wont to attend upon
virtue. Yet your masculine virtue has now bested envy. For this
remains after your death, while that one has fled, insubstantial.
If you
could have lived content with your seconding lot, no lot would have
been more favorable. But by trying your fortune for a second time,
inconstant fortune refused to be seconding to you. Fortune wanted you
to be all the more famous, for at once you are famed for your good
lot and your bad.
Such a
great thirst for reputation boiled in your breast that it could
scarce be banished by the waters of our world. Therefore while you
thirstily sought for fame in eastern climes, harsh famine, worse than
thirst, overwhelmed you. And so you were conquered by thirst and by
famine. One bane could not accomplish what two could achieve.
Learn
from this, traveler, what powers savage death possesses. No tomb can
teach you this better. Trust me, death, the Welsh soldier who lies
here would have only surrendered to you. And yet he only surrendered
to you in his inferior part, your power only has authority over his
body. The man’s character, morals, and inspired mind live, death
could not conquer the whole man. Nor has he wholly perished in body,
whose consort has given many a seedling from the trunk of his body.
So, Mansel, you live in all your mind, and your body remains. What
has harsh death stolen? Nothing.
Darlings,
spare your tears, let vain sorrow be empty. Lamentation is not fit
for my funeral. Death, ordained for mankind, comes timely for the
aged, not unwelcome for the blessed, not hateful for the pious. I
have lived enough for myself, enough for nature. Now it is as sweet
for me to die as it was to live long. My better part lives, my worse
perishes. That does not perish wholly, though that perishes, and both
live: the one through you, the other by its own vigor.
Do you
see how the Graces and Pierian Muses hold the urn in which Matthew’s
ashes and bones are contained? How a honeyed dew flows, how the earth
bears amymone and how of its own free will the ground sprouts
violets? Observe, for these are not empty signs. They show what sort
of man he was who is buried in this grave. When he was born the
Homeric Muses laughed, the triple goddesses nourished him with their
milk. His heart was not absent from his deliberations, nor grace from
his sayings, he was a bright light of intellect and art. Thus he
possesses light, though plunged in black darkness, the shadows should
not be able to diminish this light.
Herbert,
a knight, is buried in this tomb, an ornament of the British nation,
an illustrious man, deriving his birth from distinguished parents. He
was the flower of his age, excellently educated, and uniquely
fostering all literary men. Death envied him, as it is wont to envy
bad men. Let it envy, yet the man’s virtue will live, even if envious
death resists.
Behold,
Sergius hopes to become a priest, yet the fellow perceives he is
unworthy of the office. He does not make ready to hunt the job by
learning or virtue, but rather he desires to obtain the office by
offering bribes. He says this is the surer way, nor is the shrewd man
wrong. For a donkey purchases office with the help of cattle.
This
man whom you see impaled on a stake, graveless, to whom (like a pig)
the public highway serves as tomb, he dared run his body through with
a savage sword, and to die by his own hand. Therefore you see this
sad corpse, banished from the holy congregations of men, and with its
breast fixed to a stake.
The
case Petrus argues fails, he does not know how to speak. If he must
act, this occurs only by gesture, never by voice. So why is he
commonly called a pleader at law? The same reason that wars are
called bella - by antithesis.
Crispus
shears his sheep and quickly sells the wool, the fellow’s wallet is
swollen with money. The following day deep snow falls and the East
wind strikes his flock. “Oh, if each one would have a new fleece!” he
says.
Petrus,
an unarmed drinker, sits at the table, his chattering tongue sings
only of flagons. Now he praises beer more, now sweet fine wine, he’s
curious which drink can please him more. He tries them both, and both
please him, and now, thanks to both, rage and wrath increase in the
sot. Immediately he starts telling of arms, fierce swords, and
battles, he has a chest protected by two breastplates. He runs home
to fetch weaponry. Perhaps you are afraid? But listen. He makes
useless weapons, he’s afraid to strike the steel.
Carinus
often beats his servants, he hits these with his fist, those with a
stick. He constantly bashes his sons, his little daughters, his
lackeys, and also his wife. Not thus rages the bear, the tiger, the
Nemean lion amidst the innocent flocks. But after his fury is stifled
and the man’s rage cools, Carinus praises patience.
Attempting
to recover his lost hairs, Calvus gives fees to the surgeons and
funds to the physicians. After the gloomy fellow’s hope and money
failed him, and there was not a single hair on his smooth pate,
“Why,” he said, “do I put such a great value on those vile growths?
The filthy fleece on greasy goats is more handsome.”
While
supine Hamannus draws up his will, he vows to discharge his debts to
everybody. “Since you won’t be discharging for me,” quoth his wife,
“you should have appointed a sponsor to stand in your place.”
Publius
was servant to a physician, and when the man died this lackey
obtained his garments and gowns, and, a grubby little doctor,
practiced an art head not learned. And thus he soon was imagined to
be a good physician. Amongst the doctors (as chanced to occur) he was
asked the nationality of Galen and Hippocrates. “I think they are
Belgians,” he said. “As I recall, my master taught these men the
medical arts.”
While
Battus barks out three Hebrew and Greek words, with some Latin thrown
in, hurling them against his friends, he boasts that he is
trilingual, and the title he arrogantly pursues he justly possesses,
as a second Cerberus.
A
surgeon standing by wished to suture Cinna’s flesh, abraded with a
wound that was not great. But Cinna, unable to stand the tiny point,
cried out, and the shuddering man was panic-stricken at the sight of
the needle. His spirited wife was present, and reproached his fear,
boasting that she was able to withstand much more. He said “Your
flesh is scarcely the same as that of us menfolk. Yours desires to be
penetrated, but when punctured mine hurts.”
The
Spaniard has found a sinkhole down which he may pour the treasures he
has scraped up from the distant Indies.
In the
summertime a rustic chanced to see Flora, stretched out and hidden in
the greeny lawn. She jumped up in astonishment, crying out, “a snake
is lurking in the grass,”
and was afraid of a pricking she had not felt before.
Lo,
hapless Briscus disdained the titles of his nation, and as a lord he
always forbade his retainers to utter them, but rather, signeiur,
monsieur, and don cavalero Brisco. The mushroom
wonderfully adored these strange words. He was wholly devoted to
foreign things, in his eyes everything domestic was shabby. He did
not like to stay at home so he could go abroad. And while he lazily
hunted after titles he squandered his patrimony, and the fool lacked
in fact what he possessed in name.
When
the specter of death terrified a bedbound German, and he decided he
was unwilling to die, he hired physicians, and promised large fees if
they would restore his former health. He confirmed his promise with a
contract. Then, when the sordid fellow soon began to recover thanks
to the doctors’ art, he quickly began to fear the expense more than
death, and out of fear of the payment he was scarcely afraid to die,
as he had been before.
When
for a long time you had no regular home, you thief, but your
residence was shifting here and there, you always turned up in the
morning to greet your witty friends, and it was pleasant to have you
for a companion in amusement. Now that you are dragged off to a fixed
abode, your friends were able to have the pleasure of your company no
more.
Cotta,
now arrested for theft, nicely distributes to the needy the riches he
not so nicely acquired. Having heard of the man’s piety, the judge
lets him go, and for his zeal Cotta gets off free. Soon he repents of
his piety and, remembering his lost wealth, he ties a noose for
himself.
To
those who ask why he lives by money-lending, Faustus says, “Should
not each man live by his art? My harvest is continual, my happy money
jingles, and is accustomed to multiply its sowing a hundredfold. My
golden wheat does not perish in black rainstorms, the dog Sirius does
not harm my trees. Hence crops come to me, and the hanging
grape-cluster, hence this farming yields me bountiful fruit.” There
you have Faustus’ farming! But the impious fellow does not that in
the end Satan reaps what he has sown.
Your
nation’s brave hero, you have been banished from your nation, and,
unlucky, you are compelled to endure exile. Why complain, since you
are a brave and great-minded man? Any land is a homeland for the
brave. Either you are not an exile, or you are not brave. Neither of
these descriptions will suit you well, Caecilianus.
Dung
brought in from slaughter-houses does good for the farmer’s fields,
and not otherwise does dung have its value. But the money shut up in
your coffers, Publius, hides there like filth and wholly useless
dung.
A
driveller and a German are insulting each other while versifying, the
object is which will carry off the laurel. The first vied with
hendecasyllables, the other with iambics, this one competed more
gently, that raged more savagely. A very amusing battle, to witness
two toothless dogs barking! Neither party can do any damage.
While
you were aiming at a horned deer, behold, at fate’s decree your arrow
struck a doe. You are not guilty of the error, for I swear you aimed
at the horned one. So why did he not die? Is the feminine sex more
apt to be shot with an arrow, or does a female fall to the ground
more quickly when she is smitten?
For
more or less twelve years I have listened to Galla tell the world,
“Farewell, I am about to die.” I have heard her exclaiming about her
cough, her gout, her rheum, her fever, her catarrh, so that you’d
quickly come to imagine she wanted to die. She’s still alive, and
cleverly cheats impending death. Yet black death will soon cheat the
cheater.
In a
dream, a certain person dreamt he was lending his neighbor two
pounds. On the morrow, as he was reading over the names of his
debtors in his ledgers, he wrote down the neighbor’s name. He
encountered the neighbor not much later, and demanded the return of
the two pounds he had lent. That one, astonished by the strangeness
of the thing, said that he was wasting his words, and thought that
the other was out of his mind. The man was so delirious that he
imagined that he was owed, until (as if in a dream) the sum had been
repaid.
Curius,
you keep your fast while indulging in your pots. Keeping your fast
you sin the more by your drunkenness.
A tailor,
accustomed to theft, was stricken by fear of death, and saw something
wonderful and novel. For he believed himself to be driven out of his
wits by evil spirits, and thought he was in the Stygian fires. He was
elaborately tormented by a flag, which he saw to be sewn scraps of
cloth he had stolen. Seeing this vision, the wretch was stupefied,
and an inward shuddering dread seized his slackened limbs. Soon
waking up, moved by the novelty of this stupendous apparition, he was
ashamed of his crime. He foreswore thievery, and gave orders that he
be warned of this specter if he should fall prone to this vice, as
before. Three days later, cutting up a bolt of purple-dyed silk, a
part of it stuck to his fingers. Warned of the flag, he laughingly
said, “Well then, keep silent. As I know, there was no such scrap as
this in my vision.”
God
created two lights. The female is that which rules the night, but the
male lights up the day. So let the night-time serve the female sex,
and it is right and proper for men to hold their own during the
day.
The
sun rising and setting is the same, but does not always possess the
same heat and brightness. Its brightness in the western sun is not as
great as in the eastern. Waning, it sinks, and it returns more
bright.
The
few epigrams I have playfully given you, a certain person contends to
be given with premeditated effort. Why? As the greater part of
mankind deliberately plays the fool, cannot a poet do this on the
spur of the moment?
Unkind
fortune has despised your virtue, but your virtue is greater than
fortune. So why does the greater yield to the lesser, as if defeated?
Perhaps in yielding it shines the more. For, temporarily cast down
along with yourself, it rises up anew, and shines brighter than it
was before.
While
I read the elegant verse of an unknown poet, how I was astonished at
the very threshold! Afterwards I realized that the poet was of the
female sex, and the songs poured forth from a virginal breast. How
excellently you strive in your piety to bend Caesar’s heart, that he
might grant you your wishes. And how many friends you seek out with
your honeyed poetry, as adverse fortune oppresses your affairs. Once
Naso the poet sought to placate Caesar’s wrath with his poems. Thus
you, a learned bard, have imitated an established one, and adroitly
done a similar thing while suffering a similar lot. But your Muse
seems to have deserved more than his, as much as a learned girl is
more welcome than a learned man.
When
Flaccus had delivered a rehearsed speech to the populace, he said “I
have rehearsed nothing.” When you have lied at the end, who then will
imagine you have spoken the truth in the rest of your patter, good
Flaccus?
A
man’s life is nothing but a harvest full of toils. So what is it to
be without toil? To die.
An
unwed bride to God, may you be faithful to such a Husband. Though you
are married, (strange thing!) you will be an eternal virgin.
Have
you seen Labius, so forward, boyishly arrogant in his apparel? How he
struts about in his cloak, girded with a soldier’s sword, his body
swathed in silk, glittering with gold, gems, and pearls? How many
boastful words this fool has insolently scattered? How he is a man
approved by the ladies? He says he has debauched more than a hundred
girls, and could have debauched two hundred, had he wished. He would
like to be thought a stallion, or an indomitable bull set loose among
the heifers. But soon this good man, bound firm by the marriage-knot,
wretchedly deceived his consort. She hoped for a man better hung than
great Mars, but she has this eunuch.
Receive
this unkempt volume I send you, but let it return to me in more
elegant condition. Return it corrected of whatever error it contains.
I take responsibility for the errors, and I confide the book to you.
Just as I belong to you, why should not my book be yours? Whoever has
a true friend owns all that he possesses.
Celsus
becomes physician to a youth who is wanton and arrogant because of
his wealth, and speedily cures him thus. He turns the healthy boy
into a invalid, and from a wealthy boy into a pauper. Feeble, he is
not lustful; needy, he is not over-proud.
What
does it matter wither I am short or long, big or small? Every bad
thing is excessive, every good thing is not.
Galla
is greedy, but scarcely a miser. Therefore she yearns for that which,
if you grant it, makes her no richer. Galla also gives, but yet is
grasping. For she grants that which, if you take it, makes you no
richer. You want to know what she gives and takes? This thing, most
manifest to the multitude, makes it plain.
Since you have neither a farm nor a
manor, Morellus, nor a tiny cottage where you may lay down your head,
since you do not live by agriculture, nor as a sailor seek troublesome
wealth across the deceitful sea, you do not follow Mars as your captain
nor tend Minerva’s shrines, and you make your appearance educated in no
art, what is the source of this splendor? Or why do a purple-dyed cape
and necklace weigh down your unworthy neck? Why do you strut about, a
familiar sight in your embroidered garment, and why does Parmeno dance attendance at his master’s
back? “The open air is my roof, the earth, “you say, “the earth serves
as my estate, everything comes to me under a lucky star. What, I ask,
did nature give the great-hearted lion? Whence, pray tell, do the tiger
and bear gain their sustenance? They live better by plunder. Prey will
not fail the lion, as long as the sheep strays over the mountains.”
As
much as your seventieth summer has now parched you, just so often the
sharp winter has drawn you bloodless. Though your skin is wrinkled
and your nose abounds with snot, while sluggish phlegm troubles your
head, though your teeth (those that remain) be scabrous, and your
chest exhales something more foul than an unclean public latrine, and
though Codrus and Irus shun
your embraces, nor do you suck dried-out Thais, you tiny gnat, and
everybody
disdains you save that you adore yourself, you
are always wantonly seeking to entice new suitors. What do you hope
for yourself, Thais, as bride to a husband that still has his hair,
that his obscene groin would itch for a bent-over hag? In your
delirium do you crave a new wedding, and do you imagine that anybody
would be smitten with love for a crone? Beware, silly woman, I warn
you, put no trust in soft youth, for your feigned lover is after your
wealth. Some easy woman will violate the sacred laws of the
marriage-bed, and (though you may snarl) you will sleep on the
ground, scorned, colder than marble, drier than a split tree-trunk.
Oh the evil! What blind desire impels you? Understand your strength,
and the damages of old age. Learn what this means, “For every thing
there is a season.”
There
was never a maiden more modest than Mopsa (who would believe it?), a
virgin more moved by shameful acts and words. If she hears an
obscenity, she shuts her eyes and stops her ears, lest she be able to
see anything base.
While
the merchant plows the sea, and the farmer the land, which one do we
say has the surer hope? The matter is assured for neither, you see
both of them in doubt. But, as the one is more hopeful, the other is
less fearful.
If it
is allowed that my rustic Muse make a noise here, and assault learned
ears with her insignificant trifles, here let mine be indulged, who
hides urban graces with rusticity, and purveys jokes without bile.
She is chaste enough, though unschooled, errant, sweet, and humorous,
and she desires to pursue every subject that pleases her. She plays
with ambiguous, obscure, difficult material, from which she rekindles
her genius. But since she is in the countryside, exiled far from
sacred Helicon, for this reason she would prefer a reader more gentle
and friendly. And of her praises (if in any respect she is worthy of
praise, she admits), this is the greatest, she belongs to Oxford.
Britannia,
the great mother of the Britons, foresightful that she might feed her
children with sweet milk, possess you two as her breasts (as is right
for a nurse). Her children are fortunate for these, and she is a
parent blessed for them. Nectar and ambrosia are your nutrient, the
men whom you nourish have something of the divine in themselves.
Praise is due to you second only to Cecropian Athens. And if it is
permissible to say, in many ways you surpass it.
We are
earth and ash. Thus, alas, the glory of the world flees like smoke
and shadow. We are earth and ash. Noble Herbert, the flower of our
youth, the glory of his race — these things have fallen together,
but not perished together. His terrestrial parts fall to earth, his
divinely infused mind lives, and his reputation will thrive forever,
knowing not how to die. You marble tomb, his hard heart is made of
marble who stands at your mound with dry cheeks.
If you
value all epigrams as cheap as a drachma, I say your judgment is
scarce worth an obol.
If
some patrons don’t pop up for you of their own volition, I think you
very unworthy of a patron.