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JOHN STRADLING’S EPIGRAMS
BOOK FOUR
Go, book,
range the world wherever you wish, as is permitted your master,
though he does not choose to go. Nor be ashamed that you are born of
the rural countryside, you will come to city-folk more welcome for
your rusticity. If someone should bring you to Caesar’s lofty house,
Ôbeware lest you offend with excessive chattering. Do as you were
instructed. Remember (if it is permitted) to give your greetings to
my master in the morning. If that half-divine, born of royal stock,
chances to read you, I want you to wish him all good fortune. If some
fussbudget lodges some complaint about me, I boldly enjoin you not to
say a word, depart in silence. And when you have returned home, be my
messenger, tell me what the talkative folk are saying about you. And
while I anxiously await your return, it pleases me to live here with
your mistress in my customary way.
In one
service, learned gentlemen, you at once offer several services of
piety. For you shines the first part, given to God, part to your
nation, and the third to your nation’s father. 
Thus by this piety a single piety, a threefold piety is welcome to
God, to the God of our nation, and to the nation of our consecrated
prince. This is the dutiful awareness of a pious man.
I have been wondering what this
threnody-dithyramb means, noting that this name
contains a self-contradiction. Sad things and happy, tears,
lamentations, and exultations — a novel name to denote a novel
thing. What power to you have, my virgin, for expressing such varied
emotions at once? Whence does this ardor derive? Pythagoras’ derided
teaching has returned,
you are simultaneously moved by the souls of Heraclitus and
Democritus.
Thus in laughing you mourn, in weeping you exult. A single spirit has
not produced these opposites.
Lest my
epigrams not constantly displease you, lest you not think them
sometimes too sharp, reader, hear my response thus. Men are not taxed
in them, I only attack men’s faults. I do not pass over the things
that are common between myself and you. If many are mine, I vex
myself more.
In Latin one speaks of “accursed hunger
for gold” and “to thirst after gold.” Is gold at once a food and
a drink?
When my bold
little Muse declares war on your vices, and censures bad manners,
Procillus, you complain that slanders are being uttered, but you are
wrong. You should know that true things said are said well, not
amiss.
If I call you truthful, chaste, and upright, you can rightly call me
a slanderer.
A deep fear
gripped his friends that Priscus has fits of madness. He who fears
this is madder. Nobody is mad who, by daily wantonness, goes away
from the city drunk before noon. I’m wrong, and Priscus has long been
mad, before noon he drunkenly rages all around the city.
A certain
merchant once obtained two rural farms, which lay not far from the
city. Tired of the city, he spent much time in his fields, and rarely
came home to his wife. She, mistrusting her husband’s fidelity, thus
mistakenly mocked him upon his return: “What a holy, loving husband
you are! Toiling six days and nights with your handmaids in the
country, you keep the sacred sabbath with me at home.”
Once it was
allowed painters and poets to dare invent whatever they chose. Now
the same right extends to historians.
The document
did not give the scaccarium (exchequer) its name (although the
grave Gervasian writer
records this), the thing itself clearly shows otherwise. Or if this
appellation was perhaps agreeable enough to men of olden times, now
sacks (sacca) well stuffed with money accumulated here from
every quarter, teaches us to more correctly to call the saccarium
what elders called the scaccarium.
Why does the
court turn men white? Is it because there is more care in them, but
always less peace of mind and body? Or is it that envy, ambition, and
wantonness covers their hearts with a black color, and their heads
with a lighter one?
Once the
cynic spat in the face of his host.
The simple man did this after his straightforward custom. Many a
Gnatho, smiling in your face, with complex art balefully carries
poison in his convoluted heart.
Many are
unwise when they seem to themselves to be wise. You want to be called
unwise, and in that you are wise. By your art you make more progress
than they. No matter that your art is folly, thus you are pleased to
be a fool in your own eyes.
Many a woman
is good, yet every woman is bad. She is an even because of this,
that, being good, she is made bad.
A kingdom
divided against itself cannot endure. Realms united with themselves
are more tranquil. Once the divided power of the Britons made it that
one man died by the powers of another. God now promises better under
one king, so that we all be one nation and of a like mind. Union,
even if previous kings had desired it — the fame of this thing has
been left for you alone.
Never does an
angel dwell with us poor mortals, and, an exile from heaven, tarry in
this world. You are called an angel among mortals. So either you have
a false name, or you come from somewhere else.
Religion
divided wife Galla and husband Gallus, but a single diet makes them
like-minded. They both dine on meat and fish. And she puts up with
his ways, he tolerates her deceits. As he is frequently in his cups,
so she is rarely sober. He is an adulterer, she a whore. Oh good
religion!
Whoever
governs himself is a king and monarch of the world, for each man is a
little world for himself. Whoever does not succeed and governing
himself, he is an inept ruler of the others fate places under his
command.
Flavus died
intestate, so his survivor Flava vows that she is willing to entrust
her affairs to gentlemen with testicles.
Although done
in by wrinkles and old age, Fabulla, trusting her very mendacious
mirror, imagines her self to be a pretty little thing. She goes
abroad decked out well enough and more with gems, gold, garments, and
costly garments. The people call Fabulla well turned-out, but she
seems a pretty little thing to herself alone, though lads and lasses,
matrons, youths, gaffers and poets, the tailor, the pharmacist, and
the physician lodge their objections. Fabulla trusts her mirror more
than a hundred witnesses of the spiteful little people.
Law and the
law’s equity are entrusted to your faith, and you preserve these two
trusts of yours. You both preserve both, so that it should be a
difficult thing to determine whether the one of you is more
equitable, or the other more just.
There is one
fountain of justice, many channels from the fountain, and the wet
water which flows through these nourishes the valleys it irrigates.
Wales has no greater man than you, by equitable art you alone deal
out justice for her sons. Learned, you can both dispense justice and
equity, and what you are able to do learnedly, you do as the good man
your are.
23.
THE USE OF HISTORY. TO HIS FRIEND AND KINSMAN SAMUEL LEWKENOR
What is the
goal for historians? That a later age may learn the two good
responsibilities of a prudent man: what is to be avoided in life, and
what to be done, and to connect his recent deeds with those that have
gone before.
You do not
capture fame (oh, do you crave i!)t. I know why, Marianus. Fame is an
untamed beast, nor can it be immediately caught. Eagerly you hunt it,
but it flees you as you pursue. Do you know by what means it may be
captured? You flee it, and soon fame will pursue you as you flee.
Hunting it (this is a strange thing), nobody catches it.
Weighing my
epigrams, Aulus, you growl, and you prate “What manner of trash has
this new fellow given us?” Baleful Aristarchus
and stern teacher of morals, why do you read my verses with furrowed
brow? Now these verses are demanding bloody penalties. If it pleases
me, Aulus, you will pay me the penalties you have earned.
Hamannus,
intent on seeking advice from a lawyer, deceitfully held fair gold
coins in either hand. Shifting the coins from one hand to the other,
he told the advocate much, and requested the learned man’s judgment.
When he had stood attentively as the lawyer spoke, “So behold, here’s
your fee,” he said. And showing him the gold coins, he said, “You
filled my ears with words, feast your eyes on these.”
It is hard to
lie and seem truthful, but you do both things with wonderful
dexterity. The greater part of lying is ugly, Sextilianus, but this
lying of yours is fair.
When report
of your death came to our region, in our gullibility it rendered us
almost lifeless. You are alive, nor are we dead. But what matters it
if we should die? As long as you do not die, it is well.
A queen that
is daughter, bride, and sister of kings,
what more could the Fates add to your titles? To be called in after
time mother of kings and queens. Let proud Juno envy you your
lot.
Boy born of a
divine father, you who express your parents with your face, having a
heart infused with divine spirit, be fortunate of mind, and by your
deeds outstrip our hopes. No matter for how many things we hope, do
more. May your virtue surpass your fortune, your prudence surpass
your powers, as beloved to good men as feared by the bad.
Charles,
after a great king you are the first to bear this honor among your
titles, yourself being more worthy than this title. Grow with new
virtue, with favoring divine spirit let new honor grow for you, as
you grow a well-favored boy.
I pray for
all happy things. For what but prayers do you need? Lo, I bring you
the only prayers I am able to utter. What kind of prayers do you ask
for? Prayers issued from deep in the heart. What should my prayers
wish for? All happy things for you.
Dear pledges
for your father, and dear pledges for your mother, receive these
prayers as pledges of my mind. I give you what a poet can (verses) as
a small gift, and this is such as a poet can do. Giving
such pledges, chaste love joins lovers, strengthens government,
and blesses a marriage.
And you,
nymph who are to be celebrated in the company of British
demigoddesses, a certain divinity sits upon your face. The modesty
that accompanies the splendor of your pedigree doubles your praise,
and makes you more welcome. Majesty without kindness is unwelcome,
but the one and the other show that you are a divine mortal.
Greated-spirited
lads, it is your parents’ concern that you become great, and it is
permissible for you to be greater by these arts: by religion, firm
faith, virile virtue, noble morals, and pious sobriety. The greater
one is than others, in this let him seem lesser to himself. By this
method he will soon become the greatest.
Though Mars
should defer to Mercury, each serves the other, and when joined they
both shine the more. To employ arms abroad and strategies at home,
this is right for magnates, dedicated to Mars and to Mercury.
You are
farmers, the care of tending a field to greater to the extent a field
is more fertile. It is your duty that the crop grows and the tare
dies. This field of yours, as it is now tended, will yield both.
Britain
stands encircled by the sea like a wall, and I think the virtue of
its heroes a stouter wall. Thus rule of the British sea is rightly
given to you, that you might govern the shifting sea by your steady
policy, though I think it governed less by policy and more by
fortune. Good fortune has always attended your planning. Fortunate
man, you have triumphed twice over your conquered enemy. * He himself, arrogantly seeking what is ours,
lost his own.
* In the year 1588 and in the expedition to Cadiz.
The law is
called a mute magistrate, and when he speaks men call him the law,
these are sufficiently eloquent truths. Legal pandects little avail
us, if they are neglected. The laws give themselves potentiality, a
judge gives them, as it were, their being. With you on the bench, the
law possesses its own, and you thus retain (as is fitting you should
retain ) your honor.
The virtue
which stands for the highest things in your eyes, is not lower than
the highest things. You lay down the laws according to your opinion,
as is fitting. And you deem that what ever law you argue to be
binding on others is by the same logic binding on yourself.
As you are
smaller in body, the force of your mind and wit is greater. This is
thriving, though you be an old man. Assiduously pouring over
histories and learned volumes, excellently you cultivate your wit and
your judgment. When, residing at home, you vigilantly scan the world,
you know deeds done abroad as well as those done close at home.
You, a youth
to your nation, are like a father, and in youthful body you bear the
mind and judgment of an old man. As vigor is rare in old man, so
prudence is rare in youth. You are a youth in strength, an old man in
counsel.
What little
son, what wife will adorn your funeral, you who had no son, no wife?
You were a second father to orphans, a husband to widows. These both
will decorate your funeral with their plaints. You lived a celibate,
you die a father and a husband. Your chaste piety gives you a novel
progeny.
Among the
many whom blood and affection joined to me, Palmer, you bore off the
palm. Death, who only could do so, divided us, and savage death which
first separated us will at length unite us. Why are you proud to have
vanquished such a man, envious death? Only his earthly mass fell to
you, but his mind to God, so that your part might gradually perish,
bested by corruption, but his other part, death, will garner fruit as
you die.
Having been
born with neither Calliope for a mother or Apollo for a father, the
man who lies in this tomb was a second Orpheus. He did not draw trees
and adamantine rocks after himself, vain fable has no place in this
epitaph. But you would have called them stony and stupid as hard wood
whom he did not move by his art. Though he was not born of a
goddess-mother or Apollo his father, one may say he was taught by
them both.
As a farmer was working his ground, and
casting seed in his furrows, Putson made
an appearance, acting like a lunatic. He had seed with him which he
profusely scattered here and there on the ground. And when the seed
was used up he silently departed. Afterwords he seduced the farmer’s
wife and, caught in the act, jokingly said to the roaring man, “When
I sow my seed in this field, as I did in that, why don’t I get the
same thanks I did before?”
You are poor
and you are not poor. If it were allowed to sell your beauty, no girl
would surpass you in treasures. But since this thing is not for sale,
it is far more valuable than gold and you are a wealthy maid, though
needy.
It is enough to have said this one thing
of you to, that each sister is worthy of
a good brother’s love. Chaste sisters, you view in your pursuits and
in your piety that, as you are similar in morals, thus you are equal
in uprightness.
You speak of
posterity as if it were a posterior age. I understand your
grammatical character.
Grandees
treat those like poorer equivalents of these. One can trust these
more.
If my poems
should displease you, the fault likes in this: it is not my intention
to have pleased you as a reader.
Silly
Ponticus purchased a fool at great price. Thus he has somebody like
himself, by whom he can be amused.
You wrote
trash for Sulla, and you stupidly ask for a fee. Sulla gives you your
trash.
“Whore” is a
word, but one to which a thing is attached. A Chimaera is not a
thing, yet it signifies a bad thing.
For other
men, their speech sets forth their mind. Yours, Ponticus, does not.
Either you have an evil mind, or bad speech. Your speech is bad, your
mind worse, but you are worst of all. Your mind and your speech,
Ponticus, are thrice-bad.
The book that
was mine before is yours. Learn, reader, how it is yours and mine.
You are mine, and I am yours.
Versifying,
Balbus begs that pardon be granted him. Tell me, when he thus begs
our pardon, does he deserve it?
This one is
subtle, but the second more so, and the third more than the other
two. What one man will be more subtle than all three?
Why does a
school of Christians read this man? No other dog of ours is more
rabid against his master. Because this is the prudence of Your
servants, Christ, to extract pure honey from the poison of evil.
Quintinus
either envies or pities everybody. I would prefer your envy,
Quintinus.
Whatever good
she did by daylight, Penelope unravelled at night. There’s many a
Penelope everywhere.
Why does
Memphis display its pyramids, Babylon its luxuries, and the great
City the work of its amphitheaters? These wonders tend only to show.
There are things less praiseworthy but more worth the undertaking. I
hold Hercules’ labors more worthy of praise, because they scarce lack
public utility. Such is this labor of yours, done with your funding,
genius, art, and labor. The praise is for you, your posterity is to
possess its use. What greater than to prescribe laws for Neptune, and
impose new limits on his floods? Behold, this soil used to be salt,
there is a crop were there was a sea, where the fish sported in this
field, the sheep goes a-straying.
While two
brothers who were lawyers litigiously acted a case, the one against
the other, and each attacked the other, bawling with bitter words, so
that you would think they were heated to the point of coming to
blows, a guileless bystander, who was a friend to both, urged “Ah
brother, don’t strike your brother! In my opinion, the condition of
lawyer’s is unhappy, that brother should thus furiously go against
brother.” “Silence, fool,” said one of the brothers. “We are friends,
and this suit makes us more so.” To whom answered the man, “Either
your love is false, or your friendship for your fool of a client is
feigned, though purchased dear.”
The Thunderer
on high, meaning to avenge sinful cities and men, angrily acts with
thunder and lightning. An earthly Jupiter, vainly aiming
lightning-bolts against the British, attempts to effect this work by
another route. Oh the wonder, he threatens his bolts from a deep
cellar, so that the infernal throng may provoke the gods above. Has
the Titan shuddered to see such great enterprises? Or was the malign
crew more afraid of the sun?
While the
sons of darkness plied their unspeakable work, these denizens of the
earth shunned the light. As if by chance swooping down from a
mountain, an eagle, the bird of Jove, perceived this, and refused to
allow them to lurk in hiding. O lucky Britons, to have had you born!
Had you not been born, we would be nought.
Like a
mystery, the letter sent to Monteagle came to your ears. When you had
read it over, by your genius you well appraised its obscure meaning.
Oh you, worthy of government, at once a king and a prophet!
Behold, where
you pious throng are bent on devising salubrious laws, and with these
to repress bad morals, ruination threatens you; and, in violation of
the law, guilty men plan a dire massacre against you innocent men.
The evil man falls in the pit he has previously dug, and is wickedly
caught in his own snares. For God, the first to have framed laws,
uses them to punish the bad and protect the good. Shape your own laws
to His pattern: let them smite the wicked and supply aid to the
pious.
A careful mother, I reared you degenerate
sons and zealously raised you at my
bosom. What was your intention, profane men, to stain yourself with
your mother’s innards, and my slaughter to enjoy your brothers’ blood?
Every man on
earth serves as a soldier. The sacred page teaches that human life is
a militant service. Who would deny these teachings? But the weapons
of our service are not carnal. Here the Spirit provides holy men with
suitable weapons. Why do you priests vie with swords and weapons such
as befit earthly captains? When Peter struck with a sword, our Savior
amicably reproached him in his error, and commanded him not to
strike. Yet
He gave us a double-edged sword, with which you may slash the nations,
namely
His eternal Word. Not with words, but with this Word — you will fight
with
this sword. Without bloodshed, the man
conquered it will be the victor.
You swear
with equivocation, yet you are simple and straightforward, for your
speech and your intention are identical. You deceive those who trust
you, although you are simple and straightforward. For you are
equivocally good, and simply bad. Once men were interpreters of
words, God and yourself are interpreters of men’s hearts. To you
alone we may say KNOW THYSELF.
Your
neighbors say something about monstrous to relate, Porcillus, nor is
the tale trivial. Rising in the morning you count the fingers on
either hand. At night, you have so many that you can’t add them
up.
Publius is
purged in the in the passive, while the pious congregation cleanses
the city in the active.
This tomb
contains a quadruped of a man, a biped of a goat. What manner of man
he once was, what manner of beast!
You are cold,
and rarely warm (caleo), hence you are more shrewd
(calleo). For the shrewder a man is, the less he is warm.
Your nobility
is entirely your own, for none of it belongs to your parents. Tell me
how much this all is? None of it, indeed, is yours.
Light comes
after darkness. So is the one superior to the other? Oedipus, solve
us this riddle.
You say day
and night are two sisters. You are deceived. This one is a brother,
that one her brother’s sister.
I am called
feminine and masculine, a double thing beneath a single name. This a
brother, that a sister. I am a hermaphrodite.
Why do you
flee the plague, rascal, when you do not flee yourself? You have been
the worst plague for yourself and for others.
Nature gave
you your character and your beauty. But you yourself, sordid, ruined
a work fair by nature.
Among the
twice six constellations which exert influence on our bodies, why is
the horned goat predominant?
You grant
kisses (oscula ), but ones that stink worse than foul shit.
What’s the wonder? You have a mouth (os) like a foul rectum
(culus).
You are at
the same time clergyman, physician, and patron. You sin in mixing
profane laws with sacred.
Dacus
purchases friendship, and afterwards sells his friend. He thinks he
sells the latter with right, because he has previously bought the
other.
When one has committed perjury why do his
ears burn? Because we are commanded to
bear one another’s burden.
It is
needless for you to fear a lord of the earth, for it is clear that
you dwell on the sea, not the earth. For you let the fiery lightning
be no source of terror, for amidst the waters your city is safe from
flames. True faith, love, piety, and patience grant heaven to
Christians, even if Satan objects.
Since sweet
peace exists under great King James, and belligerent Mars is banished
from our lands, you ask why so many gilded knights are created in
peacetime, and whether it is in doubt whether Mars shall soon return.
Civil wars undertaken at home are more terrifying, it has harmed us
less to wage war abroad. Therefore for the repression of these
domestic wars, in these halcyon times many a man is well-advisedly
knighted. For (unless caution were taken by this excellently
strategy) for many of us there would be no peace at home with our
wives.
The little
boy who was his anxious father’s sole hope, although he has fallen,
he has scarce perished. He was mortal in the part that has fallen. So
let his parents know that they have given birth to a child like
themselves. God joined immortal seed to this mortal thing, and these
two are nothing but the whole man. It is, perhaps, a lamentable thing
to have begotten no such thing, but assuredly it is enough to have
engendered an immortal.
You ask why I
allow my volumes to remain hidden, and scarce let them be published
after a pair of lustra?
I think that, if anywhere, one must act hesitantly in this, I do not
choose to become a bard hastily.
For the birth of wombs and minds is not the same: the one is the work
of nine months, the other of ten years.
When I first
laid eyes on your epigrams, Owen, at first reading they amused me,
and when reread they delighted me me. Then, looking over my assortment
of epigrams, of whatever quality they are, I am polishing them,
though previously I had decided they should remain hidden. My Muse is
rustic, but boldly she yearns for the city, and desires to enter the
palace of our Caesar.
Though I had
wished a more splendorous gift for you, you will have this trifle,
for it has agreed to make a long journey. It has not been terrified
of the deceptive bandit, the cost of its fare was small, and you may
repay it with something small.
You have
fought in doubtful war, Maurice, and you have gained much. The enemy
has little of which to boast. Your first enemy was succeeded by a
second, a third, then another, but you always stand the single hope
of your nation. But now an impetuous and keen captain pursues you
more closely, and presses you with a more substantial war. Take
courage, for God will put an end to these things too,
only a small thorn will scratch you.
The raging
Spaniard has driven you into such a rage that you scarce recognize
yourself. To give you more courage would be like giving frenzy to a
madman, or pouring oil on a blaze.
As often as I
think in mind about the crossing at Ast, while there the flood
enforced a delay on the journey I had undertaken, alas, I seem to
renew my past sorrows, and to see before my eyes the injuries
suffered by my homeland. Even now the shouting people assault my
ears, the little boy with his father, the daughter and her protective
mother. But it is pleasant to remember the pleasant hospitality and
the excellent beds, of which I don’t care to change an iota. The
comradeship, spiced with the salt of the swollen sea, protracted a
bland meal.
When lately I
came to the city as a visitor, rescued from the new flood (scarce
without loss of life), from all sides my friends flocked together,
eager to hear of the novelty, and asked me what news I had to tell. I
said, “I have seen fish and men hanging from trees, while the cow,
sheep, and horse swam in the sea. Where wagons used to roll, there
the skiff flies along with sails unfurled, and goes and returns by
unaccustomed routes.” This is a novel subject for historians, and
likewise for poets, they can write true things which will scarce gain
credence.
Though all
rivers run into the sea, the sea is insatiable. Does this not reek of
avarice?
Because we
live profanely, without order or law, as outlaws we are sunken in the
waters. God has rescued us from the flames, but our love for Him is
not inflamed, nor burns the brighter. We are worthy of perishing in
the sea’s gelid floods, some of us have hearts cold towards God.
In vain he
accuses Neptune who sails the water, there is a certain error amidst
the uncertain tides. Mortals pointlessly strive to restrict the
outlaw waters with laws (which are not bound by law). I had thought
that limits had been imposed on the Ocean, with no shifting boundary,
and laws understood by the goddess Vesta. But no fixed rule applies
in fluid matters, and quickly the driven wave swelled by with swollen
blasts of wind. With the peace broken which he had once ratified,
that oath-breaker Glaucus went
a-running to his old hostile tricks. What had been salt-water before,
he made
to be salt-water everywhere: he flowed over the
fields and the wave challenged pious Ceres. When I returned, finding
what I had left firm to be rent asunder, and that all my hope and
sleepless effort, your expenses, and the farmers’ crops were ruined,
I ponder such words as these in my troubled breast: Neptune, there is
no faith in your government. Boldly you protect the things that are
yours, and by force you snatch those that belong to others.
When Nereus
saw you playing on the shore, fair girl, captivated by your beauty,
this outlaw ran into the fields, the dikes broken, and followed your
feet as you fled. You fled quickly, more quickly he pursued. You came
into the savage’s embraces, his desired prey. In vain you called out.
But he, having no pity on a tender girl, planted a thousand kisses on
your lips. The Dryades, hating your abductor, bade Faunus of the
woodlands to come out of forest to bring you aid. With divine
auspices, he quickly rescued your darling self out of a shrub in the
tumid flood, and gave you to your own.
If you crave
to understand the Severn’s unwonted floods, what causes they have,
and the source of this madness, the common people attribute it to the
moon and the driving winds, they rise their mind no higher. The
astrologer inspects the aspect of the heavens and the conjunctions of
the planets, referring to these the cause of whatever novelty
befalls. Consult the religious, and seek the cause from this source.
Why them? They say that everything occurs because God so decides,
that through these means occur everything which God Himself does. Lo
thus, the rock stricken, Moses made the river of water to flow
through this means, with no medium intermediating. Yet beforehand,
the winds intermediating, he made his people a highway in the Red
Sea, and compelled the waters to stand. For God may do either. He
works through means, and, with nothing intermediating, He does
whatever He chooses.
When you
counted up the errors in my books, Maximus, the sole error which
lurks here eluded you. Undeservedly praising you, I erred. But you
skip over this error. Is this not your error? I imprudently erred,
you err wittingly and knowingly, Maximus. This is the maximum error
in this error.
My poems do
not fear you as a censor. Why? They do not stand or fall by your
judgment.
As your
virtue constantly grows, so to the rewards of your virtue, this is an
honor accumulated by merits. Incumbent on this honor is a greater
burden, but you suffice for its bearing. This is a task equal to your
powers, or less.
A teacher by your intellect, a prelate by your piety, and a faithful
shepherd, you feed, direct, and teach your flock.
As a result
of your merits, Christ has given you this merited honor, that you sit
as a great prelate in a great city. You feed your sheep, and with
your staff you repel the wolves from the flock. With art you govern
these more vigilantly, those more mildly. As a learned and pious man,
you perform both great works of the clergy, which a great part of
them does scarcely at all. Thus you outshine others in virtue, as in
honor, hence you are a sweet ornament to your position, and your
position to you.
To define
your nobility in a verse is a vain thing. By your example you teach
this more fully and better. Your first care is God, your second the
king and his realm, your last care is for yourself and your own.
By your
virtues you enhance your fortune and your distinguished race, and
both shine by the genius of your bard. As, distinguished by virtue,
you have provided matter for the bard, thus he industriously
glorifies his Spartan maid. Though this virtue be laudable enough by
itself, yet a bard makes it to be more conspicuous.
Your lot is
not mean, but your prudence is grater. You govern the one by the
other, which is like a commanding mistress. You are happy in your lot
(sors ), but blessed in your consort. For a consort twice
blesses her lot.
Between you,
you divide up the first and second places. The third after you,
whoever he will be, has enough.
There is the
man who only shines in his forefathers’ light, who does nothing
worthy of posterity. Another besmirches his ancestral coat of arms:
born of nobles, everything about him reeks. You, praiseworthy old
man, restoring your forebear’s erstwhile monument, do not allow them,
or it, to die. You are restoring the castle which conquering
Fitzhaymon
had given to your ancestors, almost leveled to the ground. Greater
in this, you are less than your ancestor. Imitating them in this, let
this be enough and more for you.
Once a
flattering bard wrote about Caesar, “Caesar possesses an empire
divided with Jove.”
If fate favors my wishes, may I say of you that our Caesar has an
empire united under Jove.
The clergy
has great reverence for Simon. I praise them. One Simon was the
greatest of shepherds. But the other Simon, a fomenter of heresy,
devours God’s flock. Revere Peter, but shun the Mage.
Putson
appeared in public equipped with bow and arrow, and vowed to hunt
down a wearer of horns. Peering, he looked now here, now there. It
was uncertain whether he was drunk or out of his mind. While
everybody was in doubt, a wife, conscious of her guilt, suddenly
snatched away her man, and said “Beware, darling husband. Ah I fear
lest that arrow strike your head.” And she carefully added, “Although
you scarcely wear horns, what if that drunkard imagined you did?”
If ever you
send epigrams to an unlettered friend, what profit do you get from
this, or what good he? The ignorant fellow neglects what he does not
understand. Let it be so. For your own benefit, thus you cultivate
your judgment and your wit.
This man
believes everything, that one nothing. They are both in error, and it
is right to hold to a mean between the two. But there is no mean in
believing for believers. Nay, the faithful should believe that each
thing is to be believed.
Among the
disciples you are the least, and at the same time the greatest. You
are the greatest in fact, but least in your own judgment. So are you
not a good judge? Whether you make this error knowingly, the error is
sober and pious.
You compete
in equal studies, you compete with a love so similar that each
competes with equal zeal (studio ).
It chanced
that upon a Sunday fell New Year’s Day, when gifts go flying to and
fro. From all sides each of his neighbors brought splendid gifts,
token of their sociable love, to Paulinus. He attended to his
prayers. Afterwards he came out, and, not giving back even a crumb to
a boy, explain, “I take what’s given gratis, but myself repay
nothing. This the Lord’s holy day, I desire no market.”
You are a
great subject for learned poets, great king, and these have no need
to say anything but the truth of you. The things they invent for
others are true in you. When he sings of you, the poet may be a
historian.
If Britain
has ever rejoiced in a guest, now it behooves her to rejoice more in
your entertainment. In love king embraces king, brother brother. By
your love, you bind himself to you the closer. Brotherly love is
rare, the amity of kings is rarer. You two are rare glories of kings
and brothers.
Those
Brutus-born by blood,
Scots and Danes frequently came to blows, and wasted their powers.
Bested in turn by such powers, victory fell to nobody. Oh this bloody
quarrel! You two join these three into one of mixed blood, so that
fostering peace may exist for three nations. By blood Mars once grew
large, by your blood peace thrives, and Mars has lost his power.
It is
uncertain wither your faith was greater, or your virtue, since you
made the greatest use of both. Men full of perfidy and vice (who?),
two monsters of men fell to the ground by your military enterprise
and your loyalty. Once upon a time, taming monsters was a labor of
Hercules. Ramsay, like Hercules the tamer, was another of these
men.
Rightfully
you are the prefect of the Royal guard, Areskin, for once you were a
loyal bodyguard. Gowrie and his brother, thrice-stained with foul
crime, are witnesses to your virtue and loyalty. How great is the
virtue that shone in that danger? Greater in that it benefitted a
great man.
123. TO THE EXCELLENT SIR EDWARD STRADLING, KNIGHT, DISTINGUISHED BY EVERY VIRTUE, IN THE
SEVENTY-EIGHTH YEAR OF
HIS LIFE, WHO FLOURISHES WITH VIGOR OF MIND AND BODY, THE POET’S MOST
DEAR UNCLE
That old age
does not weigh heavily on you, or is in other ways troublesome, but
rather that your sound mind thrives in your sound body, this is a
distinguished sign of a well-lived youth. For rarely does a hale old
age follow after a wanton youth, and a good death rarely follows a
bad life.
It is not
right for me to say ought but the truth (verum) about Vere,
for all truth agrees with itself. There is no need to manufacture
false praise for Vere, but it is enough for Vere if his truths are
reported. Your praise is not in need of fords, it is proved by the
many battle-scars which mark your body.
Veritable,
more veritable, and most veritable, these three demonstrate that
something can be truer than true. That vero nihil verius is
therefore wrong. But this is true. Nothing is truer than Vere. This
vere is sometimes understood narrowly, and sometimes loosely.
But, Vere, you do not admit a “more” and a “less.”
Young Rufa,
deprived of three husbands by fate, did not mourn them when put in
their graves. Now she grieves more sadly at the fourth funeral,
although this one was a worse man than the others. For in the past,
before the death of one husband she was betrothed to his successor.
Now she is merely a widow.
As often as
this man thunders the Thunderer’s precepts from the pulpit, we
imagine him to be an angel of a man. When he changes his location,
how much he does he change from being that man? So much that you
would scarcely believe he’s the same person who he was. His wicked
life shows he’s a devil of a man. It behooves us to imitate, not his
base life, but his pious words.
I have heard
that two James once lived, of whom one was the Greater, but the other
the Less.
But who should be the Greatest except yourself. You, second to none
on earth, are yourself nearest to God, great in fortune, greater in
virtue. With these two conjoined, you are the greatest of these
three.
The love of
brothers is sweet, brother is friend of brother, and for them innate
love grows greater by art. Thus may it grow for you, as the reason
increases, and your love does not die as long as life exists.
Mistrusting
his wife, an astrologer consulted the stars to find out of the Fates
wished him to live with horns. The unhappy man learned his lot, and
he decided to endure what the stars threatened, his wife not
demurring.
As often as
you send a letter to Celsus, in the heading you always describe him
as your honourable master. When chatting three words with your
friends, Celsus is your friend, whom you count among your chums — you
little
wretch.
A clown about
to sport humorously, while he was still girding himself and idly
preparing himself for his joking, asked a bystander in the crowd, “He
you, tell me what I’m about to do. Come, tell me. Are you silent?
Consider the joke.” The man made answer, “Though it is difficult to
tell what you’re about to do, I predict that you are going to play
the fool.”
Under
compulsion, Sulla bears the rule of his wife (as if she were his
mistress), and in vain he strives to cast off this sad yoke. Inferior
in strength, he contends with logic, by teaching that by God’s law he
is her head. She flies at his face with her fingernails, and with a
fine jest she swears that she wants to scratch her head.
I write your
name with a capital B, not correctly, because more properly it ought
to be written with a small b. But both the big and little B are in
agreement. For Bibulus is bibulous, and the orthography is
sufficiently correct.
Who can deny
that two contrary properties can simultaneously belong to one object,
when he sees this has happened? You are simultaneously drunk and
sober (I am describing a miracle!). For, drunk, you quickly fall
asleep, and you soberly slumber.
Since a loyal
friend can only be discerned in adversity, he is wretched who
scarcely was before. For he is a wretch who discovers no loyal
friend, and only misfortune proves who is loyal.
You love your neighbor as much as
yourself, and likewise you love his wife as much
as your own. In this world you are an angel, who thus fulfil this
injunction, and indeed you do what nobody can. Aulus perseveres, he
goes farther, and hence he’s a saint: he loves his wife more
than his own.
It is
difficult for you, Gracchus, to compel your modest bride Graccha to
live according to your will. To want is yours, but to refuse is hers.
So the rule holds, nor is it mistaken. For this should be easy, if
she would be willing.
Sulla heard
that some men were to be burned for their religion, and immediately
decided to belong to no faith, and he said (excusing himself with
this pleasant witticism), “I came into this world raw, I do not wish
to depart it cooked.”
When Crassus
believed he had to take his long journey, there whence the Fates
would forbid him to return, he shared out no little of his goods to
the poor, and then (as chance will have it) his life returned. A
certain man said, “Oh would that it befell our Crassus to die three
or four times a year!”
Aulus, you
argue that the old saw “Woe to the solitary!” is untrue. For you
argue that woe is yours because you are not solitary. What a monster
of a man, to whom is not applicable proverbs which are wont to apply
to everyone! So why less to you? Your quarrelsome wife disproves this
dictum, who, ill-schooled, enhances your woe with her squabbles.
Saturn’s
empire fell into three kingdoms, and fell to three gods.
At that time the Golden Age came to an end, and the Bronze Age
succeeded, quickly made Iron. This fable signifies that things joined
under a great prince become worse when they are separated
Anglo-Briton,
Scots-Briton, Welsh-Briton, let us acclaim with one voice, “I am a
Briton.”
Woe to you,
books which I rashly published, the jig is up. Zoilus himself will
make an ending for you wretches. Surely you will always be dying by
his tongue. For it is poisoned, whatever it strikes dies. Spiteful
Zoilus himself provides the antidote, and his power rebounds:
desiring to strike others, he strikes himself the more.
If you want
to turn a profit on my books (and every bookseller everywhere wants
this), act thus: don’t sell them at a great price. For the greatest
profit is that which is a light one, and it is wont to be more
rewarding. If you put them up at a shilling, for you a fifty percent
profit is enough and more.
Mistakes have
been made in a few places, you correct these few. Trust me, this book
will be plenty welcome for you as you read.
