Quintus Horatius Quintus - The Art of Poetry - an Epistle to the Pisos

Archilochus, 'gainst vice, a noble rage
Arm'd with his own Iambicks to engage:
With these the humble Sock, and Buskin proud
Shap'd dialogue; and still'd the noisy croud;
Musa dedit fidibus divos, puerosque deorum,
Et pugilem victorem, et equum certamine primum,
Et juvenum curas, et libera vina referre.

Descriptas servare vices, operumque colores,
Cur ego, si nequeo ignoroque, poëta salutor?
Cur nescire, pudens pravè, quàm discere malo?

Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult;
Indignatur item privatis ac prope socco
Dignis carminibus narrari coena Thyestae.
Singula quaeque locum teneant sortita decenter.
Embrac'd the measure, prov'd its ease and force,
And found it apt for business or discourse.

Gods, and the sons of Gods, in Odes to sing,
The Muse attunes her Lyre, and strikes the string;
Victorious Boxers, Racers, mark the line,
The cares of youthful love, and joys of wine.

The various outline of each work to fill,
If nature gives no power, and art no skill;
If, marking nicer shades, I miss my aim,
Why am I greeted with a Poet's name?
Or if, thro' ignorance, I can't discern,
Why, from false modesty, forbear to learn!

A comick incident loaths tragick strains:
Thy feast, Thyestes, lowly verse disdains;
Familiar diction scorns, as base and mean,
Touching too nearly on the comick scene.
Each stile allotted to its proper place,
Let each appear with its peculiar grace!
Interdum tamen et vocem comoedia tollit;
Iratusque Chremes tumido delitigat ore;
Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri.
Telephus aut Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,
Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querelâ.

Non satis est pulchra esse poëmata; dulcia sunto,
Et quocunque volent, animum auditoris agunto.
Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adflent
Humani vultus; si vis me flere, dolendum est
Primum ipsi tibi: tunc tua me infortunia laedent.
Telephe, vel Peleu, male si mandata loqueris,
Aut dormitabo, aut ridebo: tristia moestum
Vultum verba decent; iratum, plena minarum;
Yet Comedy at times exalts her strain,
And angry Chremes storms in swelling vein:
The tragick hero, plung'd in deep distress,
Sinks with his fate, and makes his language less.
Peleus and Telephus, poor, banish'd! each
Drop their big six-foot words, and sounding speech;
Or else, what bosom in their grief takes part,
Which cracks the ear, but cannot touch the heart?

'Tis not enough that Plays are polish'd, chaste,
Or trickt in all the harlotry of taste,
They must have passion too; beyond controul
Transporting where they please the hearer's soul.
With those that smile, our face in smiles appears;
With those that weep, our cheeks are bath'd in tears:
To make me grieve, be first your anguish shown,
And I shall feel your sorrows like my own.
Peleus, and Telephus! unless your stile
Suit with your circumstance, I'll sleep, or smile.
Features of sorrow mournful words require;
Anger in menace speaks, and words of fire:
Ludentem, lasciva; severum, seria dictu.
Format enim Natura prius nos intus ad omnem
Fortunarum habitum; juvat, aut impellit ad iram,
Aut ad humum moerore gravi deducit, et angit:
Post effert animi motus interprete linguâ.
Si dicentis erunt fortunis absona dicta,
Romani tollent equitesque patresque chachinnum.

Intererit multum, Divusne loquatur, an heros;
Maturusne senex, an adhuc florente juventâ
Fervidus; an matrona potens, an sedula nutrix;
Mercatorne vagus, cultorne virentis agelli;
Colchus, an Assyrius; Thebis nutritus, an Argis.
The playful prattle in a frolick vein,
And the severe affect a serious strain:
For Nature first, to every varying wind
Of changeful fortune, shapes the pliant mind;
Sooths it with pleasure, or to rage provokes,
Or brings it to the ground by sorrow's heavy strokes;
Then of the joys that charm'd, or woes that wrung,
Forces expression from the faithful tongue:
But if the actor's words belie his state,
And speak a language foreign to his fate,
Romans shall crack their sides, and all the town
Join, horse and foot, to laugh th' impostor down.

Much boots the speaker's character to mark:
God, heroe; grave old man, or hot young spark;
Matron, or busy nurse; who's us'd to roam
Trading abroad, or ploughs his field at home:
If Colchian, or Assyrian, fill the scene,
Theban, or Argian, note the shades between!
Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge,
Scriptor. Honoratum si forte reponis Achillem,
Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,
Jura neget sibi nata, nihil non arroget armis.
Sit Medea ferox invictaque, flebilis Ino,
Perfidus Ixion, Io vaga, tristis Orestes.

Si quid inexpertum scenae committis, et audes
Personam formare novam; servetur ad imum
Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.

Difficile est propriè communia dicere: tuque
Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
Quàm si proferres ignota indictaque primus.
Publica materies privati juris erit, si
Non circa vilem patulumque moraberis orbem;
Follow the Voice of Fame; or if you feign,
The fabled plan consistently sustain!
If great Achilles you bring back to view,
Shew him of active spirit, wrathful too;
Eager, impetuous, brave, and high of soul,
Always for arms, and brooking no controul:
Fierce let Medea seem, in horrors clad;
Perfidious be Ixion, Ino sad;
Io a wand'rer, and Orestes mad!

Should you, advent'ring novelty, engage
Some bold Original to walk the Stage,
Preserve it well; continu'd as begun;
True to itself in ev'ry scene, and one!

Yet hard the task to touch on untried facts:
Safer the Iliad to reduce to acts,
Than be the first new regions to explore,
And dwell on themes unknown, untold before.

Quit but the vulgar, broad, and beaten round,
The publick field becomes your private ground:
Nec verbum verbo curabis reddere, fidus
Interpres; nec desilies imitator in arctum,
Unde pedem proferre pudor vetet aut operis lex.

Nec sic incipies, ut scriptor cyclicus olim:
fortunam priami cantabo, et nobile bellum.
Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?
Parturiunt montes: nascetur ridiculus mus.
Quanto rectius hic, qui nil molitur inepte!
dic mihi, musa, virum, captae post moenia trojae,
qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.
Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat,
Antiphaten, Scyllamque, et cum Cylope Charibdin.
Nor word for word too faithfully translate;
Nor leap at once into a narrow strait,
A copyist so close, that rule and line
Curb your free march, and all your steps confine!

Be not your opening fierce, in accents bold,
Like the rude ballad-monger's chaunt of old;
"The fall of Priam, the great Trojan King!
Of the right noble Trojan War, I sing!"
Where ends this Boaster, who, with voice of thunder,
Wakes Expectation, all agape with wonder?
The mountains labour! hush'd are all the spheres!
And, oh ridiculous! a mouse appears.
How much more modestly begins HIS song,
Who labours, or imagines, nothing wrong!
"Say, Muse, the Man, who, after Troy's disgrace,
In various cities mark'd the human race!"
Not flame to smoke he turns, but smoke to light,
Kindling from thence a stream of glories bright:
Antiphates, the Cyclops, raise the theme;
Scylla, Charibdis, fill the pleasing dream.
Nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri,
Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo:
Semper ad eventum festinat; et in medias res,
Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit: et quae
Desperat tractata nitescere posse, relinquit:
Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet,
Primo ne medium, medio ne discrepet imum.