The Art of Poetry: an Epistle to the Pisos

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.

Tu, quid ego et populus mecum desideret, audi;
Si fautoris eges aulea manentis, et usque
Sessuri, donec cantor, Vos plaudite, dicat:
Aetatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores,
Mobilibusque decor naturis dandus et annis.
Reddere qui voces jam scit puer, et pede certo
Signat humum; gestit paribus colludere, et iram
Colligit ac ponit temerè, et mutatur in horas.
He goes not back to Meleager's death,
With Diomed's return to run you out of breath;
Nor from the Double Egg, the tale to mar,
Traces the story of the Trojan War:
Still hurrying to th' event, at once he brings
His hearer to the heart and soul of things;
And what won't bear the light, in shadow flings.
So well he feigns, so well contrives to blend
Fiction and Truth, that all his labours tend
True to one point, persu'd from end to end.

Hear now, what I expect, and all the town,
If you would wish applause your play to crown,
And patient sitters, 'till the cloth goes down!

_Man's several ages _with attention view,
His flying years, and changing nature too.

_The Boy _who now his words can freely sound,
And with a steadier footstep prints the ground,
Places in playfellows his chief delight,
Quarrels, shakes hands, and cares not wrong or right:
Sway'd by each fav'rite bauble's short-liv'd pow'r,
In smiles, in tears, all humours ev'ry hour.
Imberbus juvenis, tandem custode remoto,
Gaudet equis canibusque et aprici gramine campi;
Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper,
Utilium tardus provisor, prodigus aeris,
Sublimis, cupidusque, et amata relinquere pernix.

Conversis studiis, aetas animusque virilis
Quaerit opes et amicitias, infervit honori;
Conmisisse cavet quòd mox mutare laboret.

Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda; vel quod
Quaerit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti;
Vel quòd res omnes timidè gelidèque ministrat,
Dilator, spe lentus, iners, pavidusque futuri;
The beardless Youth, at length from tutor free,
Loves horses, hounds, the field, and liberty:
Pliant as wax, to vice his easy soul,
Marble to wholesome counsel and controul;
Improvident of good, of wealth profuse;
High; fond, yet fickle; generous, yet loose.

To graver studies, new pursuits inclin'd,
Manhood, with growing years, brings change of mind:
Seeks riches, friends; with thirst of honour glows;
And all the meanness of ambition knows;
Prudent, and wary, on each deed intent,
Fearful to act, and afterwards repent.

Evil in various shapes _Old Age _surrounds;
Riches his aim, in riches he abounds;
Yet what he fear'd to gain, he dreads to lose;
And what he sought as useful, dares not use.
Timid and cold in all he undertakes,
His hand from doubt, as well as weakness, shakes;
Hope makes him tedious, fond of dull delay;
Dup'd by to-morrow, tho' he dies to-day;
Difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti
Se puero, censor, castigatorque minorum.