The First Book Of The Epistles Of Horace (Chap. 20) lyrics

EPISTLE XX.

TO HIS BOOK.

In vain he endeavors to retain his book, desirous of getting abroad; tells it what trouble it is to undergo, and imparts some things to be said of him to posterity.

You seem, my book, to look wistfully at Janus and Vertumnus; to the end that you may be set out for sale, neatly polished by the pumice-stone of the Sosii. You hate keys and seals, which are agreeable to a modest [volume]; you grieve that you are shown but to a few, and extol public places; though educated in another manner. Away with you, whither you are so solicitous of going down: there will be no returning for you, when you are once sent out. "Wretch that I am, what have I done? What did I want?"—you will say: when any one gives you ill treatment, and you know that you will be squeezed into small compass, as soon as the eager reader is satiated. But, if the augur be not prejudiced by resentment of your error, you shall be caressed at Rome [only] till your youth be passed. When, thumbed by the hands of the vulgar, you begin to grow dirty; either you shall in silence feed the grovelling book-worms, or you shall make your escape to Utica, or shall be sent bound to Ilerda. Your disregarded adviser shall then laugh [at you]: as he, who in a passion pushed his refractory ass over the precipice. For who would save [an ass] against his will? This too awaits you, that faltering dotage shall seize on you, to teach boys their rudiments in the skirts of the city. But when the abating warmth of the sun shall attract more ears, you shall tell them, that I was the son of a freedman, and extended my wings beyond my nest; so that, as much as you take away from my family, you may add to my merit: that I was in favor with the first men in the state, both in war and peace; of a short stature, gray before my time, calculated for sustaining heat, prone to passion, yet so as to be soon appeased. If any one should chance to inquire my age; let him know that I had completed four times eleven Decembers, in the year in which Lollius admitted Lepidus as his colleague.