00179--Art of Poetry [original work] By Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)

Art of Poetry [original work]

                                                                   By Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)

If a painter should decide to join the neck of a horse to a human head, and to lay many-colored feathers upon limbs taken from here or there, so that what is a comely woman above ended as a dark, grotesque fish below, could you, my friend, if you were allowed to see it, keep from laughing?  Believe me, dear Pisos,  a book may be like just such a picture if it portray idle imaginings shaped like the dreams of a sick man, so that neither head nor foot can be properly ascribed to any one shape. You may say, "Painters and Poets have always had an equal privilege of daring to do anything they wish." This is true; as poets, we claim this licence for ourselves, and grant it to others. But we do not carry it so far as to allow that savage animals should be united with tame, serpents with birds, lambs with tigers.

Works with solemn beginnings, which start with great promises, often have one or two purple patches tacked on, in order to catch the eye. For example, there may be a description of Diana's grove and altar, and of "the moving stream that winds through the fair fields," or the River Rhine, or a description of a rainbow. This is not the place for such things. Perhaps you can sketch a cypress tree. But what has that to do with the matter if you have been commissioned to portray a sailor struggling in despair to escape from a shipwreck? A wine-jar may be intended at the start; why, then, from the potter's wheel, does it end up as a pitcher? In short, whatever your work may be, let it at least have simplicity and unity.

Among us poets, most--O father and sons worthy of you-are deceived by a superficial idea of the correct thing to do. I try to be brief, and only end by being obscure. Attempting to be smooth, one simply ends up lacking vigor and fire. Another, in striving for the sublime, may fall into bombast; while still another, by being too cautious and afraid of the storm, creeps along the ground. If one has a single subject, and then tries too eagerly to vary it by any means possible, one is then like a painter who puts a dolphin into a forest, or a wild boar on top of the ocean-waves. Avoiding a fault [in this case attempting to avoid monotony], one may fall into a worse one unless there be real artistic skill.

The humblest craftsman over near the Aemilian school will model fingernails and imitate waving hair in bronze; but the total work will be unhappy because he does not know how to represent it as a unified whole. I should no more wish to be like him, if I desired to compose something, than to be praised for my dark hair and eyes and yet go through life with my nose turned awry. You who write, take a subject equal to your powers, and consider at length how much your shoulders can bear. Neither proper words nor lucid order will be lacking to the writer who chooses a subject within his powers. The excellence and charm of the arrangement, I believe, consists in the ability to say only what needs to be said at the time, deferring or omitting many points for the moment. The author of the long-promised poem must accept and reject as he proceeds.

In addition to using taste and care in arranging words, you will express yourself most effectively if you give novelty to a familiar word by means of a skilful setting. If you have to use new terms for out-of-the-way things, you then have a chance to coin words unheard of by the Cethegi, who wear loincloths [and are thus too old-fashioned to wear tunics]; and you will be allowed the license of doing this if you do it moderately. New and lately coined words will also be accepted if they are drawn from the Greek fountain; but the spring must be tapped sparingly. Why should a Roman refuse this privilege to Virgil and Varius when it was allowed to Caecilius and Plautus? Why should I be grudged the liberty of adding a few words when Cato and Ennius have enriched our native language and brought forth new terms for things? It has always been and always will be allowed to issue words bearing the stamp of the present day.

As the forest changes its leaves at the decline of the year, so, among words, the oldest die; and like all things young, the new ones grow and flourish. We, and all that belongs to us, are destined for death. And this is so whether we build a harbor, channeling the sea into the shelter of the land in order to protect our fleets from the north winds-a kingly world ndeed; or whether a marsh, long a waste and passable only by boats, is drained and tilled in order to feed neighboring cities; or whether a river that formerly destroyed crops has been diverted into a better channel. All mortal things shall perish; still less shall the currency and charm of words always endure. Many words that have lapsed in use will be reborn, and many now in high repute will die, if custom wills it, within whose power lie the judgment, rule, and standard of speech.

Homer has shown in what meter [dactylic hexameter] the deeds of kings and captains and the sorrows of war may be written. Verses of unequal lengths, paired in couplets, were used for elegies, and later for the sentiments felt when prayers were granted. But it is unknown and still disputed who the writer was who first used these elegiac verses. Anger armed Archilochus5 with his own verse form, the iambic. Both Comedy and Tragedy have adopted this meter as best fitted for dialogue, able to drown out the noise of the audience, and suitable for action.

The Muse has granted to the lyre the task of celebrating gods and the children of gods, the champion in boxing, the victorious horse in a race, the desire of lovers, and the carefree pleasure in wine. If I am unable to understand and retain these clear-cut distinctions and poetic genres, why should I be considered a poet? Why, through false shame, should I prefer to be ignorant rather than to know? A subject for Comedy refuses to be written in verse suitable for Tragedy. In a similar way, the banquet of Thyestes could not be related in lines suitable to ordinary life and hence appropriate for Comedy. Let each style keep the place to which it belongs. Yet these are times when even Comedy elevates its style, and an angry Chremes raves with swelling voice Also, in Tragedy, Telephus and Peleus often give vent to their sorrow in the language of prose when, in poverty and exile, they discard their bombast and sesquipedalian words [words a foot and a half long] in order to touch the heart of the spectator with their grief.

It is not enough for poems to be beautiful; they must be affecting, and must lead the heart of the hearer as they will.  As people's faces smile on those who smile, in a similar way they sympathize with those who weep. If you wish me to weep, you must first feel grief yourself. Only then, Telephus or Peleus, will your misfortunes affect me. If your words are not appropriate, I shall laugh or go to sleep. Sad words are appropriate to a sorrowful face, furious words are fitting to the angry, gay jests to the merry, serious words to the solemn. For Nature first forms us within to meet all the changes of fortune. She causes us to rejoice or impels us to linger, or burdens us down to the ground with a heavy grief.  Afterwards, with the tongue as her interpreter, she expresses the emotions of the heart. If the words of a speaker seem inappropriate to his situation, the Romans, both the aristocracy and the populace, will simply laugh. It will make a great difference whether it is a god who is speaking or a hero; a ripe old man or a youth still in his flower, a wealthy woman or a bustling nurse, a traveling merchant or the tiller of a fertile farm, a Colchian or an Assyrian, one raised in Thebes or in Argos.

Either follow tradition or else make what you invent be consistent. If, in writing, you wish to bring in the famous Achilles, let him be restless, irascible, unyielding, and fierce. Let him refuse to allow any laws to apply to himself; let him place his trust in his sword. Let your Medea be fierce and firm, your Ino sorrowful, your lxion faithless, your Io a wanderer, your Orestes despondent. If you try something not yet attempted in the theater, and boldly create a new character, have him remain to the close the sort of person he was when he first appeared, and keep him consistent. It is hard to treat a commonly known subject in an original way. It is better to dramatize the Iliad into acts than to offer a subject unknown and unsung. In publicly known matters, you will be able to achieve originality if you do not translate word for word, nor jump into a narrow imitative groove, from which both fear and the rules followed in the given work prevent your escape.

Nor should you begin as the Cyclic writer of old began: "I shall sing the fortune of Priam, and the noble war." What will this boaster produce worthy of this mouthing? Mountains will labor, and bring forth a mere mouse. How much more fitting for a writer not to make such an inept claim: "Muse, tell me of the man who, after Troy fell, saw the cities and manners of many people,', He does not intend to give you smoke after the first flash, but rather light after the smoke, so that he will set forth· in time some notable and striking tales: Antipbates, Scylla. Chatybdis, the Cyclops. Nor does he start the tale of Diomed's return with the story of Meleager's death, nor begin the Trojan war by telling of the twin eggs. Instead, he always hastens to the climax, and plunges the listener into the middle of things as though they were already known. He leaves out what he is afraid he cannot make more illustrious with his touch, and he invents, mixing fiction with truth, in such a way that the beginning, middle, and end are all appropriate with each other.

Hear what I, and the people with me, expect. If you want an appreciative listener who waits till the close, staying until the singing attendant cries out, "Applaud!"-you must mark the characteristics of each period of life and present what is fitting to the various natures and ages. The boy who has just learned to speak and walk loves to play with his friends, flies into anger, and forgets it quickly, changing every hour. The beardless stripling, now free from his tutor, delights in horses, dogs, and in the grassy, sunlit field. He is soft as wax in being influenced by evil; he is rude to advisers, slow to provide sensibly for himself, wasteful with money, high-spirited, passionate, but quick to change in his desires. With different interests, the maturer mind of the man seeks wealth and friendship. He serves ambition, and is afraid of doing whatever he might later wish undone. Many evils plague the old man, whether he seeks wealth and then like a miser abstains from using it, or because he is without spirit or coumge in all his affairs, slow, greedy for a longer life, petulant, obstinate, or the sort of person who glorifies his own boyhood days and damns the present youth. Old age brings many blessings; it also takes many away. Lest the role of old age be assigned to a youth, or that of grown manhood to a child, we should always emphasize the chamcteristics appropriate to each age.

Events are either acted out on the stage or else they are narrated. Now the mind is much less stirred by hearing things described than it is by actually seeing them, with one's own eyes, as a spectator. On the other hand, you must not show on the stage itself the kind of thing that should have taken place behind the scenes. In fact, many things must be kept from sight for an actor to tell about later. For example, Medea should not butcher her children in plain view of the audience, nor the wicked Atreus cook human flesh in public.lO Nor, of course, should Procne be transformed into a bird, nor Cadmus into a serpent. Whatever you try to show me openly in this way simply leaves me unbelieving and rather disgusted.

Let your play, if it is to continue to have appeal and be produced, have five acts, no more nor less. And do not have a god-a deus ex machina-intervene unless there is a knot worthy of having such a deliverer to untie it! Nor should there be a fourth actor trying to speak.

The Chorus ought to maintain the part and function of an actor with vigor, and not sing anything between the acts that does not advance the action or fit into the plot. It should take the side of the good, give them friendly advice, control the angry, and show affection to those who are afraid to do evil. It should praise modemtion in eating, healthful justice and laws, and peace, with the gates of cities lying open. It should respect secrets, and it should implore the gods to remove good fortune from the arrogant and bring it back to the miserable.

At one time, the flute, not decked out in brass as it is now, rivaling the trumpet, but slight, simple, and with few stops , was used to set the tone and accompany the Chorus . With its sound, it filled the benches, which were not yet too crowded, and where-when people gathered-there were few enough so that they could be easily counted, and those were thrifty, virtuous, and honest. But later on, nations that were victorious in war began to widen their boundaries, and longer walls were built around their cities. On feast-days, people were able to give themselves up freely to drinking in the daytime; and then greater licence was given to music and rhythm. For what taste could one expect to find in an ignorant crowd, free from its daily toil, in the peasant mixed with the city-dweller, the low-born with the nobles? Therefore, the flute-player added movement and decoration to his earlier art. He now began to strut across the stage, trailing a robe. New sounds were added to the restrained music of the lyre. A hurried style brought with it a new sort of language; and wise, prophetic sayings were also brought forth to sound like the oracles of Delphi.

The poet who first competed in tragic verse for the prize of a wretched goat soon began to bring on to the stage naked, rustic satyrs.  Without losing dignity, he introduced coarse jests; for only by the lure and charm of novelty could he hold the sort of spectator who, after the Bacchic rites, was completely drunk and wild. In amusing the audience with the laughter and jests of rour satyrs , however, and in passing from grave to gay, it is more fitting to do it in such a way that no god or hero whom you are bringing on the stage , and whom we have been accustomed to see in royal gold and purple, should be allowed to sink down into the low talk of dingy tavern s, or, in trying to raise himself, simply clutch at clouds and emptiness. Tragedy scorns any temptation to babble light verses, as a matron who is asked to dance on fe stal days takes her place among the impudent satyrs with modest shame. If I were writing Satyric plays, 0 Pisos, I should not, for my part, wish to use only ordinary, unadorned language, I should not wish to get so far away from the language of Tragedy that no one could tell who is speaking-whether it is Davus, or bold Pythias, who cheated Simo out of a talent, or whether it is Silenus, who guards and serves his divine charge.

For me, the ideal of poetic style is to mould familiar material with such skill that anyone might hope to achieve the same feat. And yet so firmly would the material be ordered and interconnected (and such is the beauty that one may draw out in that way from the familiar) that he would work and sweat in vain to rival it. Therefore, to my mind, when these rustic fauns are introduced on the stage, they should not act as though they had dwelt in the streets and the forum, languishing with adolescent love-verses, or cracking obscene and embarrassing jokes. The knights, and people of any standing or estate, do not enjoy and wish to .. offer a crown to everything that pleases the sort of people who buy popcorn and candy.

A short syllable followed by a long one is called an "iambus." This is a rapid foot. Hence the term "trimeter" was given to straight iambic lines that had as many as six beats. Not long ago, however, since it is a tolerant and accommodating form of meter, it admitted the weighty spondee [two long stresses], in order to allow the line to move with more stately slowness, but still with the pro vision that the iambic always retain its place at least in the second and fourth feet of the line. In what some like to call the "noble" trimeters of Accius, the iambic foot rarely appears; and also in the pompous lines with which Ennius blessed the stage one sees either hasty or careless work, or else sheer ignorance of the·art of poetry. Not all critics can notice faulty meter. Therefore our Roman poets have been granted an indulgence quite undeserved. Is that any eitcuse for me to run wild and write without restraint? Or, supposing that my faults will be noticed by everyone, should I consider myself safe just because I keep within the limits of whatever is pardoned? I may perhaps escape blame by doing that, but I shall have deserved no praise. As for yourselves, thumb through and study the Greek masterpieces by day and night. But, you will say, our forefathers admired the wit and meter of Plautus ! Ye s, they admired both with tolerance, not to say stupidity, if you and I are any judges of the difference between coarse and urbane language, or have any ability to detect true rhythm by the ear and the finger.

 Thespis is said to have been the man who discovered Tragedy-a type of poetry hitherto unknown-and to have carried his plays around on wagons to be sung and acted by players whose faces had been smeared with wine-lees. Later on, Aeschylus, who invented the use of the mask and the tragic robe, had his players act on a stage built of small planks, and taught them to talk in lofty words and move in a stately manner with buskined feet. Then came the Old Comedy, popular with everyone. But its free manner degenerated into an excess of violence that deserved to be restrained. It yielded to regulation, and the Chorus, with its ability to do harm now removed, simply sank into silence, to its own shame. Our own poets have left no style unattempted. Nor is it least to their credit that they have been courageous enough to leave the footsteps of the Greeks and celebrate the deeds of their own nation, whether in Comedy or Tragedy. Rome would be as eminent in literature as it is in valor and arms if its poets, one and all, did not find a laborious use of the file so exasperating. 0 descendants of Numa Pompilius, condemn a poem that time and labor have not corrected and refined tenfold, down to the very fingernail.

Just because Democritus believes that sheer native genius is better than wretched art, and excludes sane poets from Helicon, a good number do not cut their fingernails and beards. They live in solitude and stay away from the baths, since anyone can acquire the distinction and name of a poet if he never entrusts to Licinus, the barber, a head that three Anticyras could not remedy! I suppose I am quite a fool, then, to go and purge myself of bile when the spring comes . Otherwise no one could write better poems ! But then, the game would hardly be worth it. So what I shall try to do, therefore, is to serve as a whetstone which, though it cannot itself do any cutting, is able to sharpen steel. Though I myself write nothing worthwhile, I shall at least teach the Duty and office of the poet, instruct him where to get his materials, show what moulds and develops him, what is fitting to him and what is not, where the good can lead him and the wrong.

In all good writing the source and fountain is wisdom. The Socratic writings can offer you the material; and when the subject is grasped, the words will come easily. He who has learned what he owes his nation and his friends, what love is due to a parent, brother, and guest, what is the duty of a senator or a judge, what the role of a general sent to war, will know how to give the appropriate nature to each character. I should counsel one who has learned the art of imitation to turn to life and real manners as his model, and draw from there a living language. Sometimes a play, interspersed with commonplaces and having an appropriate characterization, even though lacking in beauty, power, and art, still gives delight to the people and entertains them more than do verses without matter or mere trifling songs. To the Greeks, who desired only glory, the Muse gave genius and greatness of style. Our Roman youth, however, learn how to divide the as into a hundred parts. "Let the son of Albinus answer: if, you take from five-twelfths an ounce, how much is left? You ought to know by now !" "A third of an as. " "Splendid! You'll be able to look after yourself! And if you add an ounce, how much is that?" "One half an as." When this interest in commercial gain has stained the soul, how can we expect to have poems worthy of being preserved in cedar oil and kept in cypress cases?

The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality. Your play must not demand that the audience believe anything you take a whim to portray. You Cannot have a living child snatched from the belly of Lamia after she has devoured him. The elders of Rome censure poetry that lacks instruction; the young aristocrats, on the other hand, scorn austere poetry. He who combines the useful and the pleasing wins out by both instructing and delighting the reader. That is the sort of book that will make money for the publisher, cross the seas, and extend the fame of the author.

There are faults, however, that we can willingly forgive. For the string does not always give out the sound that the mind and hand wished. When you desire a fiat, it often gives you a sharp. The arrow, too, does not always hit its mark. When the beauties in a poem predominate, I shall not make an issue of a few blemishes that have resulted from carelessness or human frailty. How shall we sum up the matter, then? As a copyist deserves to be condemned if, after being constantly warned, he keeps on making the same mistake, and as a musician is laughed at if he always falters on the same note, in a similar way I regard the poet that blunders constantly as being like Choerilus, whose two or three good lines cause surprised laughter. I am also irritated whenever the great Homer nods. But then, when a work is long, sleep inevitably creeps over it. Poetry is like painting. One work will please you more if you stand close to it; the other strikes more if you stand farther away. One shows more to advantage when seen in the shadow; another, unafraid of the sharp view of the critic, ought to be viewed in the light.  One will please only once; the other, though looked at ten times, will continue to please.

You, elder youth of the Piso family: though your judgment has profited from your father's training and though you are sensible in your own right, take this to heart and remember it: only in certain things can mediocrity be tolerated or forgiven. A lawyer, pleading an ordinary suit, may fall short of the eloquent Messalla, and know less than Aulus Cascellius, but he is still respected. But neither gods, men, nor booksellers, tolerates a mediocre poet. At a pleasant banquet, poor music, cheap perfume, and poppy seeds mixed with Sardinian honey, are offensive; the banquet could have done very well without them. And in a similar way, a poem, born and created in order to give the soul delight, if once it falls short of the highest excellence, sinks to the lowest level. If a person cannot play a game, he refrains from trying to handle the weapons used in the Campus Martius; and if he is unfamiliar with the ball, quoit, or hoop, he remains apart lest, with perfectly good reason, the nearby crowd laugh at him. On the other hand, a person will dare to write poetry without knowing how to do it. "Why not?" he thinks. He is a free man, well born, perhaps with a knight's income, and has a good character. But you, I am sure, will do or say nothing stupid; you have enough judgment and good sense not to do so. Still, if you ever do write anything, show it first to Maecius the critic, or to your father, or to me. Then put your manuscript back in the closet, and keep it for nine years. One can always destroy what one has not yet published; but a word that is published can never be canceled.

While men still dwelt in the woods, Orpheus, the priest and interpreter of the gods, drew them away from slaughtering each other and from foul living. Hence the legend that he tamed tigers and fierce lions. Hence also the story that Amphion, founder of Thebes, moved stones by the sound of his lyre, and led them to go wherever he wished by his supplicating magic. In olden times, this was regarded as wisdom: to mark a line between the public and private rights, the differences between sacred and secular, to prohibit promiscuous living, assign rights to the married, build towns, and engrave laws on wooden tablets. Thus honor and fame came to poets and their verses, as if they were divine. Afterwards, Homer became renowned; and Tyrtaeus with his songs inspired men's hearts to perform warlike deeds. Oracles were delivered in verse, and the conduct of life was taught in them. The favor of kings was solicited in Pierian strains, and festal dramas celebrated the conclusion of great labors. Therefore you do not need to feel ashamed for the Muse, skilled at the lyre, and for Apollo, the god of poetry.

It is asked whether a praiseworthy poem is the product of Nature or of conscious Art. For my own part, I do not see the value of study without native ability, nor of genius without training; so completely does each depend on the other and blend with it. The athlete who wishes to reach the longed-for goal has striven and borne much in boyhood. Has endured heat and cold, and kept away from women and wine. The flute-player at the Pythian games has lean:ied his lessons and submitted to a teacher. Today people think it enough to say: "I fashion wonderful poems. The devil take the hindmost [as though poetry were a game]. It's not right for me to be left behind, and admit I do not know what I have never really learned."

Like a crier who collects a crowd to buy his wares, a poet, if rich in land or investments, bids his flatterers come to the call of gain. Though he can serve a costly banquet, go surety for a man who is bankrupt, or rescue someone snared in the grim suit-at-Iaw, I should be surprised if, with all his good fortune, he can distinguish between a false and true friend. When you give someone a present, do not then ask him, when he is filled with joy because of your gift, to listen to your verses. For he will simply exclaim: "Beautiful! good! perfect!" He will change color, drop tears from his friendly eyes, leap up, and stamp the ground. Just as the hired mourners at a funeral lament and do more than those who really grieve, so the insincere admirer seems to be more moved than a true one. We are told that kings, when they wish to see whether a man is worthy of their friendship, test him by getting him drunk. In a similar way, if you write poems, do not be taken in by the spirit of the fox. If you read anything to Quintilius, however, he would say "Correct this or that, please." If after trying it vainly two or three times, you said you could not do better, he would have you cut out the offending lines and take them back to the anvil. If you chose simply to defend the passage rather than improve it, he would waste no more words or effort. And you might then love yourself and your work all alone, without rivals. A good, sensible critic will censure weak lines and condemn harsh ones. He will draw a line through those that are awkward, and will cut off pretentious decorations. He will force you to clarify obscure passages; he will point out doubtful meanings, and mark what ought to be changed. He will prove to be another Aristarchus. He will not say: "Why should I disagree with my friend about trifles?" For it is trifles of this sort that get the friend into trouble when he has been laughed at and unfavorably received.

As people avoid someone afflicted with the itch, with jaundice, the fits, or insanity, so sensible men stay clear of a mad poet. Children tease him and rash fools follow him. Spewing out verses, he wanders off, with his head held high, like a fowler with his eyes on the black-birds; and if he falls into a well or ditch, he may call out, "Help, fellow citizens!"-but no one cares to help him. If anyone did wish to aid him by letting down a rope, I should say: "How do you know he didn't throw himself down on purpose, and doesn't want to be saved?" And I should tell him how the Sicilian poet, Empedocles, met his end: wishing to be thought an immortal god, he deliberately leapt into the burning crater of Aetna. You must allow poets to have the right and ability to destroy themselves. Saving a man against his will is as bad as murder. He is not doing this for the first time. And if he is pulled out now, he will not become like other people and get over this desire for a famous death. Nor is it clear why he writes verses. Perhaps he defiled the family grave, or disturbed a consecrated spot. He is mad, at any rate; and like a bear that has been strong enough to break the bars of its cage, he frightens away both the learned and the ignorant by reciting his verses. If he catches a victim, he clings to him and reads him to death, like a leech that will not leave the skin until it is filled with blood.