TO VINNIUS ASINA.
_Horace cautions him to present his poems to Augustus at a proper
opportunity, and with due decorum_.
As on your setting out I frequently and fully gave you instructions,
Vinnius, that you would present these volumes to Augustus sealed up if
he shall be in health, if in spirits, finally, if he shall ask for them:
do not offend out of zeal to me, and industriously bring an odium upon
my books [by being] an agent of violent officiousness. If haply the
heavy load of my paper should gall you, cast it from you, rather than
throw down your pack in a rough manner where you are directed to carry
it, and turn your paternal name of Asina into a jest, and make yourself
a common story. Make use of your vigor over the hills, the rivers, and
the fens. As soon as you have achieved your enterprise, and arrived
there, you must keep your burden in this position; lest you happen to
carry my bundle of books under your arm, as a clown does a lamb, or as
drunken Pyrrhia [in the play does] the balls of pilfered wool, or as a
tribe-guest his slippers with his fuddling-cap. You must not tell
publicly, how you sweated with carrying those verses, which may detain
the eyes and ears of Caesar. Solicited with much entreaty, do your best.
Finally, get you gone, farewell: take care you do not stumble, and break
my orders.
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