ON CONTENTMENT.
Horace
I abominate the uninitiated vulgar, and keep them at a distance.
Preserve a religious silence: I, the priest of the Muses, sing to
virgins and boys verses not heard before. The dominion of dread
sovereigns is over their own subjects; that of Jupiter, glorious for his
conquest over the giants, who shakes all nature with his nod, is over
sovereigns themselves. It happens that one man, arranges trees, in
regular rows, to a greater extent than another; this man comes down into
the Campus [Martius] as a candidate of a better family; another vies
with him for morals and a better reputation; a third has a superior
number of dependants; but Fate, by the impartial law of nature, is
allotted both to the conspicuous and the obscure; the capacious urn
keeps every name in motion. Sicilian dainties will not force a delicious
relish to that man, over whose impious neck the naked sword hangs: the
songs of birds and the lyre will not restore his sleep. Sleep disdains
not the humble cottages and shady bank of peasants; he disdains not
Tempe, fanned by zephyrs. Him, who desires but a competency, neither the
tempestuous sea renders anxious, nor the malign violence of Arcturus
setting, or of the rising Kid; not his vineyards beaten down with hail,
and a deceitful farm; his plantations at one season blaming the rains,
at another, the influence of the constellations parching the grounds, at
another, the severe winters. The fishes perceive the seas contracted, by
the vast foundations that have been laid in the deep: hither numerous
undertakers with their men, and lords, disdainful of the land, send down
mortar: but anxiety and the threats of conscience ascend by the same way
as the possessor; nor does gloomy care depart from the brazen-beaked
galley, and she mounts behind the horseman. Since then nor Phrygian
marble, nor the use of purple more dazzling than the sun, nor the
Falernian vine, nor the Persian nard, composes a troubled mind, why
should I set about a lofty edifice with columns that excite envy, and in
the modern taste? Why should I exchange my Sabine vale for wealth, which
is attended with more trouble?
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