TO JULIUS FLORUS.
Horace
_After inquiring about Claudius Tiberius Nero, and some of his friends,
he exhorts Florus to the study of philosophy_.
I long to know, Julius Florus, in what regions of the earth Claudius,
the step-son of Augustus, is waging war. Do Thrace and Hebrus, bound
with icy chains, or the narrow sea running between the neighboring
towers, or Asia's fertile plains and hills detain you? What works is the
studious train planning? In this too I am anxious--who takes upon
himself to write the military achievements of Augustus? Who diffuses
into distant ages his deeds in war and peace? What is Titius about, who
shortly will be celebrated by every Roman tongue; who dreaded not to
drink of the Pindaric spring, daring to disdain common waters and open
streams: how does he do? How mindful is he of me? Does he employ himself
to adapt Theban measures to the Latin lyre, under the direction of his
muse? Or does he storm and swell in the pompous style of traffic art?
What is my Celsus doing? He has been advised, and the advice is still
often to be repeated, to acquire stock of his own, and forbear to touch
whatever writings the Palatine Apollo has received: lest, if it chance
that the flock of birds should some time or other come to demand their
feathers, he, like the daw stripped of his stolen colors, be exposed to
ridicule. What do you yourself undertake? What thyme are you busy
hovering about? Your genius is not small, is not uncultivated nor
inelegantly rough. Whether you edge your tongue for [pleading] causes,
or whether you prepare to give counsel in the civil law, or whether you
compose some lovely poem; you will bear off the first prize of the
victorious ivy. If now you could quit the cold fomentations of care;
whithersoever heavenly wisdom would lead you, you would go. Let us,
both small and great, push forward in this work, in this pursuit: if to
our country, if to ourselves we would live dear.
You must also write me word of this, whether Munatiua is of as much
concern to you as he ought to be? Or whether the ill-patched
reconciliation in vain closes, and is rent asunder again? But, whether
hot blood, or inexperience in things, exasperates you, wild as coursers
with unsubdued neck, in whatever place you live, too worthy to break the
fraternal bond, a devoted heifer is feeding against your return.
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