TO MARCIUS CENSORINUS.
Horace
O Censorinus, liberally would I present my acquaintance with goblets and
beautiful vases of brass; I would present them with tripods, the rewards
of the brave Grecians: nor would you bear off the meanest of my
donations, if I were rich in those pieces of art, which either
Parrhasius or Scopas produced; the latter in statuary, the former in
liquid colors, eminent to portray at one time a man, at another a god.
But I have no store of this sort, nor do your circumstances or
inclination require any such curiosities as these. You delight in
verses: verses I can give, and set a value on the donation. Not marbles
engraved with public inscriptions, by means of which breath and life
returns to illustrious generals after their decease; not the precipitate
flight of Hannibal, and his menaces retorted upon his own head: not the
flames of impious Carthage * * * * more eminently set forth his praises,
who returned, having gained a name from conquered Africa, than the
Calabrlan muses; neither, should writings be silent, would you have any
reward for having done well. What would the son of Mars and Ilia be, if
invidious silence had stifled the merits of Romulus? The force, and
favor, and voice of powerful poets consecrate Aecus, snatched from the
Stygian floods, to the Fortunate Islands. The muse forbids a
praiseworthy man to die: the muse, confers the happiness of heaven. Thus
laborious Hercules has a place at the longed-for banquets of Jove:
[thus] the sons of Tyndarus, that bright constellation, rescue shattered
vessels from the bosom of the deep: [and thus] Bacchus, his temples
adorned with the verdant vine-branch, brings the prayers of his votaries
to successful issues.
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