The Epistles
Book I: Epistle XVI
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2005 All Rights Reserved
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Contents
BkIEpXVI:1-24 Are you really wise, Quinctius?
BkIEpXVI:25-45 Are you really as good as is said?
BkIEpXVI:46-79 The meaning of true goodness
To save you asking about my farm, dear Quinctius,
And whether its owner’s supported by the plough,
Or rich from olives, apples, meadows or vine-decked elms,
I’ll describe its nature at length, and the lie of the land.
Unbroken hills, except where they’re cut by a shady
Valley, but with morning sun lighting it on the right,
Its departing chariot, in flight, warming the left side.
You’d praise its mildness. And what if the bushes bore
Rich crops of reddish cornels and plums? If ilex
And oak pleased the herds with piles of acorns, their master
With ample shade? You’d say leafy Tarentum had been
Brought nearer home. A spring fit to name a river too,
And Hebrus no purer or cooler winding through Thrace,
Flows, bringing its aid to infirm heads and stomachs.
This sweet retreat, yes, believe me, it’s lovely,
Keeps me healthy for you in September’s heat.
You live rightly, if you take care to be what I hear.
All we in
But I fear lest you believe others more than yourself,
Or lest you think other than
Or lest people keep saying you’re quite sound and healthy
While you disguise a hidden fever till dinner time,
When a shivering takes your hands at the groaning table.
Fools through a false sense of shame hide their open sores.
If someone spoke of wars you’d fought on land and sea,
And
‘May Jupiter, who cares for you and cares for the City,
Leave us in doubt if the people most
Or you the people.’ you’d know they praised Augustus.
So when you let yourself be called ‘
Tell me, please, do you recognise your name there?
‘Well, I, like you, am charmed to be called good and
Who gives today can take away tomorrow if he
Pleases, as they take the rods and axe from a failure.
‘Put that down, it’s mine’ he says: I do so, offended,
And retreat. If the same man shouted thief, called me
Shameless, alleged I’d strangled my father with a rope,
Should I be stung by false charges, my face reddened?
Whom do false tributes
Dismay, but one who’s
‘Whoever observes the Senate’s decrees, laws, statutes,
Whose judgment resolves many important cases,
Who stands surety, and gives binding testimony.’
Yet all his neighbours and household see this man
As ugly within, though dressed in a handsome skin.
If a slave says to me: ‘I’ve
I reply: ‘Then you’ve your reward, you’ve
‘I’ve never killed anyone’: ‘You’ll not hang on a cross
And feed crows.’ ‘I’m good and honest’: A Sabine would shake
His head in dissent. A wary wolf fears the trap,
A hawk the hidden net, a pike the baited hook,
And the good hate vice, through love of virtue.
But you commit no crimes for fear of punishment:
If there’s hope of concealment, you’ll blur sacred
And profane. If you steal one of my thousand bushels
Of beans, my loss is less, for that reason, not your sin.
This ‘good’ man, admired in forum or tribunal,
When he offers a pig or ox to placate the gods,
Cries loud and clear: ‘Father Janus!’ and ‘Apollo!’
Then just moving his lips, afraid to be heard: ‘Lovely
Laverna, let me escape, let me seem just and pious,
Veil my sins in darkness, my falsehoods in clouds.’
How a miser who stoops at the crossroads to pick up
A planted coin can be better or freer than a slave,
I don’t see: those who are covetous, fear as well:
And, to me, he who lives in fear will
The man who always rushes around lost in making
Money has deserted Virtue’s ranks, and grounded arms.
Once captured don’t kill him, if you can sell him:
He’ll do as a slave: with flocks or plough if he’s tough,
Or let him sail as a trader, wintering in the deep,
Or help in the market, carrying food and stores.
The good and
Lord of Thebes, what shame can you force me to suffer
And endure?’ ‘I’ll take your goods.’ My cattle you mean,
And foot, and imprison you under a cruel jailor.’
‘Yet, whenever I
I take it he means, ‘I’ll die’. Death is the final goal.
End of Book I Epistle XVI