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TO MAECENAS
Maecenas, you were the first to be named in the first
Poem I ever wrote and you'll be the first
To be named in the last I'm ever going to write,
So why on earth, Maecenas, do you persist
In trying to send a beat-up old-timer like me
Back into the ring? I'm not what I used to be,
Not in age and not in inclination.
Veianius, you know, the famous gladiator,
Has hung up his arms at the door of Hercules
And gone to hide away someplace in the country.
He doesn't want to have to keep on asking
Over and over for favor from the crowd.
I'm getting used to hearing people say,
"A word to the wise: send the old horse out to pasture
Before he falls down while everybody jeers,"
And so I'm giving up my verses and all
Other foolishness of the sort, and now
Devote myself entirely to the study
Of what is genuine and right for me,
Storing up what I learn for the sake of the future.
You ask me where my home and shelter is,
Who's my protector now? No one at all.
I'm bound by oath to no one but myself.
Wherever I happen to be when a storm comes up,
I make for the nearest port, whatever it is.
One moment you see me busy doing good,
Active in all the causes, champion of virtue,
And then the next I furtively slip back into
The study of Aristippus's rules on how
To make the world serve me, not me the world.
Just as the night seems to go on forever
For the lover whose mistress has deserted him,
Just as the day seems never to end for one
Who has to labor all day long for his bread,
Just as the year seems endless for the youth
Who's not yet free of his mother's household rule,
Just so, the hours drag on that hinder me
In my ambition to advance myself
In the sort of project that, if carried out
Successfully, is good for anyone,
Whether rich or poor, and its failure is bound to be
Harmful to anyone, whether he's young or old.
I have to do my best with what I've got.
Suppose you don't have eyes as good as Lynceus;
That doesn't mean that if they're sore you wouldn't
Use salve to make them better; suppose you haven't
A chance in the world of competing with undefeated
Glycon the strongman, that doesn't mean you wouldn't
Try everything you could by exercise
To keep away rheumatic aches and pains.
You can't do everything, but you have to do
Everything you can. Are you burning up
With avarice? There are spells and sayings to use
To make the fever abate, and make you better.
All swollen up with love of glory, are you?
There are charms you can use to bring the swelling down,
If you read the book three times and faithfully follow
The rites prescribed especially for your trouble.
Nobody's so far gone in savagery --
A slave of envy, wrath, lust, drunkenness, sloth --
That he can't be civilized, if he'll only listen
Patiently to the doctor's good advice.
Virtue begins by shunning vice; wisdom
By shunning folly. Look at the trouble and risk
You're willing to take to avoid what you think are the worst
Things of all that could possibly happen: defeat
At the polls, perhaps, or maybe the loss of a fortune.
You are, for example, a merchant eager for gain,
So off you go as far as the farthest Indies,
And all to get away from poverty,
No matter at what risk of storms at sea,
Of shipboard fires, or hidden rocks or shoals.
Why don't you listen and learn from someone who knows
Better than you how to quit competing for
And caring about what you care about and compete for
So foolishly?
Listen to someone like me --
(What fighter in the dusty arena wouldn't
As soon be crowned with the wreath without the dust?)
Gold is worth more than silver, virtue's worth more
Than gold. Here is the way the moneymen talk,
Down by the Arch of Janus: "Citizens, listen,
Get money first, get virtue after that."
That's what you hear wherever you go these days.
"Suppose you have good sense, and eloquence,
You have good morals, your word can always be trusted.
So what? If, nevertheless, you're short of the money
It takes to buy a knighthood, you're just a pleb."
But children at their play have a song that goes:
"He who does right will be a king, all right."
Let this be our defense: not to have any
Wrongdoing on our conscience to worry over.
So tell me, which is better, the things they say
Down by the Arch of Janus, or what the children
Sing and chant as they play their game in the street:
"He who does right will be a king, all right,"
The song that manly Camillus probably sang,
And manly Curius too, when they were kids?
Is it better advice you get from the one who says:
"Fair means or foul, get money if you can;
No matter how you get it, be sure you get it" --
All for a seat down front at some bad play?
Or better to listen to him whose advice prepares you
To stand up, a free man, defying arrogant Fortune?
What if the Roman people should ask me why,
Since I walk the same streets and under the same
Colonnades as they do, I'm not a lover
Of what they love, or hater of what they hate.
I'd give the answer the fox gave to the lion:
"I see those footprints. I see that those footprints all
Go into your den, and none come out again.
You're a monster with many heads, so why on earth
Do you think I'd be willing to go along with you?"
Who is it I'm supposed to emulate?
Those whose money grows by who knows what?
Those who get their profit from public money?
Those who hunt down widows with charming gifts
Or hornswoggle foolish old men into their nets,
Bringing them in like animals into game parks?
Different people go in for different things,
For this, for that, or the other; that doesn't mean
They won't change their minds an hour later and
Go in for that, this, anything else instead.
"No place more beautiful than Baiae Bay."
The minute the rich man says it, that minute you know
His pleasure in Baiae Bay has spent itself,
And you know his libido will take him another way:
"Workmen, build me a house inland at Teanum."
Is the bed of the household Genius set up in the hall
Of the married man's house? Why of course he says:
"I long for a bachelor life, the best of all."
But move it out of the hall, and then he says,
"Being married, after all, is best of all."
How do you keep the face of this Proteus
From changing, time and time again? The poor man?
Just like the rich man, on a different budget.
As soon as he's in one garret he wants another;
He goes to a different public bath every day;
One haircut and he wants to change his barber;
He rents a little boat and gets just as seasick
As the rich man gets on his opulent private yacht.
Maecenas, you notice and laugh if the barber gives me
A crooked haircut or if my worn-out shirt
Shows under the new tunic I just bought
Or if my toga doesn't hang down straight.
But when I don't know what my own mind is,
Hating the thing I just now loved, and wanting
The thing I just rejected scornfully,
Judgment seething and boiling, the order of things
All out of order, pulled down, built up again,
Pulled down, built up, round turned to square, and square
To round again, you're perfectly unperturbed
And not the least disposed to laugh at me,
Nor do you think I need a doctor's help
Or a keeper assigned by the court to take care of me.
The wise man's second only to Jupiter:
He is a king of kings in his own life,
As the Stoics say; free, beautiful, most honored,
And above all else he's reasonable and sane,
Unless, of course, he's got a bad toothache.
Copyright © 2001 Dave Ferry
