1The poets Eupolis and Cratinus and Aristophanes, and the other men to whom the Old Comedy belongs, if anyone deserved to be portrayed as a villain and a thief, as an adulterer or a cut-throat or notorious in some other way, used to brand him with great freedom. 6On these Lucilius wholly depends, following them and changing only the feet and rhythms: witty, of keen-scented nose, harsh in composing verse. 9For this was his fault: often in an hour, as if it were a great feat, he would dictate two hundred lines standing on one foot; 11as he flowed along muddy, there was something you would want to remove; 12wordy, and too lazy to bear the labour of writing, of writing properly, that is: for as to writing much, I let that pass.
13Look, Crispinus challenges me at the longest odds: 'Take, if you like, take your tablets now; 15let a place, a time, and umpires be given us; 16let us see which of us can write more.' The gods did well in making me of a poor and puny spirit, speaking rarely and very little; 19but you, as you prefer, imitate the air shut up in goatskin bellows, which keeps labouring until the fire softens the iron. 21Happy Fannius, who has offered up his book-boxes and his bust unasked, while no one reads my writings, as I am afraid to recite in public for this reason, that there are people whom this genre pleases very little, since most men deserve blame.
25Pick anyone you like from the middle of the crowd: he is suffering either from greed or from wretched ambition. 27This one is mad with love for married women, this one for boys: this one the gleam of silver captivates; 28Albius gapes at bronze; 29this one trades his wares from the rising sun to the region warmed by the evening sun, and indeed is carried headlong through dangers like dust gathered up by a whirlwind, afraid of losing any of his capital or anxious to increase his wealth. 33All these fear verses and hate poets. 34'He has hay on his horn: keep well away; 34so long as he can raise a laugh for himself, this man will spare no friend, and whatever he has once smeared on his paper he will be eager for all the boys and old women coming back from the bakehouse and the pool to know.' Come now, hear a few words in reply.
39First, I would take myself out of the number of those whom I would allow to be poets: for you would not say it is enough to round off a line, nor, if anyone writes, as I do, things closer to conversation, would you think him a poet. 43To one who has genius, a mind more divine and a mouth that will sound out great things, give the honour of this name. 45That is why some have asked whether comedy is poetry or not, because keen spirit and force are present neither in its words nor in its matter; except that it differs from conversation by its fixed metre, it is pure conversation.
48'But the father rages hotly because his spendthrift son, mad for a whore of a mistress, refuses a wife with a great dowry, and, a great disgrace, walks about drunk with torches before nightfall.' Would Pomponius hear anything milder than this, if his father were alive? 53So it is not enough to write out a line in plain words, such that, if you break it up, any man at all would storm in the same way as the masked father in the play. 56If from these lines, which I write now, and which Lucilius wrote of old, you take away the fixed quantities and rhythms, and put the word that comes first in order later, placing the last before the first, you would not, as you would if you broke up 'When foul Discord had burst the iron-bound posts and gates of war', still find the limbs of a dismembered poet.
63So much for this: another time we shall see whether it is true poetry or not. 64Now I shall ask only this, whether you are right to be suspicious of this kind of writing. 65Keen Sulcius and Caprius walk about, horribly hoarse and with their indictments in hand, each a great terror to robbers; 67but if anyone lives well and with clean hands, he may scorn them both. 69Though you may be like the robbers Caelius and Birrus, I am not like Caprius or Sulcius: why should you fear me? 71No shop or pillar is to have my little books, for the hands of the crowd and of Hermogenes Tigellius to sweat over, and I recite to no one except my friends, and that only when pressed, not anywhere or in front of anyone.
74There are many who recite their writings in the middle of the forum, and many who do so while bathing: an enclosed place echoes sweetly to the voice. 76This pleases the empty-headed, who do not ask whether they are doing it without sense, or at the wrong time. 78'You enjoy giving pain,' he says, 'and you do it out of malice.' Where have you found this charge to throw at me? 80Is anyone, in short, your authority for it among those I have lived with? 81The man who gnaws at an absent friend, who does not defend him when another finds fault, who angles for men's loose laughter and the name of a wit, who can invent what he has not seen, who cannot keep silent what was entrusted to him: this man is black; beware of him, Roman.
86Often you may see four dining on each of three couches, one of whom loves to bespatter everyone in any way he can, except the host who provides the water; 88him too, later, when he has drunk, when truthful Liber opens up the hidden heart: this man seems to you genial and urbane and frank, you enemy of the black: if I have laughed because silly Rufillus smells of lozenges, Gorgonius of goat, do I seem to you spiteful and biting? 93If some mention of the thefts of Petillius Capitolinus has been dropped in your presence, you defend him, as is your way: 'Capitolinus has been my companion and friend from boyhood, and has done a great many things at my request, and I am glad that he lives safe in the City; 99but still I wonder how he escaped that trial': this is the ink of the black cuttlefish, this is pure verdigris; 101and that this vice will be far from my pages, and first from my mind, I promise, if I can promise anything else truly about myself.
103If I say something too freely, perhaps too jokingly, you will grant me this right with indulgence: my excellent father trained me to it, so that I might avoid vices by marking each of them with examples. 107When he urged me to live sparingly, frugally and content with what he himself had got for me: 'Do you not see how badly the son of Albius lives, and how Barrus is penniless? 110A great lesson not to squander one's inheritance.' When he would deter me from a shameful love for a whore: 'Do not be like Sectanus.' So that I should not chase married women when I could enjoy permitted love: 'The reputation of Trebonius, caught in the act, is not pretty,' he used to say.
115'The philosopher will give you the reasons why each thing is better avoided or sought; 116it is enough for me if I can keep the custom handed down from our forefathers and, so long as you need a guardian, keep your life and name unharmed; 119as soon as age has hardened your limbs and mind, you will swim without a cork.' So with his words he moulded me as a boy; and if he was telling me to do something, 'You have an authority for doing this,' he would say, pointing to one of the select jurors; or if he forbade it, 'Can you doubt whether this is dishonourable and unprofitable to do or not, when this man and that are ablaze with ill report?' As a neighbour's funeral frightens greedy sick men and through fear of death forces them to spare themselves, so others' disgrace often deters tender minds from vices.
129Thanks to this I am free from the vices that bring ruin, and am held by moderate ones which you could pardon. 131Perhaps even from these a long life, a candid friend, my own reflection will have taken away a great deal; 133for when my little couch or the colonnade has received me, I do not neglect myself. 134'This is more right; 135by doing this I shall live better; 135so I shall give pleasure to my friends when I meet them; 136that was not nice of so-and-so: surely I shall not some day thoughtlessly do something like it?' These things I turn over with myself, lips pressed tight; 138when any leisure is given me, I play with my papers.
139This is one of those moderate vices; 140and if you would not make allowance for it, a great band of poets would come to my help — for we are far more numerous — and, like the Jews, we shall force you to come over to our crowd.