Chapter 9 Horace and Literary Creation

i. THE TRANSLATOR'S IDEAL

Besides the invisible, and the greatest, effect of Horace in the moulding of character in literature, is the visible effect in literary creation. His inspiration wrought by performance as well as by precept. The numerous 137 essays in verse and prose on the art of letters which have been prompted by the Ars Poetica are themselves examples of this effect. They are not alone, however, though perhaps the most apparent. The purer literature of the lyric also inspired to creation, with results that are far more charming, if less substantial.

In the case of the lyric inspired by the Odes, as well as in the case of the critical essay inspired by the Ars Poetica, it is not always easy to distinguish adaptation or imitation from actual creation. Bernardo Tasso's Ode, for example, and Giovanni Prati's Song of Hygieia, while really independent poems, are so charged with Horatian matter and spirit that one hesitates to call them original. The same is true of the many inspirations traceable to the famous Beatus Ille Epode, which, with such Odes as The Bandusian Spring, Pyrrha, Phidyle, and Chloe, have captured the fancy of modern poets. Pope's Solitude, on the other hand, while surely an inspiration of the second Epode, shows hardly a mark affording proof of the fact.

To some of the most manifest imitations and adaptations, it is impossible to deny originality. The Fifth Book of Horace, by Kipling and Graves, is an example. Thackeray's delightful 138 Ad Ministram is another example which must be classed as adaptation, yet such is its spontaneity that not to see in it an inspiration would be stupid and unjust:

AD MINISTRAM

Dear Lucy, you know what my wish is-

I hate all your Frenchified fuss:

Your silly entrées and made dishes

Were never intended for us.

No footman in lace and in ruffles

Need dangle behind my arm-chair;

And never mind seeking for truffles

Although they be ever so rare.

But a plain leg of mutton, my Lucy,

I prithee get ready at three:

Have it smoking, and tender, and juicy,

And what better meat can there be?

And when it has feasted the master,

'Twill amply suffice for the maid;

Meanwhile I will smoke my canaster,

And tipple my ale in the shade.

In similar strain of exquisite humor are the adaptations of the Whichers, American examples of spirit and skill not second to that of Thackeray:139

MY SABINE FARM

LAUDABUNT ALII

Some people talk about "Noo Yo'k";

Of Cleveland many ne'er have done;

They sing galore of Baltimore,

Chicago, Pittsburgh, Washington.

Others unasked their wit have tasked

To sound unending praise of Boston-

Of bean-vines found for miles around

And crooked streets that I get lost on.

Give me no jar of truck or car,

No city smoke and noise of mills;

Rather the slow Connecticut's flow

And sunny orchards on the hills.

There like the haze of summer days

Before the wind flee care and sorrow.

In sure content each day is spent,

Unheeding what may come to-morrow.