Kitap 1
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Upon the whole, The second part of the satire begins here. The Stoics called all vicious people fools, stultos. Quatenus is frequently used by our poet for quoniam, since that. forasmuch as the vice anger, as well as others inherent in foolish [mortals], can not be totally eradicated, why does not human reason make use of its own weights and measures; and so punish faults, as the nature of the thing demands? If any man should punish with the cross a slave, who being ordered to take away the dish should gorge the half-eaten fish and warm sauce; Tepidumque ligurrierit ius . Horace, to excuse the slave, says, that the sauce was yet warm, tepidum, and therefore more tempting. For the same reason, he says, the fish was half eaten. he would, among people in their senses, be called a madder man than Labeo. Labeone insanior . The Scholiasts, commentators, and interpreters tell us, that Horace means Marcus Antistius Labeo, who, in the spirit of liberty, frequently opposed Augustus in the senate, when he attempted any alterations in the state. Agitabat eum libertas nimia et vecors, says Seneca; which might justly render him odious to Augustus. But whatever respect our poet had for his emperor, yet we never find that he treats the patrons of liberty with outrage. Nor can we well imagine that he dare thus cruelly brand a man of Labeo's abilities, riches, power, and employments in the state; to whom Augustus himself offered the consulship. Probably the person here intended was publicly known to have been guilty of some folly not unlike what our poet mentions. Dr. Bentley hath found a Labienus in the time of Augustus, whose character fits this passage extremely well; and whom he therefore recommends to a place in the text. How much more irrational and heinous a crime is this! Your friend has been guilty of a small error (which, unless you forgive, you ought to be reckoned a sour, ill-natured fellow), you hate and avoid him, as a debtor does Ruso; The alternative with Ruso was either ruin from extortion, or misery from listening to his writings. If his wretched creditors could not pay him, then they were condemned to hear him read his works. Perhaps some might prefer considering historias used in the sense of "tedious narration," and refer it to the long schedule of the items in his account. Audit. Asinius Pollio first introduced the custom of reciting one's own compositions at Rome. who, when the woeful calends come upon the unfortunate man, unless he lrocures the interest or capital by hook or by crook, is compelled to hear his miserable stories with his neck stretched out like a slave. [Should my friend] in his liquor water my couch, or has he thrown down a jar carved by the hands of Evander: Evandri manibus tritum . — Tornatum, caelatum, fabricatum. Hinc radios trivere rotis, Virgil. Vitrum aliud flatu figuratur, aliud torno teritur, Pliny. But as the Latins used the word toreumata to signify any works, either turned or wrought by the chisel, because they were made by the same workmen, Sanadon thinks the poet probably means, that this plate was engraved with an instrument. The Scholiast tells us, that this Evander was carried from Athens to Rome by Mark Antony, and that he excelled in sculpture and engraving. They who believe that Horace means king Evander, would not only persuade us that this plate must have been preserved so many ages by some uncommon good fortune, but have unluckily placed a vessel so valuable on a monarch's table, whose palace was a cottage, his throne a chair of ordinary wood, his beds made of leaves or rushes, and his tapestry the skins of beasts. Res inopes Evandrus habebat. Dr. Bentley denies that the Latins ever used tritum to signify caelatum, perfectum, and he therefore recommends tortum to us, on the authority of an ancient manuscript. shall he for this [trifling] affair, or because in his hunger he has taken a chicken before me out of my part of the dish, be the less agreeable friend to me? [If so], what could I do if he was guilty of theft, or had betrayed things committed to him in confidence, or broken his word. They who are pleased [to rank all] faults nearly on an equality, are troubled when they come to the truth of the matter: sense and morality are against them, and utility itself, Horace endeavors to prove, according to the doctrine of Epicurus, that justice and injustice arise only from laws, and that laws have no other foundation than public utility, by which he means the happiness of civil society. On the contrary, the Stoics asserted, that justice and injustice have their first principles in nature itself, and the first appearance of reason in the mind of man. the mother almost of right and of equity.
