he
studies this alone; he laughs at losses, flights of slaves, fires; he
contrives no fraud against his partner, or his young ward; he lives on
husks, and brown bread; though dastardly and unfit for war, he is useful
at home, if you allow this, that great things may derive assistance from
small ones. The poet fashions the child's tender and lisping mouth, and
turns his ear even at this time from obscene language; afterward also he
forms his heart with friendly precepts, the corrector of his rudeness,
and envy, and passion; he records virtuous actions, he instructs the
rising age with approved examples, he comforts the indigent and the
sick. Whence should the virgin, stranger to a husband, with the chaste
boys, learn the solemn prayer, had not the muse given a poet? The chorus
entreats the divine aid, and finds the gods propitious; sweet in learned
prayer, they implore the waters of the heavens; avert diseases, drive
off impending dangers, obtain both peace and years enriched with fruits.
With song the gods above are appeased, with song the gods below.

Our ancient swains, stout and happy with a little, after the grain was
laid up, regaling in a festival season their bodies and even their
minds, patient of hardships through the hope of their ending, with their
slaves and faithful wife, the partners of their labors, atoned with a
hog [the goddess] Earth, with milk Silvanus, with flowers and wine the
genius that reminds us of our short life. Invented by this custom, the
Femminine licentiousness poured forth its rustic taunts in alternate
stanzas; and this liberty, received down through revolving years,
sported pleasingly; till at length the bitter raillery began to be
turned into open rage, and threatening with impunity to stalk through
reputable families. They, who suffered from its bloody tooth smarted
with the pain; the unhurt likewise were concerned for the common
condition: further also, a law and a penalty were enacted, which forbade
that any one should be stigmatized in lampoon. Through fear of the
bastinado, they were reduced to the necessity of changing their manner,
and of praising and delighting.

Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror, and introduced her
arts into rude Latium. Thus flowed off the rough Saturnian numbers, and
delicacy expelled the rank venom: but for a long time there remained,
and at this day remain traces of rusticity. For late [the Roman writer]
applied his genius to the Grecian p