of Augustus Caesar. Whence, as soon as [the battle of]
Philippi dismissed me in an abject condition, with my wings clipped, and
destitute both of house and land, daring poverty urged me on to the
composition of verses: but now, having more than is wanted, what
medicines would be efficacious enough to cure my madness, if I did not
think it better to rest than to write verses.

The advancing years rob us of every thing: they have taken away my
mirth, my gallantry, my revelings, and play: they are now proceeding to
force poetry from me. What would you have me do?

In short, all persons do not love and admire the same things. Ye delight
in the ode: one man is pleased with iambics; another with satires
written in the manner of Bion, and virulent wit. Three guests scarcely
can be found to agree, craving very different dishes with various
palate. What shall I give? What shall I not give? You forbid, what
another demands: what you desire, that truly is sour and disgustful to
the [other] two.

Beside other [difficulties], do you think it practicable for me to
write poems at Rome, amid so many solicitudes and so many fatigues? One
calls me as his security, another to hear his works, all business else
apart; one lives on the mount of Quirinus, the other in the extremity of
the Aventine; both must be waited on. The distances between them, you
see, are charmingly commodious. "But the streets are clear, so that
there can be no obstacle to the thoughtful."--A builder in heat hurries
along with his mules and porters: the crane whirls aloft at one time a
stone, at another a great piece of timber: the dismal funerals dispute
the way with the unwieldy carriages: here runs a mad dog, there rushes a
sow begrimed with mire. Go now, and meditate with yourself your
harmonious verses. All the whole choir of poets love the grove, and
avoid cities, due votaries to Bacchus delighting in repose and shade.
Would you have me, amid so great noise both by night and day, [attempt]
to sing, and trace the difficult footsteps of the poets? A genius who
has chosen quiet Athens for his residence, and has devoted seven years
to study, and has grown old in books and study, frequently walks forth
more dumb than a statue, and shakes the people's sides with laughter:
here, in the midst of the billows and tempests of the city, can I be
thought capable of connecting words likely to wake the sound of the
lyre?

At Rome there was a rhetorician, brother to a lawye