us [Tarpa], who is a judge, and your father's, and
mine; and let it be suppressed till the ninth year, your papers being
held up within your own custody. You will have it in your power to blot
out what you have not made public: a word ice sent abroad can never
return.

Orpheus, the priest and Interpreter of the gods, deterred the savage
race of men from slaughters and inhuman diet; once said to tame tigers
and furious lions: Amphion too, the builder of the Theban wall, was said
to give the stones moon with the sound of his lyre, and to lead them
whithersover he would, by engaging persuasion. This was deemed wisdom of
yore, to distinguish the public from private weal; things sacred from
things profane; to prohibit a promiscuous commerce between the sexes; to
give laws to married people; to plan out cities; to engrave laws on
[tables of] wood. Thus honor accrued to divine poets, and their songs.
After these, excellent Homer and Tyrtaeus animated the manly mind to
martial achievements with their verses. Oracles were delivered in
poetry, and the economy of life pointed out, and the favor of sovereign
princes was solicited by Pierian drains, games were instituted, and a
[cheerful] period put to the tedious labors of the day; [this I remind
you of,] lest haply you should be ashamed of the lyric muse, and Apollo
the god of song.

It has been made a question, whether good poetry be derived from nature
or from art. For my part, I can neither conceive what study can do
without a rich [natural] vein, nor what rude genius can avail of itself:
so much does the one require the assistance of the other, and so
amicably do they conspire [to produce the same effect]. He who is
industrious to reach the wished-for goal, has done and suffered much
when a boy; he has sweated and shivered with cold; he has abstained from
love and wine; he who sings the Pythian strains, was a learner first,
and in awe of a master. But [in poetry] it is now enough for a man to
say of himself: "I make admirable verses: a murrain seize the hindmost:
it is scandalous for me to be outstripped, and fairly to Acknowledge
that I am ignorant of that which I never learned."

As a crier who collects the crowd together to buy his goods, so a poet
rich in land, rich in money put out at interest, invites flatterers to
come [and praise his works] for a reward. But if he be one who is well
able to set out an elegant table, and give security for a poor man, and
relieve when