Satires I.X
X
On Satire
Horace resumes a discussion of the main subject of his fourth Satire, which had brought down considerable censure upon him from the critics, who upheld the excellence of early Latin poetry, and to these he now makes reply.
He reminds them that, while he had found fault with Lucilius’s verse, he had also credited it with great satiric power. In this he was quite consistent, for one may admire good mimes without holding them to be good poems. You may make people laugh, but you must also have a terse style and a proper mixture of the grave and the gay, such as is seen in the robust writers of Old Attic Comedy, whom Hermogenes and his school never read. But Lucilius is admired for his skill in blending Greek and Latin. “Nonsense!” cries Horace, “such a mixture is a serious blemish, and no more acceptable in poetry than in oratory” (1-30).
The poet here confesses that at one time he had thought of writing in Greek instead of Latin, but realized in time that this would be like carrying faggots to the forest (31-35).
So while Bibaculus essays something grand and lofty, Horace is less ambitious and turns to a more modest field. If we survey contemporary literature, comedy is pre-empted by Fundanius; Pollio has won
Satires I.X
fame in tragedy and Varius in the epic; Virgil is simple and charming in his pastorals. Satire alone was open to Horace, for Varro Atacinus and others had tried it and failed, while Horace has met with success, however short he may come of the first in the field (36-49).
It is true that Horace had criticized Lucilius, just as Lucilius had pointed out defects in Accius and Ennius. His verse is faulty—his stream is muddy, he lacks finish, he wrote too freely. If we were to compare him with a writer who is carving out a new species of verse quite untouched by the Greeks, we might attribute to him some polish, but the fact remains that had he lived in the Augustan age, he would have filed away his roughnesses, and learned “the last and greatest art, the art to blot” (50-71).
A writer should aim at pleasing, not the multitude, but a small circle of good critics. If he wins their approval, he may bid the cheap teachers of the lecture-room go hang! (72-91).
With this statement of his conviction, Horace puts the finishing touch to his First Book (92).
In this satire Horace is a spokesman for the chief writers of the Augustan era, setting forth some of their ideals in contrast with the ignorance and vulgarity of popular scribblers, as represented by men like Tigellius. Among the requisites of good satire Horace speaks of the appropriate use of humour, together with the qualities of brevity, clearness, purity of diction and smoothness of composition, all of which are characteristic of the so-called plain style, or genus tenue, of poetry as of oratory. (For a full discussion see papers by Hendrickson and Ullman; also Fiske, Lucilius and Horace, pp. 336 ff.)