Explore "THE "ARS POETICA" OF HORACE -- I. (Lines 1-23.)" by Eugene Field on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Should painters attach to a fair human head / The thick, turgid neck of a stallion, / Or depict a spruce lass with the tail of a bass -- / I am sure you would guy the rapscallion!
Believe me, dear Pisos, that such a freak / Is the crude and preposterous poem / Which merely abounds in a torrent of sounds / With no depth of reason below 'em.
'Tis all very well to give license to art -- / The wisdom of license defend I; / But the line should be drawn at the fripperish sprawn / Of a mere cacoethes scribendi.
It is too much the fashion to strain at effects -- / Yes, that's what's the matter with Hannah! / Our popular taste by the tyros debased / Paints each barnyard a grove of Diana!
Should a patron require you to paint a marine, / Would you work in some trees with their barks on? / When his strict orders are for a Japanese jar, / Would you give him a pitcher like Clarkson?
Now this is my moral: Compose what you may, / And fame will be ever far distant, / Unless you combine with a simple design / A treatment in toto consistent.