This man is crazy for married women, another for boys:
That man’s captivated by gleaming silver: Albius
Marvels at bronze: this man trades his goods from the east
To the lands warmed by the evening rays, rushes headlong
Just like the dust caught up by the wind, full of fear
Lest he loses his capital or the chance of a profit.
All of them dread our verses and hate the poets.
‘He’s dangerous, flee, he’s marked by hay tied to his horns!
He won’t spare a single friend to get a laugh for himself:
And whatever he’s scribbled all over his parchments
He’s eager for all the slaves and old women to know,
On their way from the well or the bake-house.’ Well listen
To these few words of reply. First I’d cut my own name
From those I listed as poets: it’s not enough merely
To turn out a verse, and you can’t call someone a poet
Who writes like me in a style close to everyday speech.
Give the honour owed to that name to a man of talent,
One with a soul divine, and a powerful gift of song.
That’s why some people have doubted if Comedy
Is true poetry, since in words and content it lacks
Inspired force and fire, and except that it differs
From prose in its regular beat, is merely prose.
‘But it highlights a father there in a raging temper,
Because his son, a spendthrift whose madly in love
With his mistress, a slut, shuns a girl with an ample dowry,
Reels around drunk, and causes a scandal, with torches
At even-tide.’ Yes, but wouldn’t Pomponius get
A lecture no less severe from a real father? So,
It’s not nearly enough to write out a line in plain speech,
That if you arranged it, would allow any father to fume
Like the one in the play. Take the regular rhythm
From this that I’m writing now, or Lucilius wrote,
Putting the first words last, placing the last ones first,
It’s not like transposing Ennius’, ‘When hideous Discord
Shattered the iron posts and the gateways of War.’
Even dismembered you’ll find there the limbs of a poet.