Cowley's Essays Part 11

Hic, O viator, sub Lare parvulo Couleius hic est conditus, hic jacet; Defunctus humani laboris Sorte, supervacuague vila.

Non indecora pauperie nitens, Et non inerti n.o.bilis otio, Vanoque dilectis popello Divitiis animosus hostis.

Possis ut illum dicere mortuum, En terra jam nunc quantula sufficit!

Exempta sit curis, viator; Terra sit illa levis, precare.

Hic sparge flores, sparge breves rosas, Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus, Herbisque odoratis corona Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem.

EPITAPH OF THE LIVING AUTHOR.

[Translation.]

O wayfarer, beneath his household shrine Here Cowley lies, closed in a little den; A life too empty and his lot combine To give him rest from all the toils of men.

Not s.h.i.+ning with unseemly shows of want, Nor n.o.ble with the indolence of ease; Fearless of spirit as a combatant With mob-loved wealth and all its devotees.

That you may fairly speak of him as dead, Behold how little earth contents him now!

Pray, wayfarer, that all his cares be fled, And that the earth lie lightly on his brow.

Strew flowers here, strew roses soon to perish, For the dead life joys in all flowers that blow; Crown with sweet herbs, bank blossoms high, to cherish The poet's ashes that are yet aglow.

HENRY MORLEY.

A FEW NOTES.

Page 15. Fertur equis, &c. From the close of Virgil's first Georgic:

said of horses in a chariot race, Nor reins, nor curbs, nor threatening cries they fear, But force along the trembling charioteer.

Dryden's translation.

Page 16. En Romanos, &c. Virgil, AEneid I., when Jove says,

The people Romans call, the city Rome, To them no bounds of empire I a.s.sign, Nor term of years to their immortal line.

Dryden's Virgil.

Page 18. "Laveer with every wind." Laveer is an old sea term for working the s.h.i.+p against the wind. Lord Clarendon used its noun, "the schoolmen are the best laveerers in the world, and would have taught a s.h.i.+p to catch the wind that it should have gained half and half, though it had been contrary."

Page 24. Amatorem trecentae Pirithoum cohibent catenae. Horace's Ode, Bk. IV., end of ode 4. Three hundred chains bind the lover, Pirithous:

Wrath waits on sin, three hundred chains Pirithous bind in endless pains.

Creech's Translation.

Page 25. Aliena negotia, &c. From Horace's Satires, sixth of Book II.

Page 25. Dors, c.o.c.kchafers.

Page 26. Pan huper sebastos. Lord over All.

Page 27. Perditur haec inter misero Lux. Horace, Satires, II., 6.

This whole Satire is in harmony with the spirit of Cowley's Essays.

Page 29. A slave in Saturnalibus. In the Saturnalia, when Roman slaves had licence to disport themselves.

Page 29. Unciatim, &c. Terence's Phormio, Act I., scene 1, in the opening: "All that this poor fellow has, by starving himself, bit by bit, with much ado, sc.r.a.ped together out of his pitiful allowance--(must go at one swoop, people never considering the price it cost him the getting)." Eachard's Terence.

Page 30. [Greek text which cannot be reproduced], &c. Paul to t.i.tus, "The Cretans are always liars, EVIL BEASTS, SLOW BELLIES."

Page 31. Quisnam igitur, &c. Horace's Satires, II., 7. "Who then is free? The wise man, who has absolute rule over himself."

Page 31. Oenomaus, father of Hippodameia, would give her only to the suitor who could overcome him in a chariot race. Suitors whom he could overtake he killed. He killed himself when outstripped by Pelops, whom a G.o.d a.s.sisted, or, according to one version, a man who took the nails out of Oenomaus' chariot wheels, and brought him down with a crash.

Page 41. Nunquam minus solus quam c.u.m solus. Never less alone than when alone.

Page 47. Sic ego, &c. From Tibullus, IV., 13.

Page 51. O quis me gelidis, &c. From the Second Book of Virgil's Georgics, in a pa.s.sage expressing the poet's wish:

Ye sacred Muses, with whose beauty fired, My soul is ravished and my brain inspired; Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear, Would you your poet's first pet.i.tion hear: Give me the ways of wandering stars to know; The depths of Heaven above, and Earth below; Teach me, &c. . . .

But if my heavy blood restrain the flight Of my free soul aspiring to the height Of Nature, and unclouded fields of light: My next desire is, void of care and strife, To lead a soft, secure, inglorious life.

A country cottage near a crystal flood, A winding valley and a lofty wood; Some G.o.d conduct me to the sacred shades Where baccha.n.a.ls are sung by Spartan maids, Or lift me high to Haemus hilly crown, Or in the vales of Tempe lay me down, Or lead me to some solitary place, And cover my retreat from human race.

Dryden's translation.

Page 56. Nam neque divitibus. Horace's Epistles, I., 18.

Page 58. Tankerwoman, "water-bearer, one who carried water from the conduits."

Page 60. Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander. Domitian is said to have given a consuls.h.i.+p to his horse Incitatus.

Page 60. The glory of Cato and Aristides. See the parallel lives in Plutarch.

Page 64. O fortunatos nimium, &c. Men all too happy, and they knew their good.

Page 70. Hinc atque hinc. From Virgil's AEneid, Book I.

Page 75. Mr. Hartlib . . . IF THE GENTLEMAN BE YET ALIVE. Samuel Hartlib, a public-spirited man of a rich Polish family, came to England in 1640. He interested himself in education and other subjects, as well as agriculture. In 1645 he edited a treatise of Flemish Agriculture that added greatly to the knowledge of English farmers, and thereby to the wealth of England. He spent a large fortune among us for the public good. Cromwell recognised his services by a pension of 300 pounds a year, which ceased at the Restoration, and Hartlib then fell into such obscurity that Cowley could not say whether he were alive or no.

Page 75. Nescio qua, &c. Ovid. Epistles from Pontus.

Page 76. Pariter, &c. Ovid's Fasti, Book I. Referring to the happy souls who first looked up to the stars, Ovid suggests that in like manner they must have lifted their heads above the vices and the jests of man. Cowley has here turned "locis" into "jocis."