… sitting outside on a nice summer day, with some iced tea by my side, reading Horace. But a bit unhappy, as most translations of the Satires don't read well … Going back to A.S. Kline (Poetry in Translation) online, still the best (it also has the advantage of a linked glossary). Somewhere I read that Horace is most difficult to translate.
Anyway, here is what Horace has to say about satire:
Book 1, IV – A Defence of Satire
BkISatIV:1-25 Quality not Quantity in Satire please.
BkISatIV:26-62 Is a Satirist truly a poet though?
BkISatIV:63-85 Maybe not, but why treat Satire with suspicion?
BkISatIV:86-106 After all, I’m not the malicious one
BkISatIV:107-143 My father taught me to be critical
Book 1, X – On Satire
BkISatX:1-30 The art of writing well
BkISatX:72-92 We should write for the few not the many
Book 2, I – On Satire Again we are obviously in a new era
[…] However far, in rank or wit, below Lucilius,
Envy, reluctantly, must admit I lived among
Great men, and trying to bite on something soft
She’ll sink her teeth in what’s solid. Or do you differ
Trebatius? ‘No I don’t disagree, but
still
Let me warn you to be careful lest by chance
You find trouble through ignorance of the sacred law:
If a man trots out false verses, then there are rights
And courts of justice.’ Yes if they are false: but suppose
They are sound and praised by Caesar? If he’s snapped
At one who deserves disgrace, he himself blameless?
‘The score will be wiped clean, you’ll be discharged.’
BkIISatI:1-23 Advise me what to write
BkIISatI:24-46 It’s my delight to write: it’s self-defence
BkIISatI:47-86 I must use the weapons I have
