Book III: Prologue, to Eutychus

The tales of Phædrus would you read,O Eutychus, you must be freedFrom business, that the mind unbentMay take the author's full intent.You urge that this poetic turnOf mine is not of such concern,As with your time to interfereA moment's space: 'tis therefore clearFor those essays you have no call,Which suit not your affairs at all.A time may come, perhaps you'll say,That I shall make a holiday,And have my vacant thoughts at large,The student's office to discharge--And can you such vile stuff peruse,Rather than serve domestic views,Return the visits of a friend,Or with your wife your leisure spend,Relax your mind, your limbs relieve,And for new toil new strength receive?From worldly cares you must estrangeYour thoughts, and feel a perfect change,If to Parnassus you repair,And seek for your admission there,Me--(whom a Grecian mother boreOn Hill Pierian, where of yoreMnemosyne in love divineBrought forth to Jove the tuneful Nine.Though sprung where genius reign'd with art,I grubb'd up av'rice from my heart,And rather for applause than pay,Embrace the literary way)Yet as a writer and a wit,With some abatements they admit.What is his case then, do you think,Who toils for wealth nor sleeps a wink,Preferring to the pleasing painOf composition sordid gain?But hap what will (as Sinon said,When to king Priam he was led),I book the third shall now fulfil,With Æsop for my master still;Which book I dedicate to you,As both to worth and honour due.Pleased, if you read--if not, contentAs conscious of a sure event,That these my fables shall remain,And after-ages entertain.In a few words I now proposeTo point from whence the Fable rose.A servitude was all alongExposed to most oppressive wrong,The suff'rer therefore did not dareHis heart's true dictates to declare;But couch'd his meaning in the veilOf many an allegoric tale,And jesting with a moral aim,Eluded all offence and blame.This is the path that I pursue,Inventing more than Æsop knew;And certain topics by-the-by,To my own hindrence did I try.But was there any of mankind,Besides Sejanus, so inclined,Who was alone to work my fall,Informer, witness, judge and all;I would confess the slander true,And own such hardships were my due;Nor would I fly, my grief to ease,To such poor lenitives as these.If any through suspicion errs,And to himself alone refers,What was design'd for thousands moreHe'll show too plainly, where he's sore.Yet ev'n from such I crave excuse,For (far from personal abuse)My verse in gen'ral would put downTrue life and manners of the town.But here, perhaps, some one will askWhy I, forsooth, embraced this task?If Esop, though a Phrygian, rose,And ev'n derived from Scythian snows;If Anacharsis could deviseBy wit to gain th' immortal prize;Shall I, who to learn'd Greece belong,Neglect her honour and her song,And by dull sloth myself disgrace?Since we can reckon up in Thrace,The authors that have sweetest sung,Where Linus from Apollo sprung;And he whose mother was a muse,Whose voice could tenderness infuseTo solid rocks, strange monsters quell'd,And Hebrus in his course withheld.Envy, stand clear, or thou shalt rueTh' attack, for glory is my due.Thus having wrought upon your ear,I beg that you would be sincere,And in the poet's cause avowThat candor, all the world allow.