FROM THE TRANSLATOR.

(a) Of the Art of Poetry, verses 391 & following. original: "De Arte Poët. vs. 291. & feqq." Note: The original text cites verse 291, but these lines are found at verse 391 in modern editions of Horace's Ars Poetica.

The Lyric poet The Roman poet Horace gives, among others, this explanation of it, when he says (a):

Orpheus, the sacred priest and interpreter of the Gods, deterred the wild men of the forest from slaughter and a foul way of living; for this reason, he was said to have tamed tigers and raging lions. original: "Sylvestres homines sacer interpreſque Deorum / Cædibus, & victu fœdo deterruit Orpheus, / Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres, rabidosque leones."

Which Mr. Pels Andries Pels (1631–1681), a prominent Dutch poet and critic known for his translations of Horace translates thus:

— — — — — Orpheus, so highly esteemed in his time,
That interpreter of the Gods, has the human race
Deterred from murder and beastly living through verses,
For which reason that noble name has remained with the Hero,
That he could tame the Lions and the Tigers.

The works of all the Poets who followed him, such as his student Musaeus, Linus, Melampus, Arion, Hesiod, Homer, etc., were fashioned on this model; for many centuries they were therefore held in high regard, and considered as systems in which all theology, rules of right and fairness, and the foundations of perfect political and moral science were contained. That testimony is given by the aforementioned Poet Horace a little later concerning the writings of the Poets before Homer:

— — — — this was once wisdom: to separate the public from the private, the sacred from the profane; to forbid wandering intercourse, to give rights to husbands, to build towns, to carve laws on wood. Thus honor and renown came to divine bards and their songs. original: "fuit hæc ſapientia quondam, / Publica privatis ſecernere, ſacra profanis: / Concubitu prohibere vago, dare jura maritis, / Oppida moliri, leges incidere ligno. / Sic honor & nomen divinis vatibus, atque / Carminibus venit."

The translation by Mr. Pels again reads as follows:

— — — In this art of old lay the understanding,
The power, the right, that it the private from the
Common, and the sacred from the profane, did distinguish,
Indeed, led the unrestrained into lawful marriage,
Bound marriage tightly by privilege and by punishment;
Built entire cities, and gave the people their laws.
These are the steps, these the means and ways,
Through which Poetry and Poets gained such an honorable name.