Muse; many court her, but very few secure her favours. Moreover, he knows
that you are fickle by nature and betray your poets when they grow old.
What fate befell Magnes,[67] when his hair went white? Often enough has
he triumphed over his rivals; he has sung in all keys, played the lyre
and fluttered wings; he turned into a Lydian and even into a gnat, daubed
himself with green to become a frog.[68] All in vain! When young, you
applauded him; in his old age you hooted and mocked him, because his
genius for raillery had gone. Cratinus[69] again was like a torrent of
glory rushing across the plain, uprooting oak, plane tree and rivals and
bearing them pell-mell in its wake. The only songs at the banquet were,
'Doro, shod with lying tales' and 'Adepts of the Lyric Muse';[70] so
great was his renown. Look at him now! he drivels, his lyre has neither
strings nor keys, his voice quivers, but you have no pity for him, and
you let him wander about as he can, like Connas,[71] his temples circled
with a withered chaplet; the poor old fellow is dying of thirst; he who,
in honour of his glorious past, should be in the Prytaneum drinking at
his ease, and instead of trudging the country should be sitting amongst
the first row of the spectators, close to the statue of Dionysus[72] and
loaded with perfumes. Crates,[73] again, have you done hounding him with
your rage and your hisses? True, 'twas but meagre fare that his sterile
Muse could offer you; a few ingenious fancies formed the sole
ingredients, but nevertheless he knew how to stand firm and to recover
from his falls. 'Tis such examples that frighten our poet; in addition,
he would tell himself, that before being a pilot, he must first know how
to row, then to keep watch at the prow, after that how to gauge the
winds, and that only then would he be able to command his vessel.[74] If
then you approve this wise caution and his resolve that he would not bore
you with foolish nonsense, raise loud waves of applause in his favour
this day, so that, at this Lenaean feast, the breath of your favour may
swell the sails of his trumphant galley and the poet may withdraw proud