Those who write poor verses are a jest; yet
they rejoice in the writing and revere themselves; and,
should you say nothing, they themselves praise whatever they have produced—happy souls!
ridentur mala qui componunt carmina; verum
gaudent scribentes et se venerantur et ultro,
si taceas, laudant quidquid scripsere beati.
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Poetasters
Horace, Epistles 2.2.106-108 (tr. H. Rushton Fairclough):