To Lollius Si Bene Te Novi Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Ft. John Conington)

To Lollius

Si Bene Te Novi

You'd blush, good Lollius, if I judge you right,
To mix the parts of friend and parasite.
'Twixt parasite and friend a gulf is placed,
Wide as between the wanton and the chaste;
Yet think not flattery friendship's only curse:
A different vice there is, perhaps a worse,
A brutal boorishness, which fain would win
Regard by unbrushed teeth and close-shorn skin,
Yet all the while is anxious to be thought
Pure independence, acting as it ought.
Between these faults 'tis Virtue's place to stand,
At distance from the extreme on either hand.
The flatterer by profession, whom you see
At every feast among the lowest three,
Hangs on his patron's looks, takes up each word
Which, dropped by chance, might else expire unheard,
Like schoolboys echoing what their masters say
In sing-song drawl, or Gnatho in the play:
While your blunt fellow battles for a straw,
As though he'd knock you down or take the law:
"How now, good sir? you mean my word to doubt?
When I once think a thing, I mayn't speak out?
Though living on your terms were living twice,
Instead of once, 'twere dear at such a price."
And what's the question that brings on these fits?—
Does Dolichos or Castor make more hits?
Or, starting for Brundisium, will it pay
To take the Appian or Minucian way?