y-eight. The vigorous man was unfortunately too much a scholar
to confess that he neither could nor would be a philosopher,
and accordingly as such throughout life he performed a blind dance-
not altogether becoming--between the Stoa, Pythagoreanism, and Diogenism.
24. On one occasion he writes, "-Quintiforis Clodii foria ac
poemata ejus gargaridians dices; O fortuna, O fors fortuna-!" And
elsewhere, "-Cum Quintipor Clodius tot comoedias sine ulla fecerit
Musa, ego unum libellum non 'edolem' ut ait Ennius?-" This not
otherwise known Clodius must have been in all probability
a wretched imitator of Terence, as those words sarcastically laid
at his door "O fortuna, O fors fortuna!" are found occurring
in a Terentian comedy.
The following description of himself by a poet in Varro's
--Onos Louras--,
-Pacuvi discipulus dicor, porro is fuit Enni,
Ennius Musarum; Pompilius clueor-
might aptly parody the introduction of Lucretius (p. 474), to whom
Varro as a declared enemy of the Epicurean system cannot have been
well disposed, and whom he never quotes.
25. He himself once aptly says, that he had no special fondness
for antiquated words, but frequently used them, and that he was
very fond of poetical words, but did not use them.
26. The following description is taken from the -Marcipor-
("Slave of Marcus"):--
-Repente noctis circiter meridie
Cum pictus aer fervidis late ignibus
Caeli chorean astricen ostenderet,
Nubes aquali, frigido velo leves
Caeli cavernas aureas subduxerant,
Aquam vomentes inferam mortalibus.
Ventique frigido se ab axe eruperant,
Phrenetici septentrionum filii,
Secum ferentes tegulas, ramos, syrus.
At nos caduci, naufragi, ut ciconiae
Quarum bipennis fulminis plumas vapor
Perussit, alte maesti in terram cecidimus-.
In the --'Anthropopolis-- we find the lines:
-Non fit thesauris, non auro pectu' solutum;
Non demunt animis curas ac relligiones
Persarum montes, non atria diviti' Crassi-.
But the poet was successful also in a lighter vein. In the -Est
Modus Matulae- there stood the following elegant commendation of
wine:--
-Vino nihil iucundius quisquam bibit.
Hoc aegritudinem ad medendam invenerunt,
Hoc hilaritatis dulce seminarium.
Hoc continet coagulum convivia-.
And in the --Kosmotonounei-- the wanderer returning home thus
concludes his address to the sailors:
-Delis habenas animae leni,
Dum nos
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