§114.1Quare quibusdam temporibus provenerit corrupti generis oratio quaeris, et quomodo in quaedam vitia inclinatio ingeniorum facta sit, ut aliquando inflata explicatio vigeret, aliquando infracta et in morem cantici ducta? Quare alias sensus audaces et fidem egressi placuerint, alias abruptae sententiae et suspiciosae, in quibus plus intellegendum esset quam audiendum? Quare aliqua aetas fuerit, quae translationis iure uteretur inverecunde? Hoc quod audire vulgo soles, quod apud Graecos in proverbium cessit: talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis vita.
Why, you ask, has a corrupted kind of speech come to prevail at certain times, and how has the bent of talents been directed toward certain faults, so that at one time an inflated style flourished, at another a broken and sing-song one? Why have bold thoughts, exceeding belief, pleased at one time, and at another abrupt and cryptic sentences, in which more was to be understood than heard? Why has there been a certain age that used the license of metaphor shamelessly? It is that which you are accustomed to hear commonly, which has passed into a proverb among the Greeks: as a man's speech is, so is his life.
§114.2Quemadmodum autem uniuscuiusque actio dicenti similis est, sic genus dicendi aliquando imitatur publicos mores, si disciplina civitatis laboravit et se in delicias dedit.
Moreover, just as the action of each individual is like the speaker, so the style of speaking sometimes imitates public morals, if the discipline of the state has suffered and given itself up to pleasures.
Argumentum est luxuriae publicae orationis lascivia, si modo non in uno aut in altero fuit, sed adprobata est et recepta.
The wantonness of public speech is a proof of public luxury, provided it has not been in one or two individuals, but has been approved and received.
§114.3Non potest alius esse ingenio, alius animo color.
The color of talent cannot be one thing, and that of the mind another.
Si ille sanus est, si compositus, gravis, temperans, ingenium quoque siccum ac sobrium est; illo vitiato hoc quoque adflatur.
If the mind is healthy, ordered, serious, and temperate, the talent is also dry and sober; if the former is corrupted, the latter is also infected.
Non vides, si animus elanguit, trahi membra et pigre moveri pedes? Si ille effeminatus est, in ipso incessu adparere mollitiam? Si ille acer est et ferox, concitari gradum? Si furit aut, quod furori simile est, irascitur, turbatum esse corporis motum nec ire, sed ferri?
Quanto hoc magis accidere ingenio putas, quod totum animo permixtum est; ab illo fingitur, illi paret, inde legem petit.
Do you not see, if the mind has grown languid, that the limbs are dragged and the feet move sluggishly? If it is effeminate, that softness appears in the gait itself? If it is sharp and fierce, that the step is quickened? If it rages, or, what is similar to madness, is angry, that the motion of the body is disturbed and does not walk, but is carried along? How much more do you think this happens to talent, which is completely mixed with the mind; by it talent is shaped, to it talent obeys, and from it talent seeks its law.
§114.4Quomodo Maecenas vixerit notius est, quam ut narrari nunc debeat, quomodo ambulaverit, quam delicatus fuerit, quam cupierit videri, quam vitia sua latere noluerit.
How Maecenas lived is too well known to need to be told now—how he walked, how delicate he was, how he wished to be seen, how he did not wish his vices to be concealed.
Quid ergo? Non oratio eius aeque soluta est quam ipse discinctus? Non tam insignita illius verba sunt quam cultus, quam comitatus, quam domus, quam uxor? Magni vir ingenii fuerat, si illud egisset via rectiore, si non vitasset intellegi, si non etiam in oratione difflueret.
What then? Is not his speech as loose as he himself was ungirt? Are not his words as striking as his attire, his retinue, his house, his wife? He would have been a man of great talent, if he had pursued it by a straighter path, if he had not avoided being understood, if he had not been diffuse even in his speech.
videbis itaque eloquentiam ebrii hominis involutam et errantem et licentiae plenam.
You will see therefore the eloquence of a drunken man, involved, wandering, and full of license.
§114.5Quid turpius "amne silvisque ripa comantibus? "vide ut "alveum lintribus arent versoque vado remittant hortos. "Quid? Si quis "feminae cinno crispat et labris columbatur incipitque suspirans, ut cervice lassa fanantur nemoris tyranni. "" Inremediabilis factio rimantur epulis lagonaque temptant domos et spe mortem exigunt. "" Genium festo vix suo testem.
What is more shameful than "with river and woods their banks keeping hair"? See how they "plow the channel with boats and, turning the shallow water, dismiss the gardens." What? If anyone "curls with a woman's mixture and bills with his lips and begins with a sigh, as with tired neck the tyrants of the grove run mad." "An incurable faction, they ransack with banquets and with the flagon try the houses and with hope demand death." "Scarcely calling their Genius as witness to his feast.
Tenuisve cerei fila et crepacem molam Focum mater aut uxor investiunt. " §114.6Non statim, cum haec legeris, hoc tibi occurret, hunc esse, qui solutis tunicis in urbe semper incesserit? Nam etiam cum absentis Caesaris partibus fungeretur, signum a discincto petebatur.
Or with the threads of a thin taper and the crackling meal, the mother or wife clothe the hearth." Will it not immediately occur to you, when you have read these things, that this is the man who always walked in the city with his tunics loose? For even when he was performing the duties of the absent Caesar, the sign was sought from him while ungirt.
Hunc esse qui in tribunali, in rostris, in omni publico coetu sic apparuerit, ut pallio velaretur caput exclusis utrimque auribus, non aliter quam in mimo fugitivi divitis solent? Hunc esse, cui tunc maxime civilibus bellis strepentibus et sollicita urbe et armata comitatus hic fuerit in publico spadones duo, magis tamen viri quam ipse? Hunc esse, qui uxorem milliens duxi, cum unam habuerit? Haec verba tam improbe structa, tam neglegenter abiecta, tam contra consuetudinem omnium posita ostendunt mores quoque non minus novos et pravos et singulares fuisse.
That this is the man who appeared on the tribunal, on the rostra, in every public assembly, in such a way that his head was covered with his cloak, leaving his ears exposed on both sides, not otherwise than fugitive rich men are accustomed to do in a mime? That this is the man who, at the very time when civil wars were clattering and the city was anxious and armed, had as his retinue in public two eunuchs, yet more men than he himself was? That this is the man who married his wife a thousand times, although he had only one? These words so shamelessly structured, so carelessly cast aside, so contrary to the custom of everyone, show that his morals also were no less novel, corrupt, and singular.