Sunday, March 1, 2020

Democritus Junior to the Reader, page 19

[p. 19]
Bilem sæpe, jocum verstri movere tumultus.
Shilleto: Horace, Epistles, Book 1, Ep. xix, line 20.

I like the Oxford World's Classics translation here, although less literal than Loeb's: 
[O, you imitators, servile herd,] how often have your antics stirred me to anger, how often to laughter!
Horace, Satire and Epistles, trans. John Davie, ed. Robert Cowan (Oxford University Press, 2011)
Although ostensibly, the thread here is laughter & tears (picking up again on the Heraclites/Democritus+Diogenes opposition), the context of Horace's Epistle is assertion of the poet's originality to refute accusations of plagiarism leveled against his Epodes and Odes. Horace also refuses to compromise and promote his poetry with social appearances and dinners.