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| Francesco Albani Three Figures before 1650 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
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| Alessandro Allori Poet introduced to Mount Helicon before 1607 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
You cannot credit the wish, that the young should be teachable
And old age quiet. Yet it is these wishes
Spring from the earth at last, when the country flowers.
Might you not even remember the old worship?
I could name ancestors, it is not done any more.
It remains true that, before you are king, you must win.
We have been through it all, victory on land and sea,
These things were necessary for your assurance.
The King of France. Once there was even India.
Can you remember the expression 'Honour' ?
There was, at one time, even Modesty.
Nothing is so dead it does not come back.
– based on Horace's Carmen Saeculare, as translated by C.H. Sisson (1974)
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| Alessandro Algardi Hercules ascending from the Pyre before 1654 drawing British Museum |
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| Domenico Maria Canuti Flying Figure with Sword and Shield ca. 1677-80 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
There, came to them
No steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring
Flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit,
But blindly and lawlessly they did all things,
Until I taught them how the stars do rise
And set in mystery, and devised for them
Number, the inducer of philosophies,
The synthesis of Letters, and, beside,
The artificer of all things, Memory,
That sweet Muse-mother.
– from Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, translated by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850)
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| Inigo Jones Five Classical Heads 1630s drawing Yale Center for British Art |
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| Hans von Aachen Allegory of Peace, Fertility and Science 1601 wash drawing Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
And so these daughters fair of Pandarus,
The whirlwinds took. The gods had slain their kin:
They were left orphans in their father's house.
And Aphrodite came to comfort them
With incense, luscious honey and fragrant wine;
And Heré gave them beauty of face and soul
Beyond all women; purest Artemis
Endowed them with her stature and white grace;
And Pallas taught their hands to flash along
Her famous looms. Then, bright with deity,
Toward far Olympus, Aphrodite went
To ask of Zeus (who has his thunder-joys
And his full knowledge of man's mingled fate)
How best to crown those other gifts with love
And worthy marriage: but, what time she went,
The ravishing Harpie snatched the maids away,
And gave them up, for all their lovely eyes,
To serve the Furies who hate constantly.
– from the Odyssey of Homer, translated by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1888)
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| Antonio Molinari Child Moses stepping on Pharaoh’s Crown ca. 1690-1700 drawing Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf |
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| workshop of Carlo Maratti Joseph and Potiphar's Wife ca. 1670-1710 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
I well know
The wise man's only Jupiter is this,
To eat and drink during his little day,
And give himself no care. And as for those
Who complicate with laws the life of man,
I freely give them tears for their reward.
I will not cheat my soul of its delight,
Or hesitate in dining upon you: –
And that I may be quit of all demands,
These are my hospitable gifts; – fierce fire
And yon ancestral cauldron, which o'er-bubbling
Shall finely cook your miserable flesh.
Creep in! –
– from Cyclops by Euripides, translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1822)
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| Pier Francesco Mola Harpist playing to a woman in a park ca. 1648-60 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Crescenzio Onofri Farmhouse in a clearing before 1698 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
Pears after pears to full dimensions swell,
Figs follow figs, grapes clust'ring grow again
Where clusters grew, and (ev'ry apple stript)
The boughs soon tempt the gath'rer as before.
There too, well-rooted, and of fruit profuse,
His vineyard grows; part, wide-extended, basks
In the sun's beams; the arid level glows;
In part they gather, and in part they tread
The wine-press, while, before the eye, the grapes
Here put their blossom forth, there, gather fast
Their blackness. On the garden's verge extreme,
Flow'rs of all hues smile all the year, arranged
With neatest art judicious . . .
– from the Odyssey of Homer, translated by William Cowper (1799)
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| Guido Reni Crucifixion of St Peter 1604 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Jusepe de Ribera Crucifixion of St Peter ca. 1625-30 wash drawing Albertina, Vienna |
Yet no palace ground and spacious
Does more sure its lord receive,
Than the seat of death rapacious,
Whence the rich have no reprieve.
Each alike to all is equal,
Whither would your views extend?
Kings and peasants in the sequel
To the destin'd grave descend.
There, though brib'd, the guard infernal
Would not shrewd Prometheus free;
There are held in chains eternal
Tantalus, and such as he.
There the poor have consolation
For their hard laborious lot;
Death attends each rank and station,
Whether he is call'd or not.
– from an Ode of Horace, translated by Christopher Smart (1767)
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| attributed to Pietro Faccini Man with Dagger bending forward before 1602 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Stefano della Bella Figure wearing Fantastic Headdress ca. 1650 drawing Royal Collection, Windsor |
Are these thy views? proceed, illustrious youth,
And virtue guard thee to the throne of truth,
Yet should thy soul indulge the gen'rous heat,
Till captive science yields her last retreat;
Should reason guide thee with her brightest ray,
And pour on misty doubt resistless day;
Should no false kindness lure to loose delight,
Nor praise relax, nor difficulty fright;
Should tempting novelty the cell refrain,
And sloth effuse her opiate fumes in vain;
Should beauty blunt on fops her fatal dart,
Nor claim the triumph of a letter'd heart;
Should no disease thy torpid veins invade,
Nor melancholy's phantoms haunt thy shade;
Yet hope not life from grief or danger free,
Nor think the doom of man revers'd for thee:
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause awhile from letters to be wise;
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
See nations slowly wise, and meanly just,
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.
– from The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) by Samuel Johnson, based on a Satire of Juvenal