Page:The works of Horace - Christopher Smart.djvu/233

 thou hearest thyself [called by that name], from whom men commence the toils of business, and of life (such is the will of the gods), be thou the beginning of my song. At Rome you hurry me away to be bail; “Away, dispatch, [you cry,] lest any one should be beforehand with you in doing that friendly office:” I must go, at all events, whether the north wind sweep the earth, or winter contracts the snowy day into a narrower circle. After this, having uttered in a clear and determinate manner [the legal form], which may be a detriment to me, I must bustle through the crowd; and must disoblige the tardy. “What is your will, madman, and what are you about, impudent fellow?” So one accosts me with his passionate curses. “You jostle every thing that is in your way, if with an appointment full in your mind you are away to Mæcenas.” This pleases me, and is like honey: I will not tell a lie. But by the time I reached the gloomy Esquiliæ, a hundred affairs of other people’s encompass me on every side: “Roscius begged that you would be with him at the court-house to-morrow before the second hour.” “The secretaries requested you would remember, Quintus, to return to-day about an affair of public concern, and of great consequence.” “Get Mæcenas to put his signet