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Although our age is better than that of our grandfathers and Rome has grown greater under recent emperors, it’s amazing that we lack the genius of divine Vergil and that no one celebrates great wars in verse. Let there be a Maecenas and there will be a Vergil: in that case even your country could produce a great poet. Vergil had lost his farm near wretched Cremona, and sad Tityrus was grieving his lost sheep, when the Etruscan Maecenas laughed and drove his harsh poverty into exile. Maecenas said: “Take these riches and become the greatest poet; You may also become the lover of my boyfriend Alexis.” That handsome boy was standing at his master’s table and pouring the dark Falernian wine with his white hand, and was touching the goblets with rosy lips that could have excited Jupiter himself! Immediately the smitten poet forgot about buxom Galatea and sunburned Thestylis (his girlfriends): right away he began the Georgics and the Aeneid, even though he had scarcely finished the Culex. Why should I speak of Variuses and Maruses, and the names of other great poets, whom it would be too hard to list? Will I therefore be a Vergil, if you should give me the gifts of Maecenas? I won’t be a Vergil, I will be Marsus. |