Complete Poetic Works, Volume 7

...unless each person has drenched himself in the pure Castalian water original: "Castalide lymphâ," referring to the fountain of the Muses on Mount Parnassus; then, the heart, whether fertile or barren, will be shaken into issuing oracles.

III. Besides the sharp judgment necessary for the slippery passion of creating, and the mastery over certain disturbances of the mind, one also requires vivid images of things, surrounded by a chosen retinue of the best words.

IV. Furthermore, a poem is animated by the sentiments discovered within it. If these are rare, sublime, tender, divine, or fierce, such will the poem be. If they are common, humble, lowly, sad, morbid, or dull, the poem will possess that same character.

V. Just as the Turkish seed, which they call opium, immediately maddens the mind even as it delights the palate; so too those sentiments, which are carried like spirits over the Pegasean water The fountain Hippocrene, created by the hoof of the winged horse Pegasus; a symbol of poetic inspiration, have the power when sprinkled into a poem to tickle the wit and carry it away with pleasure wherever they are driven.

VI. By the benefit of these spirits, something worthy of a great poet can be brought forth with polished words, even if they are not the most exquisite. Conversely, a vulgar sentiment, worthy of a common mushroom, is often dressed up in arduous and sesquipedalian words original: "sesquipedalibus," literally "a foot and a half long".

VII. It seems certain that if Ovid original: "Nasonem" were shut inside the armory of Statius himself, he would nonetheless have still lamented the death of Tibullus Ovid was a master of tender elegy; Statius wrote heavy, martial epics. If Statius were equipped with Cupid’s bow and quiver and all the erotic apparatus of Ovid, he would still have destroyed Thebes A reference to Statius's epic poem, the Thebaid.

VIII. By these things, the talents of poets are tested, like the eyes of eagles facing the sun. And though some poets might turn themselves in every direction, one still detects a lower gaze, and sees only fish gasping on the shore.

IX. From this it follows that it seems no less difficult for those with a pulsing poetic vein to aspire to the dignity of the Ancient poets. Even in the golden Age of Augustus, which radiated with so many talents, Posterity found so few whose care it would make its own.

X. The difficulty is increased further by the fact that the mental offspring, once brought forth, requires no less concern than it did when it was about to be born. For unless you lick it into shape in the manner of Virgil’s bear original: "more Ursæ Virgiliani," referring to the legend that bear cubs are born unformed and the mother licks them into shape; Virgil famously said he produced his verses in the same way;