Satyra.

Just as a wicked dog bites a thrown stone, when
It cannot hurt the thrower with rabid teeth.
But you make a matter clearly ridiculous and foolish,
And you bring evil upon your own beast, your own limbs, and yourself,
By forbidding books, and burning writings.
We always strive for the forbidden, and desire what is denied:
He says, taught by examples, and the master of genius.
Are you able to expel nature with a pitchfork?
When you persecute our things with such tumult,
And rage with thunderbolts, and menacing edicts,
More will read our things than ever read them until now,
And your errors will be known in the whole world:
Hence, followers and supporters of the highest
Will conceive hatred against you, and will leave you,
And you will not be able to hold back the opposing ones with any bridle.
It would therefore be better to forbid no book:
For our interdiction only ignites studies,
It never extinguishes them, just as naphtha does not extinguish the oil of furnaces.
All prudent men will want to know the condemned things:
And if they are not offered here, they can be procured elsewhere.
And the matter would not have come here from the first years,
Had you not with savage barking and bloody deeds
(Which you are occupied with even now, and your addicted herd)
Awakened from sleep those who were lazy and captured by lethargy,
So that they would look out, and ask what you, Cerberus, wanted
With such anger, such hatred, and such tumult,
Although the dangers to things and life were proposed,