Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

PANEGYRIC OX PISOlong life, distinguished ornament of your clan,assured of my loyalty, accept and welcome thispledge of true affection. Yet, if my page f;ills shortof your renown, the intent is enough. I vaunt myaspiration, not my poetr\ . Do you but lend yourjoyful presence : perchance I shall sing better laysand your very favour will give strength, the veryhope A\'ill give a fertile spirit : deign to throw openyour home : this is my sole request. For it is noimperious hunger for rich gold, no savage lust ofpossession that has prompted me, but love ofpraise. I fain, noble sir, would dwell with you, andthrough all my life hold rivalry in my songs withyour excellences : more lofty will be my way, if youare now opening for me the path of fame, if youare removing the shadow (of obscurity). Whatprofits the hidden vein of precious metal, if itlack the miner? What can a vessel do, buried insome sluggish haven, if it lack captain, though itcarry all its tackle, and could loosen its flappingsails on the shapen mast from the slackened rope ?The very bard who through Italian peoples makeshis poem on Aeneas resound, the bard who in hismighty renown treads ^ Olympus and in Romanaccents challenges the old man Maeonian, perchancehis poem might have lurked obscure in the shadowof the grove, and he might have but sung on afruitless reed unknown to the nations, if he had lackeda Maecenas. Yet it was not to one bard only that heopened his doors, nor did he entrust his (imperial)divinities to ^'irgil alone : Maecenas raised to fameVarius,* who shook the stage with tragic mienHor. Od. I. vi. 1 and Porphyrion nd loc. ; Sat. I. x. 44; A.P.65; Quintilian X. i. 98; Mart. VIII. xviii. 7; Tac. Dial. xii. 6.