Ode
Since I must soon repose beyond the river of hell, ah! what does it profit me that I have penned as many lines as Homer?
Verses will not save me, as a dusty shade, from feeling whether the tomb's weight there is light or heavy.
Suppose that, in return for all my labours, my verses bring me a little praise in the world for ten or twenty years:
What is needed to destroy it and to banish my book from the earth? Only a fire that burns it, only a skirmish in a war.
Am I better than Anacreon, than Stesichorus, than Simonides, than Antimachus or Bion, than Philetus or Bacchylides?
Though they were Greeks, how has that beautiful tongue profited them, since the succeeding years have brought their works to dust?
Shall I, who am born French, a maker of homely rimes, shall I hope that my voice may rise above the wings of the ages?
No, no, Rubampre, it were better to spend life in trade, or to sell one's speech for money before a purple-robed Senate,
Than to follow the idle train of poor Calliope, since the best singers of her troop have died of hunger!
Verses will not save me, as a dusty shade, from feeling whether the tomb's weight there is light or heavy.
Suppose that, in return for all my labours, my verses bring me a little praise in the world for ten or twenty years:
What is needed to destroy it and to banish my book from the earth? Only a fire that burns it, only a skirmish in a war.
Am I better than Anacreon, than Stesichorus, than Simonides, than Antimachus or Bion, than Philetus or Bacchylides?
Though they were Greeks, how has that beautiful tongue profited them, since the succeeding years have brought their works to dust?
Shall I, who am born French, a maker of homely rimes, shall I hope that my voice may rise above the wings of the ages?
No, no, Rubampre, it were better to spend life in trade, or to sell one's speech for money before a purple-robed Senate,
Than to follow the idle train of poor Calliope, since the best singers of her troop have died of hunger!
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