Ausonius Quotes

“So many lovely things, so rare, so young,
A day begat them, and a day will end.”
Tot species, tantosque ortus variosque novatus<br/>una dies aperit, conficit ipsa dies.

“It is the things which Ausonius reveals unconsciously that win him liking, not those which he sets out to celebrate with a kind of innocent pomp: not the chair of rhetoric at twenty-five, nor the imperial tutorship in his fifties, nor the consulship at sixty-nine, but that he loved and taught rhetoric all his life, and kept his simplicity.”

“What colour are they now, thy quiet waters?
The evening star has brought the evening light,
And filled the river with the green hillside;
The hill-tops waver in the rippling water,
Trembles the absent vine and swells the grape
In thy clear crystal.”
Quis color ille vadis, seras cum propulit umbras<br/>Hesperus et viridi perfudit monte Mosellam!<br/>tota natant crispis iuga motibus et tremit absens<br/>pampinus et vitreis vindemia turget in undis.

“Ausonius must be read to be believed! As poet, no subject is too trivial for him; as courtier, no flattery too excessive.”

“If many dread you, then beware of many.”
Multis terribilis timeto multos.

“In the history of versification did anyone ever juggle so wildly well with iambics, sapphics, dactylics, anapestics, and all the rest? He fabricated verses most ingeniously, most enthusiastically. His virtuosity is amazing. Almost every line he wrote was a tour de force. And in spite of all this highly self-conscious technical facility he managed occasionally to write poetry.”

“It is outrageous that a strictly abstemious reader should sit in judgement on a poet a little drunk.”
Iniurium est de poeta male sobrio lectorem abstemium iudicare.

“I've never written for a fasting man;
A taste of wine is good before my verse.
But sleep is better than a little wine,
For when sleeping one thinks my songs are dreams.”
Jejunis nil scribo: meum post pocula si quis<br/>legerit, hic sapiet.<br/>Sed magis hic sapiet, si dormiet: et putet ista<br/>somnia missa sibi.

“Every stage of life has its troubles, and no man is content with his own age.”
Omne aevum curae; cunctis sua displicet aetas.

“O maid, while youth is with the rose and thee,
Pluck thou the rose: life is as swift for thee.”
Collige, virgo, rosas, dum flos novus et nova pubes,<br/>et memor esto aevum sic properare tuum.

“His monuments decay, and death comes even to his marbles and his names.”
Monumenta fatiscunt:<br/>mors etiam saxis nominibusque venit.

“In the history of versification did anyone ever juggle so wildly well with iambics, sapphics, dactylics, anapestics, and all the rest? He fabricated verses most ingeniously, most enthusiastically. His virtuosity is amazing. Almost every line he wrote was a tour de force.”