Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem
Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit."
"Our brawny clowns of old, who turned the soil,
Content with little, and inured to toil,
At harvest-home, with mirth and country cheer,
Restored their bodies for another year,
Refreshed their spirits, and renewed their hope
Of such a future feast and future crop.
Then with their fellow-joggers of the ploughs,
Their little children, and their faithful spouse,
A sow they slew to Vesta's deity,
And kindly milk, Silvanus, poured to thee.
With flowers and wine their Genius they adored;
A short life and a merry was the word.
From flowing cups defaming rhymes ensue,
And at each other homely taunts they threw."
Yet since it is a hard conjecture that so great a man as Casaubon
should misapply what Horace writ concerning ancient Rome to the
ceremonies and manners of ancient Greece, I will not insist on this
opinion, but rather judge in general that since all poetry had its
original from religion, that of the Grecians and Rome had the same
beginning.
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