Such amongst
the Romans is the famous Cento of Ausonius, where the words are
Virgil's, but by applying them to another sense they are made a
relation of a wedding-night, and the act of consummation fulsomely
described in the very words of the most modest amongst all poets.
Of the same manner are our songs which are turned into burlesque,
and the serious words of the author perverted into a ridiculous
meaning. Thus in Timon's "silli" the words are generally those of
Homer and the tragic poets, but he applies them satirically to some
customs and kinds of philosophy which he arraigns. But the Romans
not using any of these parodies in their satires--sometimes indeed
repeating verses of other men, as Persius cites some of Nero's, but
not turning them into another meaning--the "silli" cannot be
supposed to be the original of Roman satire. To these "silli,"
consisting of parodies, we may properly add the satires which were
written against particular persons, such as were the iambics of
Archilochus against Lycambes, which Horace undoubtedly imitated in
some of his odes and epodes, whose titles bear sufficient witness of
it: I might also name the invective of Ovid against Ibis, and many
others.
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