Apollo, carved from imitative stone,
Surveys our table. None but he alone,
I’d thought, whose arms reach out above our heads,
Could dictate art, extract pure gold from lead.
The ligaments, the veins, each supple curve
In every limb combine.  What aim is served?
Why, art, of course.  In art, all parts are joined,
Embodied into truths, and truths to nature shine!

And while Apollo, father of all great
Afflation, hopes to guide each artist’s fate,
Our Maro fills his ego and his plate.

Messalla prods me on.  “Salute him! Art
Begins within, but patronage imparts
The gift of never-ending voice,” he says.
“The poet scrawls unheard, and none can guess,
Without a proper guide, when chance will bring
Auspicious stages, ears to hear you sing!
All Rome became like Virgil’s special page,
The War his barren slate, and Troy his gauge
By which our past is measured.  Why, you ask?
No word of Virgil’s art, from first to last,
Exists unless Augustus wills it first.”

My toga virilis seems a bit unversed,
And Virgil’s gilded robes reveal his place.
No other poet fabricates our age,
But still I wonder.  Will he aid my words,
Or aid his will in leaving them unheard?
The dying screams of Dido we still hear
Because divine-blown storms, although severe,
Provided passage for Aeneas’ ship.
Should poets only speak for states, restrict
Our voices, stem the passion from our souls?

Messalla!  Please forgive me!  How the bowl
Containing vibrant, lusty fruits allures
Me!  Any poet’s gift would stay unsure,
Exiled from any truth, if one should sound
An art bound up by autocratic shrouds!