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"He! no, indeed; a man who makes districts distichs I mean at fifteen francs! No, no! it is his neighbor who is at fifteen francs." "Which neighbor?" "The other, second Bertaudiere." "Excuse me, my dear governor; but you speak a language which requires quite an apprenticeship to understand." "Very true," said the governor.
Pius II enumerates with satisfaction the distichs which his chief poet Campanus wrote on any event of his government which could be turned to poetical account. Under the following popes satirical epigrams came into fashion, and reached, in the opposition to Alexander VI and his family, the highest pitch of defiant invective.
And he also improvised the two following distichs, And as he ceased his verses, he shrieked three shrieks and fell senseless to the ground and the Fireman rose and covered him. When Nuzhat al-Zaman heard the first improvisation, she called to mind her father and her mother and her brother and their whilome home; then she wept and cried at the Eunuch and said to him, "Woe to thee!
And, finally, contemporary history was now treated in hexameters or distichs, sometimes in a narrative and sometimes in a panegyrical style, but most commonly to the honour of some prince or princely family. We thus meet with a Sforziad, a Borseid, a Laurentiad, a Borgiad, a Trivulziad, and the like.
At the end are added two books of Xenia and Apophoreta, distichs written to go with the Christmas presents of all sorts which were interchanged at the festival of the Saturnalia. These last are, of course, not "distinguished for a strong poetic feeling," any more than the cracker mottoes of modern times.
When Kanmakan heard these distichs his sorrows surged up; his tears ran down his cheeks like freshets and flames of fire darted into his heart. So he rose to see who it was that spake these words, but saw none for the thickness of the gloom; whereupon passion increased on him and he was frightened and restlessness possessed him.
The unexpected turn of thought and pointedness of expression, which the moderns consider the essence of this species of composition, were not required in the ancient Greek epigram, where nothing was wanted but that the entire thought should be conveyed within the limit of a few distichs, and thus, in the hands of the early poets, the epigram was remarkable for the conciseness and expressiveness of its language and differed in this respect from the elegy, in which full expression was given to the feelings of the poet.
"All those at fifteen francs drink it," said Baisemeaux. "It is very old Volnay." "Does that poor student, Seldon, drink such good wine?" "Oh, no!" "I thought I heard you say he was boarded at fifteen francs." "He! no, indeed; a man who makes districts distichs, I mean at fifteen francs! No, no! it is his neighbor who is at fifteen francs." "Which neighbor?" "The other, second Bertaudiere."
It was held the greatest of all triumphs, if an epigram was mistaken for a genuine copy from some old marble, or if it was so good that all Italy learned it by heart, as happened in the case of some of Bembo's. When the Venetian government paid Sannazaro 600 ducats for a eulogy in three distichs, no one thought it an act of generous prodigality.
The handwriting and the Latin tell of faithful juvenile toil and moderate success nothing more. Nor can we extract much biographic interest from the later distichs and carmina which he turned out at school festivals. Such things have flowed easily from the pen of many a bright schoolboy whom the bees of Hymettus failed to visit.
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