Commentary

BOOK BODY

 B1
   

"Book you're staring wistful
At the gods of buying and
selling two-faced gods
of the marketplace,
You're waiting to lie smooth
and eager and young,
open for sale.

And this, this too, book:
you'll turn gray and old, and
stutter, while schoolboys in
tiny schools at the edge
of the city
Fumble out your A
                     and B
                        and C.

And still ...
tell them who I was:
son of a freeman, taught
to fly on wings to wide
for my nest."

(Horace. Epistle 1: 20. Roman Poet  65-8 BCE.
Trans. Burton Raffel; 1983)