O si urnam argenti fors quae mihi monstret, ut illi, thesauro invento, qui mercennarius agrum ilium ipsum mercatus aravit, dives amico Hercule! But as a rule, since he cannot keep Horace out, he strives to disguise him. The familiar si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi of the _Ars Poetica_ (102) reappears in the far less natural verum nec nocte paratum plorabit, qui me volet incurvasse querela (_Pers_. i. 91). A man's tears must come from his heart at the moment, not from his brains overnight, if he would have me bowed down beneath his piteous tale. CONINGTON. He speaks of his verses so finely turned and polished-- ut per leve severos effundat iunctura unguis (i. 64). So that the critical nail runs glibly along even where the parts join. CONINGTON. In this fantastically contorted and affected phrase we may espy an ingenious blending of two Horatian phrases, totus teres atque rotundus, externi ne quid valeat per leve morari (_Sat._ ii. 7. 86), and the simple ad unguem factus f _Sat._ i. 5. 32.[237] There is no need to multiply instances. Horace appears everywhere, but _quantum mutatus ab illo!_ As the result of this particular method of borrowing, assisted by affectations and obscurities which are all his own, Persius attains to a kind of spurious originality of diction, which often degenerates into sheer eccentricity. In spite of the fact that the original text can almost everywhere be reconstructed with certainty, he is almost the most obscure of Latin poets to the modern reader. A few instances will suffice. There were, it appears, three ways of mocking a person behind his back: one might tap the fingers against the lower portion of the hand in imitation of a stork's beak, one might imitate a donkey's ears, or one might put out one's tongue. When Persius wishes to say 'Janus, I envy you your luck, for no one can mock at you behind your back!' he writes (i. 58): O Iane, a tergo quem nulla ciconia pinsit, nec manus auriculas imitari mobilis albas, nec linguae, quantum sitiat canis Apula, tantae. Happy Janus, whom no stork's bill batters from behind, no nimble hand quick to imitate the ass's white ears, no long tongues thrust out like the tongue of a thirsty Apulian bitch. The obscurity of the first line springs in part from the fact that the custom is not elsewhere spoken of. The second line may pass. The third defies literal translation. It means 'no long tongues thrust out like the tongue of a thirsty Apulian bitch'. But the omission of all mention both of 'protrusion' and of the 'dog days' makes the Latin almost without meaning. The epithet _Apula_ becomes absurd. A 'thirsty Apulian dog' is barely sufficient to suggest the midsummer drought of Apulia. This is an extreme case; it is perhaps fairer to quote lines such as