Libraries -- History; Library architecture -- History; Library fittings and supplies -- History
The sets of verses[112] begin with three elegiac couplets headed _Titulus
Bibliothece_, probably placed over the door of entrance.
Sunt hic plura sacra, sunt hic mundalia plura:
Ex his si qua placent carmina, tolle, lege.
Prata vides, plena spinis, et copia florum;
Si non vis spinas sumere, sume rosas.
Hic geminae radiant veneranda volumina legis;
Condita sunt pariter hic nova cum veteri.
Here sacred books with worldly books combine;
If poets please you, read them; they are thine.
My meads are full of thorns, but flowers are there;
If thorns displease, let roses be your share.
Here both the Laws in tomes revered behold;
Here what is new is stored, and what is old.
The authors selected are disposed of either in a single couplet, or in
several couplets, according to the writer's taste. I will quote the lines
on S. Augustine:
Mentitur qui [te] totum legisse fatetur:
An quis cuneta tua lector habere potest?
Namque voluminibus mille, Augustine, refulges,
Testantur libri, quod loquor ipse, tui.
Quamvis multorum placeat prudentia libris,
Si Augustinus adest, sufficit ipse tibi.
They lie who to have read thee through profess;
Could any reader all thy works possess?
A thousand scrolls thy ample gifts display;
Thy own books prove, Augustine, what I say.
Though other writers charm with varied lore,
Who hath Augustine need have nothing more.
The series concludes with some lines "To an Intruder (_ad
Interventorem_)," the last couplet of which is too good to be omitted:
Non patitur quenquam coram se scriba loquentem;
Non est hic quod agas, garrule, perge foras.
A writer and a talker can't agree:
Hence, idle chatterer; 'tis no place for thee.
[Illustration: Fig. 16. Great Hall of the Vatican Library, looking west.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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