A quotation from Horace
Now listen while I show you, how the rest
Who call you madman, are themselves possessed.
Just as in woods, when travellers step aside
From the true path for want of some good guide,
This to the right, that to the left hand strays,
And all are wrong, but wrong in different ways,
So, though you’re mad, yet he who banters you
Is not more wise, but wears his pigtail too.
[Nunc accipe, quare
desipiant omnes aeque ac tu, qui tibi nomen
insano posuere. Velut silvis, ubi passim
palantis error certo de tramite pellit,
ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit, unus utrique
error, sed variis inludit partibus: hoc te
crede modo insanum, nihilo ut sapientior ille
qui te deridet caudam trahat.]
Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Satires [Saturae, Sermones], Book 2, # 3, “Si raro scribes,” l. 46ff (2.3.46-53) (30 BC) [tr. Conington (1874)]
Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/horace/77207/
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