When Brutus passed by the market, he saw a group of people gathered together. The man in the middle was standing on a temporary wooden barrel and recited something loudly.
He leaned over curiously, wanting to hear the content.
The man standing on the barrel maintained his center of gravity while reciting poetry with emotion:
"...At that time, it was like a horse that, after being satiated by the trough, broke free from the reins with a proud heart."
"From there, run into the wilderness, running on the green and vast grassland."
"Hold your chest high, shake your bulging mane from time to time, your blazing heart gasps, and spits out white saliva..."
Brutus, who had never had any artistic talent, didn't know whether the poem was good or not, but after the man on the barrel finished reading it, he still clapped as usual.
Among a group of stunned people, his applause still seemed a bit harsh, so he had no choice but to bite the bullet and get weaker and weaker until the applause completely disappeared.
"Are you the soulmate I have been looking for so long?" The poet squeezed out from the crowd and held Brutus's hands tightly, "I never thought that great talents could exist in such a remote area."
"Ah, no, I think you may have misunderstood something." Brutus quickly broke away from the poet's clasped hands, "Actually, I don't understand art at all."
"It doesn't matter whether you understand it or not. What matters is whether you think it's good or not. I believe you clapped because you felt the beauty of this poem."
Brutus looked at the familiar poet in front of him dumbfounded, hesitating whether to attack him directly.
Finally, he made up his mind to hit the poet's heart hard: "Actually, I just applauded symbolically to make the scene less ugly. I didn't expect that people here don't seem to have such rules."
After hearing these words of Brutus, the poet felt as if he had been struck by lightning. He stood there for a while. It took him a while to recover and let go of his hands: "Yes, how can I expect people in remote areas to appreciate poetry?
Even the poems written by famous poets have such scenes, let alone the ones I wrote myself?"
Brutus looked around and saw that all the melon-eaters who had gathered here had long since dispersed. After all, everyone was very busy and they were here just for fun.
"May I ask who wrote the poem you just read?"
"Mr. Ennius."
Never heard of it... Brutus recalled it and confirmed that there was no information about this person in his memory.
The poet looked at Brutus: "I don't know if you have time to listen to my complaints. Of course, I will pay for the food and wine. If it disturbs your work, I will also compensate you."
"Please." He looked at Brutus sincerely, "Just for a moment."
Brutus thought for a while, he just happened to have completed his task for today, and he didn't know what to do with the remaining time.
"Then let's go to the Lion Tavern." Brutus often went there recently to drink juice and chat with Juno and Will in order to get the latest news in Taterto town.
"Okay." The poet followed the good example and took Brutus all the way to the door of the Lion Tavern. Seeing that he was familiar with the road, he probably came here for a long time.
"Brutus, good afternoon. Juno went out at noon and was not in the tavern." Will always seemed to have endless glasses of wine to clean, "Ah, and the bard, good afternoon."
"Good afternoon, Will. Same old thing, you know." Brutus sat down at the bar, and then picked up the watermelon juice that Will put on the table at some point.
"It seems you are quite familiar with this." The poet looked at the interaction between the two curiously and commented, "He usually doesn't say hello to me."
"So don't bother buying me anything to drink." Brutus felt that there was nothing more refreshing than ice-cold watermelon juice in the middle of summer. "Of course, you still have to pay for your own."
The poet put a few copper coins on the bar, and then took the bitter beer from Will: "Of course, I don't have money."
"Before I tell my inner sorrow, I naturally have to take a look at these things I wrote. I think they can represent what I think." The poet took out a dozen manuscripts from his bag and photographed them.
On the bar in front of Brutus, "If you can't read I can recite."
"No need." Brutus put down the watermelon juice, picked up the manuscript and flipped through it.
After reading a few articles quickly, he raised his eyebrows and said, "Allegorical poems? Then you are definitely not good at this. The content you write is dangerous, and the audience won't like it."
"So maybe I won't write anymore, there is no future." The poet drank a mouthful of bitter beer, and seemed to be a little drunk, "What's the point of writing a thankless work?"
"Indeed, if it is just out of interest, there is nothing wrong with writing something." Brutus put down the manuscript and considered his words, "But most of the bards want their works to be widely circulated and make themselves known.
Become famous."
"Of course, if no one listens to the poetry recited by a bard, it can only mean the failure of his work."
"Then it seems that you are still aware of the problem." Brutus continued to drink watermelon juice, "So you can still gain something by changing this writing to other things. Unlike now, only a few have been written.
audience."
"What you said may be right, but -" the poet thought for a while and found that the reasons he wanted to use to argue seemed to be weak in the face of reality, "Hey - what you said is right."
"Actually, I would say that the satirical poems you wrote don't seem to be very good. Of course, this is just my personal opinion." Brutus touched the stubble on his chin for a while, and then continued, "Or maybe it's this
Carriers are inherently unpopular with audiences here."
"The foreshadowing is only to lead to the allegory that follows. After thinking about it carefully, you will find that it has no meaning, the content is too empty, and the pace is too slow. It requires a lot of patience to read it."
Brutus shook his head and said: "You have to consider that the people in Tatto Town have to do their best to survive. How can they have time to listen to your allegorical poems? So I am very curious about why you want to write it.
Such a poem will not be successful because of its appearance."
The poet put down his wine glass, looked at Brutus who denied his results, silently sorted out his manuscripts, and put them back in his bag.
After a long silence, he said to Brutus: "Because I want to write something different from what others have written, and write something I want to write, that's all."
"Is that really all?" Brutus asked calmly.
The poet was stunned by Brutus' question, and then smiled bitterly: "Perhaps it still needs the approval of others, well, at least a few people must read it."
Brutus looked at the poet and suddenly remembered that he had not asked his name: "Poet, may I know your name?"
"I'm just a bard." The poet adjusted the bard hat on his head, "As one of thousands of bards, it never matters what my name is."
"Mr. Brutus, I hope that when I see you again in the future, you can give me such suggestions that directly point to the source of the problem for my newly written allegorical poems." The poet said with a smile, "Of course, provided that I am still writing poetry at that time.
.”
He stood up, said a graceful farewell to Brutus, and left the Lion Tavern.
"I hope his ideals will not be defeated by reality." Brutus laughed silently a few times, "I also hope to see his poems spread throughout the kingdom in the future."
"But you and I both know that such a hope is just an extravagant wish..."