Hasten slowly, and, without losing heart, twenty times put your…

These two lines are found in canto I of The Art of Poetry, where Boileau gives poets his first advice. He has just recalled that “what is well conceived is clearly expressed” and demanded respect for the language; then he attacks the “mad speed” of those who write too fast, and prefers the brook that wanders through a meadow to the torrent that rolls gravel along. What follows sets out the method: “Polish it without cease and polish it again; add sometimes, and often erase.”

“Hasten slowly” translates the old Latin motto festina lente, attributed to the Emperor Augustus. The French word métier here means the weaver’s loom: the work is a piece of cloth that is put back on the frame again and again to be reworked.

Published in 1674, The Art of Poetry sets out the classical doctrine in four cantos: clarity, reason, patient work. These lines have become the motto of all those who correct and correct again. They are often quoted in an amplified form, “a hundred times on the loom”, which is not Boileau’s.

The Art of Poetry, canto I, 1674

Original text checked word for word in the work; the translation is by quotesay.

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