}
But worse than all the clattering tiles, and worse
Than thousand padders, is the poet's curse;
Rogues, that in dog-days cannot rhyme forbear,[81]
But without mercy read, and make you hear.
But worse than all the clattering tiles, and worse
Than thousand padders, is the poet's curse;
Rogues, that in dog-days cannot rhyme forbear,[81]
But without mercy read, and make you hear.
Dryden - Complete
"He was an upright judge, if taken within himself; and when
he appeared, as he often did, and really was, partial, his inclination
or prejudice, insensibly to himself, drew his judgment aside. His bias
lay strangely for, and against, characters and denominations; and
sometimes, the very habits of persons. If one party was a courtier,
and well dressed, and the other a sort of puritan, with a black cap
and plain clothes, he insensibly thought the justice of the cause with
the latter. If the dissenting, or anti-court party was at the back of
a cause, he was very seldom impartial; and the loyalists had always a
great disadvantage before him. And he ever sat hard upon his lordship,
in his practice, in causes of that nature, as may be observed in the
cases of Cuts and Pickering, just before, and of Soams and Bernardiston
elsewhere, related. It is said he was once caught. A courtier, who had
a cause to be tried before him, got one to go to him, as from the king,
to speak for favour to his adversary, and so carried his point; for the
Chief Justice could not think any person to be in the right, that came
so unduly recommended. " _Life of Lord Keeper Guilford_, p. 61.
[28] Casaubon published an edition of "Persius," with notes, and a
commentary. Francesco Stelluti's version was published at Rome in 1630.
[29] This is a strange mistake in an author, who translated Persius
entirely, and great part of Juvenal. The satires of Persius were
written during the reign of Nero, and those of Juvenal in that of
Domitian. This error is the more extraordinary, as Dryden mentions, a
little lower, the very emperors under whom these poets flourished.
[30] David Wedderburn of Aberdeen, whose edition of "Persius," with a
commentary, was published in 8vo. at Amsterdam, 1664.
[31] Persius died in his 30th year, in the 8th year of Nero's reign.
Lucan died before he was twenty-seven.
[32] Casaubon's edition is accompanied, "_Cum Persiana Horatii
imitatione_. "
[33] A Stoic philosopher to whom Persius addresses his 5th Satire.
[34] The famous Gilbert Burnet, the Buzzard of our author's "Hind and
Panther," but for whom he seems now disposed to entertain some respect.
[35] Dryden alludes to the beautiful description which Horace has given
of his father's paternal and watchful affection in the 6th Satire of
the 1st Book. Wycherley, the friend for whom he wishes a father of
equal tenderness, after having been gayest of the gay, applauded by
theatres, and the object of a monarch's jealousy, was finally thrown
into jail for debt, and lay there seven long years, his father refusing
him any assistance. And, although in 1697, he was probably at liberty,
for King James had interposed in his favour and paid a great part of
his debts, he continued to labour under pecuniary embarrassments untill
his father's death and even after he had succeeded to his entailed
property.
[36] The abuse of personal satires, or lampoons, as they were called,
was carried to a prodigious extent in the days of Dryden, when
every man of fashion was obliged to write verses; and those who had
neither poetry nor wit, had recourse to ribaldry and libelling. Some
observations on these lampoons may be found prefixed to the Epistle to
Julian, among the pieces ascribed to Dryden.
[37] Wycherley, author of the witty comedy so called.
[38] The precise dates of Juvenal's birth and death are disputed; but
it is certain he flourished under Domitian, famous for his cruelty
against men and insects. Juvenal was banished by the tyrant, in
consequence of reflecting upon the actor Paris. He is generally said
to have died of grief; but Lepsius contends, that he survived even the
accession of Hadrian.
[39] The learned Barten Holyday was born at Oxford, in the end of the
16th century. Wood says, he was second to none for his poetry and
sublime fancy, and brings in witness his "smooth translation of rough
Persius," made before he was twenty years of age. He wrote a play
called "Technogamia, or the Marriage of the Arts," which was acted at
Christ Church College, before James I. , and, though extremely dull
and pedantic, was ill received by his Majesty. Holyday's version of
Juvenal was not published till after his death, when, in 1673, it was
inscribed to the dean and canons of Christ Church. As he had adopted
the desperate resolution of comprising every Latin line within an
English one, the modern reader has often reason to complain, with the
embarrassed gentleman in the "Critic," that the interpreter is the
harder to be understood of the two.
[40] Sir Robert Stapylton, a gentleman of an ancient family in
Yorkshire, who followed the fortune of Charles I. in the civil war,
besides several plays and poems, published a version of Juvenal, under
the title of "The manners of Men described in sixteen Satires by
Juvenal. " There are two editions, the first published in 1647, and the
last and most perfect in 1660. Sir Robert Stapylton died in 1669. His
verse is as harsh and uncouth as that of Holyday, who indeed charged
him with plagiary; though one would have thought the nature of the
commodity would have set theft at defiance.
[41] I presume, this celebrated finisher of the law, who bequeathed
his name to his successors in office, was a contemporary of our poet.
In the time of the rebellion, that operator was called Gregory, and
is supposed, with some probability, to have beheaded Charles I. See
the evidence for the prisoner in Hulet's trial after the Restoration.
_State Trials_, Vol. II. p. 388.
[42] This is a strange averment, considering the "Reflections upon
Absalom and Achitophel, by a Person of Honour," in composing and
publishing which, the Duke of Buckingham, our author's Zimri, shewed
much resentment and very little wit. See Vol. IX. p. 272.
[43]
_Persius exclamat, Per magnos, Brute, deos te
Oro, qui regis consueris tollere, cur non
Hunc Regem jugulas? Operum hoc mihi crede tuorum est. _
HOR. Satire 8. Lib. I.
[44] This gentleman, who was as great a gambler as a punster, regaled
with his quibbles the minor class of the frequenters of Will's
coffee-house, who, having neither wit enough to entitle them to mix
with the critics who associated with Dryden, and were called _The Witty
Club_, or gravity enough to discuss politics with those who formed the
Grave Club, were content to laugh heartily at the puns and conundrums
of Captain Swan.
[45] Mr Lewis Maidwell, the author of a comedy called "The Generous
Enemies," represented by the Duke's company 1680. In the prologue, as
Mr Malone informs us, there is an allusion to Rochester's mean assault
on Dryden:
Who dares be witty now, and with just rage
Disturb the vice and follies of the age?
With knaves and fools, satire's a dangerous fault;
They will not let you rub their sores with salt:
Else _Rose street ambuscades_ shall break your head,
And life in verse shall lay the poet dead.
It is only farther known of this gentleman, that he was a friend of
Shadwell, who gave him the epilogue for his comedy, and that he taught
a private school.
[46] The Roman exclamation of high contentment at a recitation, like
our _bravo! bravissimo! _
[47] Dryden, in his Epistle to Sir George Etherege, has shewn, however,
how completely he was master even of a measure he despised.
[48] Scarron's _Virgile Travesti_.
[49] Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh was lord advocate for Scotland,
during the reigns of Charles II. and his successor. His works are
voluminous, and upon various subjects, but chiefly historical and
juridical. He left, however, one poem called "Cælia's Country-house,"
and some essays on moral subjects. The memory of Sir George Mackenzie
is not in high estimation as a lawyer, and his having been the agent of
the crown, during the cruel persecution of the fanatical Cameronians,
renders him still execrated among the common people of Scotland. But he
was an accomplished scholar, of lively talents, and ready elocution,
and very well deserved the appellation of a "noble wit of Scotland. "
[50] In illustration of Holyday's miserable success in his desperate
attempt, we need only take the lines with which he opens:
Shall I be still an auditor, and ne'er
Repay that have so often had mine eare
Vexed with hoarse Codrus Theseads? shall one sweat
While his gownd comique sceane he does repeat,
Another while his elegies soft strain
The reader? and shall not I vex them again?
Shall mighty Telephus be unrequited,
That spends a day in being all recited?
Or volume-swoln Orestes, that does fill
The margin of an ample booke; yet still,
As if the book were mad too, is extended
Upon the very back, nor yet is ended.
THE
FIRST SATIRE
OF
JUVENAL.
THE ARGUMENT.
_The Poet gives us first a kind of humorous reason for his
writing: that being provoked by hearing so many ill poets
rehearse their works, he does himself justice on them, by
giving them as bad as they bring. But since no man will
rank himself with ill writers, it is easy to conclude,
that if such wretches could draw an audience, he thought
it no hard matter to excel them, and gain a greater esteem
with the public. Next, he informs us more openly, why he
rather addicts himself to satire than any other kind of
poetry. And here he discovers, that it is not so much
his indignation to ill poets as to ill men, which has
prompted him to write. He, therefore, gives us a summary
and general view of the vices and follies reigning in his
time. So that this first satire is the natural ground-work
of all the rest. Herein he confines himself to no one
subject, but strikes indifferently at all men in his way.
In every following satire he has chosen some particular
moral which he would inculcate; and lashes some particular
vice or folly, (an art with which our lampooners are not
much acquainted). But our poet being desirous to reform his
own age, and not daring to attempt it by an overt-act of
naming living persons, inveighs only against those who were
infamous in the times immediately preceding his, whereby
he not only gives a fair warning to great men, that their
memory lies at the mercy of future poets and historians,
but also, with a finer stroke of his pen, brands even the
living, and personates them under dead men's names. _
_I have avoided, as much as I could possibly, the borrowed
learning of marginal notes and illustrations, and for
that reason have translated this satire somewhat largely;
and freely own, (if it be a fault,) that I have likewise
omitted most of the proper names, because I thought they
would not much edify the reader. To conclude, if in two
or three places I have deserted all the commentators, it is
because I thought they first deserted my author, or at
least have left him in so much obscurity, that too much
room is left for guessing. _
Still shall I hear, and never quit the score,
Stunned with hoarse Codrus'[51] Theseid, o'er and o'er?
Shall this man's elegies and t'other's play
Unpunished murder a long summer's day?
Huge Telephus,[52] a formidable page,
Cries vengeance; and Orestes'[53] bulky rage,
Unsatisfied with margins closely writ,
Foams o'er the covers, and not finished yet.
No man can take a more familiar note
Of his own home, than I of Vulcan's grott,
Or Mars his grove,[54] or hollow winds that blow
From Ætna's top, or tortured ghosts below.
I know by rote the famed exploits of Greece,
The Centaurs' fury, and the Golden Fleece;
Through the thick shades the eternal scribbler bawls,
And shakes the statues on their pedestals.
The best and worst[55] on the same theme employs
His muse, and plagues us with an equal noise.
Provoked by these incorrigible fools,
I left declaiming in pedantic schools;
Where, with men-boys, I strove to get renown,
Advising Sylla to a private gown. [56]
But, since the world with writing is possest, }
I'll versify in spite; and do my best, }
To make as much waste paper as the rest. }
But why I lift aloft the satire's rod,
And tread the path which famed Lucilius[57] trod,
Attend the causes which my muse have led:--
When sapless eunuchs mount the marriage-bed;
When mannish Mævia,[58] that two-handed whore,
Astride on horseback hunts the Tuscan boar;
When all our lords are by his wealth outvied,
Whose razor on my callow beard was tried;[59]
When I behold the spawn of conquered Nile,
Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile,[60]
Pacing in pomp, with cloak of Tyrian dye,
Changed oft a-day for needless luxury;
And finding oft occasion to be fanned,
Ambitious to produce his lady-hand;
Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat,[61]
Unable to support a gem of weight:
Such fulsome objects meeting every where,
'Tis hard to write, but harder to forbear.
To view so lewd a town, and to refrain,
What hoops of iron could my spleen contain!
When pleading Matho, borne abroad for air,[62]
With his fat paunch fills his new-fashioned chair,
And after him the wretch in pomp conveyed,
Whose evidence his lord and friend betrayed,
And but the wished occasion does attend }
From the poor nobles the last spoils to rend, }
Whom even spies dread as their superior fiend, }
And bribe with presents; or, when presents fail,
They send their prostituted wives for bail:
When night-performance holds the place of merit,
And brawn and back the next of kin disherit;
(For such good parts are in preferment's way,)
The rich old madam never fails to pay
Her legacies, by nature's standard given,
One gains an ounce, another gains eleven:
A dear-bought bargain, all things duly weighed,
For which their thrice concocted blood is paid.
With looks as wan, as he who in the brake
At unawares has trod upon a snake;
Or played at Lyons a declaiming prize,
For which the vanquished rhetorician dies. [63]
What indignation boils within my veins, }
When perjured guardians, proud with impious gains, }
Choke up the streets, too narrow for their trains! }
Whose wards, by want betrayed, to crimes are led
Too foul to name, too fulsome to be read!
When he who pilled his province 'scapes the laws,
And keeps his money, though he lost his cause;
His fine begged off, contemns his infamy,
Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three;
Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain,
Leaves thee, prevailing province, to complain. [64]
Such villanies roused Horace into wrath;
And tis more noble to pursue his path,[65]
Than an old tale of Diomede to repeat, }
Or labouring after Hercules to sweat, }
Or wandering in the winding maze of Crete; }
Or with the winged smith aloft to fly,
Or fluttering perish with his foolish boy.
With what impatience must the muse behold
The wife, by her procuring husband sold?
For though the law makes null the adulterer's deed
Of lands to her, the cuckold may succeed,
Who his taught eyes up to the ceiling throws,
And sleeps all over but his wakeful nose.
When he dares hope a colonel's command,
Whose coursers kept, ran out his father's land;
Who yet a stripling, Nero's chariot drove, }
Whirled o'er the streets, while his vain master strove }
With boasted art to please his eunuch love[66] }
Would it not make a modest author dare
To draw his table-book within the square,
And fill with notes, when, lolling at his ease,
Mecænas-like,[67] the happy rogue he sees
Borne by six wearied slaves in open view,
Who cancelled an old will, and forged a new;
Made wealthy at the small expence of signing
With a wet seal, and a fresh interlining?
The lady, next, requires a lashing line,
Who squeezed a toad into her husband's wine:
So well the fashionable medicine thrives,
That now 'tis practised even by country wives;
Poisoning, without regard of fame or fear,
And spotted corpse are frequent on the bier.
Wouldst thou to honours and preferments climb?
Be bold in mischief, dare some mighty crime,
Which dungeons, death, or banishment deserves;
For virtue is but dryly praised, and starves.
Great men to great crimes owe their plate embost, }
Fair palaces, and furniture of cost, }
And high commands; a sneaking sin is lost. }
Who can behold that rank old letcher keep
His son's corrupted wife, and hope to sleep? [68]
Or that male-harlot, or that unfledged boy,
Eager to sin, before he can enjoy?
If nature could not, anger would indite
Such woful stuff as I or Sh----ll[69] write.
Count from the time, since old Deucalion's boat,
Raised by the flood, did on Parnassus float,[70]
And, scarcely mooring on the cliff, implored
An oracle how man might be restored;
When softened stones and vital breath ensued,
And virgins naked were by lovers viewed;
What ever since that golden age was done,
What human kind desires, and what they shun;
Rage, passions, pleasures, impotence of will,
Shall this satirical collection fill.
What age so large a crop of vices bore,
Or when was avarice extended more?
When were the dice with more profusion thrown?
The well-filled fob not emptied now alone,
But gamesters for whole patrimonies play;
The steward brings the deeds which must convey
The lost estate: what more than madness reigns,
When one short sitting many hundreds drains,
And not enough is left him to supply }
Board-wages, or a footman's livery? }
What age so many summer-seats did see? }
Or which of our forefathers fared so well,
As on seven dishes at a private meal?
Clients of old were feasted; now, a poor
Divided dole is dealt at the outward door;
Which by the hungry rout is soon dispatched:
The paltry largess, too, severely watched,
Ere given; and every face observed with care,
That no intruding guest usurp a share.
Known, you receive; the crier calls aloud }
Our old nobility of Trojan blood, }
Who gape among the crowd for their precarious food. }
The prætor's and the tribune's voice is heard;
The freedman jostles, and will be preferred;
First come, first served, he cries; and I, in spite
Of your great lordships, will maintain my right;
Though born a slave, though my torn ears are bored,[71]
'Tis not the birth, 'tis money makes the lord.
The rents of five fair houses I receive;
What greater honours can the purple give?
The poor patrician is reduced to keep,
In melancholy walks, a grazier's sheep:
Not Pallus nor Licinius[72] had my treasure;
Then let the sacred tribunes wait my leisure.
Once a poor rogue, 'tis true, I trod the street,
And trudged to Rome upon my naked feet:
Gold is the greatest God; though yet we see
No temples raised to money's majesty;
No altars fuming to her power divine,
Such as to valour, peace, and virtue shine,
And faith, and concord; where the stork on high[73] }
Seems to salute her infant progeny, }
Presaging pious love with her auspicious cry. -- }
But since our knights and senators account,
To what their sordid begging vails amount,
Judge what a wretched share the poor attends,
Whose whole subsistence on those alms depends!
Their household fire, their raiment, and their food,
Prevented by those harpies;[74] when a wood
Of litters thick besiege the donor's gate,
And begging lords and teeming ladies wait
The promised dole; nay, some have learned the trick
To beg for absent persons; feign them sick,
Close mewed in their sedans, for fear of air; }
And for their wives produce an empty chair. }
This is my spouse; dispatch her with her share; }
'Tis Galla. --Let her ladyship but peep. --
No, sir, 'tis pity to disturb her sleep. [75]
Such fine employments our whole days divide:
The salutations of the morning tide
Call up the sun; those ended, to the hall
We wait the patron, hear the lawyers bawl;
Then to the statues; where amidst the race }
Of conquering Rome, some Arab shows his face, }
Inscribed with titles, and profanes the place;[76] }
Fit to be pissed against, and somewhat more.
The great man, home conducted, shuts his door.
Old clients, wearied out with fruitless care,
Dismiss their hopes of eating, and despair;
Though much against the grain, forced to retire,
Buy roots for supper, and provide a fire.
Meantime his lordship lolls within at ease,
Pampering his paunch with foreign rarities;
Both sea and land are ransacked for the feast,
And his own gut the sole invited guest.
Such plate, such tables, dishes dressed so well,
That whole estates are swallowed at a meal.
Even parasites are banished from his board;
(At once a sordid and luxurious lord;)
Prodigious throat, for which whole boars are drest;
(A creature formed to furnish out a feast. )
But present punishment pursues his maw,
When, surfeited and swelled, the peacock raw
He bears into the bath; whence want of breath,
Repletions, apoplex, intestate death.
His fate makes table-talk, divulged with scorn,
And he, a jest, into his grave is borne.
No age can go beyond us; future times
Can add no farther to the present crimes.
Our sons but the same things can wish and do; }
Vice is at stand, and at the highest flow. }
Then, Satire, spread thy sails, take all the winds can blow! }
Some may, perhaps, demand what muse can yield
Sufficient strength for such a spacious field?
From whence can be derived so large a vein,
Bold truths to speak, and spoken to maintain,
When godlike freedom is so far bereft
The noble mind, that scarce the name is left?
Ere _scandalum magnatum_ was begot,
No matter if the great forgave or not;
But if that honest licence now you take, }
If into rogues omnipotent you rake, }
Death is your doom, impaled upon a stake; }
Smeared o'er with wax, and set on fire, to light
The streets, and make a dreadful blaze by night.
Shall they, who drenched three uncles in a draught
Of poisonous juice, be then in triumph brought,
Make lanes among the people where they go, }
And, mounted high on downy chariots, throw }
Disdainful glances on the crowd below? }
Be silent, and beware, if such you see;
'Tis defamation but to say, That's he!
Against bold Turnus the great Trojan arm,
Amidst their strokes the poet gets no harm:
Achilles may in epic verse be slain,
And none of all his myrmidons complain:
Hylas may drop his pitcher, none will cry,
Not if he drown himself for company;
But when Lucilius brandishes his pen,
And flashes in the face of guilty men,
A cold sweat stands in drops on every part,
And rage succeeds to tears, revenge to smart. [77]
Muse, be advised; 'tis past considering time,
When entered once the dangerous lists of rhime;
Since none the living villains dare implead,
Arraign them in the persons of the dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] Codrus, or it may be Cordus, a bad poet, who wrote the life and
actions of Theseus. --[This and almost all the following notes are taken
from Dryden's first edition. Those which are supplied by the present
Editor, are distinguished by the letter E. ]
[52] The name of a tragedy.
[53] Another tragedy.
[54] Some commentators take this grove to be a place where poets were
used to repeat their works to the people; but more probably, both this
and Vulcan's grott, or cave, and the rest of the places and names here
mentioned, are only meant for the common places of Homer in his Iliads
and Odyssies.
[55] That is, the best and the worst poets.
[56] This was one of the themes given in the schools of rhetoricians,
in the deliberative kind; whether Sylla should lay down the supreme
power of dictatorship, or still keep it?
[57] Lucilius, the first satirist of the Romans, who wrote long before
Horace.
[58] Mævia, a name put for any impudent or mannish woman.
[59] Juvenal's barber, now grown wealthy.
[60] Crispinus, an Egyptian slave; now, by his riches, transformed into
a nobleman.
[61] The Romans were grown so effeminate in Juvenal's time, that they
wore light rings in the summer, and heavier in the winter.
[62] Matho, a famous lawyer, mentioned in other places by Juvenal and
Martial.
[63] Lyons, a city in France, where annual sacrifices and games were
made in honour of Augustus Cæsar.
[64] Here the poet complains, that the governors of provinces being
accused for their unjust exactions, though they were condemned at their
trials, yet got off by bribery.
[65] Horace, who wrote satires; it is more noble, says our author, to
imitate him in that way, than to write the labours of Hercules, the
sufferings of Diomedes and his followers, or the flight of Dædalus, who
made the Labyrinth, and the death of his son Icarus.
[66] Nero married Sporus, an eunuch; though it may be, the poet meant
Nero's mistress in man's apparel.
[67] Mecænas is often taxed by Seneca and others for his effeminacy.
[68] The meaning is, that the very consideration of such a crime will
hinder a virtuous man from taking his repose.
[69] Shadwell, our author's old enemy. --E.
[70] Deucalion and Pyrrha, when the world was drowned, escaped to the
top of Mount Parnassus, and were commanded to restore mankind, by
throwing stones over their heads; the stones he threw became men, and
those she threw became women.
[71] The ears of all slaves were bored, as a mark of their servitude;
which custom is still usual in the East Indies, and in other parts,
even for whole nations, who bore prodigious holes in their ears, and
wear vast weights at them.
[72] Pallus, a slave freed by Claudius Cæsar, and raised by his favour
to great riches. Licinius was another wealthy freedman belonging to
Augustus.
[73] Perhaps the storks were used to build on the top of the temple
dedicated to Concord.
[74] He calls the Roman knights, &c. harpies, or devourers. In those
days, the rich made doles intended for the poor; but the great were
either so covetous, or so needy, that they came in their litters
to demand their shares of the largess; and thereby prevented, and
consequently starved, the poor.
[75] The meaning is, that noblemen would cause empty litters to be
carried to the giver's door, pretending their wives were within them.
"'Tis Galla," that is, my wife; the next words, "Let her ladyship but
peep," are of the servant who distributes the dole; "Let me see her,
that I may be sure she is within the litter. " The husband answers, "She
is asleep, and to open the litter would disturb her rest. "
[76] The poet here tells you how the idle passed their time; in going
first to the levees of the great; then to the hall, that is, to the
temple of Apollo, to hear the lawyers plead; then to the market-place
of Augustus, where the statues of the famous Romans were set in ranks
on pedestals; amongst which statues were seen those of foreigners, such
as Arabs, &c. who, for no desert, but only on account of their wealth
or favour, were placed amongst the noblest.
[77] A poet may safely write an heroic poem, such as that of Virgil,
who describes the duel of Turnus and Æneas; or of Homer, who writes of
Achilles and Hector; or the death of Hylas, the catamite of Hercules,
who, stooping for water, dropt his pitcher, and fell into the well
after it: but it is dangerous to write satire, like Lucilius.
THE
THIRD SATIRE
OF
JUVENAL.
THE ARGUMENT.
_The story of this satire speaks itself. Umbritius, the
supposed friend of Juvenal, and himself a poet, is leaving
Rome, and retiring to Cumæ. Our author accompanies him out
of town. Before they take leave of each other, Umbritius
tells his friend the reasons which oblige him to lead a
private life, in an obscure place. He complains, that an
honest man cannot get his bread at Rome; that none but
flatterers make their fortunes there; that Grecians, and
other foreigners, raise themselves by those sordid arts
which he describes, and against which he bitterly inveighs.
He reckons up the several inconveniences which arise from a
city life, and the many dangers which attend it; upbraids
the noblemen with covetousness, for not rewarding good
poets; and arraigns the government for starving them.
The great art of this satire is particularly shown in
common-places; and drawing in as many vices, as could
naturally fall into the compass of it. _
Grieved though I am an ancient friend to lose, }
I like the solitary seat he chose, }
In quiet Cumæ[78] fixing his repose: }
Where, far from noisy Rome, secure he lives,
And one more citizen to Sybil gives;
The road to Baiæ,[79] and that soft recess
Which all the gods with all their bounty bless;
Though I in Prochyta[80] with greater ease
Could live, than in a street of palaces.
What scene so desert, or so full of fright, }
As towering houses, tumbling in the night, }
And Rome on fire beheld by its own blazing light?
}
But worse than all the clattering tiles, and worse
Than thousand padders, is the poet's curse;
Rogues, that in dog-days cannot rhyme forbear,[81]
But without mercy read, and make you hear.
Now while my friend, just ready to depart,
Was packing all his goods in one poor cart,
He stopt a little at the Conduit-gate,
Where Numa modelled once the Roman state,[82]
In mighty councils with his nymph retired;[83]
Though now the sacred shades and founts are hired
By banished Jews, who their whole wealth can lay
In a small basket, on a wisp of hay;[84]
Yet such our avarice is, that every tree
Pays for his head, nor sleep itself is free;
Nor place, nor persons, now are sacred held,
From their own grove the muses are expelled.
Into this lonely vale our steps we bend,
I and my sullen discontented friend;
The marble caves and aqueducts we view;
But how adulterate now, and different from the true!
How much more beauteous had the fountain been
Embellished with her first created green,
Where crystal streams through living turf had run,
Contented with an urn of native stone!
Then thus Umbritius, with an angry frown,
And looking back on this degenerate town:--
Since noble arts in Rome have no support,
And ragged virtue not a friend at court,
No profit rises from the ungrateful stage,
My poverty encreasing with my age;
'Tis time to give my just disdain a vent,
And, cursing, leave so base a government.
Where Dædalus his borrowed wings laid by,[85]
To that obscure retreat I chuse to fly:
While yet few furrows on my face are seen, }
While I walk upright, and old age is green, }
And Lachesis has somewhat left to spin. [86] }
Now, now 'tis time to quit this cursed place,
And hide from villains my too honest face:
Here let Arturius live,[87] and such as he;
Such manners will with such a town agree.
Knaves, who in full assemblies have the knack
Of turning truth to lies, and white to black,
Can hire large houses, and oppress the poor
By farmed excise; can cleanse the common-shore,
And rent the fishery; can bear the dead, }
And teach their eyes dissembled tears to shed; }
All this for gain; for gain they sell their very head. }
These fellows (see what fortune's power can do! )
Were once the minstrels of a country show;
Followed the prizes through each paltry town,
By trumpet-cheeks and bloated faces known.
But now, grown rich, on drunken holidays,
At their own costs exhibit public plays;
Where, influenced by the rabble's bloody will,
With thumbs bent back, they popularly kill. [88]
From thence returned, their sordid avarice rakes
In excrements again, and hires the jakes.
Why hire they not the town, not every thing,
Since such as they have fortune in a string,
Who, for her pleasure, can her fools advance,
And toss them topmost on the wheel of chance?
What's Rome to me, what business have I there?
I who can neither lie, nor falsely swear?
Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes,
Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times?
Unskilled in schemes by planets to foreshow,
Like canting rascals, how the wars will go:
I neither will, nor can, prognosticate
To the young gaping heir, his father's fate;
Nor in the entrails of a toad have pried,
Nor carried bawdy presents to a bride:
For want of these town-virtues, thus alone
I go, conducted on my way by none;
Like a dead member from the body rent,
Maimed, and unuseful to the government.
Who now is loved, but he who loves the times,
Conscious of close intrigues, and dipt in crimes,
Labouring with secrets which his bosom burn,
Yet never must to public light return?
They get reward alone, who can betray;
For keeping honest counsels none will pay.
He who can Verres[89] when he will accuse,
The purse of Verres may at pleasure use:
But let not all the gold which Tagus hides,
And pays the sea in tributary tides,[90]
Be bribe sufficient to corrupt thy breast,
Or violate with dreams thy peaceful rest.
Great men with jealous eyes the friend behold,
Whose secrecy they purchase with their gold.
I haste to tell thee,--nor shall shame oppose,--
What confidents our wealthy Romans chose;
And whom I must abhor: to speak my mind,
I hate, in Rome, a Grecian town to find;
To see the scum of Greece transplanted here,
Received like gods, is what I cannot bear.
Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound;
Obscene Orontes,[91] diving under ground,
Conveys his wealth to Tyber's hungry shores,
And fattens Italy with foreign whores:
Hither their crooked harps and customs come;
All find receipt in hospitable Rome.
The barbarous harlots crowd the public place:-- }
Go, fools, and purchase an unclean embrace; }
The painted mitre court, and the more painted face. }
Old Romulus,[92] and father Mars, look down! }
Your herdsman primitive, your homely clown, }
Is turned a beau in a loose tawdry gown. }
His once unkem'd and horrid locks, behold
'Stilling sweet oil; his neck enchained with gold;
Aping the foreigners in every dress,
Which, bought at greater cost, becomes him less.
Meantime they wisely leave their native land;
From Sycion, Samos, and from Alaband,
And Amydon, to Rome they swarm in shoals:
So sweet and easy is the gain from fools.
Poor refugees at first, they purchase here;
And, soon as denizened, they domineer;
Grow to the great, a flattering, servile rout,
Work themselves inward, and their patrons out.
Quick-witted, brazen-faced, with fluent tongues,
Patient of labours, and dissembling wrongs.
Riddle me this, and guess him if you can,
Who bears a nation in a single man?
A cook, a conjurer, a rhetorician, }
A painter, pedant, a geometrician, }
A dancer on the ropes, and a physician; }
All things the hungry Greek exactly knows,
And bid him go to heaven, to heaven he goes.
In short, no Scythian, Moor, or Thracian born,
But in that town which arms and arts adorn. [93]
Shall he be placed above me at the board,
In purple clothed, and lolling like a lord?
Shall he before me sign, whom t'other day }
A small-craft vessel hither did convey, }
Where, stowed with prunes, and rotten figs, he lay? }
How little is the privilege become
Of being born a citizen of Rome!
The Greeks get all by fulsome flatteries;
A most peculiar stroke they have at lies.
They make a wit of their insipid friend,
His blubber-lips and beetle-brows commend,
His long crane-neck and narrow shoulders praise,--
You'd think they were describing Hercules.
A creaking voice for a clear treble goes;
Though harsher than a cock, that treads and crows.
We can as grossly praise; but, to our grief,
No flattery but from Grecians gains belief.
Besides these qualities, we must agree,
They mimic better on the stage than we:
The wife, the whore, the shepherdess, they play,
In such a free, and such a graceful way,
That we believe a very woman shown,
And fancy something underneath the gown.
But not Antiochus, nor Stratocles,[94] }
Our ears and ravished eyes can only please; }
The nation is composed of such as these. }
All Greece is one comedian; laugh, and they
Return it louder than an ass can bray;
Grieve, and they grieve; if you weep silently, }
There seems a silent echo in their eye; }
They cannot mourn like you, but they can cry. }
Call for a fire, their winter clothes they take;
Begin but you to shiver, and they shake;
In frost and snow, if you complain of heat,
They rub the unsweating brow, and swear they sweat.
We live not on the square with such as these;
Such are our betters who can better please;
Who day and night are like a looking-glass,
Still ready to reflect their patron's face;
The panegyric hand, and lifted eye,
Prepared for some new piece of flattery.
Even nastiness occasions will afford;
They praise a belching, or well-pissing lord.
Besides, there's nothing sacred, nothing free
From bold attempts of their rank lechery.
Through the whole family their labours run; }
The daughter is debauched, the wife is won; }
Nor 'scapes the bridegroom, or the blooming son. }
If none they find for their lewd purpose fit,
They with the walls and very floors commit.
They search the secrets of the house, and so
Are worshipped there, and feared for what they know.
And, now we talk of Grecians, cast a view }
On what, in schools, their men of morals do. }
A rigid stoick his own pupil slew; }
A friend, against a friend of his own cloth,
Turned evidence, and murdered on his oath. [95]
What room is left for Romans in a town
Where Grecians rule, and cloaks controul the gown?
Some Diphilus, or some Protogenes,[96]
Look sharply out, our senators to seize;
Engross them wholly, by their native art,
And fear no rivals in their bubbles' heart:
One drop of poison in my patron's ear,
One slight suggestion of a senseless fear,
Infused with cunning, serves to ruin me;
Disgraced, and banished from the family.
In vain forgotten services I boast;
My long dependence in an hour is lost.
Look round the world, what country will appear,
Where friends are left with greater ease than here?
At Rome (nor think me partial to the poor)
All offices of ours are out of door:
In vain we rise, and to the levees run;
My lord himself is up before, and gone:
The prætor bids his lictors mend their pace,
Lest his colleague outstrip him in the race.
The childless matrons are, long since, awake,
And for affronts the tardy visits take.
'Tis frequent here to see a free-born son
On the left hand of a rich hireling run;
Because the wealthy rogue can throw away,
For half a brace of bouts, a tribune's pay;
But you, poor sinner, though you love the vice,
And like the whore, demur upon the price;
And, frighted with the wicked sum, forbear
To lend a hand, and help her from the chair.
Produce a witness of unblemished life,
Holy as Numa, or as Numa's wife,
Or him who bid the unhallowed flames retire,
And snatched the trembling goddess from the fire;[97]
The question is not put how far extends
His piety, but what he yearly spends;
Quick, to the business; how he lives and eats;
How largely gives; how splendidly he treats;
How many thousand acres feed his sheep;
What are his rents; what servants does he keep?
The account is soon cast up; the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.
Swear by our gods, or those the Greeks adore,
Thou art as sure forsworn, as thou art poor:
The poor must gain their bread by perjury; }
And e'en the gods, that other means deny, }
In conscience must absolve them, when they lie. }
Add, that the rich have still a gibe in store,
And will be monstrous witty on the poor;
For the torn surtout and the tattered vest,
The wretch and all his wardrobe, are a jest;
The greasy gown, sullied with often turning,
Gives a good hint, to say,--The man's in mourning;
Or, if the shoe be ripped, or patches put,--
He's wounded! see the plaister on his foot.
Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool,
And wit in rags is turned to ridicule.
Pack hence, and from the covered benches rise,
(The master of the ceremonies cries,)
This is no place for you, whose small estate
Is not the value of the settled rate;
The sons of happy punks, the pandar's heir, }
Are privileged to sit in triumph there, }
To clap the first, and rule the theatre. }
Up to the galleries, for shame, retreat;
For, by the Roscian law,[98] the poor can claim no seat. --
Who ever brought to his rich daughter's bed,
The man that polled but twelve pence for his head?
Who ever named a poor man for his heir,
Or called him to assist the judging chair?
The poor were wise, who, by the rich oppressed,
Withdrew, and sought a secret place of rest. [99]
Once they did well, to free themselves from scorn;
But had done better, never to return.
Rarely they rise by virtue's aid, who lie
Plunged in the depth of helpless poverty.
At Rome 'tis worse, where house-rent by the year, }
And servants' bellies, cost so devilish dear, }
And tavern-bills run high for hungry cheer. }
To drink or eat in earthen-ware we scorn, }
Which cheaply country-cupboards does adorn, }
And coarse blue hoods on holidays are worn. }
Some distant parts of Italy are known,
Where none but only dead men wear a gown;[100]
On theatres of turf, in homely state,
Old plays they act, old feasts they celebrate;
The same rude song returns upon the crowd,
And, by tradition, is for wit allowed.
The mimic yearly gives the same delights;
And in the mother's arms the clownish infant frights.
Their habits (undistinguished by degree) }
Are plain, alike; the same simplicity, }
Both on the stage, and in the pit, you see. }
In his white cloak the magistrate appears;
The country bumpkin the same livery wears.
But here attired beyond our purse we go,
For useless ornament and flaunting show;
We take on trust, in purple robes to shine,
And poor, are yet ambitious to be fine.
This is a common vice, though all things here
Are sold, and sold unconscionably dear.
What will you give that Cossus[101] may but view
Your face, and in the crowd distinguish you;
May take your incense like a gracious God,
And answer only with a civil nod?
To please our patrons, in this vicious age,
We make our entrance by the favourite page;
Shave his first down, and when he polls his hair,
The consecrated locks to temples bear;
Pay tributary cracknels, which he sells,
And with our offerings help to raise his vails.
Who fears in country-towns a house's fall,
Or to be caught betwixt a riven wall?
But we inhabit a weak city here,
Which buttresses and props but scarcely bear;
And 'tis the village-mason's daily calling,
To keep the world's metropolis from falling,
To cleanse the gutters, and the chinks to close,
And, for one night, secure his lord's repose.
At Cumæ we can sleep quite round the year,
Nor falls, nor fires, nor nightly dangers fear;
While rolling flames from Roman turrets fly,
And the pale citizens for buckets cry.
Thy neighbour has removed his wretched store,
Few hands will rid the lumber of the poor;
Thy own third story smokes, while thou, supine,
Art drenched in fumes of undigested wine.
For if the lowest floors already burn,
Cock-lofts and garrets soon will take the turn,
Where thy tame pigeons next the tiles were bred,[102]
Which, in their nests unsafe, are timely fled.
Codrus[103] had but one bed, so short to boot,
That his short wife's short legs hung dangling out;
His cupboard's head six earthen pitchers graced,
Beneath them was his trusty tankard placed;
And, to support this noble plate, there lay
A bending Chiron cast from honest clay;
His few Greek books a rotten chest contained,
Whose covers much of mouldiness complained;
Where mice and rats devoured poetic bread,
And with heroic verse luxuriously were fed.
'Tis true, poor Codrus nothing had to boast,
And yet poor Codrus all that nothing lost;
Begged naked through the streets of wealthy Rome,
And found not one to feed, or take him home.
But, if the palace of Arturius burn,
The nobles change their clothes, the matrons mourn;
The city-prætor will no pleadings hear; }
The very name of fire we hate and fear, }
And look aghast, as if the Gauls were here. }
While yet it burns, the officious nation flies,
Some to condole, and some to bring supplies.
One sends him marble to rebuild, and one
White naked statues of the Parian stone,
The work of Polyclete, that seem to live;
While others images for altars give;
One books and skreens, and Pallas to the breast;
Another bags of gold, and he gives best.
Childless Arturius, vastly rich before,
Thus, by his losses, multiplies his store;
Suspected for accomplice to the fire,
That burnt his palace but to build it higher.
But, could you be content to bid adieu
To the dear playhouse, and the players too,
Sweet country-seats are purchased every where, }
With lands and gardens, at less price than here }
You hire a darksome dog-hole by the year. }
A small convenience decently prepared,
A shallow well, that rises in your yard,
That spreads his easy crystal streams around,
And waters all the pretty spot of ground.
There, love the fork, thy garden cultivate,
And give thy frugal friends a Pythagorean treat;[104]
'Tis somewhat to be lord of some small ground,
In which a lizard may, at least, turn round.
'Tis frequent here, for want of sleep, to die, }
Which fumes of undigested feasts deny, }
And, with imperfect heat, in languid stomachs fry. }
What house secure from noise the poor can keep,
When even the rich can scarce afford to sleep?
So dear it costs to purchase rest in Rome,
And hence the sources of diseases come.
The drover, who his fellow-drover meets
In narrow passages of winding streets;
The waggoners, that curse their standing teams,
Would wake even drowsy Drusus from his dreams.
And yet the wealthy will not brook delay,
But sweep above our heads, and make their way,
In lofty litters borne, and read and write,
Or sleep at ease, the shutters make it night;
Yet still he reaches first the public place.
The press before him stops the client's pace;
The crowd that follows crush his panting sides,
And trip his heels; he walks not, but he rides.
One elbows him, one jostles in the shole,
A rafter breaks his head, or chairman's pole;
Stocking'd with loads of fat town-dirt he goes, }
And some rogue-soldier, with his hob-nailed shoes, }
Indents his legs behind in bloody rows. }
See, with what smoke our doles we celebrate: }
A hundred guests, invited, walk in state; }
A hundred hungry slaves, with their Dutch kitchens, wait. }
Huge pans the wretches on their heads must bear,
Which scarce gigantic Corbulo[105] could rear;
Yet they must walk upright beneath the load,
Nay run, and, running, blow the sparkling flames abroad.
Their coats, from botching newly brought, are torn.
Unwieldy timber-trees, in waggons borne,
Stretched at their length, beyond their carriage lie,
That nod, and threaten ruin from on high;
For, should their axle break, its overthrow }
Would crush, and pound to dust, the crowd below; }
Nor friends their friends, nor sires their sons could know; }
Nor limbs, nor bones, nor carcase, would remain,
But a mashed heap, a hotchpotch of the slain;
One vast destruction; not the soul alone,
But bodies, like the soul, invisible are flown.
Meantime, unknowing of their fellow's fate,
The servants wash the platter, scower the plate,
Then blow the fire, with puffing cheeks, and lay }
The rubbers, and the bathing-sheets display, }
And oil them first; and each is handy in his way. }
But he, for whom this busy care they take,
Poor ghost! is wandering by the Stygian lake;
Affrighted with the ferryman's grim face,
New to the horrors of that uncouth place,
His passage begs, with unregarded prayer,
And wants two farthings to discharge his fare.
Return we to the dangers of the night. --
And, first, behold our houses' dreadful height;
From whence come broken potsherds tumbling down, }
And leaky ware from garret-windows thrown; }
Well may they break our heads, that mark the flinty stone. }
'Tis want of sense to sup abroad too late,
Unless thou first hast settled thy estate;
As many fates attend thy steps to meet,
As there are waking windows in the street.
Bless the good Gods, and think thy chance is rare,
To have a piss-pot only for thy share.
The scouring drunkard, if he does not fight
Before his bed-time, takes no rest that night;
Passing the tedious hours in greater pain
Than stern Achilles, when his friend was slain;
'Tis so ridiculous, but so true withal,
A bully cannot sleep without a brawl.
Yet, though his youthful blood be fired with wine,
He wants not wit the danger to decline;
Is cautious to avoid the coach and six,
And on the lacquies will no quarrel fix.
His train of flambeaux, and embroidered coat,
May privilege my lord to walk secure on foot;
But me, who must by moon-light homeward bend,
Or lighted only with a candle's end,
Poor me he fights, if that be fighting, where
He only cudgels, and I only bear.
He stands, and bids me stand; I must abide,
For he's the stronger, and is drunk beside.
Where did you whet your knife to-night, he cries,
And shred the leeks that in your stomach rise?
Whose windy beans have stuft your guts, and where
Have your black thumbs been dipt in vinegar?
With what companion-cobler have you fed,
On old ox-cheeks, or he-goat's tougher head?
What, are you dumb? Quick, with your answer, quick,
Before my foot salutes you with a kick.
Say, in what nasty cellar, under ground,
Or what church-porch, your rogueship may be found? --
Answer, or answer not, 'tis all the same,
He lays me on, and makes me bear the blame.
Before the bar for beating him you come;
This is a poor man's liberty in Rome.
You beg his pardon; happy to retreat
With some remaining teeth, to chew your meat.
Nor is this all; for when, retired, you think
To sleep securely, when the candles wink,
When every door with iron chains is barred,
And roaring taverns are no longer heard;
The ruffian robbers, by no justice awed,
And unpaid cut-throat soldiers, are abroad;
Those venal souls, who, hardened in each ill,
To save complaints and prosecution, kill.
Chased from their woods and bogs, the padders come }
To this vast city, as their native home, }
To live at ease, and safely skulk in Rome. }
The forge in fetters only is employed;
Our iron mines exhausted and destroyed
In shackles; for these villains scarce allow
Goads for the teams, and plough-shares for the plough.
Oh, happy ages of our ancestors,
Beneath the kings and tribunitial powers!
One jail did all their criminals restrain,
Which now the walls of Rome can scarce contain.
More I could say, more causes I could show
For my departure, but the sun is low;
The waggoner grows weary of my stay,
And whips his horses forwards on their way.
Farewell! and when, like me, o'erwhelmed with care, }
You to your own Aquinam[106] shall repair, }
To take a mouthful of sweet country air, }
Be mindful of your friend; and send me word,
What joys your fountains and cool shades afford.
Then, to assist your satires, I will come,
And add new venom when you write of Rome.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] Cumæ, a small city in Campania, near Puteoli, or Puzzolo, as it is
called. The habitation of the Cumæan Sybil.
[79] Baiæ, another little town in Campania, near the sea: a pleasant
place.
[80] Prochyta, a small barren island belonging to the kingdom of Naples.
[81] The poets in Juvenal's time used to rehearse their poetry in
August.
[82] Numa, the second king of Rome, who made their laws, and instituted
their religion.
[83] Ægeria, a nymph, or goddess, with whom Numa feigned to converse by
night; and to be instructed by her, in modelling his superstitions.
[84] We have a similar account of the accommodation of these vagabond
Israelites, in the Sixth Satire, where the prophetic Jewess plies her
customers:
----_cophino, fænoque relicto. _
Her goods a basket, and old hay her bed;
She strolls, and telling fortunes, gains her bread. --EDITOR.
[85] Dædalus, in his flight from Crete, alighted at Cumæ.
[86] Lachesis is one of the three destinies, whose office was to spin
the life of every man; as it was of Clotho to hold the distaff, and
Atropos to cut the thread.
[87] Arturius means any debauched wicked fellow, who gains by the times.
[88] In a prize of sword-players, when one of the fencers had the
other at his mercy, the vanquished party implored the clemency of the
spectators. If they thought he deserved it not, they held up their
thumbs, and bent them backwards in sign of death.
[89] Verres, præter in Sicily, contemporary with Cicero, by whom
accused of oppressing the province, he was condemned: his name is used
here for any rich vicious man.
[90] Tagus, a famous river in Spain, which discharges itself into the
ocean near Lisbon, in Portugal. It was held of old to be full of golden
sands.
[91] Orontes, the greatest river of Syria. The poet here puts the river
for the inhabitants of Syria.
[92] Romulus was the first king of Rome, and son of Mars, as the poets
feign. The first Romans were herdsmen.
[93] Athens, of which Pallas, the Goddess of Arms and Arts, was
patroness.
[94] Antiochus and Stratocles, two famous Grecian mimics, or actors, in
the poet's time.
[95] Publius Egnatius, a stoick, falsely accused Bareas Soranus, as
Tacitus tells us.
[96] Grecians living in Rome.
[97] Lucius Metellus, the high priest, who, when the temple of Vesta
was on fire, saved the Palladium.
[98] Roscius, a tribune, ordered the distinction of places at public
shows, betwixt the noblemen of Rome and the plebeians.
[99] Alluding to the secession of the Plebeians to the Mons Sacer,
or Sacred Hill, as it was called, when they were persecuted by the
aristocracy. This very extraordinary resignation of their faculty, on
the part of the common people, was not singular in the Roman history.
It argues a much more inconsiderable population than the ancient
writers would have us believe. EDITOR.
[100] The meaning is, that men in some parts of Italy never wore a
gown, the usual habit of the Romans, till they were buried in one.
[101] Any wealthy man.
[102] The Romans used to breed their tame pigeons in their garrets.
[103] Codrus, a learned man, very poor: by his books, supposed to be a
poet; for, in all probability, the heroic verses here mentioned, which
rats and mice devoured, were Homer's works.
[104] Herbs, roots, fruits, and sallads.
[105] Corbulo was a famous general, in Nero's time, who conquered
Armenia, and was afterwards put to death by that tyrant, when he was in
Greece, in reward of his great services. His stature was not only tall
above the ordinary size, but he was also proportionably strong.
[106] The birth-place of Juvenal.
THE
SIXTH SATIRE
OF
JUVENAL.
THE ARGUMENT.
_This Satire, of almost double length to any of the rest, is
a bitter invective against the fair sex. It is, indeed, a
common-place, from whence all the moderns have notoriously
stolen their sharpest railleries. In his other satires,
the poet has only glanced on some particular women, and
generally scourged the men; but this he reserved wholly for
the ladies. How they had offended him, I know not; but,
upon the whole matter, he is not to be excused for imputing
to all, the vices of some few amongst them. Neither was
it generously done of him, to attack the weakest, as well
as the fairest, part of the creation; neither do I know
what moral he could reasonably draw from it. It could not
be to avoid the whole sex, if all had been true which he
alleges against them; for that had been to put an end to
human kind. And to bid us beware of their artifices, is
a kind of silent acknowledgment, that they have more wit
than men; which turns the satire upon us, and particularly
upon the poet, who thereby makes a compliment, where he
meant a libel. If he intended only to exercise his wit, he
has forfeited his judgment, by making the one half of his
readers his mortal enemies; and amongst the men, all the
happy lovers, by their own experience, will disprove his
accusations. The whole world must allow this to be the
wittiest of his satires; and truly he had need of all his
parts, to maintain, with so much violence, so unjust a
charge. I am satisfied he will bring but few over to his
opinion; and on that consideration chiefly I ventured to
trans late him. Though there wanted not another reason,
which was, that no one else would undertake it; at
least, Sir C. S. , who could have done more right to the
author, after a long delay, at length absolutely refused
so ungrateful an employment; and every one will grant,
that the work must have been imperfect and lame, if it had
appeared without one of the principal members belonging
to it. Let the poet, therefore, bear the blame of his own
invention; and let me satisfy the world, that I am not of
his opinion. Whatever his Roman ladies were, the English
are free from all his imputations. They will read with
wonder and abhorrence the vices of an age, which was the
most infamous of any on record. They will bless themselves
when they behold those examples, related of Domitian's
time; they will give back to antiquity those monsters it
produced, and believe, with reason, that the species of
those women is extinguished, or, at least, that they were
never here propagated. I may safely, therefore, proceed
to the argument of a satire, which is no way relating to
them; and first observe, that my author makes their lust
the most heroic of their vices; the rest are in a manner
but digression. He skims them over, but he dwells on this;
when he seems to have taken his last leave of it, on the
sudden he returns to it: It is one branch of it in Hippia,
another in Messalina, but lust is the main body of the tree.
He begins with this text in the first line, and takes it
up, with intermissions, to the end of the chapter. Every
vice is a loader, but that is a ten. The fillers, or
intermediate parts, are--their revenge; their contrivances
of secret crimes; their arts to hide them; their wit to
excuse them; and their impudence to own them, when they can
no longer be kept secret. Then the persons to whom they
are most addicted, and on whom they commonly bestow the
last favours, as stage-players, fiddlers, singing-boys, and
fencers.
he appeared, as he often did, and really was, partial, his inclination
or prejudice, insensibly to himself, drew his judgment aside. His bias
lay strangely for, and against, characters and denominations; and
sometimes, the very habits of persons. If one party was a courtier,
and well dressed, and the other a sort of puritan, with a black cap
and plain clothes, he insensibly thought the justice of the cause with
the latter. If the dissenting, or anti-court party was at the back of
a cause, he was very seldom impartial; and the loyalists had always a
great disadvantage before him. And he ever sat hard upon his lordship,
in his practice, in causes of that nature, as may be observed in the
cases of Cuts and Pickering, just before, and of Soams and Bernardiston
elsewhere, related. It is said he was once caught. A courtier, who had
a cause to be tried before him, got one to go to him, as from the king,
to speak for favour to his adversary, and so carried his point; for the
Chief Justice could not think any person to be in the right, that came
so unduly recommended. " _Life of Lord Keeper Guilford_, p. 61.
[28] Casaubon published an edition of "Persius," with notes, and a
commentary. Francesco Stelluti's version was published at Rome in 1630.
[29] This is a strange mistake in an author, who translated Persius
entirely, and great part of Juvenal. The satires of Persius were
written during the reign of Nero, and those of Juvenal in that of
Domitian. This error is the more extraordinary, as Dryden mentions, a
little lower, the very emperors under whom these poets flourished.
[30] David Wedderburn of Aberdeen, whose edition of "Persius," with a
commentary, was published in 8vo. at Amsterdam, 1664.
[31] Persius died in his 30th year, in the 8th year of Nero's reign.
Lucan died before he was twenty-seven.
[32] Casaubon's edition is accompanied, "_Cum Persiana Horatii
imitatione_. "
[33] A Stoic philosopher to whom Persius addresses his 5th Satire.
[34] The famous Gilbert Burnet, the Buzzard of our author's "Hind and
Panther," but for whom he seems now disposed to entertain some respect.
[35] Dryden alludes to the beautiful description which Horace has given
of his father's paternal and watchful affection in the 6th Satire of
the 1st Book. Wycherley, the friend for whom he wishes a father of
equal tenderness, after having been gayest of the gay, applauded by
theatres, and the object of a monarch's jealousy, was finally thrown
into jail for debt, and lay there seven long years, his father refusing
him any assistance. And, although in 1697, he was probably at liberty,
for King James had interposed in his favour and paid a great part of
his debts, he continued to labour under pecuniary embarrassments untill
his father's death and even after he had succeeded to his entailed
property.
[36] The abuse of personal satires, or lampoons, as they were called,
was carried to a prodigious extent in the days of Dryden, when
every man of fashion was obliged to write verses; and those who had
neither poetry nor wit, had recourse to ribaldry and libelling. Some
observations on these lampoons may be found prefixed to the Epistle to
Julian, among the pieces ascribed to Dryden.
[37] Wycherley, author of the witty comedy so called.
[38] The precise dates of Juvenal's birth and death are disputed; but
it is certain he flourished under Domitian, famous for his cruelty
against men and insects. Juvenal was banished by the tyrant, in
consequence of reflecting upon the actor Paris. He is generally said
to have died of grief; but Lepsius contends, that he survived even the
accession of Hadrian.
[39] The learned Barten Holyday was born at Oxford, in the end of the
16th century. Wood says, he was second to none for his poetry and
sublime fancy, and brings in witness his "smooth translation of rough
Persius," made before he was twenty years of age. He wrote a play
called "Technogamia, or the Marriage of the Arts," which was acted at
Christ Church College, before James I. , and, though extremely dull
and pedantic, was ill received by his Majesty. Holyday's version of
Juvenal was not published till after his death, when, in 1673, it was
inscribed to the dean and canons of Christ Church. As he had adopted
the desperate resolution of comprising every Latin line within an
English one, the modern reader has often reason to complain, with the
embarrassed gentleman in the "Critic," that the interpreter is the
harder to be understood of the two.
[40] Sir Robert Stapylton, a gentleman of an ancient family in
Yorkshire, who followed the fortune of Charles I. in the civil war,
besides several plays and poems, published a version of Juvenal, under
the title of "The manners of Men described in sixteen Satires by
Juvenal. " There are two editions, the first published in 1647, and the
last and most perfect in 1660. Sir Robert Stapylton died in 1669. His
verse is as harsh and uncouth as that of Holyday, who indeed charged
him with plagiary; though one would have thought the nature of the
commodity would have set theft at defiance.
[41] I presume, this celebrated finisher of the law, who bequeathed
his name to his successors in office, was a contemporary of our poet.
In the time of the rebellion, that operator was called Gregory, and
is supposed, with some probability, to have beheaded Charles I. See
the evidence for the prisoner in Hulet's trial after the Restoration.
_State Trials_, Vol. II. p. 388.
[42] This is a strange averment, considering the "Reflections upon
Absalom and Achitophel, by a Person of Honour," in composing and
publishing which, the Duke of Buckingham, our author's Zimri, shewed
much resentment and very little wit. See Vol. IX. p. 272.
[43]
_Persius exclamat, Per magnos, Brute, deos te
Oro, qui regis consueris tollere, cur non
Hunc Regem jugulas? Operum hoc mihi crede tuorum est. _
HOR. Satire 8. Lib. I.
[44] This gentleman, who was as great a gambler as a punster, regaled
with his quibbles the minor class of the frequenters of Will's
coffee-house, who, having neither wit enough to entitle them to mix
with the critics who associated with Dryden, and were called _The Witty
Club_, or gravity enough to discuss politics with those who formed the
Grave Club, were content to laugh heartily at the puns and conundrums
of Captain Swan.
[45] Mr Lewis Maidwell, the author of a comedy called "The Generous
Enemies," represented by the Duke's company 1680. In the prologue, as
Mr Malone informs us, there is an allusion to Rochester's mean assault
on Dryden:
Who dares be witty now, and with just rage
Disturb the vice and follies of the age?
With knaves and fools, satire's a dangerous fault;
They will not let you rub their sores with salt:
Else _Rose street ambuscades_ shall break your head,
And life in verse shall lay the poet dead.
It is only farther known of this gentleman, that he was a friend of
Shadwell, who gave him the epilogue for his comedy, and that he taught
a private school.
[46] The Roman exclamation of high contentment at a recitation, like
our _bravo! bravissimo! _
[47] Dryden, in his Epistle to Sir George Etherege, has shewn, however,
how completely he was master even of a measure he despised.
[48] Scarron's _Virgile Travesti_.
[49] Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh was lord advocate for Scotland,
during the reigns of Charles II. and his successor. His works are
voluminous, and upon various subjects, but chiefly historical and
juridical. He left, however, one poem called "Cælia's Country-house,"
and some essays on moral subjects. The memory of Sir George Mackenzie
is not in high estimation as a lawyer, and his having been the agent of
the crown, during the cruel persecution of the fanatical Cameronians,
renders him still execrated among the common people of Scotland. But he
was an accomplished scholar, of lively talents, and ready elocution,
and very well deserved the appellation of a "noble wit of Scotland. "
[50] In illustration of Holyday's miserable success in his desperate
attempt, we need only take the lines with which he opens:
Shall I be still an auditor, and ne'er
Repay that have so often had mine eare
Vexed with hoarse Codrus Theseads? shall one sweat
While his gownd comique sceane he does repeat,
Another while his elegies soft strain
The reader? and shall not I vex them again?
Shall mighty Telephus be unrequited,
That spends a day in being all recited?
Or volume-swoln Orestes, that does fill
The margin of an ample booke; yet still,
As if the book were mad too, is extended
Upon the very back, nor yet is ended.
THE
FIRST SATIRE
OF
JUVENAL.
THE ARGUMENT.
_The Poet gives us first a kind of humorous reason for his
writing: that being provoked by hearing so many ill poets
rehearse their works, he does himself justice on them, by
giving them as bad as they bring. But since no man will
rank himself with ill writers, it is easy to conclude,
that if such wretches could draw an audience, he thought
it no hard matter to excel them, and gain a greater esteem
with the public. Next, he informs us more openly, why he
rather addicts himself to satire than any other kind of
poetry. And here he discovers, that it is not so much
his indignation to ill poets as to ill men, which has
prompted him to write. He, therefore, gives us a summary
and general view of the vices and follies reigning in his
time. So that this first satire is the natural ground-work
of all the rest. Herein he confines himself to no one
subject, but strikes indifferently at all men in his way.
In every following satire he has chosen some particular
moral which he would inculcate; and lashes some particular
vice or folly, (an art with which our lampooners are not
much acquainted). But our poet being desirous to reform his
own age, and not daring to attempt it by an overt-act of
naming living persons, inveighs only against those who were
infamous in the times immediately preceding his, whereby
he not only gives a fair warning to great men, that their
memory lies at the mercy of future poets and historians,
but also, with a finer stroke of his pen, brands even the
living, and personates them under dead men's names. _
_I have avoided, as much as I could possibly, the borrowed
learning of marginal notes and illustrations, and for
that reason have translated this satire somewhat largely;
and freely own, (if it be a fault,) that I have likewise
omitted most of the proper names, because I thought they
would not much edify the reader. To conclude, if in two
or three places I have deserted all the commentators, it is
because I thought they first deserted my author, or at
least have left him in so much obscurity, that too much
room is left for guessing. _
Still shall I hear, and never quit the score,
Stunned with hoarse Codrus'[51] Theseid, o'er and o'er?
Shall this man's elegies and t'other's play
Unpunished murder a long summer's day?
Huge Telephus,[52] a formidable page,
Cries vengeance; and Orestes'[53] bulky rage,
Unsatisfied with margins closely writ,
Foams o'er the covers, and not finished yet.
No man can take a more familiar note
Of his own home, than I of Vulcan's grott,
Or Mars his grove,[54] or hollow winds that blow
From Ætna's top, or tortured ghosts below.
I know by rote the famed exploits of Greece,
The Centaurs' fury, and the Golden Fleece;
Through the thick shades the eternal scribbler bawls,
And shakes the statues on their pedestals.
The best and worst[55] on the same theme employs
His muse, and plagues us with an equal noise.
Provoked by these incorrigible fools,
I left declaiming in pedantic schools;
Where, with men-boys, I strove to get renown,
Advising Sylla to a private gown. [56]
But, since the world with writing is possest, }
I'll versify in spite; and do my best, }
To make as much waste paper as the rest. }
But why I lift aloft the satire's rod,
And tread the path which famed Lucilius[57] trod,
Attend the causes which my muse have led:--
When sapless eunuchs mount the marriage-bed;
When mannish Mævia,[58] that two-handed whore,
Astride on horseback hunts the Tuscan boar;
When all our lords are by his wealth outvied,
Whose razor on my callow beard was tried;[59]
When I behold the spawn of conquered Nile,
Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile,[60]
Pacing in pomp, with cloak of Tyrian dye,
Changed oft a-day for needless luxury;
And finding oft occasion to be fanned,
Ambitious to produce his lady-hand;
Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat,[61]
Unable to support a gem of weight:
Such fulsome objects meeting every where,
'Tis hard to write, but harder to forbear.
To view so lewd a town, and to refrain,
What hoops of iron could my spleen contain!
When pleading Matho, borne abroad for air,[62]
With his fat paunch fills his new-fashioned chair,
And after him the wretch in pomp conveyed,
Whose evidence his lord and friend betrayed,
And but the wished occasion does attend }
From the poor nobles the last spoils to rend, }
Whom even spies dread as their superior fiend, }
And bribe with presents; or, when presents fail,
They send their prostituted wives for bail:
When night-performance holds the place of merit,
And brawn and back the next of kin disherit;
(For such good parts are in preferment's way,)
The rich old madam never fails to pay
Her legacies, by nature's standard given,
One gains an ounce, another gains eleven:
A dear-bought bargain, all things duly weighed,
For which their thrice concocted blood is paid.
With looks as wan, as he who in the brake
At unawares has trod upon a snake;
Or played at Lyons a declaiming prize,
For which the vanquished rhetorician dies. [63]
What indignation boils within my veins, }
When perjured guardians, proud with impious gains, }
Choke up the streets, too narrow for their trains! }
Whose wards, by want betrayed, to crimes are led
Too foul to name, too fulsome to be read!
When he who pilled his province 'scapes the laws,
And keeps his money, though he lost his cause;
His fine begged off, contemns his infamy,
Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three;
Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain,
Leaves thee, prevailing province, to complain. [64]
Such villanies roused Horace into wrath;
And tis more noble to pursue his path,[65]
Than an old tale of Diomede to repeat, }
Or labouring after Hercules to sweat, }
Or wandering in the winding maze of Crete; }
Or with the winged smith aloft to fly,
Or fluttering perish with his foolish boy.
With what impatience must the muse behold
The wife, by her procuring husband sold?
For though the law makes null the adulterer's deed
Of lands to her, the cuckold may succeed,
Who his taught eyes up to the ceiling throws,
And sleeps all over but his wakeful nose.
When he dares hope a colonel's command,
Whose coursers kept, ran out his father's land;
Who yet a stripling, Nero's chariot drove, }
Whirled o'er the streets, while his vain master strove }
With boasted art to please his eunuch love[66] }
Would it not make a modest author dare
To draw his table-book within the square,
And fill with notes, when, lolling at his ease,
Mecænas-like,[67] the happy rogue he sees
Borne by six wearied slaves in open view,
Who cancelled an old will, and forged a new;
Made wealthy at the small expence of signing
With a wet seal, and a fresh interlining?
The lady, next, requires a lashing line,
Who squeezed a toad into her husband's wine:
So well the fashionable medicine thrives,
That now 'tis practised even by country wives;
Poisoning, without regard of fame or fear,
And spotted corpse are frequent on the bier.
Wouldst thou to honours and preferments climb?
Be bold in mischief, dare some mighty crime,
Which dungeons, death, or banishment deserves;
For virtue is but dryly praised, and starves.
Great men to great crimes owe their plate embost, }
Fair palaces, and furniture of cost, }
And high commands; a sneaking sin is lost. }
Who can behold that rank old letcher keep
His son's corrupted wife, and hope to sleep? [68]
Or that male-harlot, or that unfledged boy,
Eager to sin, before he can enjoy?
If nature could not, anger would indite
Such woful stuff as I or Sh----ll[69] write.
Count from the time, since old Deucalion's boat,
Raised by the flood, did on Parnassus float,[70]
And, scarcely mooring on the cliff, implored
An oracle how man might be restored;
When softened stones and vital breath ensued,
And virgins naked were by lovers viewed;
What ever since that golden age was done,
What human kind desires, and what they shun;
Rage, passions, pleasures, impotence of will,
Shall this satirical collection fill.
What age so large a crop of vices bore,
Or when was avarice extended more?
When were the dice with more profusion thrown?
The well-filled fob not emptied now alone,
But gamesters for whole patrimonies play;
The steward brings the deeds which must convey
The lost estate: what more than madness reigns,
When one short sitting many hundreds drains,
And not enough is left him to supply }
Board-wages, or a footman's livery? }
What age so many summer-seats did see? }
Or which of our forefathers fared so well,
As on seven dishes at a private meal?
Clients of old were feasted; now, a poor
Divided dole is dealt at the outward door;
Which by the hungry rout is soon dispatched:
The paltry largess, too, severely watched,
Ere given; and every face observed with care,
That no intruding guest usurp a share.
Known, you receive; the crier calls aloud }
Our old nobility of Trojan blood, }
Who gape among the crowd for their precarious food. }
The prætor's and the tribune's voice is heard;
The freedman jostles, and will be preferred;
First come, first served, he cries; and I, in spite
Of your great lordships, will maintain my right;
Though born a slave, though my torn ears are bored,[71]
'Tis not the birth, 'tis money makes the lord.
The rents of five fair houses I receive;
What greater honours can the purple give?
The poor patrician is reduced to keep,
In melancholy walks, a grazier's sheep:
Not Pallus nor Licinius[72] had my treasure;
Then let the sacred tribunes wait my leisure.
Once a poor rogue, 'tis true, I trod the street,
And trudged to Rome upon my naked feet:
Gold is the greatest God; though yet we see
No temples raised to money's majesty;
No altars fuming to her power divine,
Such as to valour, peace, and virtue shine,
And faith, and concord; where the stork on high[73] }
Seems to salute her infant progeny, }
Presaging pious love with her auspicious cry. -- }
But since our knights and senators account,
To what their sordid begging vails amount,
Judge what a wretched share the poor attends,
Whose whole subsistence on those alms depends!
Their household fire, their raiment, and their food,
Prevented by those harpies;[74] when a wood
Of litters thick besiege the donor's gate,
And begging lords and teeming ladies wait
The promised dole; nay, some have learned the trick
To beg for absent persons; feign them sick,
Close mewed in their sedans, for fear of air; }
And for their wives produce an empty chair. }
This is my spouse; dispatch her with her share; }
'Tis Galla. --Let her ladyship but peep. --
No, sir, 'tis pity to disturb her sleep. [75]
Such fine employments our whole days divide:
The salutations of the morning tide
Call up the sun; those ended, to the hall
We wait the patron, hear the lawyers bawl;
Then to the statues; where amidst the race }
Of conquering Rome, some Arab shows his face, }
Inscribed with titles, and profanes the place;[76] }
Fit to be pissed against, and somewhat more.
The great man, home conducted, shuts his door.
Old clients, wearied out with fruitless care,
Dismiss their hopes of eating, and despair;
Though much against the grain, forced to retire,
Buy roots for supper, and provide a fire.
Meantime his lordship lolls within at ease,
Pampering his paunch with foreign rarities;
Both sea and land are ransacked for the feast,
And his own gut the sole invited guest.
Such plate, such tables, dishes dressed so well,
That whole estates are swallowed at a meal.
Even parasites are banished from his board;
(At once a sordid and luxurious lord;)
Prodigious throat, for which whole boars are drest;
(A creature formed to furnish out a feast. )
But present punishment pursues his maw,
When, surfeited and swelled, the peacock raw
He bears into the bath; whence want of breath,
Repletions, apoplex, intestate death.
His fate makes table-talk, divulged with scorn,
And he, a jest, into his grave is borne.
No age can go beyond us; future times
Can add no farther to the present crimes.
Our sons but the same things can wish and do; }
Vice is at stand, and at the highest flow. }
Then, Satire, spread thy sails, take all the winds can blow! }
Some may, perhaps, demand what muse can yield
Sufficient strength for such a spacious field?
From whence can be derived so large a vein,
Bold truths to speak, and spoken to maintain,
When godlike freedom is so far bereft
The noble mind, that scarce the name is left?
Ere _scandalum magnatum_ was begot,
No matter if the great forgave or not;
But if that honest licence now you take, }
If into rogues omnipotent you rake, }
Death is your doom, impaled upon a stake; }
Smeared o'er with wax, and set on fire, to light
The streets, and make a dreadful blaze by night.
Shall they, who drenched three uncles in a draught
Of poisonous juice, be then in triumph brought,
Make lanes among the people where they go, }
And, mounted high on downy chariots, throw }
Disdainful glances on the crowd below? }
Be silent, and beware, if such you see;
'Tis defamation but to say, That's he!
Against bold Turnus the great Trojan arm,
Amidst their strokes the poet gets no harm:
Achilles may in epic verse be slain,
And none of all his myrmidons complain:
Hylas may drop his pitcher, none will cry,
Not if he drown himself for company;
But when Lucilius brandishes his pen,
And flashes in the face of guilty men,
A cold sweat stands in drops on every part,
And rage succeeds to tears, revenge to smart. [77]
Muse, be advised; 'tis past considering time,
When entered once the dangerous lists of rhime;
Since none the living villains dare implead,
Arraign them in the persons of the dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] Codrus, or it may be Cordus, a bad poet, who wrote the life and
actions of Theseus. --[This and almost all the following notes are taken
from Dryden's first edition. Those which are supplied by the present
Editor, are distinguished by the letter E. ]
[52] The name of a tragedy.
[53] Another tragedy.
[54] Some commentators take this grove to be a place where poets were
used to repeat their works to the people; but more probably, both this
and Vulcan's grott, or cave, and the rest of the places and names here
mentioned, are only meant for the common places of Homer in his Iliads
and Odyssies.
[55] That is, the best and the worst poets.
[56] This was one of the themes given in the schools of rhetoricians,
in the deliberative kind; whether Sylla should lay down the supreme
power of dictatorship, or still keep it?
[57] Lucilius, the first satirist of the Romans, who wrote long before
Horace.
[58] Mævia, a name put for any impudent or mannish woman.
[59] Juvenal's barber, now grown wealthy.
[60] Crispinus, an Egyptian slave; now, by his riches, transformed into
a nobleman.
[61] The Romans were grown so effeminate in Juvenal's time, that they
wore light rings in the summer, and heavier in the winter.
[62] Matho, a famous lawyer, mentioned in other places by Juvenal and
Martial.
[63] Lyons, a city in France, where annual sacrifices and games were
made in honour of Augustus Cæsar.
[64] Here the poet complains, that the governors of provinces being
accused for their unjust exactions, though they were condemned at their
trials, yet got off by bribery.
[65] Horace, who wrote satires; it is more noble, says our author, to
imitate him in that way, than to write the labours of Hercules, the
sufferings of Diomedes and his followers, or the flight of Dædalus, who
made the Labyrinth, and the death of his son Icarus.
[66] Nero married Sporus, an eunuch; though it may be, the poet meant
Nero's mistress in man's apparel.
[67] Mecænas is often taxed by Seneca and others for his effeminacy.
[68] The meaning is, that the very consideration of such a crime will
hinder a virtuous man from taking his repose.
[69] Shadwell, our author's old enemy. --E.
[70] Deucalion and Pyrrha, when the world was drowned, escaped to the
top of Mount Parnassus, and were commanded to restore mankind, by
throwing stones over their heads; the stones he threw became men, and
those she threw became women.
[71] The ears of all slaves were bored, as a mark of their servitude;
which custom is still usual in the East Indies, and in other parts,
even for whole nations, who bore prodigious holes in their ears, and
wear vast weights at them.
[72] Pallus, a slave freed by Claudius Cæsar, and raised by his favour
to great riches. Licinius was another wealthy freedman belonging to
Augustus.
[73] Perhaps the storks were used to build on the top of the temple
dedicated to Concord.
[74] He calls the Roman knights, &c. harpies, or devourers. In those
days, the rich made doles intended for the poor; but the great were
either so covetous, or so needy, that they came in their litters
to demand their shares of the largess; and thereby prevented, and
consequently starved, the poor.
[75] The meaning is, that noblemen would cause empty litters to be
carried to the giver's door, pretending their wives were within them.
"'Tis Galla," that is, my wife; the next words, "Let her ladyship but
peep," are of the servant who distributes the dole; "Let me see her,
that I may be sure she is within the litter. " The husband answers, "She
is asleep, and to open the litter would disturb her rest. "
[76] The poet here tells you how the idle passed their time; in going
first to the levees of the great; then to the hall, that is, to the
temple of Apollo, to hear the lawyers plead; then to the market-place
of Augustus, where the statues of the famous Romans were set in ranks
on pedestals; amongst which statues were seen those of foreigners, such
as Arabs, &c. who, for no desert, but only on account of their wealth
or favour, were placed amongst the noblest.
[77] A poet may safely write an heroic poem, such as that of Virgil,
who describes the duel of Turnus and Æneas; or of Homer, who writes of
Achilles and Hector; or the death of Hylas, the catamite of Hercules,
who, stooping for water, dropt his pitcher, and fell into the well
after it: but it is dangerous to write satire, like Lucilius.
THE
THIRD SATIRE
OF
JUVENAL.
THE ARGUMENT.
_The story of this satire speaks itself. Umbritius, the
supposed friend of Juvenal, and himself a poet, is leaving
Rome, and retiring to Cumæ. Our author accompanies him out
of town. Before they take leave of each other, Umbritius
tells his friend the reasons which oblige him to lead a
private life, in an obscure place. He complains, that an
honest man cannot get his bread at Rome; that none but
flatterers make their fortunes there; that Grecians, and
other foreigners, raise themselves by those sordid arts
which he describes, and against which he bitterly inveighs.
He reckons up the several inconveniences which arise from a
city life, and the many dangers which attend it; upbraids
the noblemen with covetousness, for not rewarding good
poets; and arraigns the government for starving them.
The great art of this satire is particularly shown in
common-places; and drawing in as many vices, as could
naturally fall into the compass of it. _
Grieved though I am an ancient friend to lose, }
I like the solitary seat he chose, }
In quiet Cumæ[78] fixing his repose: }
Where, far from noisy Rome, secure he lives,
And one more citizen to Sybil gives;
The road to Baiæ,[79] and that soft recess
Which all the gods with all their bounty bless;
Though I in Prochyta[80] with greater ease
Could live, than in a street of palaces.
What scene so desert, or so full of fright, }
As towering houses, tumbling in the night, }
And Rome on fire beheld by its own blazing light?
}
But worse than all the clattering tiles, and worse
Than thousand padders, is the poet's curse;
Rogues, that in dog-days cannot rhyme forbear,[81]
But without mercy read, and make you hear.
Now while my friend, just ready to depart,
Was packing all his goods in one poor cart,
He stopt a little at the Conduit-gate,
Where Numa modelled once the Roman state,[82]
In mighty councils with his nymph retired;[83]
Though now the sacred shades and founts are hired
By banished Jews, who their whole wealth can lay
In a small basket, on a wisp of hay;[84]
Yet such our avarice is, that every tree
Pays for his head, nor sleep itself is free;
Nor place, nor persons, now are sacred held,
From their own grove the muses are expelled.
Into this lonely vale our steps we bend,
I and my sullen discontented friend;
The marble caves and aqueducts we view;
But how adulterate now, and different from the true!
How much more beauteous had the fountain been
Embellished with her first created green,
Where crystal streams through living turf had run,
Contented with an urn of native stone!
Then thus Umbritius, with an angry frown,
And looking back on this degenerate town:--
Since noble arts in Rome have no support,
And ragged virtue not a friend at court,
No profit rises from the ungrateful stage,
My poverty encreasing with my age;
'Tis time to give my just disdain a vent,
And, cursing, leave so base a government.
Where Dædalus his borrowed wings laid by,[85]
To that obscure retreat I chuse to fly:
While yet few furrows on my face are seen, }
While I walk upright, and old age is green, }
And Lachesis has somewhat left to spin. [86] }
Now, now 'tis time to quit this cursed place,
And hide from villains my too honest face:
Here let Arturius live,[87] and such as he;
Such manners will with such a town agree.
Knaves, who in full assemblies have the knack
Of turning truth to lies, and white to black,
Can hire large houses, and oppress the poor
By farmed excise; can cleanse the common-shore,
And rent the fishery; can bear the dead, }
And teach their eyes dissembled tears to shed; }
All this for gain; for gain they sell their very head. }
These fellows (see what fortune's power can do! )
Were once the minstrels of a country show;
Followed the prizes through each paltry town,
By trumpet-cheeks and bloated faces known.
But now, grown rich, on drunken holidays,
At their own costs exhibit public plays;
Where, influenced by the rabble's bloody will,
With thumbs bent back, they popularly kill. [88]
From thence returned, their sordid avarice rakes
In excrements again, and hires the jakes.
Why hire they not the town, not every thing,
Since such as they have fortune in a string,
Who, for her pleasure, can her fools advance,
And toss them topmost on the wheel of chance?
What's Rome to me, what business have I there?
I who can neither lie, nor falsely swear?
Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes,
Nor yet comply with him, nor with his times?
Unskilled in schemes by planets to foreshow,
Like canting rascals, how the wars will go:
I neither will, nor can, prognosticate
To the young gaping heir, his father's fate;
Nor in the entrails of a toad have pried,
Nor carried bawdy presents to a bride:
For want of these town-virtues, thus alone
I go, conducted on my way by none;
Like a dead member from the body rent,
Maimed, and unuseful to the government.
Who now is loved, but he who loves the times,
Conscious of close intrigues, and dipt in crimes,
Labouring with secrets which his bosom burn,
Yet never must to public light return?
They get reward alone, who can betray;
For keeping honest counsels none will pay.
He who can Verres[89] when he will accuse,
The purse of Verres may at pleasure use:
But let not all the gold which Tagus hides,
And pays the sea in tributary tides,[90]
Be bribe sufficient to corrupt thy breast,
Or violate with dreams thy peaceful rest.
Great men with jealous eyes the friend behold,
Whose secrecy they purchase with their gold.
I haste to tell thee,--nor shall shame oppose,--
What confidents our wealthy Romans chose;
And whom I must abhor: to speak my mind,
I hate, in Rome, a Grecian town to find;
To see the scum of Greece transplanted here,
Received like gods, is what I cannot bear.
Nor Greeks alone, but Syrians here abound;
Obscene Orontes,[91] diving under ground,
Conveys his wealth to Tyber's hungry shores,
And fattens Italy with foreign whores:
Hither their crooked harps and customs come;
All find receipt in hospitable Rome.
The barbarous harlots crowd the public place:-- }
Go, fools, and purchase an unclean embrace; }
The painted mitre court, and the more painted face. }
Old Romulus,[92] and father Mars, look down! }
Your herdsman primitive, your homely clown, }
Is turned a beau in a loose tawdry gown. }
His once unkem'd and horrid locks, behold
'Stilling sweet oil; his neck enchained with gold;
Aping the foreigners in every dress,
Which, bought at greater cost, becomes him less.
Meantime they wisely leave their native land;
From Sycion, Samos, and from Alaband,
And Amydon, to Rome they swarm in shoals:
So sweet and easy is the gain from fools.
Poor refugees at first, they purchase here;
And, soon as denizened, they domineer;
Grow to the great, a flattering, servile rout,
Work themselves inward, and their patrons out.
Quick-witted, brazen-faced, with fluent tongues,
Patient of labours, and dissembling wrongs.
Riddle me this, and guess him if you can,
Who bears a nation in a single man?
A cook, a conjurer, a rhetorician, }
A painter, pedant, a geometrician, }
A dancer on the ropes, and a physician; }
All things the hungry Greek exactly knows,
And bid him go to heaven, to heaven he goes.
In short, no Scythian, Moor, or Thracian born,
But in that town which arms and arts adorn. [93]
Shall he be placed above me at the board,
In purple clothed, and lolling like a lord?
Shall he before me sign, whom t'other day }
A small-craft vessel hither did convey, }
Where, stowed with prunes, and rotten figs, he lay? }
How little is the privilege become
Of being born a citizen of Rome!
The Greeks get all by fulsome flatteries;
A most peculiar stroke they have at lies.
They make a wit of their insipid friend,
His blubber-lips and beetle-brows commend,
His long crane-neck and narrow shoulders praise,--
You'd think they were describing Hercules.
A creaking voice for a clear treble goes;
Though harsher than a cock, that treads and crows.
We can as grossly praise; but, to our grief,
No flattery but from Grecians gains belief.
Besides these qualities, we must agree,
They mimic better on the stage than we:
The wife, the whore, the shepherdess, they play,
In such a free, and such a graceful way,
That we believe a very woman shown,
And fancy something underneath the gown.
But not Antiochus, nor Stratocles,[94] }
Our ears and ravished eyes can only please; }
The nation is composed of such as these. }
All Greece is one comedian; laugh, and they
Return it louder than an ass can bray;
Grieve, and they grieve; if you weep silently, }
There seems a silent echo in their eye; }
They cannot mourn like you, but they can cry. }
Call for a fire, their winter clothes they take;
Begin but you to shiver, and they shake;
In frost and snow, if you complain of heat,
They rub the unsweating brow, and swear they sweat.
We live not on the square with such as these;
Such are our betters who can better please;
Who day and night are like a looking-glass,
Still ready to reflect their patron's face;
The panegyric hand, and lifted eye,
Prepared for some new piece of flattery.
Even nastiness occasions will afford;
They praise a belching, or well-pissing lord.
Besides, there's nothing sacred, nothing free
From bold attempts of their rank lechery.
Through the whole family their labours run; }
The daughter is debauched, the wife is won; }
Nor 'scapes the bridegroom, or the blooming son. }
If none they find for their lewd purpose fit,
They with the walls and very floors commit.
They search the secrets of the house, and so
Are worshipped there, and feared for what they know.
And, now we talk of Grecians, cast a view }
On what, in schools, their men of morals do. }
A rigid stoick his own pupil slew; }
A friend, against a friend of his own cloth,
Turned evidence, and murdered on his oath. [95]
What room is left for Romans in a town
Where Grecians rule, and cloaks controul the gown?
Some Diphilus, or some Protogenes,[96]
Look sharply out, our senators to seize;
Engross them wholly, by their native art,
And fear no rivals in their bubbles' heart:
One drop of poison in my patron's ear,
One slight suggestion of a senseless fear,
Infused with cunning, serves to ruin me;
Disgraced, and banished from the family.
In vain forgotten services I boast;
My long dependence in an hour is lost.
Look round the world, what country will appear,
Where friends are left with greater ease than here?
At Rome (nor think me partial to the poor)
All offices of ours are out of door:
In vain we rise, and to the levees run;
My lord himself is up before, and gone:
The prætor bids his lictors mend their pace,
Lest his colleague outstrip him in the race.
The childless matrons are, long since, awake,
And for affronts the tardy visits take.
'Tis frequent here to see a free-born son
On the left hand of a rich hireling run;
Because the wealthy rogue can throw away,
For half a brace of bouts, a tribune's pay;
But you, poor sinner, though you love the vice,
And like the whore, demur upon the price;
And, frighted with the wicked sum, forbear
To lend a hand, and help her from the chair.
Produce a witness of unblemished life,
Holy as Numa, or as Numa's wife,
Or him who bid the unhallowed flames retire,
And snatched the trembling goddess from the fire;[97]
The question is not put how far extends
His piety, but what he yearly spends;
Quick, to the business; how he lives and eats;
How largely gives; how splendidly he treats;
How many thousand acres feed his sheep;
What are his rents; what servants does he keep?
The account is soon cast up; the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.
Swear by our gods, or those the Greeks adore,
Thou art as sure forsworn, as thou art poor:
The poor must gain their bread by perjury; }
And e'en the gods, that other means deny, }
In conscience must absolve them, when they lie. }
Add, that the rich have still a gibe in store,
And will be monstrous witty on the poor;
For the torn surtout and the tattered vest,
The wretch and all his wardrobe, are a jest;
The greasy gown, sullied with often turning,
Gives a good hint, to say,--The man's in mourning;
Or, if the shoe be ripped, or patches put,--
He's wounded! see the plaister on his foot.
Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool,
And wit in rags is turned to ridicule.
Pack hence, and from the covered benches rise,
(The master of the ceremonies cries,)
This is no place for you, whose small estate
Is not the value of the settled rate;
The sons of happy punks, the pandar's heir, }
Are privileged to sit in triumph there, }
To clap the first, and rule the theatre. }
Up to the galleries, for shame, retreat;
For, by the Roscian law,[98] the poor can claim no seat. --
Who ever brought to his rich daughter's bed,
The man that polled but twelve pence for his head?
Who ever named a poor man for his heir,
Or called him to assist the judging chair?
The poor were wise, who, by the rich oppressed,
Withdrew, and sought a secret place of rest. [99]
Once they did well, to free themselves from scorn;
But had done better, never to return.
Rarely they rise by virtue's aid, who lie
Plunged in the depth of helpless poverty.
At Rome 'tis worse, where house-rent by the year, }
And servants' bellies, cost so devilish dear, }
And tavern-bills run high for hungry cheer. }
To drink or eat in earthen-ware we scorn, }
Which cheaply country-cupboards does adorn, }
And coarse blue hoods on holidays are worn. }
Some distant parts of Italy are known,
Where none but only dead men wear a gown;[100]
On theatres of turf, in homely state,
Old plays they act, old feasts they celebrate;
The same rude song returns upon the crowd,
And, by tradition, is for wit allowed.
The mimic yearly gives the same delights;
And in the mother's arms the clownish infant frights.
Their habits (undistinguished by degree) }
Are plain, alike; the same simplicity, }
Both on the stage, and in the pit, you see. }
In his white cloak the magistrate appears;
The country bumpkin the same livery wears.
But here attired beyond our purse we go,
For useless ornament and flaunting show;
We take on trust, in purple robes to shine,
And poor, are yet ambitious to be fine.
This is a common vice, though all things here
Are sold, and sold unconscionably dear.
What will you give that Cossus[101] may but view
Your face, and in the crowd distinguish you;
May take your incense like a gracious God,
And answer only with a civil nod?
To please our patrons, in this vicious age,
We make our entrance by the favourite page;
Shave his first down, and when he polls his hair,
The consecrated locks to temples bear;
Pay tributary cracknels, which he sells,
And with our offerings help to raise his vails.
Who fears in country-towns a house's fall,
Or to be caught betwixt a riven wall?
But we inhabit a weak city here,
Which buttresses and props but scarcely bear;
And 'tis the village-mason's daily calling,
To keep the world's metropolis from falling,
To cleanse the gutters, and the chinks to close,
And, for one night, secure his lord's repose.
At Cumæ we can sleep quite round the year,
Nor falls, nor fires, nor nightly dangers fear;
While rolling flames from Roman turrets fly,
And the pale citizens for buckets cry.
Thy neighbour has removed his wretched store,
Few hands will rid the lumber of the poor;
Thy own third story smokes, while thou, supine,
Art drenched in fumes of undigested wine.
For if the lowest floors already burn,
Cock-lofts and garrets soon will take the turn,
Where thy tame pigeons next the tiles were bred,[102]
Which, in their nests unsafe, are timely fled.
Codrus[103] had but one bed, so short to boot,
That his short wife's short legs hung dangling out;
His cupboard's head six earthen pitchers graced,
Beneath them was his trusty tankard placed;
And, to support this noble plate, there lay
A bending Chiron cast from honest clay;
His few Greek books a rotten chest contained,
Whose covers much of mouldiness complained;
Where mice and rats devoured poetic bread,
And with heroic verse luxuriously were fed.
'Tis true, poor Codrus nothing had to boast,
And yet poor Codrus all that nothing lost;
Begged naked through the streets of wealthy Rome,
And found not one to feed, or take him home.
But, if the palace of Arturius burn,
The nobles change their clothes, the matrons mourn;
The city-prætor will no pleadings hear; }
The very name of fire we hate and fear, }
And look aghast, as if the Gauls were here. }
While yet it burns, the officious nation flies,
Some to condole, and some to bring supplies.
One sends him marble to rebuild, and one
White naked statues of the Parian stone,
The work of Polyclete, that seem to live;
While others images for altars give;
One books and skreens, and Pallas to the breast;
Another bags of gold, and he gives best.
Childless Arturius, vastly rich before,
Thus, by his losses, multiplies his store;
Suspected for accomplice to the fire,
That burnt his palace but to build it higher.
But, could you be content to bid adieu
To the dear playhouse, and the players too,
Sweet country-seats are purchased every where, }
With lands and gardens, at less price than here }
You hire a darksome dog-hole by the year. }
A small convenience decently prepared,
A shallow well, that rises in your yard,
That spreads his easy crystal streams around,
And waters all the pretty spot of ground.
There, love the fork, thy garden cultivate,
And give thy frugal friends a Pythagorean treat;[104]
'Tis somewhat to be lord of some small ground,
In which a lizard may, at least, turn round.
'Tis frequent here, for want of sleep, to die, }
Which fumes of undigested feasts deny, }
And, with imperfect heat, in languid stomachs fry. }
What house secure from noise the poor can keep,
When even the rich can scarce afford to sleep?
So dear it costs to purchase rest in Rome,
And hence the sources of diseases come.
The drover, who his fellow-drover meets
In narrow passages of winding streets;
The waggoners, that curse their standing teams,
Would wake even drowsy Drusus from his dreams.
And yet the wealthy will not brook delay,
But sweep above our heads, and make their way,
In lofty litters borne, and read and write,
Or sleep at ease, the shutters make it night;
Yet still he reaches first the public place.
The press before him stops the client's pace;
The crowd that follows crush his panting sides,
And trip his heels; he walks not, but he rides.
One elbows him, one jostles in the shole,
A rafter breaks his head, or chairman's pole;
Stocking'd with loads of fat town-dirt he goes, }
And some rogue-soldier, with his hob-nailed shoes, }
Indents his legs behind in bloody rows. }
See, with what smoke our doles we celebrate: }
A hundred guests, invited, walk in state; }
A hundred hungry slaves, with their Dutch kitchens, wait. }
Huge pans the wretches on their heads must bear,
Which scarce gigantic Corbulo[105] could rear;
Yet they must walk upright beneath the load,
Nay run, and, running, blow the sparkling flames abroad.
Their coats, from botching newly brought, are torn.
Unwieldy timber-trees, in waggons borne,
Stretched at their length, beyond their carriage lie,
That nod, and threaten ruin from on high;
For, should their axle break, its overthrow }
Would crush, and pound to dust, the crowd below; }
Nor friends their friends, nor sires their sons could know; }
Nor limbs, nor bones, nor carcase, would remain,
But a mashed heap, a hotchpotch of the slain;
One vast destruction; not the soul alone,
But bodies, like the soul, invisible are flown.
Meantime, unknowing of their fellow's fate,
The servants wash the platter, scower the plate,
Then blow the fire, with puffing cheeks, and lay }
The rubbers, and the bathing-sheets display, }
And oil them first; and each is handy in his way. }
But he, for whom this busy care they take,
Poor ghost! is wandering by the Stygian lake;
Affrighted with the ferryman's grim face,
New to the horrors of that uncouth place,
His passage begs, with unregarded prayer,
And wants two farthings to discharge his fare.
Return we to the dangers of the night. --
And, first, behold our houses' dreadful height;
From whence come broken potsherds tumbling down, }
And leaky ware from garret-windows thrown; }
Well may they break our heads, that mark the flinty stone. }
'Tis want of sense to sup abroad too late,
Unless thou first hast settled thy estate;
As many fates attend thy steps to meet,
As there are waking windows in the street.
Bless the good Gods, and think thy chance is rare,
To have a piss-pot only for thy share.
The scouring drunkard, if he does not fight
Before his bed-time, takes no rest that night;
Passing the tedious hours in greater pain
Than stern Achilles, when his friend was slain;
'Tis so ridiculous, but so true withal,
A bully cannot sleep without a brawl.
Yet, though his youthful blood be fired with wine,
He wants not wit the danger to decline;
Is cautious to avoid the coach and six,
And on the lacquies will no quarrel fix.
His train of flambeaux, and embroidered coat,
May privilege my lord to walk secure on foot;
But me, who must by moon-light homeward bend,
Or lighted only with a candle's end,
Poor me he fights, if that be fighting, where
He only cudgels, and I only bear.
He stands, and bids me stand; I must abide,
For he's the stronger, and is drunk beside.
Where did you whet your knife to-night, he cries,
And shred the leeks that in your stomach rise?
Whose windy beans have stuft your guts, and where
Have your black thumbs been dipt in vinegar?
With what companion-cobler have you fed,
On old ox-cheeks, or he-goat's tougher head?
What, are you dumb? Quick, with your answer, quick,
Before my foot salutes you with a kick.
Say, in what nasty cellar, under ground,
Or what church-porch, your rogueship may be found? --
Answer, or answer not, 'tis all the same,
He lays me on, and makes me bear the blame.
Before the bar for beating him you come;
This is a poor man's liberty in Rome.
You beg his pardon; happy to retreat
With some remaining teeth, to chew your meat.
Nor is this all; for when, retired, you think
To sleep securely, when the candles wink,
When every door with iron chains is barred,
And roaring taverns are no longer heard;
The ruffian robbers, by no justice awed,
And unpaid cut-throat soldiers, are abroad;
Those venal souls, who, hardened in each ill,
To save complaints and prosecution, kill.
Chased from their woods and bogs, the padders come }
To this vast city, as their native home, }
To live at ease, and safely skulk in Rome. }
The forge in fetters only is employed;
Our iron mines exhausted and destroyed
In shackles; for these villains scarce allow
Goads for the teams, and plough-shares for the plough.
Oh, happy ages of our ancestors,
Beneath the kings and tribunitial powers!
One jail did all their criminals restrain,
Which now the walls of Rome can scarce contain.
More I could say, more causes I could show
For my departure, but the sun is low;
The waggoner grows weary of my stay,
And whips his horses forwards on their way.
Farewell! and when, like me, o'erwhelmed with care, }
You to your own Aquinam[106] shall repair, }
To take a mouthful of sweet country air, }
Be mindful of your friend; and send me word,
What joys your fountains and cool shades afford.
Then, to assist your satires, I will come,
And add new venom when you write of Rome.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] Cumæ, a small city in Campania, near Puteoli, or Puzzolo, as it is
called. The habitation of the Cumæan Sybil.
[79] Baiæ, another little town in Campania, near the sea: a pleasant
place.
[80] Prochyta, a small barren island belonging to the kingdom of Naples.
[81] The poets in Juvenal's time used to rehearse their poetry in
August.
[82] Numa, the second king of Rome, who made their laws, and instituted
their religion.
[83] Ægeria, a nymph, or goddess, with whom Numa feigned to converse by
night; and to be instructed by her, in modelling his superstitions.
[84] We have a similar account of the accommodation of these vagabond
Israelites, in the Sixth Satire, where the prophetic Jewess plies her
customers:
----_cophino, fænoque relicto. _
Her goods a basket, and old hay her bed;
She strolls, and telling fortunes, gains her bread. --EDITOR.
[85] Dædalus, in his flight from Crete, alighted at Cumæ.
[86] Lachesis is one of the three destinies, whose office was to spin
the life of every man; as it was of Clotho to hold the distaff, and
Atropos to cut the thread.
[87] Arturius means any debauched wicked fellow, who gains by the times.
[88] In a prize of sword-players, when one of the fencers had the
other at his mercy, the vanquished party implored the clemency of the
spectators. If they thought he deserved it not, they held up their
thumbs, and bent them backwards in sign of death.
[89] Verres, præter in Sicily, contemporary with Cicero, by whom
accused of oppressing the province, he was condemned: his name is used
here for any rich vicious man.
[90] Tagus, a famous river in Spain, which discharges itself into the
ocean near Lisbon, in Portugal. It was held of old to be full of golden
sands.
[91] Orontes, the greatest river of Syria. The poet here puts the river
for the inhabitants of Syria.
[92] Romulus was the first king of Rome, and son of Mars, as the poets
feign. The first Romans were herdsmen.
[93] Athens, of which Pallas, the Goddess of Arms and Arts, was
patroness.
[94] Antiochus and Stratocles, two famous Grecian mimics, or actors, in
the poet's time.
[95] Publius Egnatius, a stoick, falsely accused Bareas Soranus, as
Tacitus tells us.
[96] Grecians living in Rome.
[97] Lucius Metellus, the high priest, who, when the temple of Vesta
was on fire, saved the Palladium.
[98] Roscius, a tribune, ordered the distinction of places at public
shows, betwixt the noblemen of Rome and the plebeians.
[99] Alluding to the secession of the Plebeians to the Mons Sacer,
or Sacred Hill, as it was called, when they were persecuted by the
aristocracy. This very extraordinary resignation of their faculty, on
the part of the common people, was not singular in the Roman history.
It argues a much more inconsiderable population than the ancient
writers would have us believe. EDITOR.
[100] The meaning is, that men in some parts of Italy never wore a
gown, the usual habit of the Romans, till they were buried in one.
[101] Any wealthy man.
[102] The Romans used to breed their tame pigeons in their garrets.
[103] Codrus, a learned man, very poor: by his books, supposed to be a
poet; for, in all probability, the heroic verses here mentioned, which
rats and mice devoured, were Homer's works.
[104] Herbs, roots, fruits, and sallads.
[105] Corbulo was a famous general, in Nero's time, who conquered
Armenia, and was afterwards put to death by that tyrant, when he was in
Greece, in reward of his great services. His stature was not only tall
above the ordinary size, but he was also proportionably strong.
[106] The birth-place of Juvenal.
THE
SIXTH SATIRE
OF
JUVENAL.
THE ARGUMENT.
_This Satire, of almost double length to any of the rest, is
a bitter invective against the fair sex. It is, indeed, a
common-place, from whence all the moderns have notoriously
stolen their sharpest railleries. In his other satires,
the poet has only glanced on some particular women, and
generally scourged the men; but this he reserved wholly for
the ladies. How they had offended him, I know not; but,
upon the whole matter, he is not to be excused for imputing
to all, the vices of some few amongst them. Neither was
it generously done of him, to attack the weakest, as well
as the fairest, part of the creation; neither do I know
what moral he could reasonably draw from it. It could not
be to avoid the whole sex, if all had been true which he
alleges against them; for that had been to put an end to
human kind. And to bid us beware of their artifices, is
a kind of silent acknowledgment, that they have more wit
than men; which turns the satire upon us, and particularly
upon the poet, who thereby makes a compliment, where he
meant a libel. If he intended only to exercise his wit, he
has forfeited his judgment, by making the one half of his
readers his mortal enemies; and amongst the men, all the
happy lovers, by their own experience, will disprove his
accusations. The whole world must allow this to be the
wittiest of his satires; and truly he had need of all his
parts, to maintain, with so much violence, so unjust a
charge. I am satisfied he will bring but few over to his
opinion; and on that consideration chiefly I ventured to
trans late him. Though there wanted not another reason,
which was, that no one else would undertake it; at
least, Sir C. S. , who could have done more right to the
author, after a long delay, at length absolutely refused
so ungrateful an employment; and every one will grant,
that the work must have been imperfect and lame, if it had
appeared without one of the principal members belonging
to it. Let the poet, therefore, bear the blame of his own
invention; and let me satisfy the world, that I am not of
his opinion. Whatever his Roman ladies were, the English
are free from all his imputations. They will read with
wonder and abhorrence the vices of an age, which was the
most infamous of any on record. They will bless themselves
when they behold those examples, related of Domitian's
time; they will give back to antiquity those monsters it
produced, and believe, with reason, that the species of
those women is extinguished, or, at least, that they were
never here propagated. I may safely, therefore, proceed
to the argument of a satire, which is no way relating to
them; and first observe, that my author makes their lust
the most heroic of their vices; the rest are in a manner
but digression. He skims them over, but he dwells on this;
when he seems to have taken his last leave of it, on the
sudden he returns to it: It is one branch of it in Hippia,
another in Messalina, but lust is the main body of the tree.
He begins with this text in the first line, and takes it
up, with intermissions, to the end of the chapter. Every
vice is a loader, but that is a ten. The fillers, or
intermediate parts, are--their revenge; their contrivances
of secret crimes; their arts to hide them; their wit to
excuse them; and their impudence to own them, when they can
no longer be kept secret. Then the persons to whom they
are most addicted, and on whom they commonly bestow the
last favours, as stage-players, fiddlers, singing-boys, and
fencers.
