No More Learning

The guiltless horses, and the chariot wheel,
The same effects of vulgar fury feel:
The smith prepares his hammer for the stroke,
While the lung'd bellows hissing fire provoke.
Sejanus, almost first of Roman names,[143]
The great Sejanus crackles in the flames:
Formed in the forge, the pliant brass is laid }
On anvils; and of head and limbs are made, }
Pans, cans, and piss-pots, a whole kitchen trade. }
Adorn your doors with laurels; and a bull,
Milk white, and large, lead to the Capitol;
Sejanus with a rope is dragged along,
The sport and laughter of the giddy throng!
Good Lord! they cry, what Ethiop lips he has;
How foul a snout, and what a hanging face!
By heaven, I never could endure his sight!
But say, how came his monstrous crimes to light?
What is the charge, and who the evidence,
(The saviour of the nation and the prince? )
Nothing of this; but our old Cæsar sent
A noisy letter to his parliament.
Nay, sirs, if Cæsar writ, I ask no more;
He's guilty, and the question's out of door.
How goes the mob? (for that's a mighty thing,)
When the king's trump, the mob are for the king:
They follow fortune, and the common cry
Is still against the rogue condemned to die.
But the same very mob, that rascal crowd,
Had cried Sejanus, with a shout as loud,
Had his designs (by fortune's favour blest)
Succeeded, and the prince's age opprest.
But long, long since, the times have changed their face,
The people grown degenerate and base;
Not suffered now the freedom of their choice
To make their magistrates, and sell their voice.
Our wise forefathers, great by sea and land,
Had once the power and absolute command;
All offices of trust themselves disposed;
Raised whom they pleased, and whom they pleased deposed:
But we, who give our native rights away,
And our enslaved posterity betray,
Are now reduced to beg an alms, and go
On holidays to see a puppet-show.
There was a damned design, cries one, no doubt,
For warrants are already issued out:
I met Brutidius in a mortal fright,
He's dipt for certain, and plays least in sight;
I fear the rage of our offended prince,
Who thinks the senate slack in his defence.
Come, let us haste, our loyal zeal to show,
And spurn the wretched corpse of Cæsar's foe:
But let our slaves be present there; lest they
Accuse their masters, and for gain betray. --
Such were the whispers of those jealous times,
About Sejanus' punishment and crimes.
Now, tell me truly, wouldst thou change thy fate,
To be, like him, first minister of state?
To have thy levees crowded with resort,
Of a depending, gaping, servile court;
Dispose all honours of the sword and gown,
Grace with a nod, and ruin with a frown;
To hold thy prince in pupillage, and sway
That monarch, whom the mastered world obey?
While he, intent on secret lusts alone,
Lives to himself, abandoning the throne;
Cooped in a narrow isle,[144] observing dreams
With flattering wizards, and erecting schemes!
I well believe thou wouldst be great as he,
For every man's a fool to that degree:
All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
Even they would have the power, who want the will:
But wouldst thou have thy wishes understood,
To take the bad together with the good?
Wouldst thou not rather choose a small renown,
To be the mayor of some poor paltry town;
Bigly to look, and barbarously to speak;
To pound false weights, and scanty measures break?
Then, grant we that Sejanus went astray
In every wish, and knew not how to pray;
For he, who grasped the world's exhausted store,
Yet never had enough, but wished for more,
Raised a top-heavy tower, of monstrous height,
Which, mouldering, crushed him underneath the weight.
What did the mighty Pompey's fall beget,
And ruined him, who, greater than the Great,[145]
The stubborn pride of Roman nobles broke,
And bent their haughty necks beneath his yoke:
What else but his immoderate lust of power,
Prayers made and granted in a luckless hour?
For few usurpers to the shades descend
By a dry death, or with a quiet end.
The boy, who scarce has paid his entrance down
To his proud pedant, or declined a noun,
(So small an elf, that, when the days are foul,
He and his satchel must be borne to school,)
Yet prays, and hopes, and aims at nothing less,
To prove a Tully, or Demosthenes:
But both those orators, so much renowned,
In their own depths of eloquence were drowned:[146]
The hand and head were never lost of those
Who dealt in doggrel, or who punned in prose.
"Fortune foretuned the dying notes of Rome,
Till I, thy consul sole, consoled thy doom. "[147]
His fate had crept below the lifted swords,
Had all his malice been to murder words.
I rather would be Mævius, thrash for rhymes
Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times,
Than that Philippic[148], fatally divine,
Which is inscribed the second, should be mine.
Nor he, the wonder of the Grecian throng,
Who drove them with the torrent of his tongue,
Who shook the theatres, and swayed the state
Of Athens, found a more propitious fate.
Whom, born beneath a boding horoscope,
His sire, the blear-eyed Vulcan of a shop,
From Mars his forge, sent to Minerva's schools,
To learn the unlucky art of wheedling fools.
With itch of honour, and opinion vain,
All things beyond their native worth we strain;
The spoils of war, brought to Feretrian Jove,
An empty coat of armour hung above
The conqueror's chariot and in triumph borne,
A streamer from a boarded galley torn,
A chap-fallen beaver loosely hanging by
The cloven helm, an arch of victory;
On whose high convex sits a captive foe,
And, sighing, casts a mournful look below;[149]--
Of every nation each illustrious name,
Such toys as these have cheated into fame;
Exchanging solid quiet, to obtain
The windy satisfaction of the brain.
So much the thirst of honour fires the blood;
So many would be great, so few be good:
For who would Virtue for herself regard,
Or wed, without the portion of reward?
Yet this mad chace of fame, by few pursued,
Has drawn destruction on the multitude;
This avarice of praise in times to come,
Those long inscriptions crowded on the tomb;
Should some wild fig-tree take her native bent,
And heave below the gaudy monument,
Would crack the marble titles, and disperse
The characters of all the lying verse.
For sepulchres themselves must crumbling fall
In time's abyss, the common grave of all.
Great Hannibal within the balance lay,
And tell how many pounds his ashes weigh;
Whom Afric was not able to contain,
Whose length runs level with the Atlantic main,
And wearies fruitful Nilus, to convey
His sun-beat waters by so long a way;
Which Ethiopia's double clime divides,
And elephants in other mountains hides.
Spain first he won, the Pyreneans past,
And steepy Alps, the mounds that nature cast;
And with corroding juices, as he went,
A passage through the living rocks he rent:
Then, like a torrent rolling from on high,
He pours his headlong rage on Italy,
In three victorious battles over-run;
Yet, still uneasy, cries,--There's nothing done,
Till level with the ground their gates are laid,
And Punic flags on Roman towers displayed.
Ask what a face belonged to this high fame,
His picture scarcely would deserve a frame:
A sign-post dauber would disdain to paint
The one-eyed hero on his elephant.
Now, what's his end, O charming Glory! say,
What rare fifth act to crown this huffing play?
In one deciding battle overcome,
He flies, is banished from his native home;
Begs refuge in a foreign court, and there
Attends, his mean petition to prefer;
Repulsed by surly grooms, who wait before
The sleeping tyrant's interdicted door.
What wonderous sort of death has heaven designed, }
Distinguished from the herd of human kind, }
For so untamed, so turbulent a mind? }
Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar,
Are doomed to avenge the tedious bloody war;
But poison, drawn through a ring's hollow plate,
Must finish him--a sucking infant's fate.
Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool,
To please the boys, and be a theme at school.
One world sufficed not Alexander's mind;
Cooped up, he seemed in earth and seas confined,
And, struggling, stretched his restless limbs about
The narrow globe, to find a passage out:
Yet entered in the brick-built town,[150] he tried
The tomb, and found the strait dimensions wide.
Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds.
Old Greece a tale of Athos would make out,[151]
Cut from the continent, and sailed about;
Seas hid with navies, chariots passing o'er
The channel, on a bridge from shore to shore:
Rivers, whose depth no sharp beholder sees,
Drunk at an army's dinner to the lees;
With a long legend of romantic things,
Which in his cups the bowsy poet sings.
But how did he return, this haughty brave,
Who whipt the winds, and made the sea his slave?
(Though Neptune took unkindly to be bound, }
And Eurus never such hard usage found }
In his Æolian prison under ground;) }
What god so mean, even he who points the way,[152]
So merciless a tyrant to obey!
But how returned he, let us ask again? }
In a poor skiff he passed the bloody main, }
Choked with the slaughtered bodies of his train. }
For fame he prayed, but let the event declare
He had no mighty penn'worth of his prayer.
Jove, grant me length of life, and years good store
Heap on my bending back! I ask no more. --
Both sick and healthful, old and young, conspire
In this one silly mischievous desire.
Mistaken blessing, which old age they call,
'Tis a long, nasty, darksome hospital:
A ropy chain of rheums; a visage rough,
Deformed, unfeatured, and a skin of buff;
A stitch-fallen cheek, that hangs below the jaw;
Such wrinkles as a skilful hand would draw
For an old grandame ape, when, with a grace,
She sits at squat, and scrubs her leathern face.
In youth, distinctions infinite abound;
No shape, or feature, just alike are found;
The fair, the black, the feeble, and the strong: }
But the same foulness does to age belong. }
The self-same palsy, both in limbs and tongue; }
The skull and forehead one bald barren plain,
And gums unarmed to mumble meat in vain;
Besides, the eternal drivel, that supplies
The dropping beard, from nostrils, mouth, and eyes.
His wife and children lothe him, and, what's worse,
Himself does his offensive carrion curse!
Flatterers forsake him too; for who would kill
Himself, to be remembered in a will?
His taste not only pall'd to wine and meat,
But to the relish of a nobler treat.
The limber nerve, in vain provoked to rise,
Inglorious from the field of battle flies;
Poor feeble dotard! how could he advance
With his blue head-piece, and his broken lance?
Add, that, endeavouring still, without effect,
A lust more sordid justly we suspect.
Those senses lost, behold a new defeat,
The soul dislodging from another seat.
What music, or enchanting voice, can cheer
A stupid, old, impenetrable ear?
No matter in what place, or what degree
Of the full theatre he sits to see;
Cornets and trumpets cannot reach his ear;
Under an actor's nose he's never near.
His boy must bawl, to make him understand
The hour o'the day, or such a lord's at hand;
The little blood that creeps within his veins,
Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.
In fine, he wears no limb about him sound,
With sores and sicknesses beleaguered round
Ask me their names, I sooner could relate
How many drudges on salt Hippia wait;
What crowds of patients the town doctor kills,
Or how, last fall, he raised the weekly bills;
What provinces by Basilus were spoiled;
What herds of heirs by guardians are beguiled;
How many bouts a-day that bitch has tried;
How many boys that pedagogue can ride;
What lands and lordships for their owner know
My quondam barber, but his worship now.
This dotard of his broken back complains;
One his legs fail, and one his shoulder pains:
Another is of both his eyes bereft,
And envies who has one for aiming left;
A fifth, with trembling lips expecting stands
As in his childhood, crammed by others hands;
One, who at sight of supper opened wide }
His jaws before, and whetted grinders tried, }
Now only yawns, and waits to be supplied; }
Like a young swallow, when, with weary wings,
Expected food her fasting mother brings.
His loss of members is a heavy curse,
But all his faculties decayed, a worse.
His servants' names he has forgotten quite;
Knows not his friend who supped with him last night:
Not even the children he begot and bred;
Or his will knows them not; for, in their stead,
In form of law, a common hackney jade,
Sole heir, for secret services, is made:
So lewd, and such a battered brothel whore,
That she defies all comers at her door.
Well, yet suppose his senses are his own,
He lives to be chief mourner for his son:
Before his face, his wife and brother burns;
He numbers all his kindred in their urns.
These are the fines he pays for living long,
And dragging tedious age in his own wrong;
Griefs always green, a household still in tears, }
Sad pomps, a threshold thronged with daily biers, }
And liveries of black for length of years. }
Next to the raven's age, the Pylian king[153]
Was longest lived of any two-legged thing.
Blest, to defraud the grave so long, to mount
His numbered years, and on his right hand count! [154]
Three hundred seasons, guzzling must of wine! --
But hold a while, and hear himself repine
At fate's unequal laws, and at the clue
Which, merciless in length, the midmost sister drew. [155]
When his brave son upon the funeral pyre
He saw extended, and his beard on fire,
He turned, and, weeping, asked his friends, what crime
Had cursed his age to this unhappy time?
Thus mourned old Peleus for Achilles slain,
And thus Ulysses' father did complain.
How fortunate an end had Priam made,
Among his ancestors a mighty shade,
While Troy yet stood; when Hector, with the race
Of royal bastards, might his funeral grace;
Amidst the tears of Trojan dames inurned,
And by his loyal daughters truly mourned!
Had heaven so blest him, he had died before
The fatal fleet to Sparta Paris bore:
But mark what age produced,--he lived to see
His town in flames, his falling monarchy.
In fine, the feeble sire, reduced by fate,
To change his sceptre for a sword, too late,
His last effort before Jove's altar tries,
A soldier half, and half a sacrifice:
Falls like an ox that waits the coming blow,
Old and unprofitable to the plough. [156]
At least he died a man; his queen survived,
To howl, and in a barking body lived. [157]
I hasten to our own; nor will relate
Great Mithridates,[158] and rich Croesus' fate;[159]
Whom Solon wisely counselled to attend
The name of happy, till he knew his end.
That Marius was an exile, that he fled,
Was ta'en, in ruined Carthage begged his bread;
All these were owing to a life too long:
For whom had Rome beheld so happy, young?
High in his chariot, and with laurel crowned,
When he had led the Cimbrian captives round
The Roman streets, descending from his state,
In that blest hour he should have begged his fate;
Then, then, he might have died of all admired,
And his triumphant soul with shouts expired.
Campania, Fortune's malice to prevent,
To Pompey an indulgent fever sent;
But public prayers imposed on heaven to give
Their much loved leader an unkind reprieve;
The city's fate and his conspired to save
The head reserved for an Egyptian slave. [160]
Cethegus, though a traitor to the state,
And tortured, 'scaped this ignominious fate;[161]
And Sergius, who a bad cause bravely tried,
All of a piece, and undiminished, died. [162]
To Venus, the fond mother makes a prayer,
That all her sons and daughters may be fair:
True, for the boys a mumbling vow she sends,
But for the girls the vaulted temple rends:
They must be finished pieces; 'tis allowed
Diana's beauty made Latona proud,
And pleased to see the wondering people pray
To the new-rising sister of the day.
And yet Lucretia's fate would bar that vow;
And fair Virginia[163] would her fate bestow
On Rutila, and change her faultless make
For the foul rumple of her camel back.
But, for his mother's boy, the beau, what frights
His parents have by day, what anxious nights!
Form joined with virtue is a sight too rare;
Chaste is no epithet to suit with fair.
Suppose the same traditionary strain
Of rigid manners in the house remain;
Inveterate truth, an old plain Sabine's heart;
Suppose that nature too has done her part,
Infused into his soul a sober grace,
And blushed a modest blood into his face,
(For nature is a better guardian far
Than saucy pedants, or dull tutors are;)
Yet still the youth must ne'er arrive at man,
(So much almighty bribes and presents can;)
Even with a parent, where persuasions fail,
Money is impudent, and will prevail.
We never read of such a tyrant king,
Who gelt a boy deformed, to hear him sing;
Nor Nero, in his more luxurious rage,
E'er made a mistress of an ugly page:
Sporus, his spouse, nor crooked was, nor lame, }
With mountain back, and belly, from the game }
Cross-barred; but both his sexes well became. }
Go, boast your Springal, by his beauty curst
To ills, nor think I have declared the worst;
His form procures him journey-work; a strife
Betwixt town-madams, and the merchant's wife:
Guess, when he undertakes this public war,
What furious beasts offended cuckolds are.
Adulterers are with dangers round beset;
Born under Mars, they cannot 'scape the net;
And, from revengeful husbands, oft have tried
Worse handling than severest laws provide:
One stabs, one slashes, one, with cruel art,
Makes colon suffer for the peccant part.
But your Endymion, your smooth smock-faced boy,
Unrivalled, shall a beauteous dame enjoy.
Not so: one more salacious, rich, and old,
Outbids, and buys her pleasure for her gold:
Now, he must moil, and drudge, for one he lothes;
She keeps him high in equipage and clothes;
She pawns her jewels, and her rich attire,
And thinks the workman worthy of his hire.
In all things else immoral, stingy, mean,
But, in her lusts, a conscionable quean.
She may be handsome, yet be chaste, you say;--
Good observator, not so fast away;
Did it not cost the modest youth his life,
Who shunned the embraces of his father's wife? [164]
And was not t'other stripling forced to fly, }
Who coldly did his patron's queen deny, }
And pleaded laws of hospitality? [165] }
The ladies charged them home, and turned the tale;
With shame they reddened, and with spite grew pale.
'Tis dangerous to deny the longing dame;
She loses pity, who has lost her shame.
Now Silius wants thy counsel, give advice;
Wed Cæsar's wife, or die--the choice is nice. [166]
Her comet-eyes she darts on every grace,
And takes a fatal liking to his face.
Adorned with bridal pomp, she sits in state;
The public notaries and Aruspex wait;
The genial bed is in the garden dressed, }
The portion paid, and every rite expressed, }
Which in a Roman marriage is professed. }
'Tis no stolen wedding this; rejecting awe,
She scorns to marry, but in form of law:
In this moot case, your judgment to refuse
Is present death, besides the night you lose:
If you consent, 'tis hardly worth your pain,
A day or two of anxious life you gain;
Till loud reports through all the town have past,
And reach the prince--for cuckolds hear the last.
Indulge thy pleasure, youth, and take thy swing,
For not to take is but the self-same thing;
Inevitable death before thee lies,
But looks more kindly through a lady's eyes.
What then remains? are we deprived of will;
Must we not wish, for fear of wishing ill?
Receive my counsel, and securely move;--
Intrust thy fortune to the powers above;
Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant
What their unerring wisdom sees thee want:
In goodness, as in greatness, they excel;
Ah, that we loved ourselves but half so well!
We, blindly by our head-strong passions led,
Are hot for action, and desire to wed;
Then wish for heirs; but to the gods alone }
Our future offspring, and our wives, are known; }
The audacious strumpet, and ungracious son. }
Yet, not to rob the priests of pious gain,
That altars be not wholly built in vain,
Forgive the gods the rest, and stand confined
To health of body, and content of mind;
A soul, that can securely death defy,
And count it nature's privilege to die;
Serene and manly, hardened to sustain
The load of life, and exercised in pain;
Guiltless of hate, and proof against desire,
That all things weighs, and nothing can admire;
That dares prefer the toils of Hercules,
To dalliance, banquet, and ignoble ease.
The path to peace is virtue: what I show,
Thyself may freely on thyself bestow;
Fortune was never worshipped by the wise,
But, set aloft by fools, usurps the skies.

FOOTNOTES:

[142] Milo, of Crotona; who, for a trial of his strength, going to rend
an oak, perished in the attempt; for his arms were caught in the trunk
of it, and he was devoured by wild beasts.

[143] Sejanus was Tiberius's first favourite; and, while he continued
so, had the highest marks of honour bestowed on him. Statues and
triumphal chariots were every where erected to him. But, as soon as
he fell into disgrace with the emperor, these were all immediately
dismounted; and the senate and common people insulted over him as
meanly as they had fawned on him before.

[144] The island of Caprea, which lies about a league out at sea
from the Campanian shore, was the scene of Tiberius's pleasures in
the latter part of his reign. There he lived, for some years, with
diviners, soothsayers, and worse company; and from thence dispatched
all his orders to the senate.

[145] Julius Cæsar, who got the better of Pompey, that was styled, The
Great.

[146] Demosthenes and Tully both died for their oratory; Demosthenes
gave himself poison, to avoid being carried to Antipater, one of
Alexander's captains, who had then made himself master of Athens. Tully
was murdered by M. Antony's order, in return for those invectives he
made against him.

[147] The Latin of this couplet is a famous verse of Tully's, in which
he sets out the happiness of his own consulship, famous for the vanity
and the ill poetry of it; for Tully, as he had a good deal of the one,
so he had no great share of the other.

[148] The orations of Tully against M. Antony were styled by him
"Philippics," in imitation of Demosthenes; who had given that name
before to those he made against Philip of Macedon.

[149] This is a mock account of a Roman triumph.

[150] Babylon, where Alexander died.

[151] Xerxes is represented in history after a very romantic manner:
affecting fame beyond measure, and doing the most extravagant things to
compass it. Mount Athos made a prodigious promontory in the Ægean Sea;
he is said to have cut a channel through it, and to have sailed round
it. He made a bridge of boats over the Hellespont, where it was three
miles broad; and ordered a whipping for the winds and seas, because
they had once crossed his designs; as we have a very solemn account of
it in Herodotus. But, after all these vain boasts, he was shamefully
beaten by Themistocles at Salamis; and returned home, leaving most of
his fleet behind him.

[152] Mercury, who was a god of the lowest size, and employed always in
errands between heaven and hell, and mortals used him accordingly; for
his statues were anciently placed where roads met, with directions on
the fingers of them, pointing out the several ways to travellers.

[153] Nestor, king of Pylus; who was three hundred years old, according
to Homer's account; at least as he is understood by his expositors.

[154] The ancients counted by their fingers; their left hands served
them till they came up to an hundred; after that they used their right,
to express all greater numbers.

[155] The Fates were three sisters, who had all some peculiar business
assigned them by the poets, in relation to the lives of men. The first
held the distaff, the second spun the thread, and the third cut it.

[156] Whilst Troy was sacked by the Greeks, old king Priam is said to
have buckled on his armour to oppose them; which he had no sooner done,
but he was met by Pyrrhus, and slain before the altar of Jupiter, in
his own palace; as we have the story finely told in Virgil's second
Æneid.

[157] Hecuba, his queen, escaped the swords of the Grecians, and
outlived him. It seems, she behaved herself so fiercely and uneasily to
her husband's murderers, while she lived, that the poets thought fit to
turn her into a bitch when she died.

[158] Mithridates, after he had disputed the empire of the world for
forty years together, with the Romans, was at last deprived of life and
empire by Pompey the Great.

[159] Croesus, in the midst of his prosperity, making his boast to
Solon, how happy he was, received this answer from the wise man,--that
no one could pronounce himself happy, till he saw what his end should
be. The truth of this Croesus found, when he was put in chains by
Cyrus, and condemned to die.

[160] Pompey, in the midst of his glory, fell into a dangerous fit of
sickness, at Naples. A great many cities then made public supplications
for him. He recovered; was beaten at Pharsalia; fled to Ptolemy, king
of Egypt; and, instead of receiving protection at his court, had his
head struck off by his order, to please Cæsar.

[161] Cethegus was one that conspired with Catiline, and was put to
death by the senate.

[162] Sergius Catiline died fighting.

[163] Virginia was killed by her own father, to prevent her being
exposed to the lust of Appius Claudius, who had ill designs upon her.
The story at large is in Livy's third book; and it is a remarkable one,
as it gave occasion to the putting down the power of the Decemviri, of
whom Appius was one.

[164] Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, was loved by his mother-in-law,
Phædria; but he not complying with her, she procured his death.

[165] Bellerophon, the son of King Glaucus, residing some time at the
court of Pætus, king of the Argives, the queen, Sthenobæa, fell in love
with him; but he refusing her, she turned the accusation upon him, and
he narrowly escaped Pætus's vengeance.

[166] Messalina, wife to the emperor Claudius, infamous for her
lewdness. She set her eyes upon C. Silius, a fine youth; forced him
to quit his own wife, and marry her, with all the formalities of a
wedding, whilst Claudius Cæsar was sacrificing at Hostia. Upon his
return, he put both Silius and her to death.




THE

SIXTEENTH SATIRE

OF

JUVENAL.


THE ARGUMENT.

_The Poet in this satire proves, that the condition of a
soldier is much better than that of a countryman; first,
because a countryman, however affronted, provoked, and
struck himself, dares not strike a soldier, who is only
to be judged by a court-martial; and, by the law of
Camillus, which obliges him not to quarrel without the
trenches, he is also assured to have a speedy hearing,
and quick dispatch; whereas, the townsman, or peasant, is
delayed in his suit by frivolous pretences, and not sure
of justice when he is heard in the court. The soldier
is also privileged to make a will, and to give away his
estate, which he got in war, to whom he pleases, without
consideration of parentage, or relations, which is denied
to all other Romans. This satire was written by Juvenal,
when he was a commander in Egypt: it is certainly his,
though I think it not finished. And if it be well observed,
you will find he intended an invective against a standing
army. _

What vast prerogatives, my Gallus, are
Accruing to the mighty man of war!
For if into a lucky camp I light, }
Though raw in arms, and yet afraid to fight, }
Befriend me my good stars, and all goes right. }
One happy hour is to a soldier better,
Than mother Juno's[167] recommending letter,
Or Venus, when to Mars she would prefer
My suit, and own the kindness done to her. [168]
See what our common privileges are;
As, first, no saucy citizen shall dare
To strike a soldier, nor, when struck, resent
The wrong, for fear of farther punishment.
Not though his teeth are beaten out, his eyes
Hang by a string, in bumps his forehead rise,
Shall he presume to mention his disgrace,
Or beg amends for his demolished face.
A booted judge shall sit to try his cause,
Not by the statute, but by martial laws;
Which old Camillus ordered, to confine
The brawls of soldiers to the trench and line:
A wise provision; and from thence 'tis clear,
That officers a soldier's cause should hear;
And taking cognizance of wrongs received,
An honest man may hope to be relieved.
So far 'tis well; but with a general cry,
The regiment will rise in mutiny,
The freedom of their fellow-rogue demand,
And, if refused, will threaten to disband.
Withdraw thy action, and depart in peace,
The remedy is worse than the disease.
This cause is worthy him, who in the hall
Would for his fee, and for his client, bawl:[169]
But would'st thou, friend, who hast two legs alone,
(Which, heaven be praised, thou yet may'st call thy own,)
Would'st thou to run the gauntlet these expose
To a whole company of hob-nailed shoes? [170]
Sure the good-breeding of wise citizens
Should teach them more good-nature to their shins.
Besides, whom canst thou think so much thy friend,
Who dares appear thy business to defend?
Dry up thy tears, and pocket up the abuse, }
Nor put thy friend to make a bad excuse; }
The judge cries out, "Your evidence produce. " }
Will he, who saw the soldier's mutton-fist,
And saw thee mauled, appear within the list,
To witness truth? When I see one so brave,
The dead, think I, are risen from the grave;
And with their long spade beards, and matted hair,
Our honest ancestors are come to take the air.
Against a clown, with more security,
A witness may be brought to swear a lie,
Than, though his evidence be full and fair,
To vouch a truth against a man of war.
More benefits remain, and claimed as rights,
Which are a standing army's perquisites.
If any rogue vexatious suits advance
Against me for my known inheritance,
Enter by violence my fruitful grounds,
Or take the sacred land-mark[171] from my bounds,
Those bounds, which with procession and with prayer,
And offered cakes, have been my annual care;
Or if my debtors do not keep their day,
Deny their hands, and then refuse to pay;
I must with patience all the terms attend,
Among the common causes that depend,
Till mine is called; and that long-looked-for day
Is still encumbered with some new delay;
Perhaps the cloth of state is only spread,[172]
Some of the quorum may be sick a-bed;
That judge is hot, and doffs his gown, while this
O'er night was bowsy, and goes out to piss:
So many rubs appear, the time is gone
For hearing, and the tedious suit goes on;
But buft and beltmen never know these cares,
No time, nor trick of law, their action bars:
Their cause they to an easier issue put;
They will be heard, or they lug out, and cut.
Another branch of their revenue still }
Remains, beyond their boundless right to kill,-- }
Their father yet alive, impowered to make a will. [173] }
For what their prowess gained, the law declares
Is to themselves alone, and to their heirs:
No share of that goes back to the begetter,
But if the son fights well, and plunders better,
Like stout Coranus, his old shaking sire
Does a remembrance in his will desire,
Inquisitive of fights, and longs in vain
To find him in the number of the slain:
But still he lives, and rising by the war,
Enjoys his gains, and has enough to spare;
For 'tis a noble general's prudent part
To cherish valour, and reward desert;
Let him be daub'd with lace, live high, and whore;
Sometimes be lousy, but be never poor.

FOOTNOTES:

[167] Juno was mother to Mars, the god of war; Venus was his mistress.

[168] Camillus, (who being first banished by his ungrateful countrymen
the Romans, afterwards returned, and freed them from the Gauls,) made a
law, which prohibited the soldiers from quarrelling without the camp,
lest upon that pretence they might happen to be absent when they ought
to be on duty.

[169] The poet names a Modenese lawyer, whom he calls Vagellius, who
was so impudent, that he would plead any cause, right or wrong, without
shame or fear.

[170] The Roman soldiers wore plates of iron under their shoes, or
stuck them with nails, as countrymen do now.

[171] Land-marks were used by the Romans, almost in the same manner
as now; and as we go once a year in procession about the bounds of
parishes, and renew them, so they offered cakes upon the stone, or
land-mark.

[172] The courts of judicature were hung, and spread, as with us; but
spread only before the hundred judges were to sit, and judge public
causes, which were called by lot.

[173] The Roman soldiers had the privilege of making a will, in their
father's life-time, of what they had purchased in the wars, as being
no part of their patrimony. By this will, they had power of excluding
their own parents, and giving the estate so gotten to whom they
pleased: Therefore, says the poet, Coranus, (a soldier contemporary
with Juvenal, who had raised his fortune by the wars,) was courted by
his own father, to make him his heir.




TRANSLATIONS

FROM

PERSIUS.




THE

FIRST SATIRE

OF

PERSIUS.


ARGUMENT OF THE PROLOGUE

TO THE FIRST SATIRE.

_The design of the author was to conceal his name and quality.
He lived in the dangerous times of the tyrant Nero, and
aims particularly at him in most of his Satires. For which
reason, though he was a Roman knight, and of a plentiful
fortune, he would appear in this Prologue but a beggarly
poet, who writes for bread. After this, he breaks into the
business of the First Satire; which is chiefly to decry the
poetry then in fashion, and the impudence of those who were
endeavouring to pass their stuff upon the world. _


PROLOGUE

TO

THE FIRST SATIRE.
I never did on cleft Parnassus dream,
Nor taste the sacred Heliconian stream;[174]
Nor can remember when my brain, inspired,
Was by the Muses into madness fired.
My share in pale Pyrene[175] I resign,
And claim no part in all the mighty Nine.
Statues, with winding ivy crowned,[176] belong
To nobler poets, for a nobler song;
Heedless of verse, and hopeless of the crown, }
Scarce half a wit, and more than half a clown, }
Before the shrine[177] I lay my rugged numbers down. }
Who taught the parrot human notes to try,
Or with a voice endued the chattering pye?
'Twas witty Want, fierce hunger to appease;
Want taught their masters, and their masters these.
Let gain, that gilded bait, be hung on high,
The hungry witlings have it in their eye;
Pyes, crows, and daws, poetic presents bring;
You say they squeak, but they will swear they sing.


THE

FIRST SATIRE.

IN DIALOGUE BETWIXT

THE POET AND HIS FRIEND, OR MONITOR.


ARGUMENT.

_I need not repeat, that the chief aim of the author is against
bad poets in this Satire. But I must add, that he includes
also bad orators, who began at that time (as Petronius
in the beginning of his book tells us) to enervate manly
eloquence by tropes and figures, ill placed, and worse
applied. Amongst the poets, Persius covertly strikes
at Nero; some of whose verses he recites with scorn and
indignation. He also takes notice of the noblemen, and
their abominable poetry, who, in the luxury of their
fortunes, set up for wits and judges. The Satire is in
dialogue betwixt the author, and his friend, or monitor;
who dissuades him from this dangerous attempt of exposing
great men. But Persius, who is of a free spirit, and has
not forgotten that Rome was once a commonwealth, breaks
through all those difficulties, and boldly arraigns the
false judgment of the age in which he lives. The reader may
observe, that our poet was a Stoic philosopher; and that
all his moral sentences, both here and in all the rest of
his Satires, are drawn from the dogmas of that sect. _


PERSIUS.

How anxious are our cares, and yet how vain
The bent of our desires!

FRIEND.

Thy spleen contain;
For none will read thy satires. ?

PERSIUS.

This to me?

FRIEND.

None, or, what's next to none, but two or three.
'Tis hard, I grant.

PERSIUS.

'Tis nothing; I can bear,
That paltry scribblers have the public ear;
That this vast universal fool, the town,
Should cry up Labeo's stuff,[178] and cry me down.
They damn themselves; nor will my muse descend
To clap with such, who fools and knaves commend:
Their smiles and censures are to me the same;
I care not what they praise, or what they blame.
In full assemblies let the crowd prevail;
I weigh no merit by the common scale.
The conscience is the test of every mind;
"Seek not thyself, without thyself, to find. "
But where's that Roman----Somewhat I would say,
But fear----let fear, for once, to truth give way.
Truth lends the Stoic courage; when I look
On human acts, and read in Nature's book,
From the first pastimes of our infant age,
To elder cares, and man's severer page;
When stern as tutors, and as uncles hard,
We lash the pupil, and defraud the ward,
Then, then I say--or would say, if I durst--
But, thus provoked, I must speak out, or burst.

FRIEND.

Once more forbear.

PERSIUS.

I cannot rule my spleen;
My scorn rebels, and tickles me within.
First, to begin at home:--Our authors write
In lonely rooms, secured from public sight;
Whether in prose, or verse, 'tis all the same,
The prose is fustian, and the numbers lame;
All noise, and empty pomp, a storm of words,
Labouring with sound, that little sense affords.
They comb, and then they order every hair; }
A gown, or white, or scoured to whiteness, wear, }
A birth-day jewel bobbing at their ear;[179] }
Next, gargle well their throats; and, thus prepared,
They mount, a God's name, to be seen and heard;
From their high scaffold, with a trumpet cheek,
And ogling all their audience ere they speak.
The nauseous nobles, even the chief of Rome,
With gaping mouths to these rehearsals come,
And pant with pleasure, when some lusty line
The marrow pierces, and invades the chine;
At open fulsome bawdry they rejoice,
And slimy jests applaud with broken voice.
Base prostitute! thus dost thou gain thy bread?
Thus dost thou feed their ears, and thus art fed?
At his own filthy stuff he grins and brays,
And gives the sign where he expects their praise.
Why have I learned, sayst thou, if thus confined,
I choke the noble vigour of my mind?
Know, my wild fig-tree, which in rocks is bred,
Will split the quarry, and shoot out the head. [180]
Fine fruits of learning! old ambitious fool,
Darest thou apply that adage of the school,
As if 'tis nothing worth that lies concealed,
And "science is not science till revealed? "
Oh, but 'tis brave to be admired, to see
The crowd, with pointing fingers, cry,--That's he;
That's he, whose wonderous poem is become
A lecture for the noble youth of Rome!
Who, by their fathers, is at feasts renowned,
And often quoted when the bowls go round.
Full gorged and flushed, they wantonly rehearse,
And add to wine the luxury of verse.
One, clad in purple, not to lose his time,
Eats and recites some lamentable rhyme;
Some senseless Phillis, in a broken note,
Snuffling at nose, and croaking in his throat.
Then graciously the mellow audience nod;
Is not the immortal author made a god?
Are not his manes blest, such praise to have?
Lies not the turf more lightly on his grave?
And roses (while his loud applause they sing)
Stand ready from his sepulchre to spring?
All these, you cry, but light objections are,
Mere malice, and you drive the jest too far:
For does there breathe a man, who can reject
A general fame, and his own lines neglect?
In cedar tablets[181] worthy to appear, }
That need not fish, or frankincense, to fear? }
Thou, whom I make the adverse part to bear, }
Be answered thus:--If I by chance succeed
In what I write, (and that's a chance indeed,)
Know, I am not so stupid, or so hard,
Not to feel praise, or fame's deserved reward;
But this I cannot grant, that thy applause
Is my work's ultimate, or only cause.
Prudence can ne'er propose so mean a prize;
For mark what vanity within it lies.
Like Labeo's Iliads, in whose verse is found
Nothing but trifling care, and empty sound;
Such little elegies as nobles write,
Who would be poets, in Apollo's spite.
Them and their woeful works the Muse defies;
Products of citron beds,[182] and golden canopies.
To give thee all thy due, thou hast the heart }
To make a supper, with a fine desert, }
And to thy thread-bare friend a cast old suit impart. }
Thus bribed, thou thus bespeak'st him--Tell me, friend,
(For I love truth, nor can plain speech offend,)
What says the world of me and of my muse?
The poor dare nothing tell but flattering news;
But shall I speak? Thy verse is wretched rhyme,
And all thy labours are but loss of time.
Thy strutting belly swells, thy paunch is high;
Thou writ'st not, but thou pissest poetry.
All authors to their own defects are blind;
Hadst thou but, Janus-like,[183] a face behind,
To see the people, what splay-mouths they make;
To mark their fingers, pointed at thy back;
Their tongues lolled out, a foot beyond the pitch,
When most athirst, of an Apulian bitch:
But noble scribblers are with flattery fed,
For none dare find their faults, who eat their bread.
To pass the poets of patrician blood,
What is't the common reader takes for good?
The verse in fashion is, when numbers flow,
Soft without sense, and without spirit slow;
So smooth and equal, that no sight can find
The rivet, where the polished piece was joined;
So even all, with such a steady view,
As if he shut one eye to level true.
Whether the vulgar vice his satire stings,
The people's riots, or the rage of kings,
The gentle poet is alike in all;
His reader hopes no rise, and fears no fall.

FRIEND.

Hourly we see some raw pin-feathered thing
Attempt to mount, and fights and heroes sing;
Who for false quantities was whipt at school
But t'other day, and breaking grammar-rule;
Whose trivial art was never tried above
The bare description of a native grove;
Who knows not how to praise the country store, }
The feasts, the baskets, nor the fatted boar, }
Nor paint the flowery fields that paint themselves before; }
Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born,[184]
Whose shining plough-share was in furrows worn,
Met by his trembling wife returning home,
And rustically joyed, as chief of Rome:
She wiped the sweat from the Dictator's brow, }
And o'er his back his robe did rudely throw; }
The lictors bore in state their lord's triumphant plough. }
Some love to hear the fustian poet roar,
And some on antiquated authors pore;
Rummage for sense, and think those only good
Who labour most, and least are understood.
When thou shalt see the blear-eyed fathers teach
Their sons this harsh and mouldy sort of speech,
Or others new affected ways to try,
Of wanton smoothness, female poetry;
One would enquire from whence this motley style
Did first our Roman purity defile.
For our old dotards cannot keep their seat,
But leap and catch at all that's obsolete.
Others, by foolish ostentation led,
When called before the bar, to save their head,
Bring trifling tropes, instead of solid sense,
And mind their figures more than their defence;
Are pleased to hear their thick-skulled judges cry,
Well moved, oh finely said, and decently!
Theft (says the accuser) to thy charge I lay,
O Pedius: what does gentle Pedius say?
Studious to please the genius of the times,
With periods, points, and tropes,[185] he slurs his crimes:
"He robbed not, but he borrowed from the poor,
And took but with intention to restore. "
He lards with flourishes his long harangue;
'Tis fine, say'st thou;--what, to be praised, and hang?
Effeminate Roman, shall such stuff prevail
To tickle thee, and make thee wag thy tail?
Say, should a shipwrecked sailor sing his woe,
Wouldst thou be moved to pity, or bestow
An alms? What's more preposterous than to see
A merry beggar? Mirth in misery?

PERSIUS.

He seems a trap for charity to lay,
And cons, by night, his lesson for the day.

FRIEND.

But to raw numbers, and unfinished verse,
Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse:
"'Tis tagged with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys,
The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is. [186]
The dolphin brave, that cuts the liquid wave,
Or he who in his line can chine the long-ribbed Appennine. "

PERSIUS.

All this is doggrel stuff.

FRIEND.

What if I bring
A nobler verse? "Arms and the man I sing. "

PERSIUS.

Why name you Virgil with such fops as these?
He's truly great, and must for ever please:
Not fierce, but aweful, is his manly page;
Bold is his strength, but sober is his rage.

FRIEND.

What poems think you soft, and to be read
With languishing regards, and bending head?

PERSIUS.

"Their crooked horns the Mimallonian crew
With blasts inspired;[187] and Bassaris, who slew
The scornful calf, with sword advanced on high,
Made from his neck his haughty head to fly:
And Mænas, when with ivy bridles bound, }
She led the spotted lynx, then Evion rung around; }
Evion from woods and floods repairing echo's sound. " }
Could such rude lines a Roman mouth become,
Were any manly greatness left in Rome?
Mænas and Atys[188] in the mouth were bred,
And never hatched within the labouring head;
No blood from bitten nails those poems drew,
But churned, like spittle, from the lips they flew.

FRIEND.

'Tis fustian all; 'tis execrably bad;
But if they will be fools, must you be mad?
Your satires, let me tell you, are too fierce;
The great will never bear so blunt a verse.
Their doors are barred against a bitter flout;
Snarl, if you please, but you shall snarl without.
Expect such pay as railing rhymes deserve;
You're in a very hopeful way to starve.

PERSIUS.

Rather than so, uncensured let them be;
All, all is admirably well, for me.
My harmless rhyme shall 'scape the dire disgrace
Of common-shoars, and every pissing-place.
Two painted serpents[189] shall on high appear;
'Tis holy ground; you must not urine here.
This shall be writ, to fright the fry away,
Who draw their little baubles when they play.
Yet old Lucilius[190] never feared the times,
But lashed the city, and dissected crimes.
Mutius and Lupus both by name he brought;
He mouthed them, and betwixt his grinders caught.
Unlike in method, with concealed design,
Did crafty Horace his low numbers join;
And, with a sly insinuating grace,
Laughed at his friend, and looked him in the face;
Would raise a blush where secret vice he found,
And tickle while he gently probed the wound;
With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled,
But made the desperate passes when he smiled.
Could he do this, and is my muse controuled
By servile awe? Born free, and not be bold?
At least, I'll dig a hole within the ground,
And to the trusty earth commit the sound;
The reeds shall tell you what the poet fears,
"King Midas has a snout, and asses ears. "[191]
This mean conceit, this darling mystery,
Which thou think'st nothing, friend, thou shalt not buy;
Nor will I change for all the flashy wit,
That flattering Labeo in his Iliads writ.
Thou, if there be a thou in this base town,
Who dares, with angry Eupolis, to frown;
He who, with bold Cratinus, is inspired
With zeal,[192] and equal indignation fired;
Who at enormous villainy turns pale,
And steers against it with a full-blown sail,
Like Aristophanes, let him but smile
On this my honest work, though writ in homely style;
And if two lines or three in all the vein
Appear less drossy, read those lines again.
May they perform their author's just intent,
Glow in thy ears, and in thy breast ferment!
But from the reading of my book and me,
Be far, ye foes of virtuous poverty;
Who fortune's fault upon the poor can throw,[193]
Point at the tattered coat, and ragged shoe;
Lay nature's failings to their charge, and jeer
The dim weak eye-sight when the mind is clear;
When thou thyself, thus insolent in state,
Art but, perhaps, some country magistrate,
Whose power extends no farther than to speak
Big on the bench, and scanty weights to break.
Him also for my censor I disdain,
Who thinks all science, as all virtue, vain;
Who counts geometry, and numbers toys,
And with his foot the sacred dust destroys;[194]
Whose pleasure is to see a strumpet tear
A cynick's beard, and lug him by the hair.
Such all the morning to the pleadings run; }
But when the business of the day is done, }
On dice, and drink, and drabs, they spend their afternoon. }

FOOTNOTES:

[174] Parnassus and Helicon were hills consecrated to the Muses, and
the supposed place of their abode. Parnassus was forked on the top; and
from Helicon ran a stream, the spring of which was called the Muses'
well.

[175] Pyrene, a fountain in Corinth, consecrated also to the Muses.

[176] The statues of the poets were crowned with ivy about their brows.

[177] Before the shrine; that is, before the shrine of Apollo, in his
temple at Rome, called the Palatine.

[178] Note I.

[179] Note II.

[180] Note III.

[181] Note IV.

[182] Note V.

[183] Note VI.

[184] Note VII.

[185] Note VIII.

[186] Note IX.

[187] Note X.

[188] Note XI.

[189] Note XII.

[190] Note XIII.

[191] Note XIV.

[192] Note XV.

[193] Note XVI.

[194] Note XVII.




NOTES

ON

TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS.

SATIRE I.


Note I.

_Should cry up Labeo's stuff, and cry me down. _--P. 208.

Nothing is remaining of Atticus Labeo (so he is called by the learned
Casaubon); nor is he mentioned by any other poet, besides Persius.
Casaubon, from an old commentator on Persius, says, that he made a very
foolish translation of Homer's Iliads.


Note II.

_They comb, and then they order every hair;
A gown, or white, or scoured to whiteness, wear;
A birth-day jewel bobbing at their ear. _--P. 209.

He describes a poet, preparing himself to rehearse his works in public,
which was commonly performed in August. A room was hired, or lent, by
some friend; a scaffold was raised, and a pulpit placed for him who was
to hold forth; who borrowed a new gown, or scoured his old one, and
adorned his ears with jewels, &c.


Note III.

_Know, my wild fig-tree, which in rocks is bred,
Will split the quarry, and shoot out the head. _--P. 209.

Trees of that kind grow wild in many parts of Italy, and make their way
through rocks, sometimes splitting the tomb-stones.


Note IV.

_In cedar tablets worthy to appear. _--P. 210.

The Romans wrote on cedar and cypress tables, in regard of the duration
of the wood. Ill verses might justly be afraid of frankincense; for the
papers in which they were written, were fit for nothing but to wrap it
up.


Note V.

_Products of citron beds. _--P. 210.

Writings of noblemen, whose bedsteads were of the wood of citron.


Note VI.

_Hadst thou but, Janus-like, a face behind. _--P. 211.

Janus was the first king of Italy, who refuged Saturn when he was
expelled, by his son Jupiter, from Crete (or, as we now call it,
Candia). From his name the first month of the year is called January.
He was pictured with two faces, one before and one behind; as regarding
the past time and the future. Some of the mythologists think he was
Noah, for the reason given above.


Note VII.

_Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born. _--P. 212.

He speaks of the country in the foregoing verses; the praises of
which are the most easy theme for poets, but which a bad poet cannot
naturally describe: then he makes a digression to Romulus, the first
king of Rome, who had a rustical education; and enlarges upon Quintius
Cincinnatus, a Roman senator, who was called from the plough to be
dictator of Rome.


Note VIII.

_With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes. _ P. 213.

Persius here names antitheses, or seeming contradictions; which, in
this place, are meant for rhetorical flourishes, as I think, with
Casaubon.


Note IX.

_'Tis tagged with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys,
The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is. _ P. 213.

Foolish verses of Nero, which the poet repeats; and which cannot be
translated, properly, into English.


Note X.