No More Learning

--
Then plain and open was the cheerful feast, 155
And every client was a bidden guest;
Now, at the gate, a paltry largess lies,
And eager hands and tongues dispute the prize.
But first (lest some false claimant should be found),
The wary steward takes his anxious round, 160
And pries in every face; then calls aloud,
"Come forth, ye great Dardanians, from the crowd! "
For, mixed with us, e'en these besiege the door,
And scramble for--the pittance of the poor!
"Dispatch the Prætor first," the master cries, 165
"And next the Tribune. " "No, not so;" replies
The Freedman, bustling through, "first come is, still,
First served; and I may claim my right, and will! --
Though born a slave ('tis bootless to deny,
What these bored ears betray to every eye), 170
On my own rents, in splendor, now I live,
On five fair freeholds! Can the PURPLE give
Their Honors, more? when, to Laurentum sped,
NOBLE Corvinus tends a flock for bread! --
Pallas and the Licinii, in estate, 175
Must yield to me: let, then, the Tribunes wait. "
Yes, let them wait! thine, Riches, be the field! --
It is not meet, that he to Honor yield,
To SACRED HONOR, who, with whitened feet,
Was hawked for sale, so lately, through the street. 180
O gold! though Rome beholds no altars flame,
No temples rise to thy pernicious name,
Such as to Victory, Virtue, Faith are reared,
And Concord, where the clamorous stork is heard,
Yet is thy full divinity confest, 185
Thy shrine established here, in every breast.
But while, with anxious eyes, the great explore
How much the dole augments their annual store,
What misery must the poor dependent dread,
Whom this small pittance clothed, and lodged, and fed? 190
Wedged in thick ranks before the donor's gates,
A phalanx firm, of chairs and litters, waits:
Thither one husband, at the risk of life,
Hurries his teeming, or his bedrid wife;
Another, practiced in the gainful art, 195
With deeper cunning tops the beggar's part;
Plants at his side a close and empty chair:
"My Galla, master;--give me Galla's share. "
"Galla! " the porter cries; "let her look out. "
"Sir, she's asleep. Nay, give me;--can you doubt! " 200
What rare pursuits employ the clients' day!
First to the patron's door their court to pay,
Next to the forum, to support his cause,
Thence to Apollo, learned in the laws,
And the triumphal statues; where some Jew, 205
Some mongrel Arab, some--I know not who--
Has impudently dared a niche to seize,
Fit to be p---- against, or--what you please. --
Returning home, he drops them at the gate:
And now the weary clients, wise too late, 210
Resign their hopes, and supperless retire,
To spend the paltry dole in herbs and fire.
Meanwhile, their patron sees his palace stored
With every dainty earth and sea afford:
Stretched on th' unsocial couch, he rolls his eyes 215
O'er many an orb of matchless form and size,
Selects the fairest to receive his plate,
And, at one meal, devours a whole estate! --
But who (for not a parasite is there)
The selfishness of luxury can bear? 220
See! the lone glutton craves whole boars! a beast
Designed, by nature, for the social feast! --
But speedy wrath o'ertakes him: gorged with food,
And swollen and fretted by the peacock crude,
He seeks the bath, his feverish pulse to still, 225
Hence sudden death, and age without a Will!
Swift flies the tale, by witty spleen increast,
And furnishes a laugh at every feast;
The laugh, his friends not undelighted hear,
And, fallen from all their hopes, insult his bier. 230
NOTHING is left, NOTHING, for future times
To add to the full catalogue of crimes;
The baffled sons must feel the same desires,
And act the same mad follies, as their sires.
VICE HAS ATTAINED ITS ZENITH:--Then set sail, 235
Spread all thy canvas, Satire, to the gale--
But where the powers so vast a theme requires?
Where the plain times, the simple, when our sires
Enjoyed a freedom, which I dare not name,
And gave the public sin to public shame, 240
Heedless who smiled or frowned? --Now, let a line
But glance at Tigellinus, and you shine,
Chained to a stake, in pitchy robes, and light,
Lugubrious torch, the deepening shades of night;
Or, writhing on a hook, are dragged around, 245
And, with your mangled members, plow the ground.
What, shall the wretch of hard, unpitying soul,
Who for THREE uncles mixed the deadly bowl,
Propped on his plumy couch, that all may see,
Tower by triumphant, and look down on me! 250
Yes; let him look. He comes! avoid his way,
And on your lip your cautious finger lay;
Crowds of informers linger in his rear,
And, if a whisper pass, will overhear.
Bring, if you please, Æneas on the stage, 255
Fierce war, with the Rutulian prince, to wage;
Subdue the stern Achilles; and once more,
With Hylas! Hylas! fill the echoing shore;
Harmless, nay pleasant, shall the tale be found,
It bares no ulcer, and it probes no wound. 260
But when Lucilius, fired with virtuous rage,
Waves his keen falchion o'er a guilty age,
The conscious villain shudders at his sin,
And burning blushes speak the pangs within;
Cold drops of sweat from every member roll, 265
And growing terrors harrow up his soul:
Then tears of shame, and dire revenge succeed--
Say, have you pondered well the advent'rous deed?
Now--ere the trumpet sounds--your strength debate;
The soldier, once engaged, repents too late. 270
J. Yet I MUST write: and since these iron times,
From living knaves preclude my angry rhymes,
I point my pen against the guilty dead,
And pour its gall on each obnoxious head.


SATIRE II.

O FOR an eagle's wings! that I might fly
To the bleak regions of the polar sky,
When from their lips the cant of virtue falls,
Who preach like Curii, live like Bacchanals!
Devoid of knowledge, as of worth, they thrust, 5
In every nook, some philosophic bust;
For he, among them, counts himself most wise,
Who most old sages of the sculptor buys;
Sets most true Zenos, or Cleanthes' heads,
To guard the volumes which he--never reads! 10
TRUST NOT TO OUTWARD SHOW: in every street
Obscenity, in formal garb, we meet. --
And dost thou, hypocrite, our lusts arraign,
Thou! of Socratic catamites the drain!
Nature thy rough and shaggy limbs designed 15
To mark a stern, inexorable mind;
But all's so smooth below! --"the surgeon smiles,
And scarcely can, for laughter, lance the piles. "
Gravely demure, in wisdom's awful chair,
His beetling eyebrows longer than his hair, 20
In solemn state, the affected Stoic sits,
And drops his maxims on the crowd by fits! --
Yon Peribomius, whose emaciate air,
And tottering gait, his foul disease declare,
With patience I can view; he braves disgrace, 25
Not skulks behind a sanctimonious face:
Him may his folly, or his fate excuse--
But whip me those, who Virtue's name abuse,
And, soiled with all the vices of the times,
Thunder damnation on their neighbor's crimes! 30
"Shrink at the pathic Sextus! Can I be,
Whate'er my guilt, more infamous than he? "
Varillus cries: Let those who tread aright,
Deride the halt; the swarthy Moor, the white;
This we might bear; but who his spleen could rein, 35
And hear the Gracchi of the mob complain?
Who would not mingle earth, and sea, and sky,
Should Milo murder, Verres theft, decry,
Clodius adultery? Catiline accuse
Cethegus, Lentulus, of factious views, 40
Or Sylla's pupils, soil'd with deeper guilt,
Arraign their master for the blood he spilt?
Yet have we seen--O shame, for ever fled! --
A barbarous judge start from the incestuous bed,
And, with stern voice, those rigid laws awake, 45
At which the powers of War and Beauty quake,
What time his drugs were speeding to the tomb
The abortive fruit of Julia's teeming womb! --
And must not, now, the most debased and vile,
Hear these false Scauri with a scornful smile; 50
And, while the hypocrites their crimes arraign,
Turn, like the trampled asp, and bite again!
They must; they do:--When late, amid the crowd,
A zealot of the sect exclaimed aloud,
Where sleeps the Julian law? Laronia eyed 55
The scowling Stoicide, and taunting, cried,
"Blest be the age that such a censor gave,
The groaning world to chasten and to save!
Blush, Rome, and from the sink of sin arise--
Lo! a THIRD CATO, sent thee from the skies! 60
But--tell me yet--What shop the balm supplied,
Which, from your brawny neck and bristly hide,
Such potent fragrance breathes? nor let it shame
Your gravity, to show the vender's name.
"If ancient laws must reassume their course, 65
Give the Scantinian first its proper force.
Look, look at home; the ways of men explore--
Our faults, you say, are many; theirs are more:
Yet safe from censure, as from fear, they stand,
A firm, compact, impenetrable band! 70
We know your monstrous leagues; but can you find
One proof in us, of this detested kind?
Pure days and nights with Cluvia, Flora led,
And Tedia chastely shared Catulla's bed;
While Hippo's brutal itch both sexes tried, 75
And proved, by turns, the bridegroom and the bride!
We ne'er, with misspent zeal, explore the laws,
We throng no forum, and we plead no cause:
Some few, perhaps, may wrestle, some be fed,
To aid their breath, with strong athletic bread. 80
Ye fling the shuttle with a female grace,
And spin more subtly than Arachne's race;
Cowered o'er your labor, like the squalid jade,
That plies the distaff, to a block belayed.
"Why Hister's freedman heired his wealth, and why 85
His consort, while he lived, was bribed so high,
I spare to tell; the wife that, swayed by gain,
Can make a third in bed, and near complain,
Must ever thrive: on secrets jewels wait:
Then wed, my girls; be silent, and--be great! " 90
"Yet these are they, who, fierce in Virtue's cause,
Consign our venial frailties to the laws;
And, while with partial aim their censure moves,
Acquit the vultures, and condemn the doves! "
She paused: the unmanly zealots felt the sway 95
Of conscious truth, and slunk, abashed, away.
But how shall vice be shamed, when, loosely drest,
In the light texture of a cobweb vest,
You, Creticus, amid the indignant crowd
At Procla and Pollinea rail aloud? -- 100
These, he rejoins, are "daughters of the game. "
Strike, then;--yet know, though lost to honest fame,
The wantons would reject a veil so thin,
And blush, while suffering, to display their skin.
"But Sirius glows; I burn. " Then, quit your dress; 105
'Twill thus be madness, and the scandal less.
O! could our legions, with fresh laurels crowned,
And smarting still from many a glorious wound,
Our rustic mountaineers (the plow laid by,
For city cares), a judge so drest descry, 110
What thoughts would rise? Lo! robes which misbecome
A witness, deck the awful bench of Rome;
And Creticus, stern champion of the laws,
Gleams through the tissue of pellucid gauze!
Anon from you, as from its fountain-head, 115
Wide and more wide the flagrant pest will spread;
As swine take measles from distempered swine,
And one infected grape pollutes the vine.
Yes, Rome shall see you, lewdlier clad, erewhile,
(FOR NONE BECOME, AT ONCE, COMPLETELY VILE,) 120
In some opprobrious den of shame, combined
With that vile herd, the horror of their kind,
Who twine gay fillets round the forehead; deck
With strings of orient pearl the breast and neck;
Soothe the GOOD GODDESS with large bowls of wine, 125
And the soft belly of a pregnant swine. --
No female, foul perversion! dares appear,
For males, and males alone, officiate here;
"Far hence," they cry, "unholy sex, retire,
Our purer rites no lowing horn require! " 130
--At Athens thus, involved in thickest gloom,
Cotytto's priests her secret torch illume;
And to such orgies give the lustful night,
That e'en Cotytto sickens at the sight.
With tiring-pins, these spread the sooty dye, 135
Arch the full brow, and tinge the trembling eye;
Those bind their flowing locks in cawls of gold,
Swill from huge glasses of immodest mould,
Light, filmy robes of azure net-work wear;
And, by their Juno, hark! the attendants swear! 140
This grasps a mirror--pathic Otho's boast
(Auruncan Actor's spoil), where, while his host,
With shouts, the signal of the fight required,
He viewed his mailed form; viewed, and admired!
Lo, a new subject for the historic page, 145
A MIRROR, midst the arms of civil rage! --
To murder Galba, was--a general's part!
A stern republican's--to dress with art!
The empire of the world in arms to seek,
And spread--a softening poultice o'er the cheek! 150
Preposterous vanity! and never seen,
Or in the Assyrian or Egyptian queen,
Though one in arms near old Euphrates stood,
And one the doubtful fight at Actium viewed.
Nor reverence for the table here is found; 155
But brutal mirth and jests obscene go round:
They lisp, they squeal, and the rank language use
Of Cybele's lewd votaries, or the stews:
Some wild enthusiast, silvered o'er with age,
Yet fired by lust's ungovernable rage, 160
Of most insatiate throat, is named the priest,
And sits fit umpire of th' unhallowed feast;
Why pause they here? Phrygians long since in heart,
Whence this delay to lop a useless part?
Gracchus admired a cornet or a fife, 165
And, with an ample dower, became his wife.
The contract signed, the wonted bliss implored,
A costly supper decks the nuptial board;
And the new bride, amid the wondering room,
Lies in the bosom of the accursed groom! -- 170
Say now, ye nobles, claims this monstrous deed,
The Aruspex or the Censor? Can we need
More expiations? --sacrifices? --vows?
For calving women, or for lambing cows?
The lusty priest, whose limbs dissolved with heat, 175
What time he danced beneath the Ancilia's weight,
Now flings the ensigns of his god aside,
And takes the stole and flammea of a bride!
Father of Rome! from what pernicious clime,
Did Latian swains derive so foul a crime? 180
Tell where the poisonous nettle first arose,
Whose baneful juice through all thy offspring flows.
Behold! a man for rank and power renowned,
Marries a man! --and yet, with thundering sound,
Thy brazen helmet shakes not! earth yet stands, 185
Fixed on its base, nor feels thy wrathful hands!
Is thy arm shortened? Raise to Jove thy prayer--
But Rome no longer knows thy guardian care;
Quit, then, the charge to some severer Power,
Of strength to punish in the obnoxious hour. 190
"To-morrow, with the dawn, I must attend
In yonder valley! " Why so soon? "A friend
Takes HIM a husband there, and bids a few"--
FEW, yet: but wait awhile; and we shall view
Such contracts formed without or shame or fear, 195
And entered on THE RECORDS OF THE YEAR!
Meanwhile, one pang these passive monsters find,
One ceaseless pang, that preys upon the mind;
They can not shift their sex, and pregnant prove
With the dear pledges of a husband's love: 200
Wisely confined by Nature's steady plan,
Which counteracts the wild desires of man.
For them, no drugs prolific powers retain,
And the Luperci strike their palms in vain.
And yet these prodigies of vice appear, 205
Less monstrous, Gracchus, than the net and spear,
With which equipped, you urged the unequal fight,
And fled, dishonored, in a nation's sight;
Though nobler far than each illustrious name
That thronged the pit (spectators of your shame), 210
Nay, than the Prætor, who the SHOW supplied,
At which your base dexterity was tried.
That angry Justice formed a dreadful hell,
That ghosts in subterraneous regions dwell,
That hateful Styx his sable current rolls, 215
And Charon ferries o'er unbodied souls,
Are now as tales or idle fables prized;
By children questioned, and by men despised:
YET THESE, DO THOU BELIEVE. What thoughts, declare,
Ye Scipios, once the thunderbolts of war! 220
Fabricius, Curius, great Camillus' ghost!
Ye valiant Fabii, in yourselves an host!
Ye dauntless youths at fatal Cannæ slain!
Spirits of many a brave and bloody plain!
What thoughts are yours, whene'er, with feet unblest, 225
An UNBELIEVING SHADE invades your rest?
--Ye fly, to expiate the blasting view; }
Fling on the pine-tree torch the sulphur blue, }
And from the dripping bay, dash round the lustral dew. }
And yet--to these abodes we all must come, 230
Believe, or not, these are our final home;
Though now Iërne tremble at our sway,
And Britain, boastful of her length of day;
Though the blue Orcades receive our chain,
And isles that slumber in the frozen main. 235
But why of conquest boast? the conquered climes
Are free, O Rome, from thy detested crimes.
No;--one Armenian all our youth outgoes,
And, with cursed fires, for a base tribune glows.
True: such thy power, Example! He was brought 240
An hostage hither, and the infection caught. --
O, bid the striplings flee! for sensual art
Here lurks to snare the unsuspecting heart;
Then farewell, simple nature! --Pleased no more,
With knives, whips, bridles (all they prized of yore), 245
Thus taught, and thus debauched, they hasten home,
To spread the morals of Imperial Rome!


SATIRE III.

Grieved though I am to see the man depart,
Who long has shared, and still must share, my heart,
Yet (when I call my better judgment home)
I praise his purpose; to retire from Rome,
And give, on Cumæ's solitary coast, 5
The Sibyl--one inhabitant to boast!
Full on the road to Baiæ, Cumæ lies,
And many a sweet retreat her shore supplies--
Though I prefer ev'n Prochyta's bare strand
To the Suburra:--for, what desert land, 10
What wild, uncultured spot, can more affright,
Than fires, wide blazing through the gloom of night,
Houses, with ceaseless ruin, thundering down,
And all the horrors of this hateful town?
Where poets, while the dog-star glows, rehearse, 15
To gasping multitudes, their barbarous verse!
Now had my friend, impatient to depart,
Consigned his little all to one poor cart:
For this, without the town he chose to wait;
But stopped a moment at the Conduit-gate. -- 20
Here Numa erst his nightly visits paid,
And held high converse with the Egerian maid:
Now the once-hallowed fountain, grove, and fane,
Are let to Jews, a wretched, wandering train,
Whose furniture's a basket filled with hay-- 25
For every tree is forced a tax to pay;
And while the heaven-born Nine in exile rove,
The beggar rents their consecrated grove!
Thence slowly winding down the vale, we view
The Egerian grots--ah, how unlike the true! 30
Nymph of the Spring; more honored hadst thou been,
If, free from art, an edge of living green,
Thy bubbling fount had circumscribed alone,
And marble ne'er profaned the native stone.
Umbritius here his sullen silence broke, 35
And turned on Rome, indignant, as he spoke.
Since virtue droops, he cried, without regard,
And honest toil scarce hopes a poor reward;
Since every morrow sees my means decay,
And still makes less the little of to-day; 40
I go, where Dædalus, as poets sing,
First checked his flight, and closed his weary wing:
While something yet of health and strength remains,
And yet no staff my faltering step sustains;
While few gray hairs upon my head are seen, 45
And my old age is vigorous still, and green.
Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell--
Ah, mine no more! --there let Arturius dwell,
And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite,
Can white to black transform, and black to white, 50
Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold,
Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold!
ONCE they were trumpeters, and always found,
With strolling fencers, in their annual round,
While their puffed cheeks, which every village knew, 55
Called to "high feats of arms" the rustic crew:
Now they give SHOWS themselves; and, at the will
Of the base rabble, raise the sign--to kill,
Ambitious of their voice: then turn, once more,
To their vile gains, and farm the common shore! 60
And why not every thing? --since Fortune throws
Her more peculiar smiles on such as those,
Whene'er, to wanton merriment inclined,
She lifts to thrones the dregs of human kind!
But why, my friend, should I at Rome remain? 65
I can not teach my stubborn lips to feign;
Nor, when I hear a great man's verses, smile,
And beg a copy, if I think them vile.
A sublunary wight, I have no skill
To read the stars; I neither can, nor will, 70
Presage a father's death; I never pried,
In toads, for poison, nor--in aught beside.
Others may aid the adulterer's vile design,
And bear the insidious gift, and melting line,
Seduction's agents! I such deeds detest; 75
And, honest, let no thief partake my breast.
For this, without a friend, the world I quit;
A palsied limb, for every use unfit.
Who now is loved, but he whose conscious breast
Swells with dark deeds, still, still to be supprest? 80
He pays, he owes, thee nothing (strictly just),
Who gives an honest secret to thy trust;
But, a dishonest! --there, he feels thy power,
And buys thy friendship high from hour to hour.
But let not all the wealth which Tagus pours 85
In Ocean's lap, not all his glittering stores,
Be deemed a bribe, sufficient to requite
The loss of peace by day, of sleep by night:--
Oh take not, take not, what thy soul rejects,
Nor sell the faith, which he, who buys, suspects! 90
The nation, by the GREAT, admired, carest,
And hated, shunned by ME, above the rest,
No longer, now, restrained by wounded pride,
I haste to show (nor thou my warmth deride),
I can not rule my spleen, and calmly see, 95
A GRECIAN CAPITAL, IN ITALY!
Grecian? O no! with this vast sewer compared,
The dregs of Greece are scarcely worth regard:
Long since, the stream that wanton Syria laves
Has disembogued its filth in Tiber's waves, 100
Its language, arts; o'erwhelmed us with the scum
Of Antioch's streets, its minstrel, harp, and drum.
Hie to the Circus! ye who pant to prove
A barbarous mistress, an outlandish love;
Hie to the Circus! there, in crowds they stand, 105
Tires on their head, and timbrels in their hand.
Thy rustic, Mars, the trechedipna wears,
And on his breast, smeared with ceroma, bears
A paltry prize, well-pleased; while every land,
Sicyon, and Amydos, and Alaband, 110
Tralles, and Samos, and a thousand more,
Thrive on his indolence, and daily pour
Their starving myriads forth: hither they come, }
And batten on the genial soil of Rome; }
Minions, then lords, of every princely dome! } 115
A flattering, cringing, treacherous, artful race,
Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face;
A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician, 120
Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician,
All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts;
And bid him mount the sky--the sky he mounts!
You smile--was't a barbarian, then, that flew?
No, 'twas a Greek! 'twas an ATHENIAN, too! 125
--Bear with their state who will: for I disdain
To feed their upstart pride, or swell their train:
Slaves, that in Syrian lighters stowed, so late,
With figs and prunes (an inauspicious freight),
Already see their faith preferred to mine, 130
And sit above me! and before me sign! --
That on the Aventine I first drew air,
And, from the womb, was nursed on Sabine fare,
Avails me not! our birthright now is lost,
And all our privilege, an empty boast! 135
For lo! where versed in every soothing art,
The wily Greek assails his patron's heart,
Finds in each dull harangue an air, a grace,
And all Adonis in a Gorgon face;
Admires the voice that grates upon the ear, 140
Like the shrill scream of amorous chanticleer;
And equals the crane neck, and narrow chest,
To Hercules, when, straining to his breast
The giant son of Earth, his every vein
Swells with the toil, and more than mortal pain. 145
We too can cringe as low, and praise as warm,
But flattery from the Greeks alone can charm.
See! they step forth, and figure to the life,
The naked nymph, the mistress, or the wife,
So just, you view the very woman there, 150
And fancy all beneath the girdle bare!
No longer now, the favorites of the stage
Boast their exclusive power to charm the age:
The happy art with them a nation shares,
GREECE IS A THEATRE, WHERE ALL ARE PLAYERS. 155
For lo! their patron smiles,--they burst with mirth;
He weeps--they droop, the saddest souls on earth;
He calls for fire--they court the mantle's heat;
'Tis warm, he cries--and they dissolve in sweat.
Ill-matched! --secure of victory they start, 160
Who, taught from youth to play a borrowed part,
Can, with a glance, the rising passion trace,
And mould their own, to suit their patron's face;
At deeds of shame their hands admiring raise,
And mad debauchery's worst excesses praise. 165
Besides, no mound their raging lust restrains,
All ties it breaks, all sanctity profanes;
Wife, virgin-daughter, son unstained before--
And, where these fail, they tempt the grandam hoar:
They notice every word, haunt every ear, 170
Your secrets learn, and fix you theirs from fear.
Turn to their schools:--yon gray professor see,
Smeared with the sanguine stains of perfidy!
That tutor most accursed his pupil sold!
That Stoic sacrificed his friend to gold! 175
A true-born Grecian!
littered on the coast,
Where the Gorgonian hack a pinion lost.
Hence, Romans, hence! no place for you remains,
Where Diphilus, where Erimanthus reigns;
Miscreants, who, faithful to their native art, 180
Admit no rival in a patron's heart:
For let them fasten on his easy ear,
And drop one hint, one secret slander there,
Sucked from their country's venom, or their own,
That instant they possess the man alone; 185
While we are spurned, contemptuous, from the door,
Our long, long slavery thought upon no more.
'Tis but a client lost! --and that, we find,
Sits wondrous lightly on a patron's mind:
And (not to flatter our poor pride, my friend) 190
What merit with the great can we pretend,
Though, in our duty we prevent the day,
And, darkling, run our humble court to pay;
When the brisk prætor, long before, is gone,
And hastening, with stern voice, his lictors on, 195
Lest his colleagues o'erpass him in the street,
And first the rich and childless matrons greet,
Alba and Modia, who impatient wait,
And think the morning homage comes too late!
Here freeborn youths wait the rich servant's call, 200
And, if they walk beside him, yield the wall;
And wherefore? this, forsooth, can fling away,
On one voluptuous night, a legion's pay,
While those, when some Calvina, sweeping by,
Inflames the fancy, check their roving eye, 205
And frugal of their scanty means, forbear,
To tempt the wanton from her splendid chair.
Produce, at Rome, your witness: let him boast,
The sanctity of Berecynthia's host,
Of Numa, or of him, whose zeal divine 210
Snatched pale Minerva from her blazing shrine:
To search his rent-roll, first the bench prepares,
His honesty employs their latest cares:
What table does he keep, what slaves maintain,
And what, they ask, and where, is his domain? 215
These weighty matters known, his faith they rate,
And square his probity to his estate.
The poor may swear by all the immortal Powers,
By the Great Gods of Samothrace, and ours,
His oaths are false, they cry; he scoffs at heaven, 220
And all its thunders; scoffs--and is forgiven!
Add, that the wretch is still the theme of scorn,
If the soiled cloak be patched, the gown o'erworn;
If, through the bursting shoe, the foot be seen,
Or the coarse seam tell where the rent has been. 225
O Poverty, thy thousand ills combined }
Sink not so deep into the generous mind, }
As the contempt and laughter of mankind! }
"Up! up! these cushioned benches," Lectius cries,
"Befit not your estates: for shame! arise. " 230
For "shame! "--but you say well: the pander's heir,
The spawn of bulks and stews, is seated there;
The crier's spruce son, fresh from the fencer's school,
And prompt the taste to settle and to rule. --
So Otho fixed it, whose preposterous pride 235
First dared to chase us from their Honors' side.
In these cursed walls, devote alone to gain,
When do the poor a wealthy wife obtain?
When are they named in Wills? when called to share
The Ædile's council, and assist the chair? -- 240
Long since should they have risen, thus slighted, spurned,
And left their home, but--not to have returned!
Depressed by indigence, the good and wise,
In every clime, by painful efforts rise;
HERE, by more painful still, where scanty cheer, 245
Poor lodging, mean attendance--all is dear.
In earthen-ware HE scorns, at Rome, to eat,
WHO, called abruptly to the Marsian's seat,
From such, well pleased, would take his simple food,
Nor blush to wear the cheap Venetian hood. 250
There's many a part of Italy, 'tis said,
Where none assume the toga but the dead:
There, when the toil foregone and annual play,
Mark, from the rest, some high and solemn day,
To theatres of turf the rustics throng, 255
Charmed with the farce that charmed their sires so long;
While the pale infant, of the mask in dread,
Hides, in his mother's breast, his little head.
No modes of dress high birth distinguish THERE;
All ranks, all orders, the same habit wear, 260
And the dread Ædile's dignity is known,
O sacred badge! by his white vest alone.
But HERE, beyond our power arrayed we go,
In all the gay varieties of show;
And when our purse supplies the charge no more, 265
Borrow, unblushing, from our neighbor's store:
Such is the reigning vice; and so we flaunt,
Proud in distress, and prodigal in want!
Briefly, my friend, here all are slaves to gold,
And words, and smiles, and every thing is sold. 270
What will you give for Cossus' nod? how high
The silent notice of Veiento buy?
--One favorite youth is shaved, another shorn;
And, while to Jove the precious spoil is borne,
Clients are taxed for offerings, and, (yet more 275
To gall their patience), from their little store,
Constrained to swell the minion's ample hoard,
And bribe the page, for leave to bribe his lord.
Who fears the crash of houses in retreat?
At simple Gabii, bleak Præneste's seat, 280
Volsinium's craggy heights, embowered in wood,
Or Tibur, beetling o'er prone Anio's flood?
While half the city here by shores is staid,
And feeble cramps, that lend a treacherous aid:
For thus the stewards patch the riven wall, 285
Thus prop the mansion, tottering to its fall;
Then bid the tenant court secure repose,
While the pile nods to every blast that blows.
O! may I live where no such fears molest,
No midnight fires burst on my hour of rest! 290
For here 'tis terror all; mid the loud cry
Of "water! water! " the scared neighbors fly,
With all their haste can seize--the flames aspire,
And the third floor is wrapt in smoke and fire,
While you, unconscious, doze: Up, ho! and know, 295
The impetuous blaze which spreads dismay below,
By swift degrees will reach the aerial cell,
Where, crouching, underneath the tiles you dwell,
Where your tame doves their golden couplets rear,
"And you could no mischance, but drowning, fear! " 300
"Codrus had but one bed, and that too short
For his short wife;" his goods, of every sort,
Were else but few:--six little pipkins graced
His cupboard head, a little can was placed
On a snug shelf beneath, and near it lay 305
A Chiron, of the same cheap marble--clay.
And was this all? O no: he yet possest
A few Greek books, shrined in an ancient chest,
Where barbarous mice through many an inlet crept,
And fed on heavenly numbers, while he slept. -- 310
"Codrus, in short, had nothing. " You say true;
And yet poor Codrus lost that nothing too!
One curse alone was wanting, to complete
His woes: that, cold and hungry, through the street,
The wretch should beg, and, in the hour of need, 315
Find none to lodge, to clothe him, or to feed!
But should the raging flames on grandeur prey,
And low in dust Asturius' palace lay,
The squalid matron sighs, the senate mourns,
The pleaders cease, the judge the court adjourns; 320
All join to wail the city's hapless fate,
And rail at fire with more than common hate.
Lo! while it burns, the obsequious courtiers haste,
With rich materials, to repair the waste:
This, brings him marble, that, a finished piece, 325
The far-famed boast of Polyclete and Greece;
This, ornaments, which graced of old the fane
Of Asia's gods; that, figured plate and plain;
This, cases, books, and busts the shelves to grace,
And piles of coin his specie to replace-- 330
So much the childless Persian swells his store,
(Though deemed the richest of the rich before,)
That all ascribe the flames to thirst of pelf,
And swear, Asturius fired his house himself.
O, had you, from the Circus, power to fly, 335
In many a halcyon village might you buy
Some elegant retreat, for what will, here,
Scarce hire a gloomy dungeon through the year!
There wells, by nature formed, which need no rope,
No laboring arm, to crane their waters up, 340
Around your lawn their facile streams shall shower,
And cheer the springing plant and opening flower.
There live, delighted with the rustic's lot,
And till, with your own hands, the little spot;
The little spot shall yield you large amends, 345
And glad, with many a feast, your Samian friends.
And, sure,--in any corner we can get,
To call one lizard ours, is something yet!
Flushed with a mass of indigested food,
Which clogs the stomach and inflames the blood, 350
What crowds, with watching wearied and o'erprest,
Curse the slow hours, and die for want of rest!
For who can hope his languid lids to close,
Where brawling taverns banish all repose?
Sleep, to the rich alone, "his visits pays:" 355
And hence the seeds of many a dire disease.
The carts loud rumbling through the narrow way,
The drivers' clamors at each casual stay,
From drowsy Drusus would his slumber take,
And keep the calves of Proteus broad awake! 360
If business call, obsequious crowds divide.
While o'er their heads the rich securely ride,
By tall Illyrians borne, and read, or write, }
Or (should the early hour to rest invite), }
Close the soft litter, and enjoy the night. } 365
Yet reach they first the goal; while, by the throng
Elbowed and jostled, scarce we creep along;
Sharp strokes from poles, tubs, rafters, doomed to feel;
And plastered o'er with mud, from head to heel:
While the rude soldier gores us as he goes, 370
Or marks, in blood, his progress on our toes!
See, from the Dole, a vast tumultuous throng,
Each followed by his kitchen, pours along!
Huge pans, which Corbulo could scarce uprear,
With steady neck a puny slave must bear, 375
And, lest amid the way the flames expire,
Glide nimbly on, and gliding, fan the fire;
Through the close press with sinuous efforts wind,
And, piece by piece, leave his botched rags behind.
Hark! groaning on, the unwieldy wagon spreads 380
Its cumbrous load, tremendous! o'er our heads,
Projecting elm or pine, that nods on high,
And threatens death to every passer by.
Heavens! should the axle crack, which bears a weight
Of huge Ligurian stone, and pour the freight 385
On the pale crowd beneath, what would remain,
What joint, what bone, what atom of the slain?
The body, with the soul, would vanish quite,
Invisible as air, to mortal sight! --
Meanwhile, unconscious of their fellow's fate, 390
At home, they heat the water, scour the plate,
Arrange the strigils, fill the cruse with oil,
And ply their several tasks with fruitless toil:
For he who bore the dole, poor mangled ghost,
Sits pale and trembling on the Stygian coast, 395
Scared at the horrors of the novel scene,
At Charon's threatening voice, and scowling mien;
Nor hopes a passage, thus abruptly hurled,
Without his farthing, to the nether world.
Pass we these fearful dangers, and survey 400
What other evils threat our nightly way.
And first, behold the mansion's towering size,
Where floors on floors to the tenth story rise;
Whence heedless garreteers their potsherds throw,
And crush the unwary wretch that walks below! 405
Clattering the storm descends from heights unknown.
Plows up the street, and wounds the flinty stone!
'Tis madness, dire improvidence of ill,
To sup abroad, before you sign your Will;
Since fate in ambush lies, and marks his prey, 410
From every wakeful window in the way:
Pray, then--and count your humble prayer well sped,
If pots be only--emptied on your head.
The drunken bully, ere his man be slain,
Frets through the night, and courts repose in vain; 415
And while the thirst of blood his bosom burns,
From side to side, in restless anguish, turns,
Like Peleus' son, when, quelled by Hector's hand,
His loved Patroclus prest the Phrygian strand.
There are, who murder as an opiate take, 420
And only when no brawls await them wake:
Yet even these heroes, flushed with youth and wine,
All contest with the purple robe decline;
Securely give the lengthened train to pass,
The sun-bright flambeaux, and the lamps of brass. -- 425
Me, whom the moon, or candle's paler gleam,
Whose wick I husband to the last extreme,
Guides through the gloom, he braves, devoid of fear:
The prelude to our doughty quarrel hear,
If that be deemed a quarrel, where, heaven knows, 430
He only gives, and I receive, the blows!
Across my path he strides, and bids me STAND!
I bow, obsequious to the dread command;
What else remains, where madness, rage, combine
With youth, and strength superior far to mine? 435
"Whence come you, rogue? " he cries; "whose beans to-night
Have stuffed you thus? what cobbler clubbed his mite,
For leeks and sheep's-head porridge? Dumb! quite dumb!
Speak, or be kicked. --Yet, once again! your home?
Where shall I find you? At what beggar's stand 440
(Temple, or bridge) whimp'ring with outstretched hand? "
Whether I strive some humble plea to frame,
Or steal in silence by, 'tis just the same;
I'm beaten first, then dragged in rage away:
Bound to the peace, or punished for the fray! 445
Mark here the boasted freedom of the poor!
Beaten and bruised, that goodness to adore,
Which, at their humble prayer, suspends its ire,
And sends them home, with yet a bone entire!
Nor this the worst; for when deep midnight reigns, 450
And bolts secure our doors, and massy chains,
When noisy inns a transient silence keep,
And harassed nature woos the balm of sleep,
Then, thieves and murderers ply their dreadful trade;
With stealthy steps our secret couch invade:-- 455
Roused from the treacherous calm, aghast we start,
And the fleshed sword--is buried in our heart!
Hither from bogs, from rocks, and caves pursued
(The Pontine marsh, and Gallinarian wood),
The dark assassins flock, as to their home, 460
And fill with dire alarms the streets of Rome.
Such countless multitudes our peace annoy,
That bolts and shackles every forge employ,
And cause so wide a waste, the country fears
A want of ore for mattocks, rakes, and shares. 465
O! happy were our sires, estranged from crimes;
And happy, happy, were the good old times,
Which saw, beneath their kings', their tribunes' reign,
One cell the nation's criminals contain!
Much could I add, more reasons could I cite, 470
If time were ours, to justify my flight;
But see! the impatient team is moving on,
The sun declining; and I must be gone:
Long since, the driver murmured at my stay,
And jerked his whip, to beckon me away. 475
Farewell, my friend! with this embrace we part!
Cherish my memory ever in your heart;
And when, from crowds and business, you repair,
To breathe at your Aquinum freer air,
Fail not to draw me from my loved retreat, 480
To Elvine Ceres, and Diana's seat:
For your bleak hills my Cumæ I'll resign,
And (if you blush not at such aid as mine)
Come well equipped, to wage, in angry rhymes,
Fierce war, with you, on follies and on crimes. 485


SATIRE IV.

Again Crispinus comes! and yet again,
And oft, shall he be summoned to sustain
His dreadful part:--the monster of the times,
Without ONE virtue to redeem his crimes!
Diseased, emaciate, weak in all but lust, 5
And whom the widow's sweets alone disgust.
Avails it, then, in what long colonnades
He tires his mules? through what extensive glades
His chair is borne? what vast estates he buys,
What splendid domes, that round the Forum rise? 10
Ah! no--Peace visits not the guilty mind,
Least his, who incest to adultery joined,
And stained thy priestess, Vesta;--whom, dire fate!
The long dark night and living tomb await.
Turn we to slighter vices:--yet had these, 15
In others, Seius, Titius, whom you please,
The Censor roused; for what the good would shame,
Becomes Crispinus, and is honest fame.
But when the actor's person far exceeds,
In native loathsomeness, his loathsom'st deeds, 20
Say, what can satire? For a fish that weighed
Six pounds, six thousand sesterces he paid!
As those report, who catch, with greedy ear,
And magnify the mighty things they hear.
Had this expense been meant, with well-timed skill, 25
To gull some childless dotard of a Will;
Or bribe some rich and fashionable fair,
Who flaunts it in a close, wide-windowed chair;
'Twere worth our praise:--but no such plot was here.
'Twas for HIMSELF he bought a treat so dear! 30
This, all past gluttony from shame redeems,
And even Apicius poor and frugal seems.
What! You, Crispinus, brought to Rome, erewhile,
Lapt in the rushes of your native Nile,
Buy scales, at such a price! you might, I guess, 35
Have bought the fisherman himself for less;
Bought, in some countries, manors at this rate,
And, in Apulia, an immense estate!
How gorged the emperor, when so dear a fish,
Yet, of his cheapest meals, the cheapest dish, 40
Was guttled down by this impurpled lord,
Chief knight, chief parasite, at Cæsar's board,
Whom Memphis heard so late, with ceaseless yell,
Clamoring through all her streets--"Ho! shads to sell! "
Pierian MAIDS, begin;--but, quit your lyres, 45
The fact I bring no lofty chord requires:
Relate it, then, and in the simplest strain,
Nor let the poet style you MAIDS, in vain.
When the last Flavius, drunk with fury, tore
The prostrate world, which bled at every pore, 50
And Rome beheld, in body as in mind,
A bald-pate Nero rise, to curse mankind;
It chanced, that where the fane of Venus stands,
Reared on Ancona's coast by Grecian hands,
A turbot, wandering from the Illyrian main, 55
Fill'd the wide bosom of the bursting seine.
Monsters so bulky, from its frozen stream,
Mæotis renders to the solar beam,
And pours them, fat with a whole winter's ease,
Through the bleak Euxine, into warmer seas. 60
The mighty draught the astonished boatman eyes,
And to the Pontiff's table dooms his prize:
For who would dare to sell it? who to buy?
When the coast swarmed with many a practiced spy,
Mud-rakers, prompt to swear the fish had fled 65
From Cæsar's ponds, ingrate! where long it fed,
And thus recaptured, claimed to be restored
To the dominion of its ancient lord!
Nay, if Palphurius may our credit gain,
Whatever rare or precious swims the main, 70
Is forfeit to the crown, and you may seize
The obnoxious dainty, when and where you please.
This point allowed, our wary boatman chose
To give--what, else, he had not failed to lose.
Now were the dogstar's sickly fervors o'er, 75
Earth, pinched with cold, her frozen livery wore;
The old began their quartan fits to fear,
And wintry blasts deformed the beauteous year,
And kept the turbot sweet: yet on he flew,
As if the sultry South corruption blew. -- 80
And now the lake, and now the hill he gains,
Where Alba, though in ruins, still maintains
The Trojan fire, which, but for her, were lost,
And worships Vesta, though with less of cost.
The wondering crowd, that gathered to survey 85
The enormous fish, and barred the fisher's way,
Satiate, at length retires; the gates unfold! --
Murmuring, the excluded senators behold
The envied dainty enter:--On the man
To great Atrides pressed, and thus began. 90
"This, for a private table far too great,
Accept, and sumptuously your Genius treat:
Haste to unload your stomach, and devour
A turbot, destined to this happy hour.
I sought him not;--he marked the toils I set, 95
And rushed, a willing victim, to my net. "
Was flattery e'er so rank! yet he grows vain,
And his crest rises at the fulsome strain.
When, to divine, a mortal power we raise,
He looks for no hyperboles in praise. 100
But when was joy unmixed? no pot is found,
Capacious of the turbot's ample round:
In this distress, he calls the chiefs of state,
At once the objects of his scorn and hate,
In whose pale cheeks distrust and doubt appear, 105
And all a tyrant's friendship breeds of fear.
Scarce was the loud Liburnian heard to say,
"He sits," ere Pegasus was on his way;
Yes:--the new bailiff of the affrighted town,
(For what were Præfects more? ) had snatched his gown, 110
And rushed to council: from the ivory chair,
He dealt out justice with no common care;
But yielded oft to those licentious times,
And where he could not punish, winked at crimes.
Then old, facetious Crispus tript along, 115
Of gentle manners, and persuasive tongue:
None fitter to advise the lord of all,
Had that pernicious pest, whom thus we call,
Allowed a friend to soothe his savage mood,
And give him counsel, wise at once and good. 120
But who shall dare this liberty to take,
When, every word you hazard, life's at stake?
Though but of stormy summers, showery springs--
For tyrants' ears, alas! are ticklish things.
So did the good old man his tongue restrain; 125
Nor strove to stem the torrent's force in vain.
Not one of those, who, by no fears deterred,
Spoke the free soul, and truth to life preferred.
He temporized--thus fourscore summers fled,
Even in that court, securely, o'er his head. 130
Next him, appeared Acilius hurrying on,
Of equal age--and followed by his son;
Who fell, unjustly fell, in early years,
A victim to the tyrant's jealous fears:
But long ere this were hoary hairs become 135
A prodigy, among the great, at Rome;
Hence, had I rather owe my humble birth,
Frail brother of the giant-brood, to earth.
Poor youth! in vain the ancient sleight you try;
In vain, with frantic air, and ardent eye, 140
Fling every robe aside, and battle wage
With bears and lions, on the Alban stage.
All see the trick: and, spite of Brutus' skill,
There are who count him but a driveler still;
Since, in his days, it cost no mighty pains 145
To outwit a prince, with much more beard than brains.
Rubrius, though not, like these, of noble race,
Followed with equal terror in his face;
And, laboring with a crime too foul to name,
More, than the pathic satirist, lost to shame. 150
Montanus' belly next, and next appeared
The legs, on which that monstrous pile was reared.
Crispinus followed, daubed with more perfume,
Thus early! than two funerals consume.
Then bloodier Pompey, practiced to betray, 155
And hesitate the noblest lives away.
Then Fuscus, who in studious pomp at home,
Planned future triumphs for the Arms of Rome.
Blind to the event! those arms, a different fate,
Inglorious wounds, and Dacian vultures, wait. 160
Last, sly Veiento with Catullus came,
Deadly Catullus, who, at beauty's name
Took fire, although unseen: a wretch, whose crimes
Struck with amaze even those prodigious times.
A base, blind parasite, a murderous lord, 165
From the bridge-end raised to the council-board;
Yet fitter still to dog the traveler's heels,
And whine for alms to the descending wheels!
None dwelt so largely on the turbot's size,
Or raised with such applause his wondering eyes; 170
But to the left (O, treacherous want of sight)
He poured his praise;--the fish was on the right!
Thus would he at the fencer's matches sit,
And shout with rapture, at some fancied hit;
And thus applaud the stage-machinery, where 175
The youths were rapt aloft, and lost in air.
Nor fell Veiento short:--as if possest
With all Bellona's rage, his laboring breast
Burst forth in prophecy; "I see, I see
The omens of some glorious victory! 180
Some powerful monarch captured! --lo, he rears,
Horrent on every side, his pointed spears!
Arviragus hurled from the British car:
The fish is foreign, foreign is the war. "
Proceed, great seer, and what remains untold, 185
The turbot's age and country, next unfold;
So shall your lord his fortunes better know,
And where the conquest waits and who the foe.
The emperor now the important question put,
"How say ye, Fathers, SHALL THE FISH BE CUT? " 190
"O, far be that disgrace," Montanus cries;
"No, let a pot be formed, of amplest size,
Within whose slender sides the fish, dread sire,
May spread his vast circumference entire!
Bring, bring the tempered clay, and let it feel 195
The quick gyrations of the plastic wheel:--
But, Cæsar, thus forewarned, make no campaign,
Unless your potters follow in your train! "
Montanus ended; all approved the plan,
And all, the speech, so worthy of the man! 200
Versed in the old court luxury, he knew
The feasts of Nero, and his midnight crew;
Where oft, when potent draughts had fired the brain,
The jaded taste was spurred to gorge again. --
And, in my time, none understood so well 205
The science of good eating: he could tell,
At the first relish, if his oysters fed
On the Rutupian, or the Lucrine bed;
And from a crab, or lobster's color, name
The country, nay, the district, whence it came. 210
Here closed the solemn farce. The Fathers rise,
And each, submissive, from the presence hies:--
Pale, trembling wretches, whom the chief, in sport,
Had dragged, astonished, to the Alban court;
As if the stern Sicambri were in arms, 215
Or the fierce Catti threatened new alarms;
As if ill news by flying posts had come,
And gathering nations sought the fall of Rome!
O! that such scenes (disgraceful at the most)
Had all those years of cruelty engrost, 220
Through which his rage pursued the great and good,
Unchecked, while vengeance slumbered o'er their blood!
And yet he fell! --for when he changed his game,
And first grew dreadful to the vulgar name,
They seized the murderer, drenched with Lamian gore, 225
And hurled him, headlong, to the infernal shore!


SATIRE V.

TO TREBIUS.

If--by reiterated scorn made bold,
Your mind can still its shameless tenor hold,
Still think the greatest blessing earth can give,
Is, solely at another's cost to live;
If--you can brook, what Galba would have spurned, 5
And mean Sarmentus with a frown returned,
At Cæsar's haughty board, dependents both,
I scarce would take your evidence on oath.
The belly's fed with little cost: yet grant
You should, unhappily, that little want, 10
Some vacant bridge might surely still be found,
Some highway side; where, groveling on the ground,
Your shivering limbs compassion's sigh might wake,
And gain an alms for "Charity's sweet sake! "
What! can a meal, thus sauced, deserve your care? 15
Is hunger so importunate? when THERE,
THERE, in your tattered rug, you may, my friend,
On casual scraps more honestly depend;
With chattering teeth toil o'er your wretched treat,
And gnaw the crusts, which dogs refuse to eat! -- 20
For, first, of this be sure: whene'er your lord
Thinks proper to invite you to his board,
He pays, or thinks he pays, the total sum
Of all your pains, past, present, and to come.
Behold the meed of servitude! the great 25
Reward their humble followers with a treat,
And count it current coin:--they count it such,
And, though it be but little, think it much.
If, after two long months, he condescend
To waste a thought upon an humble friend, 30
Reminded by a vacant seat, and write,
"You, Master Trebius, sup with me to-night,"
'Tis rapture all! Go now, supremely blest,
Enjoy the meed for which you broke your rest,
And, loose and slipshod, ran your vows to pay, 35
What time the fading stars announced the day;
Or at that earlier hour, when, with slow roll,
Thy frozen wain, Boötes, turned the pole;
Yet trembling, lest the levee should be o'er,
And the full court retiring from the door!