No More Learning

--
Yes, when the world was filled with Rome's just fame,
And Romans trembled at the Fabian name,
The Scauran, and Fabrician; when they saw
A censor's rigor even a censor awe, 140
No son of Troy e'er thought it his concern,
Or worth a moment's serious care, to learn,
What land, what sea, the fairest tortoise bred,
Whose clouded shell might best adorn his bed. --
His bed was small, and did no signs impart 145
Or of the painter's or the sculptor's art,
Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass,
Showed the rude features of a vine-crowned ass;
An uncouth brute, round which his children played,
And laughed and jested at the face it made! 150
Briefly, his house, his furniture, his food,
Were uniformly plain, and simply good.
Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by Greece
To hang, enraptured, o'er a finished piece,
If haply, 'mid the congregated spoils 155
(Proofs of his power, and guerdon of his toils),
Some antique vase of master-hands were found,
Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground;
That, in new forms, the molten fragments dress'd,
Might blaze illustrious round his courser's chest, 160
Or, flashing from his burnished helmet, show
(A dreadful omen to the trembling foe)
The mighty sire, with glittering shield and spear,
Hovering, enamored, o'er the sleeping fair,
The wolf, by Rome's high destinies made mild, 165
And, playful at her side, each wondrous child.
Thus, all the wealth those simple times could boast,
Small wealth! their horses and their arms engross'd;
The rest was homely, and their frugal fare,
Cooked without art, was served in earthen ware: 170
Yet worthy all our envy, were the breast
But with one spark of noble spleen possess'd.
THEN shone the fanes with majesty divine,
A present god was felt at every shrine!
And solemn sounds, heard from the sacred walls, 175
At midnight's solemn hour, announced the Gauls,
Now rushing from the main; while, prompt to save,
Stood Jove, the prophet of the signs he gave!
Yet, when he thus revealed the will of fate,
And watched attentive o'er the Latian state, 180
His shrine, his statue, rose of humble mould,
Of artless form, and unprofaned with gold.
Those good old times no foreign tables sought;
From their own woods the walnut-tree was brought,
When withering limbs declared its pith unsound, 185
Or winds uptore, and stretched it on the ground.
But now, such strange caprice has seized the great,
They find no pleasure in the costliest treat,
Suspect the flowers a sickly scent exhale,
And think the ven'son rank, the turbot stale, 190
Unless wide-yawning panthers, towering high--
Enormous pedestals of ivory,
Formed of the teeth which Elephantis sends,
Which the dark Moor, or darker Indian, vends,
Or those which, now, too heavy for the head, 195
The beasts in Nabathea's forest shed--
The spacious ORBS support: then they can feed,
And every dish is delicate indeed!
For silver feet are viewed with equal scorn,
As iron rings upon the finger worn. 200
To me, forever be the guest unknown,
Who, measuring my expenses by his own,
Remarks the difference with a scornful leer,
And slights my humble house and homely cheer.
Look not to me for ivory; I have none: 205
My chess-board and my men are all of bone;
Nay, my knife-handles; yet, my friend, for this,
My pullets neither cut nor taste amiss.
I boast no artist, tutored in the school
Of learned Trypherus, to carve by rule; 210
Where large sow-paps of elm, and boar, and hare,
And phœnicopter, and pygargus rare,
Getulian oryx, Scythian pheasants, point,
The nice anatomy of every joint;
And dull blunt tools, severing the wooden treat, 215
Clatter around, and deafen all the street.
My simple lad, whose highest efforts rise
To broil a steak in the plain country guise,
Knows no such art; humbly content to serve,
And bring the dishes which he can not kerve. 220
Another lad (for I have two to-day),
Clad, like the first, in homespun russet gray,
Shall fill our earthen bowls: no Phrygian he,
No pampered attribute of luxury,
But a rude rustic:--when you want him, speak, 225
And speak in Latin, for he knows not Greek.
Both go alike, with close-cropp'd hair, undress'd,
But spruced to-day in honor of my guest;
And both were born on my estate, and one
Is my rough shepherd's, one, my neatherd's son. 230
Poor youth! he mourns, with many an artless tear,
His long, long absence from his mother dear;
Sighs for his little cottage, and would fain
Meet his old playfellows, the goats, again.
Though humble be his birth, ingenuous grace 235
Beams from his eye, and flushes in his face;
Charming suffusion! that would well become
The youthful offspring of the chiefs of Rome. --
He, Persicus, shall fill us wine which grew
Where first the breath of life the stripling drew, 240
On Tibur's hills;--dear hills, that many a day
Witnessed the transports of his infant play.
But you, perhaps, expect a wanton throng
Of Gaditanian girls, with dance and song,
To kindle loose desire; girls, that now bound } 245
Aloft with active grace, now, on the ground, }
Quivering, alight, while peals of praise go round. }
Lo! wives, beside their husbands placed, behold,
What could not in their ear, for shame, be told;
Expedients of the rich, the blood to fire, 250
And wake the dying embers of desire.
Behold? O heavens! they view, with keenest gust,
These strong provocatives of jaded lust;
With every gesture feel their passions rise,
And draw in pleasure both at ears and eyes! 255
Such vicious fancies are too great for me.
Let him the wanton dance unblushing see,
And hear the immodest terms which, in the stews,
The veriest strumpet would disdain to use,
Whose drunken spawlings roll, tumultuous, o'er 260
The proud expansion of a marble floor:
For there the world a large allowance make,
And spare the folly for the fortune's sake. --
Dice, and adultery, with a small estate,
Are damning crimes; but venial, with a great; 265
Venial? nay, graceful: witty, gallant, brave,
And such wild tricks "as gentlemen should have! "
My feast, to-day, shall other joys afford:
Hushed as we sit around the frugal board.
Great Homer shall his deep-toned thunder roll, 270
And mighty Maro elevate the soul;
Maro, who, warmed with all the poet's fire,
Disputes the palm of victory with his sire:
Nor fear my rustic clerks; read as they will,
The bard, the bard, shall rise superior still! 275
Come then, my friend, an hour to pleasure spare,
And quit awhile your business and your care;
The day is all our own: come, and forget
Bonds, interest, all; the credit and the debt;
Nay, e'en your wife: though, with the dawning light, 280
She left your couch, and late returned at night;
Though her loose hair in wild disorder flowed,
Her eye yet glistened, and her cheek yet glowed,
Her rumpled girdle busy hands express'd--
Yet, at my threshold, tranquilize your breast; 285
There leave the thoughts of home, and what the haste
Of heedless slaves may in your absence waste;
And, what the generous spirit most offends,
O, more than all, leave there UNGRATEFUL FRIENDS.
But see! the napkin, waved aloft, proclaims 290
The glad commencement of the Idæan games,
And the proud prætor, in triumphal state,
Ascends his car, the arbiter of fate!
Ere this, all Rome (if 'tis, for once, allowed,
To say all Rome, of so immense a crowd) 295
The Circus throngs, and--Hark! loud shouts arise--
From these, I guess the GREEN has won the prize;
For had it lost, all joy had been suppress'd,
And grief and horror seized the public breast;
As when dire Carthage forced our arms to yield, 300
And poured our noblest blood on Cannæ's field.
Thither let youth, whom it befits, repair,
And seat themselves beside some favorite fair,
Wrangle, and urge the desperate bet aloud;
While we, retired from business and the crowd, 305
Stretch our shrunk limbs by sunny bank or stream,
And drink, at every pore, the vernal beam.
Haste, then: for we may use our freedom now,
And bathe, an hour ere noon, with fearless brow--
Indulge for once:--Yet such delights as these, 310
In five short morns, would lose the power to please;
For still, the sweetest pleasures soonest cloy,
And its best flavor temperance gives to joy.


SATIRE XII.

TO CORVINUS.

Not with such joy, Corvinus, I survey
My natal hour, as this auspicious day;
This day, on which the festive turf demands
The promised victims, at my willing hands.
A snow-white lamb to Juno I decree, 5
Another to Minerva; and to thee,
Tarpeian Jove! a steer, which, from afar,
Shakes his long rope, and meditates the war.
'Tis a fierce animal, that proudly scorns
The dug, since first he tried his budding horns 10
Against an oak; free mettled, and, in fine,
Fit for the knife, and sacrificial wine.
O, were my power but equal to my love,
A nobler victim should my rapture prove!
A bull high fed, and boasting in his veins, 15
The luscious juices of Clitumnus' plains,
Fatter than fat Hispulla, huge and slow,
Should fall, but fall beneath no common blow--
Fall for my friend, who now, from danger free,
Revolves the recent perils of the sea; 20
Shrinks at the roaring waves, the howling winds,
And scarcely trusts the safety which he finds!
For not the gods' inevitable fire,
The surging billows that to heaven aspire,
Alone, perdition threat; black clouds arise, 25
And blot out all the splendor of the skies;
Loud and more loud the thunder's voice is heard,
And sulphurous fires flash dreadful on the yard. --
Trembled the crew, and, fixed in wild amaze,
Saw the rent sails burst into sudden blaze; 30
While shipwreck, late so dreadful, now appeared
A refuge from the flames, more wished than feared.
Horror on horror! earth, and sea, and skies,
Convulsed, as when POETIC TEMPESTS rise!
From the same source another danger view, 35
With pitying eye--though dire alas! not new;
But known too well, as Isis' temples show,
By many a pictured scene of votive woe;
Isis, by whom the painters now are fed,
Since our own gods no longer yield them bread! -- 40
And such befell our friend: for now a sea,
Upsurging, poured tremendous o'er the lee,
And filled the hold; while, pressed by wave and wind,
To right and left, by turns, the ship inclined:
Then, while Catullus viewed, with drooping heart, 45
The storm prevailing o'er the pilot's art,
He wisely hastened to compound the strife,
And gave his treasure to preserve his life.
The beaver thus to scape his hunter tries,
And leaves behind the medicated prize; 50
Happy to purchase with his dearest blood,
A timely refuge in the well-known flood.
"Away with all that's mine," he cries, "away! "
And plunges in the deep, without delay,
Purples, which soft Mæcenases might wear, 55
Crimsons, deep-tinctured in the Bætic air,
Where herbs, and springs of secret virtues, stain
The flocks at feed, with Nature's richest grain.
With these, neat baskets from the Britons bought,
Rare silver chargers by Parthenius wrought, 60
A huge two-handed goblet, which might strain
A Pholus, or a Fuscus' wife, to drain;
Followed by numerous services of plate,
Plain, and enchased; with cups of ancient date,
In which, while at the city's strength he laughed, 65
The wily chapman of Olynthus quaffed.
Yet show me, in this elemental strife,
Another, who would barter wealth for life! --
Few GAIN TO LIVE, Corvinus, few or none,
But, blind with avarice, LIVE TO GAIN alone. 70
Now had the deep devoured their richest store;
Nor seems their safety nearer than before:
The last resource alone was unexplored--
To cut the mast and rigging by the board;
Haply the vessel so might steadier ride 75
O'er the vexed surface of the raging tide.
Dire threats the impending blow, when, thus distress'd,
We sacrifice a part, to save the rest!
Go now, fond man, the faithless ocean brave,
Commit your fortune to the wind and wave; 80
Trust to a plank, and draw precarious breath,
At most, seven inches from the jaws of death!
Go, but forget not that a storm may rise,
And put up hatchets with your sea supplies.
But now the winds were hushed; the wearied main 85
Sunk to repose, a calm, unruffled plain;
For fate, superior to the tempest's power,
Averted from my friend the mortal hour:
A whiter thread the cheerful Sisters spun,
And lo, with favoring hands their spindles run! 90
Mild as the breeze of eve, a rising gale
Rippled the wave, and filled their only sail;
Others the crew supplied, of vests combined,
And spread to catch each vagrant breath of wind:
By aids like these, slow o'er the deep impelled, 95
The shattered bark her course for Ostia held;
While the glad sun uprose, supremely bright,
And hope returned with the returning light.
At length the heights, where, from Lavinum moved,
Iülus built the city which he loved, 100
Burst on the view; auspicious heights! whose name
From a white sow and thirty sucklings came.
And now, the port they gain; the tower, whose ray
Guides the poor wanderer o'er the watery way,
And the huge mole, whose arms the waves embrace, 105
And stretching, an immeasurable space,
Far into Ocean's bosom, leave the coast,
Till, in the distance, Italy is lost! --
Less wonderful the bays which Nature forms,
And less secure against assailing storms: 110
Here rides the wave-worn bark, devoid of fear;
For Baian skiffs might ply with safety here.
The joyful crew, with shaven crowns, relate
Their timely rescue from the jaws of fate;
On every ill a pomp of words bestow, 115
And dwell delighted on the tale of woe.
Go then, my boys--but let no boding strain
Break on the sacred silence--dress the fane
With garlands, bind the sod with ribbons gay,
And on the knives the salted offering lay: 120
This done, I'll speed, myself the rites to share,
And finish what remains, with pious care.
Then, hastening home, where chaplets of sweet flowers
Bedeck my Lares, dear, domestic Powers!
I'll offer incense there, and at the shrine 125
Of highest Jove, my father's god, and mine;
There will I scatter every bud that blows,
And every tint the various violet knows.
All savors here of joy; luxuriant bay }
O'ershades my portal, while the taper's ray } 130
Anticipates the feast, and chides the tardy day: }
Nor think, Corvinus, interest fires my breast:
Catullus, for whose sake my house is dress'd,
Has three sweet boys, who all such hopes destroy,
And nobler views excite my boundless joy. 135
Yet who besides, on such a barren friend,
Would waste a sickly pullet? who would spend
So vast a treasure, where no hopes prevail,
Or, for a FATHER, sacrifice a quail? --
But should the symptoms of a slight disease 140
The childless Paccius or Gallita seize,
Legions of flatterers to the fanes repair,
And hang in rows their votive tablets there.
Nay, some with vows of hecatombs will come--
For yet no elephants are sold at Rome; 145
The breed, to Latium and to us unknown,
Is only found beneath the burning zone:
Thence to our shore, by swarthy Moors conveyed,
They roam at large through the Rutulian shade,
Kept for the imperial pleasure, envied fate! 150
And sacred from the subject, and the state.
Though their progenitors, in days of yore,
Did worthy service, and to battle bore
Whole cohorts; taught the general's voice to know,
And rush, themselves an army, on the foe. 155
But what avails their worth! could gold obtain
So rare a creature, worth might plead in vain:
Novius, without delay, their blood would shed,
To raise his Paccius from affliction's bed;
An offering, sacred to the great design, 160
And worthy of the votary and the shrine!
Pacuvius, did our laws the crime allow,
The fairest of his numerous slaves would vow;
The blooming boy, the love-inspiring maid,
With garlands crown, and to the temple lead; 165
Nay, seize his Iphigene, prepared to wed,
And drag her to the altar, from the bed;
Though hopeless, like the Grecian sire, to find,
In happy hour, the substituted hind.
And who shall say my countryman does ill? 170
A thousand ships are trifles to a Will!
For Paccius, should the fates his health restore,
May cancel every _item_ framed before
(Won by his friend's vast merits, and beset,
On all sides, by the inextricable net), 175
And, in one line, convey plate, jewels, gold,
Lands, every thing to him, "to have and hold. "
With victory crowned, Pacuvius struts along,
And smiles contemptuous on the baffled throng;
Then counts his gains, and deems himself o'erpaid 180
For the cheap murder of one wretched maid.
Health to the man! and may he THUS get more
Than Nero plundered! pile his shining store
High, mountain high; in years a Nestor prove,
And, loving none, ne'er know another's love! 185


SATIRE XIII.

TO CALVINUS.

Man, wretched man, whene'er he stoops to sin,
Feels, with the act, a strong remorse within;
'Tis the first vengeance: Conscience tries the cause,
And vindicates the violated laws;
Though the bribed Prætor at their sentence spurn, 5
And falsify the verdict of the Urn.
What says the world, not always, friend, unjust,
Of his late injury, this breach of trust?
That thy estate so small a loss can bear,
And that the evil, now no longer rare, 10
Is one of that inevitable set,
Which man is born to suffer and forget.
Then moderate thy grief: 'tis mean to show
An anguish disproportioned to the blow.
But thou, so new to crosses, as to feel 15
The slightest portion of the slightest ill,
Art tired with rage, because a friend forswears
The sacred pledge, intrusted to his cares.
What, thou, Calvinus, bear so weak a mind!
Thou, who hast left full three-score years behind! 20
Heaven, have they taught thee nothing! nothing, friend!
And art thou grown gray-headed to no end! --
Wisdom, I know, contains a sovereign charm,
To vanquish fortune, or at least disarm:
Blest they who walk in her unerring rule! -- 25
Nor those unblest, who, tutored in life's school,
Have learned of old experience to submit,
And lightly bear the yoke they can not quit.
What day so sacred, which no guilt profanes,
No secret fraud, no open rapine stains? 30
What hour, in which no dark assassins prowl,
Nor point the sword for hire, nor drug the bowl?
THE GOOD, ALAS, ARE FEW! "The valued file,"
Less than the gates of Thebes, the mouths of Nile!
For now an age is come, that teems with crimes, 35
Beyond all precedent of former times;
An age so bad, that Nature can not frame
A metal base enough to give it name!
Yet you, indignant at a paltry cheat,
Call heaven and earth to witness the deceit, 40
With cries as deafening, as the shout that breaks
From the bribed audience, when Fæsidius speaks.
Dotard in nonage! are you to be told
What loves, what graces, deck another's gold?
Are you to learn, what peals of mirth resound, 45
At your simplicity, from all around?
When you step forth, and, with a serious air, }
Bid them abstain from perjury, and beware }
To tempt the altars--for A GOD IS THERE! }
Idle old man! there was, indeed, a time, 50
When the rude natives of this happy clime
Cherished such dreams: 'twas ere the king of heaven,
To change his sceptre for a scythe was driven;
Ere Juno yet the sweets of love had tried,
Or Jove advanced beyond the caves of Ide. 55
'Twas when no gods indulged in sumptuous feasts,
No Ganymede, no Hebe served the guests;
No Vulcan, with his sooty labors foul,
Limped round, officious, with the nectared bowl;
But each in private dined: 'twas when the throng 60
Of godlings, now beyond the scope of song,
The courts of heaven, in spacious ease, possess'd,
And with a lighter load poor Atlas press'd! --
Ere Neptune's lot the watery world obtained,
Or Dis and his Sicilian consort reigned; 65
Ere Tityus and his ravening bird were known,
Ixion's wheel, or Sisyphus's stone:
While yet the shades confessed no tyrant's power,
And all below was one Elysian bower!
Vice was a phœnix in that blissful time, 70
Believed, but never seen: and 'twas a crime,
Worthy of death, such awe did years engage,
If manhood rose not up to reverend age,
And youth to manhood, though a larger hoard
Of hips and acorns graced the stripling's board. 75
Then, then was age so venerable thought,
That every day increase of honor brought;
And children, in the springing down, revered
The sacred promise of a hoary beard!
Now, if a friend, miraculously just, 80
Restore the pledge, with all its gathered rust,
'Tis deemed a portent, worthy to appear
Among the wonders of the Tuscan year;
A prodigy of faith, which threats the state,
And a ewe lamb can scarcely expiate! -- 85
Struck at the view, if now I chance to see
A man of ancient worth and probity,
To pregnant mules the MONSTER I compare,
Or fish upturned beneath the wondering share:
Anxious and trembling for the woe to come, 90
As if a shower of stones had fallen on Rome;
As if a swarm of bees, together clung,
Down from the Capitol, thick-clustering, hung;
Or Tiber, swollen to madness, burst away,
And roll'd, a milky deluge, to the sea. 95
And dost thou at a trivial loss repine!
What, if another, by a friend like thine,
Is stripp'd of ten times more! a third, again,
Of what his bursting chest would scarce contain!
For 'tis so common, in this age of ours, 100
So easy, to contemn the Immortal Powers,
That, can we but elude man's searching eyes.
We laugh to scorn the witness of the skies.
Mark, with how bold a voice, and fixed a brow,
The villain dares his treachery disavow! 105
"By the all-hallowed orb that flames above,
I HAD IT NOT! By the red bolts of Jove,
By the winged shaft that laid the Centaur low,
By Dian's arrows, by Apollo's bow,
By the strong lance that Mars delights to wield, 110
By Neptune's trident, by Minerva's shield,
And every weapon that, to vengeance given,
Stores the tremendous magazine of heaven! --
Nay, IF I HAD, I'll slay this son of mine,
And eat his head, soused in Egyptian brine. " 115
There are, who think that chance is all in all,
That no First Cause directs the eternal ball;
But that brute Nature, in her blind career,
Varies the seasons, and brings round the year:
These rush to every shrine, with equal ease, 120
And, owning none, swear by what Power you please.
Others believe, and but believe, a god,
And think that punishment MAY follow fraud;
Yet they forswear, and, reasoning on the deed,
Thus reconcile their actions with their creed: 125
"Let Isis storm, if to revenge inclined,
And with her angry sistrum strike me blind,
So, with my eyes, she ravish not my ore,
But let me keep the pledge which I forswore.
Are putrid sores, catarrhs that seldom kill, 130
And crippled limbs, forsooth, so great an ill!
Ladas, if not stark mad, would change, no doubt,
His flying feet for riches and the gout;
For what do those procure him? mere renown,
And the starved honor of an olive crown. " 135
"But grant the wrath of heaven be great; 'tis slow,
And days, and months, and years precede the blow.
If, then, to punish ALL, the gods decree,
When, in their vengeance, will they come to me?
But I, perhaps, their anger may appease-- 140
For they are wont to pardon faults like these:
At worst, there's hope; since every age and clime
See different fates attend the self-same crime;
Some made by villainy, and some undone,
And this ascend a scaffold, that a throne. " 145
These sophistries, to fix a while suffice
The mind, yet shuddering at the thought of vice;
And, thus confirmed, at the first call they come,
Nay, rush before you to the sacred dome:
Chide your slow pace, drag you, amazed, along, 150
And play the raving Phasma, to the throng.
(For impudence the vulgar suffrage draws,
And seems the assurance of a righteous cause. )
While you, poor wretch, suspected by the crowd,
With Stentor's lungs, or Mars', exclaim aloud: 155
"Jove! Jove! will naught thy indignation rouse?
Canst thou, in silence, hear these faithless vows?
When all thy fury, on the slaves accurst,
From lips of marble or of brass should burst! --
Or else, why burn we incense at thy shrine, 160
And heap thy altars with the fat of swine,
When we might crave redress, for aught I see,
As wisely of Bathyllus as of thee! "
Rash man! --but hear, in turn, what I propose,
To mitigate, if not to heal, your woes; 165
I, who no knowledge of the schools possess,
Cynic, or Stoic, differing but in dress,
Or thine, calm Epicurus, whose pure mind
To one small garden every wish confined.
In desperate cases, able doctors fee; 170
But trust your pulse to Philip's boy--or me.
If no example of so foul a deed
On earth be found, I urge no more: proceed,
And beat your breast, and rend your hoary hair;
'Tis just:-for thus our losses we declare; 175
And money is bewailed with deeper sighs,
Than friends or kindred, and with louder cries.
There none dissemble, none, with scenic art,
Affect a sorrow, foreign from the heart;
Content in squalid garments to appear, 180
And vex their lids for one hard-gotten tear:
No, genuine drops fall copious from their eyes,
And their breasts labor with unbidden sighs.
But when you see each court of justice thronged
With crowds, like you, by faithless friendship wronged, 185
See men abjure their bonds, though duly framed,
And oft revised, by all the parties named,
While their own hand and seal, in every eye,
Flash broad conviction, and evince the lie;
Shall you alone on Fortune's smiles presume, 190
And claim exemption from the common doom?
--From a white hen, forsooth, 'twas yours to spring,
Ours, to be hatched beneath some luckless wing!
Pause from your grief, and, with impartial eyes,
Survey the daring crimes which round you rise; 195
Your injuries, then, will scarce deserve a name,
And your false friend be half absolved from blame!
What's he, poor knave! to those who stab for hire,
Who kindle, and then spread, the midnight fire?
Say, what to those, who, from the hoary shrine, 200
Tear the huge vessels age hath stamped divine,
Offerings of price, by grateful nations given,
And crowns inscribed, by pious kings, to heaven?
What to the minor thieves, who, missing these,
Abrade the gilded thighs of Hercules, 205
Strip Neptune of his silvery beard, and peel
Castor's leaf gold, where spread from head to heel?
Or what to those, who, with pernicious craft,
Mingle and set to sale the deadly draught;
Or those, who in a raw ox-hide are bound, 210
And, with an ill-starred ape, poor sufferer! drowned?
Yet these--how small a portion of the crimes,
That stain the records of those dreadful times,
And Gallicus, the city præfect, hears,
From light's first dawning, till it disappears! 215
The state of morals would you learn at Rome?
No farther seek than his judicial dome:
Give one short morning to the horrors there,
And then complain, then murmur, if you dare!
Say, whom do goitres on the Alps surprise? 220
In Meroë, whom the breast's enormous size?
Whom locks, in Germany, of golden hue,
And spiral curls, and eyes of sapphire blue?
None; for the prodigy, among them shared,
Becomes mere nature, and escapes regard. 225
When clouds of Thracian birds obscure the sky,
To arms! to arms! the desperate Pigmies cry:
But soon, defeated in the unequal fray,
Disordered flee; while, pouncing on their prey,
The victor cranes descend, and, clamoring, bear 230
The wriggling manikins aloft in air.
Here, could our climes to such a scene give birth,
We all should burst with agonies of mirth;
There, unsurprised, they view the frequent fight,
Nor smile at heroes scarce a foot in height. 235
"Shall then no ill the perjured head attend,
No punishment o'ertake this faithless friend? "
Suppose him seized, abandoned to your will,
What more would rage? to torture or to kill;
Yet still your loss, your injury would remain, 240
And draw no retribution from his pain.
"True,; but methinks the smallest drop of blood,
Squeezed from his mangled limbs, would do me good:
Revenge, THEY SAY, and I believe their words,
A pleasure sweeter far than life affords. " 245
WHO SAY? the fools, whose passions, prone to ire,
At slightest causes, or at none take fire;
Whose boiling breasts, at every turn, o'erflow
With rancorous gall: Chrysippus SAID not so;
Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still; 250
Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill,
Who drank the poison with unruffled soul,
And dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.
Divine philosophy! by whose pure light
We first distinguish, then pursue the right, 255
Thy power the breast from every error frees,
And weeds out all its vices by degrees:--
Illumined by thy beam, revenge we find, }
The abject pleasure of an abject mind, }
And hence so dear to poor, weak, womankind. } 260
But why are those, Calvinus, thought to scape
Unpunished, whom, in every fearful shape,
Guilt still alarms, and conscience, ne'er asleep,
Wounds with incessant strokes, "not loud but deep,"
While the vexed mind, her own tormentor, plies 265
A scorpion scourge, unmarked by human eyes!
Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign,
Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain
He feels, who night and day, devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast. 270
A Spartan once the Oracle besought
To solve a scruple which perplexed his thought,
And plainly tell him, if he might forswear
A purse, of old confided to his care.
Incensed, the priestess answered--"Waverer, no! 275
Nor shalt thou, for the doubt, unpunished go. "
With that, he hastened to restore the trust;
But fear alone, not virtue, made him just:
Hence, he soon proved the Oracle divine,
And all the answer worthy of the shrine; 280
For plagues pursued his race without delay,
And swept them from the earth, like dust, away.
By such dire sufferings did the wretch atone
The crime of meditated fraud alone!
For, IN THE EYE OF HEAVEN, a wicked deed 285
Devised, is done: What, then, if we proceed? --
Perpetual fears the offender's peace destroy,
And rob the social hour of all its joy:
Feverish, and parched, he chews, with many a pause,
The tasteless food, that swells beneath his jaws: 290
Spits out the produce of the Albanian hill,
Mellowed by age;--you bring him mellower still,
And lo, such wrinkles on his brow appear,
As if you brought Falernian vinegar!
At night, should sleep his harassed limbs compose, 295
And steal him one short moment from his woes,
Then dreams invade; sudden, before his eyes
The violated fane and altar rise;
And (what disturbs him most) your injured shade,
In more than mortal majesty arrayed, 300
Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treacherous rest,
And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast.
These, these are they, who tremble and turn pale
At the first mutterings of the hollow gale! 305
Who sink with terror at the transient glare
Of meteors, glancing through the turbid air!
Oh, 'tis not chance, they cry; this hideous crash
Is not the war of winds; nor this dread flash
The encounter of dark clouds; but blasting fire,
Charged with the wrath of heaven's insulted sire! 310
That dreaded peal, innoxious, dies away;
Shuddering, they wait the next with more dismay,
As if the short reprieve were only sent
To add new horrors to their punishment.
Yet more; when the first symptoms of disease, 315
When feverish heats, their restless members seize,
They think the plague by wrath divine bestowed,
And feel, in every pang, the avenging God.
Racked at the thought, in hopeless grief they lie,
And dare not tempt the mercy of the sky: 320
For what can such expect!
what victim slay,
That is not worthier far to live than they!
With what a rapid change of fancy roll
The varying passions of the guilty soul! --
Bold to offend, they scarce commit the offense, 325
Ere the mind labors with an innate sense
Of right and wrong;--not long, for nature still,
Incapable of change, and fixed in ill,
Recurs to her old habits:--never yet
Could sinner to his sin a period set. 330
When did the flush of modest blood inflame
The cheek, once hardened to the sense of shame?
Or when the offender, since the birth of time,
Retire, contented with a single crime?
And this false friend of ours shall still pursue 335
His dangerous course, till vengeance, doubly due,
O'ertake his guilt; then shalt thou see him cast
In chains, 'mid tortures to expire his last;
Or hurried off, to join the wretched train
Of exiled great ones in the Ægean main. 340
THIS, THOU SHALT SEE; and, while thy voice applauds
The dreadful justice of the offended gods,
Reform thy creed, and, with an humble mind,
Confess that Heaven is NEITHER DEAF NOR BLIND!


SATIRE XIV.

TO FUSCINUS.

Yes, there are faults, Fuscinus, that disgrace
The noblest qualities of birth and place;
Which, like infectious blood, transmitted, run,
In one eternal stream, from sire to son.
If, in destructive play, the senior waste 5
His joyous nights, the child, with kindred taste,
Repeats, in miniature, the darling vice,
Shakes the small box, and cogs the little dice.
Nor does that infant fairer hopes inspire,
Who, trained by the gray epicure, his sire, 10
Has learned to pickle mushrooms, and, like him,
To souse the becaficos, till they swim! --
For take him, thus to early luxury bred,
Ere twice four springs have blossomed o'er his head,
And let ten thousand teachers, hoar with age, 15
Inculcate temperance from the stoic page;
His wish will ever be, in state to dine,
And keep his kitchen's honor from decline!
Does Rutilus inspire a generous mind,
Prone to forgive, and to slight errors blind; 20
Instill the liberal thought, that slaves have powers,
Sense, feeling, all, as exquisite as ours;
Or fury? He, who hears the sounding thong
With far more pleasure than the Siren's song;
Who, the stern tyrant of his small domain, 25
The Polypheme of his domestic train,
Knows no delight, save when the torturer's hand
Stamps, for low theft, the agonizing brand. --
O, what but rage can fill that stripling's breast,
Who sees his savage sire then only blest, 30
When his stretched ears drink in the wretches' cries,
And racks and prisons fill his vengeful eyes!
And dare we hope, yon girl, from Larga sprung,
Will e'er prove virtuous; when her little tongue
Ne'er told so fast her mother's wanton train, 35
But that she stopped and breathed, and stopped again?
Even from her tender years, unnatural trust!
The child was privy to the matron's lust:--
Scarce ripe for man, with her own hand, she writes
The billets, which the ancient bawd indites, 40
Employs the self-same pimps, and looks, ere long,
To share the visits of the amorous throng!
So Nature prompts: drawn by her secret tie,
We view a parent's deeds with reverent eye;
With fatal haste, alas! the example take, 45
And love the sin, for the dear sinner's sake. --
One youth, perhaps, formed of superior clay,
And warmed, by Titan, with a purer ray,
May dare to slight proximity of blood,
And, in despite of nature, to be good: 50
One youth--the rest the beaten pathway tread,
And blindly follow where their fathers led.
O fatal guides! this reason should suffice
To win you from the slippery route of vice,
This powerful reason; lest your sons pursue 55
The guilty track, thus plainly marked by you!
For youth is facile, and its yielding will
Receives, with fatal ease, the imprint of ill:
Hence Catilines in every clime abound;
But where are Cato and his nephew found! 60
Swift from the roof where youth, Fuscinus, dwell,
Immodest sights, immodest sounds expel;
THE PLACE IS SACRED: Far, far hence, remove,
Ye venal votaries of illicit love!
Ye dangerous knaves, who pander to be fed, 65
And sell yourselves to infamy for bread!
REVERENCE TO CHILDREN, AS TO HEAVEN, IS DUE:
When you would, then, some darling sin pursue,
Think that your infant offspring eyes the deed;
And let the thought abate your guilty speed, 70
Back from the headlong steep your steps entice,
And check you, tottering on the verge of vice.
O yet reflect! for should he e'er provoke,
In riper age, the law's avenging stroke
(Since not alone in person and in face, 75
But even in morals, he will prove his race,
And, while example acts with fatal force,
Side, nay outstrip, you, in the vicious course),
Vexed, you will rave and storm; perhaps, prepare,
Should threatening fail, to name another heir! 80
--Audacious! with what front do you aspire
To exercise the license of a sire?
When all, with rising indignation, view
The youth, in turpitude, surpassed by you,
By you, old fool, whose windy, brainless head, 85
Long since required the cupping-glass's aid!
Is there a guest expected? all is haste,
All hurry in the house, from first to last.
"Sweep the dry cobwebs down! " the master cries,
Whips in his hand, and fury in his eyes, 90
"Let not a spot the clouded columns stain;
Scour you the figured silver; you, the plain! "
O inconsistent wretch! is all this coil,
Lest the front hall, or gallery, daubed with soil
(Which, yet, a little sand removes), offend 95
The prying eye of some indifferent friend?
And do you stir not, that your son may see
The house from moral filth, from vices free!
True, you have given a citizen to Rome;
And she shall thank you, if the youth become, 100
By your o'er-ruling care, or soon or late,
A useful member of the parent state:
For all depends on you; the stamp he'll take,
From the strong impress which, at first, you make;
And prove, as vice or virtue was your aim, 105
His country's glory, or his country's shame.
The stork, with snakes and lizards from the wood
And pathless wild, supports her callow brood;
And the fledged storklings, when to wing they take,
Seek the same reptiles, through the devious brake. 110
The vulture snuffs from far the tainted gale,
And, hurrying where the putrid scents exhale,
From gibbets and from graves the carcass tears,
And to her young the loathsome dainty bears;
Her young, grown vigorous, hasten from the nest, 115
And gorge on carrion, with the parent's zest.
While Jove's own eagle, bird of noble blood,
Scours the wide champaign for untainted food,
Bears the swift hare, or swifter fawn away,
And feeds her nestlings with the generous prey; 120
Her nestlings hence, when from the rock they spring,
And, pinched by hunger, to the quarry wing,
Stoop only to the game they tasted first,
When, clamorous, from the shell, to light they burst.
Centronius planned and built, and built and planned; 125
And now along Cajeta's winding strand,
And now amid Præneste's hills, and now
On lofty Tibur's solitary brow,
He reared prodigious piles, with marble brought
From distant realms, and exquisitely wrought: 130
Prodigious piles! that towered o'er Fortune's shrine,
As those of gelt Posides, Jove, o'er thine!
While thus Centronius crowded seat on seat,
He spent his cash, and mortgaged his estate;
Yet left enough his family to content: 135
Which his mad son, to the last farthing, spent,
While, building on, he strove, with fond desire,
To shame the stately structures of his sire!
Sprung from a father who the sabbath fears,
There is, who naught but clouds and skies reveres; 140
And shuns the taste, by old tradition led,
Of human flesh, and swine's, with equal dread:--
This first: the prepuce next he lays aside,
And, taught the Roman ritual to deride,
Clings to the Jewish, and observes with awe 145
All Moses bade in his mysterious law:
And, therefore, to the circumcised alone
Will point the road, or make the fountain known;
Warned by his bigot sire, who whiled away,
Sacred to sloth, each seventh revolving day. 150
But youth, so prone to follow other ills,
Are driven to AVARICE, against their wills;
For this grave vice, assuming Virtue's guise,
Seems Virtue's self, to undiscerning eyes.
The miser, hence, a frugal man, they name; 155
And hence, they follow, with their whole acclaim,
The griping wretch, who strictlier guards his store,
Than if the Hesperian dragon kept the door. --
Add that the vulgar, still a slave to gold,
The worthy, in the wealthy, man behold; 160
And, reasoning from the fortune he has made,
Hail him, A perfect master of his trade!
And true, indeed, it is--such MASTERS raise
Immense estates; no matter, by what ways;
But raise they do, with brows in sweat still dyed, 165
With forge still glowing, and with sledge still plied.
The father, by the love of wealth possest,
Convinced--the covetous alone are blest,
And that, nor past, nor present times, e'er knew
A poor man happy--bids his son pursue 170
The paths they take, the courses they affect,
And follow, at the heels, this thriving sect.
Vice boasts its elements, like other arts;
These, he inculcates first: anon, imparts
The petty tricks of saving; last, inspires, 175
Of endless wealth, the insatiable desires. --
Hungry himself, his hungry slaves he cheats,
With scanty measures, and unfaithful weights;
And sees them lessen, with increasing dread,
The flinty fragments of his vinewed bread. 180
In dog-days, when the sun, with fervent power,
Corrupts the freshest meat from hour to hour,
He saves the last night's hash, sets by a dish
Of sodden beans, and scraps of summer fish,
And half a stinking shad, and a few strings 185
Of a chopped leek--all told, like sacred things,
And sealed with caution, though the sight and smell
Would a starved beggar from the board repel.
But why this dire avidity of gain?
This mass collected with such toil and pain? 190
Since 'tis the veriest madness, to live poor,
And die with bags and coffers running o'er.
Besides, while thus the streams of affluence roll,
They nurse the eternal dropsy of the soul,
For thirst of wealth still grows with wealth increast, 195
And they desire it less, who have it least. --
Now swell his wants: one manor is too small,
Another must be bought, house, lands, and all;
Still "cribbed confined," he spurns the narrow bounds,
And turns an eye on every neighbor's grounds: 200
There all allures; his crops appear a foil
To the rich produce of their happier soil.
"And this, I'll purchase, with the grove," he cries,
"And that fair hill, where the gray olives rise. "
Then, if the owner to no price will yield 205
(Resolved to keep the hereditary field),
Whole droves of oxen, starved to this intent,
Among his springing corn, by night, are sent,
To revel there, till not a blade be seen,
And all appear like a close-shaven green. 210
"Monstrous! " you say--And yet, 'twere hard to tell,
What numbers, tricks like these have forced to sell.
But, sure, the general voice has marked his name,
And given him up to infamy and shame:--
"And what of that? " he cries. "I valued more 215
A single lupine, added to my store,
Than all the country's praise; if cursed by fate
With the scant produce of a small estate. "--
'Tis well! no more shall age or grief annoy,
But nights of peace succeed to days of joy, 220
If more of ground to you alone pertain,
Than Rome possessed, in Numa's pious reign!
Since then, the veteran, whose brave breast was gored,
By the fierce Pyrrhic, or Molossian sword,
Hardly received for all his service past, 225
And all his wounds, TWO ACRES at the last;
The meed of toil and blood! yet never thought
His country thankless, or his pains ill bought.
For then, this little glebe, improved with care,
Largely supplied, with vegetable fare, 230
The good old man, the wife in childbed laid,
And four hale boys, that round the cottage played,
Three free-born, one a slave: while, on the board,
Huge porringers, with wholesome pottage stored,
Smoked for their elder brothers, who were now, 235
Hungry and tired, expected from the plow. --
TWO ACRES will not now, so changed the times,
Afford a garden plot:--and hence our crimes!
For not a vice that taints the human soul,
More frequent points the sword, or drugs the bowl, 240
Than the dire lust of an "untamed estate"--
Since, he who covets wealth, disdains to wait:
Law threatens, Conscience calls--yet on he hies,
And this he silences, and that defies,
Fear, Shame--he bears down all, and, with loose rein, 245
Sweeps headlong o'er the alluring paths of gain!
"Let us, my sons, contented with our lot,
Enjoy, in peace, our hillock and our cot"
(The good old Marsian to his children said),
"And from our labor seek our daily bread. 250
So shall we please the rural Powers, whose care,
And kindly aid, first taught us to prepare
The golden grain, what time we ranged the wood,
A savage race, for acorns, savage food!
The poor who, with inverted skins, defy 255
The lowering tempest and the freezing sky,
Who, without shame, without reluctance go,
In clouted brogues, through mire and drifted snow,
Ne'er think of ill: 'tis purple, boys, alone,
Which leads to guilt--purple, to us unknown. " 260
Thus, to their children, spoke the sires of yore.
Now, autumn's sickly heats are scarcely o'er,
Ere, while deep midnight yet involves the skies,
The impatient father shakes his son, and cries,
"What, ho, boy, wake! Up; pleas, rejoinders draw, 265
Turn o'er the rubric of our ancient law;
Up, up, and study: or, with brief in hand,
Petition Lælius for a small command,
A captain's! --Lælius loves a spreading chest,
Broad shoulders, tangled locks, and hairy breast: 270
The British towers, the Moorish tents destroy,
And the rich Eagle, at threescore, enjoy! "
"But if the trump, prelusive to the fight,
And the long labors of the camp affright,
Go, look for merchandise of readiest vent, 275
Which yields a sure return of cent. per cent.
Buy this, no matter what; the ware is good,
Though not allowed on this side Tiber's flood:
Hides, unguents, mark me, boy, are equal things,
And gain smells sweet, from whatsoe'er it springs. 280
This golden sentence, which the Powers of heaven,
Which Jove himself, might glory to have given,
Will never, never, from your thoughts, I trust--
NONE QUESTION WHENCE IT COMES; BUT COME IT MUST. "
This, when the lisping race a farthing ask, 285
Old women set them, as a previous task;
The wondrous apophthegm all run to get,
And learn it sooner than their alphabet.
But why this haste? Without your care, vain fool!
The pupil will, ere long, the tutor school: 290
Sleep, then, in peace; secure to be outdone,
Like Telamon, or Peleus, by your son.
O, yet indulge awhile his tender years:
The seeds of vice, sown by your fostering cares,
Have scarce ta'en root; but they will spring at length, 295
"Grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength. "
Then, when the firstlings of his youth are paid,
And his rough chin requires the razor's aid,
Then he will swear, then to the altar come,
And sell deep perjuries for a paltry sum! -- 300
Believe your step-daughter already dead,
If, with an ample dower, she mount his bed:
Lo! scarcely laid, his murderous fingers creep,
And close her eyes in everlasting sleep.
For that vast wealth which, with long years of pain, 305
You thought would be acquired by land and main,
He gets a readier way: the skill's not great,
The toil not much, to make a knave complete.
But you will say hereafter, "I am free:
He never learned those practices of me. " 310
Yes, all of you:--for he who, madly blind,
Imbues with avarice his children's mind,
Fires with the thirst of riches, and applauds
The attempt, to double their estate by frauds,
Unconscious, flings the headlong wheels the rein, 315
Which he may wish to stop, but wish in vain;
Deaf to his voice, with growing speed they roll,
Smoke down the steep, and spurn the distant goal!
None sin by rule; none heed the charge precise,
THUS, AND NO FARTHER, MAY YE STEP IN VICE; 320
But leap the bounds prescribed, and, with free pace,
Scour far and wide the interdicted space.
So, when you tell the youth, that FOOLS alone
Regard a friend's distresses as their own;
You bid the willing hearer riches raise, 325
By fraud, by rapine, by the worst of ways;
Riches, whose love is on your soul imprest,
Deep as their country's on the Decii's breast;
Or Thebes on his, who sought an early grave
(If Greece say true), her sacred walls to save. 330
Thebes, where, impregned with serpents' teeth, the earth
Poured forth a marshaled host, prodigious birth!
Horrent with arms, that fought with headlong rage,
Nor asked the trumpet's signal, to engage. --
But mark the end! the fire, derived, at first, 335
From a small sparkle, by your folly nurst,
Blown to a flame, on all around it preys,
And wraps you in the universal blaze.
So the young lion rent, with hideous roar,
His keeper's trembling limbs, and drank his gore. 340
"Tush! I am safe," you cry; "Chaldæan seers
Have raised my Scheme, and promised length of years. "
But has your son subscribed? will he await
The lingering distaff of decrepit Fate?
No; his impatience will the work confound, 345
And snap the vital thread, ere half unwound.
Even now your long and stag-like age annoys
His future hopes, and palls his present joys.
Fly then, and bid Archigenes prepare
An antidote, if life be worth your care; 350
If you would see another autumn close,
And pluck another fig, another rose:--
Take mithridate, rash man, before your meat,
A FATHER, you? and without medicine eat!
Come, my Fuscinus, come with me, and view 355
A scene more comic than the stage e'er knew.
Lo! with what toil, what danger, wealth is sought,
And to the fane of watchful Castor brought;
Since MARS THE AVENGER slumbered, to his cost,
And, with his helmet, all his credit lost! 360
Quit then the plays! the FARCE OF LIFE supplies
A scene more comic in the sage's eyes.
For who amuses most? --the man who springs,
Light, through the hoop, and on the tight-rope swings;
Or he, who, to a fragile bark confined, 365
Dwells on the deep, the sport of wave and wind?
Fool-hardy wretch! scrambling for every bale
Of stinking merchandise, exposed to sale;
And proud to Crete, for ropy wine, to rove,
And jars, the fellow-citizens of Jove! 370
THAT skips along the rope, with wavering tread,
Dangerous dexterity, which brings him bread;
THIS ventures life, for wealth too vast to spend,
Farm joined to farm, and villas without end!
Lo! every harbor thronged and every bay, 375
And half mankind upon the watery way!
For, where he hears the attractive voice of gain,
The merchant hurries, and defies the main. --
Nor will he only range the Libyan shore,
But, passing Calpé, other worlds explore; 380
See Phœbus, sinking in the Atlantic, lave
His fiery car, and hear the hissing wave.
And all for what? O glorious end! to come,
His toils o'erpast, with purse replenished, home,
And, with a traveler's privilege, vent his boasts, 385
Of unknown monsters seen on unknown coasts.
What varying forms in madness may we trace! --
Safe in his loved Electra's fond embrace,
Orestes sees the avenging Furies rise,
And flash their bloody torches in his eyes; 390
While Ajax strikes an ox, and, at the blow,
Hears Agamemnon or Ulysses low:
And surely he (though, haply, he forbear,
Like these, his keeper and his clothes to tear)
Is just as mad, who to the water's brim 395
Loads his frail bark--a plank 'twixt death and him!
When all this risk is but to swell his store
With a few coins, a few gold pieces more.
Heaven lowers, and frequent, through the muttering air,
The nimble lightning glares, or seems to glare: 400
"Weigh! weigh! " the impatient man of traffic cries,
"These gathering clouds, this rack that dims the skies,
Are but the pageants of a sultry day;
A thunder shower, that frowns, and melts away. "
Deluded wretch! dashed on some dangerous coast, 405
This night, this hour, perhaps, his bark is lost;
While he still strives, though whelmed beneath the wave,
His darling purse with teeth or hand to save.
Thus he, who sighed, of late, for all the gold
Down the bright Tagus and Pactolus rolled, 410
Now bounds his wishes to one poor request,
A scanty morsel and a tattered vest;
And shows, where tears, where supplications fail,
A daubing of his melancholy tale!
Wealth, by such dangers earned, such anxious pain, 415
Requires more care to keep it, than to gain:
Whate'er my miseries, make me not, kind Fate,
The sleepless Argus of a vast estate!
The slaves of Licinus, a numerous band,
Watch through the night, with buckets in their hand, 420
While their rich master trembling lies, afraid
Lest fire his ivory, amber, gold, invade,
The naked Cynic mocks such restless cares,
His earthen tub no conflagration fears;
If cracked, to-morrow he procures a new, 425
Or, coarsely soldering, makes the old one do.
Even Philip's son, when, in his little cell
Content, he saw the mighty master dwell,
Owned, with a sigh, that he, who naught desired,
Was happier far, than he who worlds required, 430
And whose ambition certain dangers brought,
Vast, and unbounded, as the object sought. --
Fortune, advanced to heaven by fools alone,
Would lose, were wisdom ours, her shadowy throne.
"What call I, then, ENOUGH? " What will afford 435
A decent habit, and a frugal board;
What Epicurus' little garden bore,
And Socrates sufficient thought, before:
These squared by Nature's rules their blameless life--
Nature and Wisdom never are at strife. 440
You think, perhaps, these rigid means too scant,
And that I ground philosophy on want;
Take then (for I will be indulgent now,
And something for the change of times allow),
As much as Otho for a knight requires:-- 445
If this, unequal to your wild desires,
Contract your brow; enlarge the sum, and take
As much as two--as much as three--will make.
If yet, in spite of this prodigious store,
Your craving bosom yawn, unfilled, for more, 450
Then, all the wealth of Lydia's king, increast
By all the treasures of the gorgeous East,
Will not content you; no, nor all the gold
Of that proud slave, whose mandate Rome controlled,
Who swayed the Emperor, and whose fatal word 455
Plunged in the Empress' breast the lingering sword!


SATIRE XV.

TO VOLUSIUS BITHYNICUS.

Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend,
The mad inhabitants of Egypt bend? --
The snake-devouring ibis, these enshrine,
Those think the crocodile alone divine;
Others, where Thebes' vast ruins strew the ground, 5
And shattered Memnon yields a magic sound,
Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape,
And bow before the image of an ape!
Thousands regard the hound with holy fear,
Not one, Diana: and 'tis dangerous here, 10
To violate an onion, or to stain
The sanctity of leeks with tooth profane.
O holy nations! Sacro-sanct abodes!
Where every garden propagates its gods!
They spare the fleecy kind, and think it ill, 15
The blood of lambkins, or of kids, to spill:
But, human flesh--O! that is lawful fare.
And you may eat it without scandal there.
When, at the amazed Alcinous' board, of old,
Ulysses of so strange an action told, 20
He moved of some the mirth, of more the gall,
And, for a lying vagrant, passed with all.
"Will no one plunge this babbler in the waves
(Worthy a true Charybdis)--while he raves
Of monsters seen not since the world began, 25
Cyclops and Læstrigons, who feed on man!
For me--I less should doubt of Scylla's train,
Of rocks that float and jostle in the main,
Of bladders filled with storms, of men, in fine,
By magic changed, and driven to grunt with swine, 30
Than of his cannibals:--the fellow feigns,
As if he thought Phæacians had no brains. "
Thus, one, perhaps, more sober than the rest,
Observed, and justly, of their traveled guest,
Who spoke of prodigies till then unknown; 35
Yet brought no attestation but his own.
--I bring my wonders, too; and I can tell,
When Junius, late, was consul, what befell,
Near Coptus' walls; tell of a people stained
With deeper guilt than tragedy e'er feigned: 40
For, sure, no buskined bard, from Pyrrha's time,
E'er taxed a whole community with crime;
Take then a scene yet to the stage unknown,
And, by a nation, acted--IN OUR OWN!
Between two neighboring towns a deadly hate, 45
Sprung from a sacred grudge of ancient date,
Yet burns; a hate no lenients can assuage,
No time subdue, a rooted, rancorous rage!
Blind bigotry, at first, the evil wrought:
For each despised the other's gods, and thought 50
Its own the true, the genuine, in a word,
The only deities to be adored!
And now the Ombite festival drew near:
When the prime Tent'rites, envious of their cheer,
Resolved to seize the occasion, to annoy 55
Their feast, and spoil the sacred week of joy. --
It came: the hour the thoughtless Ombites greet,
And crowd the porches, crowd the public street,
With tables richly spread; where, night and day,
Plunged in the abyss of gluttony, they lay: 60
(For savage as the nome appears, it vies
In luxury, if I MAY TRUST MY EYES,
With dissolute Canopus:) Six were past,
Six days of riot, and the seventh and last
Rose on the feast; and now the Tent'rites thought, 65
A cheap, a bloodless victory might be bought,
O'er such a helpless crew: nor thought they wrong,
Nor could the event be doubtful, where a throng
Of drunken revelers, stammering, reeling-ripe,
And capering to a sooty minstrel's pipe. 70
Coarse unguents, chaplets, flowers, on this side fight,
On that, keen hatred, and deliberate spite!
At first both sides, though eager to engage.
With taunts and jeers, the heralds of their rage,
Blow up their mutual fury; and anon, 75
Kindled to madness, with loud shouts rush on;
Deal, though unarmed, their vengeance blindly round,
And with clenched fists print many a ghastly wound.
Then might you see, amid the desperate fray,
Features disfigured, noses torn away, 80
Hands, where the gore of mangled eyes yet reeks,
And jaw-bones starting through the cloven cheeks!
But this is sport, mere children's play, they cry--
As yet beneath their feet no bodies lie,
And, to what purpose should such armies fight 85
The cause of heaven, if none be slain outright?
Roused at the thought, more fiercely they engage,
With stones, the weapons of intestine rage;
Yet not precisely such, to tell you true,
As Turnus erst, or mightier Ajax, threw: 90
Nor quite so large as that two-handed stone,
Which bruised Æneas on the huckle-bone;
But such as men, in our degenerate days,
Ah, how unlike to theirs! make shift to raise.
Even in his time, Mæonides could trace 95
Some diminution of the human race:
Now, earth, grown old and frigid, rears with pain
A pigmy brood, a weak and wicked train;
Which every god, who marks their passions vile,
Regards with laughter, though he loathes the while. 100
But to our tale. Enforced with armed supplies.
The zealous Tent'rites feel their courage rise,
And wave their swords, and, kindling at the sight,
Press on, and with fell rage renew the fight.
The Ombites flee; they follow:--in the rear, 105
A luckless wretch, confounded by his fear,
Trips and falls headlong; with loud yelling cries,
The pack rush in, and seize him as he lies.
And now the conquerors, none to disappoint
Of the dire banquet, tear him joint by joint, 110
And dole him round; the bones yet warm, they gnaw,
And champ the flesh that heaves beneath their jaw.
They want no cook to dress it--'twould be long,
And appetite is keen, and rage is strong.
And here, Volusius, I rejoice at least, 115
That fire was unprofaned by this cursed feast,
Fire, rapt from heaven! and you will, sure, agree
To greet the element's escape, with me.
--But all who ventured on the carcass, swore
They never tasted--aught so sweet before! 120
Nor did the relish charm the first alone--
Those who arrived too late for flesh, or bone,
Stooped down, and scraping where the wretch had lain,
With savage pleasure licked the gory plain!
The Vascons once (the story yet is rife), 125
With such dire sustenance prolonged their life;
But then the cause was different: Fortune, there,
Proved adverse: they had borne the extremes of war,
The rage of famine, the still-watchful foe,
And all the ills beleaguered cities know. 130
(And nothing else should prompt mankind to use
Such desperate means. ) May this their crime excuse!
For after every root and herb were gone,
And every aliment to hunger known;
When their lean frames, and cheeks of sallow hue, 135
Struck even the foe with pity at the view,
And all were ready their own flesh to tear,
They first adventured on this horrid fare.
And surely every god would pity grant
To men so worn by wretchedness and want, 140
And even the very ghosts of those they ate,
Absolve them, mindful of their dreadful state!
True, we are wiser; and, by Zeno taught,
Know life itself may be too dearly bought;
But the poor Vascon, in that early age, 145
Knew naught of Zeno, or the Stoic page. --
Now, thanks to Greece and Rome, in wisdom's robe
The bearded tribes rush forth, and seize the globe;
Already, learned Gaul aspires to teach
Your British orators the Art of Speech, 150
And Thulé, blessings on her, seems to say,
She'll hire a good grammarian, cost what may.
The Vascons, then, who thus prolonged their breath,
And the Saguntines, true, like them, to death,
Brave too, like them, but by worse ills subdued, 155
Had some small plea for this abhorred food.
Diana first (and let us doubt no more
The barbarous rites we disbelieved of yore)
Reared her dread altar near the Tauric flood,
And asked the sacrifice of human blood: 160
Yet there the victim only lost his life,
And feared no cruelty beyond the knife.
Far, far more savage Egypt's frantic train,
They butcher first, and then devour the slain!
But say, what causa impelled them to proceed, 165
What siege, what famine, to this monstrous deed?
What could they more, had Nile refused to rise,
And the soil gaped with ever-glowing skies,
What could they more, the guilty Flood to shame,
And heap opprobrium on his hateful name! 170
Lo! what the barbarous hordes of Scythia, Thrace,
Gaul, Britain, never dared--dared by a race
Of puny dastards, who, with fingers frail,
Tug the light oar, and hoist the little sail,
In painted pans! What tortures can the mind 175
Suggest for miscreants of this abject kind,
Whom spite impelled worse horrors to pursue,
Than famine, in its deadliest form, e'er knew!
NATURE, who gave us tears, by that alone
Proclaims she made the feeling heart our own; 180
And 'tis her noblest boon: This bids us fly,
To wipe the drops from sorrowing friendship's eye,
Sorrowing ourselves; to wail the prisoner's state,
And sympathize in the wronged orphan's fate,
Compelled his treacherous guardian to accuse, 185
While many a shower his blooming cheek bedews,
And through his scattered tresses, wet with tears,
A doubtful face, or boy or girl's, appears.
As Nature bids, we sigh, when some bright maid
Is, ere her spousals, to the pyre conveyed; 190
Some babe--by fate's inexorable doom,
Just shown on earth, and hurried to the tomb.