Whoever is acquainted with the habits of
intimacy
in which I have
lived from early youth with the Rev.
lived from early youth with the Rev.
Satires
Nerva, and Trajan, and Hadrian, and the
Antonines, restored the Romans to safety and tranquillity; but they
could do no more; liberty and virtue were gone forever; and after a
short period of comparative happiness, which they scarcely appear to
have deserved, and which brought with it no amelioration of mind, no
return of the ancient modesty and frugality, they were finally resigned
to destruction.
I now proceed to the "comparative view" of which I have already spoken:
as the subject has been so often treated, little of novelty can be
expected from it; to read, compare, and judge, is almost all that
remains.
HORACE, who was gay, and lively, and gentle, and affectionate, seems
fitted for the period in which he wrote. He had seen the worst times
of the republic, and might therefore, with no great suspicion of his
integrity, be allowed to acquiesce in the infant monarchy, which
brought with it stability, peace, and pleasure. How he reconciled
himself to his political tergiversation it is useless to inquire. [19]
What was so general, we may suppose, brought with it but little
obloquy; and it should be remembered, to his praise, that he took no
active part in the government which he had once opposed. [20]
If he celebrates the master of the world, it is not until he is asked
by him whether he is ashamed that posterity should know them to be
friends; and he declines a post, which few of his detractors have merit
to deserve, or virtue to refuse.
His choice of privacy, however, was in some measure constitutional;
for he had an easiness of temper which bordered on indolence; hence he
never rises to the dignity of a decided character. Zeno and Epicurus
share his homage and undergo his ridicule by turns: he passes without
difficulty from one school to another, and he thinks it a sufficient
excuse for his versatility, that he continues, amid every change, the
zealous defender of virtue. Virtue, however, abstractedly considered,
has few obligations to his zeal.
But though, as an ethical writer, Horace has not many claims to the
esteem of posterity; as a critic, he is entitled to all our veneration.
Such is the soundness of his judgment, the correctness of his taste,
and the extent and variety of his knowledge, that a body of criticism
might be selected from his works, more perfect in its kind than any
thing which antiquity has bequeathed us.
As he had little warmth of temper, he reproves his contemporaries
without harshness. He is content to "dwell in decencies," and, like
Pope's courtly dean, "never mentions hell to ears polite. " Persius, who
was infinitely better acquainted with him than we can pretend to be,
describes him, I think, with great happiness:
"Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit,
Callidus excusso populum suspendere naso. "
"He, with a sly insinuating grace,
Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the face:
Would raise a blush, where secret vice he found,
And tickle, while he gently probed the wound:
With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled;
But made the desperate passes when he smiled. "
These beautiful lines have a defect under which Dryden's translations
frequently labor; they do not give the true sense of the original.
Horace "raised no blush" (at least Persius does not insinuate any such
thing), and certainly "made no desperate passes. "[21] His aim rather
seems to be, to keep the objects of his satire in good humor with
himself, and with one another.
To raise a laugh at vice, however (supposing it feasible), is not
the legitimate office of Satire, which is to hold up the vicious, as
objects of reprobation and scorn, for the example of others, who may
be deterred by their sufferings. But it is time to be explicit. To
laugh even at fools is superfluous; if they understand you, they will
join in the merriment; but more commonly, they will sit with vacant
unconcern, and gaze at their own pictures: to laugh at the vicious,
is to encourage them; for there is in such men a willfulness of
disposition, which prompts them to bear up against shame, and to show
how little they regard slight reproof, by becoming more audacious in
guilt. Goodness, of which the characteristic is modesty, may, I fear,
be shamed; but vice, like folly, to be restrained, must be overawed.
Labeo, says Hall, with great energy and beauty--
"Labeo is whipt, and laughs me in the face;
Why? for I smite, and hide the galled place.
Gird but the Cynic's helmet on his head,
Cares he for Talus, or his flayle of lead? "
PERSIUS, who borrowed so much of Horace's language, has little of his
manner. The immediate object of his imitation seems to be Lucilius;
and if he lashes vice with less severity than his great prototype, the
cause must not be sought in any desire to spare what he so evidently
condemned. But he was thrown "on evil times;" he was, besides, of a
rank distinguished enough to make his freedom dangerous, and of an age
when life had yet lost little of its novelty; to write, therefore,
even as he has written, proves him to be a person of very singular
courage and virtue.
In the interval between Horace and Persius, despotism had changed its
nature: the chains which the policy of Augustus concealed in flowers,
were now displayed in all their hideousness. The arts were neglected,
literature of every kind discouraged or disgraced, and terror and
suspicion substituted in the place of the former ease and security.
Stoicism, which Cicero accuses of having infected poetry, even in his
days, and of which the professors, as Quintilian observes, always
disregarded the graces and elegancies of composition, spread with
amazing rapidity. [22] In this school Persius was educated, under the
care of one of its most learned and respectable masters.
Satire was not his first pursuit; indeed, he seems to have somewhat
mistaken his talents when he applied to it. The true end of this
species of writing, as Dusaulx justly says, is the improvement of
society; but for this, much knowledge of mankind ("quicquid agunt
homines") is previously necessary. Whoever is deficient in that, may be
an excellent moral and philosophical poet; but can not, with propriety,
lay claim to the honors of a satirist.
And Persius was moral and philosophical in a high degree: he was also
a poet of no mean order. But while he grew pale over the page of Zeno,
and Cleanthes, and Chrysippus; while he imbibed, with all the ardor
of a youthful mind, the paradoxes of those great masters, together
with their principles, the foundations of civil society were crumbling
around him, and soliciting his attention in vain. To judge from what
he has left us, it might almost be affirmed that he was a stranger
in his own country. The degradation of Rome was now complete; yet he
felt, at least he expresses, no indignation at the means by which it
was effected: a sanguinary buffoon was lording it over the prostrate
world; yet he continued to waste his most elaborate efforts on the
miserable pretensions of pedants in prose and verse! If this savor
of the impassibility of Stoicism, it is entitled to no great praise
on the score of outraged humanity, which has stronger claims on a
well-regulated mind, than criticism, or even philosophy.
Dryden gives that praise to the dogmas of Persius, which he denies to
his poetry. "His verse," he says, "is scabrous and hobbling, and his
measures beneath those of Horace. " This is too severe; for Persius has
many exquisite passages, which nothing in Horace will be found to equal
or approach. The charge of obscurity has been urged against him with
more justice; though this, perhaps, is not so great as it is usually
represented. Casaubon could, without question, have defended him more
successfully than he has done; but he was overawed by the brutal
violence of the elder Scaliger; for I can scarcely persuade myself that
he really believed this obscurity to be owing to "the fear of Nero, or
the advice of Cornutus. " The cause of it should be rather sought in his
natural disposition, and in his habits of thinking. Generally speaking,
however, it springs from a too frequent use of tropes, approaching in
almost every instance to a catachresis, an anxiety of compression,
and a quick and unexpected transition from one overstrained figure to
another. After all, with the exception of the sixth Satire, which, from
its abruptness, does not appear to have received the author's last
touches, I do not think there is much to confound an attentive reader:
some acquaintance, indeed, with the porch "braccatis illita Medis,"
is previously necessary. His life may be contemplated with unabated
pleasure: the virtue he recommends, he practiced in the fullest extent;
and at an age when few have acquired a determinate character, he left
behind him an established reputation for genius, learning, and worth.
JUVENAL wrote at a period still more detestable than that of Persius.
Domitian, who now governed the empire, seems to have inherited the bad
qualities of all his predecessors. Tiberius was not more hypocritical,
nor Caligula more bloody, nor Claudius more sottish, nor Nero more
mischievous, than this ferocious despot; who, as Theodorus Gadareus
indignantly declared of Tiberius, was truly πηλον αἱματι πεφυραμενον· a
lump of clay kneaded up with blood!
Juvenal, like Persius, professes to follow Lucilius; but what was
in one a simple attempt, is in the other a real imitation, of his
manner. [23] Fluent and witty as Horace, grave and sublime as Persius;
of a more decided character than the former, better acquainted with
mankind than the latter; he did not confine himself to the mode of
regulating an intercourse with the great, or to abstract disquisitions
on the nature of scholastic liberty; but, disregarding the claims of
a vain urbanity, and fixing all his soul on the eternal distinctions
of moral good and evil, he labored, with a magnificence of language
peculiar to himself, to set forth the loveliness of virtue, and the
deformity and horror of vice, in full and perfect display.
Dusaulx, who is somewhat prejudiced against Horace, does ample justice
to Juvenal. There is great force in what he says; and, as I do not know
that it ever appeared in English, I shall take the liberty of laying a
part of it before the reader, at the hazard of a few repetitions.
"The bloody revolution which smothered the last sighs of liberty,[24]
had not yet found time to debase the minds of a people, among whom the
traditionary remains of the old manners still subsisted. The cruel
but politic Octavius scattered flowers over the paths he was secretly
tracing toward despotism: the arts of Greece, transplanted to the
Capitol, flourished beneath his auspices; and the remembrance of so
many civil dissensions, succeeding each other with increasing rapidity,
excited a degree of reverence for the author of this unprecedented
tranquillity. The Romans felicitated themselves at not lying down, as
before, with an apprehension of finding themselves included, when they
awoke, in the list of proscription: and neglected, amid the amusements
of the circus and the theatre, those civil rights of which their
fathers had been so jealous.
"Profiting of these circumstances, Horace forgot that he had combated
on the side of liberty. A better courtier than a soldier, he clearly
saw how far the refinement, the graces, and the cultivated state of his
genius (qualities not much considered or regarded till his time[25]),
were capable of advancing him without any extraordinary effort.
"Indifferent to the future, and not daring to recall the past, he
thought of nothing but securing himself from all that could sadden the
mind, and disturb the system which he had skillfully arranged on the
credit of those then in power. It is on this account, that, of all his
contemporaries, he has celebrated none but the friends of his master,
or, at least, those whom he could praise without fear of compromising
his favor.
"In what I have said of Horace, my chief design has been to show that
this Proteus, who counted among his friends and admirers even those
whose conduct he censured, chose rather to capitulate than contend;
that he attached no great importance to his own rules, and adhered to
his principles no longer than they favored his views.
"JUVENAL began his satiric career where the other finished, that is
to say, he did that for morals and liberty, which Horace had done for
decorum and taste. Disdaining artifice of every kind, he boldly raised
his voice against the usurpation of power; and incessantly recalled the
memory of the glorious æra of independence to those degenerate Romans,
who had substituted suicide in the place of their ancient courage; and
from the days of Augustus to those of Domitian, only avenged their
slavery by an epigram or a bonmot.
"The characteristics of Juvenal were energy, passion, and indignation:
it is, nevertheless, easy to discover that he is sometimes more
afflicted than exasperated. His great aim was to alarm the vicious,
and, if possible, to exterminate vice, which had, as it were,
acquired a legal establishment. A noble enterprise! but he wrote in a
detestable age, when the laws of nature were publicly violated, and
the love of their country so completely eradicated from the breasts
of his fellow-citizens, that, brutified as they were by slavery and
voluptuousness, by luxury and avarice, they merited rather the severity
of the executioner than the censor.
"Meanwhile the empire, shaken to its foundations, was rapidly crumbling
to dust. Despotism was consecrated by the senate; liberty, of which
a few slaves were still sensible, was nothing but an unmeaning word
for the rest, which, unmeaning as it was, they did not dare to
pronounce in public. Men of rank were declared enemies to the state for
having praised their equals; historians were condemned to the cross,
philosophy was proscribed, and its professors banished. Individuals
felt only for their own danger, which they too often averted by
accusing others; and there were instances of children who denounced
their own parents, and appeared as witnesses against them! It was not
possible to weep for the proscribed, for tears themselves became the
object of proscription; and when the tyrant of the day had condemned
the accused to banishment or death, the senate decreed that he should
be thanked for it, as for an act of singular favor.
"Juvenal, who looked upon the alliance of the agreeable with the odious
as utterly incompatible, contemned the feeble weapon of ridicule,
so familiar to his predecessor: he therefore seized the sword of
Satire, or, to speak more properly, fabricated one for himself, and
rushing from the palace to the tavern, and from the gates of Rome to
the boundaries of the empire, struck, without distinction, whoever
deviated from the course of nature, or from the paths of honor. It is
no longer a poet like Horace, fickle, pliant, and fortified with that
indifference so falsely called philosophical, who amused himself with
bantering vice, or, at most, with upbraiding a few errors of little
consequence, in a style, which, scarcely raised above the language of
conversation, flowed as indolence and pleasure directed; but a stern
and incorruptible censor, an inflamed and impetuous poet, who sometimes
rises with his subject to the noblest heights of tragedy. "
From this declamatory applause, which even La Harpe allows to be worthy
of the translator of Juvenal, the most rigid censor of our author can
not detract much; nor can much perhaps be added to it by his warmest
admirer. I could, indeed, have wished that he had not exalted him at
the expense of Horace; but something must be allowed for the partiality
of long acquaintance; and Casaubon, when he preferred Persius, with
whom he had taken great, and indeed successful pains, to Horace and
Juvenal, sufficiently exposed, while he tacitly accounted for, the
prejudices of commentators and translators. With respect to Horace, if
he falls beneath Juvenal (and who does not? ) in eloquence, in energy,
and in a vivid and glowing imagination, he evidently surpasses him
in taste and critical judgment. I could pursue the parallel through
a thousand ramifications, but the reader who does me the honor to
peruse the following sheets, will see that I have incidentally touched
upon some of them in the notes: and, indeed, I preferred scattering
my observations through the work, as they arose from the subject, to
bringing them together in this place; where they must evidently have
lost something of their pertinency, without much certainty of gaining
in their effect.
Juvenal is accused of being too sparing of praise. But are his critics
well assured that praise from Juvenal could be accepted with safety?
I do not know that a private station was "the post of honor" in those
days; it was, however, that of security. Martial, Statius, V. Flaccus,
and other parasites of Domitian, might indeed venture to celebrate
their friends, who were also those of the emperor. Juvenal's, it is
probable, were of another kind; and he might have been influenced no
less by humanity than prudence, in the sacred silence which he has
observed respecting them. Let it not be forgotten, however, that this
intrepid champion of virtue, who, under the twelfth despot, persisted,
as Dusaulx observes, in recognizing no sovereign but the senate, while
he passes by those whose safety his applause might endanger, has
generously celebrated the ancient assertors of liberty, in strains that
Tyrtæus might have wished his own.
He is also charged with being too rhetorical in his language. The
critics have discovered that he practiced at the bar, and they
will therefore have it that his Satires smack of his profession,
"redolent declamatorem. "[26] That he is luxuriant, or, if it must
be so, redundant, may be safely granted; but I doubt whether the
passages which are cited for proofs of this fault, were not reckoned
among his beauties by his contemporaries. The enumeration of deities
in the thirteenth Satire is well defended by Rigaltius, who admits,
at the same time, that if the author had inserted it any where but
in a Satire, he should have accounted him a babbler; "faterer Juv.
hic περιλαλον fuisse et verborum prodigum. " He appears to me equally
successful, in justifying the list of oaths in the same Satire, which
Creech, it appears, had not the courage to translate.
The other passages adduced in support of this charge, are either
metaphorical exaggerations, or long traits of indirect Satire, of
which Juvenal was as great a master as Horace. I do not say that these
are interesting to us; but they were eminently so to those for whom
they were written; and by their pertinency at the time, should they,
by every rule of fair criticism, be estimated. The version of such
passages is one of the miseries of translation.
I have also heard it objected to Juvenal, that there is in many of
his Satires a want of arrangement; this is particularly observed of
the sixth and tenth. I scarcely know what to reply to this. Those
who are inclined to object, would not be better satisfied, perhaps,
if the form of both were changed; for I suspect that there is no
natural gradation in the innumerable passions which agitate the human
breast. Some must precede, and others follow; but the order of march
is not, nor ever was, invariable. While I acquit him of this, however,
I readily acknowledge a want of care in many places, unless it be
rather attributable to a want of taste. On some occasions, too, when
he changed or enlarged his first sketch, he forgot to strike out the
unnecessary verses: to this are owing the repetitions to be found in
his longer works, as well as the transpositions, which have so often
perplexed the critics and translators.
Now I am upon this subject, I must not pass over a slovenliness in some
of his lines, for which he has been justly reproached by Jortin and
others, as it would have cost him no great pains to improve them. Why
he should voluntarily debase his poetry, it is difficult to say: if he
thought that he was imitating Horace in his laxity, his judgment must
suffer considerably. The verses of Horace are indeed akin to prose; but
as he seldom rises, he has the art of making his low flights, in which
all his motions are easy and graceful, appear the effect of choice.
Juvenal was qualified to "sit where he dared not soar. " His element was
that of the eagle, "descent and fall to him were adverse," and, indeed,
he never appears more awkward than when he flutters, or rather waddles,
along the ground.
I have observed in the course of the translation, that he embraced no
sect with warmth. In a man of such lively passions, the retention with
which he speaks of them all, is to be admired. From his attachment
to the writings of Seneca, I should incline to think that he leaned
toward Stoicism; his predilection for the school, however, was not
very strong: perhaps it is to be wished that he had entered a little
more deeply into it, as he seems not to have those distinct ideas
of the nature of virtue and vice, which were entertained by many of
the ancient philosophers, and indeed, by his immediate predecessor,
Persius. As a general champion for virtue, he is commonly successful,
but he sometimes misses his aim; and, in more than one instance,
confounds the nature of the several vices in his mode of attacking
them: he confounds too the very essence of virtue, which, in his
hands, has often "no local habitation and name," but varies with the
ever-varying passions and caprices of mankind. I know not whether it be
worth while to add, that he is accused of holding a different language
at different times respecting the gods, since in this he differs little
from the Greek and Roman poets in general; who, as often as they
introduce their divinities, state, as Juvenal does, the mythological
circumstances coupled with their names, without regard to the existing
system of physic or morals. When they speak from themselves, indeed,
they give us exalted sentiments of virtue and sound philosophy; when
they indulge in poetic recollections, they present us with the fables
of antiquity. Hence the gods are alternately, and as the subject
requires, venerable or contemptible; and this could not but happen
through the want of some acknowledged religious standard, to which all
might with confidence refer.
I come now to a more serious charge against Juvenal, that of indecency.
To hear the clamor raised against him, it might be supposed, by one
unacquainted with the times, that he was the only indelicate writer
of his age and country. Yet Horace and Persius wrote with equal
grossness: yet the rigid Stoicism of Seneca did not deter him from
the use of expressions, which Juvenal perhaps would have rejected:
yet the courtly Pliny poured out gratuitous indecencies in his frigid
hendecasyllables, which he attempts to justify by the example of a
writer to whose freedom the licentiousness of Juvenal is purity! It
seems as if there was something of pique in the singular severity with
which he is censured. His pure and sublime morality operates as a tacit
reproach on the generality of mankind, who seek to indemnify themselves
by questioning the sanctity which they can not but respect; and find a
secret pleasure in persuading one another that "this dreaded satirist"
was at heart no inveterate enemy to the licentiousness which he so
vehemently reprehends.
When we consider the unnatural vices at which Juvenal directs his
indignation, and reflect, at the same time, on the peculiar qualities
of his mind, we shall not find much cause, perhaps, for wonder at the
strength of his expressions. I should resign him in silence to the
hatred of mankind, if his aim, like that of too many others, whose
works are read with delight, had been to render vice amiable, to
fling his seducing colors over impurity, and inflame the passions by
meretricious hints at what is only innoxious when exposed in native
deformity: but when I find that his views are to render depravity
loathsome; that every thing which can alarm and disgust is directed at
her in his terrible page, I forget the grossness of the execution in
the excellence of the design; and pay my involuntary homage to that
integrity, which fearlessly calling in strong description to the aid
of virtue, attempts to purify the passions, at the hazard of wounding
delicacy and offending taste. This is due to Juvenal: in justice to
myself, let me add, that I could have been better pleased to have had
no occasion to speak at all on the subject.
Whether any considerations of this or a similar nature deterred our
literati from turning these Satires into English, I can not say; but,
though partial versions might be made, it was not until the beginning
of the seventeenth century that a complete translation was thought of;
when two men, of celebrity in their days, undertook it about the same
time; these were Barten Holyday and Sir Robert Stapylton. Who entered
first upon the task, can not well be told. There appears somewhat of
a querulousness on both sides; a jealousy that their versions had
been communicated in manuscript to each other: Stapylton's, however,
was first published, though that of Holyday seems to have been first
finished.
Of this ingenious man it is not easy to speak with too much
respect. His learning, industry, judgment, and taste are every
where conspicuous: nor is he without a very considerable portion of
shrewdness to season his observations. His poetry indeed, or rather
his ill-measured prose, is intolerable; no human patience can toil
through a single page of it;[27] but his notes will always be consulted
with pleasure. His work has been of considerable use to the subsequent
editors of Juvenal, both at home and abroad; and indeed, such is
its general accuracy, that little excuse remains for any notorious
deviation from the sense of the original.
Stapylton had equal industry, and more poetry; but he wanted his
learning, judgment, and ingenuity. His notes, though numerous, are
trite, and scarcely beyond the reach of a schoolboy. He is besides
scandalously indecent on many occasions, where his excellent rival was
innocently unfaithful, or silent.
With these translations, such as they were, the public was satisfied
until the end of the seventeenth century, when the necessity of
something more poetical becoming apparent, the booksellers, as Johnson
says, "proposed a new version to the poets of that time, which was
undertaken by Dryden, whose reputation was such, that no man was
unwilling to serve the Muses under him. "
Dryden's account of this translation is given with such candor, in the
exquisite dedication which precedes it, that I shall lay it before the
reader in his own words.
"The common way which we have taken, is not a literal translation, but
a kind of paraphrase, or somewhat which is yet more loose, betwixt a
paraphrase and a translation. Thus much may be said for us, that if we
give not the whole sense of Juvenal, yet we give the most considerable
part of it: we give it, in general, so clearly, that few notes are
sufficient to make us intelligible: we make our author at least appear
in a poetic dress. We have actually made him more sounding, and more
elegant, than he was before in English: and have endeavored to make him
speak that kind of English, which he would have spoken had he lived in
England, and had written to this age. If sometimes any of us (and it
is but seldom) make him express the customs and manners of his native
country rather than of Rome, it is, either when there was some kind of
analogy betwixt their customs and ours, or when, to make him more easy
to vulgar understandings, we gave him those manners which are familiar
to us. But I defend not this innovation, it is enough if I can excuse
it. For to speak sincerely, the manners of nations and ages are not to
be confounded. "[28]
This is, surely, sufficiently modest. Johnson's description of it is
somewhat more favorable: "The general character of this translation
will be given, when it is said to preserve the wit, but to want the
dignity, of the original. " Is this correct? Dryden frequently degrades
the author into a jester; but Juvenal has few moments of levity. Wit,
indeed, he possesses in an eminent degree, but it is tinctured with his
peculiarities; "rarò jocos," as Lipsius well observes, "sæpius acerbos
sales miscet. " Dignity is the predominant quality of his mind: he can,
and does, relax with grace, but he never forgets himself; he smiles,
indeed; but his smile is more terrible than his frown, for it is never
excited but when his indignation is mingled with contempt; "ridet
et odit! " Where his dignity, therefore, is wanting, his wit will be
imperfectly preserved. [29]
On the whole, there is nothing in this quotation to deter succeeding
writers from attempting, at least, to supply the deficiencies of Dryden
and his fellow-laborers; and, perhaps, I could point out several
circumstances which might make it laudable, if not necessary: but this
would be to trifle with the reader, who is already apprised that, as
far as relates to myself, no motives but those of obedience determined
me to the task for which I now solicit the indulgence of the public.
When I took up this author, I knew not of any other translator; nor
was it until the scheme of publishing him was started, that I began to
reflect seriously on the nature of what I had undertaken, to consider
by what exertions I could render that useful which was originally
meant to amuse, and justify, in some measure, the partiality of my
benefactors.
My first object was to become as familiar as possible with my author,
of whom I collected every edition that my own interest, or that of my
friends, could procure; together with such translations as I could
discover either here or abroad; from a careful examination of all
these, I formed the plan, to which, while I adapted my former labors, I
anxiously strove to accommodate my succeeding ones.
Dryden has said, "if we give not the whole, yet we give the most
considerable part of it. " My determination was to give the whole, and
really make the work what it professed to be, a translation of Juvenal.
I had seen enough of castrated editions, to observe that little was
gained by them on the score of propriety; since, when the author was
reduced to half his bulk, at the expense of his spirit and design,
sufficient remained to alarm the delicacy for which the sacrifice had
been made. Chaucer observes with great naiveté,
"Whoso shall tell a tale after a man,
He moste reherse as neighe as ever he can
Everich word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he never so rudely and so large. "
And indeed the age of Chaucer, like that of Juvenal, allowed of such
liberties. Other times, other manners. Many words were in common
use with our ancestors, which raised no improper ideas, though they
would not, and indeed could not, at this time be tolerated. With the
Greeks and Romans it was still worse: their dress, which left many
parts of the body exposed, gave a boldness to their language, which
was not perhaps lessened by the infrequency of women at those social
conversations, of which they now constitute the refinement and the
delight. Add to this that their mythology, and sacred rites, which took
their rise in very remote periods, abounded in the undisguised phrases
of a rude and simple age, and being religiously handed down from
generation to generation, gave a currency to many terms, which offered
no violence to modesty, though abstractedly considered by people of a
different language and manners, they appear pregnant with turpitude and
guilt.
When we observe this licentiousness (for I should wrong many of
the ancient writers to call it libertinism) in the pages of their
historians and philosophers, we may be pretty confident that it raised
no blush on the cheek of their readers. It was the language of the
times--"hæc illis natura est omnibus una:" and if it be considered
as venial in those, surely a little farther indulgence will not be
misapplied to the satirist, whose object is the exposure of what the
former have only to notice.
Thus much may suffice for Juvenal: but shame and sorrow on the head of
him who presumes to transfer his grossness into the vernacular tongues!
"Legimus aliqua ne legantur," was said of old, by one of a pure and
zealous mind. Without pretending to his high motives, I have felt the
influence of his example, and in his apology must therefore hope to
find my own. Though the poet be given entire, I have endeavored to make
him speak as he would probably have spoken if he had lived among us;
when, refined with the age, he would have fulminated against impurity
in terms, to which, though delicacy might disavow them, manly decency
might listen without offense.
I have said above, that "the whole of Juvenal" is here given; this,
however, must be understood with a few restrictions. Where vice, of
whatever nature, formed the immediate object of reprobation, it has
not been spared in the translation; but I have sometimes taken the
liberty of omitting an exceptionable line, when it had no apparent
connection with the subject of the Satire. Some acquaintance with the
original will be necessary to discover these lacunæ, which do not, in
all, amount to half a page: for the rest, I have no apologies to make.
Here are no allusions, covert or open, to the follies and vices of
modern times; nor has the dignity of the original been prostituted, in
a single instance, to the gratification of private spleen.
I have attempted to follow, as far as I judged it feasible, the style
of my author, which is more various than is usually supposed. It is not
necessary to descend to particulars; but my meaning will be understood
by those who carefully compare the original of the thirteenth and
fourteenth Satires with the translation. In the twelfth, and in that
alone, I have perhaps raised it a little; but it really appears so
contemptible a performance in the doggerel of Dryden's coadjutor,
that I thought somewhat more attention than ordinary was in justice
due to it. It is not a chef-d'œuvre by any means; but it is a pretty
and a pleasing little poem, deserving more notice than it has usually
received.
I could have been sagacious and obscure on many occasions, with very
little difficulty; but I strenuously combated every inclination to
find out more than my author meant. The general character of this
translation, if I do not deceive myself, will be found to be plainness;
and, indeed, the highest praise to which I aspire, is that of having
left the original more intelligible to the English reader than I found
it.
On numbering the lines, I find that my translation contains a few
less than Dryden's. Had it been otherwise, I should not have thought
an apology necessary, nor would it perhaps appear extraordinary,
when it is considered that I have introduced an infinite number of
circumstances from the text, which he thought himself justified in
omitting; and that, with the trifling exceptions already mentioned,
nothing has been passed; whereas he and his assistants overlooked whole
sections, and sometimes very considerable ones. [30] Every where, too, I
have endeavored to render the transitions less abrupt, and to obviate
or disguise the difficulties which a difference of manners, habits,
etc. , necessarily creates: all this calls for an additional number of
lines; which the English reader, at least, will seldom have occasion to
regret.
Of the "borrowed learning of notes," which Dryden says he avoided as
much as possible, I have amply availed myself. During the long period
in which my thoughts were fixed on Juvenal, it was usual with me,
whenever I found a passage that related to him, to impress it on my
memory, or to note it down. These, on the revision of the work for
publication, were added to such reflections as arose in my own mind,
and arranged in the manner in which they now appear. I confess that
this was not an unpleasant task to me, and I will venture to hope,
that if my own suggestions fail to please, yet the frequent recurrence
of some of the most striking and beautiful passages of ancient and
modern poetry, history, etc. , will render it neither unamusing nor
uninstructive to the general reader. The information insinuated into
the mind by miscellaneous collections of this nature, is much greater
than is usually imagined; and I have been frequently encouraged to
proceed by recollecting the benefits which I formerly derived from
casual notices scattered over the margin, or dropped at the bottom of a
page.
In this compilation, I proceeded on no regular plan, farther than
considering what, if I had been a mere English reader, I should wish
to have had explained: it is therefore extremely probable, as every
rule of this nature must be imperfect, that I have frequently erred;
have spoken where I should be silent and been prolix where I should
be brief: on the whole, however, I chose to offend on the safer side;
and to leave nothing unsaid, at the hazard of sometimes saying too
much. Tedious, perhaps, I may be; but, I trust, not dull; and with
this negative commendation I must be satisfied. The passages produced
are not always translated; but the English reader needs not for that
be discouraged in proceeding, as he will frequently find sufficient in
the context to give him a general idea of the meaning. In many places
I have copied the words, together with the sentiments of the writer;
for this, if it call for an apology, I shall take that of Macrobius,
who had somewhat more occasion for it than I shall be found to have:
"Nec mihi vitio vertas, si res quas ex lectione varia mutuabor, ipsis
sæpè verbis quibus ab ipsis auctoribus enarratæ sunt explicabo, quia
præsens opus non eloquentiæ ostentationem, sed noscendorum congeriem
pollicetur," etc. Saturn. , lib. i. , c. 1.
* * * * *
I have now said all that occurs to me on this subject: a more pleasing
one remains. I can not, indeed, like Dryden, boast of my poetical
coadjutors. No Congreves and Creeches have abridged, while they
adorned, my labors; yet have I not been without assistance, and of the
most valuable kind.
Whoever is acquainted with the habits of intimacy in which I have
lived from early youth with the Rev. Dr. Ireland,[31] will not want
to be informed of his share in the following pages. To those who are
not, it is proper to say, that besides the passages in which he is
introduced by name, every other part of the work has been submitted to
his inspection. Nor would his affectionate anxiety for the reputation
of his friend suffer any part of the translation to appear, without
undergoing the strictest revision. His uncommon accuracy, judgment, and
learning have been uniformly exerted on it, not less, I am confident,
to the advantage of the reader, than to my own satisfaction. It will be
seen that we sometimes differ in opinion; but as I usually distrust my
own judgment in those cases, the decision is submitted to the reader.
I have also to express my obligations to Abraham Moore, Esq. , barrister
at law, a gentleman whose taste and learning are well known to be
only surpassed by his readiness to oblige: of which I have the most
convincing proofs; since the hours dedicated to the following sheets
(which I lament that he only saw in their progress through the press)
were snatched from avocations as urgent as they were important.
Nor must I overlook the friendly assistance of William Porden,
Esq. ,[32] which, like that of the former gentleman, was given to me,
amid the distraction of more immediate concerns, with a readiness that
enhanced the worth of what was, in itself, highly valuable.
A paper was put into my hand by Mr. George Nicol, the promoter of
every literary work, from R. P. Knight, Esq. , containing subjects for
engravings illustrative of Juvenal, and, with singular generosity,
offering me the use of his marbles, gems, etc. As these did not fall
within my plan, I can only here return him my thanks for a kindness
as extraordinary as it was unexpected. But I have other and greater
obligations to Mr. Nicol. In conjunction with his son, Mr. William
Nicol, he has watched the progress of this work through the press with
unwearied solicitude. During my occasional absences from town, the
correction of it (for which, indeed, the state of my eyes renders me
at all times rather unfit) rested almost solely on him; and it is but
justice to add, that his habitual accuracy in this ungrateful employ is
not the only quality to which I am bound to confess my obligations.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The origin of this word is now acknowledged to be Roman. Scaliger
derived it from σατυρος (_satyrus_), but Casaubon, Dacier, and others,
more reasonably, from _satura_ (fem. of _satur_), rich, abounding, full
of variety. In this sense it was applied to the lanx or charger, in
which the various productions of the soil were offered up to the gods;
and thus came to be used for any miscellaneous collection in general.
_Satura olla_, a hotch-potch; _saturæ leges_, laws comprehending a
multitude of regulations, etc. This deduction of the name may serve
to explain, in some measure, the nature of the first Satires, which
treated of various subjects, and were full of various matters: but
enough on this trite topic.
[17] It should be observed, however, that the idea was obvious, and
the work itself highly necessary. The old Satire, amid much coarse
ribaldry, frequently attacked the follies and vices of the day. This
could not be done by the comedy which superseded it, and which, by
a strange perversity of taste, was never rendered national. Its
customs, manners, nay, its very plots, were Grecian; and scarcely more
applicable to the Romans than to us.
[18] To extend this to Lucilius, as is sometimes done, is absurd, since
he evidently had in view the old comedy of the Greeks, of which his
Satires, according to Horace, were rigid imitations:
"Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poëtæ
Atque alii, quorum comœdia prisca virorum est;
Si quia erat dignus describi, quod malus, aut fur,
Quod mœchus foret, aut sicarius, aut alioqui
Famosus, multa cum libertate notabant.
HINC omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus,
Mutatis tantum pedibus, numerisque. "
Here the matter would seem to be at once determined by a very competent
judge. Strip the old Greek comedy of its action, and change the metre
from Iambic to Heroic, and you have the Roman Satire! It is evident
from this, that, unless two things be granted, first, that the actors
in those ancient Satires were ignorant of the existence of the Greek
comedy; and, secondly, that Ennius, who knew it well, passed it by for
a ruder model; the Romans can have no pretensions to the honor they
claim.
And even if this be granted, the honor appears to be scarcely worth
the claiming; for the Greeks had not only Dramatic, but Lyric and
Heroic Satire. To pass by the Margites, what were the Iambics of
Archilochus, and the Scazons of Hipponax, but Satires? nay, what were
the Silli? Casaubon derives them απο του σιλλαινειν, to scoff, to treat
petulantly; and there is no doubt of the justness of his derivation.
These little pieces were made up of passages from various poems, which
by slight alterations were humorously or satirically applied at will.
The Satires of Ennius were probably little more; indeed, we have the
express authority of Diomedes the grammarian for it. After speaking of
Lucilius, whose writings he derives, with Horace, from the old comedy,
he adds, "et olim carmen, quod ex variis poematibus constabat, satira
vocabatur; quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius. " Modern critics agree
in understanding "ex variis poematibus," of various kinds of metre;
but I do not see why it may not mean, as I have rendered it, "of
various poems;" unless we choose to compliment the Romans, by supposing
that what was in the Greeks a mere cento, was in them an original
composition.
It would scarcely be doing justice, however, to Ennius, to suppose
that he did not surpass his models, for, to say the truth, the Greek
Silli appear to have been no very extraordinary performances. A few
short specimens of them may be seen in Diogenes Laertius, and a longer
one, which has escaped the writers on this subject, in Dio Chrysostom.
As this is, perhaps, the only Greek Satire extant, it may be regarded
as a curiosity; and as such, for as a literary effort it is worth
nothing, a short extract from it may not be uninteresting. Sneering at
the people of Alexandria, for their mad attachment to chariot-races,
etc. , he says, this folly of theirs is not ill exposed by one of those
scurrilous writers of (Silli, or) parodies: ου κακως τις παρεποιησε των
σαπρων τουτων ποιητων·
Ἁρματα δ' αλλοτε μεν χθονι πιλνατο πουλυβοτειρῃ,
Αλλοτε δ' αεξασκε μετηορα· τοι δε θεαται
Θωκοις εν σφετεροις, ουθ' ἑστασαν, ουδ' εκαθηντο,
Χλωροι ὑπαι δειους πεφοβημενοι, ουδ' ὑπο νικες
Αλληλοισι τε κεκλομενοι, και πασι θεοισι
Χειρας ανισχοντες, μεγαλ' ευχετοωντο ἑκαστοι.
Ἡυτε περ κλαγγη γερανων πελει, ηε κολοιων,
Ἁι τ' επει ουν ζυθον τ' επιον, και αθεσπατον οινον,
Κλαγγῃ ται γε πετονται απο σταδιοιο κελευθου. κ. τ. λ.
_Ad Alexand. Orat. _ xxxii.
[19] I doubt whether he was ever a good royalist at heart; he
frequently, perhaps unconsciously, betrays a lurking dissatisfaction;
but having, as Johnson says of a much greater man, "tasted the honey of
favor," he did not choose to return to hunger and philosophy. Indeed,
he was not happy; in the country he sighs for the town, in town for the
country; and he is always restless, and straining after something which
he never obtains. To float, like Aristippus, with the stream, is a bad
recipe for felicity; there must be some fixed principle, by which the
passions and desires may be regulated.
[20] He is careful to disclaim all participation in public affairs. He
accompanies Mæcenas in his carriage; but their chat, he wishes it to be
believed, is on the common topics of the day, the weather, amusements,
etc. Though this may not be strictly true, it is yet probable that
politics furnished but a small part of their conversation. That both
Augustus and his minister were warmly attached to him, can not be
denied; but then it was as to a plaything. In a word, Horace seems to
have been the "enfant gaté," of the palace, and was viewed, I believe,
with more tenderness than respect.
[21] Mr. Drummond has given this passage with equal elegance and truth:
"With greater art sly Horace gain'd his end,
But spared no failing of his smiling friend;
Sportive and pleasant round the heart he play'd,
And wrapt in jests the censure he convey'd;
With such address his willing victims seized,
That tickled fools were rallied, and were pleased. "
[22] Dusaulx accounts for this by the general consternation. Most of
those, he says, distinguished for talents or rank, took refuge in the
school of Zeno; not so much to learn in it how to live, as how to die.
I think, on the contrary, that this would rather have driven them into
the arms of Epicurus. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,"
will generally be found, I believe, to be the maxim of dangerous times.
It would not be difficult to show, if this were the place for it, that
the prevalency of Stoicism was due to the increase of profligacy, for
which it furnished a convenient cloak. This, however, does not apply to
Persius.
[23] I believe that Juvenal meant to describe himself in the following
spirited picture of Lucilius:
"Ense velut stricto quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est
Criminibus, tacita sudant præcordia culpa. "
[24] This is an error which has been so often repeated, that it is
believed. What liberty was destroyed by the usurpation of Augustus? For
more than half a century, Rome had been a prey to ambitious chiefs,
while five or six civil wars, each more bloody than the other, had
successively delivered up the franchises of the empire to the conqueror
of the day. The Gracchi first opened the career to ambition, and wanted
nothing but the means of corruption, which the East afterward supplied,
to effect what Marius, Sylla, and the two triumvirates brought about
with sufficient ease.
[25] This is a very strange observation. It looks as if Dusaulx had
leaped from the times of old Metellus to those of Augustus, without
casting a glance at the interval. The chef d'œuvres of Roman literature
were in every hand, when he supposed them to be neglected: and, indeed,
if Horace had left us nothing, the qualities of which Dusaulx speaks
might still be found in many works produced before he was known.
[26] I have often wished that we had some of the pleadings of Juvenal.
It can not be affirmed, I think, that there is any natural connection
between prose and verse in the same mind, though it may be observed,
that most of our celebrated poets have written admirably "solutâ
oratione:" yet if Juvenal's oratory bore any resemblance to his poetry,
he yielded to few of the best ornaments of the bar. The "torrens
dicendi copia" was his, in an eminent degree; nay, so full, so rich,
so strong, and so magnificent is his eloquence, that I have heard one
well qualified to judge, frequently declare that Cicero himself, in his
estimation, could hardly be said to surpass him.
[27] With all my respect for the learning of the good old man, it is
impossible, now and then, to suppress a smile at his simplicity. In
apologizing for his translation, he says: "As for publishing poetry, it
needs no defense; there being, if my Lord of Verulam's judgment shall
be admitted, 'a _divine rapture_ in it! '"
[28] He evidently alludes to the versions of the second and eighth
Satires by Tate and Stepney, but principally to the latter, in which
Juvenal illustrates his argument by the practice of Smithfield and
Newmarket! Indeed, Dryden himself, though confessedly aware of its
impropriety, is not altogether free from "innovation;" he talks of the
Park, and the Mall, and the Opera, and of many other objects, familiar
to the translator, but which the original writer could only know by the
spirit of prophecy.
I am sensible how difficult it is to keep the manners of different
ages perfectly distinct in a work like this: I have never knowingly
confounded them, and, I trust, not often inadvertently; yet more
occasions perhaps of exercising the reader's candor will appear, after
all, than are desirable.
[29] Yet Johnson knew him well. The peculiarity of Juvenal, he says
(vol. ix. , p. 424), "is a mixture of gayety and stateliness, of pointed
sentences, and declamatory grandeur. " A good idea of it may be formed
from his own beautiful imitation of the third Satire. His imitation
of the tenth (still more beautiful as a poem) has scarcely a trait of
the author's manner--that is to say, of that "mixture of gayety and
stateliness," which, according to his own definition, constitutes the
"peculiarity of Juvenal. " "The Vanity of Human Wishes" is uniformly
stately and severe, and without those light and popular strokes of
sarcasm which abound so much in his "London. "
[30] In the fourteenth Satire, for example, there is an omission of
fifteen lines, and this, too, in a passage of singular importance.
[31] Sub-Dean and Prebendary of Westminster, and Vicar of Croydon, in
Surrey.
[32] The architect of Eton Hall, Cheshire, a structure which even now
stands pre-eminent among the works which embellish the nation, and
which future times will contemplate with equal wonder and delight.
CHRONOLOGY OF JUVENAL, PERSIUS, AND SULPICIA.
A. D. 14-138.
|OL. |A. D. |A. U. C. |X
| | | |
| | 14| 767|Death of Augustus, August 19th.
| | | |
| | | |Accession of Tiberius, anno ætat. 55.
| | | |
| | 16| 769|Rise of Sejanus. Cf. A. D. 31. Tac. Ann. vi. 8.
| | | |
| | 18| 771|Death of Ovid and Livy. Strabo still writing.
| | | |
| | 19| 772|Death of Germanicus. Jews banished from Italy (alluded
| | | |to, Sat. iii. 14; vi. 543).
| | | |
|200| 21| 774|Tiberius, on the plea of ill health, goes in the spring
| | | |into Campania.
| | | |
| | 23| 776|Influence of Sejanus. Cf. Tac. Ann. iv. 6.
| | | |
| | | |(Vid. Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 181. )
| | | |
| | 24| 777|Cassius Severus, an exile in Seriphos. Tac. Ann. iv. 21.
| | | |
| | | |«Cf. Sat. i. 73; vi. 563, 564; x. 170; xiii. 246. »
| | | |
| | | |C. Plinius Secundus, of Verona, born.
| | | |
| | 26| 779|Consulship of Cn. Lentulus Gætulicus. (Cf. ad viii. 26. )
| | | |
| | 27| 780|Tiberius retires to Capreæ. Tac. Ann. iv. 67. Sat. x.
| | | |90-95, and 72.
| | | |
| | 28| 781|Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus, married to Domitius.
| | | |«Nero is the issue of this marriage, born A. D. 37. »
| | | |Sat. viii. 228; vi. 615.
| | | |
|202| 29| 782|Death of Livia, mother of Tiberius.
| | | |
| | | |(Cf. Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 180. )
| | | |
| | 31| 784|Tiberius consul with Sejanus. Suet. Tib. 26, 65.
| | | |
| | | |Fall of Sejanus, Oct. 18. He had been in favor now 16
| | | |years. The day of his death was consecrated to Jove.
| | | |Sat. x. 56-107. Cf. Tac. Ann. vi. 25.
| | | |
| | 32| 785|Birth of Otho.
| | | |
| | 34| 787|A. Persius Flaccus, born at Volaterræ in Etruria.
Antonines, restored the Romans to safety and tranquillity; but they
could do no more; liberty and virtue were gone forever; and after a
short period of comparative happiness, which they scarcely appear to
have deserved, and which brought with it no amelioration of mind, no
return of the ancient modesty and frugality, they were finally resigned
to destruction.
I now proceed to the "comparative view" of which I have already spoken:
as the subject has been so often treated, little of novelty can be
expected from it; to read, compare, and judge, is almost all that
remains.
HORACE, who was gay, and lively, and gentle, and affectionate, seems
fitted for the period in which he wrote. He had seen the worst times
of the republic, and might therefore, with no great suspicion of his
integrity, be allowed to acquiesce in the infant monarchy, which
brought with it stability, peace, and pleasure. How he reconciled
himself to his political tergiversation it is useless to inquire. [19]
What was so general, we may suppose, brought with it but little
obloquy; and it should be remembered, to his praise, that he took no
active part in the government which he had once opposed. [20]
If he celebrates the master of the world, it is not until he is asked
by him whether he is ashamed that posterity should know them to be
friends; and he declines a post, which few of his detractors have merit
to deserve, or virtue to refuse.
His choice of privacy, however, was in some measure constitutional;
for he had an easiness of temper which bordered on indolence; hence he
never rises to the dignity of a decided character. Zeno and Epicurus
share his homage and undergo his ridicule by turns: he passes without
difficulty from one school to another, and he thinks it a sufficient
excuse for his versatility, that he continues, amid every change, the
zealous defender of virtue. Virtue, however, abstractedly considered,
has few obligations to his zeal.
But though, as an ethical writer, Horace has not many claims to the
esteem of posterity; as a critic, he is entitled to all our veneration.
Such is the soundness of his judgment, the correctness of his taste,
and the extent and variety of his knowledge, that a body of criticism
might be selected from his works, more perfect in its kind than any
thing which antiquity has bequeathed us.
As he had little warmth of temper, he reproves his contemporaries
without harshness. He is content to "dwell in decencies," and, like
Pope's courtly dean, "never mentions hell to ears polite. " Persius, who
was infinitely better acquainted with him than we can pretend to be,
describes him, I think, with great happiness:
"Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico
Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia ludit,
Callidus excusso populum suspendere naso. "
"He, with a sly insinuating grace,
Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the face:
Would raise a blush, where secret vice he found,
And tickle, while he gently probed the wound:
With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled;
But made the desperate passes when he smiled. "
These beautiful lines have a defect under which Dryden's translations
frequently labor; they do not give the true sense of the original.
Horace "raised no blush" (at least Persius does not insinuate any such
thing), and certainly "made no desperate passes. "[21] His aim rather
seems to be, to keep the objects of his satire in good humor with
himself, and with one another.
To raise a laugh at vice, however (supposing it feasible), is not
the legitimate office of Satire, which is to hold up the vicious, as
objects of reprobation and scorn, for the example of others, who may
be deterred by their sufferings. But it is time to be explicit. To
laugh even at fools is superfluous; if they understand you, they will
join in the merriment; but more commonly, they will sit with vacant
unconcern, and gaze at their own pictures: to laugh at the vicious,
is to encourage them; for there is in such men a willfulness of
disposition, which prompts them to bear up against shame, and to show
how little they regard slight reproof, by becoming more audacious in
guilt. Goodness, of which the characteristic is modesty, may, I fear,
be shamed; but vice, like folly, to be restrained, must be overawed.
Labeo, says Hall, with great energy and beauty--
"Labeo is whipt, and laughs me in the face;
Why? for I smite, and hide the galled place.
Gird but the Cynic's helmet on his head,
Cares he for Talus, or his flayle of lead? "
PERSIUS, who borrowed so much of Horace's language, has little of his
manner. The immediate object of his imitation seems to be Lucilius;
and if he lashes vice with less severity than his great prototype, the
cause must not be sought in any desire to spare what he so evidently
condemned. But he was thrown "on evil times;" he was, besides, of a
rank distinguished enough to make his freedom dangerous, and of an age
when life had yet lost little of its novelty; to write, therefore,
even as he has written, proves him to be a person of very singular
courage and virtue.
In the interval between Horace and Persius, despotism had changed its
nature: the chains which the policy of Augustus concealed in flowers,
were now displayed in all their hideousness. The arts were neglected,
literature of every kind discouraged or disgraced, and terror and
suspicion substituted in the place of the former ease and security.
Stoicism, which Cicero accuses of having infected poetry, even in his
days, and of which the professors, as Quintilian observes, always
disregarded the graces and elegancies of composition, spread with
amazing rapidity. [22] In this school Persius was educated, under the
care of one of its most learned and respectable masters.
Satire was not his first pursuit; indeed, he seems to have somewhat
mistaken his talents when he applied to it. The true end of this
species of writing, as Dusaulx justly says, is the improvement of
society; but for this, much knowledge of mankind ("quicquid agunt
homines") is previously necessary. Whoever is deficient in that, may be
an excellent moral and philosophical poet; but can not, with propriety,
lay claim to the honors of a satirist.
And Persius was moral and philosophical in a high degree: he was also
a poet of no mean order. But while he grew pale over the page of Zeno,
and Cleanthes, and Chrysippus; while he imbibed, with all the ardor
of a youthful mind, the paradoxes of those great masters, together
with their principles, the foundations of civil society were crumbling
around him, and soliciting his attention in vain. To judge from what
he has left us, it might almost be affirmed that he was a stranger
in his own country. The degradation of Rome was now complete; yet he
felt, at least he expresses, no indignation at the means by which it
was effected: a sanguinary buffoon was lording it over the prostrate
world; yet he continued to waste his most elaborate efforts on the
miserable pretensions of pedants in prose and verse! If this savor
of the impassibility of Stoicism, it is entitled to no great praise
on the score of outraged humanity, which has stronger claims on a
well-regulated mind, than criticism, or even philosophy.
Dryden gives that praise to the dogmas of Persius, which he denies to
his poetry. "His verse," he says, "is scabrous and hobbling, and his
measures beneath those of Horace. " This is too severe; for Persius has
many exquisite passages, which nothing in Horace will be found to equal
or approach. The charge of obscurity has been urged against him with
more justice; though this, perhaps, is not so great as it is usually
represented. Casaubon could, without question, have defended him more
successfully than he has done; but he was overawed by the brutal
violence of the elder Scaliger; for I can scarcely persuade myself that
he really believed this obscurity to be owing to "the fear of Nero, or
the advice of Cornutus. " The cause of it should be rather sought in his
natural disposition, and in his habits of thinking. Generally speaking,
however, it springs from a too frequent use of tropes, approaching in
almost every instance to a catachresis, an anxiety of compression,
and a quick and unexpected transition from one overstrained figure to
another. After all, with the exception of the sixth Satire, which, from
its abruptness, does not appear to have received the author's last
touches, I do not think there is much to confound an attentive reader:
some acquaintance, indeed, with the porch "braccatis illita Medis,"
is previously necessary. His life may be contemplated with unabated
pleasure: the virtue he recommends, he practiced in the fullest extent;
and at an age when few have acquired a determinate character, he left
behind him an established reputation for genius, learning, and worth.
JUVENAL wrote at a period still more detestable than that of Persius.
Domitian, who now governed the empire, seems to have inherited the bad
qualities of all his predecessors. Tiberius was not more hypocritical,
nor Caligula more bloody, nor Claudius more sottish, nor Nero more
mischievous, than this ferocious despot; who, as Theodorus Gadareus
indignantly declared of Tiberius, was truly πηλον αἱματι πεφυραμενον· a
lump of clay kneaded up with blood!
Juvenal, like Persius, professes to follow Lucilius; but what was
in one a simple attempt, is in the other a real imitation, of his
manner. [23] Fluent and witty as Horace, grave and sublime as Persius;
of a more decided character than the former, better acquainted with
mankind than the latter; he did not confine himself to the mode of
regulating an intercourse with the great, or to abstract disquisitions
on the nature of scholastic liberty; but, disregarding the claims of
a vain urbanity, and fixing all his soul on the eternal distinctions
of moral good and evil, he labored, with a magnificence of language
peculiar to himself, to set forth the loveliness of virtue, and the
deformity and horror of vice, in full and perfect display.
Dusaulx, who is somewhat prejudiced against Horace, does ample justice
to Juvenal. There is great force in what he says; and, as I do not know
that it ever appeared in English, I shall take the liberty of laying a
part of it before the reader, at the hazard of a few repetitions.
"The bloody revolution which smothered the last sighs of liberty,[24]
had not yet found time to debase the minds of a people, among whom the
traditionary remains of the old manners still subsisted. The cruel
but politic Octavius scattered flowers over the paths he was secretly
tracing toward despotism: the arts of Greece, transplanted to the
Capitol, flourished beneath his auspices; and the remembrance of so
many civil dissensions, succeeding each other with increasing rapidity,
excited a degree of reverence for the author of this unprecedented
tranquillity. The Romans felicitated themselves at not lying down, as
before, with an apprehension of finding themselves included, when they
awoke, in the list of proscription: and neglected, amid the amusements
of the circus and the theatre, those civil rights of which their
fathers had been so jealous.
"Profiting of these circumstances, Horace forgot that he had combated
on the side of liberty. A better courtier than a soldier, he clearly
saw how far the refinement, the graces, and the cultivated state of his
genius (qualities not much considered or regarded till his time[25]),
were capable of advancing him without any extraordinary effort.
"Indifferent to the future, and not daring to recall the past, he
thought of nothing but securing himself from all that could sadden the
mind, and disturb the system which he had skillfully arranged on the
credit of those then in power. It is on this account, that, of all his
contemporaries, he has celebrated none but the friends of his master,
or, at least, those whom he could praise without fear of compromising
his favor.
"In what I have said of Horace, my chief design has been to show that
this Proteus, who counted among his friends and admirers even those
whose conduct he censured, chose rather to capitulate than contend;
that he attached no great importance to his own rules, and adhered to
his principles no longer than they favored his views.
"JUVENAL began his satiric career where the other finished, that is
to say, he did that for morals and liberty, which Horace had done for
decorum and taste. Disdaining artifice of every kind, he boldly raised
his voice against the usurpation of power; and incessantly recalled the
memory of the glorious æra of independence to those degenerate Romans,
who had substituted suicide in the place of their ancient courage; and
from the days of Augustus to those of Domitian, only avenged their
slavery by an epigram or a bonmot.
"The characteristics of Juvenal were energy, passion, and indignation:
it is, nevertheless, easy to discover that he is sometimes more
afflicted than exasperated. His great aim was to alarm the vicious,
and, if possible, to exterminate vice, which had, as it were,
acquired a legal establishment. A noble enterprise! but he wrote in a
detestable age, when the laws of nature were publicly violated, and
the love of their country so completely eradicated from the breasts
of his fellow-citizens, that, brutified as they were by slavery and
voluptuousness, by luxury and avarice, they merited rather the severity
of the executioner than the censor.
"Meanwhile the empire, shaken to its foundations, was rapidly crumbling
to dust. Despotism was consecrated by the senate; liberty, of which
a few slaves were still sensible, was nothing but an unmeaning word
for the rest, which, unmeaning as it was, they did not dare to
pronounce in public. Men of rank were declared enemies to the state for
having praised their equals; historians were condemned to the cross,
philosophy was proscribed, and its professors banished. Individuals
felt only for their own danger, which they too often averted by
accusing others; and there were instances of children who denounced
their own parents, and appeared as witnesses against them! It was not
possible to weep for the proscribed, for tears themselves became the
object of proscription; and when the tyrant of the day had condemned
the accused to banishment or death, the senate decreed that he should
be thanked for it, as for an act of singular favor.
"Juvenal, who looked upon the alliance of the agreeable with the odious
as utterly incompatible, contemned the feeble weapon of ridicule,
so familiar to his predecessor: he therefore seized the sword of
Satire, or, to speak more properly, fabricated one for himself, and
rushing from the palace to the tavern, and from the gates of Rome to
the boundaries of the empire, struck, without distinction, whoever
deviated from the course of nature, or from the paths of honor. It is
no longer a poet like Horace, fickle, pliant, and fortified with that
indifference so falsely called philosophical, who amused himself with
bantering vice, or, at most, with upbraiding a few errors of little
consequence, in a style, which, scarcely raised above the language of
conversation, flowed as indolence and pleasure directed; but a stern
and incorruptible censor, an inflamed and impetuous poet, who sometimes
rises with his subject to the noblest heights of tragedy. "
From this declamatory applause, which even La Harpe allows to be worthy
of the translator of Juvenal, the most rigid censor of our author can
not detract much; nor can much perhaps be added to it by his warmest
admirer. I could, indeed, have wished that he had not exalted him at
the expense of Horace; but something must be allowed for the partiality
of long acquaintance; and Casaubon, when he preferred Persius, with
whom he had taken great, and indeed successful pains, to Horace and
Juvenal, sufficiently exposed, while he tacitly accounted for, the
prejudices of commentators and translators. With respect to Horace, if
he falls beneath Juvenal (and who does not? ) in eloquence, in energy,
and in a vivid and glowing imagination, he evidently surpasses him
in taste and critical judgment. I could pursue the parallel through
a thousand ramifications, but the reader who does me the honor to
peruse the following sheets, will see that I have incidentally touched
upon some of them in the notes: and, indeed, I preferred scattering
my observations through the work, as they arose from the subject, to
bringing them together in this place; where they must evidently have
lost something of their pertinency, without much certainty of gaining
in their effect.
Juvenal is accused of being too sparing of praise. But are his critics
well assured that praise from Juvenal could be accepted with safety?
I do not know that a private station was "the post of honor" in those
days; it was, however, that of security. Martial, Statius, V. Flaccus,
and other parasites of Domitian, might indeed venture to celebrate
their friends, who were also those of the emperor. Juvenal's, it is
probable, were of another kind; and he might have been influenced no
less by humanity than prudence, in the sacred silence which he has
observed respecting them. Let it not be forgotten, however, that this
intrepid champion of virtue, who, under the twelfth despot, persisted,
as Dusaulx observes, in recognizing no sovereign but the senate, while
he passes by those whose safety his applause might endanger, has
generously celebrated the ancient assertors of liberty, in strains that
Tyrtæus might have wished his own.
He is also charged with being too rhetorical in his language. The
critics have discovered that he practiced at the bar, and they
will therefore have it that his Satires smack of his profession,
"redolent declamatorem. "[26] That he is luxuriant, or, if it must
be so, redundant, may be safely granted; but I doubt whether the
passages which are cited for proofs of this fault, were not reckoned
among his beauties by his contemporaries. The enumeration of deities
in the thirteenth Satire is well defended by Rigaltius, who admits,
at the same time, that if the author had inserted it any where but
in a Satire, he should have accounted him a babbler; "faterer Juv.
hic περιλαλον fuisse et verborum prodigum. " He appears to me equally
successful, in justifying the list of oaths in the same Satire, which
Creech, it appears, had not the courage to translate.
The other passages adduced in support of this charge, are either
metaphorical exaggerations, or long traits of indirect Satire, of
which Juvenal was as great a master as Horace. I do not say that these
are interesting to us; but they were eminently so to those for whom
they were written; and by their pertinency at the time, should they,
by every rule of fair criticism, be estimated. The version of such
passages is one of the miseries of translation.
I have also heard it objected to Juvenal, that there is in many of
his Satires a want of arrangement; this is particularly observed of
the sixth and tenth. I scarcely know what to reply to this. Those
who are inclined to object, would not be better satisfied, perhaps,
if the form of both were changed; for I suspect that there is no
natural gradation in the innumerable passions which agitate the human
breast. Some must precede, and others follow; but the order of march
is not, nor ever was, invariable. While I acquit him of this, however,
I readily acknowledge a want of care in many places, unless it be
rather attributable to a want of taste. On some occasions, too, when
he changed or enlarged his first sketch, he forgot to strike out the
unnecessary verses: to this are owing the repetitions to be found in
his longer works, as well as the transpositions, which have so often
perplexed the critics and translators.
Now I am upon this subject, I must not pass over a slovenliness in some
of his lines, for which he has been justly reproached by Jortin and
others, as it would have cost him no great pains to improve them. Why
he should voluntarily debase his poetry, it is difficult to say: if he
thought that he was imitating Horace in his laxity, his judgment must
suffer considerably. The verses of Horace are indeed akin to prose; but
as he seldom rises, he has the art of making his low flights, in which
all his motions are easy and graceful, appear the effect of choice.
Juvenal was qualified to "sit where he dared not soar. " His element was
that of the eagle, "descent and fall to him were adverse," and, indeed,
he never appears more awkward than when he flutters, or rather waddles,
along the ground.
I have observed in the course of the translation, that he embraced no
sect with warmth. In a man of such lively passions, the retention with
which he speaks of them all, is to be admired. From his attachment
to the writings of Seneca, I should incline to think that he leaned
toward Stoicism; his predilection for the school, however, was not
very strong: perhaps it is to be wished that he had entered a little
more deeply into it, as he seems not to have those distinct ideas
of the nature of virtue and vice, which were entertained by many of
the ancient philosophers, and indeed, by his immediate predecessor,
Persius. As a general champion for virtue, he is commonly successful,
but he sometimes misses his aim; and, in more than one instance,
confounds the nature of the several vices in his mode of attacking
them: he confounds too the very essence of virtue, which, in his
hands, has often "no local habitation and name," but varies with the
ever-varying passions and caprices of mankind. I know not whether it be
worth while to add, that he is accused of holding a different language
at different times respecting the gods, since in this he differs little
from the Greek and Roman poets in general; who, as often as they
introduce their divinities, state, as Juvenal does, the mythological
circumstances coupled with their names, without regard to the existing
system of physic or morals. When they speak from themselves, indeed,
they give us exalted sentiments of virtue and sound philosophy; when
they indulge in poetic recollections, they present us with the fables
of antiquity. Hence the gods are alternately, and as the subject
requires, venerable or contemptible; and this could not but happen
through the want of some acknowledged religious standard, to which all
might with confidence refer.
I come now to a more serious charge against Juvenal, that of indecency.
To hear the clamor raised against him, it might be supposed, by one
unacquainted with the times, that he was the only indelicate writer
of his age and country. Yet Horace and Persius wrote with equal
grossness: yet the rigid Stoicism of Seneca did not deter him from
the use of expressions, which Juvenal perhaps would have rejected:
yet the courtly Pliny poured out gratuitous indecencies in his frigid
hendecasyllables, which he attempts to justify by the example of a
writer to whose freedom the licentiousness of Juvenal is purity! It
seems as if there was something of pique in the singular severity with
which he is censured. His pure and sublime morality operates as a tacit
reproach on the generality of mankind, who seek to indemnify themselves
by questioning the sanctity which they can not but respect; and find a
secret pleasure in persuading one another that "this dreaded satirist"
was at heart no inveterate enemy to the licentiousness which he so
vehemently reprehends.
When we consider the unnatural vices at which Juvenal directs his
indignation, and reflect, at the same time, on the peculiar qualities
of his mind, we shall not find much cause, perhaps, for wonder at the
strength of his expressions. I should resign him in silence to the
hatred of mankind, if his aim, like that of too many others, whose
works are read with delight, had been to render vice amiable, to
fling his seducing colors over impurity, and inflame the passions by
meretricious hints at what is only innoxious when exposed in native
deformity: but when I find that his views are to render depravity
loathsome; that every thing which can alarm and disgust is directed at
her in his terrible page, I forget the grossness of the execution in
the excellence of the design; and pay my involuntary homage to that
integrity, which fearlessly calling in strong description to the aid
of virtue, attempts to purify the passions, at the hazard of wounding
delicacy and offending taste. This is due to Juvenal: in justice to
myself, let me add, that I could have been better pleased to have had
no occasion to speak at all on the subject.
Whether any considerations of this or a similar nature deterred our
literati from turning these Satires into English, I can not say; but,
though partial versions might be made, it was not until the beginning
of the seventeenth century that a complete translation was thought of;
when two men, of celebrity in their days, undertook it about the same
time; these were Barten Holyday and Sir Robert Stapylton. Who entered
first upon the task, can not well be told. There appears somewhat of
a querulousness on both sides; a jealousy that their versions had
been communicated in manuscript to each other: Stapylton's, however,
was first published, though that of Holyday seems to have been first
finished.
Of this ingenious man it is not easy to speak with too much
respect. His learning, industry, judgment, and taste are every
where conspicuous: nor is he without a very considerable portion of
shrewdness to season his observations. His poetry indeed, or rather
his ill-measured prose, is intolerable; no human patience can toil
through a single page of it;[27] but his notes will always be consulted
with pleasure. His work has been of considerable use to the subsequent
editors of Juvenal, both at home and abroad; and indeed, such is
its general accuracy, that little excuse remains for any notorious
deviation from the sense of the original.
Stapylton had equal industry, and more poetry; but he wanted his
learning, judgment, and ingenuity. His notes, though numerous, are
trite, and scarcely beyond the reach of a schoolboy. He is besides
scandalously indecent on many occasions, where his excellent rival was
innocently unfaithful, or silent.
With these translations, such as they were, the public was satisfied
until the end of the seventeenth century, when the necessity of
something more poetical becoming apparent, the booksellers, as Johnson
says, "proposed a new version to the poets of that time, which was
undertaken by Dryden, whose reputation was such, that no man was
unwilling to serve the Muses under him. "
Dryden's account of this translation is given with such candor, in the
exquisite dedication which precedes it, that I shall lay it before the
reader in his own words.
"The common way which we have taken, is not a literal translation, but
a kind of paraphrase, or somewhat which is yet more loose, betwixt a
paraphrase and a translation. Thus much may be said for us, that if we
give not the whole sense of Juvenal, yet we give the most considerable
part of it: we give it, in general, so clearly, that few notes are
sufficient to make us intelligible: we make our author at least appear
in a poetic dress. We have actually made him more sounding, and more
elegant, than he was before in English: and have endeavored to make him
speak that kind of English, which he would have spoken had he lived in
England, and had written to this age. If sometimes any of us (and it
is but seldom) make him express the customs and manners of his native
country rather than of Rome, it is, either when there was some kind of
analogy betwixt their customs and ours, or when, to make him more easy
to vulgar understandings, we gave him those manners which are familiar
to us. But I defend not this innovation, it is enough if I can excuse
it. For to speak sincerely, the manners of nations and ages are not to
be confounded. "[28]
This is, surely, sufficiently modest. Johnson's description of it is
somewhat more favorable: "The general character of this translation
will be given, when it is said to preserve the wit, but to want the
dignity, of the original. " Is this correct? Dryden frequently degrades
the author into a jester; but Juvenal has few moments of levity. Wit,
indeed, he possesses in an eminent degree, but it is tinctured with his
peculiarities; "rarò jocos," as Lipsius well observes, "sæpius acerbos
sales miscet. " Dignity is the predominant quality of his mind: he can,
and does, relax with grace, but he never forgets himself; he smiles,
indeed; but his smile is more terrible than his frown, for it is never
excited but when his indignation is mingled with contempt; "ridet
et odit! " Where his dignity, therefore, is wanting, his wit will be
imperfectly preserved. [29]
On the whole, there is nothing in this quotation to deter succeeding
writers from attempting, at least, to supply the deficiencies of Dryden
and his fellow-laborers; and, perhaps, I could point out several
circumstances which might make it laudable, if not necessary: but this
would be to trifle with the reader, who is already apprised that, as
far as relates to myself, no motives but those of obedience determined
me to the task for which I now solicit the indulgence of the public.
When I took up this author, I knew not of any other translator; nor
was it until the scheme of publishing him was started, that I began to
reflect seriously on the nature of what I had undertaken, to consider
by what exertions I could render that useful which was originally
meant to amuse, and justify, in some measure, the partiality of my
benefactors.
My first object was to become as familiar as possible with my author,
of whom I collected every edition that my own interest, or that of my
friends, could procure; together with such translations as I could
discover either here or abroad; from a careful examination of all
these, I formed the plan, to which, while I adapted my former labors, I
anxiously strove to accommodate my succeeding ones.
Dryden has said, "if we give not the whole, yet we give the most
considerable part of it. " My determination was to give the whole, and
really make the work what it professed to be, a translation of Juvenal.
I had seen enough of castrated editions, to observe that little was
gained by them on the score of propriety; since, when the author was
reduced to half his bulk, at the expense of his spirit and design,
sufficient remained to alarm the delicacy for which the sacrifice had
been made. Chaucer observes with great naiveté,
"Whoso shall tell a tale after a man,
He moste reherse as neighe as ever he can
Everich word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he never so rudely and so large. "
And indeed the age of Chaucer, like that of Juvenal, allowed of such
liberties. Other times, other manners. Many words were in common
use with our ancestors, which raised no improper ideas, though they
would not, and indeed could not, at this time be tolerated. With the
Greeks and Romans it was still worse: their dress, which left many
parts of the body exposed, gave a boldness to their language, which
was not perhaps lessened by the infrequency of women at those social
conversations, of which they now constitute the refinement and the
delight. Add to this that their mythology, and sacred rites, which took
their rise in very remote periods, abounded in the undisguised phrases
of a rude and simple age, and being religiously handed down from
generation to generation, gave a currency to many terms, which offered
no violence to modesty, though abstractedly considered by people of a
different language and manners, they appear pregnant with turpitude and
guilt.
When we observe this licentiousness (for I should wrong many of
the ancient writers to call it libertinism) in the pages of their
historians and philosophers, we may be pretty confident that it raised
no blush on the cheek of their readers. It was the language of the
times--"hæc illis natura est omnibus una:" and if it be considered
as venial in those, surely a little farther indulgence will not be
misapplied to the satirist, whose object is the exposure of what the
former have only to notice.
Thus much may suffice for Juvenal: but shame and sorrow on the head of
him who presumes to transfer his grossness into the vernacular tongues!
"Legimus aliqua ne legantur," was said of old, by one of a pure and
zealous mind. Without pretending to his high motives, I have felt the
influence of his example, and in his apology must therefore hope to
find my own. Though the poet be given entire, I have endeavored to make
him speak as he would probably have spoken if he had lived among us;
when, refined with the age, he would have fulminated against impurity
in terms, to which, though delicacy might disavow them, manly decency
might listen without offense.
I have said above, that "the whole of Juvenal" is here given; this,
however, must be understood with a few restrictions. Where vice, of
whatever nature, formed the immediate object of reprobation, it has
not been spared in the translation; but I have sometimes taken the
liberty of omitting an exceptionable line, when it had no apparent
connection with the subject of the Satire. Some acquaintance with the
original will be necessary to discover these lacunæ, which do not, in
all, amount to half a page: for the rest, I have no apologies to make.
Here are no allusions, covert or open, to the follies and vices of
modern times; nor has the dignity of the original been prostituted, in
a single instance, to the gratification of private spleen.
I have attempted to follow, as far as I judged it feasible, the style
of my author, which is more various than is usually supposed. It is not
necessary to descend to particulars; but my meaning will be understood
by those who carefully compare the original of the thirteenth and
fourteenth Satires with the translation. In the twelfth, and in that
alone, I have perhaps raised it a little; but it really appears so
contemptible a performance in the doggerel of Dryden's coadjutor,
that I thought somewhat more attention than ordinary was in justice
due to it. It is not a chef-d'œuvre by any means; but it is a pretty
and a pleasing little poem, deserving more notice than it has usually
received.
I could have been sagacious and obscure on many occasions, with very
little difficulty; but I strenuously combated every inclination to
find out more than my author meant. The general character of this
translation, if I do not deceive myself, will be found to be plainness;
and, indeed, the highest praise to which I aspire, is that of having
left the original more intelligible to the English reader than I found
it.
On numbering the lines, I find that my translation contains a few
less than Dryden's. Had it been otherwise, I should not have thought
an apology necessary, nor would it perhaps appear extraordinary,
when it is considered that I have introduced an infinite number of
circumstances from the text, which he thought himself justified in
omitting; and that, with the trifling exceptions already mentioned,
nothing has been passed; whereas he and his assistants overlooked whole
sections, and sometimes very considerable ones. [30] Every where, too, I
have endeavored to render the transitions less abrupt, and to obviate
or disguise the difficulties which a difference of manners, habits,
etc. , necessarily creates: all this calls for an additional number of
lines; which the English reader, at least, will seldom have occasion to
regret.
Of the "borrowed learning of notes," which Dryden says he avoided as
much as possible, I have amply availed myself. During the long period
in which my thoughts were fixed on Juvenal, it was usual with me,
whenever I found a passage that related to him, to impress it on my
memory, or to note it down. These, on the revision of the work for
publication, were added to such reflections as arose in my own mind,
and arranged in the manner in which they now appear. I confess that
this was not an unpleasant task to me, and I will venture to hope,
that if my own suggestions fail to please, yet the frequent recurrence
of some of the most striking and beautiful passages of ancient and
modern poetry, history, etc. , will render it neither unamusing nor
uninstructive to the general reader. The information insinuated into
the mind by miscellaneous collections of this nature, is much greater
than is usually imagined; and I have been frequently encouraged to
proceed by recollecting the benefits which I formerly derived from
casual notices scattered over the margin, or dropped at the bottom of a
page.
In this compilation, I proceeded on no regular plan, farther than
considering what, if I had been a mere English reader, I should wish
to have had explained: it is therefore extremely probable, as every
rule of this nature must be imperfect, that I have frequently erred;
have spoken where I should be silent and been prolix where I should
be brief: on the whole, however, I chose to offend on the safer side;
and to leave nothing unsaid, at the hazard of sometimes saying too
much. Tedious, perhaps, I may be; but, I trust, not dull; and with
this negative commendation I must be satisfied. The passages produced
are not always translated; but the English reader needs not for that
be discouraged in proceeding, as he will frequently find sufficient in
the context to give him a general idea of the meaning. In many places
I have copied the words, together with the sentiments of the writer;
for this, if it call for an apology, I shall take that of Macrobius,
who had somewhat more occasion for it than I shall be found to have:
"Nec mihi vitio vertas, si res quas ex lectione varia mutuabor, ipsis
sæpè verbis quibus ab ipsis auctoribus enarratæ sunt explicabo, quia
præsens opus non eloquentiæ ostentationem, sed noscendorum congeriem
pollicetur," etc. Saturn. , lib. i. , c. 1.
* * * * *
I have now said all that occurs to me on this subject: a more pleasing
one remains. I can not, indeed, like Dryden, boast of my poetical
coadjutors. No Congreves and Creeches have abridged, while they
adorned, my labors; yet have I not been without assistance, and of the
most valuable kind.
Whoever is acquainted with the habits of intimacy in which I have
lived from early youth with the Rev. Dr. Ireland,[31] will not want
to be informed of his share in the following pages. To those who are
not, it is proper to say, that besides the passages in which he is
introduced by name, every other part of the work has been submitted to
his inspection. Nor would his affectionate anxiety for the reputation
of his friend suffer any part of the translation to appear, without
undergoing the strictest revision. His uncommon accuracy, judgment, and
learning have been uniformly exerted on it, not less, I am confident,
to the advantage of the reader, than to my own satisfaction. It will be
seen that we sometimes differ in opinion; but as I usually distrust my
own judgment in those cases, the decision is submitted to the reader.
I have also to express my obligations to Abraham Moore, Esq. , barrister
at law, a gentleman whose taste and learning are well known to be
only surpassed by his readiness to oblige: of which I have the most
convincing proofs; since the hours dedicated to the following sheets
(which I lament that he only saw in their progress through the press)
were snatched from avocations as urgent as they were important.
Nor must I overlook the friendly assistance of William Porden,
Esq. ,[32] which, like that of the former gentleman, was given to me,
amid the distraction of more immediate concerns, with a readiness that
enhanced the worth of what was, in itself, highly valuable.
A paper was put into my hand by Mr. George Nicol, the promoter of
every literary work, from R. P. Knight, Esq. , containing subjects for
engravings illustrative of Juvenal, and, with singular generosity,
offering me the use of his marbles, gems, etc. As these did not fall
within my plan, I can only here return him my thanks for a kindness
as extraordinary as it was unexpected. But I have other and greater
obligations to Mr. Nicol. In conjunction with his son, Mr. William
Nicol, he has watched the progress of this work through the press with
unwearied solicitude. During my occasional absences from town, the
correction of it (for which, indeed, the state of my eyes renders me
at all times rather unfit) rested almost solely on him; and it is but
justice to add, that his habitual accuracy in this ungrateful employ is
not the only quality to which I am bound to confess my obligations.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The origin of this word is now acknowledged to be Roman. Scaliger
derived it from σατυρος (_satyrus_), but Casaubon, Dacier, and others,
more reasonably, from _satura_ (fem. of _satur_), rich, abounding, full
of variety. In this sense it was applied to the lanx or charger, in
which the various productions of the soil were offered up to the gods;
and thus came to be used for any miscellaneous collection in general.
_Satura olla_, a hotch-potch; _saturæ leges_, laws comprehending a
multitude of regulations, etc. This deduction of the name may serve
to explain, in some measure, the nature of the first Satires, which
treated of various subjects, and were full of various matters: but
enough on this trite topic.
[17] It should be observed, however, that the idea was obvious, and
the work itself highly necessary. The old Satire, amid much coarse
ribaldry, frequently attacked the follies and vices of the day. This
could not be done by the comedy which superseded it, and which, by
a strange perversity of taste, was never rendered national. Its
customs, manners, nay, its very plots, were Grecian; and scarcely more
applicable to the Romans than to us.
[18] To extend this to Lucilius, as is sometimes done, is absurd, since
he evidently had in view the old comedy of the Greeks, of which his
Satires, according to Horace, were rigid imitations:
"Eupolis atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poëtæ
Atque alii, quorum comœdia prisca virorum est;
Si quia erat dignus describi, quod malus, aut fur,
Quod mœchus foret, aut sicarius, aut alioqui
Famosus, multa cum libertate notabant.
HINC omnis pendet Lucilius, hosce secutus,
Mutatis tantum pedibus, numerisque. "
Here the matter would seem to be at once determined by a very competent
judge. Strip the old Greek comedy of its action, and change the metre
from Iambic to Heroic, and you have the Roman Satire! It is evident
from this, that, unless two things be granted, first, that the actors
in those ancient Satires were ignorant of the existence of the Greek
comedy; and, secondly, that Ennius, who knew it well, passed it by for
a ruder model; the Romans can have no pretensions to the honor they
claim.
And even if this be granted, the honor appears to be scarcely worth
the claiming; for the Greeks had not only Dramatic, but Lyric and
Heroic Satire. To pass by the Margites, what were the Iambics of
Archilochus, and the Scazons of Hipponax, but Satires? nay, what were
the Silli? Casaubon derives them απο του σιλλαινειν, to scoff, to treat
petulantly; and there is no doubt of the justness of his derivation.
These little pieces were made up of passages from various poems, which
by slight alterations were humorously or satirically applied at will.
The Satires of Ennius were probably little more; indeed, we have the
express authority of Diomedes the grammarian for it. After speaking of
Lucilius, whose writings he derives, with Horace, from the old comedy,
he adds, "et olim carmen, quod ex variis poematibus constabat, satira
vocabatur; quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius. " Modern critics agree
in understanding "ex variis poematibus," of various kinds of metre;
but I do not see why it may not mean, as I have rendered it, "of
various poems;" unless we choose to compliment the Romans, by supposing
that what was in the Greeks a mere cento, was in them an original
composition.
It would scarcely be doing justice, however, to Ennius, to suppose
that he did not surpass his models, for, to say the truth, the Greek
Silli appear to have been no very extraordinary performances. A few
short specimens of them may be seen in Diogenes Laertius, and a longer
one, which has escaped the writers on this subject, in Dio Chrysostom.
As this is, perhaps, the only Greek Satire extant, it may be regarded
as a curiosity; and as such, for as a literary effort it is worth
nothing, a short extract from it may not be uninteresting. Sneering at
the people of Alexandria, for their mad attachment to chariot-races,
etc. , he says, this folly of theirs is not ill exposed by one of those
scurrilous writers of (Silli, or) parodies: ου κακως τις παρεποιησε των
σαπρων τουτων ποιητων·
Ἁρματα δ' αλλοτε μεν χθονι πιλνατο πουλυβοτειρῃ,
Αλλοτε δ' αεξασκε μετηορα· τοι δε θεαται
Θωκοις εν σφετεροις, ουθ' ἑστασαν, ουδ' εκαθηντο,
Χλωροι ὑπαι δειους πεφοβημενοι, ουδ' ὑπο νικες
Αλληλοισι τε κεκλομενοι, και πασι θεοισι
Χειρας ανισχοντες, μεγαλ' ευχετοωντο ἑκαστοι.
Ἡυτε περ κλαγγη γερανων πελει, ηε κολοιων,
Ἁι τ' επει ουν ζυθον τ' επιον, και αθεσπατον οινον,
Κλαγγῃ ται γε πετονται απο σταδιοιο κελευθου. κ. τ. λ.
_Ad Alexand. Orat. _ xxxii.
[19] I doubt whether he was ever a good royalist at heart; he
frequently, perhaps unconsciously, betrays a lurking dissatisfaction;
but having, as Johnson says of a much greater man, "tasted the honey of
favor," he did not choose to return to hunger and philosophy. Indeed,
he was not happy; in the country he sighs for the town, in town for the
country; and he is always restless, and straining after something which
he never obtains. To float, like Aristippus, with the stream, is a bad
recipe for felicity; there must be some fixed principle, by which the
passions and desires may be regulated.
[20] He is careful to disclaim all participation in public affairs. He
accompanies Mæcenas in his carriage; but their chat, he wishes it to be
believed, is on the common topics of the day, the weather, amusements,
etc. Though this may not be strictly true, it is yet probable that
politics furnished but a small part of their conversation. That both
Augustus and his minister were warmly attached to him, can not be
denied; but then it was as to a plaything. In a word, Horace seems to
have been the "enfant gaté," of the palace, and was viewed, I believe,
with more tenderness than respect.
[21] Mr. Drummond has given this passage with equal elegance and truth:
"With greater art sly Horace gain'd his end,
But spared no failing of his smiling friend;
Sportive and pleasant round the heart he play'd,
And wrapt in jests the censure he convey'd;
With such address his willing victims seized,
That tickled fools were rallied, and were pleased. "
[22] Dusaulx accounts for this by the general consternation. Most of
those, he says, distinguished for talents or rank, took refuge in the
school of Zeno; not so much to learn in it how to live, as how to die.
I think, on the contrary, that this would rather have driven them into
the arms of Epicurus. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,"
will generally be found, I believe, to be the maxim of dangerous times.
It would not be difficult to show, if this were the place for it, that
the prevalency of Stoicism was due to the increase of profligacy, for
which it furnished a convenient cloak. This, however, does not apply to
Persius.
[23] I believe that Juvenal meant to describe himself in the following
spirited picture of Lucilius:
"Ense velut stricto quoties Lucilius ardens
Infremuit, rubet auditor, cui frigida mens est
Criminibus, tacita sudant præcordia culpa. "
[24] This is an error which has been so often repeated, that it is
believed. What liberty was destroyed by the usurpation of Augustus? For
more than half a century, Rome had been a prey to ambitious chiefs,
while five or six civil wars, each more bloody than the other, had
successively delivered up the franchises of the empire to the conqueror
of the day. The Gracchi first opened the career to ambition, and wanted
nothing but the means of corruption, which the East afterward supplied,
to effect what Marius, Sylla, and the two triumvirates brought about
with sufficient ease.
[25] This is a very strange observation. It looks as if Dusaulx had
leaped from the times of old Metellus to those of Augustus, without
casting a glance at the interval. The chef d'œuvres of Roman literature
were in every hand, when he supposed them to be neglected: and, indeed,
if Horace had left us nothing, the qualities of which Dusaulx speaks
might still be found in many works produced before he was known.
[26] I have often wished that we had some of the pleadings of Juvenal.
It can not be affirmed, I think, that there is any natural connection
between prose and verse in the same mind, though it may be observed,
that most of our celebrated poets have written admirably "solutâ
oratione:" yet if Juvenal's oratory bore any resemblance to his poetry,
he yielded to few of the best ornaments of the bar. The "torrens
dicendi copia" was his, in an eminent degree; nay, so full, so rich,
so strong, and so magnificent is his eloquence, that I have heard one
well qualified to judge, frequently declare that Cicero himself, in his
estimation, could hardly be said to surpass him.
[27] With all my respect for the learning of the good old man, it is
impossible, now and then, to suppress a smile at his simplicity. In
apologizing for his translation, he says: "As for publishing poetry, it
needs no defense; there being, if my Lord of Verulam's judgment shall
be admitted, 'a _divine rapture_ in it! '"
[28] He evidently alludes to the versions of the second and eighth
Satires by Tate and Stepney, but principally to the latter, in which
Juvenal illustrates his argument by the practice of Smithfield and
Newmarket! Indeed, Dryden himself, though confessedly aware of its
impropriety, is not altogether free from "innovation;" he talks of the
Park, and the Mall, and the Opera, and of many other objects, familiar
to the translator, but which the original writer could only know by the
spirit of prophecy.
I am sensible how difficult it is to keep the manners of different
ages perfectly distinct in a work like this: I have never knowingly
confounded them, and, I trust, not often inadvertently; yet more
occasions perhaps of exercising the reader's candor will appear, after
all, than are desirable.
[29] Yet Johnson knew him well. The peculiarity of Juvenal, he says
(vol. ix. , p. 424), "is a mixture of gayety and stateliness, of pointed
sentences, and declamatory grandeur. " A good idea of it may be formed
from his own beautiful imitation of the third Satire. His imitation
of the tenth (still more beautiful as a poem) has scarcely a trait of
the author's manner--that is to say, of that "mixture of gayety and
stateliness," which, according to his own definition, constitutes the
"peculiarity of Juvenal. " "The Vanity of Human Wishes" is uniformly
stately and severe, and without those light and popular strokes of
sarcasm which abound so much in his "London. "
[30] In the fourteenth Satire, for example, there is an omission of
fifteen lines, and this, too, in a passage of singular importance.
[31] Sub-Dean and Prebendary of Westminster, and Vicar of Croydon, in
Surrey.
[32] The architect of Eton Hall, Cheshire, a structure which even now
stands pre-eminent among the works which embellish the nation, and
which future times will contemplate with equal wonder and delight.
CHRONOLOGY OF JUVENAL, PERSIUS, AND SULPICIA.
A. D. 14-138.
|OL. |A. D. |A. U. C. |X
| | | |
| | 14| 767|Death of Augustus, August 19th.
| | | |
| | | |Accession of Tiberius, anno ætat. 55.
| | | |
| | 16| 769|Rise of Sejanus. Cf. A. D. 31. Tac. Ann. vi. 8.
| | | |
| | 18| 771|Death of Ovid and Livy. Strabo still writing.
| | | |
| | 19| 772|Death of Germanicus. Jews banished from Italy (alluded
| | | |to, Sat. iii. 14; vi. 543).
| | | |
|200| 21| 774|Tiberius, on the plea of ill health, goes in the spring
| | | |into Campania.
| | | |
| | 23| 776|Influence of Sejanus. Cf. Tac. Ann. iv. 6.
| | | |
| | | |(Vid. Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 181. )
| | | |
| | 24| 777|Cassius Severus, an exile in Seriphos. Tac. Ann. iv. 21.
| | | |
| | | |«Cf. Sat. i. 73; vi. 563, 564; x. 170; xiii. 246. »
| | | |
| | | |C. Plinius Secundus, of Verona, born.
| | | |
| | 26| 779|Consulship of Cn. Lentulus Gætulicus. (Cf. ad viii. 26. )
| | | |
| | 27| 780|Tiberius retires to Capreæ. Tac. Ann. iv. 67. Sat. x.
| | | |90-95, and 72.
| | | |
| | 28| 781|Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus, married to Domitius.
| | | |«Nero is the issue of this marriage, born A. D. 37. »
| | | |Sat. viii. 228; vi. 615.
| | | |
|202| 29| 782|Death of Livia, mother of Tiberius.
| | | |
| | | |(Cf. Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. iii. p. 180. )
| | | |
| | 31| 784|Tiberius consul with Sejanus. Suet. Tib. 26, 65.
| | | |
| | | |Fall of Sejanus, Oct. 18. He had been in favor now 16
| | | |years. The day of his death was consecrated to Jove.
| | | |Sat. x. 56-107. Cf. Tac. Ann. vi. 25.
| | | |
| | 32| 785|Birth of Otho.
| | | |
| | 34| 787|A. Persius Flaccus, born at Volaterræ in Etruria.
