No More Learning

Tabors and trumpets, cease; for she alone
Is able to redeem the labouring moon. [124]
Even wit's a burthen, when it talks too long;
But she, who has no continence of tongue,
Should walk in breeches, and should wear a beard,
And mix among the philosophic herd.
O what a midnight curse has he, whose side
Is pestered with a mood and figure bride!
Let mine, ye gods! (if such must be my fate,)
No logic learn, nor history translate,
But rather be a quiet, humble fool;
I hate a wife to whom I go to school,
Who climbs the grammar-tree, distinctly knows
Where noun, and verb, and participle grows;
Corrects her country-neighbour; and, a-bed,
For breaking Priscian's breaks her husband's head. [125]
The gaudy gossip, when she's set agog,
In jewels drest, and at each ear a bob,
Goes flaunting out, and, in her trim of pride,
Thinks all she says or does is justified.
When poor, she's scarce a tolerable evil;
But rich, and fine, a wife's a very devil.
She duly, once a month, renews her face;
Meantime, it lies in daub, and hid in grease.
Those are the husband's nights; she craves her due,
He takes fat kisses, and is stuck in glue.
But to the loved adulterer when she steers,
Fresh from the bath, in brightness she appears:
For him the rich Arabia sweats her gum, }
And precious oils from distant Indies come, }
How haggardly soe'er she looks at home. }
The eclipse then vanishes, and all her face
Is opened, and restored to every grace;
The crust removed, her cheeks, as smooth as silk,
Are polished with a wash of asses milk;
And should she to the farthest north be sent,
A train of these[126] attend her banishment.
But hadst thou seen her plaistered up before,
'Twas so unlike a face, it seemed a sore.
'Tis worth our while, to know what all the day
They do, and how they pass their time away;
For, if o'er-night the husband has been slack, }
Or counterfeited sleep, and turned his back, }
Next day, be sure, the servants go to wrack. }
The chamber-maid and dresser are called whores,
The page is stript, and beaten out of doors;
The whole house suffers for the master's crime,
And he himself is warned to wake another time.
She hires tormentors by the year; she treats
Her visitors, and talks, but still she beats;
Beats while she paints her face, surveys her gown,
Casts up the day's account, and still beats on:
Tired out, at length, with an outrageous tone,
She bids them in the devil's name be gone.
Compared with such a proud, insulting dame,
Sicilian tyrants[127] may renounce their name.
For, if she hastes abroad to take the air,
Or goes to Isis' church, (the bawdy house of prayer,)
She hurries all her handmaids to the task;
Her head, alone, will twenty dressers ask.
Psecas, the chief, with breast and shoulders bare,
Trembling, considers every sacred hair;
If any straggler from his rank be found,
A pinch must for the mortal sin compound.
Psecas is not in fault; but in the glass,
The dame's offended at her own ill face.
That maid is banished; and another girl,
More dexterous, manages the comb and curl.
The rest are summoned on a point so nice,
And, first, the grave old woman gives advice;
The next is called, and so the turn goes round,
As each for age, or wisdom, is renowned:
Such counsel, such deliberate care they take,
As if her life and honour lay at stake:
With curls on curls, they build her head before,
And mount it with a formidable tower.
A giantess she seems; but look behind,
And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.
Duck-legged, short-waisted, such a dwarf she is,
That she must rise on tip-toes for a kiss.
Meanwhile, her husband's whole estate is spent!
He may go bare, while she receives his rent.
She minds him not; she lives not as a wife,
But, like a bawling neighbour, full of strife:
Near him in this alone, that she extends
Her hate to all his servants and his friends.
Bellona's priests,[128] an eunuch at their head,
About the streets a mad procession lead;
The venerable gelding, large, and high,
O'erlooks the herd of his inferior fry.
His aukward clergymen about him prance,
And beat the timbrels to their mystic dance;
Guiltless of testicles, they tear their throats,
And squeak, in treble, their unmanly notes.
Meanwhile, his cheeks the mitred prophet swells,
And dire presages of the year foretels;
Unless with eggs (his priestly hire) they haste
To expiate, and avert the autumnal blast;
And add beside a murrey-coloured vest,[129]
Which, in their places, may receive the pest,
And, thrown into the flood, their crimes may bear,
To purge the unlucky omens of the year.
The astonished matrons pay, before the rest;
That sex is still obnoxious to the priest.
Through ye they beat, and plunge into the stream,
If so the God has warned them in a dream.
Weak in their limbs, but in devotion strong, }
On their bare hands and feet they crawl along }
A whole field's length, the laughter of the throng. }
Should Io (Io's priest, I mean) command
A pilgrimage to Meroe's burning sand,
Through deserts they would seek the secret spring,
And holy water for lustration bring.
How can they pay their priests too much respect,
Who trade with heaven, and earthly gains neglect!
With him domestic gods discourse by night;
By day, attended by his choir in white,
The bald pate tribe runs madding through the street,
And smile to see with how much ease they cheat.
The ghostly sire forgives the wife's delights,
Who sins, through frailty, on forbidden nights,
And tempts her husband in the holy time,
When carnal pleasure is a mortal crime.
The sweating image shakes his head, but he,
With mumbled prayers, atones the deity.
The pious priesthood the fat goose receive,
And, they once bribed, the godhead must forgive.
No sooner these remove, but full of fear,
A gipsey Jewess whispers in your ear,
And begs an alms; an high-priest's daughter she, }
Versed in their Talmud, and divinity, }
And prophesies beneath a shady tree. }
Her goods a basket, and old hay her bed,
She strolls, and, telling fortunes, gains her bread:
Farthings, and some small monies, are her fees;
Yet she interprets all your dreams for these,
Foretels the estate, when the rich uncle dies,
And sees a sweetheart in the sacrifice.
Such toys, a pigeon's entrails can disclose,
Which yet the Armenian augur far outgoes;
In dogs, a victim more obscene, he rakes;
And murdered infants for inspection takes:
For gain his impious practice he pursues;
For gain will his accomplices accuse.
More credit yet is to Chaldeans[130] given;
What they foretel, is deemed the voice of heaven.
Their answers, as from Hammon's altar, come;
Since now the Delphian oracles are dumb,
And mankind, ignorant of future fate,
Believes what fond astrologers relate.
Of these the most in vogue is he, who, sent
Beyond seas, is returned from banishment;
His art who to aspiring Otho[131] sold,
And sure succession to the crown foretold;
For his esteem is in his exile placed;
The more believed, the more he was disgraced.
No astrologic wizard honour gains,
Who has not oft been banished, or in chains.
He gets renown, who, to the halter near,
But narrowly escapes, and buys it dear.
From him your wife enquires the planets' will,
When the black jaundice shall her mother kill;
Her sister's and her uncle's end would know,
But, first, consults his art, when you shall go;
And,--what's the greatest gift that heaven can give,--
If after her the adulterer shall live.
She neither knows, nor cares to know, the rest,
If Mars and Saturn[132] shall the world infest;
Or Jove and Venus, with their friendly rays,
Will interpose, and bring us better days.
Beware the woman too, and shun her sight,
Who in these studies does herself delight,
By whom a greasy almanack is born,
With often handling, like chaft amber worn:
Not now consulting, but consulted, she
Of the twelve houses, and their lords, is free.
She, if the scheme a fatal journey show,
Stays safe at home, but lets her husband go.
If but a mile she travel out of town,
The planetary hour must first be known,
And lucky moment; if her eye but aches,
Or itches, its decumbiture she takes;
No nourishment receives in her disease,
But what the stars and Ptolemy[133] shall please.
The middle sort, who have not much to spare, }
To chiromancers' cheaper art repair, }
Who clap the pretty palm, to make the lines more fair. }
But the rich matron, who has more to give,
Her answers from the Brachman[134] will receive;
Skilled in the globe and sphere, he gravely stands,
And, with his compass, measures seas and lands.
The poorest of the sex have still an itch
To know their fortunes, equal to the rich.
The dairy-maid enquires, if she shall take
The trusty tailor, and the cook forsake.
Yet these, though poor, the pain of childbed bear,
And without nurses their own infants rear:
You seldom hear of the rich mantle spread
For the babe, born in the great lady's bed.
Such is the power of herbs, such arts they use
To make them barren, or their fruit to lose.
But thou, whatever slops she will have bought,
Be thankful, and supply the deadly draught;
Help her to make man-slaughter; let her bleed,
And never want for savin at her need.
For, if she holds till her nine months be run,
Thou may'st be father to an Ethiop's son;[135]
A boy, who, ready gotten to thy hands,
By law is to inherit all thy lands;
One of that hue, that, should he cross the way,
His omen would discolour all the day. [136]
I pass the foundling by, a race unknown,
At doors exposed, whom matrons make their own;
And into noble families advance
A nameless issue, the blind work of chance.
Indulgent fortune does her care employ,
And, smiling, broods upon the naked boy:
Her garment spreads, and laps him in the fold,
And covers with her wings from nightly cold:
Gives him her blessing, puts him in a way,
Sets up the farce, and laughs at her own play.
Him she promotes; she favours him alone,
And makes provision for him as her own.
The craving wife the force of magic tries,
And filters for the unable husband buys;
The potion works not on the part designed,
But turns his brains, and stupifies his mind.
The sotted moon-calf gapes, and, staring on,
Sees his own business by another done:
A long oblivion, a benumbing frost,
Constrains his head, and yesterday is lost.
Some nimbler juice would make him foam and rave,
Like that Cæsonia[137] to her Caius gave,
Who, plucking from the forehead of the foal
His mother's love,[138] infused it in the bowl;
The boiling blood ran hissing in his veins,
Till the mad vapour mounted to his brains.
The Thunderer was not half so much on fire,
When Juno's girdle kindled his desire.
What woman will not use the poisoning trade,
When Cæsar's wife the precedent has made?
Let Agrippina's mushroom[139] be forgot,
Given to a slavering, old, unuseful sot;
That only closed the driv'ling dotard's eyes,
And sent his godhead downward to the skies;
But this fierce potion calls for fire and sword,
Nor spares the commons, when it strikes the lord.
So many mischiefs were in one combined;
So much one single poisoner cost mankind.
If step-dames seek their sons-in-law to kill,
'Tis venial trespass--let them have their will;
But let the child, entrusted to the care
Of his own mother, of her bread beware;
Beware the food she reaches with her hand,--
The morsel is intended for thy land.
Thy tutor be thy taster, ere thou eat;
There's poison in thy drink and in thy meat.
You think this feigned; the satire, in a rage,
Struts in the buskins of the tragic stage;
Forgets his business is to laugh and bite,
And will of deaths and dire revenges write.
Would it were all a fable that you read!
But Drymon's wife[140] pleads guilty to the deed.
I, she confesses, in the fact was caught,
Two sons dispatching at one deadly draught.
What, two! two sons, thou viper, in one day!
Yes, seven, she cries, if seven were in my way.
Medea's legend is no more a lie,
Our age adds credit to antiquity.
Great ills, we grant, in former times did reign,
And murders then were done, but not for gain.
Less admiration to great crimes is due,
Which they through wrath, or through revenge pursue;
For, weak of reason, impotent of will,
The sex is hurried headlong into ill;
And like a cliff, from its foundations torn
By raging earthquakes, into seas is borne.
But those are fiends, who crimes from thought begin,
And, cool in mischief, meditate the sin.
They read the example of a pious wife,
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;
Yet if the laws did that exchange afford,
Would save their lap-dog sooner than their lord.
Where'er you walk the Belides[141] you meet,
And Clytemnestras grow in every street;
But here's the difference,--Agamemnon's wife
Was a gross butcher with a bloody knife;
But murder now is to perfection grown,
And subtle poisons are employed alone;
Unless some antidote prevents their arts,
And lines with balsam all the nobler parts.
In such a case, reserved for such a need,
Rather than fail, the dagger does the deed.

FOOTNOTES:

[107] When Jove had driven his father into banishment, the Silver Age
began, according to the poets.

[108] The poet makes Justice and Chastity sisters; and says, that they
fled to heaven together, and left earth for ever.

[109] When the Roman women were forbidden to bed with their husbands.

[110] She fled to Egypt, which wondered at the enormity of her crime.

[111] He tells the famous story of Messalina, wife to the Emperor
Claudius.

[112] His meaning is, that a wife, who brings a large dowry, may do
what she pleases, and has all the privileges of a widow.

[113] A ring of great price, which Herod Agrippa gave to his sister
Berenice. He was king of the Jews, but tributary to the Romans.

[114] Cornelia was mother to the Gracchi, of the family of the
Cornelii, from whence Scipio the African was descended, who triumphed
over Hannibal.

[115] He alludes to the known fable of Niobe, in Ovid. Amphion was her
husband. Pæan was Apollo; who with his arrows killed her children,
because she boasted that she was more fruitful than Latona, Apollo's
mother.

[116] He alludes to the white sow in Virgil, who farrowed thirty pigs.

[117] Women then learned Greek, as ours speak French.

[118] All the Romans, even the most inferior, and most infamous sort of
them, had the power of making wills.

[119] The _Bona Dea_, or Good Goddess, at whose feasts no men were to
be present.

[120] He alludes to the story of P. Clodius, who, disguised in the
habit of a singing woman, went into the house of Cæsar, where the feast
of the Good Goddess was celebrated, to find an opportunity with Cæsar's
wife, Pompeia.

[121] A famous singing boy.

[122] That such an actor, whom they love, might obtain the prize.

[123] He who inspects the entrails of the sacrifice, and from thence
foretels the success of the prayer.

[124] The ancients endeavoured to help the moon, during an eclipse, by
sounding trumpets.

[125] A woman-grammarian, who corrects her husband for speaking false
Latin, which is called breaking Priscian's head.

[126] _i. e. _ of the milk asses.

[127] Sicilian tyrants were grown to a proverb, in Latin, for their
cruelty.

[128] Bellona's priests were a sort of fortune-tellers; and their high
priest an eunuch.

[129] A garment was given to the priest, which he threw, or was
supposed to throw, into the river; and that, they thought, bore all the
sins of the people, which were drowned with it.

[130] Chaldeans are thought to have been the first astrologers.

[131] Otho succeeded Galba in the empire, which was foretold him by an
astrologer.

[132] Mars and Saturn are the two unfortunate planets; Jupiter and
Venus the two fortunate.

[133] A famous astrologer; an Egyptian.

[134] The Brachmans are Indian philosophers, who remain to this day;
and hold, after Pythagoras, the translation of souls from one body to
another.

[135] Juvenal's meaning is, help her to any kind of slops which may
cause her to miscarry, for fear she may be brought to bed of a black
Moor, which thou, being her husband, art bound to father; and that
bastard may, by law, inherit thy estate.

[136] The Romans thought it ominous to see a black Moor in the morning,
if he were the first man they met.

[137] Cæsonia, wife to Caius Caligula, the great tyrant. It is said she
gave him a love-potion, which, flying up into his head, distracted him,
and was the occasion of his committing so many acts of cruelty.

[138] The hippomanes, a fleshy excrescence, which the ancients supposed
grew in the forehead of a foal, and which the mare bites off when it is
born. It was supposed to be a sovereign ingredient in philtres. EDITOR.

[139] Agrippina was the mother of the tyrant Nero, who poisoned her
husband Claudius, that Nero might succeed, who was her son, and not
Britannicus, who was the son of Claudius, by a former wife.

[140] The widow of Drymon poisoned her sons, that she might succeed to
their estate: This was done in the poet's time, or just before it.

[141] The Belides were fifty sisters, married to fifty young men, their
cousin-germans; and killed them all on their wedding-night, excepting
Hipermnestra, who saved her husband Linus.




THE

TENTH SATIRE

OF

JUVENAL.


THE ARGUMENT.

_The Poet's design, in this divine Satire, is, to represent the
various wishes and desires of mankind, and to set out the
folly of them. He runs through all the several heads, of
riches, honours, eloquence, fame for martial achievements,
long life, and beauty; and gives instances in each, how
frequently they have proved the ruin of those that owned
them. He concludes, therefore, that, since we generally
choose so ill for ourselves, we should do better to leave it
to the gods to make the choice for us. All we can safely
ask of heaven, lies within a very small compass--it is
but health of body and mind; and if we have these, it is
not much matter what we want besides; for we have already
enough to make us happy. _

Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.
How void of reason are our hopes and fears!
What in the conduct of our life appears
So well designed, so luckily begun,
But when we have our wish, we wish undone?
Whole houses, of their whole desires possest,
Are often ruined at their own request.
In wars and peace things hurtful we require,
When made obnoxious to our own desire.
With laurels some have fatally been crowned; }
Some, who the depths of eloquence have found, }
In that unnavigable stream were drowned. }
The brawny fool, who did his vigour boast;
In that presuming confidence was lost;[142]
But more have been by avarice opprest,
And heaps of money crowded in the chest:
Unwieldy sums of wealth, which higher mount
Than files of marshalled figures can account;
To which the stores of Croesus, in the scale, }
Would look like little dolphins, when they sail }
In the vast shadow of the British whale. }
For this, in Nero's arbitrary time,
When virtue was a guilt, and wealth a crime,
A troop of cut-throat guards were sent to seize
The rich men's goods, and gut their palaces:
The mob, commissioned by the government,
Are seldom to an empty garret sent.
The fearful passenger, who travels late,
Charged with the carriage of a paltry plate,
Shakes at the moonshine shadow of a rush,
And sees a red-coat rise from every bush;
The beggar sings, even when he sees the place
Beset with thieves, and never mends his pace.
Of all the vows, the first and chief request
Of each, is--to be richer than the rest:
And yet no doubts the poor man's draught controul,
He dreads no poison in his homely bowl;
Then fear the deadly drug, when gems divine
Enchase the cup, and sparkle in the wine.
Will you not now the pair of sages praise,
Who the same end pursued by several ways?
One pitied, one contemned, the woeful times;
One laughed at follies, one lamented crimes.
Laughter is easy; but the wonder lies,
What stores of brine supplied the weeper's eyes.
Democritus could feed his spleen, and shake
His sides and shoulders, till he felt them ache;
Though in his country town no lictors were,
Nor rods, nor axe, nor tribune, did appear;
Nor all the foppish gravity of show,
Which cunning magistrates on crowds bestow.
What had he done, had he beheld on high
Our prætor seated in mock majesty;
His chariot rolling o'er the dusty place,
While, with dumb pride, and a set formal face,
He moves, in the dull ceremonial track,
With Jove's embroidered coat upon his back!
A suit of hangings had not more opprest
His shoulders, than that long laborious vest;
A heavy gewgaw, called a crown, that spread
About his temples, drowned his narrow head,
And would have crushed it with the massy freight,
But that a sweating slave sustained the weight;
A slave, in the same chariot seen to ride,
To mortify the mighty madman's pride.
Add now the imperial eagle, raised on high,
With golden beak, the mark of majesty;
Trumpets before, and on the left and right
A cavalcade of nobles, all in white;
In their own natures false and flattering tribes,
But made his friends by places and by bribes.
In his own age, Democritus could find
Sufficient cause to laugh at human kind:
Learn from so great a wit; a land of bogs,
With ditches fenced, a heaven fat with fogs,
May form a spirit fit to sway the state,
And make the neighbouring monarchs fear their fate.
He laughs at all the vulgar cares and fears;
At their vain triumphs, and their vainer tears:
An equal temper in his mind he found,
When fortune flattered him, and when she frowned.
'Tis plain, from hence, that what our vows request
Are hurtful things, or useless at the best.
Some ask for envied power; which public hate
Pursues, and hurries headlong to their fate:
Down go the titles; and the statue crowned,
Is by base hands in the next river drowned.
The guiltless horses, and the chariot wheel,
The same effects of vulgar fury feel:
The smith prepares his hammer for the stroke,
While the lung'd bellows hissing fire provoke.
Sejanus, almost first of Roman names,[143]
The great Sejanus crackles in the flames:
Formed in the forge, the pliant brass is laid }
On anvils; and of head and limbs are made, }
Pans, cans, and piss-pots, a whole kitchen trade. }
Adorn your doors with laurels; and a bull,
Milk white, and large, lead to the Capitol;
Sejanus with a rope is dragged along,
The sport and laughter of the giddy throng!
Good Lord! they cry, what Ethiop lips he has;
How foul a snout, and what a hanging face!
By heaven, I never could endure his sight!
But say, how came his monstrous crimes to light?
What is the charge, and who the evidence,
(The saviour of the nation and the prince? )
Nothing of this; but our old Cæsar sent
A noisy letter to his parliament.
Nay, sirs, if Cæsar writ, I ask no more;
He's guilty, and the question's out of door.
How goes the mob? (for that's a mighty thing,)
When the king's trump, the mob are for the king:
They follow fortune, and the common cry
Is still against the rogue condemned to die.
But the same very mob, that rascal crowd,
Had cried Sejanus, with a shout as loud,
Had his designs (by fortune's favour blest)
Succeeded, and the prince's age opprest.
But long, long since, the times have changed their face,
The people grown degenerate and base;
Not suffered now the freedom of their choice
To make their magistrates, and sell their voice.
Our wise forefathers, great by sea and land,
Had once the power and absolute command;
All offices of trust themselves disposed;
Raised whom they pleased, and whom they pleased deposed:
But we, who give our native rights away,
And our enslaved posterity betray,
Are now reduced to beg an alms, and go
On holidays to see a puppet-show.
There was a damned design, cries one, no doubt,
For warrants are already issued out:
I met Brutidius in a mortal fright,
He's dipt for certain, and plays least in sight;
I fear the rage of our offended prince,
Who thinks the senate slack in his defence.
Come, let us haste, our loyal zeal to show,
And spurn the wretched corpse of Cæsar's foe:
But let our slaves be present there; lest they
Accuse their masters, and for gain betray. --
Such were the whispers of those jealous times,
About Sejanus' punishment and crimes.
Now, tell me truly, wouldst thou change thy fate,
To be, like him, first minister of state?
To have thy levees crowded with resort,
Of a depending, gaping, servile court;
Dispose all honours of the sword and gown,
Grace with a nod, and ruin with a frown;
To hold thy prince in pupillage, and sway
That monarch, whom the mastered world obey?
While he, intent on secret lusts alone,
Lives to himself, abandoning the throne;
Cooped in a narrow isle,[144] observing dreams
With flattering wizards, and erecting schemes!
I well believe thou wouldst be great as he,
For every man's a fool to that degree:
All wish the dire prerogative to kill;
Even they would have the power, who want the will:
But wouldst thou have thy wishes understood,
To take the bad together with the good?
Wouldst thou not rather choose a small renown,
To be the mayor of some poor paltry town;
Bigly to look, and barbarously to speak;
To pound false weights, and scanty measures break?
Then, grant we that Sejanus went astray
In every wish, and knew not how to pray;
For he, who grasped the world's exhausted store,
Yet never had enough, but wished for more,
Raised a top-heavy tower, of monstrous height,
Which, mouldering, crushed him underneath the weight.
What did the mighty Pompey's fall beget,
And ruined him, who, greater than the Great,[145]
The stubborn pride of Roman nobles broke,
And bent their haughty necks beneath his yoke:
What else but his immoderate lust of power,
Prayers made and granted in a luckless hour?
For few usurpers to the shades descend
By a dry death, or with a quiet end.
The boy, who scarce has paid his entrance down
To his proud pedant, or declined a noun,
(So small an elf, that, when the days are foul,
He and his satchel must be borne to school,)
Yet prays, and hopes, and aims at nothing less,
To prove a Tully, or Demosthenes:
But both those orators, so much renowned,
In their own depths of eloquence were drowned:[146]
The hand and head were never lost of those
Who dealt in doggrel, or who punned in prose.
"Fortune foretuned the dying notes of Rome,
Till I, thy consul sole, consoled thy doom. "[147]
His fate had crept below the lifted swords,
Had all his malice been to murder words.
I rather would be Mævius, thrash for rhymes
Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times,
Than that Philippic[148], fatally divine,
Which is inscribed the second, should be mine.
Nor he, the wonder of the Grecian throng,
Who drove them with the torrent of his tongue,
Who shook the theatres, and swayed the state
Of Athens, found a more propitious fate.
Whom, born beneath a boding horoscope,
His sire, the blear-eyed Vulcan of a shop,
From Mars his forge, sent to Minerva's schools,
To learn the unlucky art of wheedling fools.
With itch of honour, and opinion vain,
All things beyond their native worth we strain;
The spoils of war, brought to Feretrian Jove,
An empty coat of armour hung above
The conqueror's chariot and in triumph borne,
A streamer from a boarded galley torn,
A chap-fallen beaver loosely hanging by
The cloven helm, an arch of victory;
On whose high convex sits a captive foe,
And, sighing, casts a mournful look below;[149]--
Of every nation each illustrious name,
Such toys as these have cheated into fame;
Exchanging solid quiet, to obtain
The windy satisfaction of the brain.
So much the thirst of honour fires the blood;
So many would be great, so few be good:
For who would Virtue for herself regard,
Or wed, without the portion of reward?
Yet this mad chace of fame, by few pursued,
Has drawn destruction on the multitude;
This avarice of praise in times to come,
Those long inscriptions crowded on the tomb;
Should some wild fig-tree take her native bent,
And heave below the gaudy monument,
Would crack the marble titles, and disperse
The characters of all the lying verse.
For sepulchres themselves must crumbling fall
In time's abyss, the common grave of all.
Great Hannibal within the balance lay,
And tell how many pounds his ashes weigh;
Whom Afric was not able to contain,
Whose length runs level with the Atlantic main,
And wearies fruitful Nilus, to convey
His sun-beat waters by so long a way;
Which Ethiopia's double clime divides,
And elephants in other mountains hides.
Spain first he won, the Pyreneans past,
And steepy Alps, the mounds that nature cast;
And with corroding juices, as he went,
A passage through the living rocks he rent:
Then, like a torrent rolling from on high,
He pours his headlong rage on Italy,
In three victorious battles over-run;
Yet, still uneasy, cries,--There's nothing done,
Till level with the ground their gates are laid,
And Punic flags on Roman towers displayed.
Ask what a face belonged to this high fame,
His picture scarcely would deserve a frame:
A sign-post dauber would disdain to paint
The one-eyed hero on his elephant.
Now, what's his end, O charming Glory! say,
What rare fifth act to crown this huffing play?
In one deciding battle overcome,
He flies, is banished from his native home;
Begs refuge in a foreign court, and there
Attends, his mean petition to prefer;
Repulsed by surly grooms, who wait before
The sleeping tyrant's interdicted door.
What wonderous sort of death has heaven designed, }
Distinguished from the herd of human kind, }
For so untamed, so turbulent a mind? }
Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar,
Are doomed to avenge the tedious bloody war;
But poison, drawn through a ring's hollow plate,
Must finish him--a sucking infant's fate.
Go, climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool,
To please the boys, and be a theme at school.
One world sufficed not Alexander's mind;
Cooped up, he seemed in earth and seas confined,
And, struggling, stretched his restless limbs about
The narrow globe, to find a passage out:
Yet entered in the brick-built town,[150] he tried
The tomb, and found the strait dimensions wide.
Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds.
Old Greece a tale of Athos would make out,[151]
Cut from the continent, and sailed about;
Seas hid with navies, chariots passing o'er
The channel, on a bridge from shore to shore:
Rivers, whose depth no sharp beholder sees,
Drunk at an army's dinner to the lees;
With a long legend of romantic things,
Which in his cups the bowsy poet sings.
But how did he return, this haughty brave,
Who whipt the winds, and made the sea his slave?
(Though Neptune took unkindly to be bound, }
And Eurus never such hard usage found }
In his Æolian prison under ground;) }
What god so mean, even he who points the way,[152]
So merciless a tyrant to obey!
But how returned he, let us ask again? }
In a poor skiff he passed the bloody main, }
Choked with the slaughtered bodies of his train. }
For fame he prayed, but let the event declare
He had no mighty penn'worth of his prayer.
Jove, grant me length of life, and years good store
Heap on my bending back! I ask no more. --
Both sick and healthful, old and young, conspire
In this one silly mischievous desire.
Mistaken blessing, which old age they call,
'Tis a long, nasty, darksome hospital:
A ropy chain of rheums; a visage rough,
Deformed, unfeatured, and a skin of buff;
A stitch-fallen cheek, that hangs below the jaw;
Such wrinkles as a skilful hand would draw
For an old grandame ape, when, with a grace,
She sits at squat, and scrubs her leathern face.
In youth, distinctions infinite abound;
No shape, or feature, just alike are found;
The fair, the black, the feeble, and the strong: }
But the same foulness does to age belong. }
The self-same palsy, both in limbs and tongue; }
The skull and forehead one bald barren plain,
And gums unarmed to mumble meat in vain;
Besides, the eternal drivel, that supplies
The dropping beard, from nostrils, mouth, and eyes.
His wife and children lothe him, and, what's worse,
Himself does his offensive carrion curse!
Flatterers forsake him too; for who would kill
Himself, to be remembered in a will?
His taste not only pall'd to wine and meat,
But to the relish of a nobler treat.
The limber nerve, in vain provoked to rise,
Inglorious from the field of battle flies;
Poor feeble dotard! how could he advance
With his blue head-piece, and his broken lance?
Add, that, endeavouring still, without effect,
A lust more sordid justly we suspect.
Those senses lost, behold a new defeat,
The soul dislodging from another seat.
What music, or enchanting voice, can cheer
A stupid, old, impenetrable ear?
No matter in what place, or what degree
Of the full theatre he sits to see;
Cornets and trumpets cannot reach his ear;
Under an actor's nose he's never near.
His boy must bawl, to make him understand
The hour o'the day, or such a lord's at hand;
The little blood that creeps within his veins,
Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.
In fine, he wears no limb about him sound,
With sores and sicknesses beleaguered round
Ask me their names, I sooner could relate
How many drudges on salt Hippia wait;
What crowds of patients the town doctor kills,
Or how, last fall, he raised the weekly bills;
What provinces by Basilus were spoiled;
What herds of heirs by guardians are beguiled;
How many bouts a-day that bitch has tried;
How many boys that pedagogue can ride;
What lands and lordships for their owner know
My quondam barber, but his worship now.
This dotard of his broken back complains;
One his legs fail, and one his shoulder pains:
Another is of both his eyes bereft,
And envies who has one for aiming left;
A fifth, with trembling lips expecting stands
As in his childhood, crammed by others hands;
One, who at sight of supper opened wide }
His jaws before, and whetted grinders tried, }
Now only yawns, and waits to be supplied; }
Like a young swallow, when, with weary wings,
Expected food her fasting mother brings.
His loss of members is a heavy curse,
But all his faculties decayed, a worse.
His servants' names he has forgotten quite;
Knows not his friend who supped with him last night:
Not even the children he begot and bred;
Or his will knows them not; for, in their stead,
In form of law, a common hackney jade,
Sole heir, for secret services, is made:
So lewd, and such a battered brothel whore,
That she defies all comers at her door.
Well, yet suppose his senses are his own,
He lives to be chief mourner for his son:
Before his face, his wife and brother burns;
He numbers all his kindred in their urns.
These are the fines he pays for living long,
And dragging tedious age in his own wrong;
Griefs always green, a household still in tears, }
Sad pomps, a threshold thronged with daily biers, }
And liveries of black for length of years. }
Next to the raven's age, the Pylian king[153]
Was longest lived of any two-legged thing.
Blest, to defraud the grave so long, to mount
His numbered years, and on his right hand count! [154]
Three hundred seasons, guzzling must of wine! --
But hold a while, and hear himself repine
At fate's unequal laws, and at the clue
Which, merciless in length, the midmost sister drew. [155]
When his brave son upon the funeral pyre
He saw extended, and his beard on fire,
He turned, and, weeping, asked his friends, what crime
Had cursed his age to this unhappy time?
Thus mourned old Peleus for Achilles slain,
And thus Ulysses' father did complain.
How fortunate an end had Priam made,
Among his ancestors a mighty shade,
While Troy yet stood; when Hector, with the race
Of royal bastards, might his funeral grace;
Amidst the tears of Trojan dames inurned,
And by his loyal daughters truly mourned!
Had heaven so blest him, he had died before
The fatal fleet to Sparta Paris bore:
But mark what age produced,--he lived to see
His town in flames, his falling monarchy.
In fine, the feeble sire, reduced by fate,
To change his sceptre for a sword, too late,
His last effort before Jove's altar tries,
A soldier half, and half a sacrifice:
Falls like an ox that waits the coming blow,
Old and unprofitable to the plough. [156]
At least he died a man; his queen survived,
To howl, and in a barking body lived. [157]
I hasten to our own; nor will relate
Great Mithridates,[158] and rich Croesus' fate;[159]
Whom Solon wisely counselled to attend
The name of happy, till he knew his end.
That Marius was an exile, that he fled,
Was ta'en, in ruined Carthage begged his bread;
All these were owing to a life too long:
For whom had Rome beheld so happy, young?
High in his chariot, and with laurel crowned,
When he had led the Cimbrian captives round
The Roman streets, descending from his state,
In that blest hour he should have begged his fate;
Then, then, he might have died of all admired,
And his triumphant soul with shouts expired.
Campania, Fortune's malice to prevent,
To Pompey an indulgent fever sent;
But public prayers imposed on heaven to give
Their much loved leader an unkind reprieve;
The city's fate and his conspired to save
The head reserved for an Egyptian slave. [160]
Cethegus, though a traitor to the state,
And tortured, 'scaped this ignominious fate;[161]
And Sergius, who a bad cause bravely tried,
All of a piece, and undiminished, died. [162]
To Venus, the fond mother makes a prayer,
That all her sons and daughters may be fair:
True, for the boys a mumbling vow she sends,
But for the girls the vaulted temple rends:
They must be finished pieces; 'tis allowed
Diana's beauty made Latona proud,
And pleased to see the wondering people pray
To the new-rising sister of the day.
And yet Lucretia's fate would bar that vow;
And fair Virginia[163] would her fate bestow
On Rutila, and change her faultless make
For the foul rumple of her camel back.
But, for his mother's boy, the beau, what frights
His parents have by day, what anxious nights!
Form joined with virtue is a sight too rare;
Chaste is no epithet to suit with fair.
Suppose the same traditionary strain
Of rigid manners in the house remain;
Inveterate truth, an old plain Sabine's heart;
Suppose that nature too has done her part,
Infused into his soul a sober grace,
And blushed a modest blood into his face,
(For nature is a better guardian far
Than saucy pedants, or dull tutors are;)
Yet still the youth must ne'er arrive at man,
(So much almighty bribes and presents can;)
Even with a parent, where persuasions fail,
Money is impudent, and will prevail.
We never read of such a tyrant king,
Who gelt a boy deformed, to hear him sing;
Nor Nero, in his more luxurious rage,
E'er made a mistress of an ugly page:
Sporus, his spouse, nor crooked was, nor lame, }
With mountain back, and belly, from the game }
Cross-barred; but both his sexes well became. }
Go, boast your Springal, by his beauty curst
To ills, nor think I have declared the worst;
His form procures him journey-work; a strife
Betwixt town-madams, and the merchant's wife:
Guess, when he undertakes this public war,
What furious beasts offended cuckolds are.
Adulterers are with dangers round beset;
Born under Mars, they cannot 'scape the net;
And, from revengeful husbands, oft have tried
Worse handling than severest laws provide:
One stabs, one slashes, one, with cruel art,
Makes colon suffer for the peccant part.
But your Endymion, your smooth smock-faced boy,
Unrivalled, shall a beauteous dame enjoy.
Not so: one more salacious, rich, and old,
Outbids, and buys her pleasure for her gold:
Now, he must moil, and drudge, for one he lothes;
She keeps him high in equipage and clothes;
She pawns her jewels, and her rich attire,
And thinks the workman worthy of his hire.
In all things else immoral, stingy, mean,
But, in her lusts, a conscionable quean.
She may be handsome, yet be chaste, you say;--
Good observator, not so fast away;
Did it not cost the modest youth his life,
Who shunned the embraces of his father's wife? [164]
And was not t'other stripling forced to fly, }
Who coldly did his patron's queen deny, }
And pleaded laws of hospitality? [165] }
The ladies charged them home, and turned the tale;
With shame they reddened, and with spite grew pale.
'Tis dangerous to deny the longing dame;
She loses pity, who has lost her shame.
Now Silius wants thy counsel, give advice;
Wed Cæsar's wife, or die--the choice is nice. [166]
Her comet-eyes she darts on every grace,
And takes a fatal liking to his face.
Adorned with bridal pomp, she sits in state;
The public notaries and Aruspex wait;
The genial bed is in the garden dressed, }
The portion paid, and every rite expressed, }
Which in a Roman marriage is professed. }
'Tis no stolen wedding this; rejecting awe,
She scorns to marry, but in form of law:
In this moot case, your judgment to refuse
Is present death, besides the night you lose:
If you consent, 'tis hardly worth your pain,
A day or two of anxious life you gain;
Till loud reports through all the town have past,
And reach the prince--for cuckolds hear the last.
Indulge thy pleasure, youth, and take thy swing,
For not to take is but the self-same thing;
Inevitable death before thee lies,
But looks more kindly through a lady's eyes.
What then remains? are we deprived of will;
Must we not wish, for fear of wishing ill?
Receive my counsel, and securely move;--
Intrust thy fortune to the powers above;
Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant
What their unerring wisdom sees thee want:
In goodness, as in greatness, they excel;
Ah, that we loved ourselves but half so well!
We, blindly by our head-strong passions led,
Are hot for action, and desire to wed;
Then wish for heirs; but to the gods alone }
Our future offspring, and our wives, are known; }
The audacious strumpet, and ungracious son. }
Yet, not to rob the priests of pious gain,
That altars be not wholly built in vain,
Forgive the gods the rest, and stand confined
To health of body, and content of mind;
A soul, that can securely death defy,
And count it nature's privilege to die;
Serene and manly, hardened to sustain
The load of life, and exercised in pain;
Guiltless of hate, and proof against desire,
That all things weighs, and nothing can admire;
That dares prefer the toils of Hercules,
To dalliance, banquet, and ignoble ease.
The path to peace is virtue: what I show,
Thyself may freely on thyself bestow;
Fortune was never worshipped by the wise,
But, set aloft by fools, usurps the skies.

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[150] Babylon, where Alexander died.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[162] Sergius Catiline died fighting.

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

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

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

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




THE

SIXTEENTH SATIRE

OF

JUVENAL.


THE ARGUMENT.

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




TRANSLATIONS

FROM

PERSIUS.




THE

FIRST SATIRE

OF

PERSIUS.


ARGUMENT OF THE PROLOGUE

TO THE FIRST SATIRE.

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


PROLOGUE

TO

THE FIRST SATIRE.

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


THE

FIRST SATIRE.

IN DIALOGUE BETWIXT

THE POET AND HIS FRIEND, OR MONITOR.


ARGUMENT.

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


PERSIUS.

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

FRIEND.

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

PERSIUS.

This to me?

FRIEND.

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

PERSIUS.

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

FRIEND.

Once more forbear.

PERSIUS.

I cannot rule my spleen;
My scorn rebels, and tickles me within.
First, to begin at home:--Our authors write
In lonely rooms, secured from public sight;
Whether in prose, or verse, 'tis all the same,
The prose is fustian, and the numbers lame;
All noise, and empty pomp, a storm of words,
Labouring with sound, that little sense affords.
They comb, and then they order every hair; }
A gown, or white, or scoured to whiteness, wear, }
A birth-day jewel bobbing at their ear;[179] }
Next, gargle well their throats; and, thus prepared,
They mount, a God's name, to be seen and heard;
From their high scaffold, with a trumpet cheek,
And ogling all their audience ere they speak.
The nauseous nobles, even the chief of Rome,
With gaping mouths to these rehearsals come,
And pant with pleasure, when some lusty line
The marrow pierces, and invades the chine;
At open fulsome bawdry they rejoice,
And slimy jests applaud with broken voice.
Base prostitute! thus dost thou gain thy bread?
Thus dost thou feed their ears, and thus art fed?
At his own filthy stuff he grins and brays,
And gives the sign where he expects their praise.
Why have I learned, sayst thou, if thus confined,
I choke the noble vigour of my mind?