No More Learning

SATIRE X.

The subject of this inimitable Satire is the vanity of human wishes.
From the principal events of the lives of the most illustrious
characters of all ages, the poet shows how little happiness is promoted
by the attainment of what our indistinct and limited views represent as
the greatest of earthly blessings. Of these he instances wealth, power,
eloquence, military glory, longevity, and personal accomplishments;
all of which, he shows, have proved dangerous or destructive to their
respective possessors. Hence he argues the wisdom of acquiescing in
the dispensations of Heaven; and concludes with a form of prayer, in
which he points out with great force and beauty the objects for which a
rational being may presume to approach the Almighty.


SATIRE XI.

Under the form of an invitation to his friend Persicus, Juvenal takes
occasion to enunciate many admirable maxims for the due regulation
of life. After ridiculing the miserable state to which a profligate
patrician had reduced himself by his extravagance, he introduces the
picture of his own domestic economy, which he follows by a pleasing
view of the simplicity of ancient manners, artfully contrasted with
the extravagance and luxury of the current times. After describing
with great beauty the entertainment he proposes to give his friend, he
concludes with an earnest recommendation to him to enjoy the present
with content, and await the future with calmness and moderation.


SATIRE XII.

Catullus, a valued friend of the poet, had narrowly escaped shipwreck.
In a letter of rejoicing to their common friend, Corvinus, Juvenal
describes the danger that his friend had incurred, and his own hearty
and disinterested delight at his preservation, contrasting his own
sacrifices of thanksgiving at the event, with those offered by the
designing legacy-hunters, by which the rich and childless were
attempted to be insnared.


SATIRE XIII.

Calvinus had left a sum of money in the hands of a confidential
person, who, when he came to re-demand it, forswore the deposit. The
indignation and fury expressed by Calvinus at this breach of trust,
reached the ears of his friend Juvenal, who endeavors to soothe and
comfort him under his loss. The different topics of consolation follow
one another naturally and forcibly, and the horrors of a troubled
conscience were perhaps never depicted with such impressive solemnity
as in this Satire.


SATIRE XIV.

The whole of this Satire is directed to the one great end of
self-improvement. By showing the dreadful facility with which children
copy the vices of their parents, the poet points out the necessity as
well as the sacred duty of giving them examples of domestic purity
and virtue. After briefly enumerating the several vices, gluttony,
cruelty, debauchery, etc. , which youth imperceptibly imbibe from their
seniors, he enters more at large into that of avarice; of which he
shows the fatal and inevitable consequences. Nothing can surpass the
exquisiteness of this division of the Satire, in which he traces the
progress of that passion in the youthful mind from the paltry tricks
of saving a broken meal to the daring violation of every principle,
human and divine. Having placed the absurdity as well as the danger of
immoderate desires in every point of view, he concludes with a solemn
admonition to rest satisfied with those comforts and conveniences which
nature and wisdom require, and which a decent competence is easily
calculated to supply.


SATIRE XV.

After enumerating with great humor the animal and vegetable gods of the
Egyptians, the author directs his powerful ridicule at their sottish
and ferocious bigotry; of which he gives an atrocious and loathsome
example. The conclusion of the Satire, which is a just and beautiful
description of the origin of civil society (infinitely superior to any
thing that Lucretius or Horace has delivered on the subject), founded
not on natural instinct, but on principles of mutual benevolence
implanted by God in the breast of man, and of man alone, does honor to
the genius, good sense, and enlightened morality of the author.


SATIRE XVI.

Under a pretense of pointing out to his friend Gallus the advantages of
a military life, Juvenal attacks with considerable spirit the exclusive
privileges which the army had acquired or usurped, to the manifest
injury of the civil part of the community.




JUVENAL'S SATIRES.


SATIRE I.

Must I always be a hearer only? Shall I never retaliate,[33] though
plagued so often with the Theseid of Codrus,[34] hoarse _with reciting
it_? Shall one man, then, recite[35] to me his Comedies, and another
his Elegies, with impunity? Shall huge "Telephus" waste a whole day for
me, or "Orestes," with the margin of the manuscript full to the very
edge, and written on the back too,[36] and yet not finished, _and I not
retort_?

No one knows his own house better than I do the grove of Mars, and
Vulcan's cave close to the Æolian rocks. The agency of the winds,[37]
what ghosts Æacus is torturing, whence another bears off the gold[38]
of the stolen fleece, what huge mountain-ashes Monychus hurls, _all
this_ the plane-groves of Fronto,[39] and the statues shaken and the
columns split by the eternal reciter, are for ever re-echoing. You may
look for the same themes from the greatest poet and the least.

And yet I too have shirked my hand away from the rod. [40] I too
have given advice to Sylla, that he should enjoy a sound sleep by
returning to a private station. [41] When at every turn you meet so
many poetasters, it were a foolish clemency to spare paper that is
sure to be wasted. Yet why I rather choose to trace my course over
that plain through which the great foster-son of Aurunca[42] urged his
steeds, I will, if you are at leisure, and with favorable ear listen to
reason, tell you. When a soft eunuch[43] marries a wife; when Mævia[44]
transfixes the Tuscan boar, and, with breasts exposed, grasps the
hunting-spears; when one man singly vies in wealth with the whole body
of patricians, under whose razor my beard, grown exuberant, sounded
while I was in my prime;[45] when Crispinus, one of the dregs of the
mob of the Nile, a born-slave of Canopus, (while his shoulder hitches
up his Tyrian cloak,)[46] airs his summer ring from his sweating
fingers, and can not support the weight of his heavier gem;--it is
difficult not to write satire. For who can be so tolerant of this
iniquitous city, who so case-hardened,[47] as to contain himself! When
there comes up the bran-new litter of Matho[48] the lawyer, filled with
himself; and after him, he that informed upon his powerful friend; and
will soon plunder the nobility, already close-shorn, of the little
that remains to them; one whom even Massa fears, whom Carus soothes
with a bribe; or a Thymele suborned by some trembling Latinus. [49]
When fellows supplant you, who earn their legacies by night-work,
lifted up to heaven[50] by what is now the surest road to the highest
advancement, the lust of some ancient harridan. Proculeius gets one
poor twelfth; but Gillo has eleven twelfths. Each gets the share
proportioned to his powers. Well! let him take the purchase-money of
his blood, and be as pale as one that has trodden on a snake with naked
heel, or a rhetorician about to declaim at the altar at Lyons. [51]

Why need I tell with what indignation my parched liver boils, when
here, the plunderer of his ward (reduced by him to the vilest gains)
presses on the people with his crowds of menials, and there, he that
was condemned by a powerless sentence. (For what cares he for infamy
while he retains the plunder? ) Marius,[52] though an exile, drinks
from the eighth hour, and laughs at the angry gods, while thou, O
Province, victorious in the suit, art in tears! Shall I not deem these
themes worthy of the lamp of Venusium? [53] Shall I not lash these?
Why rather sing tales of Hercules or Diomede, or the bellowing of
the Labyrinth, and the sea struck by the boy Icarus, and the winged
artificer? [54] When the pander inherits the wealth of the adulterer
(since the wife has lost the right of receiving it),[55] taught
to gaze at the ceiling, and snore over his cups with well-feigned
sleep. When he considers himself privileged to expect the command of
a cohort, who has squandered his money on his stables, and has run
through all his ancestors' estate, while he flies with rapid wheel
along the Flaminian road;[56] for while yet a youth, like Automedon,
he held the reins, while the great man showed himself off to his
"mistress-in-his-cloak. "[57] Do you not long to fill your capacious
tablets, even in the middle of the cross-ways, when there comes borne
on the shoulders of six slaves, exposed to view on either side, with
palanquin almost uncurtained, and aping the luxurious Mæcenas, the
forger, who made himself a man of splendor and wealth by a few short
lines, and a moistened seal? [58] Next comes the powerful matron, who
when her husband thirsts, mingles the toad's-poison in the mellow
wine of Cales which she is herself about to hand him, and with skill
superior even to Locusta,[59] initiates her neighbors, too simple
before, in the art of burying their husbands, livid from the poison, in
despite of infamy and the public gaze. [60]

Dare some deed to merit scanty Gyarus[61] and the jail, if you wish to
be somebody. Honesty is commended, and starves. It is to their crimes
they are indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, their
fine old plate, and the goat standing in high relief from the cup.
Whom does the seducer of his own daughter-in-law, greedy for gold,
suffer to sleep? Or the unnatural brides, or the adulterer not out of
his teens? [62] If nature denies the power, indignation would give birth
to verses, such as it could produce, like mine and Cluvienus'.

From the time that Deucalion ascended the mountain in his boat, while
the storm upheaved the sea,[63] and consulted the oracle, and the
softening stones by degrees grew warm with life, and Pyrrha displayed
to the males the virgins unrobed; all that men are engaged in, their
wishes, fears, anger, pleasures, joys, and varied pursuits, form the
hotch-potch of my book.

And when was the crop of vices more abundant? When were the sails of
avarice more widely spread? When had gambling its present spirits? For
now men go to the hazard of the gaming-table not simply with their
purses, but play with their whole chest[64] staked. What fierce battles
will you see there, while the steward supplies the weapons for the
contest! Is it then mere common madness to lose a hundred sestertia,
and not leave enough for a tunic for your shivering slave! [65] Which
of our grandsires erected so many villas? Which of them ever dined by
himself[66] on seven courses? In our days the diminished sportula is
set outside the threshold, ready to be seized upon by the toga-clad
crowd. [67] Yet he (that dispenses it), before giving, scans your
features, and dreads lest you should come with counterfeit pretense
and under a false name. When recognized you will receive your dole.
He bids the crier summon the very Trojugenæ themselves. For even they
assail the door with us. "Give the prætor his! Then to the tribune. "
But the freedman must first be served! "I was before him! " he says.
"Why should I fear or hesitate to stand up for my turn, though I was
born on the banks of Euphrates, which the soft windows[68] in my ears
would attest, though I myself were to deny the fact. But my five
shops bring me in four hundred sestertia. What does the Laticlave[69]
bestow that's worth a wish, since Corvinus keeps sheep for hire in the
Laurentine fields? I own more than Pallas[70] and the Licini. Let the
tribunes wait then! " Let Riches carry the day, and let not him give
place even to the sacrosanct magistrate, who came but the other day
to this city with chalked feet. [71] Since with us the most revered
majesty is that of riches; even though as yet, pernicious money, thou
dwellest in no temple, nor have we as yet reared altars to coin, as we
worship Peace and Faith, Victory and Virtue, and Concord, whose temple
resounds with the noise of storks returning to their nests. [72] But
when a magistrate of the highest rank reckons up at the end of the
year, what the sportula brings him in, how much it adds to his revenue,
what shall the poor retainers do, who look to this for their toga, for
their shoes, their bread and fire at home? A closely-wedged crowd of
litters is clamorous for the hundred quadrantes, and his wife, though
sick or pregnant, accompanies and goes the rounds with her husband.
One practicing a crafty trick now worn threadbare, asks for his wife
though really absent, displaying in her stead an empty and closed
palanquin: "My Galla is inside," he says, "dispatch us with all speed.
Why hesitate? " "Put out your head, Galla! " "O don't disturb her! she's
asleep! "

The day is portioned out with a fine routine of engagements. First
the sportula; then the Forum,[73] and Apollo[74] learned in the law;
and the triumphal statues, among which some unknown Egyptian or
Arabarch has dared set up his titles, whose image, as though sacred,
one dare not venture to defile. [75] At length, the old and wearied-out
clients quit the vestibule and give up all their hopes;[76] although
their expectation of a dinner has been full-long protracted: the poor
wretches must buy their cabbage and fire. Meanwhile their patron-lord
will devour the best that the forest and ocean can supply, and will
recline in solitary state with none but himself on his couches. For
out of so many fair, and broad, and such ancient dishes, they gorge
whole patrimonies at a single course. In our days there will not be
even a parasite! Yet who could tolerate such sordid luxury! How gross
must that appetite be, which sets before itself whole boars, an animal
created to feast a whole company! Yet thy punishment is hard at hand,
when distended with food thou layest aside thy garments, and bearest
to the bath the peacock undigested! Hence sudden death, and old age
without a will. The news[77] travels to all the dinner-tables, but
calls forth no grief, and thy funeral procession advances, exulted
over by disgusted friends! [78] There is nothing farther that future
times can add to our immorality. Our posterity must have the same
desires, perpetrate the same acts. Every vice has reached its climax.
Then set sail! spread all your canvas! Yet here perchance you may
object, whence can talent be elicited able to cope with the subject?
Whence that blunt freedom of our ancestors, whose very name I dare not
utter, of writing whatever was dictated by their kindling soul. What
matter, whether Mucius forgive the libel, or not? But take Tigellinus
for your theme, and you will shine in that tunic, in which they blaze
standing,[79] who smoke with throat transfixed, and you will draw
a broad furrow in the middle of the sand. "Must he then, who has
given[80] aconite to his three uncles, be borne on down cushions,
suspended aloft, and from thence look down on us? " Yes! when he meets
you press your finger to your lip! There will be some informer standing
by to whisper in his ear, That's he! Without fear for the consequences
you may match[81] Æneas and the fierce Rutulian. The death of Achilles
breeds ill-will in no one; or the tale of the long-sought Hylas, who
followed his pitcher. But whensoever Lucilius, fired with rage, has
brandished as it were his drawn sword, his hearer, whose conscience
chills with the remembrance of crime, grows red. His heart sweats with
the pressure of guilt concealed. Then bursts forth rage and tears!
Ponder well, therefore, these things in your mind, before you sound the
signal blast. The soldier when helmeted repents too late of the fight.
I will try then what I may be allowed to vent on those whose ashes are
covered by the Flaminian[82] or Latin road.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] _Reponam_, "repay in kind. " A metaphor taken from the payment of
debts.

[34] _Codrus_; a poor poet in every sense, if, as some think, he is the
same as the Codrus mentioned iii. , 203.

[35] _Recitaverit. _ For the custom of Roman writers to recite their
compositions in public, cf. Sat. vii. , 40, 83; iii. , 9. Plin. , 1,
Ep. xiii. , "queritur se diem perdidisse. " _Togata_ is a comedy on a
Roman subject; _Prætexta_, a tragedy on the same; _Elegi_, trifling
love-songs.

[36] _In tergo. _ The ancients usually wrote only on one side of the
parchment: when otherwise, the works were called "Opisthographi," and
said to be written "aversa charta. "

[37] _Venti_; cf. xii. , 23, where he uses "Poëtica tempestas" as a
proverbial expression.

[38] _Aurum_; probably a hit at Valerius Flaccus, his contemporary.

[39] _Julius Fronto_ was a munificent patron of literature, thrice
consul, and once colleague of Trajan, A. D. 97. Cassiod.

[40] "Jam a grammaticis eruditi recessimus. " Brit. ; and so Dryden.

[41] "That to sleep soundly, he must cease to rule. " Badham.

[42] Lucilius was born at _Aurunca_, anciently called Suessa.

[43] _Spado_, for the reason, vid. Sat. vi. , 365.

[44] _Mævia. _ The passion of the Roman women for fighting with wild
beasts in the amphitheatre was encouraged by Domitian, but afterward
restrained by an edict of Severus.

[45] "Who reap'd my manly chin's resounding field. " Hodgson. Either
Licinus, the freedman of Augustus, is referred to (Hor. , A. P. , 301),
or more probably Cinnamus. Cf. Sat. x. , 225. Mart. , vii. , Ep. 64.

[46] This is the most probable meaning, and adopted by Madan and
Browne; but there are various other interpretations: e. g. , "Cumbered
with his purple vest. " Badham. "With cloak of Tyrian dye, Changed oft a
day for needless luxury. " Dryden. "While he gathers now, now flings his
purple open. " Gifford. "O'er his back displays. " Hodgson.

[47] _Ferreus_, "so steel'd. "

[48] "Fat Matho plunged in cushions at his ease. " Badham.

[49] Cf. Mart. , i. , v. , 5, "Quâ Thymelen spectas derisoremque Latinum. "

[50] _Cœlum.
_ There is probably a covert allusion here to Adrian, who
gained the empire through the partiality of Plotina, in spite of the
will of her dying husband Trajan.

[51] _Lugdunensem. _ There was a temple erected in honor of Augustus
at Lyons, A. U. C. 744, and from the very first games were celebrated
there, but the contest here alluded to was instituted by Caligula. Cf.
Suet. , Calig. , xx. It was a "certamen Græcæ Latinæque facundiæ," in
which the vanquished were compelled to give prizes to the victors, and
to write their praises. While those who "maximè displicuissent" had
to obliterate their own compositions with a sponge or their tongues,
unless they preferred being beaten with ferules, or ducked in the
nearest river. Caligula was at Lyons, A. D. 40, on his way to the ocean.

[52] _Marius Priscus_, proconsul of Africa, was condemned for
extortion, A. D. 100. Vid. Clinton in a. Pliny the Younger was his
accuser, 2 Ep. , xi. (Cf. Sat. viii. , 120, "Cum tenues nuper Marius
discinxerit Afros. ") Though condemned, he saved his money; and was,
as Gifford renders it, "by a juggling sentence damn'd in vain. " The
ninth hour (three o'clock) was the earliest hour at which the temperate
dined. Cf. Mart. , iv. , Ep. 8, "Imperat exstructos frangere nona toros. "
Cf. Hor. , i. , Od. i. , 20.

[53] _Venusium_, or Venusia, the birthplace of Horace.

[54] "Vitreo daturus nomina Ponto. " Hor. , iv. , Od. ii. , 3.

[55] _Jus nullum uxori. _ Cf. Suet. , Dom. , viii. "Probrosis fœminis
ademit jus capiendi legata hæreditatesque. "

[56] The Flaminian road ran the whole length of the Campus Martius, and
was therefore the most conspicuous thoroughfare in Rome. It is now the
Corso.

[57] _Lacernatæ. _ The Lacerna was a male garment: the allusion is
probably to Nero and his "eunuch-love" Sporus. Vid. Suet. , Nero, 28.

[58] "Signator-falso," sc. testamento. Cf. Sat. xii. , 125, and Bekker's
Charicles. "Fram'd a short will and gave himself the whole. " Hodgson.

"A few short lines authentic made,
By a forged seal the inheritance convey'd. " Badham.

[59] _Locusta. _ Vid. Tac. , Ann. , xii. , 66, 67. She was employed by
Agrippina to poison Claudius, and by Nero to destroy Germanicus. On the
accession of Galba she was executed. Cf. Suet. , Nero, 33.

[60]

"Reckless of whispering mobs that hover near. " Badham.

"Nor heed the curse of the indignant throng. " Gifford.

[61] _Gyarus_, a barren island in the Ægean. Vid. Tac. , Ann. , iii, 68,
69. "Insulam Gyarum immitem et sine cultu hominum esse. " Cf. Sat. x. ,
170; vi. , 563.

[62] "The raw noble in his boyish gown. " Hodgson. "Stripling
debauchee. " Gifford. The sons of the nobility wore the toga prætexta
till the age of seventeen.

[63] "While whelming torrents swell'd the floods below. " Badham.

[64] _Arcâ. _ Cf. Sat. x. , 24.

[65] _Reddere. _ Probably "to pay what has been _long_ due. "

[66] _Secreto_, "without their clients," opposed to the "in propatulo"
of Val. Max. , ii. , 5. ἔῤῥ' ἐς κόρακας μονόφαγε. Alex.

[67] In former days the Romans entertained their clients, after the
day's officium was over, at supper, which was called "cœna recta. " In
later times, the clients, instead of this, received their portion of
the supper, which they carried away in a small basket, "sportula," or
a kind of portable kitchen. Cf. iii. , 249. This was again changed, and
an equivalent in money (centum quadrantes, about twenty pence English)
given instead. Domitian restored the "cœna recta. " Cf. Suet. , Dom. ,
vii. ; Nero, xvi.

[68] _Fenestræ. _ Cf. Xen. , Anab. , III. , i. , 31. Exod. , xxi. , 6.

[69]

"Shall I then yield, though born perchance a slave,
To the proud beggar in his laticlave? " Hodgson.

[70] _Pallas_, the freedman of Claudius, was enormously rich. The
wealth and splendor of Licinus is again alluded to, Sat. xiv. , 305.

[71] _Pedibus albis. _ The feet of imported slaves were marked with
chalk. Cf. Sat. vii. , 16. Plin. , H. N. , xxxv. , 17.

[72] _Salutato crepitat. _ It refers either to the chattering of the
young birds, when the old birds who have been in quest of food return
to their nests (the whole _temple_ being deserted by men, serves, as
the Schol. says, for a _nidus_ to birds); or, to the noise made by the
old birds striking their beaks to announce their return. Cf. Ov. , Met. ,
vi. , 97.

[73] _Ordine rerum. _ Cf. Mart. , iv. , Ep. 8. The _Forum_ is the old
Forum Romanum.

[74] _Apollo_, i. e. , the Forum Augusti on the Palatine Hill. In the
court where pleas were held stood an ivory statue of Apollo. Cf. Hor. ,
i. , Sat. ix. , 78.

[75] "And none must venture to pollute the place. " Hodgson. Tantum, i.
e. , tantummodo. Cf. Pers. , i. Sat. , 114, Sacer est locus, ite profani,
Extra meiete!

[76] To all these places the client attends his patron; then, on his
return, the rich man's door is closed, and he is at liberty to return
home, without any invitation to remain to dinner.

"The day's attendance closed, and evening come,
The uninvited client hies him home. " Badham.

[77] _Nova. _ "By witty spleen increased. " Gifford.

[78]

"Friends, unenrich'd, shall revel o'er your bier,
Tell the sad news, nor grace it with a tear. " Hodgson.

[79] _Tædâ. _ Cf. viii. , 235, "Ausi quod libeat tunica punire molestâ.