No More Learning

My clothes, make haste! --why then, if none be near,
He mutters, first, and then begins to swear;
And brays aloud, with a more clamorous note,
Than an Arcadian ass can stretch his throat.
With much ado, his book before him laid,
And parchment with the smoother side displayed,[206]
He takes the papers; lays them down again,
And with unwilling fingers tries the pen.
Some peevish quarrel straight he strives to pick,
His quill writes double, or his ink's too thick;
Infuse more water,--now 'tis grown so thin,
It sinks, nor can the characters be seen.
O wretch, and still more wretched every day!
Are mortals born to sleep their lives away?
Go back to what thy infancy began,
Thou, who wert never meant to be a man;
Eat pap and spoon-meat, for thy gewgaws cry;
Be sullen, and refuse the lullaby.
No more accuse thy pen; but charge the crime
On native sloth, and negligence of time.
Think'st thou thy master, or thy friends, to cheat?
Fool, 'tis thyself, and that's a worse deceit.
Beware the public laughter of the town;
Thou spring'st a leak already in thy crown;
A flaw is in thy ill-baked vessel found;
'Tis hollow, and returns a jarring sound.
Yet thy moist clay is pliant to command,
Unwrought, and easy to the potter's hand:
Now take the mould; now bend thy mind to feel
The first sharp motions of the forming wheel.
But thou hast land; a country seat, secure
By a just title; costly furniture;
A fuming pan thy Lares to appease:[207]
What need of learning when a man's at ease?
If this be not enough to swell thy soul,
Then please thy pride, and search the herald's roll,
Where thou shalt find thy famous pedigree }
Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree,[208] }
And thou, a thousand off, a fool of long degree; }
Who, clad in purple, can'st thy censor greet,[209]
And loudly call him cousin in the street.
Such pageantry be to the people shown:
There boast thy horse's trappings, and thy own.
I know thee to thy bottom, from within
Thy shallow centre, to the utmost skin:
Dost thou not blush to live so like a beast,
So trim, so dissolute, so loosely drest?
But 'tis in vain; the wretch is drenched too deep,
His soul is stupid, and his heart asleep;
Fattened in vice, so callous, and so gross,
He sins, and sees not, senseless of his loss.
Down goes the wretch at once, unskilled to swim,
Hopeless to bubble up, and reach the water's brim.
Great father of the gods, when for our crimes
Thou send'st some heavy judgment on the times;
Some tyrant-king, the terror of his age,
The type, and true vicegerent of thy rage;
Thus punish him: set virtue in his sight,
With all her charms, adorned with all her graces bright;
But set her distant, make him pale to see
His gains outweighed by lost felicity!
Sicilian tortures, and the brazen bull,[210]
Are emblems, rather than express the full
Of what he feels; yet what he fears is more:
The wretch, who, sitting at his plenteous board,
Looked up, and viewed on high the pointed sword
Hang o'er his head, and hanging by a twine,
Did with less dread, and more securely dine. [211]
Even in his sleep he starts, and fears the knife,
And, trembling, in his arms takes his accomplice wife;
Down, down he goes; and from his darling friend
Conceals the woes his guilty dreams portend.
When I was young, I, like a lazy fool,
Would blear my eyes with oil, to stay from school:
Averse from pains, and loth to learn the part
Of Cato, dying with a dauntless heart;
Though much my master that stern virtue praised,
Which o'er the vanquisher the vanquished raised;
And my pleased father came with pride to see
His boy defend the Roman liberty.
But then my study was to cog the dice,
And dexterously to throw the lucky sice;
To shun ames-ace, that swept my stakes away, }
And watch the box, for fear they should convey }
False bones, and put upon me in the play; }
Careful, besides, the whirling top to whip,
And drive her giddy, till she fell asleep.
Thy years are ripe, nor art thou yet to learn
What's good or ill, and both their ends discern:
Thou in the Stoic-porch,[212] severely bred,
Hast heard the dogmas of great Zeno read;
Where on the walls, by Polygnotus' hand,
The conquered Medians in trunk-breeches stand;[213]
Where the shorn youth to midnight lectures rise,
Roused from their slumbers to be early wise;
Where the coarse cake, and homely husks of beans,
From pampering riot the young stomach weans;
And where the Samian Y directs thy steps to run
To Virtue's narrow steep, and broad-way Vice to shun. [214]
And yet thou snor'st, thou draw'st thy drunken breath,
Sour with debauch, and sleep'st the sleep of death:
Thy chaps are fallen, and thy frame disjoined;
Thy body is dissolved as is thy mind.
Hast thou not yet proposed some certain end,
To which thy life, thy every act, may tend?
Hast thou no mark, at which to bend thy bow?
Or, like a boy, pursuest the carrion crow
With pellets, and with stones, from tree to tree,
A fruitless toil, and livest _extempore_?
Watch the disease in time; for when within
The dropsy rages, and extends the skin,
In vain for hellebore the patient cries,
And fees the doctor, but too late is wise;
Too late, for cure he proffers half his wealth;
Conquest and Guibbons[215] cannot give him health.
Learn, wretches, learn the motions of the mind, }
Why you were made, for what you were designed, }
And the great moral end of human kind. }
Study thyself, what rank, or what degree,
The wise Creator has ordained for thee;
And all the offices of that estate
Perform, and with thy prudence guide thy fate.
Pray justly to be heard, nor more desire
Than what the decencies of life require.
Learn what thou owest thy country, and thy friend;
What's requisite to spare, and what to spend:
Learn this; and after, envy not the store
Of the greased advocate, that grinds the poor;
Fat fees[216] from the defended Umbrian draws,
And only gains the wealthy client's cause;
To whom the Marsians more provision send,
Than he and all his family can spend.
Gammons, that give a relish to the taste,
And potted fowl, and fish come in so fast,
That ere the first is out, the second stinks,
And mouldy mother gathers on the brinks.
But here some captain of the land, or fleet,
Stout of his hands, but of a soldier's wit,
Cries,--I have sense to serve my turn in store,
And he's a rascal who pretends to more.
Damn me, whate'er those book-learned blockheads say,
Solon's the veriest fool in all the play.
Top-heavy drones, and always looking down,
(As over ballasted within the crown,)
Muttering betwixt their lips some mystic thing,
Which, well examined, is flat conjuring;
Mere madmen's dreams; for what the schools have taught, }
Is only this, that nothing can be brought }
From nothing, and what is can ne'er be turned to nought. }
Is it for this they study? to grow pale,
And miss the pleasures of a glorious meal?
For this, in rags accoutered, are they seen,
And made the may-game of the public spleen? --
Proceed, my friend, and rail; but hear me tell
A story, which is just thy parallel:--
A spark, like thee, of the man-killing trade,
Fell sick, and thus to his physician said,--
Methinks I am not right in every part;
I feel a kind of trembling at my heart,
My pulse unequal, and my breath is strong,
Besides a filthy fur upon my tongue.
The doctor heard him, exercised his skill,
And after bade him for four days be still.
Three days he took good counsel, and began
To mend, and look like a recovering man;
The fourth he could not hold from drink, but sends
His boy to one of his old trusty friends,
Adjuring him, by all the powers divine, }
To pity his distress, who could not dine }
Without a flaggon of his healing wine. }
He drinks a swilling draught; and, lined within,
Will supple in the bath his outward skin:
Whom should he find but his physician there,
Who wisely bade him once again beware.
Sir, you look wan, you hardly draw your breath;
Drinking is dangerous, and the bath is death.
'Tis nothing, says the fool; but, says the friend,
This nothing, sir, will bring you to your end.
Do I not see your dropsy belly swell?
Your yellow skin? --No more of that; I'm well.
I have already buried two or three }
That stood betwixt a fair estate and me, }
And, doctor, I may live to bury thee. }
Thou tell'st me, I look ill; and thou look'st worse.
I've done, says the physician; take your course.
The laughing sot, like all unthinking men,
Bathes, and gets drunk; then bathes, and drinks again:
His throat half throttled with corrupted phlegm,
And breathing through his jaws a belching steam,
Amidst his cups with fainting shivering seized,
His limbs disjointed, and all o'er diseased,
His hand refuses to sustain the bowl, }
And his teeth chatter, and his eye-balls roll, }
Till with his meat he vomits out his soul; }
Then trumpets, torches, and a tedious crew
Of hireling mourners, for his funeral due.
Our dear departed brother lies in state, }
His heels stretched out, and pointing to the gate;[217] }
And slaves, now manumized, on their dead master wait. }
They hoist him on the bier, and deal the dole,
And there's an end of a luxurious fool.
But what's thy fulsome parable to me?
My body is from all diseases free;
My temperate pulse does regularly beat; }
Feel, and be satisfied, my hands and feet: }
These are not cold, nor those opprest with heat. }
Or lay thy hand upon my naked heart,
And thou shalt find me hale in every part.
I grant this true; but still the deadly wound
Is in thy soul, 'tis there thou art not sound.
Say, when thou see'st a heap of tempting gold,
Or a more tempting harlot dost behold;
Then, when she casts on thee a side-long glance,
Then try thy heart, and tell me if it dance.
Some coarse cold sallad is before thee set; }
Bread with the bran, perhaps, and broken meat; }
Fall on, and try thy appetite to eat. }
These are not dishes for thy dainty tooth:
What, hast thou got an ulcer in thy mouth?
Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore,
That bete and radishes will make thee roar?
Such is the unequal temper of thy mind,
Thy passions in extremes, and unconfined;
Thy hair so bristles with unmanly fears,
As fields of corn, that rise in bearded ears;
And when thy cheeks with flushing fury glow, }
The rage of boiling cauldrons is more slow, }
When fed with fuel and with flames below. }
With foam upon thy lips and sparkling eyes,
Thou say'st, and dost, in such outrageous wise,
That mad Orestes,[218] if he saw the show,
Would swear thou wert the madder of the two.

FOOTNOTES:

[206] Note I.

[207] Note II.

[208] Note III.

[209] Note IV.

[210] Note V.

[211] Note VI.

[212] Note VII.

[213] Note VIII.

[214] Note IX.

[215] Two learned physicians of the period. Dryden mentions Guibbons
more than once, as a friend.

[216] Note X.

[217] Note XI.

[218] Note XII.




NOTES

ON

TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS.

SATIRE III.


Note I.

_And parchment with the smoother side displayed. _--P. 231.

The students used to write their notes on parchments; the inside,
on which they wrote, was white; the other side was hairy, and
commonly yellow. Quintilian reproves this custom, and advises rather
table-books, lined with wax, and a stile, like that we use in our
vellum table-books, as more easy.


Note II.

_A fuming-pan thy Lares to appease. _--P. 232.

Before eating, it was customary to cut off some part of the meat, which
was first put into a pan, or little dish, then into the fire, as an
offering to the household gods: this they called a Libation.


Note III.

_Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree. _--P. 232.

The Tuscans were accounted of most ancient nobility. Horace observes
this in most of his compliments to Mæcenas, who was derived from the
old kings of Tuscany; now the dominion of the Great Duke.


Note IV.

_Who, clad in purple, canst thy censor greet. _--P. 232.

The Roman knights, attired in the robe called _trabea_, were summoned
by the censor to appear before him, and to salute him in passing by, as
their names were called over. They led their horses in their hand. See
more of this in Pompey's Life, written by Plutarch.


Note V.

_Sicilian tortures, and the brazen bull. _--P. 233.

Some of the Sicilian kings were so great tyrants, that the name is
become proverbial. The brazen bull is a known story of Phalaris, one of
those tyrants, who, when Perillus, a famous artist, had presented him
with a bull of that metal hollowed within, which, when the condemned
person was inclosed in it, would render the sound of a bull's roaring,
caused the workman to make the first experiment,--_docuitque suum
mugire juvencum_.


Note VI.

_The wretch, who, sitting at his plenteous board,
Looked up, and viewed on high the pointed sword. _--P. 233.

He alludes to the story of Damocles, a flatterer of one of those
Sicilian tyrants, namely Dionysius. Damocles had infinitely extolled
the happiness of kings: Dionysius, to convince him of the contrary,
invited him to a feast, and clothed him in purple; but caused a sword,
with the point downward, to be hung over his head by a silken twine;
which, when he perceived, he could eat nothing of the delicates that
were set before him.


Note VII.

_Thou in the Stoic-porch, severely bred. _--P. 233.

The Stoics taught their philosophy under a porticus, to secure their
scholars from the weather. Zeno was the chief of that sect.


Note VIII.

_Where on the walls, by Polygnotus' hand,
The conquered Medians in trunk-breeches stand. _--P. 233.

Polygnotus, a famous painter, who drew the pictures of the Medes and
Persians, conquered by Miltiades, Themistocles, and other Athenian
captains, on the walls of the portico, in their natural habits.


Note IX.

_And where the Samian Y directs thy steps to run
To Virtue's narrow steep, and broad-way Vice to shun. _ P. 234.

Pythagoras, of Samos, made the allusion of the Y, or Greek _upsilon_,
to Vice and Virtue. One side of the letter being broad, characters
Vice, to which the ascent is wide and easy; the other side represents
Virtue, to which the passage is strait and difficult; and perhaps
our Saviour might also allude to this, in those noted words of the
evangelist, "The way to heaven," &c.


Note X.

_Fat fees from the defended Umbrian draws. _--P. 235.

Casaubon here notes, that, among all the Romans, who were brought up to
learning, few, besides the orators or lawyers, grew rich.


Note XI.

_His heels stretched out, and pointing to the gate. _ P. 237.

The Romans were buried without the city; for which reason, the poet
says, that the dead man's heels were stretched out towards the gate.


Note XII.

----_Mad Orestes. _--P. 238.

Orestes was son to Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Agamemnon, at his
return from the Trojan wars, was slain by Ægysthus, the adulterer
of Clytemnestra. Orestes, to revenge his father's death, slew both
Ægysthus and his mother; for which he was punished with madness by the
Eumenides, or Furies, who continually haunted him.




THE

FOURTH SATIRE

OF

PERSIUS.


THE ARGUMENT.

_Our author, living in the time of Nero, was contemporary
and friend to the noble poet Lucan. Both of them were
sufficiently sensible, with all good men, how unskilfully
he managed the commonwealth; and perhaps might guess at
his future tyranny, by some passages, during the latter
part of his first five years; though he broke not out into
his great excesses, while he was restrained by the counsels
and authority of Seneca. Lucan has not spared him in the
poem of his Pharsalia; for his very compliment looked
asquint, as well as Nero. [219] Persius has been bolder,
but with caution likewise. For here, in the person of
young Alcibiades, he arraigns his ambition of meddling
with state-affairs without judgment, or experience. It is
probable, that he makes Seneca, in this satire, sustain
the part of Socrates, under a borrowed name; and, withal,
discovers some secret vices of Nero, concerning his lust,
his drunkenness, find his effeminacy, which had not yet
arrived to public notice. He also reprehends the flattery
of his courtiers, who endeavoured to make all his vices
pass for virtues. Covetousness was undoubtedly none of his
faults; but it is here described as a veil cast over the true
meaning of the poet, which was to satirize his prodigality
and voluptuousness; to which he makes a transition. I find
no instance in history of that emperor's being a Pathic,
though Persius seems to brand him with it. From the two
dialogues of Plato, both called "Alcibiades," the poet
took the arguments of the second and third satires; but he
inverted the order of them, for the third satire is taken
from the first of those dialogues. _

_The commentators before Casaubon were ignorant of our author's
secret meaning; and thought he had only written against
young noblemen in general, who were too forward in aspiring
to public magistracy; but this excellent scholiast has
unravelled the whole mystery, and made it apparent, that
the sting of the satire was particularly aimed at Nero. _


Whoe'er thou art, whose forward years are bent
On state affairs, to guide the government;
Hear first what Socrates[220] of old has said
To the loved youth, whom he at Athens bred.
Tell me, thou pupil to great Pericles,
Our second hope, my Alcibiades,[221]
What are the grounds from whence thou dost prepare
To undertake, so young, so vast a care?
Perhaps thy wit; (a chance not often heard,
That parts and prudence should prevent the beard;)
'Tis seldom seen, that senators so young
Know when to speak, and when to hold their tongue.
Sure thou art born to some peculiar fate,
When the mad people rise against the state,
To look them into duty, and command
An awful silence with thy lifted hand;
Then to bespeak them thus:--Athenians, know
Against right reason all your counsels go;
This is not fair, nor profitable that,
Nor t'other question proper for debate. --
But thou, no doubt, can'st set the business right,
And give each argument its proper weight;
Know'st, with an equal hand, to hold the scale; }
Seest where the reasons pinch, and where they fail, }
And where exceptions o'er the general rule prevail; }
And, taught by inspiration, in a trice,
Can'st punish crimes,[222] and brand offending vice.
Leave, leave to fathom such high points as these,
Nor be ambitious, e'er thy time, to please,
Unseasonably wise; till age and cares
Have formed thy soul to manage great affairs.
Thy face, thy shape, thy outside, are but vain; }
Thou hast not strength such labours to sustain; }
Drink hellebore,[223] my boy; drink deep, and purge thy brain. }
What aim'st thou at, and whither tends thy care, }
In what thy utmost good? Delicious fare; }
And then, to sun thyself in open air. }
Hold, hold; are all thy empty wishes such?
A good old woman would have said as much.
But thou art nobly born: 'tis true; go boast
Thy pedigree, the thing thou valuest most:
Besides, thou art a beau; what's that, my child?
A fop, well drest, extravagant, and wild:
She that cries herbs, has less impertinence,
And in her calling more of common sense.
None, none descends into himself, to find
The secret imperfections of his mind;
But every one is eagle-eyed, to see
Another's faults, and his deformity.
Say, dost thou know Vectidius? [224]--Who? the wretch
Whose lands beyond the Sabines largely stretch;
Cover the country, that a sailing kite
Can scarce o'er fly them in a day and night;
Him dost thou mean, who, spite of all his store,
Is ever craving, and will still be poor?
Who cheats for half-pence, and who doffs his coat,
To save a farthing in a ferry-boat?
Ever a glutton at another's cost,
But in whose kitchen dwells perpetual frost?
Who eats and drinks with his domestic slaves,
A verier hind than any of his knaves?
Born with the curse and anger of the gods,
And that indulgent genius he defrauds?
At harvest-home, and on the shearing-day,
When he should thanks to Pan and Pales pay,
And better Ceres,[225] trembling to approach
The little barrel, which he fears to broach;
He 'says the wimble, often draws it back,
And deals to thirsty servants but a smack.
To a short meal he makes a tedious grace,
Before the barley-pudding comes in place:
Then bids fall on; himself, for saving charges,
A peeled sliced onion eats, and tipples verjuice. --
Thus fares the drudge: but thou, whose life's a dream
Of lazy pleasures, takest a worse extreme.
'Tis all thy business, business how to shun;
To bask thy naked body in the sun;
Suppling thy stiffened joints with fragrant oil:
Then, in thy spacious garden walk a while,
To suck the moisture up, and soak it in;
And this, thou think'st, but vainly think'st, unseen.
But know, thou art observed; and there are those,
Who, if they durst, would all thy secret sins expose;
The depilation of thy modest part; }
Thy catamite, the darling of thy heart, }
His engine-hand, and every lewder art, }
When, prone to bear, and patient to receive,
Thou tak'st the pleasure which thou canst not give.
With odorous oil thy head and hair are sleek,
And then thou kemb'st the tuzzes on thy cheek;
Of these thy barbers take a costly care,
While thy salt tail is overgrown with hair.
Not all thy pincers, nor unmanly arts,
Can smooth the roughness of thy shameful parts.
Not five, the strongest that the Circus breeds,[226]
From the rank soil can root those wicked weeds,
Though suppled first with soap, to ease thy pain;
The stubborn fern springs up, and sprouts again.
Thus others we with defamations wound,
While they stab us, and so the jest goes round.
Vain are thy hopes, to 'scape censorious eyes;
Truth will appear through all the thin disguise:
Thou hast an ulcer which no leach can heal,
Though thy broad shoulder-belt the wound conceal.
Say thou art sound and hale in every part,
We know, we know thee rotten at thy heart.
We know thee sullen, impotent, and proud:
Nor canst thou cheat thy nerve, who cheat'st the crowd. --
But when they praise me in the neighbourhood,
When the pleased people take me for a god,
Shall I refuse their incense? Not receive
The loud applauses which the vulgar give?
--
If thou dost wealth with longing eyes behold,
And greedily art gaping after gold;
If some alluring girl, in gliding by, }
Shall tip the wink, with a lascivious eye, }
And thou, with a consenting glance, reply; }
If thou thy own solicitor become,
And bidst arise the lumpish pendulum;
If thy lewd lust provokes an empty storm,
And prompts to more than nature can perform;
If, with thy guards, thou scour'st the streets by night,
And dost in murders, rapes, and spoils delight;[227]
Please not thyself, the flattering crowd to hear,
'Tis fulsome stuff to feed thy itching ear.
Reject the nauseous praises of the times;
Give thy base poets back their cobled rhimes:
Survey thy soul, not what thou dost appear,
But what thou art, and find the beggar there. [228]

FOOTNOTES:

[219] The compliment, at the opening of the Pharsalia, has been thought
sarcastic. It certainly sounds so in modern ears: if Nero could only
attain empire by civil war, as the gods by that of the giants, then
says the poet,

----_Scelera ipsa nefasque
Hac mercede placent_. ----

[220] Note I.

[221] Note II.

[222] Note III.

[223] Note IV.

[224] Note V.

[225] Note VI.

[226] Note VII.

[227] Note VIII.

[228] Note IX.




NOTES

ON

TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS.

SATIRE IV.


Note I.

_Socrates. _--P. 243.

Socrates, whom the oracle of Delphos praised as the wisest man of
his age, lived in the time of the Peloponnesian war. He, finding the
uncertainty of natural philosophy, applied himself wholly to the moral.
He was master to Xenophon and Plato, and to many of the Athenian young
noblemen; amongst the rest to Alcibiades, the most lovely youth then
living; afterwards a famous captain, whose life is written by Plutarch.


Note II.

_Tell me, thou pupil to great Pericles,
Our second hope, my Alcibiades. _--P. 243.

Pericles was tutor, or rather overseer, of the will of Clinias, father
to Alcibiades. While Pericles lived, who was a wise man, and an
excellent orator, as well as a great general, the Athenians had the
better of the war.


Note III.

_Can'st punish crimes. _--P. 244.

That is, by death. When the judges would condemn a malefactor, they
cast their votes into an urn; as, according to the modern custom,
a balloting-box. If the suffrages were marked with #Theta#, they
signified the sentence of death to the offender; as being the first
letter of #Thanatos#, which, in English, is death.


Note IV.

_Drink hellebore. _--P. 244.

The poet would say, that such an ignorant young man, as he here
describes, is fitter to be governed himself than to govern others. He
therefore advises him to drink hellebore, which purges the brain.


Note V.

_Say, dost thou know Vectidius? _--P. 245.

The name of Vectidius is here used appellatively, to signify any rich
covetous man, though perhaps there might be a man of that name then
living. I have translated this passage paraphrastically, and loosely;
and leave it for those to look on, who are not unlike the picture.


Note VI.

_When he should thanks to Pan and Pales pay,
And better Ceres. _--P. 245.

Pan, the god of shepherds, and Pales, the goddess presiding over rural
affairs; whom Virgil invocates in the beginning of his second Georgic.
I give the epithet of _better_ to Ceres, because she first taught the
use of corn for bread, as the poets tell us; men, in the first rude
ages, feeding only on acorns, or mast, instead of bread.


Note VII.

_Not five, the strongest that the Circus breeds. _--P. 246.

The learned Holyday (who has made us amends for his bad poetry in this
and the rest of these satires, with his excellent illustrations), here
tells us, from good authority, that the number five does not allude
to the five fingers of one man, but to five strong men, such as were
skilful in the five robust exercises then in practice at Rome, and were
performed in the circus, or public place ordained for them. These five
he reckons up in this manner: 1. The Cæstus, or Whirlbatts, described
by Virgil in his fifth Æneid; and this was the most dangerous of all
the rest. The 2d was the foot-race. The 3d, the discus; like the
throwing a weighty ball; a sport now used in Cornwall, and other parts
of England; we may see it daily practised in Red-Lyon Fields. The 4th,
was the Saltus, or Leaping; and the 5th, wrestling naked, and besmeared
with oil. They who practised in these five manly exercises were called
#Pentathloi#.


Note VIII.

_If, with thy guards, thou scour'st the streets by night,
And dost in murders, rapes, and spoils, delight. _--P. 247.

Persius durst not have been so bold with Nero as I dare now; and
therefore there is only an intimation of that in him which I publicly
speak: I mean, of Nero's walking the streets by night in disguise,
and committing all sorts of outrages, for which he was sometimes well
beaten.


Note IX.

_Not what thou dost appear,
But what thou art, and find the beggar there. _--P. 247.

Look into thyself, and examine thy own conscience; there thou shalt
find, that, how wealthy soever thou appearest to the world, yet thou
art but a beggar; because thou art destitute of all virtues, which are
the riches of the soul. This also was a paradox of the Stoic school.




THE

FIFTH SATIRE

OF

PERSIUS.

INSCRIBED TO

THE REV. DR BUSBY.

THE SPEAKERS

PERSIUS AND CORNUTUS.


THE ARGUMENT.

_The judicious Casaubon, in his proem to this Satire, tells
us, that Aristophanes, the grammarian, being asked, what
poem of Archilochus' Iambics he preferred before the rest;
answered, the longest. His answer may justly be applied
to this Fifth Satire; which, being of a greater length
than any of the rest, is also by far the most instructive.
For this reason I have selected it from all the others,
and inscribed it to my learned master, Dr Busby; to whom
I am not only obliged myself for the best part of my own
education, and that of my two sons; but have also received
from him the first and truest taste of Persius. May he be
pleased to find, in this translation, the gratitude, or at
least some small acknowledgment, of his unworthy scholar,
at the distance of forty-two years from the time when I
departed from under his tuition. This Satire consists of
two distinct parts: The first contains the praises of
the stoic philosopher, Cornutus, master and tutor to our
Persius; it also declares the love and piety of Persius to
his well-deserving master; and the mutual friendship which
continued betwixt them, after Persius was now grown a man;
as also his exhortation to young noblemen, that they would
enter themselves into his institution. From hence he makes
an artful transition into the second part of his subject;
wherein he first complains of the sloth of scholars, and
afterwards persuades them to the pursuit of their true
liberty. Here our author excellently treats that paradox of
the Stoics, which affirms, that the wise or virtuous man is
only free, and that all vicious men are naturally slaves;
and, in the illustration of this dogma, he takes up the
remaining part of this inimitable Satire. _

PERSIUS.

Of ancient use to poets it belongs,
To wish themselves an hundred mouths and tongues:
Whether to the well-lunged tragedian's rage
They recommend their labours of the stage,
Or sing the Parthian, when transfixed he lies,
Wrenching the Roman javelin from his thighs.

CORNUTUS.

And why would'st thou these mighty morsels chuse,
Of words unchewed, and fit to choke the muse?
Let fustian poets with their stuff begone,
And suck the mists that hang o'er Helicon;
When Progne,[229] or Thyestes'[230] feast they write;
And, for the mouthing actor, verse indite.
Thou neither like a bellows swell'st thy face,
As if thou wert to blow the burning mass
Of melting ore; nor canst thou strain thy throat,
Or murmur in an undistinguished note,
Like rolling thunder, till it breaks the cloud,
And rattling nonsense is discharged aloud.
Soft elocution does thy style renown,
And the sweet accents of the peaceful gown:
Gentle or sharp, according to thy choice,
To laugh at follies, or to lash at vice.
Hence draw thy theme, and to the stage permit
Raw-head and bloody-bones, and hands and feet,
Ragouts for Tereus or Thyestes drest;
'Tis task enough for thee t' expose a Roman feast.

PERSIUS.

'Tis not, indeed, my talent to engage
In lofty trifles, or to swell my page
With wind and noise; but freely to impart,
As to a friend, the secrets of my heart,
And, in familiar speech, to let thee know
How much I love thee, and how much I owe.
Knock on my heart; for thou hast skill to find }
If it sound solid, or be filled with wind; }
And, through the veil of words, thou view'st the naked mind. }
For this a hundred voices I desire,
To tell thee what an hundred tongues would tire,
Yet never could be worthily exprest,--
How deeply thou art seated in my breast.
When first my childish robe[231] resigned the charge,
And left me, unconfined, to live at large;
When now my golden bulla (hung on high }
To household gods) declared me past a boy, }
And my white shield proclaimed my liberty;[232] }
When, with my wild companions, I could roll
From street to street, and sin without controul;
Just at that age, when manhood set me free,
I then deposed myself, and left the reins to thee;
On thy wise bosom I reposed my head,
And by my better Socrates was bred. [233]
Then thy straight rule set virtue in my sight,
The crooked line reforming by the right.
My reason took the bent of thy command,
Was formed and polished by thy skilful hand;
Long summer-days thy precepts I rehearse,
And winter-nights were short in our converse;
One was our labour, one was our repose,
One frugal supper did our studies close.
Sure on our birth some friendly planet shone;
And, as our souls, our horoscope[234] was one:
Whether the mounting Twins[235] did heaven adorn,
Or with the rising Balance[236] we were born;
Both have the same impressions from above.
And both have Saturn's rage, repelled by Jove. [237]
What star I know not, but some star, I find,
Has given thee an ascendant o'er my mind.

CORNUTUS.

Nature is ever various in her frame;
Each has a different will, and few the same.
The greedy merchants, led by lucre, run
To the parched Indies, and the rising sun;
From thence hot pepper and rich drugs they bear,
Bartering for spices their Italian ware;
The lazy glutton, safe at home, will keep,
Indulge his sloth, and batten with his sleep:
One bribes for high preferments in the state;
A second shakes the box, and sits up late;
Another shakes the bed, dissolving there,
Till knots upon his gouty joints appear,
And chalk is in his crippled fingers found;
Rots, like a doddered oak, and piecemeal falls to ground;
Then his lewd follies he would late repent,
And his past years, that in a mist were spent.

PERSIUS.

But thou art pale in nightly studies grown,
To make the Stoic institutes thy own:[238]
Thou long, with studious care, hast tilled our youth,
And sown our well-purged ears with wholesome truth.
From thee both old and young with profit learn }
The bounds of good and evil to discern. }

CORNUTUS.

Unhappy he who does this work adjourn, }
And to to-morrow would the search delay;
His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

PERSIUS.

But is one day of ease too much to borrow?

CORNUTUS.

Yes, sure; for yesterday was once to-morrow.
That yesterday is gone, and nothing gained,
And all thy fruitless days will thus be drained;
For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask,
And wilt be ever to begin thy task;
Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, art curst,
Still to be near, but ne'er to reach the first.
O freedom, first delight of human kind!
Not that which bondmen from their masters find,
The privilege of doles;[239] nor yet to inscribe
Their names in this or t'other Roman tribe;[240]
That false enfranchisement with ease is found,
Slaves are made citizens by turning round. [241]
How, replies one, can any be more free?
Here's Dama, once a groom of low degree,
Not worth a farthing, and a sot beside,
So true a rogue, for lying's sake he lied;
But, with a turn, a freeman he became,
Now Marcus Dama is his worship's name. [242]
Good gods! who would refuse to lend a sum,
If wealthy Marcus surety will become!
Marcus is made a judge, and for a proof
Of certain truth, "He said it," is enough.
A will is to be proved;--put in your claim;--
'Tis clear, if Marcus has subscribed his name. [243]
This is true liberty, as I believe; }
What farther can we from our caps receive, }
Than as we please without controul to live? [244] }
Not more to noble Brutus[245] could belong.
Hold, says the Stoic, your assumption's wrong:
I grant true freedom you have well defined: }
But, living as you list, and to your mind, }
Are loosely tacked, and must be left behind. -- }
What! since the prætor did my fetters loose,
And left me freely at my own dispose,
May I not live without controul or awe,
Excepting still the letter of the law? --[246]
Hear me with patience, while thy mind I free
From those fond notions of false liberty:
'Tis not the prætor's province to bestow }
True freedom; nor to teach mankind to know }
What to ourselves, or to our friends, we owe. }
He could not set thee free from cares and strife,
Nor give the reins to a lewd vicious life:
As well he for an ass a harp might string,
Which is against the reason of the thing;
For reason still is whispering in your ear,
Where you are sure to fail, the attempt forbear.
No need of public sanctions this to bind, }
Which nature has implanted in the mind,-- }
Not to pursue the work, to which we're not designed. }
Unskilled in hellebore, if thou should'st try }
To mix it, and mistake the quantity, }
The rules of physic would against thee cry. }
The high-shoe'd ploughman, should he quit the land, }
To take the pilot's rudder in his hand, }
Artless of stars, and of the moving sand, }
No need of public sanctions this to bind, }
Which nature has implanted in the mind,-- }
Not to pursue the work, to which we're not designed. }
Unskilled in hellebore, if thou should'st try }
To mix it, and mistake the quantity, }
The rules of physic would against thee cry. }
The high-shoe'd ploughman, should he quit the land, }
To take the pilot's rudder in his hand, }
Artless of stars, and of the moving sand, }
The gods would leave him to the waves and wind,
And think all shame was lost in human kind.
Tell me, my friend, from whence had'st thou the skill,
So nicely to distinguish good from ill?
Or by the sound to judge of gold and brass,
What piece is tinkers' metal, what will pass?
And what thou art to follow, what to fly,
This to condemn, and that to ratify?
When to be bountiful, and when to spare,
But never craving, or oppressed with care?
The baits of gifts, and money to despise,
And look on wealth with undesiring eyes?
When thou canst truly call these virtues thine,
Be wise and free, by heaven's consent and mine.
But thou, who lately of the common strain
Wert one of us, if still thou dost retain
The same ill habits, the same follies too,
Glossed over only with a saint-like show,
Then I resume the freedom which I gave;
Still thou art bound to vice, and still a slave.
Thou canst not wag thy finger, or begin
"The least light motion, but it tends to sin. "
How's this? Not wag my finger, he replies? }
No, friend; nor fuming gums, nor sacrifice, }
Can ever make a madman free, or wise. }
"Virtue and vice are never in one soul;
A man is wholly wise, or wholly is a fool. "[247]
A heavy bumpkin, taught with daily care,
Can never dance three steps with a becoming air.

PERSIUS.

In spite of this, my freedom still remains.

CORNUTUS.

Free! what, and fettered with so many chains?
Canst thou no other master understand
Than him that freed thee by the prætor's wand? [248]
Should he, who was thy lord, command thee now,
With a harsh voice, and supercilious brow,
To servile duties, thou would'st fear no more;
The gallows and the whip are out of door.
But if thy passions lord it in thy breast,
Art thou not still a slave, and still opprest?
Whether alone, or in thy harlot's lap,
When thou would'st take a lazy morning's nap,
Up, up, says Avarice;--thou snor'st again,
Stretchest thy limbs, and yawn'st, but all in vain;
The tyrant Lucre no denial takes;
At his command the unwilling sluggard wakes.
What must I do? he cries:--What? says his lord;
Why rise, make ready, and go straight aboard;
With fish, from Euxine seas, thy vessel freight;
Flax, castor, Coan wines, the precious weight
Of pepper, and Sabæan incense, take, }
With thy own hands, from the tired camel's back, }
And with post haste thy running markets make. }
Be sure to turn the penny; lie and swear,
'Tis wholesome sin:--but Jove, thou say'st, will hear:--
Swear, fool, or starve; for the dilemma's even:
A tradesman thou, and hope to go to heaven!
Resolved for sea, the slaves thy baggage pack,
Each saddled with his burden on his back;
Nothing retards thy voyage now, unless
Thy other lord forbids, Voluptuousness:
And he may ask this civil question,--Friend,
What dost thou make a shipboard? to what end?
Art thou of Bethlem's noble college free,
Stark, staring mad, that thou would'st tempt the sea?
Cubbed in a cabin, on a mattress laid,
On a brown george, with lousy swobbers fed,
Dead wine, that stinks of the borrachio, sup
From a foul jack,[249] or greasy maple-cup?
Say, would'st thou bear all this, to raise thy store
From six i'the hundred, to six hundred more?
Indulge, and to thy genius freely give;
For, not to live at ease, is not to live;
Death stalks behind thee, and each flying hour
Does some loose remnant of thy life devour.
Live, while thou liv'st; for death will make us all
A name, a nothing but an old wife's tale.
Speak; wilt thou Avarice, or Pleasure, chuse
To be thy lord? Take one, and one refuse.
But both by turns the rule of thee will have,
And thou betwixt them both wilt be a slave.
Nor think when once thou hast resisted one,
That all thy marks of servitude are gone:
The struggling grey-hound gnaws his leash in vain;
If, when 'tis broken, still he drags the chain.
Says Phædria to his man,[250] Believe me, friend,
To this uneasy love I'll put an end:
Shall I run out of all? My friends' disgrace,
And be the first lewd unthrift of my race?
Shall I the neighbours nightly rest invade
At her deaf doors, with some vile serenade? --
Well hast thou freed thyself, his man replies,
Go, thank the gods, and offer sacrifice. --
Ah, says the youth, if we unkindly part,
Will not the poor fond creature break her heart? --
Weak soul! and blindly to destruction led!
She break her heart! she'll sooner break your head.
She knows her man, and when you rant and swear,
Can draw you to her with a single hair. --
But shall I not return? Now, when she sues!
Shall I my own and her desires refuse? --
Sir, take your course; but my advice is plain:
Once freed, 'tis madness to resume your chain.
Ay; there's the man, who, loosed from lust and pelf,
Less to the prætor owes than to himself.
But write him down a slave, who, humbly proud,
With presents begs preferments from the crowd;[251]
That early suppliant, who salutes the tribes,
And sets the mob to scramble for his bribes,
That some old dotard, sitting in the sun,
On holidays may tell, that such a feat was done:
In future times this will be counted rare.
Thy superstition too may claim a share:
When flowers are strewed, and lamps in order placed,
And windows with illuminations graced,
On Herod's day;[252] when sparkling bowls go round,
And tunny's tails in savoury sauce are drowned,
Thou mutter'st prayers obscene; nor dost refuse
The fasts and sabbaths of the curtailed Jews.
Then a cracked egg-shell thy sick fancy frights,[253]
Besides the childish fear of walking sprites.
Of o'ergrown gelding priests thou art afraid;
The timbrel, and the squintifego maid
Of Isis, awe thee; lest the gods for sin,
Should with a swelling dropsy stuff thy skin:
Unless three garlic heads the curse avert,
Eaten each morn devoutly next thy heart.
Preach this among the brawny guards, say'st thou,
And see if they thy doctrine will allow:
The dull, fat captain, with a hound's deep throat,
Would bellow out a laugh in a bass note,
And prize a hundred Zeno's just as much
As a clipt sixpence, or a schilling Dutch.

FOOTNOTES:

[229] Note I.

[230] Note II.

[231] Note III.

[232] Note IV.

[233] Note V.

[234] Note VI.