SATIRE I.
Oh! heavens—while THUS hoarse Codrus perseveres
To force his Theseid on my tortured ears,
Shall I not ONCE attempt "to quit the score,"
Always an auditor, and nothing more!
Forever at my side, shall this rehearse 5
His elegiac, that his comic verse,
Unpunished? shall huge Telephus, at will,
The livelong day consume, or, huger still,
Orestes, closely written, written, too,
Down the broad marge, and yet—no end in view! 10
Away, away!—None knows his home so well
As I the grove of Mars, and Vulcan's cell,
Fast by the Æolian rocks!—How the Winds roar,
How ghosts are tortured on the Stygian shore,
How Jason stole the golden fleece, and how 15
The Centaurs fought on Othrys' shaggy brow;
The walks of Fronto echo round and round—
The columns trembling with the eternal sound,
While high and low, as the mad fit invades,
Bellow the same trite nonsense through the shades. 20
I, too, can write—and, at a pedant's frown,
Once poured my fustian rhetoric on the town:
And idly proved that Sylla, far from power,
Had passed, unknown to fear, the tranquil hour:—
Now I resume my pen; for, since we meet 25
Such swarms of desperate bards in every street,
'Tis vicious clemency to spare the oil,
And hapless paper they are sure to spoil.
But why I choose, adventurous, to retrace
The Auruncan's route, and, in the arduous race, 30
Follow his burning wheels, attentive hear,
If leisure serve, and truth be worth your ear.
When the soft eunuch weds, and the bold fair
Tilts at the Tuscan boar, with bosom bare;
When one that oft, since manhood first appeared, 35
Has trimmed the exuberance of this sounding beard,
In wealth outvies the senate; when a vile,
A slave-born, slave-bred, vagabond of Nile,
Crispinus, while he gathers now, now flings
His purple open, fans his summer rings; 40
And, as his fingers sweat beneath the freight,
Cries, "Save me—from a gem of greater weight!"
'Tis hard a less adventurous course to choose,
While folly plagues, and vice inflames the Muse.
For who so slow of heart, so dull of brain, 45
So patient of the town, as to contain
His bursting spleen, when, full before his eye,
Swings the new chair of lawyer Matho by,
Crammed with himself! then, with no less parade,
That caitiff's, who his noble friend betrayed, 50
Who now, in fancy, prostrate greatness tears,
And preys on what the imperial vulture spares!
Whom Massa dreads, Latinus, trembling, plies
With a fair wife, and anxious Carus buys!
When those supplant thee in thy dearest rights, 55
Who earn rich legacies by active nights;
Those, whom (the shortest, surest way to rise)
The widow's itch advances to the skies!—
Not that an equal rank her minions hold;
Just to their various powers, she metes her gold, 60
And Proculeius mourns his scanty share,
While Gillo triumphs, hers and nature's heir!
And let him triumph! 'tis the price of blood:
While, thus defrauded of the generous flood.
The color flies his cheek, as though he prest, 65
With unsuspecting foot, a serpent's crest;
Or stood engaged at Lyons to declaim,
Where the least peril is the loss of fame.
Ye gods!—what rage, what phrensy fires my brain,
When that false guardian, with his splendid train, 70
Crowds the long street, and leaves his orphan charge
To prostitution, and the world at large!
When, by a juggling sentence damned in vain,
(For who, that holds the plunder, heeds the pain?)
Marius to wine devotes his morning hours, 75
And laughs, in exile, at the offended Powers:
While, sighing o'er the victory she won,
The Province finds herself but more undone!
And shall I feel, that crimes like these require
The avenging strains of the Venusian lyre, 80
And not pursue them? I shall I still repeat
The legendary tales of Troy and Crete;
The toils of Hercules, the horses fed
On human flesh by savage Diomed,
The lowing labyrinth, the builder's flight, 85
And the rash boy, hurl'd from his airy height?
When, what the law forbids the wife to heir,
The adulterer's Will may to the wittol bear,
Who gave, with wand'ring eye and vacant face,
A tacit sanction to his own disgrace; 90
And, while at every turn a look he stole,
Snored, unsuspected, o'er the treacherous bowl!
When he presumes to ask a troop's command,
Who spent on horses all his father's land,
While, proud the experienced driver to display, 95
His glowing wheels smoked o'er the Appian way:—
For there our young Automedon first tried
His powers, there loved the rapid car to guide;
While great Pelides sought superior bliss,
And toyed and wantoned with his master-miss. 100
Who would not, reckless of the swarm he meets,
Fill his wide tablets, in the public streets,
With angry verse? when, through the midday glare,
Borne by six slaves, and in an open chair,
The forger comes, who owes this blaze of state 105
To a wet seal and a fictitious date;
Comes, like the soft Mæcenas, lolling by,
And impudently braves the public eye!
Or the rich dame, who stanched her husband's thirst
With generous wine, but—drugged it deeply first! 110
And now, more dext'rous than Locusta, shows
Her country friends the beverage to compose,
And, midst the curses of the indignant throng,
Bear, in broad day, the spotted corpse along.
Dare nobly, man! if greatness be thy aim, 115
And practice what may chains and exile claim:
On Guilt's broad base thy towering fortunes raise,
For virtue starves on—universal praise!
While crimes, in scorn of niggard fate, afford
The ivory couches, and the citron board, 120
The goblet high-embossed, the antique plate,
The lordly mansion, and the fair estate!
O! who can rest—who taste the sweets of life,
When sires debauch the son's too greedy wife;
When males to males, abjuring shame, are wed, 125
And beardless boys pollute the nuptial bed!
No: Indignation, kindling as she views,
Shall, in each breast, a generous warmth infuse,
And pour, in Nature and the Nine's despite,
Such strains as I, or Cluvienus, write! 130
E'er since Deucalion, while, on every side,
The bursting clouds upraised the whelming tide,
Reached, in his little skiff, the forked hill,
And sought, at Themis' shrine, the Immortals' will;
When softening stones grew warm with gradual life, 135
And Pyrrha brought each male a virgin wife;
Whatever, passions have the soul possest,
Whatever wild desires inflamed the breast,
Joy, Sorrow, Fear, Love, Hatred, Transport, Rage,
Shall form the motley subject of my page. 140
And when could Satire boast so fair a field?
Say, when did Vice a richer harvest yield?
When did fell Avarice so engross the mind?
Or when the lust of play so curse mankind?—
No longer, now, the pocket's stores supply 145
The boundless charges of the desperate die:
The chest is staked!—muttering the steward stands,
And scarce resigns it, at his lord's commands.
Is it a SIMPLE MADNESS,—I would know,
To venture countless thousands on a throw, 150
Yet want the soul, a single piece to spare,
To clothe the slave, that shivering stands and bare!
Who called, of old, so many seats his own,
Or on seven sumptuous dishes supped alone?—
Then plain and open was the cheerful feast, 155
And every client was a bidden guest;
Now, at the gate, a paltry largess lies,
And eager hands and tongues dispute the prize.
But first (lest some false claimant should be found),
The wary steward takes his anxious round, 160
And pries in every face; then calls aloud,
"Come forth, ye great Dardanians, from the crowd!"
For, mixed with us, e'en these besiege the door,
And scramble for—the pittance of the poor!
"Dispatch the Prætor first," the master cries, 165
"And next the Tribune." "No, not so;" replies
The Freedman, bustling through, "first come is, still,
First served; and I may claim my right, and will!—
Though born a slave ('tis bootless to deny,
What these bored ears betray to every eye), 170
On my own rents, in splendor, now I live,
On five fair freeholds! Can the PURPLE give
Their Honors, more? when, to Laurentum sped,
Noble Corvinus tends a flock for bread!—
Pallas and the Licinii, in estate, 175
Must yield to me: let, then, the Tribunes wait."
Yes, let them wait! thine, Riches, be the field!—
It is not meet, that he to Honor yield,
To sacred Honor, who, with whitened feet,
Was hawked for sale, so lately, through the street. 180
O gold! though Rome beholds no altars flame,
No temples rise to thy pernicious name,
Such as to Victory, Virtue, Faith are reared,
And Concord, where the clamorous stork is heard,
Yet is thy full divinity confest, 185
Thy shrine established here, in every breast.
But while, with anxious eyes, the great explore
How much the dole augments their annual store,
What misery must the poor dependent dread,
Whom this small pittance clothed, and lodged, and fed? 190
Wedged in thick ranks before the donor's gates,
A phalanx firm, of chairs and litters, waits:
Thither one husband, at the risk of life,
Hurries his teeming, or his bedrid wife;
Another, practiced in the gainful art, 195
With deeper cunning tops the beggar's part;
Plants at his side a close and empty chair:
"My Galla, master;—give me Galla's share."
"Galla!" the porter cries; "let her look out."
"Sir, she's asleep. Nay, give me;—can you doubt!" 200
What rare pursuits employ the clients' day!
First to the patron's door their court to pay,
Next to the forum, to support his cause,
Thence to Apollo, learned in the laws,
And the triumphal statues; where some Jew, 205
Some mongrel Arab, some—I know not who—
Has impudently dared a niche to seize,
Fit to be p—— against, or—what you please.—
Returning home, he drops them at the gate:
And now the weary clients, wise too late, 210
Resign their hopes, and supperless retire,
To spend the paltry dole in herbs and fire.
Meanwhile, their patron sees his palace stored
With every dainty earth and sea afford:
Stretched on th' unsocial couch, he rolls his eyes 215
O'er many an orb of matchless form and size,
Selects the fairest to receive his plate,
And, at one meal, devours a whole estate!—
But who (for not a parasite is there)
The selfishness of luxury can bear? 220
See! the lone glutton craves whole boars! a beast
Designed, by nature, for the social feast!—
But speedy wrath o'ertakes him: gorged with food,
And swollen and fretted by the peacock crude,
He seeks the bath, his feverish pulse to still, 225
Hence sudden death, and age without a Will!
Swift flies the tale, by witty spleen increast,
And furnishes a laugh at every feast;
The laugh, his friends not undelighted hear,
And, fallen from all their hopes, insult his bier. 230
Nothing is left, NOTHING, for future times
To add to the full catalogue of crimes;
The baffled sons must feel the same desires,
And act the same mad follies, as their sires.
Vice has attained its zenith:—Then set sail, 235
Spread all thy canvas, Satire, to the gale—
But where the powers so vast a theme requires?
Where the plain times, the simple, when our sires
Enjoyed a freedom, which I dare not name,
And gave the public sin to public shame, 240
Heedless who smiled or frowned?—Now, let a line
But glance at Tigellinus, and you shine,
Chained to a stake, in pitchy robes, and light,
Lugubrious torch, the deepening shades of night;
Or, writhing on a hook, are dragged around, 245
And, with your mangled members, plow the ground.
What, shall the wretch of hard, unpitying soul,
Who for THREE uncles mixed the deadly bowl,
Propped on his plumy couch, that all may see,
Tower by triumphant, and look down on me! 250
Yes; let him look. He comes! avoid his way,
And on your lip your cautious finger lay;
Crowds of informers linger in his rear,
And, if a whisper pass, will overhear.
Bring, if you please, Æneas on the stage, 255
Fierce war, with the Rutulian prince, to wage;
Subdue the stern Achilles; and once more,
With Hylas! Hylas! fill the echoing shore;
Harmless, nay pleasant, shall the tale be found,
It bares no ulcer, and it probes no wound. 260
But when Lucilius, fired with virtuous rage,
Waves his keen falchion o'er a guilty age,
The conscious villain shudders at his sin,
And burning blushes speak the pangs within;
Cold drops of sweat from every member roll, 265
And growing terrors harrow up his soul:
Then tears of shame, and dire revenge succeed—
Say, have you pondered well the advent'rous deed?
Now—ere the trumpet sounds—your strength debate;
The soldier, once engaged, repents too late. 270
J. Yet I MUST write: and since these iron times,
From living knaves preclude my angry rhymes,
I point my pen against the guilty dead,
And pour its gall on each obnoxious head.