SATIRE I.
ARGUMENT.
Under the color of declaring his purpose of writing Satire and the plan he intends to adopt, and of defending himself against the idle criticism of an imaginary and nameless adversary, Persius lashes the miserable poets of his own day, and in no very obscure terms, their Coryphæus himself, Nero. The subject of the Satire is not very unlike the first of the second book of Horace's Satires, and comes very near in some points to the first Satire of Juvenal. But the manner of treatment is distinct in each, and quite characteristic of the three great Satirists. Horace's is more full of personality, one might say, of egotism, and his own dislike and contempt of the authors of his time, more lively and brilliant, more pungent and witty, than either of the others; more pregnant with jokes, and yet rising to a higher tone than the Satire of Persius. That of Juvenal is in a more majestic strain, as befits the stern censor of the depraved morals of his day; full of commanding dignity and grave rebuke, of fiery indignation and fierce invective; and is therefore more declamatory and oratorical in its style, more elevated in its sentiment, more refined in its diction. While in that of Persius we trace the workings of a young and ardent mind, devoted to literature and intellectual pleasures, of a philosophical turn, and a chastened though somewhat fastidious taste. We see the student and devotee of literature quite as much as the censor of morals, and can see that he grieves over the corruption of the public taste almost as deeply as over the general depravity of public morals. Still there breathes through the whole a tone of high and right feeling, of just and stringent criticism, of keen and pungent sarcasm, which deservedly places this Satire very high in the rank of intellectual productions.
The Satire opens with a dialogue between the poet himself and some one who breaks in upon his meditations. This person is usually described as his "Monitor;" some well-meaning acquaintance, who endeavors to dissuade the poet from his purpose of writing Satire. But D'Achaintre's notion, that he is rather an ill-natured critic than a good-natured adviser, seems the more tenable one, and the divisions of the first few lines have been ingeniously made to support that view. After expressing supreme contempt for the poet's opening line, he advises him, if he must needs give vent to verse, to write something more suited to the taste and spirit of the age he lives in. Persius acknowledges that this would be the more likely way to gain applause, but maintains that such approbation is not the end at which a true poet ought to aim. And this leads him to expose the miserable and corrupt taste of the poetasters of his day, and to express supreme contempt for the mania for recitation then prevalent, which had already provoked the sneers of Horace, and afterward drew down the more majestic condemnation of Juvenal. He draws a vivid picture of these depraved poets, who pander to the gross lusts of their hearers by their lascivious strains. Their affectation of speech and manner, their costly and effeminate dress, the vanity of their exalted seat, and the degraded character of their compositions; and on the other hand, the excessive and counterfeited applause of their hearers, expressed by extravagance of language and lasciviousness of gesture corresponding to the nature of the compositions, are touched with a masterly hand. He then ridicules the pretensions of these courtly votaries of the Muses, whose vanity is fostered by the interested praise of dependents and sycophants, who are the first to ridicule them behind their backs. He then makes a digression to the bar; and shows that the manly and vigorous eloquence of Cicero and Hortensius and Cato, as well as the masculine energy and dignity of Virgil, is frittered away, and diluted by the introduction of redundant and misplaced metaphor, labored antitheses, trifling conceits, accumulated epithets, and bombastic and obsolete words, and a substitution of rhetorical subtleties for that energetic simplicity which speaks from and to the heart. Returning to the poets, he brings in a passage of Nero's own composition as a most glaring example of these defects. This excites his friend's alarm, and elicits some cautious advice respecting the risk he encounters; which serves to draw forth a more daring avowal of his bold purpose, and an animated description of the persons whom he would wish to have for his readers.
Persius. "Oh the cares of men![1181] Oh how much vanity is there in human affairs!"—
Adversarius.[1182] Who will read this?[1183]
P. Is it to me you say this?
A. Nobody, by Hercules!
P. Nobody! Say two perhaps, or—
A. Nobody. It is mean and pitiful stuff!
P. Wherefore? No doubt "Polydamas[1184] and Trojan dames" will prefer Labeo to me—
A. It is all stuff!
P. Whatever turbid Rome[1185] may disparage, do not thou join their number; nor by that scale of theirs seek to correct thy own false balance, nor seek[1186] thyself out of thyself. For who is there at Rome that is not[1187]—Ah! if I might but speak![1188] But I may,[1189] when I look at our gray hairs,[1190] and our severe way of life, and all that we commit since we abandoned our childhood's nuts.[1191] When we savor of uncles,[1192] then—then forgive!
A. I will not!
P. What must I do?[1193] For I am a hearty laugher with a saucy spleen.
We write, having shut ourselves in,[1194] one man verses, another free from the trammels of metre, something grandiloquent, which the lungs widely distended with breath may give vent to.
And this, of course, some day, with your hair combed and a new toga,[1195] all in white with your birthday Sardonyx,[1196] you will read out from your lofty seat,[1197] to the people, when you have rinsed[1198] your throat, made flexible by the liquid gargle; languidly leering with lascivious eye! Here you may see the tall Titi[1199] in trembling excitement, with lewdness of manner and agitation of voice, when the verses enter their loins,[1200] and their inmost parts are titillated with the lascivious strain.
P. And dost thou, in thy old age,[1201] collect dainty bits for the ears of others? Ears to which even thou, bursting[1202] with vanity, wouldst say, "Hold, enough!"
A. To what purpose is your learning, unless this leaven, and this wild fig-tree[1203] which has once taken life within, shall burst through your liver and shoot forth?
P. See that pallor and premature old age![1204] Oh Morals![1205] Is then your knowledge so absolutely naught, unless another know you have that knowledge?[1206]
A. But it is a fine thing to be pointed at with the finger,[1207] and that it should be said, "That's he!" Do you value it at nothing, that your works should form the studies[1208] of a hundred curly-headed[1209] youths?
P. See![1210] over their cups,[1211] the well-filled Romans[1212] inquire of what the divine poems tell. Here some one, who has a hyacinthine robe round his shoulders, snuffling through his nose[1213] some stale ditty, distills and from his dainty palate lisps trippingly[1214] his Phyllises,[1215] Hypsipyles, and all the deplorable strains of the poets. The heroes hum assent![1216] Now are not the ashes[1217] of the poet blest? Does not a tomb-stone press with lighter weight[1218] upon his bones? The guests applaud. Now from those Manes of his, now from his tomb and favored ashes, will not violets spring?[1219]
A. You are mocking and indulging in too scornful a sneer.[1220] Lives there the man who would disown the wish to deserve the people's praise,[1221] and having uttered words worthy of the cedar,[1222] to leave behind him verses that dread neither herrings[1223] nor frankincense?
P. Whoever thou art that hast just spoken, and that hast a fair right[1224] to plead on the opposite side, I, for my part, when I write, if any thing perchance comes forth[1225] aptly expressed (though this is, I own, a rare bird[1226]), yet if any thing does come forth, I would not shrink from being praised: for indeed my heart is not of horn. But I deny that that "excellently!" and "beautifully!"[1227] of yours is the end and object of what is right. For sift thoroughly all this "beautifully!" and what does it not comprise within it! Is there not to be found in it the Iliad of Accius,[1228] intoxicated with hellebore? are there not all the paltry sonnets our crude[1229] nobles have dictated? in fine, is there not all that is composed on couches of citron?[1230] You know how to set before your guests the hot paunch;[1231] and how to make a present of your threadbare cloak to your companion shivering with cold,[1232] and then you say, "I do love the truth![1233] tell me the truth about myself!" How is that possible? Would you like me to tell it you? Thou drivelest,[1234] Bald-pate, while thy bloated paunch projects a good foot and a half hanging in front! O Janus! whom no stork[1235] pecks at from behind, no hand that with rapid motion imitates the white ass's ears, no tongue mocks, projecting as far as that of the thirsting hound of Apulia! Ye, O patrician blood![1236] whose privilege[1237] it is to live with no eyes at the back of your head, prevent[1238] the scoffs[1239] that are made behind your back!
What is the people's verdict? What should it be, but that now at length verses flow in harmonious numbers, and the skillful joining[1240] allows the critical nails to glide over its polished surface: he knows how to carry on his verse as if he were drawing a ruddle line with one eye[1241] closed. Whether he has occasion to write against public morals, against luxury, or the banquets of the great, the Muses vouchsafe to our Poet[1242] the saying brilliant things. And see! now we see those introducing heroic[1243] sentiments, that were wont to trifle in Greek: that have not even skill enough to describe a grove. Nor praise the bountiful country, where are baskets,[1244] and the hearth, and porkers, and the smoky palilia with the hay: whence Remus sprung, and thou, O Quintius,[1245] wearing away the plow-boards in the furrow, when thy wife with trembling haste invested thee with the dictatorship in front of thy team, and the lictor bore thy plow home—Bravo, poet!
Some even now delight in the turgid book of Brisæan Accius,[1246] and in Pacuvius, and warty[1247] Antiopa, "her dolorific heart propped up with woe." When you see purblind sires instilling these precepts into their sons, do you inquire whence came this gallimaufry[1248] of speech into our language? Whence that disgrace,[1249] in which the effeminate Trossulus[1250] leaps up in ecstasy at you, from his bench.
Are you not ashamed[1251] that you can not ward off danger from a hoary head, without longing to hear the lukewarm "Decently[1252] said!" "You are a thief!" says the accuser to Pedius. What says Pedius?[1253] He balances the charge in polished antitheses. He gets the praise of introducing learned figures. "That is fine!" Fine, is it?[1254] O Romulus, dost thou wag thy tail?[1255] Were the shipwrecked man to sing, would he move my pity, forsooth, or should I bring forth my penny? Do you sing, while you are carrying about a picture[1256] of yourself on a fragment of wood, hanging from your shoulders. He that aims at bowing me down by his piteous complaint, must whine out what is real,[1257] and not studied and got up of a night.
A. But the numbers have grace, and crude as you call them, there is a judicious combination.
P. He has learned thus to close his line. "Berecynthean Atys;"[1258] and, "The Dolphin that clave the azure Nereus." So again, "We filched away a chine from long-extending Apennine."
A. "Arms and the man."[1259] Is not this frothy, with a pithless rind?
P. Like a huge branch, well seasoned, with gigantic bark!
A. What then is a tender strain, and that should be read with neck relaxed?[1260]
P. "With Mimallonean[1261] hums they filled their savage horns; and Bassaris, from the proud steer about to rive the ravished head, and Mænas, that would guide the lynx with ivy-clusters, re-echoes Evion; and reproductive Echo reverberates the sound!" Could such verses be written, did one spark of our fathers' vigor still exist in us? This nerveless stuff dribbles on the lips, on the topmost spittle. In drivel vests this Mænas and Attis. It neither beats the desk,[1262] nor savors of bitten nails.
A. But what need is there to grate on delicate ears with biting truth? Take care, I pray, lest haply the thresholds of the great[1263] grow cold to you. Here the dog's letter[1264] sounds from the nostril. For me[1265] then, henceforth, let all be white. I'll not oppose it. Bravo! For you shall all be very wonderful productions! Does that please you? "Here, you say, I forbid any one's committing a nuisance." Then paint up two snakes. Boys, go farther away: the place is sacred! I go away.
P. Yet Lucilius lashed[1266] the city, and thee, O Lupus,[1267] and thee too, Mucius,[1268] and broke his jaw-bone[1269] on them. Sly Flaccus touches every failing of his smiling friend, and, once admitted, sports around his heart; well skilled in sneering[1270] at the people with well-dissembled[1271] sarcasm. And is it then a crime for me to mutter, secretly, or in a hole?
A. You must do it nowhere.
P. Yet here I will bury it! I saw, I saw with my own[1272] eyes, my little book! Who has not asses' ears?[1273] This my buried secret, this my sneer, so valueless, I would not sell you for any Iliad.[1274]
Whoever thou art, that art inspired[1275] by the bold Cratinus, and growest pale over the wrathful Eupolis and the old man sublime, turn thine eyes on these verses also, if haply thou hearest any thing more refined.[1276] Let my reader glow with ears warmed by their strains. Not he that delights, like a mean fellow as he is, in ridiculing the sandals of the Greeks, and can say to a blind man, Ho! you blind fellow! Fancying himself to be somebody, because vain[1277] of his rustic honors, as Ædile[1278] of Arretium,[1279] he breaks up the false measures[1280] there. Nor again, one who has just wit enough to sneer at the arithmetic boards,[1281] and the lines in the divided dust; quite ready to be highly delighted, if a saucy wench[1282] plucks[1283] a Cynic's[1284] beard. To such as these I recommend[1285] the prætor's edict[1286] in the morning, and after dinner—Callirhoe.