The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius / Literally translated into English prose, with notes, chronological tables, arguments, &c.

by Juvenal; Gaius Lucilius; Persius; Sulpicia

SATIRE III.

Grieved though I am to see the man depart,
Who long has shared, and still must share, my heart,
Yet (when I call my better judgment home)
I praise his purpose; to retire from Rome,
And give, on Cumæ's solitary coast, 5
The Sibyl—one inhabitant to boast!
Full on the road to Baiæ, Cumæ lies,
And many a sweet retreat her shore supplies—
Though I prefer ev'n Prochyta's bare strand
To the Suburra:—for, what desert land, 10
What wild, uncultured spot, can more affright,
Than fires, wide blazing through the gloom of night,
Houses, with ceaseless ruin, thundering down,
And all the horrors of this hateful town?
Where poets, while the dog-star glows, rehearse, 15
To gasping multitudes, their barbarous verse!
Now had my friend, impatient to depart,
Consigned his little all to one poor cart:
For this, without the town he chose to wait;
But stopped a moment at the Conduit-gate.— 20
Here Numa erst his nightly visits paid,
And held high converse with the Egerian maid:
Now the once-hallowed fountain, grove, and fane,
Are let to Jews, a wretched, wandering train,
Whose furniture's a basket filled with hay— 25
For every tree is forced a tax to pay;
And while the heaven-born Nine in exile rove,
The beggar rents their consecrated grove!
Thence slowly winding down the vale, we view
The Egerian grots—ah, how unlike the true! 30
Nymph of the Spring; more honored hadst thou been,
If, free from art, an edge of living green,
Thy bubbling fount had circumscribed alone,
And marble ne'er profaned the native stone.
Umbritius here his sullen silence broke, 35
And turned on Rome, indignant, as he spoke.
Since virtue droops, he cried, without regard,
And honest toil scarce hopes a poor reward;
Since every morrow sees my means decay,
And still makes less the little of to-day; 40
I go, where Dædalus, as poets sing,
First checked his flight, and closed his weary wing:
While something yet of health and strength remains,
And yet no staff my faltering step sustains;
While few gray hairs upon my head are seen, 45
And my old age is vigorous still, and green.
Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell—
Ah, mine no more!—there let Arturius dwell,
And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite,
Can white to black transform, and black to white, 50
Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold,
Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold!
Once they were trumpeters, and always found,
With strolling fencers, in their annual round,
While their puffed cheeks, which every village knew, 55
Called to "high feats of arms" the rustic crew:
Now they give Shows themselves; and, at the will
Of the base rabble, raise the sign—to kill,
Ambitious of their voice: then turn, once more,
To their vile gains, and farm the common shore! 60
And why not every thing?—since Fortune throws
Her more peculiar smiles on such as those,
Whene'er, to wanton merriment inclined,
She lifts to thrones the dregs of human kind!
But why, my friend, should I at Rome remain? 65
I can not teach my stubborn lips to feign;
Nor, when I hear a great man's verses, smile,
And beg a copy, if I think them vile.
A sublunary wight, I have no skill
To read the stars; I neither can, nor will, 70
Presage a father's death; I never pried,
In toads, for poison, nor—in aught beside.
Others may aid the adulterer's vile design,
And bear the insidious gift, and melting line,
Seduction's agents! I such deeds detest; 75
And, honest, let no thief partake my breast.
For this, without a friend, the world I quit;
A palsied limb, for every use unfit.
Who now is loved, but he whose conscious breast
Swells with dark deeds, still, still to be supprest? 80
He pays, he owes, thee nothing (strictly just),
Who gives an honest secret to thy trust;
But, a dishonest!—there, he feels thy power,
And buys thy friendship high from hour to hour.
But let not all the wealth which Tagus pours 85
In Ocean's lap, not all his glittering stores,
Be deemed a bribe, sufficient to requite
The loss of peace by day, of sleep by night:—
Oh take not, take not, what thy soul rejects,
Nor sell the faith, which he, who buys, suspects! 90
The nation, by the GREAT, admired, carest,
And hated, shunned by Me, above the rest,
No longer, now, restrained by wounded pride,
I haste to show (nor thou my warmth deride),
I can not rule my spleen, and calmly see, 95
A Grecian capital, in Italy!
Grecian? O no! with this vast sewer compared,
The dregs of Greece are scarcely worth regard:
Long since, the stream that wanton Syria laves
Has disembogued its filth in Tiber's waves, 100
Its language, arts; o'erwhelmed us with the scum
Of Antioch's streets, its minstrel, harp, and drum.
Hie to the Circus! ye who pant to prove
A barbarous mistress, an outlandish love;
Hie to the Circus! there, in crowds they stand, 105
Tires on their head, and timbrels in their hand.
Thy rustic, Mars, the trechedipna wears,
And on his breast, smeared with ceroma, bears
A paltry prize, well-pleased; while every land,
Sicyon, and Amydos, and Alaband, 110
Tralles, and Samos, and a thousand more,
Thrive on his indolence, and daily pour
Their starving myriads forth: hither they come,}
And batten on the genial soil of Rome;}
Minions, then lords, of every princely dome!} 115
A flattering, cringing, treacherous, artful race,
Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face;
A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician, 120
Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician,
All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts;
And bid him mount the sky—the sky he mounts!
You smile—was't a barbarian, then, that flew?
No, 'twas a Greek! 'twas an Athenian, too! 125
—Bear with their state who will: for I disdain
To feed their upstart pride, or swell their train:
Slaves, that in Syrian lighters stowed, so late,
With figs and prunes (an inauspicious freight),
Already see their faith preferred to mine, 130
And sit above me! and before me sign!—
That on the Aventine I first drew air,
And, from the womb, was nursed on Sabine fare,
Avails me not! our birthright now is lost,
And all our privilege, an empty boast! 135
For lo! where versed in every soothing art,
The wily Greek assails his patron's heart,
Finds in each dull harangue an air, a grace,
And all Adonis in a Gorgon face;
Admires the voice that grates upon the ear, 140
Like the shrill scream of amorous chanticleer;
And equals the crane neck, and narrow chest,
To Hercules, when, straining to his breast
The giant son of Earth, his every vein
Swells with the toil, and more than mortal pain. 145
We too can cringe as low, and praise as warm,
But flattery from the Greeks alone can charm.
See! they step forth, and figure to the life,
The naked nymph, the mistress, or the wife,
So just, you view the very woman there, 150
And fancy all beneath the girdle bare!
No longer now, the favorites of the stage
Boast their exclusive power to charm the age:
The happy art with them a nation shares,
Greece is a theatre, where all are players. 155
For lo! their patron smiles,—they burst with mirth;
He weeps—they droop, the saddest souls on earth;
He calls for fire—they court the mantle's heat;
'Tis warm, he cries—and they dissolve in sweat.
Ill-matched!—secure of victory they start, 160
Who, taught from youth to play a borrowed part,
Can, with a glance, the rising passion trace,
And mould their own, to suit their patron's face;
At deeds of shame their hands admiring raise,
And mad debauchery's worst excesses praise. 165
Besides, no mound their raging lust restrains,
All ties it breaks, all sanctity profanes;
Wife, virgin-daughter, son unstained before—
And, where these fail, they tempt the grandam hoar:
They notice every word, haunt every ear, 170
Your secrets learn, and fix you theirs from fear.
Turn to their schools:—yon gray professor see,
Smeared with the sanguine stains of perfidy!
That tutor most accursed his pupil sold!
That Stoic sacrificed his friend to gold! 175
A true-born Grecian! littered on the coast,
Where the Gorgonian hack a pinion lost.
Hence, Romans, hence! no place for you remains,
Where Diphilus, where Erimanthus reigns;
Miscreants, who, faithful to their native art, 180
Admit no rival in a patron's heart:
For let them fasten on his easy ear,
And drop one hint, one secret slander there,
Sucked from their country's venom, or their own,
That instant they possess the man alone; 185
While we are spurned, contemptuous, from the door,
Our long, long slavery thought upon no more.
'Tis but a client lost!—and that, we find,
Sits wondrous lightly on a patron's mind:
And (not to flatter our poor pride, my friend) 190
What merit with the great can we pretend,
Though, in our duty we prevent the day,
And, darkling, run our humble court to pay;
When the brisk prætor, long before, is gone,
And hastening, with stern voice, his lictors on, 195
Lest his colleagues o'erpass him in the street,
And first the rich and childless matrons greet,
Alba and Modia, who impatient wait,
And think the morning homage comes too late!
Here freeborn youths wait the rich servant's call, 200
And, if they walk beside him, yield the wall;
And wherefore? this, forsooth, can fling away,
On one voluptuous night, a legion's pay,
While those, when some Calvina, sweeping by,
Inflames the fancy, check their roving eye, 205
And frugal of their scanty means, forbear,
To tempt the wanton from her splendid chair.
Produce, at Rome, your witness: let him boast,
The sanctity of Berecynthia's host,
Of Numa, or of him, whose zeal divine 210
Snatched pale Minerva from her blazing shrine:
To search his rent-roll, first the bench prepares,
His honesty employs their latest cares:
What table does he keep, what slaves maintain,
And what, they ask, and where, is his domain? 215
These weighty matters known, his faith they rate,
And square his probity to his estate.
The poor may swear by all the immortal Powers,
By the Great Gods of Samothrace, and ours,
His oaths are false, they cry; he scoffs at heaven, 220
And all its thunders; scoffs—and is forgiven!
Add, that the wretch is still the theme of scorn,
If the soiled cloak be patched, the gown o'erworn;
If, through the bursting shoe, the foot be seen,
Or the coarse seam tell where the rent has been. 225
O Poverty, thy thousand ills combined}
Sink not so deep into the generous mind,}
As the contempt and laughter of mankind!}
"Up! up! these cushioned benches," Lectius cries,
"Befit not your estates: for shame! arise." 230
For "shame!"—but you say well: the pander's heir,
The spawn of bulks and stews, is seated there;
The crier's spruce son, fresh from the fencer's school,
And prompt the taste to settle and to rule.—
So Otho fixed it, whose preposterous pride 235
First dared to chase us from their Honors' side.
In these cursed walls, devote alone to gain,
When do the poor a wealthy wife obtain?
When are they named in Wills? when called to share
The Ædile's council, and assist the chair?— 240
Long since should they have risen, thus slighted, spurned,
And left their home, but—not to have returned!
Depressed by indigence, the good and wise,
In every clime, by painful efforts rise;
Here, by more painful still, where scanty cheer, 245
Poor lodging, mean attendance—all is dear.
In earthen-ware HE scorns, at Rome, to eat,
Who, called abruptly to the Marsian's seat,
From such, well pleased, would take his simple food,
Nor blush to wear the cheap Venetian hood. 250
There's many a part of Italy, 'tis said,
Where none assume the toga but the dead:
There, when the toil foregone and annual play,
Mark, from the rest, some high and solemn day,
To theatres of turf the rustics throng, 255
Charmed with the farce that charmed their sires so long;
While the pale infant, of the mask in dread,
Hides, in his mother's breast, his little head.
No modes of dress high birth distinguish THERE;
All ranks, all orders, the same habit wear, 260
And the dread Ædile's dignity is known,
O sacred badge! by his white vest alone.
But HERE, beyond our power arrayed we go,
In all the gay varieties of show;
And when our purse supplies the charge no more, 265
Borrow, unblushing, from our neighbor's store:
Such is the reigning vice; and so we flaunt,
Proud in distress, and prodigal in want!
Briefly, my friend, here all are slaves to gold,
And words, and smiles, and every thing is sold. 270
What will you give for Cossus' nod? how high
The silent notice of Veiento buy?
—One favorite youth is shaved, another shorn;
And, while to Jove the precious spoil is borne,
Clients are taxed for offerings, and, (yet more 275
To gall their patience), from their little store,
Constrained to swell the minion's ample hoard,
And bribe the page, for leave to bribe his lord.
Who fears the crash of houses in retreat?
At simple Gabii, bleak Præneste's seat, 280
Volsinium's craggy heights, embowered in wood,
Or Tibur, beetling o'er prone Anio's flood?
While half the city here by shores is staid,
And feeble cramps, that lend a treacherous aid:
For thus the stewards patch the riven wall, 285
Thus prop the mansion, tottering to its fall;
Then bid the tenant court secure repose,
While the pile nods to every blast that blows.
O! may I live where no such fears molest,
No midnight fires burst on my hour of rest! 290
For here 'tis terror all; mid the loud cry
Of "water! water!" the scared neighbors fly,
With all their haste can seize—the flames aspire,
And the third floor is wrapt in smoke and fire,
While you, unconscious, doze: Up, ho! and know, 295
The impetuous blaze which spreads dismay below,
By swift degrees will reach the aerial cell,
Where, crouching, underneath the tiles you dwell,
Where your tame doves their golden couplets rear,
"And you could no mischance, but drowning, fear!" 300
"Codrus had but one bed, and that too short
For his short wife;" his goods, of every sort,
Were else but few:—six little pipkins graced
His cupboard head, a little can was placed
On a snug shelf beneath, and near it lay 305
A Chiron, of the same cheap marble—clay.
And was this all? O no: he yet possest
A few Greek books, shrined in an ancient chest,
Where barbarous mice through many an inlet crept,
And fed on heavenly numbers, while he slept.— 310
"Codrus, in short, had nothing." You say true;
And yet poor Codrus lost that nothing too!
One curse alone was wanting, to complete
His woes: that, cold and hungry, through the street,
The wretch should beg, and, in the hour of need, 315
Find none to lodge, to clothe him, or to feed!
But should the raging flames on grandeur prey,
And low in dust Asturius' palace lay,
The squalid matron sighs, the senate mourns,
The pleaders cease, the judge the court adjourns; 320
All join to wail the city's hapless fate,
And rail at fire with more than common hate.
Lo! while it burns, the obsequious courtiers haste,
With rich materials, to repair the waste:
This, brings him marble, that, a finished piece, 325
The far-famed boast of Polyclete and Greece;
This, ornaments, which graced of old the fane
Of Asia's gods; that, figured plate and plain;
This, cases, books, and busts the shelves to grace,
And piles of coin his specie to replace— 330
So much the childless Persian swells his store,
(Though deemed the richest of the rich before,)
That all ascribe the flames to thirst of pelf,
And swear, Asturius fired his house himself.
O, had you, from the Circus, power to fly, 335
In many a halcyon village might you buy
Some elegant retreat, for what will, here,
Scarce hire a gloomy dungeon through the year!
There wells, by nature formed, which need no rope,
No laboring arm, to crane their waters up, 340
Around your lawn their facile streams shall shower,
And cheer the springing plant and opening flower.
There live, delighted with the rustic's lot,
And till, with your own hands, the little spot;
The little spot shall yield you large amends, 345
And glad, with many a feast, your Samian friends.
And, sure,—in any corner we can get,
To call one lizard ours, is something yet!
Flushed with a mass of indigested food,
Which clogs the stomach and inflames the blood, 350
What crowds, with watching wearied and o'erprest,
Curse the slow hours, and die for want of rest!
For who can hope his languid lids to close,
Where brawling taverns banish all repose?
Sleep, to the rich alone, "his visits pays:" 355
And hence the seeds of many a dire disease.
The carts loud rumbling through the narrow way,
The drivers' clamors at each casual stay,
From drowsy Drusus would his slumber take,
And keep the calves of Proteus broad awake! 360
If business call, obsequious crowds divide.
While o'er their heads the rich securely ride,
By tall Illyrians borne, and read, or write,}
Or (should the early hour to rest invite),}
Close the soft litter, and enjoy the night.} 365
Yet reach they first the goal; while, by the throng
Elbowed and jostled, scarce we creep along;
Sharp strokes from poles, tubs, rafters, doomed to feel;
And plastered o'er with mud, from head to heel:
While the rude soldier gores us as he goes, 370
Or marks, in blood, his progress on our toes!
See, from the Dole, a vast tumultuous throng,
Each followed by his kitchen, pours along!
Huge pans, which Corbulo could scarce uprear,
With steady neck a puny slave must bear, 375
And, lest amid the way the flames expire,
Glide nimbly on, and gliding, fan the fire;
Through the close press with sinuous efforts wind,
And, piece by piece, leave his botched rags behind.
Hark! groaning on, the unwieldy wagon spreads 380
Its cumbrous load, tremendous! o'er our heads,
Projecting elm or pine, that nods on high,
And threatens death to every passer by.
Heavens! should the axle crack, which bears a weight
Of huge Ligurian stone, and pour the freight 385
On the pale crowd beneath, what would remain,
What joint, what bone, what atom of the slain?
The body, with the soul, would vanish quite,
Invisible as air, to mortal sight!—
Meanwhile, unconscious of their fellow's fate, 390
At home, they heat the water, scour the plate,
Arrange the strigils, fill the cruse with oil,
And ply their several tasks with fruitless toil:
For he who bore the dole, poor mangled ghost,
Sits pale and trembling on the Stygian coast, 395
Scared at the horrors of the novel scene,
At Charon's threatening voice, and scowling mien;
Nor hopes a passage, thus abruptly hurled,
Without his farthing, to the nether world.
Pass we these fearful dangers, and survey 400
What other evils threat our nightly way.
And first, behold the mansion's towering size,
Where floors on floors to the tenth story rise;
Whence heedless garreteers their potsherds throw,
And crush the unwary wretch that walks below! 405
Clattering the storm descends from heights unknown.
Plows up the street, and wounds the flinty stone!
'Tis madness, dire improvidence of ill,
To sup abroad, before you sign your Will;
Since fate in ambush lies, and marks his prey, 410
From every wakeful window in the way:
Pray, then—and count your humble prayer well sped,
If pots be only—emptied on your head.
The drunken bully, ere his man be slain,
Frets through the night, and courts repose in vain; 415
And while the thirst of blood his bosom burns,
From side to side, in restless anguish, turns,
Like Peleus' son, when, quelled by Hector's hand,
His loved Patroclus prest the Phrygian strand.
There are, who murder as an opiate take, 420
And only when no brawls await them wake:
Yet even these heroes, flushed with youth and wine,
All contest with the purple robe decline;
Securely give the lengthened train to pass,
The sun-bright flambeaux, and the lamps of brass.— 425
Me, whom the moon, or candle's paler gleam,
Whose wick I husband to the last extreme,
Guides through the gloom, he braves, devoid of fear:
The prelude to our doughty quarrel hear,
If that be deemed a quarrel, where, heaven knows, 430
He only gives, and I receive, the blows!
Across my path he strides, and bids me Stand!
I bow, obsequious to the dread command;
What else remains, where madness, rage, combine
With youth, and strength superior far to mine? 435
"Whence come you, rogue?" he cries; "whose beans to-night
Have stuffed you thus? what cobbler clubbed his mite,
For leeks and sheep's-head porridge? Dumb! quite dumb!
Speak, or be kicked.—Yet, once again! your home?
Where shall I find you? At what beggar's stand 440
(Temple, or bridge) whimp'ring with outstretched hand?"
Whether I strive some humble plea to frame,
Or steal in silence by, 'tis just the same;
I'm beaten first, then dragged in rage away:
Bound to the peace, or punished for the fray! 445
Mark here the boasted freedom of the poor!
Beaten and bruised, that goodness to adore,
Which, at their humble prayer, suspends its ire,
And sends them home, with yet a bone entire!
Nor this the worst; for when deep midnight reigns, 450
And bolts secure our doors, and massy chains,
When noisy inns a transient silence keep,
And harassed nature woos the balm of sleep,
Then, thieves and murderers ply their dreadful trade;
With stealthy steps our secret couch invade:— 455
Roused from the treacherous calm, aghast we start,
And the fleshed sword—is buried in our heart!
Hither from bogs, from rocks, and caves pursued
(The Pontine marsh, and Gallinarian wood),
The dark assassins flock, as to their home, 460
And fill with dire alarms the streets of Rome.
Such countless multitudes our peace annoy,
That bolts and shackles every forge employ,
And cause so wide a waste, the country fears
A want of ore for mattocks, rakes, and shares. 465
O! happy were our sires, estranged from crimes;
And happy, happy, were the good old times,
Which saw, beneath their kings', their tribunes' reign,
One cell the nation's criminals contain!
Much could I add, more reasons could I cite, 470
If time were ours, to justify my flight;
But see! the impatient team is moving on,
The sun declining; and I must be gone:
Long since, the driver murmured at my stay,
And jerked his whip, to beckon me away. 475
Farewell, my friend! with this embrace we part!
Cherish my memory ever in your heart;
And when, from crowds and business, you repair,
To breathe at your Aquinum freer air,
Fail not to draw me from my loved retreat, 480
To Elvine Ceres, and Diana's seat:
For your bleak hills my Cumæ I'll resign,
And (if you blush not at such aid as mine)
Come well equipped, to wage, in angry rhymes,
Fierce war, with you, on follies and on crimes. 485