SATIRE XIV.
There are very many things, Fuscinus,[922] that both deserve a bad name, and fix a lasting spot on a fortune otherwise splendid, which parents themselves point the way to, and inculcate upon their children. If destructive gambling[923] delights the sire, the heir while yet a child plays[924] too; and shakes the selfsame weapons in his own little dice-box. Nor will that youth allow any of his kin to form better hopes of him who has learned to peel truffles,[925] to season a mushroom,[926] and drown beccaficas[927] swimming in the same sauce, his gourmand sire with his hoary gluttony[928] showing him the way. When his seventh[929] year has past over the boy's head, and all his second teeth are not yet come, though you range a thousand bearded[930] philosophers on one side of him, and as many on the other, still he will be ever longing to dine in sumptuous style, and not degenerate from his sire's luxurious kitchen.
Does Rutilus[931] inculcate a merciful disposition and a character indulgent to venial faults? does he hold that the souls and bodies of our slaves[932] are formed of matter like our own and of similar elements? or does he not teach cruelty, that Rutilus, who delights in the harsh clang of stripes, and thinks no Siren's[933] song can equal the sound of whips; the Antiphates[934] and Polyphemus of his trembling household? Then is he happy indeed whenever the torturer[935] is summoned, and some poor wretch is branded with the glowing iron for stealing a couple of towels! What doctrine does he preach to his son that revels in the clank of chains, that feels a strange delight in branded slaves,[936] and the country jail? Do you expect that Larga's[937] daughter will not turn out an adulteress, who could not possibly repeat her mother's lovers so quickly, or string them together with such rapidity, as not to take breath thirty times at least? While yet a little maid she was her mother's confidante; now, at that mother's dictation[938] she fills her own little tablets, and gives them to her mother's agents to bear to lovers of her own.
Such is Nature's law.[939] The examples of vice that we witness at home[940] more surely and quickly corrupt us, when they insinuate themselves into our minds, under the sanction of those we revere. Perhaps just one or two young men may spurn these practices, whose hearts the Titan has formed with kindlier art, and moulded out of better clay.[941]
But their sire's footsteps, that they ought to shun, lead on all the rest, and the routine[942] of inveterate depravity, that has been long before their eyes, attracts them on.
Therefore refrain[943] from all that merits reprobation. One powerful motive, at least, there is to this—lest our children copy our crimes. For we are all of us too quick at learning to imitate base and depraved examples; and you may find a Catiline in every people and under every sky; but nowhere a Brutus,[944] or Brutus' uncle!
Let nothing shocking to eyes or ears approach those doors that close upon your child. Away! far, far away,[945] the pander's wenches, and the songs of the parasite[946] that riots the livelong night! The greatest reverence[947] is due to a child! If you are contemplating a disgraceful act, despise not your child's tender years, but let your infant son act as a check upon your purpose of sinning. For if, at some future time, he shall have done any thing to deserve the censor's[948] wrath, and show himself like you, not in person only and in face, but also the true son of your morals, and one who, by following your footsteps, adds deeper guilt to your crimes—then, forsooth! you will reprove and chastise him with clamorous bitterness, and then set about altering your will. Yet how dare you assume the front severe,[949] and license of a parent's speech; you, who yourself, though old, do worse than this; and the exhausted cupping-glass[950] is long ago looking out for your brainless head?
If a friend is coming to pay you a visit, your whole household is in a bustle. "Sweep the floor, display the pillars in all their brilliancy, let the dry spider come down with all her web; let one clean[951] the silver, another polish the embossed[952] plate—" the master's voice thunders out, as he stands over the work, and brandishes his whip.
You are alarmed then, wretched man, lest your entrance-hall, befouled by dogs, should offend the eye of your friend who is coming, or your corridor be spattered with mud; and yet one little slave could clean all this with half a bushel of saw-dust. And yet, will you not bestir yourself that your own son may see your house immaculate and free from foul spot or crime? It deserves our gratitude that you have presented a citizen to your country and people,[953] if you take care that he prove useful to the state—of service to her lands; useful in transacting the affairs both of war and peace. For it will be a matter of the highest moment in what pursuits and moral discipline you train him.
The stork feeds her young on snakes[954] and lizards which she has discovered in the trackless fields. They too, when fledged, go in quest of the same animals. The vulture, quitting the cattle, and dogs, and gibbets, hastens to her callow brood, and bears to them a portion of the carcass. Therefore this is the food of the vulture too when grown up, and able to feed itself and build a nest in a tree of its own.
Whereas the ministers of Jove,[955] and birds of noble blood, hunt in the forest for the hare[956] or kid. Hence is derived the quarry for their nest: hence too, when their progeny, now matured, have poised themselves on their own wings, when hunger pinches they swoop to that booty, which first they tasted when they broke the shell.
Centronius had a passion for building; and now on the embayed shore of Caieta,[957] now on the highest peak of Tibur,[958] or on Præneste's[959] hills, he reared the tall roofs of his villas, of Grecian[960] and far-fetched marbles; surpassing the temple of Fortune[961] and of Hercules as much as Posides[962] the eunuch outvied our Capitol. While, therefore, he is thus magnificently lodged, Centronius lessened his estate and impaired his wealth. And yet the sum of the portion that he left was no mean one: but all this his senseless son ran through by raising new mansions of marble more costly than his sire's.
Some whose lot it is to have a father that reveres sabbaths, worship nothing save clouds and the divinity of heaven; and think that flesh of swine, from which their sire abstained, differs in naught from that of man. Soon, too, they submit to circumcision. But, trained to look with scorn upon the laws of Rome, they study and observe and reverence all those Jewish statutes that Moses in his mystic volume handed down: never to show the road except to one that worships the same sacred rites—to conduct to the spring they are in quest of, the circumcised[963] alone. But their father is to blame for this; to whom each seventh[964] day was a day of sloth, and kept aloof from all share of life's daily duties.
All other vices, however, young men copy of their own free choice. Avarice is the only one that even against their will they are constrained to put in practice. For this vice deceives men under the guise and semblance[965] of virtue. Since it is grave in bearing—austere in look and dress. And without doubt, the miser is praised "a frugal[966] character," "a sparing man," and one that knows how to guard his own,[967] more securely than if the serpent of the Hesperides[968] or of Pontus had the keeping of them. Besides, the multitude considers the man of whom we are speaking, a splendid carver[969] of his own fortune. Since it is by such artificers as these that estates are increased. But still, increase they do by all means, fair or foul, and swell in bulk from the ceaseless anvil and ever-glowing forge.
The father, therefore, considers misers as men of happy minds,[970] since he admires wealth, and thinks no instance can be found of a poor man that is also happy; and therefore exhorts his sons to follow the same track, and apply themselves earnestly to the doctrines of the same sect. There are certain first elements[971] of all vices. These he instills into them in regular order, and constrains them to become adepts in the most paltry lucre. Presently he inculcates an insatiable thirst for gain. While he is famishing himself, he pinches his servants'[972] stomachs with the scantiest allowance.[973] For he never endures to consume the whole of the blue fragments of mouldy[974] bread, but saves, even in the middle of September,[975] the mince[976] of yesterday;[977] and puts by till to-morrow's dinner the summer bean,[978] with a piece of stockfish and half a stinking shad:[979] and, after he has counted them, locks up the shreds of chopped leek.[980] A beggar from a bridge[981] would decline an invitation to such a meal as this! But to what end is money scraped together at the expense of such self-torture? Since it is undoubted madness,[982] palpable insanity, to live a beggar's life, simply that you may die rich.
Meanwhile, though the sack swells, full to the very brim, the love of money grows[983] as fast as the money itself grows. And he that has the less, the less he covets. Therefore you are looking out for a second villa, since one estate is not enough for you, and it is your fancy to extend[984] your territories; and your neighbor's corn-land seems to you more spacious and fertile than your own; therefore you treat for the purchase of this too, with all its woods and its hill that whitens with its dense olive-grove. But if their owner will not be prevailed upon to part with them at any price, then at night, your lean oxen and cattle with weary necks, half-starved, will be turned into his corn-fields while still green, and not quit it for their own homes before the whole crop[985] has found its way into their ruthless[986] stomachs—so closely cropped that you would fancy it had been mown. You could hardly tell how many have to complain of similar treatment, and how many estates wrongs like this have brought to the hammer. "But what says the world? What the trumpet of slanderous fame?—"
"What harm does this do me?"[987] he says; "I had rather have a lupin's pod, than that the whole village neighborhood[988] should praise me, if I am at the same time to reap the scanty crops of a diminutive estate."
You will then, forsooth, be free from all disease[989] and all infirmity, and escape sorrow and care; and a lengthened span of life will hereafter be your lot with happier destiny, if you individually own as much arable land as the whole Roman people used to plow under king Tatius. And after that, to men broken down with years, that had seen the hard service of the Punic wars, and faced the fierce Pyrrhus and the Molossian swords, scarce two acres[990] a man were bestowed at length as compensation for countless wounds. Yet that reward for all their blood and toil never appeared to any less than their deserts—or did their country's faith appear scant or thankless. Such a little glebe as this used to satisfy the father himself and all his cottage troop: where lay his pregnant wife, and four children played—one a little slave,[991] the other three free-born. But for their grown-up brothers[992] when they returned from the trench or furrow, there was another and more copious supper prepared, and the big pots smoked with vegetables. Such a plot of ground in our days is not enough for a garden.
It is from this source commonly arise the motives to crime. Nor has any vice of the mind of man mingled more poisons or oftener dealt[993] the assassin's knife, than the fierce lust for wealth unlimited. For he that covets to grow rich,[994] would also grow rich speedily. But what respect for laws, what fear or shame is ever found in the breast of the miser hasting to be rich? "Live contented with these cottages, my lads, and these hills of ours!" So said, in days of yore, the Marsian and Hernican and Vestine sire—"Let us earn our bread, sufficient for our tables, with the plow. Of this the rustic deities[995] approve; by whose aid and intervention, since the boon of the kindly corn-blade, it is man's fortune to loathe the oaks he fed upon before. Naught that is forbidden will he desire to do who is not ashamed of wearing the high country boots[996] in frosty weather, and keeps off the east winds by inverted skins. The foreign purple, unknown to us before, leads on to crime and impiety of every kind."
Such were the precepts that these fine old fellows gave to their children! But now, after the close of autumn, even at midnight[997] the father with loud voice rouses his drowsy son:
"Come, boy, get your tablets and write! Come, wake up! Draw indictments! get up the rubricated statutes[998] of our fathers—or else draw up a petition for a centurion's post. But be sure Lælius observe your hair untouched by a comb, and your nostrils well covered with hair,[999] and your good brawny shoulders. Sack the Numidian's hovels,[1000] and the forts of the Brigantes,[1001] that your sixtieth year may bestow on you the eagle that will make you rich. Or, if you shrink from enduring the long-protracted labors of the camp, and the sound of bugles and trumpets makes your heart faint, then buy something that you may dispose of for more than half as much again as it cost you; and never let disgust at any trade that must be banished beyond the other bank of Tiber, enter your head, nor think that any difference can be drawn between perfumes or leather. The smell of gain is good[1002] from any thing whatever! Let this sentiment of the poet[1003] be forever on your tongue—worthy of the gods, and even great Jove himself!—'No one asks how you get it, but have it you must.' This maxim old crones impress on boys before they can run alone. This all girls learn before their A B C."
Any parent whatever inculcating such lessons as these I would thus address: Tell me, most empty-headed of men! who bids you be in such a hurry? I engage your pupil shall better your instruction. Don't be alarmed! You will be outdone; just as Ajax outstripped Telamon, and Achilles excelled Peleus.[1004] Spare their tender years![1005] The bane of vice matured has not yet filled the marrow of their bones! As soon as he begins to trim a beard, and apply the long razor's edge, he will be a false witness—will sell his perjuries at a trifling sum, laying his hand[1006] on Ceres' altar and foot. Look upon your daughter-in-law as already buried, if she has entered your family with a dowry that must entail death on her.[1007] With what a gripe will she be strangled in her sleep! For all that you suppose must be gotten by sea and land, a shorter road[1008] will bestow on him! Atrocious crime involves no labor! "I never recommended this," you will hereafter say, "nor counseled such an act." Yet the cause and source of this depravity of heart rests at your doors; for he that inculcated a love for great wealth, and by his sinister lessons trained up his sons to avarice,[1009] does give full license, and gives the free rein[1010] to the chariot's course; then if you try to check it, it can not be restrained, but, laughing you to scorn, is hurried on, and leaves even the goal far behind. No one holds it enough to sin just so much as you allow him, but men grant themselves a more enlarged indulgence.
When you say to your son, "The man is a fool that gives any thing to his friend,[1011] or relieves the burden[1012] of his neighbor's poverty," you are, in fact, teaching him to rob and cheat, and get riches by any crime, of which as great a love exists in you as was that of their country in the breast of the Decii;[1013] as much, if Greece speaks truth, as Menæceus[1014] loved Thebes! in whose furrows[1015] legions with their bucklers spring from the serpent's teeth, and at once engage in horrid war, as though a trumpeter had arisen along with them. Therefore you will see that fire[1016] of which you yourself supplied the sparks, raging far and wide, and spreading universal destruction. Nor will you yourself escape, poor wretch! but with loud roar the lion-pupil[1017] in his den will mangle his trembling master.
Your horoscope is well known to the astrologers.[1018] Yes! but it is a tedious business to wait for the slow-spinning[1019] distaffs. You will be cut off long before your thread[1020] is spun out. You are long ago standing in his way, and are a drag upon his wishes. Long since your slow and stag-like[1021] age is irksome to the youth. Send for Archigenes[1022] at once! and buy what Mithridates[1023] compounded, if you would pluck another fig, or handle this year's roses. You must possess yourself of that drug which every father, and every king, should swallow before every meal.
I now present to you an especial gratification, to which you can find no match on any stage, or on the platform of the sumptuous prætor. If you only become spectator at what risk to life the additions to fortune are procured, the ample store in the brass-bound[1024] chest, the gold to be deposited in watchful Castor's[1025] temple; since Mars the avenger has lost helmet and all, and could not even protect his own property. You may give up, therefore, the games of Flora,[1026] of Ceres,[1027] and of Cybele,[1028] such far superior sport is the real business of life!
Do bodies projected from the petaurum,[1029] or they that come down the tight-rope, furnish better entertainment than you, who take up your constant abode in your Corycian[1030] bark, ever to be tossed up and down by Corus and by Auster? the desperate merchant of vile and stinking wares! You, who delight in importing the rich[1031] raisin from the shores of ancient Crete, and wine-flasks[1032]—Jove's own fellow-countrymen! Yet he that plants his foot with hazardous tread by that perilous barter earns his bread, and makes the rope ward off both cold and hunger. You run your desperate risk, for a thousand talents and a hundred villas. Behold the harbor! the sea swarming with tall ships! more than one half the world is now at sea. Wherever the hope of gain invites, a fleet will come; nor only bound over the Carpathian and Gætulian seas, but leaving Calpe[1033] far behind, hear Phœbus hissing in the Herculean main. A noble recompense indeed for all this toil! that you return home thence with well-stretched purse; and exulting in your swelled money-bags,[1034] brag of having seen Ocean's monsters,[1035] and young mermen!
A different madness distracts different minds. One, while in his sister's arms, is terrified at the features and torches of the Eumenides.[1036] Another, when he lashes the bull[1037], believes it is Agamemnon or Ulysses roars. What though he spare his tunic or his cloak, that man requires a keeper,[1038] who loads his ship with a cargo up to the very bulwarks, and has but a plank[1039] between himself and the wave. While the motive cause to all this hardship and this fearful risk, is silver cut up into petty legends and minute portraits. Clouds and lightning oppose his voyage. "All hands unmoor!" exclaims the owner of the corn and pepper he has bought up. "This lowering sky, that bank of sable clouds portends no ill! It is but summer lightning!"
Unhappy wretch! perchance that selfsame night he will be borne down, overwhelmed with shivering timbers and the surge, and clutch his purse with his left hand and his teeth. And he, to whose covetous desires[1040] but lately not all the gold sufficed which Tagus[1041] or Pactolus[1042] rolls down in its ruddy sand, must now be content with a few rags to cover his nakedness, and a scanty morsel, while as a "poor shipwrecked mariner" he begs for pence, and maintains himself by his painting of the storm.[1043]
Yet, what is earned by hardships great as these, involves still greater care and fear to keep. Wretched, indeed, is the guardianship[1044] of a large fortune.
Licinus,[1045] rolling in wealth, bids his whole regiment of slaves mount guard with leathern buckets[1046] all in rows; in dread alarm for his amber, and his statues, and his Phrygian marble,[1047] and his ivory, and massive tortoise-shell.
The tub of the naked Cynic[1048] does not catch fire! If you smash it, another home will be built by to-morrow, or else the same will stand, if soldered with a little lead. Alexander felt, when he saw in that tub its great inhabitant, how much more really happy was he who coveted nothing, than he who aimed at gaining to himself the whole world; doomed to suffer perils equivalent to the exploits he achieved.
Had we but foresight, thou, Fortune, wouldst have no divinity.[1049] It is we that make thee a goddess! Yet if any one were to consult me what proportion of income is sufficient, I will tell you. Just as much as thirst and hunger[1050] and cold require; as much as satisfied you, Epicurus,[1051] in your little garden! as much as the home of Socrates contained before. Nature never gives one lesson, and philosophy another. Do I seem to bind you down to too strict examples? Then throw in something to suit our present manners. Make up the sum[1052] which Otho's law thinks worthy of the Fourteen Rows.
If this make you contract your brows, and put out your lip, then take two knights' estate, make it the three Four-hundred![1053] If I have not yet filled your lap, but still it gapes for more, then neither Crœsus' wealth nor the realms of Persia will ever satisfy you. No! nor even Narcissus'[1054] wealth! on whom Claudius Cæsar lavished all, and whose behest he obeyed, when bidden even to kill his wife.