Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface,
To purchase safety with compliance base,
At honour's cost a feverish span extend,
And sacrifice for life, life's only end!
GIFFORD.
It is lines such as these that first rise to the mind at the mention of Juvenal. But he was no mere declaimer. Here and there we may find phrases of the purest poetry and of the most perfect form. Far above all others come the wonderful lines of the ninth satire:
festinat enim decurrere velox flosculus angustae miseraeque brevissima vitae portio; dum bibimus, dum serta unguenta puellas poscimus, obrepit non intellecta senectus (ix. 126).
For youth, too transient flower! of life's short day
The shortest part, but blossoms—to decay.
Lo! while we give the unregarded hour
To revelry and joy in Pleasure's bower,
While now for rosy wreaths our brow to twine,
While now for nymphs we call, and now for wine,
The noiseless foot of time steals swiftly by,
And, ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh!
GIFFORD.
Of a very different character, but of a beauty that is nothing less than startling in its sombre surroundings, is the blessing that he invokes on the good men of old who 'enthroned the teacher in the revered parent's place'.
di maiorum umbris tenuem et sine pondere terram spirantesque crocos et in urna perpetuum ver, qui praeceptorem sancti voluere parentis esse loco (vii. 207).
Shades of our sires! O sacred be your rest,
And lightly lie the turf upon your breast!
Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare,
And spring eternal shed its influence there!
You honoured tutors, now a slighted race,
And gave them all a parent's power and place.
GIFFORD.
The sensuous appeal of the 'fragrant crocus and the spring that dies not in the urn of death' is unique in Juvenal. This slender stream of definitely poetic imagination reveals itself suddenly and unexpectedly in strange forms and circumstances. At the close of the passage in the third satire describing the perils of the Roman streets, Juvenal imagines the death of some householder in a street accident. All is bustle and business at home in expectation of his return:
domus interea secura patellas iam lavat et bucca foculum excitat et sonat unctis striglibus et pleno componit lintea guto. haec inter pueros varie properantur, at ille iam sedet in ripa taetrumque novicius horret porthmea nec sperat caenosi gurgitis alnum infelix nec habet quem porrigat ore trientem (iii. 261).
Meantime, unknowing of their fellow's fate,
The servants wash the platter, scour the plate,
Then blow the fire with puffing cheeks, and lay
The rubbers and the bathing-sheets display,
And oil them first, each handy in his way.
But he for whom this busy care they take,
Poor ghost! is wandering by the Stygian lake;
Affrighted by the ferryman's grim face,
New to the horrors of the fearful place,
His passage begs, with unregarded prayer,
And wants two farthings to discharge his fare.
DRYDEN.