Satires
I.—Of Satire and its Subjects
Still shall I hear and never pay the score, Stunned with hoarse Codrus' "Theseid" o'er and o'er? Shall this man's elegies and the other's play Unpunished murder a long summer day?
The poet exclaims against the dreary commonplaces in contemporary poetry, and against recitations fit to crack the very statues and colonnades of the neighbourhood! But he also underwent his training in rhetoric.
So, since the world with writing is possessed, I'll versify in spite, and do my best To make as much wastepaper as the rest!
It may be asked, why write satire? The reason is to be found in the ubiquitous presence of offensive men and women. It would goad anyone into fury to note the social abuses, the mannish women, and the wealthy upstarts of the imperial city.
When the soft eunuch weds, and the bold fair Tilts at the Tuscan boar with bosom bare, When all our lords are by his wealth outvied Whose razor on my callow beard was tried, When I behold the spawn of conquered Nile, Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile, Pacing in pomp with cloak of purple dye— I cannot keep from satire, though I try!
There is an endless succession of figures to annoy: the too successful lawyer, the treacherous spy, the legacy-hunter. How one's anger blazes when a ward is driven to evil courses by the unscrupulous knavery of a guardian, or when a guilty governor gets a merely nominal sentence!
Marius, who pilled his province, 'scapes the laws, And keeps his money, though he lost his cause: His fine begged off, contemns his infamy, Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three— Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain, Leaves thee, victorious province, to complain! Such villainies roused Horace into wrath, And 'tis more noble to pursue his path Than an old tale of Trojan brave to treat, Or Hercules, or Labyrinth of Crete.