FOOTNOTES:
[Q] Juvenal was born, it is usually believed, at Aquinum, about 55 a.d. He lived to an advanced age, but the year of his death is unknown. Rome he evidently knew well, and from long experience. But there is great obscurity about his career. His "Satires," in declamatory indignation, form a powerful contrast to the genial mockery of Horace (p. 91): where Horace may be said to have a Chaucerian smile for human weakness, Juvenal displays the wrath of a Langland. Juvenal denounces abuses at Rome in unmeasured terms. Frequently Zolaesque in his methods of exposing vice, he contrives by his realism to produce a loathing for the objects of his attack. Dryden rendered into free and vigorous English several of the satires; and Gifford wrote a complete translation, often of great merit. The translation here has, with adaptations, been drawn from both, and a few lines have been incorporated from Johnson, whose two best-known poems, "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes," were paraphrases from Juvenal.
[FRIEDRICH KLOPSTOCK][R]
[The Messiah]
I.—The Mount of Olives
Rejoice, ye sons of earth, in the honour bestowed on man. He who was before all worlds, by Whom all things in this visible creation were made, descended to our earth as your Redeemer. Near Jerusalem, once the city where God displayed His grace, the Divine Redeemer withdrew from the multitude and sought retirement. On the side where the sun first gilds the city with its beams rises a mountain, whose summit He had oft honoured with His presence when during the solitary night He spent the hours in fervent prayer.
Gabriel, descending, stands between two perfumed cedars and addresses Jesus.
Wilt Thou, Lord, here devote the night to prayer, Or weary, dost thou seek a short repose? Permit that I for Thine immortal head A yielding couch prepare. Behold the shrubs And saplings of the cedar, far and near, Their balmy foliage already show. Among the tombs in which Thy prophets rest The cooling earth yields unmolested moss.