Genus, Aucte, lucri divites habent iram.
Odisse quam donasse vilius constat.
Auctus, the rich count wrath a gain:
That to hate costs less than to give is plain.
In the time of Domitian a round portion was as essential to the marriage of a Roman virgin as it is now with French ladies of condition, who must either endow or derogate. The Latin prototype of the Belgravian mother must have had grievous cause of complaint when the state bestowed prizes on such as were at once husbands and fathers. The following epigram, however, takes a more elevated view, and strikes the key-note of Tennyson’s rhapsody in the well-known lines of The Princess:
Uxorem quare locupletem ducere nolim
Quæritis. Uxori nubere nolo meæ!
Inferior matrona suo sit, Prisce, marito!
Non aliter fuerint femina virque pares.
Why so reluctant, you ask, to wed with a woman of fortune?
Friend, I would marry a wife, not have a wife marry me!
Trust me, the rule is sound, let the woman owe all to her husband,
Thus shall they, man and wife, each owe the other nothing.
Here is a playful innuendo which has often been copied. Marot’s version is exceedingly neat, but somewhat coarse, so our readers must take ours in place of it:
Nubere vis Prisco, non miror, Paula, sapisti!
Ducere te non vult Priscus, et ille sapit!
Jill fancies Jack for a husband—truly a sensible woman!
Jack has no fancy for Jill—truly a sensible man!
No epigram of Martial’s is more admired, and none seems to us more admirable, than that which chronicles the magnanimous act of Arria, who showed her husband the way to death. She lived in the time of Messalina, but the deed was worthy of Lucrece. Perhaps the traditional fortitude and fashionable stoicism of Rome might have paused contented with the historical fact, but modern sentiment cannot fail to welcome the touch of tenderness in the concluding line. We place beside it The Death of Portia because the two poems are pitched in the same key. The latter, however, is a mere historiette, told with rare force and fervor, but without the point and turn which distinguish a true epigram. To recur to our metaphor, the monument is a noble one, but the superscription is wanting. Our readers will observe that Martial’s Portia follows her husband to the grave, while she precedes him in Shakespeare’s play.
Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto,
Quem de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis;
Si qua fides, vulnus quod feci non dolet, inquit.
Sed quod tu facies hoc mihi, Paete, dolet!