The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
Thy bubbling fount had circumscribed alone,
And marble ne'er profaned the native stone.
Umbritius here his sullen silence broke, 35
And turned on Rome, indignant, as he spoke.
Since virtue droops, he cried, without regard,
And honest toil scarce hopes a poor reward;
Since every morrow sees my means decay,
And still makes less the little of to-day; 40
I go, where Dædalus, as poets sing,
First checked his flight, and closed his weary wing:
While something yet of health and strength remains,
And yet no staff my faltering step sustains;
While few gray hairs upon my head are seen, 45
And my old age is vigorous still, and green.
Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell--
Ah, mine no more!--there let Arturius dwell,
And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite,
Can white to black transform, and black to white, 50
Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold,
Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold!
ONCE they were trumpeters, and always found,
With strolling fencers, in their annual round,
While their puffed cheeks, which every village knew, 55
Called to "high feats of arms" the rustic crew:
Now they give SHOWS themselves; and, at the will
Of the base rabble, raise the sign--to kill,
Ambitious of their voice: then turn, once more,
To their vile gains, and farm the common shore! 60
And why not every thing?--since Fortune throws
Her more peculiar smiles on such as those,
Whene'er, to wanton merriment inclined,
She lifts to thrones the dregs of human kind!
But why, my friend, should I at Rome remain? 65
I can not teach my stubborn lips to feign;
Nor, when I hear a great man's verses, smile,
And beg a copy, if I think them vile.
A sublunary wight, I have no skill
To read the stars; I neither can, nor will, 70
Presage a father's death; I never pried,
In toads, for poison, nor--in aught beside.
Others may aid the adulterer's vile design,
And bear the insidious gift, and melting line,
Seduction's agents! I such deeds detest; 75
And, honest, let no thief partake my breast.
For this, without a friend, the world I quit;
A palsied limb, for every use unfit.
Who now is loved, but he whose conscious breast
Swells with dark deeds, still, still to be supprest? 80
He pays, he owes, thee nothing (strictly just),
Who gives an honest secret to thy trust;
But, a dishonest!--there, he feels thy power,
And buys thy friendship high from hour to hour.
But let not all the wealth which Tagus pours 85
In Ocean's lap, not all his glittering stores,
Be deemed a bribe, sufficient to requite
The loss of peace by day, of sleep by night:--
Oh take not, take not, what thy soul rejects,
Nor sell the faith, which he, who buys, suspects! 90
The nation, by the GREAT, admired, carest,
And hated, shunned by ME, above the rest,
No longer, now, restrained by wounded pride,
I haste to show (nor thou my warmth deride),
I can not rule my spleen, and calmly see, 95
A GRECIAN CAPITAL, IN ITALY!
Grecian? O no! with this vast sewer compared,
The dregs of Greece are scarcely worth regard:
Long since, the stream that wanton Syria laves
Has disembogued its filth in Tiber's waves, 100
Its language, arts; o'erwhelmed us with the scum
Of Antioch's streets, its minstrel, harp, and drum.
Hie to the Circus! ye who pant to prove
A barbarous mistress, an outlandish love;
Hie to the Circus! there, in crowds they stand, 105
Tires on their head, and timbrels in their hand.
Thy rustic, Mars, the trechedipna wears,
And on his breast, smeared with ceroma, bears
A paltry prize, well-pleased; while every land,
Sicyon, and Amydos, and Alaband, 110
Tralles, and Samos, and a thousand more,
Thrive on his indolence, and daily pour
Their starving myriads forth: hither they come, }
And batten on the genial soil of Rome; }
Minions, then lords, of every princely dome! } 115
A flattering, cringing, treacherous, artful race,
Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face;
A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician, 120
Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician,
All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts;
And bid him mount the sky--the sky he mounts!
You smile--was't a barbarian, then, that flew?
No, 'twas a Greek! 'twas an ATHENIAN, too! 125
--Bear with their state who will: for I disdain
To feed their upstart pride, or swell their train:
Slaves, that in Syrian lighters stowed, so late,
With figs and prunes (an inauspicious freight),
Already see their faith preferred to mine, 130
And sit above me! and before me sign!--
That on the Aventine I first drew air,
And, from the womb, was nursed on Sabine fare,
Avails me not! our birthright now is lost,
And all our privilege, an empty boast! 135
For lo! where versed in every soothing art,
The wily Greek assails his patron's heart,
Finds in each dull harangue an air, a grace,
And all Adonis in a Gorgon face;
Admires the voice that grates upon the ear, 140
Like the shrill scream of amorous chanticleer;
And equals the crane neck, and narrow chest,
To Hercules, when, straining to his breast
The giant son of Earth, his every vein
Swells with the toil, and more than mortal pain. 145
We too can cringe as low, and praise as warm,
But flattery from the Greeks alone can charm.
See! they step forth, and figure to the life,
The naked nymph, the mistress, or the wife,
So just, you view the very woman there, 150
And fancy all beneath the girdle bare!
No longer now, the favorites of the stage
Boast their exclusive power to charm the age:
The happy art with them a nation shares,
GREECE IS A THEATRE, WHERE ALL ARE PLAYERS. 155
For lo! their patron smiles,--they burst with mirth;
He weeps--they droop, the saddest souls on earth;
He calls for fire--they court the mantle's heat;
'Tis warm, he cries--and they dissolve in sweat.
Ill-matched!--secure of victory they start, 160
Who, taught from youth to play a borrowed part,
Can, with a glance, the rising passion trace,
And mould their own, to suit their patron's face;
At deeds of shame their hands admiring raise,
And mad debauchery's worst excesses praise. 165
Besides, no mound their raging lust restrains,
All ties it breaks, all sanctity profanes;
Wife, virgin-daughter, son unstained before--
And, where these fail, they tempt the grandam hoar:
They notice every word, haunt every ear, 170
Your secrets learn, and fix you theirs from fear.
Turn to their schools:--yon gray professor see,
Smeared with the sanguine stains of perfidy!
That tutor most accursed his pupil sold!
That Stoic sacrificed his friend to gold! 175
A true-born Grecian! littered on the coast,
Where the Gorgonian hack a pinion lost.
Hence, Romans, hence! no place for you remains,
Where Diphilus, where Erimanthus reigns;
Miscreants, who, faithful to their native art, 180
Admit no rival in a patron's heart:
For let them fasten on his easy ear,
And drop one hint, one secret slander there,
Sucked from their country's venom, or their own,
That instant they possess the man alone; 185
While we are spurned, contemptuous, from the door,
Our long, long slavery thought upon no more.
'Tis but a client lost!--and that, we find,
Sits wondrous lightly on a patron's mind:
And (not to flatter our poor pride, my friend) 190
What merit with the great can we pretend,
Though, in our duty we prevent the day,
And, darkling, run our humble court to pay;
When the brisk prætor, long before, is gone,
And hastening, with stern voice, his lictors on, 195
Lest his colleagues o'erpass him in the street,
And first the rich and childless matrons greet,
Alba and Modia, who impatient wait,
And think the morning homage comes too late!
Here freeborn youths wait the rich servant's call, 200
And, if they walk beside him, yield the wall;
And wherefore? this, forsooth, can fling away,
On one voluptuous night, a legion's pay,
While those, when some Calvina, sweeping by,
Inflames the fancy, check their roving eye, 205
And frugal of their scanty means, forbear,
To tempt the wanton from her splendid chair.
Produce, at Rome, your witness: let him boast,
The sanctity of Berecynthia's host,
Of Numa, or of him, whose zeal divine 210
Snatched pale Minerva from her blazing shrine:
To search his rent-roll, first the bench prepares,
His honesty employs their latest cares:
What table does he keep, what slaves maintain,
And what, they ask, and where, is his domain? 215
These weighty matters known, his faith they rate,
And square his probity to his estate.
The poor may swear by all the immortal Powers,
By the Great Gods of Samothrace, and ours,
His oaths are false, they cry; he scoffs at heaven, 220
And all its thunders; scoffs--and is forgiven!
Add, that the wretch is still the theme of scorn,
If the soiled cloak be patched, the gown o'erworn;
If, through the bursting shoe, the foot be seen,
Or the coarse seam tell where the rent has been. 225
O Poverty, thy thousand ills combined }
Sink not so deep into the generous mind, }
As the contempt and laughter of mankind! }
"Up! up! these cushioned benches," Lectius cries,
"Befit not your estates: for shame! arise." 230
For "shame!"--but you say well: the pander's heir,
The spawn of bulks and stews, is seated there;
The crier's spruce son, fresh from the fencer's school,
And prompt the taste to settle and to rule.--
So Otho fixed it, whose preposterous pride 235
First dared to chase us from their Honors' side.
In these cursed walls, devote alone to gain,
When do the poor a wealthy wife obtain?
When are they named in Wills? when called to share
The Ædile's council, and assist the chair?-- 240
Long since should they have risen, thus slighted, spurned,
And left their home, but--not to have returned!
Depressed by indigence, the good and wise,
In every clime, by painful efforts rise;
HERE, by more painful still, where scanty cheer, 245
Poor lodging, mean attendance--all is dear.
In earthen-ware HE scorns, at Rome, to eat,
WHO, called abruptly to the Marsian's seat,