The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
And cause so wide a waste, the country fears
A want of ore for mattocks, rakes, and shares. 465
O! happy were our sires, estranged from crimes;
And happy, happy, were the good old times,
Which saw, beneath their kings', their tribunes' reign,
One cell the nation's criminals contain!
Much could I add, more reasons could I cite, 470
If time were ours, to justify my flight;
But see! the impatient team is moving on,
The sun declining; and I must be gone:
Long since, the driver murmured at my stay,
And jerked his whip, to beckon me away. 475
Farewell, my friend! with this embrace we part!
Cherish my memory ever in your heart;
And when, from crowds and business, you repair,
To breathe at your Aquinum freer air,
Fail not to draw me from my loved retreat, 480
To Elvine Ceres, and Diana's seat:
For your bleak hills my Cumæ I'll resign,
And (if you blush not at such aid as mine)
Come well equipped, to wage, in angry rhymes,
Fierce war, with you, on follies and on crimes. 485
SATIRE IV.
Again Crispinus comes! and yet again,
And oft, shall he be summoned to sustain
His dreadful part:--the monster of the times,
Without ONE virtue to redeem his crimes!
Diseased, emaciate, weak in all but lust, 5
And whom the widow's sweets alone disgust.
Avails it, then, in what long colonnades
He tires his mules? through what extensive glades
His chair is borne? what vast estates he buys,
What splendid domes, that round the Forum rise? 10
Ah! no--Peace visits not the guilty mind,
Least his, who incest to adultery joined,
And stained thy priestess, Vesta;--whom, dire fate!
The long dark night and living tomb await.
Turn we to slighter vices:--yet had these, 15
In others, Seius, Titius, whom you please,
The Censor roused; for what the good would shame,
Becomes Crispinus, and is honest fame.
But when the actor's person far exceeds,
In native loathsomeness, his loathsom'st deeds, 20
Say, what can satire? For a fish that weighed
Six pounds, six thousand sesterces he paid!
As those report, who catch, with greedy ear,
And magnify the mighty things they hear.
Had this expense been meant, with well-timed skill, 25
To gull some childless dotard of a Will;
Or bribe some rich and fashionable fair,
Who flaunts it in a close, wide-windowed chair;
'Twere worth our praise:--but no such plot was here.
'Twas for HIMSELF he bought a treat so dear! 30
This, all past gluttony from shame redeems,
And even Apicius poor and frugal seems.
What! You, Crispinus, brought to Rome, erewhile,
Lapt in the rushes of your native Nile,
Buy scales, at such a price! you might, I guess, 35
Have bought the fisherman himself for less;
Bought, in some countries, manors at this rate,
And, in Apulia, an immense estate!
How gorged the emperor, when so dear a fish,
Yet, of his cheapest meals, the cheapest dish, 40
Was guttled down by this impurpled lord,
Chief knight, chief parasite, at Cæsar's board,
Whom Memphis heard so late, with ceaseless yell,
Clamoring through all her streets--"Ho! shads to sell!"
Pierian MAIDS, begin;--but, quit your lyres, 45
The fact I bring no lofty chord requires:
Relate it, then, and in the simplest strain,
Nor let the poet style you MAIDS, in vain.
When the last Flavius, drunk with fury, tore
The prostrate world, which bled at every pore, 50
And Rome beheld, in body as in mind,
A bald-pate Nero rise, to curse mankind;
It chanced, that where the fane of Venus stands,
Reared on Ancona's coast by Grecian hands,
A turbot, wandering from the Illyrian main, 55
Fill'd the wide bosom of the bursting seine.
Monsters so bulky, from its frozen stream,
Mæotis renders to the solar beam,
And pours them, fat with a whole winter's ease,
Through the bleak Euxine, into warmer seas. 60
The mighty draught the astonished boatman eyes,
And to the Pontiff's table dooms his prize:
For who would dare to sell it? who to buy?
When the coast swarmed with many a practiced spy,
Mud-rakers, prompt to swear the fish had fled 65
From Cæsar's ponds, ingrate! where long it fed,
And thus recaptured, claimed to be restored
To the dominion of its ancient lord!
Nay, if Palphurius may our credit gain,
Whatever rare or precious swims the main, 70
Is forfeit to the crown, and you may seize
The obnoxious dainty, when and where you please.
This point allowed, our wary boatman chose
To give--what, else, he had not failed to lose.
Now were the dogstar's sickly fervors o'er, 75
Earth, pinched with cold, her frozen livery wore;
The old began their quartan fits to fear,
And wintry blasts deformed the beauteous year,
And kept the turbot sweet: yet on he flew,
As if the sultry South corruption blew.-- 80
And now the lake, and now the hill he gains,
Where Alba, though in ruins, still maintains
The Trojan fire, which, but for her, were lost,
And worships Vesta, though with less of cost.
The wondering crowd, that gathered to survey 85
The enormous fish, and barred the fisher's way,
Satiate, at length retires; the gates unfold!--
Murmuring, the excluded senators behold
The envied dainty enter:--On the man
To great Atrides pressed, and thus began. 90
"This, for a private table far too great,
Accept, and sumptuously your Genius treat:
Haste to unload your stomach, and devour
A turbot, destined to this happy hour.
I sought him not;--he marked the toils I set, 95
And rushed, a willing victim, to my net."
Was flattery e'er so rank! yet he grows vain,
And his crest rises at the fulsome strain.
When, to divine, a mortal power we raise,
He looks for no hyperboles in praise. 100
But when was joy unmixed? no pot is found,
Capacious of the turbot's ample round:
In this distress, he calls the chiefs of state,
At once the objects of his scorn and hate,
In whose pale cheeks distrust and doubt appear, 105
And all a tyrant's friendship breeds of fear.
Scarce was the loud Liburnian heard to say,
"He sits," ere Pegasus was on his way;
Yes:--the new bailiff of the affrighted town,
(For what were Præfects more?) had snatched his gown, 110
And rushed to council: from the ivory chair,
He dealt out justice with no common care;
But yielded oft to those licentious times,
And where he could not punish, winked at crimes.
Then old, facetious Crispus tript along, 115
Of gentle manners, and persuasive tongue:
None fitter to advise the lord of all,
Had that pernicious pest, whom thus we call,
Allowed a friend to soothe his savage mood,
And give him counsel, wise at once and good. 120
But who shall dare this liberty to take,
When, every word you hazard, life's at stake?
Though but of stormy summers, showery springs--
For tyrants' ears, alas! are ticklish things.
So did the good old man his tongue restrain; 125
Nor strove to stem the torrent's force in vain.
Not one of those, who, by no fears deterred,
Spoke the free soul, and truth to life preferred.
He temporized--thus fourscore summers fled,
Even in that court, securely, o'er his head. 130
Next him, appeared Acilius hurrying on,
Of equal age--and followed by his son;
Who fell, unjustly fell, in early years,
A victim to the tyrant's jealous fears:
But long ere this were hoary hairs become 135
A prodigy, among the great, at Rome;
Hence, had I rather owe my humble birth,
Frail brother of the giant-brood, to earth.
Poor youth! in vain the ancient sleight you try;
In vain, with frantic air, and ardent eye, 140
Fling every robe aside, and battle wage
With bears and lions, on the Alban stage.
All see the trick: and, spite of Brutus' skill,
There are who count him but a driveler still;
Since, in his days, it cost no mighty pains 145
To outwit a prince, with much more beard than brains.
Rubrius, though not, like these, of noble race,
Followed with equal terror in his face;
And, laboring with a crime too foul to name,
More, than the pathic satirist, lost to shame. 150
Montanus' belly next, and next appeared
The legs, on which that monstrous pile was reared.
Crispinus followed, daubed with more perfume,
Thus early! than two funerals consume.
Then bloodier Pompey, practiced to betray, 155
And hesitate the noblest lives away.
Then Fuscus, who in studious pomp at home,
Planned future triumphs for the Arms of Rome.
Blind to the event! those arms, a different fate,
Inglorious wounds, and Dacian vultures, wait. 160
Last, sly Veiento with Catullus came,
Deadly Catullus, who, at beauty's name
Took fire, although unseen: a wretch, whose crimes
Struck with amaze even those prodigious times.
A base, blind parasite, a murderous lord, 165
From the bridge-end raised to the council-board;
Yet fitter still to dog the traveler's heels,
And whine for alms to the descending wheels!
None dwelt so largely on the turbot's size,
Or raised with such applause his wondering eyes; 170
But to the left (O, treacherous want of sight)
He poured his praise;--the fish was on the right!
Thus would he at the fencer's matches sit,
And shout with rapture, at some fancied hit;
And thus applaud the stage-machinery, where 175
The youths were rapt aloft, and lost in air.
Nor fell Veiento short:--as if possest
With all Bellona's rage, his laboring breast
Burst forth in prophecy; "I see, I see
The omens of some glorious victory! 180
Some powerful monarch captured!--lo, he rears,
Horrent on every side, his pointed spears!
Arviragus hurled from the British car:
The fish is foreign, foreign is the war."
Proceed, great seer, and what remains untold, 185
The turbot's age and country, next unfold;
So shall your lord his fortunes better know,
And where the conquest waits and who the foe.
The emperor now the important question put,
"How say ye, Fathers, SHALL THE FISH BE CUT?" 190
"O, far be that disgrace," Montanus cries;
"No, let a pot be formed, of amplest size,
Within whose slender sides the fish, dread sire,
May spread his vast circumference entire!
Bring, bring the tempered clay, and let it feel 195
The quick gyrations of the plastic wheel:--
But, Cæsar, thus forewarned, make no campaign,
Unless your potters follow in your train!"
Montanus ended; all approved the plan,