The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
Knows what in Scythia, what in Thrace is done;
The secrets of the step-dame and the son; 580
Who speeds, and who is jilted: and can swear, }
Who made the widow pregnant, when and where, }
And what she said, and how she frolicked there.-- }
She first espied the star, whose baleful ray,
O'er Parthia, and Armenia, shed dismay: 585
She watches at the gates, for news to come,
And intercepts it, as it enters Rome;
Then, fraught with full intelligence, she flies
Through every street, and, mingling truth with lies,
Tells how Niphates bore down every mound, 590
And poured his desolating flood around;
How earth, convulsed, disclosed its caverns hoar,
And cities trembled, and--were seen no more!
And yet this itch, though never to be cured,
Is easier, than her cruelty, endured. 595
Should a poor neighbor's dog but discompose
Her rest a moment, wild with rage she grows;
"Ho! whips," she cries, "and flay that brute accurs'd;"
"But flay that rascal there, who owns him, first."
Dangerous to meet while in these frantic airs, 600
And terrible to look at, she prepares
To bathe at night; she issues her commands,
And in long ranks forth poor the obedient bands,
With tubs, cloths, oils:--for 'tis her dear delight
To sweat in clamor, tumult, and affright. 605
When her tired arms refuse the balls to ply,
And the lewd bath-keeper has rubbed her dry,
She calls to mind each miserable guest,
Long since with hunger, and with sleep oppress'd,
And hurries home; all glowing, all athirst, 610
For wine, whole flasks of wine! and swallows, first,
Two quarts, to clear her stomach, and excite
A ravenous, an unbounded appetite!
Huisch! up it comes, good heavens! meat, drink, and all,
And flows in purple torrents round the hall; 615
Or a gilt ewer receives the foul contents,
And poisons all the house with vinous scents.
So, dropp'd into a vat, a snake is said
To drink and spew:--the husband turns his head,
Sick to the soul, from this disgusting scene, 620
And struggles to suppress his rising spleen.
But she is more intolerable yet,
Who plays the critic when at table set;
Calls Virgil charming, and attempts to prove
Poor Dido right, in venturing all for love. 625
From Maro, and Mæonides, she quotes
The striking passages, and, while she notes
Their beauties and defects, adjusts her scales,
And accurately weighs which bard prevails.
The astonished guests sit mute: grammarians yield, 630
Loud rhetoricians, baffled, quit the field;
Even auctioneers and lawyers stand aghast,
And not a woman speaks!--So thick, and fast,
The wordy shower descends, that you would swear
A thousand bells were jangling in your ear, 635
A thousand basins clattering. Vex no more
Your trumpets and your timbrels, as of yore,
To ease the laboring moon; her single yell
Can drown their clangor, and dissolve the spell.
She lectures too in Ethics, and declaims 640
On the CHIEF GOOD!--but, surely, she who aims
To seem too learn'd, should take the male array;
A hog, due offering, to Sylvanus slay,
And, with the Stoic's privilege, repair
To farthing baths, and strip in public there! 645
Oh, never may the partner of my bed
With subtleties of logic stuff her head;
Nor whirl her rapid syllogisms around,
Nor with imperfect enthymemes confound!
Enough for me, if common things she know, 650
And boast the little learning schools bestow.
I hate the female pedagogue, who pores
O'er her Palæmon hourly; who explores
All modes of speech, regardless of the sense,
But tremblingly alive to mood and tense: 655
Who puzzles me with many an uncouth phrase,
From some old canticle of Numa's days;
Corrects her country friends, and can not hear
Her husband solecize without a sneer!
A woman stops at nothing, when she wears 660
Rich emeralds round her neck, and in her ears
Pearls of enormous size; these justify
Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye.
Sure, of all ills with which mankind are curs'd,
A wife who brings you money is the worst. 665
Behold! her face a spectacle appears,
Bloated, and foul, and plastered to the ears
With viscous paste:--the husband looks askew,
And sticks his lips in this detested glue.
She meets the adulterer bathed, perfumed, and dress'd, 670
But rots in filth at home, a very pest!
For him she breathes of nard; for him alone
She makes the sweets of Araby her own;
For him, at length, she ventures to uncase,
Scales the first layer of roughcast from her face, 675
And, while the maids to know her now begin,
Clears, with that precious milk, her frouzy skin,
For which, though exiled to the frozen main,
She'd lead a drove of asses in her train!
But tell me yet; this thing, thus daubed and oiled, 680
Thus poulticed, plastered, baked by turns and boiled,
Thus with pomatums, ointments, lackered o'er,
Is it a FACE, Ursidius, or a SORE?
'Tis worth a little labor to survey
Our wives more near and trace 'em through the day. 685
If, dreadful to relate! the night foregone,
The husband turned his back, or lay alone,
All, all is lost; the housekeeper is stripped,
The tiremaid chidden, and the chairman whipped:
Rods, cords, and thongs avenge the master's sleep, 690
And force the guiltless house to wake and weep.
There are, who hire a beadle by the year,
To lash their servants round; who, pleased to hear
The eternal thong, bid him lay on, while they,
At perfect ease, the silkman's stores survey, 695
Chat with their female gossips, or replace
The cracked enamel on their treacherous face.
No respite yet:--they leisurely hum o'er
The countless _items_ of the day before,
And bid him still lay on; till, faint with toil, 700
He drops the scourge; when, with a rancorous smile,
"Begone!" they thunder in a horrid tone,
"Now your accounts are settled, rogues, begone!"
But should she wish with nicer care to dress,
And now the hour of assignation press 705
(Whether the adulterer for her coming wait
In Isis' fane, to bawdry consecrate,
Or in Lucullus' walks), the house appears
A true Sicilian court, all gloom and tears.
The wretched Psecas, for the whip prepared, 710
With locks disheveled, and with shoulders bared,
Attempts her hair: fire flashes from her eyes,
And, "Strumpet! why this curl so high?" she cries.
Instant the lash, without remorse, is plied,
And the blood stains her bosom, back, and side. 715
But why this fury?--Is the girl to blame,
If your air shocks you, or your features shame?
Another, trembling, on the left prepares
To open and arrange the straggling hairs
In ringlets trim: meanwhile, the council meet: 720
And first the nurse, a personage discreet,
Late from the toilet to the wheel removed
(The effect of time), yet still of taste approved,
Gives her opinion: then the rest, in course,
As age, or practice, lends their judgment force. 725
So warm they grow, and so much pains they take,
You'd think her honor or her life at stake!
So high they build her head, such tiers on tiers,
With wary hands, they pile, that she appears,
Andromache, before:--and what behind? 730
A dwarf, a creature of a different kind.--
Meanwhile, engrossed by these important cares,
She thinks not on her lord's distress'd affairs,
Scarce on himself; but leads a separate life,
As if she were his neighbor, not his wife? 735
Or, but in this--that all control she braves;
Hates where he loves, and squanders where he saves.
Room for Bellona's frantic votaries! room
For Cybele's mad enthusiasts! lo, they come!
A lusty semivir, whose part obscene, 740
A broken shell has severed smooth and clean,
A raw-boned, mitred priest, whom the whole choir
Of curtailed priestlings reverence and admire,
Enters, with his wild rout; and bids the fair
Of autumn, and its sultry blasts, beware, 745
Unless she lustrate, with an hundred eggs,
Her household straight:--then, impudently begs
Her cast-off clothes, that every plague they fear
May enter them, and expiate all the year!
But lo! another tribe! at whose command, 750
See her, in winter, near the Tiber stand,
Break the thick ice, and, ere the sun appears,
Plunge in the crashing eddy to the ears;
Then, shivering from the keen and eager breeze,
Crawl round the banks, on bare and bleeding knees. 755
Should milkwhite Iö bid, from Meroë's isle
She'd fetch the sunburnt waters of the Nile,
To sprinkle in her fane; for she, it seems,
Has heavenly visitations in her dreams--
Mark the pure soul, with whom the gods delight 760
To hold high converse at the noon of night!
For this she cherishes, above the rest,
Her Iö's favorite priest, a knave profess'd,
A holy hypocrite, who strolls abroad,
With his Anubis, his dog-headed god! 765
Girt by a linen-clad, a bald-pate crew
Of howling vagrants, who their cries renew
In every street, as up and down they run,
To find OSIRE, fit father to fit son!
He sues for pardon, when the liquorish dame 770
Abstains not from the interdicted game
On high and solemn days; for great the crime,
To stain the nuptial couch at such a time,
And great the atonement due;--the silver snake,
Abhorrent of the deed, was seen to quake! 775
Yet he prevails:--Osiris hears his prayers,
And, softened by a goose, the culprit spares.
Without her badge, a Jewess now draws near,
And, trembling, begs a trifle in her ear.
No common personage! she knows full well 780
The laws of Solyma, and she can tell
The dark decrees of heaven; a priestess she,
An hierarch of the consecrated tree!
Moved by these claims thus modestly set forth,
She gives her a few coins of little worth; 785
For Jews are moderate, and, for farthing fees,
Will sell what fortune, or what dreams you please.
The prophetess dismissed, a Syrian sage
Now enters, and explores the future page,
In a dove's entrails: there he sees express'd 790
A youthful lover: there, a rich bequest,
From some kind dotard: then a chick he takes,
And in its breast, and in a puppy's, rakes,
And sometimes in--an infant's: he will teach
The art to others, and, when taught, impeach! 795
But chiefly in Chaldeans she believes:
Whate'er they say, with reverence she receives,