The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
(The chief of rhetoricians), though they teach
Our youth of quality, THE ART OF SPEECH?
Oh, no! the great pursue a nobler end:--
Five thousand on a bath they freely spend;
More on a portico, where, while it lours, 280
They ride, and bid defiance to the showers.
Shall they, for brighter skies, at home remain,
Or dash their pampered mules through mud and rain?
No: let them pace beneath the stately roof,
For there no mire can soil the shining hoof. 285
See next, on proud Numidian columns rise
An eating-room, that fronts the eastern skies,
And drinks the cooler sun. Expensive these!
But (cost whate'er they may), the times to please,
Sewers for arrangement of the board admired, 290
And cooks of taste and skill must yet be hired.
Mid this extravagance, which knows no bounds,
Quintilian gets, and hardly gets, ten pounds:--
On education all is grudged as lost,
And sons are still a father's lightest cost. 295
Whence has Quintilian, then, his vast estate?
Urge not an instance of peculiar fate:
Perhaps, by luck. The lucky, I admit,
Have all advantages; have beauty, wit,
And wisdom, and high blood: the lucky, too, 300
May take, at will, the senatorial shoe;
Be first-rate speakers, pleaders, every thing;
And, though they croak like frogs, be thought to sing.
O, there's a difference, friend, beneath what sign
We spring to light, or kindly or malign! 305
FORTUNE IS ALL: She, as the fancy springs,
Makes kings of pedants, and of pedants kings.
For, what were Tullius, and Ventidius, say,
But great examples of the wondrous sway
Of stars, whose mystic influence alone, 310
Bestows, on captives triumphs, slaves a throne?
He, then, is lucky; and, amid the clan,
Ranks with the milk-white crow, or sable swan:
While all his hapless brethren count their gains,
And execrate, too late, their fruitless pains. 315
Witness thy end, Thrasymachus! and thine,
Unblest Charinas!--Thou beheld'st him pine,
Thou, Athens! and would'st naught but bane bestow;
The only charity--thou seem'st to know!
Shades of our sires! O, sacred be your rest, 320
And lightly lie the turf upon your breast!
Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare,
And spring eternal shed its influence there!
You honored tutors, now a slighted race,
And gave them all a parent's power and place. 325
Achilles, grown a man, the lyre assayed
On his paternal hills, and, while he played,
With trembling eyed the rod;--and yet, the tail
Of the good Centaur, scarcely, then, could fail
To force a smile: such reverence now is rare, 330
And boys with bibs strike Rufus on his chair,
Fastidious Rufus, who, with critic rage,
Arraigned the purity of Tully's page!
Enough of these. Let the last wretched band,
The poor GRAMMARIANS, say, what liberal hand 335
Rewards their toil: let learned Palæmon tell,
Who proffers what his skill deserves so well.
Yet from this pittance, whatsoe'er it be
(Less, surely, than the rhetorician's fee),
The usher snips off something for his pains, 340
And the purveyor nibbles what remains.
Courage, Palæmon! be not over-nice,
But suffer some abatement in your price;
As those who deal in rugs, will ask you high,
And sink by pence and half-pence, till you buy. 345
Yes, suffer this; while something's left to pay
Your rising hours before the dawn of day,
When e'en the laboring poor their slumbers take,
And not a weaver, not a smith's awake:
While something's left to pay you for the stench 350
Of smouldering lamps, thick spread o'er every bench,
Where ropy vapors Virgil's pages soil,
And Horace looks one blot, all soot and oil!
Even then, the stipend thus reduced, thus small,
Without a lawsuit, rarely comes at all. 355
Add yet, ye parents, add to the disgrace,
And heap new hardships on this wretched race.
Make it a point that all, and every part,
Of their own science, be possessed by heart;
That general history with our own they blend, 360
And have all authors at their fingers' end:
Still ready to inform you, should you meet,
And ask them at the bath, or in the street,
Who nursed Anchises; from what country came
The step-dame of Archemorus, what her name; 365
How long Acestes flourished, and what store
Of generous wine the Phrygians from him bore--
Make it a point too, that, like ductile clay,
They mould the tender mind, and day by day
Bring out the form of Virtue; that they prove 370
A father to the youths, in care and love;
And watch that no obscenities prevail--
And trust me, friend, even Argus' self might fail,
The busy hands of schoolboys to espy,
And the lewd fires which twinkle in their eye. 375
All this, and more, exact; and, having found
The man you seek, say--When the year comes round,
We'll give thee for thy twelve months' anxious pains,
As much--as, IN AN HOUR, A FENCER GAINS!
SATIRE VIII.
TO PONTICUS.
"Your ancient house!" no more.--I can not see
The wondrous merits of a pedigree:
No, Ponticus;--nor of a proud display
Of smoky ancestors, in wax or clay;
Æmilius, mounted on his car sublime, 5
Curius, half wasted by the teeth of time,
Corvinus, dwindled to a shapeless bust,
And high-born Galba, crumbling into dust.
What boots it, on the LINEAL TREE to trace,
Through many a branch, the founders of our race, 10
Time-honored chiefs; if, in their sight, we give
A loose to vice, and like low villains live?
Say, what avails it, that, on either hand,
The stern Numantii, an illustrious band,
Frown from the walls, if their degenerate race 15
Waste the long night at dice, before their face?
If, staggering, to a drowsy bed they creep,
At that prime hour when, starting from their sleep,
Their sires the signal of the fight unfurled,
And drew their legions forth, and won the world? 20
Say, why should Fabius, of the Herculean name,
To the GREAT ALTAR vaunt his lineal claim,
If, softer than Euganean lambs, the youth,
His wanton limbs, with Ætna's pumice, smooth,
And shame his rough-hewn sires? if greedy, vain, 25
If, a vile trafficker in secret bane,
He blast his wretched kindred with a bust,
For public vengeance to--reduce to dust!
Fond man! though all the heroes of your line
Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine 30
In proud display; yet, take this truth from me,
VIRTUE ALONE IS TRUE NOBILITY.
Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view,
The bright example of their lives pursue;
Let these precede the statues of your race, 35
And these, when Consul, of your rods take place.
O give me inborn worth! dare to be just,
Firm to your word, and faithful to your trust:
These praises hear, at least deserve to hear,
I grant your claim, and recognize the peer. 40
Hail! from whatever stock you draw your birth,
The son of Cossus, or the son of Earth,
All hail! in you, exulting Rome espies
Her guardian Power, her great Palladium rise;
And shouts like Egypt, when her priests have found, 45
A new Osiris, for the old one drowned!
But shall we call those noble, who disgrace
Their lineage, proud of an illustrious race?
Vain thought!--but thus, with many a taunting smile,
The dwarf an Atlas, Moor a swan, we style; 50
The crookbacked wench, Europa; and the hound,
With age enfeebled, toothless, and unsound,
That listless lies, and licks the lamps for food,
Lord of the chase, and tyrant of the wood!
You, too, beware, lest Satire's piercing eye 55
The slave of guilt through grandeur's blaze espy,
And, drawing from your crime some sounding name,
Declare at once your greatness and your shame.
Ask you for whom this picture I design?
Plautus, thy birth and folly make it thine. 60
Thou vaunt'st thy pedigree, on every side
To noble and imperial blood allied;
As if thy honors by thyself were won,
And thou hadst some illustrious action done,
To make the world believe thee Julia's heir, 65
And not the offspring of some easy fair,
Who, shivering in the wind, near yon dead wall,
Plies her vile labor, and is all to all.
"Away, away! ye slaves of humblest birth,
Ye dregs of Rome, ye nothings of the earth, 70
Whose fathers who shall tell! my ancient line
Descends from Cecrops." Man of blood divine!
Live, and enjoy the secret sweets which spring
In breasts, affined to so remote a king!--
Yet know, amid these "dregs," low grandeur's scorn, 75
Will those be found whom arts and arms adorn:
Some, skilled to plead a noble blockhead's cause,
And solve the dark enigmas of the laws;
Some, who the Tigris' hostile banks explore,
And plant our eagles on Batavia's shore: 80
While thou, in mean, inglorious pleasure lost,
With "Cecrops! Cecrops!" all thou hast to boast,
Art a full brother to the crossway stone,
Which clowns have chipped the head of Hermes on:
For 'tis no bar to kindred, that thy block 85
Is formed of flesh and blood, and theirs of rock.
Of beasts, great son of Troy, who vaunts the breed,
Unless renowned for courage, strength, or speed?
'Tis thus we praise the horse, who mocks our eyes,
While, to the goal, with lightning's speed, he flies! 90
Whom many a well-earned palm and trophy grace,
And the Cirque hails, unrivaled in the race!
--Yes, he is noble, spring from whom he will,
Whose footsteps, in the dust, are foremost still;
While Hirpine's stock are to the market led, 95
If Victory perch but rarely on their head:
For no respect to pedigree is paid,
No honor to a sire's illustrious shade.
Flung cheaply off, they drag the cumbrous wain,
With shoulders bare and bleeding from the chain; 100
Or take, with some blind ass in concert found,
At Nepo's mill, their everlasting round.
That Rome may, therefore, YOU, not YOURS, admire,
By virtuous actions, first, to praise aspire;
Seek not to shine by borrowed light alone, 105
But with your father's glories blend your own.
THIS to the youth, whom Rumor brands as vain,
And swelling--full of his Neronian strain;
Perhaps, with truth:--for rarely shall we find
A sense of modesty in that proud kind. 110
But were my Ponticus content to raise
His honors thus, on a forefather's praise,
Worthless the while--'twould tinge my cheeks with shame--
'Tis dangerous building on another's fame,
Lest the substructure fail, and on the ground 115