The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
To every friend who lingered at his side,
"Tell me what crimes have roused the Immortals' hate,
That thus, in vengeance, they protract my date?"
So questioned heaven Laertes--Peleus so-- 370
(Their hoary heads bowed to the grave with woe)
While this bewailed his son, at Ilium slain;
That his, long wandering o'er the faithless main.
While Troy yet flourished, had her Priam died,
With what solemnity, what funeral pride, 375
Had he descended, every duty paid,
To old Assaracus, illustrious shade!--
Hector himself, bedewed with many a tear,
Had joined his brothers to support the bier;
While Troy's dejected dames, a numerous train, 380
Followed, in sable pomp, and wept amain,
As sad Polyxena her pall had rent,
And wild Cassandra raised the loud lament:
Had he but fallen, ere his adulterous boy
Spread his bold sails, and left the shores of Troy. 385
But what did lengthened life avail the sire?
To see his realm laid waste by sword and fire.
Then too, too late, the feeble soldier tried
Unequal arms, and flung his crown aside;
Tottered, his children's murderer to repel, 390
With trembling haste, and at Jove's altar fell,
Fell without effort; like the steer, that, now,
Time-worn and weak, and, by the ungrateful plow,
Spurned forth to slaughter, to the master's knife
Yields his shrunk veins and miserable life. 395
His end, howe'er, was human; while his mate,
Doomed, in a brute, to drain the dregs of fate,
Pursued the foes of Troy from shore to shore,
And barked and howled at those she cursed before.
I pass, while hastening to the Roman page, 400
The Pontic king, and Crœsus, whom the Sage
Wisely forbade in fortune to confide,
Or take the name of HAPPY, till he died.
That Marius, exiled from his native plains,
Was hid in fens, discovered, bound in chains; 405
That, bursting these, to Africa he fled,
And, through the realms he conquered, begged his bread,
Arose from age, from treacherous age alone:
For what had Rome, or earth, so happy known,
Had he, in that bless'd moment, ceased to live, 410
When, graced with all that Victory could give,
"Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war,"
He first alighted from his Cimbrian car!
Campania, prescient of her Pompey's fate,
Send a kind fever to arrest his date: 415
When lo! a thousand suppliant altars rise,
And public prayers obtain him of the skies.
Ill done! that head, thus rescued from the grave,
His Evil Fate and ours, by Nilus' wave,
Lopp'd from the trunk:--such mutilation dire } 420
Cornelius 'scaped; Cethegus fell entire; }
And Catiline pressed, whole, the funeral pyre. }
Whene'er the fane of Venus meets her eye,
The anxious mother breathes a secret sigh
For handsome boys; but asks, with bolder prayer, 425
That all her girls be exquisitely fair!
"And wherefore not? Latona, in the sight
Of Dian's beauty, took unblamed delight."
True; but Lucretia cursed her fatal charms,
When spent with struggling in a Tarquin's arms; 430
And poor Virginia would have changed her grace
For Rutila's crooked back and homely face.
"But boys may still be fair?" No; they destroy
Their parents' peace, and murder all their joy;
For rarely do we meet, in one combined, 435
A beauteous body and a virtuous mind,
Though, through the rugged line, there still has run
A Sabine sanctity, from sire to son.--
Besides, should Nature, in her kindest mood,
Confer the ingenuous flush of modest blood, 440
The disposition chaste as unsunned snow--
(And what can Nature more than these bestow,
These, which no art, no care can give)?--even then,
They can not hope, they must not, to be men!
Smit with their charms, the imps of hell appear, 445
And pour their proffers in a parent's ear,
For prostitution!--infamously bold,
And trusting to the almighty power of gold:
While youths in shape and air less formed to please
No tyrants mutilate, no Neros seize. 450
Go now, and triumph in your beauteous boy,
Your Ganymede! whom other ills annoy,
And other dangers wait: his graces known,
He stands professed, the favorite of the town;
And dreads, incessant dreads, on every hand, 455
The vengeance which a husband's wrongs demand:
For sure detection follows soon or late;
Born under Mars, he can not scape his fate.
Oft on the adulterer, too, the furious spouse
Inflicts worse evils than the law allows; 460
By blows, stripes, gashes some are robbed of breath
And others, by the mullet, racked to death.
"But my Endymion will more lucky prove,
And serve a beauteous mistress, all for love."
No; he will soon to ugliness be sold, 465
And serve a toothless grandam, all for gold.
Servilia will not lose him; jewels, clothes,
All, all she sells, and all on him bestows;
For women naught to the dear youth deny,
Or think his labors can be bought too high: 470
When love's the word, the naked sex appear,
And every niggard is a spendthrift here.
"But if my boy with virtue be endued,
What harm will beauty do him?" Nay, what good?
Say, what availed, of old, to Theseus' son, 475
The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?--
O, then did Phædra redden, then her pride
Took fire, to be so steadfastly denied!
Then, too, did Sthenobœa glow with shame,
And both burst forth with unextinguished flame! 480
A woman scorned is pitiless as fate,
For, there, the dread of shame adds stings to hate.
But Silius comes.--Now, be thy judgment tried:
Shall he accept, or not, the proffered bride,
And marry Cæsar's wife? hard point, in truth: 485
Lo! this most noble, this most beauteous youth,
Is hurried off, a helpless sacrifice
To the lewd glance of Messalina's eyes!
--Haste, bring the victim: in the nuptial vest
Already see the impatient Empress dress'd; 490
The genial couch prepared, the accustomed sum
Told out, the augurs and the notaries come.
"But why all these?" You think, perhaps, the rite
Were better, known to few, and kept from sight;
Not so the lady; she abhors a flaw, 495
And wisely calls for every form of law.
But what shall Silius do? refuse to wed?
A moment sees him numbered with the dead.
Consent, and gratify the eager dame?
He gains a respite, till the tale of shame, 500
Through town and country, reach the Emperor's ear,
Still sure the last--his own disgrace to hear.
Then let him, if a day's precarious life
Be worth his study, make the fair his wife;
For wed or not, poor youth, 'tis still the same, 505
And still the axe must mangle that fine frame!
Say then, shall man, deprived all power of choice,
Ne'er raise to heaven the supplicating voice?
Not so; but to the gods his fortunes trust:
Their thoughts are wise, their dispensations just. 510
What best may profit or delight they know,
And real good for fancied bliss bestow:
With eyes of pity they our frailties scan;
More dear to them, than to himself, is man.
By blind desire, by headlong passion driven, 515
For wife and heirs we daily weary Heaven:
Yet still 'tis Heaven's prerogative to know,
If heirs, or wife, will bring us weal or woe.
But (for 'tis good our humble hope to prove),
That thou may'st, still, ask something from above, 520
Thy pious offerings to the temple bear,
And, while the altars blaze, be this thy prayer.
O THOU, who know'st the wants of human kind,
Vouchsafe me health of body, health of mind;
A soul prepared to meet the frowns of fate, 525
And look undaunted on a future state;
That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear
Existence nobly, with its weight of care;
That anger and desire alike restrains,
And counts Alcides' toils, and cruel pains, 530
Superior far to banquets, wanton nights,
And all the Assyrian monarch's soft delights!
Here bound, at length, thy wishes. I but teach
What blessings man, by his own powers, may reach.
THE PATH TO PEACE IS VIRTUE. We should see, 535
If wise, O Fortune, naught divine in thee:
But we have deified a name alone,
And fixed in heaven thy visionary throne!
SATIRE XI.
TO PERSICUS.
If Atticus in sumptuous fare delight,
'Tis taste: if Rutilus, 'tis madness quite:
And what diverts the sneering rabble more
Than an Apicius miserably poor?
In every company, go where you will, 5
Bath, forum, theatre, the talk is still
Of Rutilus!--While fit (they cry) to wield,
With firm and vigorous arm, the spear and shield,
While his full veins beat high with youthful blood,
Forced by no tribune--yet by none withstood, 10
He cultivates the gladiator's trade,
And learns the imperious language of the blade.
What swarms we see of this degenerate kind!
Swarms whom their creditors can only find
At flesh and fish-stalls:--thither they repair, 15
Sure, though deceived at home, to catch them there.
These live but for their palate; and, of these,
The most distressed (while Ruin hastes to seize
The crumbling mansion and disparting wall),
Spread richer feasts, and riot as they fall!-- 20
Meanwhile, ere yet the last supply be spent,
They search for dainties every element,
Awed by no price; nay, making this their boast,
And still preferring that which costs them most,
Joyous, and reckless of to-morrow's fate, 25
To raise a desperate sum, they pledge their plate,
Or mother's fractured image; to prepare
Yet one treat more, though but in earthen ware!
Then to the fencer's mess they come, of course,
And mount the scaffold as a last resource. 30
No foe to sumptuous boards, I only scan,
When such are spread, the motives, and the man,
And praise or censure, as I see the feast
Or by the noble or the beggar dress'd:
In this, 'tis gluttony; in that, fit pride, 35
Sanctioned by wealth, by station dignified.--
Whip me the fool, who marks how Atlas soars
O'er every hill on Mauritania's shores,
Yet sees no difference 'twixt the coffer's hoards,
And the poor pittance a small purse affords! 40
Heaven sent us "KNOW THYSELF!"--Be this impress'd
In living characters, upon thy breast,
And still revolved; whether a wife thou choose,
Or to the SACRED SENATE point thy views.--
Or seek'st thou rather, in some doubtful cause, 45
To vindicate thy country's injured laws?
Knock at thy bosom, play the censor's part,