The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
The untender grating of plebeian fare!
Where dwells this _natural warmth_, when danger's near, 205
And "each particular hair" starts up with fear?
Or where resides it, when vindictive ire
Inflames the bosom; when the veins run fire,
The reddening eye-balls glare; and all you say,
And all you do, a mind so warped betray, 210
That mad Orestes, if the freaks he saw,
Would give you up at once to chains and straw!
SATIRE IV.
What! you, my Alcibiades, aspire
To sway the state!--(Suppose that bearded sire,
Whom hemlock from a guilty world removed,
Thus to address the stripling that he loved.)
On what apt talents for a charge so high, 5
Ward of great Pericles, do you rely?
Forecast on others by gray hairs conferred,
Haply, with you, anticipates the beard!
And prompts you, prescient of the public weal,
Now to disclose your thoughts, and now conceal! 10
Hence, when the rabble form some daring plan,
And factious murmurs spread from man to man,
Mute and attentive you can bid them stand,
By the majestic wafture of your hand!
Lo! all is hushed: what now, what will he speak, 15
What floods of sense from his charged bosom break!
"Romans! I think--I fear--I think, I say,
This is not well:--perhaps, the better way."--
O power of eloquence! But you, forsooth,
In the nice, trembling scale can poise the truth, 20
With even hand; can with intentive view,
Amid deflecting curves, the right pursue;
Or, where the rule deceives the vulgar eye
With its warped foot, the unerring line apply:
And, while your sentence strikes with doom precise, 25
Stamp the black Theta on the front of vice!
Rash youth! relying on a specious skin,
While all is dark deformity within,
Check the fond thought; nor, like the peacock proud,
Spread your gay plumage to the applauding crowd, 30
Before your hour arrive:--Ah, rather drain
Whole isles of hellebore, to cool your brain!
For, what is YOUR chief good? "To heap my board
With every dainty earth and sea afford;
To bathe, and bask me in the sunny ray, 35
And doze the careless hours of life away."
Hold, hold! you tattered beldame, hobbling by,
If haply asked, would make the same reply.
"But I am nobly born." Agreed. "And fair."
'Tis granted too: yet goody Baucis there, 40
Who, to the looser slaves, her pot-herbs cries,
Is just as philosophic, just as wise.--
How few, alas! their proper faults explore!
While, on his loaded back, who walks before,
Each eye is fixed.--You touch a stranger's arm, 45
And ask him if he knows Vectidius' farm?
"Whose," he replies? That rich old chuff's, whose ground
Would tire a hawk to wheel it fairly round.
"O ho! that wretch, on whose devoted head
Ill stars and angry gods their rage have shed! 50
Who on high festivals, when all is glee,
And the loose yoke hangs on the cross-way tree,
As, from the jar, he scrapes the incrusted clay,
Groans o'er the revels of so dear a day;
Champs on a coated onion dipt in brine; 55
And while his hungry hinds exulting dine
On barley broth, sucks up, with thrifty care,
The mothery dregs of his palled vinegar!"
But, if "YOU bask you in the sunny ray,
And doze the careless hours of youth away," 60
There are, who at such gross delights will spurn,
And spit their venom on your life in turn;
Expose, with eager hate, your low desires,
Your secret passions, and unhallowed fires.--
"Why, while the beard is nursed with every art, 65
Those anxious pains to bare the shameful part?
In vain:--should five athletic knaves essay
To pluck, with ceaseless care, the weeds away,
Still the rank fern, congenial to the soil,
Would spread luxuriant, and defeat their toil!" 70
Misled by rage, our bodies we expose,
And while we give, forget to ward, the blows;
This, this is life! and thus our faults are shown,
By mutual spleen: we know--and we are known!
But your defects elude inquiring eyes!-- 75
Beneath the groin the ulcerous evil lies,
Impervious to the view; and o'er the wound
The broad effulgence of the zone is bound!
But can you, thus, the inward pang restrain,
Thus cheat the sense of languor and of pain? 80
"But if the people call me wise and just,
Sure I may take the general voice on trust!"--
No:--If you tremble at the sight of gold;
Indulge lust's wildest sallies uncontrolled;
Or, bent on outrage, at the midnight hour, 85
Girt with a ruffian band, the Forum scour;
Then, wretch! in vain the voice of praise you hear,
And drink the vulgar shout with greedy ear.
Hence, with your spurious claims! Rejudge your cause
And fling the rabble back their vile applause; 90
To your own breast, in quest of worth, repair,
And blush to find how poor a stock is there!
SATIRE V.
TO ANNÆUS CORNUTUS.
PERSIUS. Poets are wont a hundred mouths to ask,
A hundred tongues--whate'er the purposed task;
Whether a tragic tale of Pelops' line
For the sad actor, with deep mouth, to whine;
Or Epic lay;--the Parthian winged with fear, 5
And wrenching from his groin the Roman spear.
CORNUTUS. Heavens! to what purpose (sure I heard thee wrong),
Tend those huge gobbets of robustious song,
Which, struggling into day, distend thy lungs,
And need a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues? 10
Let fustian bards to Helicon repair,
And suck the spongy fogs that hover there,
Bards, in whose fervid brains, while sense recoils,
The pot of Progne, or Thyestes boils,
Dull Glyco's feast!--But what canst thou propose? 15
Puffed by thy heaving lungs no metal glows;
Nor dost thou, mumbling o'er some close-spent strain,
Croak the grave nothings of an idle brain;
Nor swell, until thy cheeks, with thundering sound,
Displode, and spurt their airy froth around. 20
Confined to common life, thy numbers flow,
And neither soar too high, nor sink too low;
There strength and ease in graceful union meet,
Though polished, subtle, and though poignant, sweet;
Yet powerful to abash the front of crime, 25
And crimson error's cheek with sportive rhyme.
O still be this thy study, this thy care:
Leave to Mycenæ's prince his horrid fare,
His head and feet; and seek, with Roman taste,
For Roman food--a plain but pure repast. 30
PERSIUS. Mistake me not. Far other thoughts engage
My mind, Cornutus, than to swell my page
With air-blown trifles, impotent and vain,
And grace, with noisy pomp, an empty strain.
Oh, no: the world shut out, 'tis my design, 35
To open (prompted by the inspiring Nine)
The close recesses of my breast, and bare
To your keen eye each thought, each feeling, there;
Yes, best of friends! 'tis now my wish to prove
How much you fill my heart, engross my love. 40
Ring then--for, to your practiced ear, the sound
Will show the solid, and where guile is found
Beneath the varnished tongue: for THIS, in fine,
I dared to wish a hundred voices mine;
Proud to declare, in language void of art, 45
How deep your form is rooted in my heart,
And paint, in words--ah! could they paint the whole--
The ineffable sensations of my soul.
When first I laid the purple by, and free,
Yet trembling at my new-felt liberty, 50
Approached the hearth, and on the Lares hung
The bulla, from my willing neck unstrung;
When gay associates, sporting at my side.
And the white boss, displayed with conscious pride,
Gave me, unchecked, the haunts of vice to trace, 55
And throw my wandering eyes on every face,
When life's perplexing maze before me lay,
And error, heedless of the better way,
To straggling paths, far from the route of truth,
Woo'd, with blind confidence, my timorous youth, 60
I fled to you, Cornutus, pleased to rest
My hopes and fears on your Socratic breast,
Nor did you, gentle Sage, the charge decline:
Then, dextrous to beguile, your steady line
Reclaimed, I know not by what winning force, 65
My morals, warped from virtue's straighter course;
While reason pressed incumbent on my soul,
That struggled to receive the strong control,
And took like wax, tempered by plastic skill;
The form your hand imposed; and bears it still! 70
Can I forget how many a summer's day,
Spent in your converse, stole, unmarked, away?
Or how, while listening with increased delight,
I snatched from feasts the earlier hours of night?
--One time (for to your bosom still I grew), 75
One time of study, and of rest, we knew;
One frugal board where, every care resigned,
An hour of blameless mirth relaxed the mind.
And sure our lives, which thus accordant move
(Indulge me here, Cornutus), clearly prove 80
That both are subject to the self-same law,
And from one horoscope their fortunes draw;
And whether Destiny's unerring doom
In equal Libra poised our days to come;
Or friendship's holy hour our fates combined, 85
And to the Twins a sacred charge assigned;
Or Jove, benignant, broke the gloomy spell
By angry Saturn wove;--I know not well--
But sure some star there is, whose bland control
Subdues, to yours, the temper of my soul! 90
Countless the various species of mankind,
Countless the shades which separate mind from mind;
No general object of desire is known;
Each has his will, and each pursues his own;
With Latian wares, one roams the Eastern main, 95
To purchase spice, and cummin's blanching grain;
Another, gorged with dainties, swilled with wine,
Fattens in sloth, and snores out life, supine;
This loves the Campus; that, destructive play;
And those, in wanton dalliance melt away:-- 100
But when the knotty gout their strength has broke,
And their dry joints crack like some withered oak,
Then they look back, confounded and aghast,
On the gross days in fogs and vapors past;
With late regret the waste of life deplore, 105
No purpose gained, and time, alas! no more.
But you, my friend, whom nobler views delight,
To pallid vigils give the studious night;
Cleanse youthful breasts from every noxious weed,
And sow the tilth with Cleanthean seed. 110
There seek, ye young, ye old, secure to find
That certain end which stays the wavering mind;
Stores, which endure, when other means decay,
Through life's last stage, a sad and cheerless way.
"Right; and to-morrow this shall be our care." 115
Alas! to-morrow, like to-day, will fare.