The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
the Megalesian games come a long time after the plebeian), in their
melancholy handle the mask and thyrsus and drawers of Accius. Urbicus
provokes a laugh by his personification of Autonoe in the Atellan
farce. Ælia, being poor, is in love with him. For others, the fibula
of the comic actor is unbuckled for a large sum. Some women prevent
Chrysogonus from having voice to sing. Hispulla delights in a tragic
actor. Do you expect then that the worthy Quintilianus will be the
object of their love? You take a wife by whom Echion the harper, or
Glaphyrus, or Ambrosius the choral flute-player, will become a father.
Let us erect long lines of scaffolding along the narrow streets. Let
the door-posts and the gate be decorated with a huge bay, that beneath
the canopy inlaid with tortoise-shell,[241] thy infant, Lentulus,
supposed to be sprung from a noble sire, may be the counterpart of the
Mirmillo Euryalus.
Hippia, though wife to a senator, accompanied a gladiator to Pharos
and the Nile, and the infamous walls of Lagos.[242] Even Canopus
itself reprobated the immorality of the imperial city. She, forgetful
of her home, her husband, and her sister, showed no concern for her
native land, or, vile wretch as she was, her weeping children, and,
to amaze you even more, quitted the shows and Paris. But though when
a babe she had been pillowed in great luxury, in the down of her
father's mansion, and a cradle of richest workmanship, she despised
the perils of the sea. Her good name she had long before despised--the
loss of which, among the soft cushions of ladies, is very cheaply
held. Therefore with undaunted breast she faced the Tuscan waves and
wide-resounding Ionian Sea, though the sea was so often to be changed.
If the cause of the peril be reasonable and creditable, then they are
alarmed--their coward hearts are chilled with icy fear--they can not
support themselves on their trembling feet. They show a dauntless
spirit in those things which they basely dare. If it is their husband
that bids them, it is a great hardship to go on board ship. Then the
bilgewater is insufferable! the skies spin round them! She that follows
her adulterer has no qualms. The one is sick all over her husband. The
other dines among the sailors and walks the quarter-deck, and delights
in handling the hard ropes. And yet what was the beauty that inflamed,
what the prime of life that captivated Hippia? What was it she saw in
him to compensate her for being nicknamed the fencer's whore? For the
darling Sergius had now begun to shave his throat; and badly wounded
in the arm to anticipate his discharge. Besides, he had many things to
disfigure his face, as for instance--he was galled with his helmet, and
had a huge wen between his nostrils, and acrid rheum forever trickling
from his eye. But then he was a gladiator! It is this that makes them
beautiful as Hyacinthus! It was this she preferred to her children and
her native land, her sister and her husband. It is the steel they are
enamored of. This very same Sergius, if discharged from the arena,
would begin to be Veiento in her eyes.
Do you feel an interest in a private house, in a Hippia's acts? Turn
your eyes to the rivals of the gods! Hear what Claudius had to endure.
As soon as his wife perceived he was asleep, this imperial harlot, that
dared prefer a coarse mattress to the royal bed, took her hood she
wore by nights, quitted the palace with but a single attendant, but
with a yellow tire concealing her black hair; entered the brothel warm
with the old patchwork quilt, and the cell vacant and appropriated to
herself. Then took her stand with naked breasts and gilded nipples,
assuming the name of Lycisca, and displayed the person of the mother of
the princely Britannicus, received all comers with caresses and asked
her compliment, and submitted to often-repeated embraces. Then when the
owner dismissed his denizens, sadly she took her leave, and (all she
could do) lingered to the last before she closed her cell; and still
raging with unsatisfied desire, tired with the toil but yet unsated,
she retired with sullied cheeks defiled, and, foul from the smoke of
lamps, bore back the odor of the stews to the pillow of the emperor.
Shall I speak of the love-philters, the incantations, the poison
mingled with the food and given to the step-son? The acts which they
commit, to which they are impelled by the imperative suggestions of
their sex,[243] are still more atrocious: those they commit through
lust are the least of their crimes. "Then, how can it be that even
by her husband's showing Cesennia is the best of wives?" She brought
him a thousand sestertia! that is the price at which he calls her
chaste. It is not with Venus' quiver that he grows thin, or with her
torch he burns; it is from that his fires are fed; from her dowry that
the arrows emanate. She has purchased her liberty: therefore, even
in her husband's presence, she may exchange signals, and answer her
love-letters. A rich wife, with a covetous husband, has all a widow's
privileges. "Why then does Sertorius burn with passion for Bibula?"
If you sift the truth, it is not the wife he is in love with, but the
face. Let a wrinkle or two make their appearance, and the shriveled
skin grow flaccid, her teeth get black, or her eyes smaller--"Pack
up your baggage," the freedman will say, "and march. You are become
offensive. You blow your nose too frequently. March! and be quick about
it! Another is coming whose nose is not so moist." Meanwhile she is
hot and imperious, and demands of her husband shepherds and sheep from
Canusium, and elms[244] from Falernum. What a trifle is this? Then
every boy she fancies, whole droves of slaves, and whatever she has not
in her house, and her neighbor has, must be bought.
Nay, in the mid-winter month, when now the merchant Jason is shut up,
and the cottage[245] white with hoar frost detains the sailors all
equipped for their voyage, she takes huge crystalline vases,[246] and
then again myrrhine of immense size; then an adamant whose history is
well known, and whose value is enhanced by having been on Berenice's
finger. This in days of yore a barbarian king gave his incestuous
love--Agrippa to his own sister! where barefoot kings observe festal
sabbaths, and a long-established clemency grants long life to pigs.
"Is there not one, then, out of such large herds of women, that seems
to you a worthy match?" Let her be beautiful, graceful, rich, fruitful;
marshal along her porticoes her rows of ancestral statues; let her be
more chaste than any single Sabine that, with hair disheveled, brought
the war to a close; be a very phœnix upon earth, rare as a black swan;
who could tolerate a wife in whom all excellencies are concentrated! I
would rather, far rather, have a country maiden from Venusia, than you,
O Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, if along with your exalted virtues
you bring as portion of your dower a haughty and disdainful brow, and
reckon as part of your fortune the triumphs of your house! Away, I beg,
with your Hannibal and Syphax conquered in his camp, and tramp with all
your Carthage!
"Spare, I pray thee, Pæan! and thou, O goddess, lay down thine arrows!
The children are innocent. Transfix the mother herself!" So prays
Amphion. Yet Pæan bends his bow. Therefore she had to bury her herds
of children, together with their sire, while Niobe seems to herself to
be more noble than Latona's race, and moreover more fruitful even than
the white sow. What dignity of deportment, what beauty, can compensate
for your wife's always throwing her own worth in your teeth? For all
the satisfaction of this rare and chief good is destroyed, if, entirely
spoilt by haughtiness of soul, it entails more bitter than sweet. But
who is so devotedly uxorious, as not to feel a dread of her whom he
praises to the skies, and hate her seven hours out of every twelve?
There are some things, trifling indeed, and yet such as no husband can
tolerate. For what can be more sickening than the fact that no one
woman considers herself beautiful, unless instead of Tuscan she has
become a little Greek--metamorphosed from a maid of Sulmo to a "maid of
Athens." Every thing is in Greek. (While surely it is more disgraceful
for our countrywomen not to know their mother tongue.) In this language
they give vent to their fears, their anger, their joys and cares,
and all the inmost workings of their soul. Nay more, they kiss à la
Grecque! This in young girls you may excuse. But must thou, forsooth,
speak Greek, that hast had the wear and tear of six and eighty years?
In an old woman this language becomes immodest, when interspersed with
the wanton Ζωὴ καὶ ψυχή. You are employing in public, expressions one
might think you had just used under the counterpane. For whose passion
would not be excited by these enticing and wanton words? It has all
the force of actual touching. Yet though you pronounce them all in
more insinuating tones than even Hæmus or Carpophorus, your face, the
tell-tale of your years, makes all the feathers droop.
If you are _not_ likely to love her that is contracted and united to
you in lawful wedlock, there seems no single reason why you should
marry, nor why you should waste the wedding dinner and bride cakes[247]
which you must dispense, when their complimentary attendance is over,
to your bridal guests already well crammed; nor the present given for
the first nuptial night, when, in the well-stored dish, Dacicus[248]
and Germanicus glitters with its golden legend. If you are possessed
of such simplicity of character as to be enamored of your wife, and
your whole soul is devoted to her alone, then bow your head with
neck prepared to bear the yoke. You will find none that will spare a
man that loves her. Though she be enamored herself, she delights in
tormenting and fleecing her lover. Consequently a wife is far more
disastrous to him that is likely to prove a kind and eligible husband.
You will never be allowed to make a present without your wife's
consent. If she opposes it, you must not sell a single thing, or buy
one, against her will. She will give away your affections. That good
old friend of many long years will be shut out from that gate that saw
his first sprouting beard.[249] While pimps and trainers have free
liberty to make their own wills, and even gladiators enjoy the same
amount of privilege, you will have your will dictated to you, and find
more than one rival named as your heirs.
"Crucify that slave." "What is the charge, to call for such a
punishment? What witness can you produce? Who gave the information?
Listen! Where man's life is at stake no deliberation can be too long."
"Idiot! so a slave is a man then! Granted he has done nothing. I _will_
it, I _insist_ on it! Let my will stand instead of reason!"
Therefore she lords it over her husband:--but soon she quits these
realms, and seeks new empires and wears out her bridal veil. Then she
flies back, and seeks again the traces of the bed she scorned.[250] She
leaves the doors so recently adorned, the tapestry still hanging on the
house, and the branches still green upon the threshold. Thus the number
grows: thus she has her eight[251] husbands in five years. A notable
fact to record upon her tomb!
All chance of domestic happiness is hopeless while your wife's mother
is alive. She bids her exult in despoiling her husband to the utmost.
She teaches her how to write back nothing savoring of discourtesy or
inexperience to the missives of the seducer. She either balks or bribes
your spies; then, though your daughter is in rude health, calls in
Archigenes, and tosses off the bedclothes as too oppressive. Meanwhile
the adulterer, concealed apart, stands trembling with impatient
expectation. Do you expect, forsooth, that the mother will inculcate