The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
[921] _Tiresiam._ Soph., Œd. T. Ovid, Met., iii., 322, _seq._
SATIRE XIV.
There are very many things, Fuscinus,[922] that both deserve a bad
name, and fix a lasting spot on a fortune otherwise splendid, which
parents themselves point the way to, and inculcate upon their children.
If destructive gambling[923] delights the sire, the heir while yet
a child plays[924] too; and shakes the selfsame weapons in his own
little dice-box. Nor will that youth allow any of his kin to form
better hopes of him who has learned to peel truffles,[925] to season a
mushroom,[926] and drown beccaficas[927] swimming in the same sauce,
his gourmand sire with his hoary gluttony[928] showing him the way.
When his seventh[929] year has past over the boy's head, and all his
second teeth are not yet come, though you range a thousand bearded[930]
philosophers on one side of him, and as many on the other, still he
will be ever longing to dine in sumptuous style, and not degenerate
from his sire's luxurious kitchen.
Does Rutilus[931] inculcate a merciful disposition and a character
indulgent to venial faults? does he hold that the souls and bodies
of our slaves[932] are formed of matter like our own and of similar
elements? or does he not teach cruelty, that Rutilus, who delights
in the harsh clang of stripes, and thinks no Siren's[933] song can
equal the sound of whips; the Antiphates[934] and Polyphemus of his
trembling household? Then is he happy indeed whenever the torturer[935]
is summoned, and some poor wretch is branded with the glowing iron
for stealing a couple of towels! What doctrine does he preach to his
son that revels in the clank of chains, that feels a strange delight
in branded slaves,[936] and the country jail? Do you expect that
Larga's[937] daughter will not turn out an adulteress, who could not
possibly repeat her mother's lovers so quickly, or string them together
with such rapidity, as not to take breath thirty times at least?
While yet a little maid she was her mother's confidante; now, at that
mother's dictation[938] she fills her own little tablets, and gives
them to her mother's agents to bear to lovers of her own.
Such is Nature's law.[939] The examples of vice that we witness at
home[940] more surely and quickly corrupt us, when they insinuate
themselves into our minds, under the sanction of those we revere.
Perhaps just one or two young men may spurn these practices, whose
hearts the Titan has formed with kindlier art, and moulded out of
better clay.[941]
But their sire's footsteps, that they ought to shun, lead on all the
rest, and the routine[942] of inveterate depravity, that has been long
before their eyes, attracts them on.
Therefore refrain[943] from all that merits reprobation. _One_ powerful
motive, at least, there is to this--lest our children copy our crimes.
For we are all of us too quick at learning to imitate base and depraved
examples; and you may find a Catiline in every people and under every
sky; but nowhere a Brutus,[944] or Brutus' uncle!
Let nothing shocking to eyes or ears approach those doors that close
upon your child. Away! far, far away,[945] the pander's wenches, and
the songs of the parasite[946] that riots the livelong night! The
greatest reverence[947] is due to a child! If you are contemplating a
disgraceful act, despise not your child's tender years, but let your
infant son act as a check upon your purpose of sinning. For if, at some
future time, he shall have done any thing to deserve the censor's[948]
wrath, and show himself like you, not in person only and in face,
but also the true son of your morals, and one who, by following your
footsteps, adds deeper guilt to your crimes--then, forsooth! you will
reprove and chastise him with clamorous bitterness, and then set about
altering your will. Yet how dare you assume the front severe,[949] and
license of a parent's speech; you, who yourself, though old, do worse
than this; and the exhausted cupping-glass[950] is long ago looking out
for your brainless head?
If a friend is coming to pay you a visit, your whole household is in a
bustle. "Sweep the floor, display the pillars in all their brilliancy,
let the dry spider come down with all her web; let one clean[951] the
silver, another polish the embossed[952] plate--" the master's voice
thunders out, as he stands over the work, and brandishes his whip.
You are alarmed then, wretched man, lest your entrance-hall, befouled
by dogs, should offend the eye of your friend who is coming, or your
corridor be spattered with mud; and yet one little slave could clean
all this with half a bushel of saw-dust. And yet, will you not bestir
yourself that your own son may see your house immaculate and free from
foul spot or crime? It deserves our gratitude that you have presented a
citizen to your country and people,[953] if you take care that he prove
useful to the state--of service to her lands; useful in transacting the
affairs both of war and peace. For it will be a matter of the highest
moment in what pursuits and moral discipline you train him.
The stork feeds her young on snakes[954] and lizards which she has
discovered in the trackless fields. They too, when fledged, go in quest
of the same animals. The vulture, quitting the cattle, and dogs, and
gibbets, hastens to her callow brood, and bears to them a portion of
the carcass. Therefore this is the food of the vulture too when grown
up, and able to feed itself and build a nest in a tree of its own.
Whereas the ministers of Jove,[955] and birds of noble blood, hunt in
the forest for the hare[956] or kid. Hence is derived the quarry for
their nest: hence too, when their progeny, now matured, have poised
themselves on their own wings, when hunger pinches they swoop to that
booty, which first they tasted when they broke the shell.
Centronius had a passion for building; and now on the embayed
shore of Caieta,[957] now on the highest peak of Tibur,[958] or
on Præneste's[959] hills, he reared the tall roofs of his villas,
of Grecian[960] and far-fetched marbles; surpassing the temple of
Fortune[961] and of Hercules as much as Posides[962] the eunuch
outvied our Capitol. While, therefore, he is thus magnificently lodged,
Centronius lessened his estate and impaired his wealth. And yet the sum
of the portion that he left was no mean one: but all this his senseless
son ran through by raising new mansions of marble more costly than his
sire's.
Some whose lot it is to have a father that reveres sabbaths, worship
nothing save clouds and the divinity of heaven; and think that flesh
of swine, from which their sire abstained, differs in naught from
that of man. Soon, too, they submit to circumcision. But, trained to
look with scorn upon the laws of Rome, they study and observe and
reverence all those Jewish statutes that Moses in his mystic volume
handed down: never to show the road except to one that worships the
same sacred rites--to conduct to the spring they are in quest of, the
circumcised[963] alone. But their father is to blame for this; to whom
each seventh[964] day was a day of sloth, and kept aloof from all share
of life's daily duties.
All other vices, however, young men copy of their own free choice.
Avarice is the only one that even against their will they are
constrained to put in practice. For this vice deceives men under
the guise and semblance[965] of virtue. Since it is grave in
bearing--austere in look and dress. And without doubt, the miser is
praised "a frugal[966] character," "a sparing man," and one that
knows how to guard his own,[967] more securely than if the serpent of
the Hesperides[968] or of Pontus had the keeping of them. Besides,
the multitude considers the man of whom we are speaking, a splendid
carver[969] of his own fortune. Since it is by such artificers as
these that estates are increased. But still, increase they do by all
means, fair or foul, and swell in bulk from the ceaseless anvil and
ever-glowing forge.
The father, therefore, considers misers as men of happy minds,[970]
since he admires wealth, and thinks no instance can be found of a
_poor_ man that is also _happy_; and therefore exhorts his sons to
follow the same track, and apply themselves earnestly to the doctrines
of the same sect. There are certain first elements[971] of all vices.
These he instills into them in regular order, and constrains them to
become adepts in the most paltry lucre. Presently he inculcates an
insatiable thirst for gain. While he is famishing himself, he pinches
his servants'[972] stomachs with the scantiest allowance.[973] For
he never endures to consume the whole of the blue fragments of
mouldy[974] bread, but saves, even in the middle of September,[975]
the mince[976] of yesterday;[977] and puts by till to-morrow's dinner
the summer bean,[978] with a piece of stockfish and half a stinking
shad:[979] and, after he has counted them, locks up the shreds of
chopped leek.[980] A beggar from a bridge[981] would decline an
invitation to such a meal as this! But to what end is money scraped
together at the expense of such self-torture? Since it is undoubted
madness,[982] palpable insanity, to _live_ a beggar's life, simply that
you may _die_ rich.
Meanwhile, though the sack swells, full to the very brim, the love of
money grows[983] as fast as the money itself grows. And he that has the
less, the less he covets. Therefore you are looking out for a second
villa, since one estate is not enough for you, and it is your fancy to
extend[984] your territories; and your neighbor's corn-land seems to
you more spacious and fertile than your own; therefore you treat for
the purchase of this too, with all its woods and its hill that whitens
with its dense olive-grove. But if their owner will not be prevailed
upon to part with them at any price, then at night, your lean oxen
and cattle with weary necks, half-starved, will be turned into his
corn-fields while still green, and not quit it for their own homes
before the whole crop[985] has found its way into their ruthless[986]
stomachs--so closely cropped that you would fancy it had been mown. You
could hardly tell how many have to complain of similar treatment, and
how many estates wrongs like this have brought to the hammer. "But what
says the world? What the trumpet of slanderous fame?--"
"What harm does this do me?"[987] he says; "I had rather have a lupin's
pod, than that the whole village neighborhood[988] should praise me, if
I am at the same time to reap the scanty crops of a diminutive estate."
You will then, forsooth, be free from all disease[989] and all
infirmity, and escape sorrow and care; and a lengthened span of life
will hereafter be your lot with happier destiny, if you individually
own as much arable land as the whole Roman people used to plow under
king Tatius. And after that, to men broken down with years, that had
seen the hard service of the Punic wars, and faced the fierce Pyrrhus
and the Molossian swords, scarce two acres[990] a man were bestowed at
length as compensation for countless wounds. Yet that reward for all
their blood and toil never appeared to any less than their deserts--or
did their country's faith appear scant or thankless. Such a little
glebe as this used to satisfy the father himself and all his cottage
troop: where lay his pregnant wife, and four children played--one a
little slave,[991] the other three free-born. But for their grown-up
brothers[992] when they returned from the trench or furrow, there was
another and more copious supper prepared, and the big pots smoked with
vegetables. Such a plot of ground in our days is not enough for a
garden.
It is from this source commonly arise the motives to crime. Nor has any
vice of the mind of man mingled more poisons or oftener dealt[993] the