The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
literature and intellectual pleasures, of a philosophical turn,
and a chastened though somewhat fastidious taste. We see the
student and devotee of literature quite as much as the censor of
morals, and can see that he grieves over the corruption of the
public _taste_ almost as deeply as over the general depravity of
public _morals_. Still there breathes through the whole a tone of
high and right feeling, of just and stringent criticism, of keen
and pungent sarcasm, which deservedly places this Satire very
high in the rank of intellectual productions.
The Satire opens with a dialogue between the poet himself and some
one who breaks in upon his meditations. This person is usually
described as his "Monitor;" some well-meaning acquaintance,
who endeavors to dissuade the poet from his purpose of
writing Satire. But D'Achaintre's notion, that he is rather
an ill-natured critic than a good-natured adviser, seems the
more tenable one, and the divisions of the first few lines have
been ingeniously made to support that view. After expressing
supreme contempt for the poet's opening line, he advises him,
if he must needs give vent to verse, to write something more
suited to the taste and spirit of the age he lives in. Persius
acknowledges that this would be the more likely way to gain
applause, but maintains that such approbation is not the end at
which a true poet ought to aim. And this leads him to expose
the miserable and corrupt taste of the poetasters of his day,
and to express supreme contempt for the mania for recitation
then prevalent, which had already provoked the sneers of Horace,
and afterward drew down the more majestic condemnation of
Juvenal. He draws a vivid picture of these depraved poets, who
pander to the gross lusts of their hearers by their lascivious
strains. Their affectation of speech and manner, their costly
and effeminate dress, the vanity of their exalted seat, and
the degraded character of their compositions; and on the other
hand, the excessive and counterfeited applause of their hearers,
expressed by extravagance of language and lasciviousness of
gesture corresponding to the nature of the compositions, are
touched with a masterly hand. He then ridicules the pretensions
of these courtly votaries of the Muses, whose vanity is fostered
by the interested praise of dependents and sycophants, who are
the first to ridicule them behind their backs. He then makes a
digression to the bar; and shows that the manly and vigorous
eloquence of Cicero and Hortensius and Cato, as well as the
masculine energy and dignity of Virgil, is frittered away, and
diluted by the introduction of redundant and misplaced metaphor,
labored antitheses, trifling conceits, accumulated epithets, and
bombastic and obsolete words, and a substitution of rhetorical
subtleties for that energetic simplicity which speaks _from_ and
_to_ the heart. Returning to the poets, he brings in a passage
of Nero's own composition as a most glaring example of these
defects. This excites his friend's alarm, and elicits some
cautious advice respecting the risk he encounters; which serves
to draw forth a more daring avowal of his bold purpose, and an
animated description of the persons whom he would wish to have
for his readers.
PERSIUS. "Oh the cares of men![1181] Oh how much vanity is there in
human affairs!"--
ADVERSARIUS.[1182] Who will read this?[1183]
P. Is it to me you say this?
A. Nobody, by Hercules!
P. Nobody! Say two perhaps, or--
A. Nobody. It is mean and pitiful stuff!
P. Wherefore? No doubt "Polydamas[1184] and Trojan dames" will prefer
Labeo to me--
A. It is all stuff!
P. Whatever turbid Rome[1185] may disparage, do not thou join their
number; nor by that scale of theirs seek to correct thy own false
balance, nor seek[1186] thyself out of thyself. For who is there
at Rome that is not[1187]--Ah! if I might but speak![1188] But I
may,[1189] when I look at our gray hairs,[1190] and our severe way
of life, and all that we commit since we abandoned our childhood's
nuts.[1191] When we savor of uncles,[1192] then--then forgive!
A. I will not!
P. What must I do?[1193] For I am a hearty laugher with a saucy spleen.
We write, having shut ourselves in,[1194] one man verses, another free
from the trammels of metre, something grandiloquent, which the lungs
widely distended with breath may give vent to.
And this, of course, some day, with your hair combed and a new
toga,[1195] all in white with your birthday Sardonyx,[1196] you
will read out from your lofty seat,[1197] to the people, when you
have rinsed[1198] your throat, made flexible by the liquid gargle;
languidly leering with lascivious eye! Here you may see the tall
Titi[1199] in trembling excitement, with lewdness of manner and
agitation of voice, when the verses enter their loins,[1200] and their
inmost parts are titillated with the lascivious strain.
P. And dost thou, in thy old age,[1201] collect dainty bits for the
ears of others? Ears to which even thou, bursting[1202] with vanity,
wouldst say, "Hold, enough!"
A. To what purpose is your learning, unless this leaven, and this wild
fig-tree[1203] which has once taken life within, shall burst through
your liver and shoot forth?
P. See that pallor and premature old age![1204] Oh Morals![1205] Is
then your knowledge so absolutely naught, unless another know you have
that knowledge?[1206]
A. But it is a fine thing to be pointed at with the finger,[1207]
and that it should be said, "That's he!" Do you value it at
nothing, that your works should form the studies[1208] of a hundred
curly-headed[1209] youths?
P. See![1210] over their cups,[1211] the well-filled Romans[1212]
inquire of what the divine poems tell. Here some one, who has
a hyacinthine robe round his shoulders, snuffling through his
nose[1213] some stale ditty, distills and from his dainty palate
lisps trippingly[1214] his Phyllises,[1215] Hypsipyles, and all the
deplorable strains of the poets. The heroes hum assent![1216] Now are
not the ashes[1217] of the poet blest? Does not a tomb-stone press
with lighter weight[1218] upon his bones? The guests applaud. Now
from those Manes of his, now from his tomb and favored ashes, will not
violets spring?[1219]
A. You are mocking and indulging in too scornful a sneer.[1220] Lives
there the man who would disown the wish to deserve the people's
praise,[1221] and having uttered words worthy of the cedar,[1222]
to leave behind him verses that dread neither herrings[1223] nor
frankincense?
P. Whoever thou art that hast just spoken, and that hast a fair
right[1224] to plead on the opposite side, I, for my part, when I
write, if any thing perchance comes forth[1225] aptly expressed (though
this is, I own, a rare bird[1226]), yet if any thing does come forth,
I would not shrink from being praised: for indeed my heart is not of
horn. But I deny that that "excellently!" and "beautifully!"[1227] of
yours is the end and object of what is right. For sift thoroughly
all this "beautifully!" and what does it not comprise within it! Is
there not to be found in it the Iliad of Accius,[1228] intoxicated
with hellebore? are there not all the paltry sonnets our crude[1229]
nobles have dictated? in fine, is there not all that is composed on
couches of citron?[1230] You know how to set before your guests the hot
paunch;[1231] and how to make a present of your threadbare cloak to
your companion shivering with cold,[1232] and then you say, "I do love
the truth![1233] tell me the truth about myself!" How is that possible?
Would you like me to tell it you? Thou drivelest,[1234] Bald-pate,
while thy bloated paunch projects a good foot and a half hanging in
front! O Janus! whom no stork[1235] pecks at from behind, no hand that
with rapid motion imitates the white ass's ears, no tongue mocks,
projecting as far as that of the thirsting hound of Apulia! Ye, O
patrician blood![1236] whose privilege[1237] it is to live with no eyes
at the back of your head, prevent[1238] the scoffs[1239] that are made
behind your back!
What is the people's verdict? What should it be, but that now at length
verses flow in harmonious numbers, and the skillful joining[1240]
allows the critical nails to glide over its polished surface: he
knows how to carry on his verse as if he were drawing a ruddle line
with one eye[1241] closed. Whether he has occasion to write against
public morals, against luxury, or the banquets of the great, the Muses
vouchsafe to our Poet[1242] the saying brilliant things. And see! now
we see those introducing heroic[1243] sentiments, that were wont to
trifle in Greek: that have not even skill enough to describe a grove.
Nor praise the bountiful country, where are baskets,[1244] and the
hearth, and porkers, and the smoky palilia with the hay: whence Remus
sprung, and thou, O Quintius,[1245] wearing away the plow-boards in
the furrow, when thy wife with trembling haste invested thee with
the dictatorship in front of thy team, and the lictor bore thy plow
home--Bravo, poet!
Some even now delight in the turgid book of Brisæan Accius,[1246] and
in Pacuvius, and warty[1247] Antiopa, "her dolorific heart propped up
with woe." When you see purblind sires instilling these precepts into
their sons, do you inquire whence came this gallimaufry[1248] of speech
into our language? Whence that disgrace,[1249] in which the effeminate
Trossulus[1250] leaps up in ecstasy at you, from his bench.
Are you not ashamed[1251] that you can not ward off danger from a
hoary head, without longing to hear the lukewarm "Decently[1252] said!"
"You are a thief!" says the accuser to Pedius. What says Pedius?[1253]
He balances the charge in polished antitheses. He gets the praise of
introducing learned figures. "That is fine!" Fine, is it?[1254] O
Romulus, dost thou wag thy tail?[1255] Were the shipwrecked man to
sing, would he move my pity, forsooth, or should I bring forth my
penny? Do you sing, while you are carrying about a picture[1256] of
yourself on a fragment of wood, hanging from your shoulders. He that
aims at bowing me down by his piteous complaint, must whine out what is
real,[1257] and not studied and got up of a night.
A. But the numbers have grace, and crude as you call them, there is a
judicious combination.
P. He has learned thus to close his line. "Berecynthean Atys;"[1258]
and, "The Dolphin that clave the azure Nereus." So again, "We filched
away a chine from long-extending Apennine."
A. "Arms and the man."[1259] Is not this frothy, with a pithless rind?
P. Like a huge branch, well seasoned, with gigantic bark!
A. What then is a tender strain, and that should be read with neck
relaxed?[1260]
P. "With Mimallonean[1261] hums they filled their savage horns; and
Bassaris, from the proud steer about to rive the ravished head, and
Mænas, that would guide the lynx with ivy-clusters, re-echoes Evion;
and reproductive Echo reverberates the sound!" Could such verses be
written, did one spark of our fathers' vigor still exist in us? This
nerveless stuff dribbles on the lips, on the topmost spittle. In drivel
vests this Mænas and Attis. It neither beats the desk,[1262] nor savors
of bitten nails.
A. But what need is there to grate on delicate ears with biting truth?
Take care, I pray, lest haply the thresholds of the great[1263] grow
cold to you. Here the dog's letter[1264] sounds from the nostril. For
me[1265] then, henceforth, let all be white. I'll not oppose it. Bravo!
For you shall all be very wonderful productions! Does that please you?