The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius
is your own! You are leaking away,[1349] idiot! You will become an
object of contempt. The ill-baked jar of half-prepared clay betrays
by its ring its defect, and gives back a cracked sound. You are now
clay, moist and pliant:[1350] even now you ought to be hastily moulded
and fashioned unintermittingly by the rapid wheel.[1351] But, you will
say, you have a fair competence from your hereditary estate; a pure
and stainless salt-cellar.[1352] Why should you fear? And you have a
paten free from care, since it worships your household deities.[1353]
And is this enough? Is it then fitting you should puff out your lungs
to bursting because you trace the thousandth in descent from a Tuscan
stock;[1354] or because robed in your trabea you salute the Censor,
your own kinsman? Thy trappings to the people! I know thee intimately,
inside and out! Are you not ashamed to live after the manner of the
dissolute Natta?[1355]
But he is besotted by vicious indulgence; the gross fat[1356] is
incrusted round his heart: he is free from moral guilt; for he knows
not what he is losing; and sunk in the very depth of vice, will never
rise again to the surface of the wave.
O mighty father of the gods! when once fell lust, imbued with raging
venom, has fired their spirits, vouchsafe to punish fierce tyrants
in no other way than this. Let them see Virtue,[1357] and pine away
at[1358] having forsaken her! Did the brass of the Sicilian[1359]
bull give a deeper groan, or the sword[1360] suspended from the gilded
ceiling over the purple-clad neck strike deeper terror, than if one
should say to himself, "We are sinking, sinking headlong down," and
in his inmost soul, poor wretch, grow pale at what even the wife of
his bosom must not know? I remember when I was young I often used to
touch[1361] my eyes with oil, if I was unwilling to learn the noble
words of the dying Cato;[1362] that would win great applause from my
senseless master, and which my father, sweating with anxiety, would
listen to with the friends he had brought to hear me. And naturally
enough. For the summit of my wishes was to know what the lucky sice
would gain; how much the ruinous ace[1363] would sweep off; not to miss
the neck of the narrow jar;[1364] and that none more skillfully than I
should lash the top[1365] with a whip.
Whereas you are not inexperienced in detecting the obliquity of moral
deflections, and all that the philosophic porch,[1366] painted over
with trowsered Medes, teaches; over which the sleepless and close-shorn
youth lucubrates, fed on husks and fattening polenta. To thee, besides,
the letter that divides the Samian branches,[1367] has pointed out the
path that rises steeply on the right-hand track.
And are you snoring still? and does your drooping head, with muscles
all relaxed, and jaws ready to split with gaping, nod off your
yesterday's debauch? Is there indeed an object at which you aim, at
which you bend your bow? Or are you following the crows, with potsherd
and mud, careless whither your steps lead you, and living only for the
moment?
When once the diseased skin begins to swell, you will see men asking
in vain for hellebore. Meet the disease on its way to attack you.
Of what avail is it to promise mountains of gold to Craterus?[1368]
Learn, wretched men, and investigate the causes of things; what we
are--what course of life we are born to run--what rank is assigned
to us--how delicate the turning round[1369] the goal, and whence the
starting-point--what limit must be set to money--what it is right
to wish for--what uses the rough coin[1370] possesses--how much you
ought to bestow on your country and dear relations--what man the Deity
destined you to be, and in what portion of the human commonwealth your
station is assigned.
Learn: and be not envious because full many a jar grows rancid in his
well-stored larder, for defending the fat Umbrians,[1371] and pepper,
and hams, the remembrances of his Marsian client; or because the
pilchard has not yet failed from the first jar.[1372]
Here some one of the rank brood of centurions may say, "I have
philosophy enough to satisfy me. I care not to be what Arcesilas[1373]
was, and woe-begone Solons, with head awry[1374] and eyes fastened
on the ground, while they mumble suppressed mutterings, or idiotic
silence, or balance words on their lip pouting out, pondering over the
dreams of some palsied dotard, 'that nothing can be generated from
nothing; nothing can return to nothing.'--Is it this over which you
grow pale? Is it this for which one should go without his dinner?" At
this the people laugh, and with wrinkling nose the brawny[1375] youth
loudly re-echo the hearty peals of laughter.
"Examine me! My breast palpitates unusually; and my breath heaves
oppressedly from my fevered jaws: examine me, pray!" He that speaks
thus to his physician, being ordered to keep quiet, when the third
night has seen his veins flow with steady pulse, begs from some
wealthier mansion some mellow Surrentine,[1376] in a flagon of moderate
capacity, as he is about to bathe. "Ho! my good fellow, you look pale!"
"It is nothing!" "But have an eye to it, whatever it is! Your sallow
skin is insensibly rising." "Well, you look pale too! worse than I!
Don't play the guardian to me! I buried him long ago--you remain." "Go
on! I will hold my peace!" So, bloated with feasting and with livid
stomach he takes his bath, while his throat slowly exhales sulphureous
malaria. But shivering[1377] comes on over his cups, and shakes the
steaming beaker[1378] from his hands; his teeth, grinning, rattle in
his head; then the rich dainties dribble from his flaccid lips.
Next follow the trumpets and funeral-torches; and at last this votary
of pleasure, laid out on a lofty bier, and plastered over with thick
unguents,[1379] stretches out his rigid heels[1380] to the door. Then,
with head covered, the Quirites of yesterday[1381] support his bier.
"Feel my pulse, you wretch! put your hand on my breast. There is no
heat here! touch the extremities of my feet and hands. They are not
cold!"
If money has haply met your eye,[1382] or the fair maiden of your
neighbor has smiled sweetly on you, does your heart beat steadily? If
hard cabbage has been served up to you in a cold dish, or flour shaken
through the people's sieve,[1383] let me examine your jaws. A putrid
ulcer lurks in your tender mouth, which it would not be right to grate
against with vulgar beet.[1384] You grow cold, when pallid fear has
roused the bristles on your limbs. Now, when a torch is placed beneath,
your blood begins to boil, and your eyes sparkle with anger; and you
say and do what even Orestes[1385] himself, in his hour of madness,
would swear to be proofs of madness.
FOOTNOTES:
[1336] _Nempe hæc._ A passage in Gellius exactly describes the opening
scene of this Satire. "Nunc videre est philosophos ultrò currere ut
doceant, ad foras juvenum divitûm, eosque ibi sedere atque operiri
prope ad meridiem, donec discipuli nocturnum omne vinum edormiant." x.,
6.
[1337] _Fenestras._ So Virg., Æn., iii., 151, "Multo manifesti lumine,
quà se plena per insertas fundebat luna fenestras." Prop., I., iii.,
31, "Donec divisas percurrens luna fenestras."
[1338] _Extendit_, an hypallage. The light transmitted through the
narrow chinks in the lattices, diverges into broader rays.
[1339] _Stertimus_, for _stertis_. The first person is employed to
avoid giving offense.
[1340] _Falernum._ The Falernian was a fiery, full-bodied wine of
Campania: hence its epithets, "Severum," Hor., i., Od. xxvii., 9;
"Ardens," ii., Od. xi., 19; Mart., ix., Ep. lxxiv., 5; "Forte," ii.,
Sat. iv., 24 (cf. Luc., x., 163, "Indomitum Meroë cogens spumare
Falernum"); "Acre," Juv., xiii., 216. To soften its austerity it
was mixed with Chian wine. Tibull., II., i., 28, "Nunc mihi fumosos
veteris proferte Falernos Consulis, et Chio solvite vincla cado."
Hor., i., Sat. x., 24, "Suavior ut Chio nota si commista Falerni est."
_Despumare_ is, properly, "to take off the foam or scum;" "Et foliis
undam trepidi despumat aheni;" then, met., "to digest."
[1341] _Linea._ "It wants but an hour of noon by the sun-dial." The
Romans divided their day into twelve hours; the _first_ beginning with
the dawn; consequently, at the time of the equinoxes, their hours
nearly corresponded with ours. According to Pliny, H. N., ii., 76,
Anaximenes was the inventor of the sun-dial; whereas Diog. Laertius
(II., i., 3) and Vitruvius attribute the discovery to Anaximander. They
were, however, known in much earlier times in the East. Cf. 2 Kings,
xx. Sun-dials were introduced at Rome in the time of the second Punic
war; the use of Clepsydræ, "water-clocks," by Scipio Nasica.
[1342] _Canicula._ Hor., iii., Od. xiii., 9, "Te flagrantis atrox hora
Caniculæ nescit tangere." III., xxix., 19, "Stella vesani Leonis."
[1343] _Comitum._ One of the young men of inferior fortune, whom the
wealthy father has taken into his house, to be his son's companion.
[1344] _Vitrea bilis._ Cf. Hor., ii., Sat. iii., 141, "Jussit quod
splendida bilis;" ubi v. Orell. It is called, by medical writers,
ὑαλώδης χολή.
[1345] _Arcadiæ._ Juv., vii., 160, "Nil salit Arcadico juveni." Arcadia
was famous for its broods of asses.
[1346] _Bicolor._ The outer side of the parchment on which the hair
has been is always of a much yellower color than the inner side of
the skin; hence "croceæ membrana tabellæ," Juv., vii., 23; though
some think that the color was produced by the oil of citron or cedar.
(Plin., xiii., 5. Cf. ad Sat. i., 43.) Leaves and the bark of trees
were first used for writing on; hence _folia_ and _liber_: occasionally
linen, or plates of metal or stone; then paper was manufactured from
the Cyperus papyrus, or Egyptian flag. Plin., xii., 23; xiii., 11.
When the Ptolemies stopped the exportation of paper from Egypt, to
prevent the library of Eumenes, king of Pergamus, from rivaling that
of Alexandria, parchment (Pergamenum) was invented to serve as a
substitute. Plin., x., 11, 21. Hieron., Ep. vii., 2. Hor., Sat., II.,
iii., 2. The manufacturer of it was termed Membranarius. The parchment
was rendered smooth by rubbing with pumice, and flattened with lead,
and was capable of being made so thin, that we read that the whole
Iliad written on parchment was inclosed within a walnut-shell. Plin.,
VII., xxi., 21. Quintilian says, "that wax tablets were best suited for
writing, as erasures could be so readily made; but that for persons
of weak sight parchment was much better; but that the rapid flow of
thought was checked by the constant necessity for dipping the pen in
the ink." Quint., x., 3. Cf. Catull., xxii., 6. Tibull., III., i., 9.
They used reeds (calamus, fistula, arundo) for writing on this, as is
done to the present day in the East. The best came from Egypt. "Dat
chartis habiles calamos Memphitica tellus." Mart., xiv., Ep. 38. Hor.,
A. P., 447.
[1347] _Sepia_, put here for the ink. The popular delusion was, that
this fish, when pursued, discharged a black liquid (atramentum), which
rendered the water turbid, and enabled it to make its escape. (Hence it
is still called by the Germans "Tinten-fisch," Ink-fish.) Vid. Cic.,
Nat. Deor., ii., 50. Plin., ix., 29, 45. The old Schol. says that this
liquid was used by the Africans; but that a preparation of lamp-black
was ordinarily used.
[1348] _Palumbo._ The ring-dove is said to be fed by the undigested
food from the crop of its mother. _Pappare_ is said of children either
calling for food or eating pap (papparium). Hence the male-nurse is
called Pappas. Juv., iv., 632, "timidus prægustet pocula Pappas."
Plaut., Epid., v., 2, 62. It is here put by enallage for the pap
itself; as _lallare_, in the next line, for the "lullaby" of the nurse,