The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis

and of Aulus Persius Flaccus, Translated into English Verse. By William Gifford ... with Notes and Illustrations. In Two Volumes

Gifford, William (1756-1826)

VOL. I.

II.

VOL. II.

THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL. [cont'd.]

THE SATIRES OF AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS,

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II. VOL. II.

THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL. [cont'd.]

SATIRE X.

In every clime, from Ganges' distant stream
To Gades, gilded by the western beam,
Few, from the clouds of mental errour free,
In its true light or good or evil see.
For what, with reason, do we seek or shun?
What plan, how happily soe'er begun,
But, finish'd, we our own success lament,
And rue the pains, so fatally mispent?—
To headlong ruin see whole houses driven,
Curs'd with their prayers, by too indulgent heaven!

Bewilder'd thus by folly or by fate,
We beg pernicious gifts in every state,
In peace, in war. A full and rapid flow
Of eloquence, lays many a speaker low:
Even strength itself is fatal; Milo tries
His wondrous arms, and—in the trial dies!

But avarice wider spreads her deadly snare,
And hoards amass'd with too-successful care,
Hoards, which o'er all paternal fortunes rise,
As o'er the dolphin towers the whale in size.
For this, in other times, at Nero's word,
The ruffian bands unsheath'd the murderous sword,

Rush'd to the swelling coffers of the great,
Chaced Lateranus from his lordly seat,
Besieged too-wealthy Seneca's wide walls,
And closed, terrifick, round Longinus' halls:
While sweetly in their cocklofts slept the poor,
And heard no soldier thundering at their door.

The traveller, freighted with a little wealth,
Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth:
Even then, he fears the bludgeon and the blade,
And starts and trembles at a rush's shade;
While, void of care, the beggar trips along,
And, in the spoiler's presence, trolls his song.

The first great wish that all with rapture own,
The general cry, to every temple known,

Is, gold, gold, gold!—“and let, all-gracious Powers,
“The largest chest the Forum boasts, be ours!”
Yet none from earthen bowls destruction sip:
Dread then the draught, when, mantling, at your lip,
The goblet sparkles, radiant from the mine,
And the broad gold inflames the ruby wine.

And do we, now, admire the stories told,
Of the two Sages, so renown'd of old;
How this for ever laugh'd, whene'er he stept
Beyond the threshold; that, for ever wept?

But all can laugh:—the wonder yet appears,
What fount supplied the eternal stream of tears!

Democritus, at every step he took,
His sides with unextinguish'd laughter shook,
Though, in his days, Abdera's simple towns,
No fasces knew, chairs, litters, purple gowns.—
What! had he seen, in his triumphal car,
Amid the dusty Cirque, conspicuous far,

The Prætor perch'd aloft, superbly drest
In Jove's proud tunick, with a trailing vest
Of Tyrian tapestry, and o'er him spread
A crown, too bulky for a mortal head,
Borne by a sweating slave, maintain'd to ride
In the same car, and mortify his pride!
Add now the bird, that, with expanded wing,
From the raised sceptre, seems prepared to spring;
And trumpets here; and there the long parade
Of duteous friends, who head the cavalcade;
Add too, the zeal of clients robed in white,
Who hang upon his reins, and grace the sight,
Unbribed, unbought,—save by the dole, at night!

Yes, in those days, in every varied scene,
The good old man found matter for his spleen:

A wondrous sage! whose story makes it clear,
That men may rise in folly's atmosphere,
Beneath Bœotian fogs, of soul sublime,
And great examples to the coming time.—
He laugh'd aloud to see the vulgar fears,
Laugh'd at their joys, and sometimes at their tears:
Secure the while, he mock'd at Fortune's frown,
And when she threaten'd, bade her hang or drown!
Superfluous then, or fatal, is the prayer,
Which, to the Immortals' knees, we fondly bear.

Some, Power hurls headlong from her envied height,
Some, the broad tablet, flashing on the sight,
With titles, names: the statues, tumbled down,
Are dragg'd by hooting thousands through the town;
The brazen cars torn rudely from the yoke,
And, with the blameless steeds, to shivers broke—
Then roar the fires! the sooty artist blows,
And all Sejanus in the furnace glows;

Sejanus, once so honour'd, so adored,
And only second to the world's great lord,
Runs glittering from the mould, in cups and cans,
Basons and ewers, plates, pitchers, pots and pans.

“Crown all your doors with bay, triumphant bay!
“Sacred to Jove, the milkwhite victim slay;

“For lo! where great Sejanus by the throng,
“A joyful spectacle! is dragg'd along.
“What lips! what cheeks! hah, traitour!—for my part,
“I never loved the fellow—in my heart.”
‘But tell me; Why, was he adjudged to bleed?
‘And who discover'd? and who proved the deed?’
“Proved!—a huge, wordy letter came to day
“From Capreæ.” Good! what think the people? They!
They follow fortune, as of old, and hate,
With their whole souls, the victim of the state.
Yet would the herd, thus zealous, thus on fire,
Had Nurscia met the Tuscan's fond desire,

And crush'd the unwary prince, have all combined,
And hail'd Sejanus, Master of mankind!
For since their votes have been no longer bought,
All publick care has vanish'd from their thought;

And those who once, with unresisted sway,
Gave armies, empire, every thing, away,
For two poor claims have long renounced the whole,
And only ask,—the Circus and the Dole.

“But there are more to suffer.” ‘So I find;
‘A fire so fierce, for one was ne'er design'd.

‘I met my friend Brutidius, and I fear,
‘From his pale looks, he thinks there's danger near.
‘What, if this Ajax, in his frenzy, strike,
‘Suspicious of our zeal, at all alike!’
“True: fly we then, our loyalty to show;
“And trample on the carcase of his foe,
“While yet exposed, on Tiber's banks it lies”—
‘But let our slaves be there,’ another cries:
“Yes; let them (lest our ardour they forswear,
“And drag us, pinion'd, to the Bar,) be there.”
Thus of the favourite's fall the converse ran,
And thus the whisper pass'd from man to man.

Lured by the splendour of his happier hour,
Wouldst thou possess Sejanus' wealth and power;
See crowds of suppliants at thy levee wait,
Give this to sway the army, that the state;
And keep a prince in ward, retired to reign,
O'er Capreæ's crags, with his Chaldean train?

Yes, yes, thou wouldst (for I can read thy breast)
Enjoy that favour which he once possest,
Assume all offices, grasp all commands,
The Imperial Horse, and the Prætorian Bands.
'Tis nature, this; even those who want the will,
Pant for the dreadful privilege to kill:
Yet what delight can rank and power bestow,
Since every joy is balanced by its woe!
—Still wouldst thou choose the favourite's purple, say?
Or, thus forewarn'd, some paltry hamlet sway?

At Gabii, or Fidenæ, rules propound,
For faulty measures, and for wares unsound;
And take the tarnish'd robe, and petty state,
Of poor Ulubræ's ragged magistrate?—

You grant me then, Sejanus grossly err'd,
Nor knew what prayer his folly had preferr'd:
For when he begg'd for too much wealth and power,
Stage above stage, he raised a tottering tower,

And higher still, and higher; to be thrown,
With louder crash, and wider ruin down!

What wrought the Crassi, what the Pompeys' doom,
And His, who bow'd the stubborn neck of Rome?
What but the wild, the unbounded wish to rise,
Heard, in malignant kindness, by the skies!
Few kings, few tyrants, find a bloodless end,
Or to the grave, without a wound, descend.

The child, with whom a trusty slave is sent,
Charged with his little scrip, has scarcely spent
His mite at school, ere all his bosom glows
With the fond hope he never more foregoes,

To reach Demosthenes' or Tully's name,
Rival of both in eloquence and fame!—
Yet by this eloquence, alas! expired
Each orator, so envied, so admired!
Yet by the rapid and resistless sway
Of torrent genius, each was swept away!
Genius, for that, the baneful potion sped,
And lopt, from this, the hands and gory head:

While meaner pleaders unmolested stood,
Nor stain'd the rostrum with their wretched blood.
“How fortunate a natal day was thine,
“In that late consulate, O Rome, of mine!”

Oh, soul of eloquence! had all been found,
An empty vaunt, like this, a jingling sound,
Thou mightst, in peace, thy humble fame have borne,
And laugh'd the swords of Antony to scorn!

Yet this would I prefer, the common jest,
To that which fired the fierce triumvir's breast,
That second scroll, where eloquence divine,
Burst on the ear, from every glowing line.
And he too fell, whom Athens, wondering, saw
Her fierce democracy, at will, o'erawe,

And “fulmine over Greece!” some angry Power
Scowl'd, with dire influence, on his natal hour.—
Blear'd with the glowing mass, the ambitious sire,
From anvils, sledges, bellows, tongs, and fire,
From tempering swords, his own more safe employ,
To study rhetorick, sent his hopeful boy.

The spoils of war; the trunk in triumph placed,
With all the trophies of the battle graced,
Crush'd helms, and batter'd shields; and streamers borne
From vanquish'd fleets, and beams from chariots torn;
And arcs of triumph, where the captive foe
Bends, in mute anguish, o'er the pomp below,

Are blessings, which the slaves of glory rate,
Beyond a mortal's hope, a mortal's fate!
Fired with the love of these, what countless swarms,
Barbarians, Romans, Greeks, have rush'd to arms,
All danger slighted, and all toil defied,
And madly conquer'd, or as madly died!
So much the raging thirst of fame exceeds
The generous warmth, which prompts to worthy deeds,
That none confess fair Virtue's genuine power,
Or woo her to their breast, without a dower.
Yet has this wild desire, in other days,
This boundless avarice of a few for praise,
This frantick rage for names to grace a tomb,
Involv'd whole countries in one general doom:
Vain “rage!” the roots of the wild fig-tree rise,
Strike through the marble, and their memory dies!
For, like their mouldering tenants, tombs decay,
And, with the dust they hide, are swept away.

Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,
And weigh the mighty dust which yet remains:

And is this all! Yet this was once the bold,
The aspiring chief, whom Africk could not hold,
Though stretch'd, in breadth, from where the Atlantick roars,
To distant Nilus, and his sun-burnt shores;
In length, from Carthage to the burning zone,
Where other moors, and elephants are known.
—Spain conquer'd, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds:
Nature opposed her everlasting mounds,
Her Alps, and snows; o'er these, with torrent force,
He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course.

Already at his feet Italia lies;—
Yet thundering on, “Think nothing done,” he cries,
“Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls,
“And Africk's standards float along her walls!”
Big words!—but view his figure! view his face!
O, for some master-hand the lines to trace,
As through the Etrurian swamps, by floods increast,
The one-eyed chief urged his Getulian beast!

But what ensued? Illusive Glory, say.
Subdued on Zama's memorable day,
He flies in exile to a petty state,
With headlong haste; and, at a despot's gate,
Sits, mighty suppliant! of his life in doubt,
Till the Bithynian's morning nap be out.

Nor swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurl'd,
Shall quell the man whose frown alarm'd the world:
The vengeance due to Cannæ's fatal field,
And floods of human gore, a ring shall yield!—

Fly, madman, fly! at toil and danger mock,
Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock,
To please the rhetoricians, and become
A declamation—for the boys of Rome!

One world, the ambitious youth of Pella found
Too small; and toss'd his feverish limbs around,
And gasp'd for breath, as if immured the while,
In Gyaræ, or Serîpho's rocky isle:

But entering Babylon, found ample room,
Within the narrow limits of a tomb!
Death, the great teacher, Death alone proclaims,
The true dimensions of our puny frames.

The daring tales, in Grecian story found,
Were once believed:—of Athos sail'd around,

Of fleets, that bridges o'er the waves supplied,
Of chariots, rolling on the stedfast tide,
Of lakes exhausted, and of rivers quaft,
By countless nations, at a morning's draught,
And all that Sostratus so wildly sings,
Besotted poet, of the king of kings.

But how return'd he, say? this soul of fire,
This proud barbarian, whose impatient ire
Chastised the winds, that disobey'd his nod,
With stripes, ne'er suffer'd from the Æolian god;
Fetter'd the Shaker of the sea and land—
But, in pure clemency, forbore to brand!

And sure, if aught can touch the Powers above,
This calls for all their service, all their love!—
But how return'd he? say;—His navy lost,
In a small bark he fled the hostile coast,

And, urged by terrour, drove his labouring prore,
Through floating carcases, and floods of gore.
So Xerxes sped, so speed the conquering race;
They catch at glory, and they clasp disgrace!

“Life! length of life!” For this, with earnest cries,
Or sick or well, we supplicate the skies.
Pernicious prayer! for mark what ills attend,
Still, on the old, as to the grave they bend:
A ghastly visage, to themselves unknown,
For a smooth skin, a hide with scurf o'ergrown,

And such a cheek, as many a grandam ape,
In Tabraca's thick woods, is seen to scrape.

Strength, beauty, and a thousand charms beside,
With sweet distinction, youth from youth divide;
While age presents one universal face:
A faultering voice, a weak and trembling pace,
An ever-dropping nose, a forehead bare,
And toothless gums to mumble o'er its fare.
Poor wretch! behold him, tottering to his fall,
So loathsome to himself, wife, children, all,
That those who hoped the legacy to share,
And flatter'd long,—disgusted, disappear.
The sluggish palate dull'd, the feast no more
Excites the same sensations as of yore;
Taste, feeling, all, a universal blot,
And e'en the rites of love remember'd not:
Or if,—through the long night he feebly strives,
To raise a flame where not a spark survives;
While Venus marks the effort with distrust,
And hates the gray decrepitude of lust.

Another loss!—no joy can song inspire,
Though famed Seleucus lead the warbling quire:
The sweetest airs escape him; and the lute,
Which thrills the general ear, to him is mute.—
He sits, perhaps, too distant: bring him near;
Alas! 'tis still the same: he scarce can hear
The deep-toned horn, the trumpet's clanging sound,
And the loud blast which shakes the benches round.
Even at his ear, his slave must bawl the hour,
And shout the comer's name, with all his power!

Add that a fever only, warms his veins,
And thaws the little blood which yet remains;
That ills of every kind, and every name,
Rush in, and seize the unresisting frame.
Ask you how many? I could sooner say,
How many drudges Hippia kept in pay,
How many orphans Basilus beguiled,
How many pupils Hæmolus defiled,
How many men long Maura overmatch'd,
How many patients Themison dispatch'd,

In one short autumn; nay, perhaps, record,
How many villas call my quondam barber lord!

These their shrunk shoulders, those their hams bemoan,
This hath no eyes, and envies that with one:
This takes, as helpless at the board he stands,
His food, with bloodless lips, from others' hands;
While that, whose eager jaws, instinctive, spread
At every feast, gapes feebly to be fed,
Like Progne's brood, when, laden with supplies,
From bill to bill, the fasting mother flies.

But other ills, and worse, succeed to those:
His limbs long since were gone; his memory goes.
Poor driveller! he forgets his servants quite,
Forgets, at morn, with whom he supp'd at night;

Forgets the children he begot and bred;
And makes a strumpet heiress in their stead.—
So much avails it the rank arts to use,
Gain'd, by long practice, in the loathsome stews!

But grant his senses unimpair'd remain;
Still woes on woes succeed, a mournful train!
He sees his sons, his daughters, all expire,
His faithful consort on the funeral pyre,
Sees brothers, sisters, friends, to ashes turn,
And all he loved, or loved him, in their urn.
Lo here, the dreadful fine we ever pay,
For life protracted to a distant day!
To see our house by sickness, pain pursued,
And scenes of death incessantly renew'd:
In sable weeds to waste the joyless years,
And drop, at last, mid solitude and tears!

The Pylian's (if we credit Homer's page)
Was only second to the raven's age.

“O happy, sure, beyond the common rate,
“Who warded off, so long, the stroke of fate!
“Who told his years by centuries, who so oft
“Quaff'd the new must! O happy, sure”—But, soft.
This “happy” man of destiny complain'd,
Curs'd his gray hairs, and every god arraign'd;
What time he lit the pyre, with streaming eyes,
And, in dark volumes, saw the flames arise

Round his Antilochus:—“Tell me,” he cried,
To every friend who linger'd at his side,
“Tell me what crimes have roused the Immortals' hate,
“That thus, in vengeance, they protract my date?”

So question'd heaven Laertes—Peleus so—
(Their hoary heads bow'd to the grave with woe)
While This bewail'd his son, at Ilium slain;
That his, long wandering o'er the faithless main.

While Troy yet flourish'd, had her Priam died,
With what solemnity, what funeral pride,
Had he descended, every duty paid,
To old Assaracus, illustrious shade!—
Hector himself, bedew'd with many a tear,
Had join'd his brothers to support the bier;

And Troy's dejected dames, a numerous train,
Follow'd, in sable pomp, and wept amain,
As sad Polyxena her pall had rent,
And wild Cassandra raised the loud lament:
Had he but fall'n, ere his adulterous boy
Spread his bold sails, and left the shores of Troy.

But what did lengthen'd life avail the sire?
To see his realm laid waste by sword and fire.
Then too, too late, the feeble soldier tried
Unequal arms, and flung his crown aside;
Totter'd, his children's murderer to repel,
With trembling haste, and at Jove's altar fell,
Fell without effort; like the steer, that, now,
Time-worn and weak, and, by the ungrateful plough,
Spurn'd forth to slaughter, to the master's knife,
Yields his shrunk veins, and miserable life.

His end, howe'er, was human; while his mate,
Doom'd, in a brute, to drain the dregs of fate,
Pursued the foes of Troy from shore to shore,
And bark'd, and howl'd at those she curs'd before.

I pass, while hastening to the Roman page,
The Pontick king, and Crœsus, whom the Sage

Wisely forbad in fortune to confide,
Or take the name of happy, till he died.

That Marius, exiled from his native plains,
Was hid in fens, discover'd, bound in chains;
That, bursting these, to Africa he fled,
And, through the realms he conquer'd, begg'd his bread,
Arose from age, from treacherous age alone:
For what had Rome, or earth, so happy known,

Had he, in that blest moment, ceased to live,
When, graced with all that Victory could give,
“Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war,”
He first alighted from his Cimbrian car!

Campania, prescient of her Pompey's fate,
Sent a kind fever to arrest his date:
When lo! a thousand suppliant altars rise,
And publick prayers obtain him of the skies.
Ill done! that head, thus rescued from the grave
His Evil Fate and ours, by Nilus' wave,
Lopt from the trunk:—such mutilation dire,
Cornelius 'scaped; Cethegus fell entire;
And Catiline press'd, whole, the funeral pyre.

Whene'er the fane of Venus meets her eye,
The anxious mother breathes a secret sigh,
For handsome boys; but asks, with bolder prayer,
That all her girls be exquisitely fair!
“And wherefore, not? Latona, in the sight
“Of Dian's beauty, took unblamed delight.”

True; but Lucretia curs'd her fatal charms,
When spent with struggling in a Tarquin's arms;
And poor Virginia would have changed her grace,
For Rutila's crook'd back, and homely face.

“But boys may still be fair?” No; they destroy
Their parents' peace, and murder all their joy;
For rarely do we meet, in one combined,
A beauteous body and a virtuous mind,
Though, through the rugged line, there still has run,
A Sabine sanctity, from sire to son.—
Besides, should nature, in her kindest mood,
Confer the ingenuous flush of modest blood,
The disposition chaste as unsunn'd snow—
(And what can nature more than these bestow,
These, which no art, no care can give?)—even then,
They cannot hope, they must not, to be men!

Smit with their charms, the imps of hell appear,
And pour their proffers in a parent's ear,
For prostitution!—infamously bold,
And trusting to the almighty power of gold:
While youths in shape and air less form'd to please,
No tyrants mutilate, no Neros seize.

Go now, and triumph in your beauteous boy,
Your Ganymede! whom other ills annoy,
And other dangers wait: his graces known,
He stands profess'd, the favourite of the town;
And dreads, incessant dreads, on every hand,
The vengeance which a husand's wrongs demand:
For sure detection follows soon or late;
Born under Mars, he cannot scape his fate.

Oft on the adulterer too, the furious spouse
Inflicts worse evils than the law allows;
By blows, stripes, gashes some are robb'd of breath,
And others, by the mullet, rack'd to death.

“But my Endymion will more lucky prove,
“And serve a beauteous mistress, all for love.”
No; he will soon to ugliness be sold,
And serve a toothless grandam, all for gold.
Servilia will not lose him; jewels, clothes,
All, all she sells, and all on him bestows;
For women nought to the dear youth deny,
Or think his labours can be bought too high:
When love's the word, the naked sex appear,
And every niggard is a spendthrift here.

“But if my boy with virtue be endued,
“What harm will beauty do him?” Nay, what good?
Say, what avail'd, of old, to Theseus son,
The stern resolve? what, to Bellerophon?—

O, then did Phædra redden, then her pride
Took fire, to be so stedfastly denied!
Then, too, did Sthenobœa glow with shame,
And both burst forth with unextinguish'd flame!
A woman scorn'd is pitiless as fate,
For, there, the dread of shame adds stings to hate.

But Silius comes.—Now, be thy judgment tried:
Shall he accept, or not, the proffer'd bride,
And marry Cæsar's wife? hard point, in truth:
Lo! this most noble, this most beauteous youth,
Is hurried off, a helpless sacrifice
To the lewd glance of Messalina's eyes!
—Haste, bring the victim: in the nuptial vest,
Already see the impatient Empress drest;

The genial couch prepared, the accustomed sum
Told out, the augurs and the notaries come.
“But why all these?” You think, perhaps, the rite
Were better, known to few, and kept from sight:
Not so the lady; she abhors a flaw,
And wisely calls for every form of law.
But what shall Silius do? refuse to wed?
A moment sees him number'd with the dead.
Consent, and gratify the eager dame?
He gains a respite, till the tale of shame,
Thro' town and country, reach the Emperour's ear,
Still sure the last—his own disgrace to hear.

Then let him, if a day's precarious life
Be worth his study, make the fair his wife;
For wed or not, poor youth, 'tis still the same,
And still the axe must mangle that fine frame!

Say then, shall man, deprived all power of choice
Ne'er raise to Heaven the supplicating voice?

Not so; but to the gods his fortunes trust:
Their thoughts are wise, their dispensations just.
What best may profit or delight they know,
And real good for fancied bliss bestow:
With eyes of pity they our frailties scan;
More dear to them, than to himself, is man.
By blind desire, by headlong passion driven,
For wife and heirs we daily weary Heaven;
Yet still 'tis Heaven's prerogative to know,
If heirs, or wife, will bring us weal or wo.

But, (for 'tis good our humble hope to prove,)
That thou mayst, still, ask something, from above;
Thy pious offerings to the temple bear,
And, while the altars blaze, be this thy prayer.

O thou, who know'st the wants of human kind,
Vouchsafe me health of body, health of mind;

A soul prepared to meet the frowns of fate,
And look undaunted on a future state;
That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear
Existence nobly, with its weight of care;
That anger and desire alike restrains,
And counts Alcides' toils, and cruel pains,
Superiour far to banquets, wanton nights,
And all the Assyrian monarch's soft delights!

Here bound, at length, thy wishes. I but teach,
What blessings man, by his own powers, may reach.

The path to peace is virtue. We should see,
If wise, O Fortune, nought divine in thee:

But we have deified a name alone,
And fix'd in heaven thy visionary throne!

SATIRE XI.

TO PERSICUS.

If Atticus in sumptuous fare delight,
'Tis taste: if Rutilus, 'tis madness quite:
And what diverts the sneering rabble more
Than an Apicius miserably poor?

In every company, go where you will,
Bath, forum, theatre, the talk is still
Of Rutilus!—While fit (they cry) to wield,
With firm and vigorous arm, the spear, and shield,
While his full veins beat high with youthful blood,
Forced by no tribune—yet by none withstood,

He cultivates the gladiator's trade,
And learns the imperious language of the blade.

What swarms we see of this degenerate kind!
Swarms whom their creditors can only find,
At flesh and fish-stalls:—thither they repair,
Sure, though deceived at home, to catch them there.
These live but for their palate; and, of these,
The most distress'd, (while Ruin hastes to seize
The crumbling mansion and disparting wall,)
Spread richer feasts, and riot as they fall!—
Meanwhile, ere yet the last supply be spent,
They search for dainties every element,
Awed by no price; nay, making this their boast,
And still preferring that which costs them most,
Joyous, and reckless of to-morrow's fate,
To raise a desperate sum, they pledge their plate,
Or mother's fractured image; to prepare
Yet one treat more, though but in earthen ware!

Then to the fencer's mess they come, of course,
And mount the scaffold as a last resource.

No foe to sumptuous boards, I only scan,
When such are spread, the motives, and the man,
And praise or censure as I see the feast,
Or by the noble, or the beggar, drest:
In this, 'tis gluttony; in that, fit pride,
Sanctioned by wealth, by station dignified.—
Whip me the fool, who marks how Atlas soars
O'er every hill on Mauritania's shores,
Yet sees no difference 'twixt the coffer's hoards,
And the poor pittance a small purse affords!

Heaven sent us, “know thyself!”—Be this imprest,
In living characters, upon thy breast,

And still revolv'd; whether a wife thou choose,
Or to the sacred senate point thy views.—

Or seek'st thou rather, in some doubtful cause,
To vindicate thy country's injured laws?
Knock at thy bosom, play the censor's part,
And note with caution, what and who thou art,
An orator of force and skill profound,
Or a mere Matho, emptiness and sound!
Yes, know thyself: in great concerns, in small,
Be this thy care, for this, my friend, is all:
Nor, when thy purse will scarce a gudgeon buy,
With fond intemperance, for turbots sigh!
O think what end awaits thee, timely think,
If thy throat widens as thy pockets shrink,

Thy throat, of all thy father's thrift could save,
Flocks, herds, and fields, the insatiable grave!—
At length, when nought remains a meal to bring,
The last poor shift, off comes the knightly ring,
And “sad Sir Pollio” begs his daily fare,
With undistinguish'd hands, and finger bare!

To these, an early grave no terrour brings.
“A short and merry life!” the spendthrift sings;
Death seems to him a refuge from despair,
And far less terrible than hoary hair.

Mark now the progress of their rapid fate!
Money, (regardless of the monthly rate,)
On every side, they borrow, and apace,
Waste what is raised before the lender's face:

Then, while they yet some wretched remnant hold,
And the pale usurer trembles for his gold,
They wisely sicken for the country air,
And flock to Baiæ, Ostia, Jove knows where.—
For now 'tis held (so rife the evil's grown)
No greater shame, for debt, to flee the town,
Than from the throng'd Suburra to remove,
In dogdays, to the Esquilian shades above.
One thought alone, what time they leave behind,
Friends, country, all, weighs heavy on their mind,
One thought alone,—for twelve long months to lose,
The dear delights of Rome, the publick shows!
Where sleeps the modest blood! In all our veins,
No conscious drop, to form a blush, remains:
Shame, from the town, derided, speeds her way,
And few, alas! solicit her to stay.

Enough: to-day my Persicus shall see,
Whether my precepts with my life agree;
Whether, with feign'd austerity, I prize
The spare repast, a glutton in disguise!
Bawl for coarse pottage, that my friends may hear,
But whisper “sweetmeats!” in my servant's ear.

For since, by promise, you are now my guest,
Know, I invite you to no sumptuous feast,
But to such simple fare, as, long, long since,
The good Evander bade the Trojan prince.
Come then, my friend, you will not, sure, despise
The food that pleased the offspring of the skies;
Come, and while fancy brings past times to view,
I'll think myself the king, the hero you.

Take now your bill of fare: my simple board,
Is with no dainties from the market stored,

But dishes, all my own. From Tibur's stock,
A kid shall come, the fattest of the flock,
The tenderest too, and yet too young to browse
The thistle's shoots, the willow's watery boughs,
With more of milk than blood; and pullets drest
With new-laid eggs, yet tepid from the nest,
And sperage wild, which, from the mountain's side,
My housemaid left her spindle, to provide;
And grapes long kept, yet pulpy still, and fair,
And the rich Signian and the Syrian pear;
And apples, that in flavour and in smell,
The boasted Picene equal, or excel:—
Nor need you fear, my friend, their liberal use,
For age has mellow'd and improved their juice.

How homely this! and yet this homely fare,
A senator would, once, have counted rare;
When the good Curius thought it no disgrace,
O'er a few sticks a little pot to place,
With herbs by his small garden-plot supplied—
Food, which the squalid wretch would now deride,
Who digs in fetters, and, with fond regret,
The tavern's savoury dish remembers yet!

Time was, when, on the rack, a man would lay
The season'd flitch, against a solemn day;
And think the friends who met, with decent mirth,
To celebrate the hour which gave him birth,
On this, and what of fresh the altars spared,
(For altars then were honour'd,) nobly fared.

Some kinsman, who had camps and senates sway'd,
Had thrice been consul, once dictator made,
From publick cares retired, would gaily haste,
Before the wonted hour, to such repast,
Shouldering the spade, that, with no common toil,
Had tamed the genius of the mountain soil.—
Yes, when the world was fill'd with Rome's just fame,
And Romans trembled at the Fabian name,
The Scauran, and Fabrician; when they saw,
A censor's rigour ev'n a censor awe,
No son of Troy, e'er thought it his concern,
Or worth a moment's serious care, to learn,
What land, what sea, the fairest tortoise bred,
Whose clouded shell might best adorn his bed.—
His bed was small, and did no signs impart,
Or of the painter's or the sculptor's art,
Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass,
Show'd the rude features of a vine-crown'd ass;

An uncouth brute, round which his children play'd,
And laugh'd and jested at the face it made!

Briefly, his house, his furniture, his food,
Were uniformly plain, and simply good.

Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by Greece
To hang, enraptured, o'er a finish'd piece,

If haply, mid the congregated spoils,
(Proofs of his power, and guerdon of his toils,)
Some antique vase of master-hands were found,
Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground;
That, in new forms, the molten fragments drest,
Might blaze illustrious round his courser's chest,
Or, flashing from his burnish'd helmet, show,
(A dreadful omen to the trembling foe,)
The mighty sire, with glittering shield and spear,
Hovering, enamour'd, o'er the sleeping fair,
The wolf, by Rome's high destinies made mild,
And, playful at her side, each wondrous child.

Thus, all the wealth those simple times could boast,
Small wealth! their horses and their arms engrost;
The rest was homely, and their frugal fare,
Cook'd without art, was serv'd in earthen ware:
Yet worthy all our envy, were the breast,
But with one spark of noble spleen, possest.
Then shone the fanes with Majesty Divine,
A present God was felt at every shrine!
And solemn sounds, heard from the sacred walls,
At midnight's solemn hour, announced the Gauls,
Now rushing from the main; while, prompt to save,
Stood Jove, the prophet of the signs he gave!
Yet, when he thus reveal'd the will of fate,
And watch'd attentive o'er the Latian state,
His shrine, his statue, rose of humble mold,
Of artless form, and unprofaned with gold.

Those good old times no foreign tables sought;
From their own woods, the walnut tree was brought,
When withering limbs declared its pith unsound,
Or winds uptore, and stretch'd it on the ground.
But now, such strange caprice has seized the great,
They find no pleasure in the costliest treat,
Suspect the flowers a sickly scent exhale,
And think the ven'son rank, the turbot stale,
Unless wide-yawning panthers, towering high—
Enormous pedestals of ivory,
Form'd of the teeth which Elephantis sends,
Which the dark Moor, or darker Indian vends,

Or those which, now, too heavy for the head,
The beasts in Nabathea's forest shed—
The spacious orbs support: then they can feed,
And every dish, is delicate indeed!

For silver feet are view'd with equal scorn,
As iron rings, upon the finger worn.

To me, for ever be the guest unknown,
Who, measuring my expenses by his own,
Remarks the difference with a scornful leer,
And slights my humble house, and homely cheer.
Look not to me for ivory; I have none:
My chess-board and my men are all of bone;
Nay, my knife-handles; yet, my friend, for this,
My pullets neither cut nor taste amiss.

I boast no artist, tutor'd in the school
Of learned Trypherus, to carve by rule;
Where large sow-paps of elm, and boar, and hare,
And phœnicopter, and pygargus rare,
Getulian oryx, Scythian pheasants, point,
The nice anatomy of every joint;
And dull blunt tools, severing the wooden treat,
Clatter around, and deafen all the street.

My simple lad, whose highest efforts rise,
To broil a steak, in the plain country guise,
Knows no such art; humbly content to serve,
And bring the dishes which he cannot kerve.
Another lad (for I have two to day)
Clad, like the first, in home-spun russet gray,
Shall fill our earthen bowls: no Phrygian he,
No pamper'd attribute of luxury,
But a rude rustick:—when you want him, speak,
And speak in Latin, for he knows not Greek.
Both go alike, with close, cropt hair, undrest,
But spruced to day in honour of my guest;

And both were born on my estate, and one,
Is my rough shepherd's, one, my neatherd's son.
Poor youth! he mourns, with many an artless tear,
His long, long absence from his mother dear;

Sighs for his little cottage, and would fain
Meet his old playfellows, the goats, again.
Though humble be his birth, ingenuous grace
Beams from his eye, and flushes in his face;
Charming suffusion! that would well become,
The youthful offspring of the chiefs of Rome.—
He, Persicus, shall fill us wine which grew
Where first, the breath of life, the stripling drew,
On Tibur's hills;—dear hills, that, many a day,
Witness'd the transports of his infant play.

But you, perhaps, expect a wanton throng
Of Gaditanian girls, with dance and song,

To kindle loose desire; girls, that now bound
Aloft, with active grace, now, on the ground,
Quivering, alight, while peals of praise go round.

Lo! wives, beside their husbands placed, behold,
What could not in their ear, for shame, be told;
Expedients of the rich, the blood to fire,
And wake the dying embers of desire.
Behold? O, heavens! they view, with keenest gust,
These strong provocatives of jaded lust;
With every gesture feel their passions rise,
And draw in pleasure both at ears and eyes!

Such vicious fancies are too great for me.
Let him the wanton dance, unblushing, see,
And hear the immodest terms which, in the stews,
The veriest strumpet would disdain to use,
Whose drunken spawlings roll, tumultuous, o'er
The proud expansion of a marble floor:
For there the world a large allowance make,
And spare the folly for the fortune's sake.—
Dice, and adultery, with a small estate,
Are damning crimes; but venial, with a great;

Venial? nay, graceful: witty, gallant, brave,
And such wild tricks “as gentlemen should have!”

My feast, to-day, shall other joys afford:
Hush'd as we sit around the frugal board,
Great Homer shall his deep-toned thunder roll,
And mighty Maro elevate the soul;
Maro, who, warm'd with all the poet's fire,
Disputes the palm of victory with his sire:
Nor fear my rustick clerks; read as they will,
The bard, the bard, shall rise superiour, still!

Come then, my friend, an hour to pleasure spare,
And quit awhile your business and your care;
The day is all our own: come, and forget
Bonds, interest, all; the credit and the debt;
Nay, e'en your wife: though, with the dawning light,
She left your couch, and late return'd at night;
Though her loose hair in wild disorder flow'd,
Her eye yet glisten'd, and her cheek yet glow'd,
Her rumpled girdle busy hands exprest—
Yet, at my threshold, tranquillize your breast;
There leave the thoughts of home, and what the haste
Of heedless slaves may, in your absence, waste;
And, what the generous spirit most offends,
O, more than all, leave there, ungrateful Friends.

But see! the napkin, waved aloft, proclaims
The glad commencement of the Idæan games,

And the proud prætor, in triumphal state,
Ascends his car, the arbiter of fate!
Ere this, all Rome (if 'tis, for once, allow'd,
To say all Rome, of so immense a crowd)
The Circus throngs, and—Hark! loud shouts arise—
From these, I guess the Green has won the prize;

For had it lost, all joy had been supprest,
And grief and horrour seized the publick breast;
As when dire Carthage forced our arms to yield,
And pour'd our noblest blood on Cannæ's field.

Thither let youth, whom it befits, repair,
And seat themselves beside some favourite fair,
Wrangle, and urge the desperate bet aloud;
While we, retired from business and the crowd,
Stretch our shrunk limbs, by sunny bank or stream,
And drink, at every pore, the vernal beam.

Haste, then: for we may use our freedom now,
And bathe, an hour ere noon, with fearless brow—

Indulge for once:—Yet such delights as these,
In five short morns, would lose the power to please;
For still, the sweetest pleasures soonest cloy,
And its best flavour temperance gives to joy.

SATIRE XII.

TO CORVINUS.

Not with such joy, Corvinus, I survey
My natal hour, as this auspicious day;
This day, on which the festive turf demands
The promised victims, at my willing hands.

A snow-white lamb to Juno I decree,
Another to Minerva; and to thee,
Tarpeian Jove! a steer, which, from afar,
Shakes his long rope, and meditates the war.
'Tis a fierce animal, that proudly scorns
The dug, since first he tried his budding horns
Against an oak; free mettled, and, in fine,
Fit for the knife, and sacrificial wine.

O, were my power but equal to my love,
A nobler victim should my rapture prove!
A bull high fed, and boasting in his veins,
The luscious juices of Clitumnus' plains,

Fatter than fat Hispulla, huge and slow,
Should fall, but fall beneath no common blow—
Fall for my friend, who now, from danger free,
Revolves the recent perils of the sea;
Shrinks at the roaring waves, the howling winds,
And scarcely trusts the safety which he finds!

For not the gods' inevitable fire,
The surging billows that to heaven aspire,

Alone, perdition threat; black clouds arise,
And blot out all the splendour of the skies;
Loud and more loud the thunder's voice is heard,
And sulphurous fires flash dreadful on the yard.—
Trembled the crew, and, fix'd in wild amaze,
Saw the rent sails burst into sudden blaze;
While shipwreck, late so dreadful, now appear'd
A refuge from the flames, more wish'd than fear'd.
Horrour on horrour! earth, and sea, and skies,
Convuls'd, as when poetick tempests rise!

From the same source, another danger view,
With pitying eye,—though dire alas! not new;
But known too well, as Isis' temples show,
By many a pictured scene of votive wo;
Isis, by whom the painters now are fed,
Since our own gods no longer yield them bread!—
And such befel our friend: for now a sea,
Upsurging, pour'd tremendous o'er the lee,

And fill'd the hold; while, press'd by wave and wind,
To right and left, by turns, the ship inclined:

Then, while Catullus view'd, with drooping heart,
The storm prevailing o'er the pilot's art,
He wisely hasten'd to compound the strife,
And gave his treasure to preserve his life.
The beaver thus to scape his hunter tries,
And leaves behind the medicated prize;
Happy to purchase, with his dearest blood,
A timely refuge in the well known flood.

“Away with all that's mine,” he cries, “away!”
And plunges in the deep, without delay,
Purples, which soft Mæcenases might wear,
Crimsons, deep-tinctured in the Bætick air,
Where herbs, and springs of secret virtues, stain
The flocks at feed, with Nature's richest grain.

With these, neat baskets from the Britons bought,
Rare silver chargers by Parthenius wrought,
A huge two-handed goblet, which might strain
A Pholus, or a Fuscus' wife, to drain;

Follow'd by numerous services of plate,
Plain, and enchased; with cups of ancient date,

100

In which, while at the city's strength he laugh'd,
The wily chapman of Olynthus quaff'd.
Yet show me, in this elemental strife,
Another, who would barter wealth for life!—

101

Few gain to live, Corvinus, few or none,
But, blind with avarice, live to gain alone.

Now had the deep devour'd their richest store;
Nor seems their safety nearer than before:
The last resource alone was unexplored—
To cut the mast and rigging by the board;
Haply the vessel so might steadier ride,
O'er the vex'd surface of the raging tide.
Dire threats th' impending blow, when, thus distrest,
We sacrifice a part, to save the rest!

Go now, fond man, the faithless ocean brave,
Commit your fortunes to the wind and wave;
Trust to a plank, and draw precarious breath,
At most, seven inches from the jaws of death!
Go; but forget not that a storm may rise,
And put up hatchets with your sea supplies.

102

But now the winds were hush'd; the wearied main
Sunk to repose, a calm unruffled plain;
For fate, superiour to the tempest's power,
Averted, from my friend, the mortal hour:
A whiter thread the cheerful Sisters spun,
And lo, with favouring hands their spindles run!
Mild as the breeze of eve, a rising gale
Rippled the wave, and fill'd their only sail;
Others the crew supplied, of vests combined,
And spread to catch each vagrant breath of wind:
By aids like these, slow o'er the deep impell'd,
The shatter'd bark her course for Ostia held;
While the glad sun uprose, supremely bright,
And hope return'd with the returning light.

At length the heights, where, from Lavinum moved,
Iülus built the city which he loved,

103

Burst on the view; auspicious heights! whose name,
From a white sow and thirty sucklings came.
And now, the port they gain; the tower, whose ray
Guides the poor wanderer o'er the watery way,

104

And the huge mole, whose arms the waves embrace,
And stretching, an immeasurable space,
Far into Ocean's bosom, leave the coast,
Till, in the distance, Italy is lost!—
Less wonderful the bays which Nature forms,
And less secure against assailing storms:
Here rides the wave-worn bark, devoid of fear;
For Baian skiffs might ply with safety here.
The joyful crew, with shaven crowns, relate
Their timely rescue from the jaws of fate;

105

On every ill a pomp of words bestow,
And dwell delighted on the tale of wo.

Go then, my boys—but let no boding strain
Break on the sacred silence,—dress the fane
With garlands, bind the sod with ribands gay,
And on the knives the salted offering lay:
This done, I'll speed, myself, the rites to share,
And finish what remains, with pious care.
Then, hastening home, where chaplets of sweet flowers
Bedeck my Lares, dear, domestick Powers!
I'll offer incense there, and at the shrine
Of highest Jove, my father's god, and mine;
There will I scatter every bud that blows,
And every tint the various violet knows.
All savours here of joy: luxuriant bay
O'ershades my portal, while the taper's ray
Anticipates the feast, and chides the tardy day.

106

Nor think, Corvinus, interest fires my breast:
Catullus, for whose sake my house is drest,
Has three sweet boys, who all such hopes destroy,
And nobler views excite my boundless joy.

107

Yet who besides, on such a barren friend,
Would waste a sickly pullet? who would spend
So vast a treasure, where no hopes prevail,
Or, for a father, sacrifice a quail?—

But should the symptoms of a slight disease
The childless Paccius or Gallita seize,
Legions of flatterers to the fanes repair,
And hang, in rows, their votive tablets there.
Nay, some with vows of hecatombs will come—
For yet no elephants are sold at Rome;
The breed, to Latium and to us unknown,
Is only found beneath the burning zone:
Thence to our shores, by swarthy Moors convey'd,
They roam at large through the Rutulian shade,
Kept for the imperial pleasure, envied fate!
And sacred from the subject, and the state.
Though their progenitors, in days of yore,
Did worthy service, and to battle bore
Whole cohorts; taught the general's voice to know,
And rush, themselves an army, on the foe.
But what avails their worth! could gold obtain
So rare a creature, worth might plead in vain:
Novius, without delay, their blood would shed,
To raise his Paccius from affliction's bed;
An offering, sacred to the great design,
And worthy of the votary, and the shrine!

108

Pacuvius, did our laws the crime allow,
The fairest of his numerous slaves would vow;
The blooming boy, the love-inspiring maid,
With garlands crown, and to the temple lead;
Nay, seize his Iphigene, prepared to wed,
And drag her to the altar, from the bed;
Though hopeless, like the Grecian sire, to find,
In happy hour, the substituted hind.

And who shall say my countryman does ill?
A thousand ships are trifles to a Will!
For Paccius, should the fates his health restore,
May cancel every item framed before,
(Won by his friend's vast merits, and beset,
On all sides, by the inextricable net,)
And, in one line, convey plate, jewels, gold,
Lands, every thing to him, “to have and hold.”

109

With victory crown'd, Pacuvius struts along,
And smiles contemptuous on the baffled throng;
Then counts his gains, and deems himself o'erpaid,
For the cheap murder of one wretched maid.

Health to the man! and may he thus get more,
Than Nero plunder'd! pile his shining store,
High, mountain high; in years a Nestor prove,
And, loving none, ne'er know another's love!

111

SATIRE XIII.

113

TO CALVINUS.

Man, wretched man, whene'er he stoops to sin,
Feels, with the act, a strong remorse within;
'Tis the first vengeance: Conscience tries the cause,
And vindicates the violated laws;
Though the bribed Prætor at their sentence spurn,
And falsify the verdict of the Urn.

114

What says the world, not always, friend, unjust,
Of this late injury, this breach of trust?
That thy estate so small a loss can bear,
And that the evil, now no longer rare,
Is one of that inevitable set,
Which man is born to suffer, and forget.

115

Then moderate thy grief; 'tis mean to show,
An anguish disproportion'd to the blow.

But thou, so new to crosses, as to feel
The slightest portion of the slightest ill,
Art fired with rage, because a friend forswears
The sacred pledge, intrusted to his cares.
What, thou, Calvinus, bear so weak a mind!
Thou, who hast left full three-score years behind!
Heavens, have they taught thee nothing! nothing, friend!
And art thou grown gray-headed to no end!—

Wisdom, I know, contains a sovereign charm,
To vanquish fortune, or at least disarm:
Blest they who walk by her unerring rule!—
Nor those unblest, who, tutor'd in life's school,
Have learn'd of old experience to submit,
And lightly bear the yoke they cannot quit.

What day so sacred, which no guilt profanes,
No secret fraud, no open rapine stains?
What hour, in which no dark assassins prowl,
Nor point the sword for hire, nor drug the bowl?
The good, alas, are few! “The valued file,”
Less than the Gates of Thebes, the Mouths of Nile!

116

For now an age is come, that teems with crimes,
Beyond all precedent of former times;
An age so bad, that Nature cannot frame,
A metal base enough to give it name!
Yet you, indignant at a paltry cheat,
Call heaven and earth to witness the deceit,
With cries as deafening, as the shout that breaks
From the bribed audience, when Fæsidius speaks.

117

Dotard in nonage! are you to be told,
What loves, what graces, deck another's gold?
Are you to learn, what peals of mirth resound,
At your simplicity, from all around?
When you step forth, and, with a serious air,
Bid them abstain from perjury, and beware
To tempt the altars,—for a God is there!

Idle old man! there was, indeed, a time,
When the rude natives of this happy clime
Cherish'd such dreams: 'twas ere the king of heaven,
To change his sceptre for a scythe was driven;
Ere Juno yet the sweets of love had tried,
Or Jove advanced beyond the caves of Ide.
'Twas when no gods indulged in sumptuous feasts,
No Ganymede, no Hebe serv'd the guests;
No Vulcan, with his sooty labours foul,
Limp'd round, officious, with the nectar'd bowl;
But each in private dined: 'twas when the throng
Of godlings, now beyond the scope of song,

118

The courts of heaven, in spacious ease, possest,
And with a lighter load, poor Atlas prest!—
Ere Neptune's lot the watery world obtain'd,
Or Dis and his Sicilian consort reign'd;
Ere Tityus and his ravening bird were known,
Ixion's wheel, or Sisyphus's stone:
While yet the shades confess'd no tyrant's power,
And all below was one Elysian bower!

Vice was a phœnix in that blissful time,
Believed, but never seen: and 'twas a crime,
Worthy of death, such awe did years engage,
If manhood rose not up to reverend age,

119

And youth to manhood, though a larger hoard
Of hips and acorns, graced the stripling's board.

120

Then, then, was age so venerable thought,
That every day increase of honour brought;
And children, in the springing down, revered
The sacred promise of a hoary beard!

Now, if a friend, miraculously just,
Restore the pledge, with all its gather'd rust,
'Tis deem'd a portent, worthy to appear,
Among the wonders of the Tuscan year;

121

A prodigy of faith, which threats the state,
And a ewe lamb can scarcely expiate!—
Struck at the view, if now I chance to see,
A man of ancient worth and probity,
To pregnant mules the monster I compare,
Or fish upturn'd beneath the wondering share:
Anxious and trembling for the woe to come,
As if a shower of stones had fall'n on Rome;
As if a swarm of bees, together clung,
Down from the Capitol, thick-clustering, hung;

122

Or Tiber, swoll'n to madness, burst away,
And roll'd, a milky deluge, to the sea.

And dost thou at a trivial loss repine!
What, if another, by a friend like thine,
Is stript of ten times more! a third, again,
Of what his bursting chest would scarce contain!
For 'tis so common, in this age of ours,
So easy, to contemn the Immortal Powers,
That, can we but elude man's searching eyes,
We laugh to scorn the witness of the skies.
Mark, with how bold a voice, and fix'd a brow,
The villain dares his treachery disavow!
“By the all-hallow'd orb that flames above,
“I had it not! By the red bolts of Jove,

123

“By the wing'd shaft that laid the Centaur low,
“By Dian's arrows, by Apollo's bow,
“By the strong lance that Mars delights to wield,
“By Neptune's trident, by Minerva's shield,
“And every weapon that, to vengeance given,
“Stores the tremendous magazine of heaven!—
“Nay, if I had, I'll slay this son of mine,
“And eat his head, soused in Egyptian brine.”

There are, who think that chance is all in all,
That no First Cause directs the eternal ball;
But that brute Nature, in her blind career,
Varies the seasons, and brings round the year:
These rush to every shrine, with equal ease,
And, owning none, swear by what Power you please.

124

Others believe, and but believe, a god,
And think that punishment may follow fraud;
Yet they forswear, and, reasoning on the deed,
Thus reconcile their actions with their creed:
“Let Isis storm, if to revenge inclined,
“And with her angry sistrum, strike me blind,
“So, with my eyes, she ravish not my ore,
“But let me keep the pledge which I forswore.
“Are putrid sores, catarrhs that seldom kill,
“And crippled limbs, forsooth, so great an ill!
“Ladas, if not stark mad, would change, no doubt,
“His flying feet, for riches and the gout;

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“For what do those procure him? mere renown,
“And the starv'd honour of an olive crown.

“But grant the wrath of heaven be great; 'tis slow,
“And days, and months, and years, precede the blow.
“If, then, to punish all, the gods decree,
“When, in their vengeance, will they come to me?
“But I, perhaps, their anger may appease—
“For they are wont to pardon faults like these:
“At worst, there's hope; since every age and clime,
“See different fates attend the self-same crime;
“Some made by villainy, and some undone,
“And This ascend a scaffold, That a throne.”

These sophistries, to fix awhile suffice,
The mind, yet shuddering at the thought of vice;
And, thus confirm'd, at the first call they come,
Nay, rush before you to the sacred dome:

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Chide your slow pace, drag you, amazed, along,
And play the raving Phasma, to the throng.
(For impudence the vulgar suffrage draws,
And seems the assurance of a righteous cause.)
While you, poor wretch, suspected by the crowd,
With Stentor's lungs, or Mars', exclaim aloud:
“Jove! Jove! will nought thy indignation rouse?
“Canst thou, in silence, hear these faithless vows?
“When all thy fury, on the slaves accurst,
“From lips of marble or of brass should burst!—
“Or else, why burn we incense at thy shrine,
“And heap thy altars with the fat of swine,

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“When we might crave redress, for aught I see,
“As wisely of Bathyllus, as of thee!”

Rash man!—but hear, in turn, what I propose,
To mitigate, if not to heal, your woes;
I, who no knowledge of the schools possess,
Cynick, or Stoick, differing but in dress,
Or thine, calm Epicurus, whose pure mind,
To one small garden, every wish confined.
In desperate cases, able doctors fee;
But trust your pulse to Philip's boy—or me.

If no example of so foul a deed,
On earth be found, I urge no more: proceed,
And beat your breast, and rend your hoary hair;
'Tis just:—for thus our losses we declare;
And money is bewail'd with deeper sighs,
Than friends or kindred, and with louder cries.

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There none dissemble, none, with scenick art,
Affect a sorrow, foreign from the heart;
Content in squalid garments to appear,
And vex their lids for one hard-gotten tear:
No, genuine drops fall copious from their eyes,
And their breasts labour with unbidden sighs.
But when you see each court of justice throng'd,
With crowds, like you, by faithless friendship wrong'd,
See men abjure their bonds, though duly framed,
And oft revised, by all the parties named,
While their own hand and seal, in every eye,
Flash broad conviction, and evince the lie;
Shall you alone, on Fortune's smiles presume,
And claim exemption from the common doom?
—From a white hen, forsooth, 'twas yours to spring,
Ours, to be hatch'd beneath some luckless wing!

Pause from your grief, and, with impartial eyes,
Survey the daring crimes which round you rise;

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Your injuries, then, will scarce deserve a name,
And your false friend be half absolv'd from blame!
What's he, poor knave! to those who stab for hire,
Who kindle, and then spread, the midnight fire?
Say, what to those who, from the hoary shrine,
Tear the huge vessels age hath stamp'd divine,
Offerings of price, by grateful nations given,
And crowns inscribed, by pious kings, to heaven?
What to the minor thieves, who, missing these,
Abrade the gilded thighs of Hercules,
Strip Neptune of his silvery beard, and peel
Castor's leaf-gold, where spread from head to heel?

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Or what to those who, with pernicious craft,
Mingle and set to sale the deadly draught;
Or those, who in a raw ox hide are bound,
And, with an ill-starr'd ape, poor sufferer! drown'd?
Yet these—how small a portion of the crimes,
That stain the records of those dreadful times,
And Gallicus, the city præfect, hears,
From light's first dawning, till it disappears!
The state of morals would you learn at Rome?
No further seek than his judicial dome:

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Give one short morning to the horrours there,
And then complain, then murmur, if you dare!

Say, whom do goitres on the Alps surprise?
In Meroë, whom the breast's enormous size?
Whom locks, in Germany, of golden hue,
And spiral curls, and eyes of sapphire blue?
None; for the prodigy, among them shared,
Becomes mere nature, and escapes regard.

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When clouds of Thracian birds obscure the sky,
To arms! to arms! the desperate Pigmies cry:

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But soon, defeated in the unequal fray,
Disorder'd flee; while, pouncing on their prey,
The victor cranes descend, and, clamouring, bear
The wriggling mannikins aloft in air.
Here, could our climes to such a scene give birth,
We all should burst with agonies of mirth;

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There, unsurprised, they view the frequent fight,
Nor smile at heroes scarce a foot in height.

“Shall then no ill the perjured head attend,
“No punishment o'ertake this faithless friend?”
Suppose him seiz'd, abandon'd to your will,
What more would rage? to torture or to kill;
Yet still your loss, your injury would remain,
And draw no retribution from his pain.
“True; but methinks the smallest drop of blood,
“Squeezed from his mangled limbs, would do me good:
“Revenge, they say, and I believe their words,
“A pleasure sweeter far than life affords.”
Who say? the fools, whose passions, prone to ire,
At slightest causes, or at none take fire;
Whose boiling breasts, at every turn, o'erflow
With rancorous gall: Chrysippus said not so;
Nor Thales, to our frailties clement still;
Nor that old man, by sweet Hymettus' hill,
Who drank the poison with unruffled soul,
And dying, from his foes withheld the bowl.

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Divine philosophy! by whose pure light
We first distinguish, then pursue the right,
Thy power the breast from every errour frees,
And weeds out all its vices by degrees:—
Illumined by thy beam, revenge we find,
The abject pleasure of an abject mind,
And hence so dear to poor, weak, woman-kind.

But why are those, Calvinus, thought to scape,
Unpunish'd, whom, in every fearful shape,
Guilt still alarms, and conscience ne'er asleep,
Wounds with incessant strokes, “not loud but deep,”
While the vex'd mind, her own tormentor, plies
A scorpion scourge, unmark'd by human eyes!
Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign,
Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain

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He feels, who night and day, devoid of rest,
Carries his own accuser in his breast.

A Spartan once the Oracle besought,
To solve a scruple which perplex'd his thought,
And plainly tell him, if he might forswear
A purse, of old, confided to his care.
Incens'd, the priestess answer'd—“Waverer, no!
“Nor shalt thou, for the doubt, unpunish'd go.”
With that, he hasten'd to restore the trust;
But fear alone, not virtue, made him just:
Hence, he soon proved the Oracle divine,
And all the answer worthy of the shrine;

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For plagues pursued his race without delay,
And swept them from the earth, like dust, away.
By such dire sufferings did the wretch atone,
The crime of meditated fraud alone!
For, in the eye of heaven, a wicked deed
Devised, is done: What, then, if we proceed?—
Perpetual fears the offender's peace destroy,
And rob the social hour of all its joy:

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Feverish, and parch'd, he chews, with many a pause,
The tasteless food, that swells beneath his jaws:
Spits out the produce of the Albanian hill,
Mellow'd by age;—you bring him mellower still,
And lo, such wrinkles on his brow appear,
As if you brought Falernian vinegar!

At night, should sleep his harass'd limbs compose,
And steal him, one short moment from his woes,
Then dreams invade; sudden, before his eyes,
The violated fane and altar rise;
And (what disturbs him most) your injured shade,
In more than mortal majesty array'd,
Frowns on the wretch, alarms his treacherous rest,
And wrings the dreadful secret from his breast.

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These, these are they, who tremble and turn pale,
At the first mutterings of the hollow gale!
Who sink with terrour at the transient glare
Of meteors, glancing through the turbid air!
Oh, 'tis not chance, they cry; this hideous crash,
Is not the war of winds; nor this dread flash,
The encounter of dark clouds; but blasting fire,
Charged with the wrath of heaven's insulted sire!
That dreaded peal, innoxious, dies away;
Shuddering, they wait the next with more dismay,
As if the short reprieve were only sent,
To add new horrours to their punishment.

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Yet more; when the first symptoms of disease,
When feverish heats, their restless members seize,
They think the plague by wrath divine bestow'd,
And feel, in every pang, the avenging God.
Rack'd at the thought, in hopeless grief they lie,
And dare not tempt the mercy of the sky:
For what can such expect! what victim slay,
That is not worthier far to live, than they!

With what a rapid change of fancy roll
The varying passions of the guilty soul!—
Bold to offend, they scarce commit the offence,
Ere the mind labours with an innate sense
Of right and wrong;—not long, for nature still,
Incapable of change, and fix'd in ill,
Recurs to her old habits:—never yet
Could sinner to his sin a period set.

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When did the flush of modest blood inflame
The cheek, once hardened to the sense of shame?
Or when the offender, since the birth of time,
Retire, contented with a single crime?

And this false friend of ours shall still pursue
His dangerous course, till vengeance, doubly due,
O'ertake his guilt; then shalt thou see him cast
In chains, 'mid tortures to expire his last;
Or hurried off, to join the wretched train
Of exiled great ones, in the Ægean main.
This, thou shalt see; and, while thy voice applauds
The dreadful justice of the offended gods,
Reform thy creed, and, with an humble mind,
Confess that Heaven is neither deaf nor blind!

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SATIRE XIV.

145

TO FUSCINUS.

Yes, there are faults, Fuscinus, that disgrace
The noblest qualities of birth and place;
Which, like infectious blood, transmitted, run,
In one eternal stream, from sire to son.

If, in destructive play, the senior waste
His joyous nights, the child, with kindred taste,
Repeats, in miniature, the darling vice,
Shakes the small box, and cogs the little dice.

Nor does that infant fairer hopes inspire,
Who, train'd by the gray epicure, his sire,

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Has learn'd to pickle mushrooms, and, like him,
To souse the beccaficos, till they swim!—
For take him, thus to early luxury bred,
Ere twice four springs have blossom'd o'er his head,
And let ten thousand teachers, hoar with age,
Inculcate temperance from the stoick page;

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His wish will ever be, in state to dine,
And keep his kitchen's honour from decline!

Does Rutilus inspire a generous mind,
Prone to forgive, and to slight errours blind;
Instil the liberal thought, that slaves have powers,
Sense, feeling, all, as exquisite as ours;
Or fury? He, who hears the sounding thong,
With far more pleasure than the Syren's song;
Who, the stern tyrant of his small domain,
The Polypheme of his domestick train,
Knows no delight, save when the torturer's hand,
Stamps, for low theft, the agonising brand.—
O, what but rage can fill that stripling's breast,
Who sees his savage sire then only blest,
When his stretch'd ears drink in the wretches' cries,
And racks and prisons fill his vengeful eyes!

And dare we hope, yon girl, from Larga sprung,
Will e'er prove virtuous; when her little tongue,

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Ne'er told so fast her mother's wanton train,
But that she stopt and breath'd, and stopt again?
Even from her tender years, unnatural trust!
The child was privy to the matron's lust:—
Scarce ripe for man, with her own hand, she writes
The billets, which the ancient bawd indites,
Employs the self-same pimps, and looks, ere long,
To share the visits of the amorous throng!

So Nature prompts: drawn by her secret tie,
We view a parent's deeds with reverent eye;
With fatal haste, alas! the example take,
And love the sin, for the dear sinner's sake.—
One youth, perhaps, form'd of superiour clay,
And warm'd, by Titan, with a purer ray,
May dare to slight proximity of blood,
And, in despite of nature, to be good:
One youth—the rest the beaten pathway tread,
And blindly follow where their fathers lead.
O fatal guides! this reason should suffice,
To win you from the slippery route of vice,
This powerful reason; lest your sons pursue
The guilty track, thus plainly mark'd by you!
For youth is facile, and its yielding will
Receives, with fatal ease, the imprint of ill:
Hence Catilines in every clime abound;
But where are Cato and his nephew found!

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Swift from the roof where youth, Fuscinus, dwell,
Immodest sights, immodest sounds expel;
The place is sacred: Far, far hence, remove,
Ye venal votaries of illicit love!

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Ye dangerous knaves, who pander to be fed,
And sell yourselves to infamy for bread!
Reverence to children, as to heaven, is due:
When you would, then, some darling sin pursue,
Think that your infant offspring eyes the deed;
And let the thought abate your guilty speed,
Back from the headlong steep your steps entice,
And check you, tottering on the verge of vice.
O yet reflect! for should he e'er provoke,
In riper age, the law's avenging stroke,
(Since not alone in person and in face,
But ev'n in morals, he will prove his race,
And, while example acts with fatal force,
Side, nay outstrip, you, in the vicious course)

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Vex'd, you will rave and storm; perhaps, prepare,
Should threatening fail, to name another heir!
—Audacious! with what front, do you aspire
To exercise the license of a sire?
When all, with rising indignation, view,
The youth, in turpitude, surpass'd by you,
By you, old fool, whose windy, brainless head,
Long since required the cupping-glass's aid!

Is there a guest expected? all is haste,
All hurry in the house, from first to last.
“Sweep the dry cobwebs down!” the master cries,
Whips in his hand, and fury in his eyes,
“Let not a spot the clouded columns stain;
“Scour you the figured silver; you, the plain!”

O inconsistent wretch! is all this coil,
Lest the front-hall, or gallery, daub'd with soil,
(Which, yet, a little sand removes,) offend
The prying eye of some indifferent friend?
And do you stir not, that your son may see,
The house from moral filth, from vices free!

True, you have given a citizen to Rome;
And she shall thank you, if the youth become,

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By your o'er-ruling care, or soon or late,
A useful member of the parent state:
For all depends on you; the stamp he'll take,
From the strong impress which, at first, you make;
And prove, as vice or virtue was your aim,
His country's glory, or his country's shame.

The stork, with snakes and lizards from the wood,
And pathless wild, supports her callow brood;
And the fledg'd storklings, when to wing they take,
Seek the same reptiles, through the devious brake.
The vulture snuffs from far the tainted gale,
And, hurrying where the putrid scents exhale,
From gibbets and from graves the carcase tears,
And to her young the loathsome dainty bears;
Her young, grown vigorous, hasten from the nest,
And gorge on carrion with the parent's zest.
While Jove's own eagle, bird of noble blood,
Scours the wide champaign for untainted food,

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Bears the swift hare, or swifter fawn away,
And feeds her nestlings with the generous prey;
Her nestlings hence, when from the rock they spring,
And, pinch'd by hunger, to the quarry wing,
Stoop only to the game they tasted first,
When, clamourous, from the shell, to light they burst.

Centronius plann'd and built, and built and plann'd;
And now along Cajeta's winding strand,
And now amid Præneste's hills, and now,
On lofty Tibur's solitary brow,
He rear'd prodigious piles, with marble brought
From distant realms, and exquisitely wrought:
Prodigious piles! that tower'd o'er Fortune's shrine,
As those of gelt Posides, Jove, o'er thine!

154

While thus Centronius crowded seat on seat,
He spent his cash, and mortgaged his estate;
Yet left enough his family to content:
Which his mad son, to the last farthing, spent,
While, building on, he strove, with fond desire,
To shame the stately structures of his sire!

Sprung from a father who the sabbath fears,
There is, who nought but clouds and skies reveres;

155

And shuns the taste, by old tradition led,
Of human flesh, and swine's, with equal dread:—
This first: the prepuce next he lays aside,
And, taught the Roman ritual to deride,
Clings to the Jewish, and observes with awe,
All Moses bade in his mysterious law:
And, therefore, to the circumcised alone,
Will point the road, or make the fountain known;

156

Warn'd by his bigot sire, who whiled away,
Sacred to sloth, each seventh revolving day.

157

But youth, so prone to follow other ills,
Are driven to avarice, against their wills;

158

For this grave vice, assuming Virtue's guise,
Seems Virtue's self, to undiscerning eyes.

159

The miser, hence, a frugal man, they name;
And hence, they follow, with their whole acclaim,
The griping wretch, who strictlier guards his store,
Than if the Hesperian dragon kept the door.—
Add that the vulgar, still a slave to gold,
The worthy, in the wealthy, man behold;
And, reasoning from the fortune he has made,
Hail him, A perfect master of his trade!
And true, indeed, it is—such masters raise
Immense estates; no matter, by what ways;
But raise they do, with brows in sweat still died,
With forge still glowing, and with sledge still plied.
The father, by the love of wealth possest,
Convinced—the covetous alone are blest,
And that, nor past, nor present times, e'er knew
A poor man happy,—bids his son pursue
The paths they take, the courses they affect,
And follow, at the heels, this thriving sect.

Vice boasts its elements, like other arts;
These, he inculcates first: anon, imparts
The petty tricks of saving; last, inspires,
Of endless wealth, the insatiable desires.—
Hungry himself, his hungry slaves he cheats,
With scanty measures, and unfaithful weights;

160

And sees them lessen, with increasing dread,
The flinty fragments of his vinew'd bread.
In dogdays, when the sun, with fervent power,
Corrupts the freshest meat from hour to hour,
He saves the last night's hash, sets by a dish
Of sodden beans, and scraps of summer fish,
And half a stinking shad, and a few strings
Of a chopp'd leek—all told, like sacred things,
And seal'd with caution, though the sight and smell,
Would a starv'd beggar from the board repel.

But why this dire avidity of gain?
This mass collected with such toil and pain?
Since 'tis the veriest madness, to live poor,
And die with bags and coffers running o'er.
Besides, while thus the streams of affluence roll,
They nurse the eternal dropsy of the soul,

161

For thirst of wealth, still grows with wealth increast,
And they desire it less, who have it least.—

Now swell his wants: one manor is too small,
Another must be bought, house, lands, and all;
Still “cribb'd confined,” he spurns the narrow bounds,
And turns an eye on every neighbour's grounds:
There all allures; his crops appear a foil,
To the rich produce of their happier soil.
“And this, I'll purchase, with the grove,” he cries,
“And that fair hill, where the gray olives rise.”
Then, if the owner to no price will yield,
(Resolv'd to keep the hereditary field,)
Whole droves of oxen, starv'd to this intent,
Among his springing corn, by night, are sent,
To revel there, till not a blade be seen,
And all appear like a close-shaven green.
“Monstrous!” you say—And yet, 'twere hard to tell,
What numbers, tricks like these have forced to sell.

162

But, sure, the general voice has mark'd his name,
And giv'n him up to infamy and shame:—
“And what of that?” he cries. “I value more,
“A single lupine, added to my store,
“Than all the country's praise; if curs'd by fate,
“With the scant produce of a small estate.”—
'Tis well! no more shall age or grief annoy,
But nights of peace succeed to days of joy,
If more of ground to you alone pertain,
Than Rome possest, in Numa's pious reign!

Since then, the veteran, whose brave breast was gored,
By the fierce Pyrrhick, or Molossian sword,
Hardly received for all his service past,
And all his wounds, two acres at the last;
The meed of toil and blood! yet never thought,
His country thankless, or his pains ill bought.
For then, this little glebe, improved with care,
Largely supplied, with vegetable fare,
The good old man, the wife in childbed laid,
And four hale boys, that round the cottage play'd,
Three free-born, one a slave: while, on the board,
Huge porringers, with wholesome pottage stored,
Smoked for their elder brothers, who were now,
Hungry and tired, expected from the plough.—
Two acres will not, now, so changed the times,
Afford a garden-plot:—and hence our crimes!

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For not a vice that taints the human soul,
More frequent points the sword, or drugs the bowl,
Than the dire lust of an “untamed estate”—
Since, he who covets wealth, disdains to wait:

164

Law threatens, Conscience calls—yet on he hies,
And this he silences, and that defies,
Fear, Shame,—he bears down all, and, with loose rein,
Sweeps headlong o'er the alluring paths of gain!

“Let us, my sons, contented with our lot,
“Enjoy, in peace, our hillock and our cot,
(The good old Marsian to his children said,)
“And from our labour, seek our daily bread.
“So shall we please the rural Powers, whose care,
“And kindly aid, first taught us to prepare
“The golden grain, what time we ranged the wood,
“A savage race, for acorns, savage food!
“The poor who, with inverted skins, defy
“The lowering tempest, and the freezing sky,

165

“Who, without shame, without reluctance go,
“In clouted brogues, through mire and drifted snow,
“Ne'er think of ill: 'tis purple, boys, alone,
“Which leads to guilt,—purple, to us unknown.”

Thus, to their children, spoke the sires of yore.
Now, autumn's sickly heats are scarcely o'er,
Ere, while deep midnight yet involves the skies,
The impatient father shakes his son, and cries,
“What, ho, boy, wake! Up; pleas, rejoinders draw,
“Turn o'er the rubrick of our ancient law;
“Up, up, and study: or, with brief in hand,
“Petition Lælius for a small command,
“A captain's;—Lælius loves a spreading chest,
“Broad shoulders, tangled locks, and hairy breast:

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“The British towers, the Moorish tents destroy,
“And the rich Eagle, at threescore, enjoy!

“But if the trump, prelusive to the fight,
“And the long labours of the camp affright,
“Go, look for merchandise of readiest vent,
“Which yields a sure return of cent. per cent.
“Buy this, no matter what; the ware is good,
“Though not allow'd on this side Tiber's flood:

167

“Hides, unguents, mark me, boy, are equal things,
“And gain smells sweet, from whatso'er it springs.
“This golden sentence, which the Powers of heaven,
“Which Jove himself, might glory to have given,
“Will never, never, from your thoughts, I trust,—
“None question whence it comes; but come it must.”

168

This, when the lisping race a farthing ask,
Old women set them, as a previous task;
The wondrous apophthegm all run to get,
And learn it sooner than their alphabet.

But why this haste? Without your care, vain fool!
The pupil will, ere long, the tutor school:
Sleep then, in peace; secure to be outdone,
Like Telamon, or Peleus, by your son.
O, yet indulge awhile his tender years:
The seeds of vice, sown by your fostering cares,
Have scarce ta'en root; but they will spring at length,
“Grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength.”
Then, when the firstlings of his youth are paid,
And his rough chin requires the razor's aid,
Then he will swear, then to the altar come,
And sell deep perjuries, for a paltry sum!—

169

Believe your step-daughter already dead,
If, with an ample dower, she mount his bed:
Lo! scarcely laid, his murderous fingers creep,
And close her eyes in everlasting sleep.
For that vast wealth which, with long years of pain,
You thought would be acquired by land and main,
He gets a readier way: the skill's not great,
The toil not much, to make a knave complete.

But you will say hereafter, “I am free:
“He never learn'd those practices of me.”
Yes, all of you:—for he who, madly blind,
Imbues with avarice his children's mind,
Fires with the thirst of riches, and applauds
The attempt, to double their estate by frauds,
Unconscious, flings the headlong wheels the rein,
Which he may wish to stop, but wish in vain;
Deaf to his voice, with growing speed they roll,
Smoke down the steep, and spurn the distant goal!

None sin by rule; none heed the charge precise,
Thus, and no further, may ye step in vice;
But leap the bounds prescribed, and, with free pace,
Scour far and wide, the interdicted space.

170

So, when you tell the youth, that fools alone
Regard a friend's distresses as their own;
You bid the willing hearer riches raise,
By fraud, by rapine, by the worst of ways;
Riches, whose love is on your soul imprest,
Deep as their country's on the Decii's breast;
Or Thebes on his, who sought an early grave,
(If Greece say true,) her sacred walls to save.
Thebes, where, impregn'd with serpent's teeth, the earth
Pour'd forth a marshall'd host, prodigious birth!
Horrent with arms, that fought with headlong rage,
Nor ask'd the trumpet's signal, to engage.—
But mark the end! the fire, derived, at first,
From a small sparkle, by your folly nurst,
Blown to a flame, on all around it preys,
And wraps you in the universal blaze.

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So the young lion rent, with hideous roar,
His keeper's trembling limbs, and drank his gore.

“Tush! I am safe,” you cry; “Chaldæan seers,
“Have raised my Scheme, and promised length of years.”
But has your son subscribed? will he await
The lingering distaff of decrepid Fate?
No;—his impatience will the work confound,
And snap the vital thread, ere half unwound.
Ev'n now your long and stag-like age annoys
His future hopes, and palls his present joys.

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Fly then, and bid Archigenes prepare
An antidote, if life be worth your care;
If you would see another autumn close,
And pluck another fig, another rose:—
Take mithridate, rash man, before your meat,
A father, you? and without med'cine eat!

Come, my Fuscinus, come with me, and view,
A scene more comick than the stage e'er knew.
Lo! with what toil, what danger, wealth is sought,
And to the fane of watchful Castor brought;

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Since Mars the Avenger slumber'd, to his cost,
And, with his helmet, all his credit lost!
Quit then the plays! the farce of life supplies
A scene more comick, in the sage's eyes.
For who amuses most?—the man who springs,
Light, through the hoop, and on the tight-rope swings;
Or he, who, to a fragile bark confined,
Dwells on the deep, the sport of wave and wind?
Foolhardy wretch! scrambling for every bale
Of stinking merchandize, exposed to sale;

174

And proud to Crete, for ropy wine, to rove,
And jars, the fellow citizens of Jove!
That skips along the rope, with wavering tread,
Dangerous dexterity, which brings him bread;
This ventures life, for wealth too vast to spend,
Farm join'd to farm, and villas without end!

Lo, every harbour throng'd and every bay,
And half mankind upon the watery way!
For, where he hears the attractive voice of gain,
The merchant hurries, and defies the main.—
Nor will he only range the Libyan shore,
But, passing Calpé, other worlds explore;

175

See Phœbus, sinking in the Atlantick, lave
His fiery car, and hear the hissing wave.
And all for what? O glorious end! to come,
His toils o'erpast, with purse replenish'd, home,
And, with a traveller's privilege, vent his boasts,
Of unknown monsters seen on unknown coasts.

What varying forms in madness may we trace!—
Safe in his loved Electra's fond embrace,
Orestes sees the avenging Furies rise,
And flash their bloody torches in his eyes;
While Ajax strikes an ox, and, at the blow,
Hears Agamemnon, or Ulysses low:
And surely he, (though, haply, he forbear,
Like these, his keeper and his clothes to tear,)
Is just as mad, who, to the water's brim,
Loads his frail bark—a plank 'twixt death and him!
When all this risk, is but to swell his store,
With a few coins, a few gold pieces more.

176

Heaven lours, and frequent, through the muttering air,
The nimble lightning glares, or seems to glare:
“Weigh! weigh!” the impatient man of traffick cries,
“These gathering clouds, this rack that dims the skies,
“Are but the pageants of a sultry day;
“A thunder shower, that frowns, and melts away.”
Deluded wretch! dash'd on some dangerous coast,
This night, this hour, perhaps, his bark is lost;
While he still strives, though whelm'd beneath the wave,
His darling purse with teeth, or hand, to save.
Thus he, who sigh'd, of late, for all the gold,
Down the bright Tagus and Pactolus roll'd,
Now bounds his wishes to one poor request,
A scanty morsel and a tatter'd vest;
And shows, where tears, where supplications fail,
A daubing of his melancholy tale!

177

Wealth, by such dangers earn'd, such anxious pain,
Requires more care to keep it, than to gain:
Whate'er my miseries, make me not, kind Fate,
The sleepless Argus of a vast estate!
The slaves of Licinus, a numerous band,
Watch through the night, with buckets in their hand,
While their rich master trembling lies, afraid,
Lest fire his ivory, amber, gold, invade.
The naked Cynick mocks such restless cares,
His earthen tub no conflagration fears;
If crack'd, to-morrow he procures a new,
Or, coarsely soldering, makes the old one do.

178

Even Philip's son, when, in his little cell,
Content, he saw the mighty master dwell,
Own'd, with a sigh, that he, who nought desired,
Was happier far, than he who worlds required,
And whose ambition certain dangers brought,
Vast, and unbounded, as the object sought.—
Fortune, advanced to heaven by fools alone,
Would lose, were wisdom ours, her shadowy throne.

“What call I, then, enough?” What will afford,
A decent habit, and a frugal board;
What Epicurus' little garden bore,
And Socrates sufficient thought, before:

179

These squared by Nature's rules their blameless life—
Nature and Wisdom never are at strife.

You think, perhaps, these rigid means too scant,
And that I ground philosophy on want;
Take then, (for I will be indulgent now,
And something for the change of times allow,)
As much as Otho for a knight requires:—
If this, unequal to your wild desires,
Contract your brow; enlarge the sum, and take,
As much as two,—as much as three—will make.

180

If yet, in spite of this prodigious store,
Your craving bosom yawn, unfill'd, for more,
Then, all the wealth of Lydia's king, increast
By all the treasures of the gorgeous East,
Will not content you; no, nor all the gold
Of that proud slave, whose mandate Rome controll'd,
Who sway'd the Emperour, and whose fatal word
Plunged, in the Empress' breast, the lingering sword!

181

SATIRE XV.

183

TO VOLUSIUS BITHYNICUS.

Who knows not to what monstrous gods, my friend,
The mad inhabitants of Egypt bend?—
The snake-devouring ibis, These inshrine,
Those think the crocodile alone divine;
Others, where Thebes' vast ruins strew the ground,
And shatter'd Memnon yields a magick sound,

184

Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape,
And bow before the image of an ape!

185

Thousands regard the hound with holy fear,
Not one, Diana: and 'tis dangerous here,
To violate an onion, or to stain
The sanctity of leeks with tooth profane.

186

O holy nations! Sacro-sanct abodes!
Where every garden propagates its gods!

187

They spare the fleecy kind, and think it ill,
The blood of lambkins, or of kids, to spill;

188

But, human flesh—O! that is lawful fare,
And you may eat it without scandal there.

When, at the amazed Alcinoüs' board, of old,
Ulysses of so strange an action told,
He moved of some the mirth, of more the gall,
And, for a lying vagrant, pass'd with all.
“Will no one plunge this babbler in the waves,
“(Worthy a true Charybdis,)—while he raves
“Of monsters seen not since the world began,
“Cyclops and Læstrigons, who feed on man!
“For me—I less should doubt of Scylla's train,
“Of rocks that float and jostle in the main,
“Of bladders fill'd with storms, of men, in fine,
“By magick changed, and driven to grunt with swine,
“Than of his cannibals:—the fellow feigns,
“As if he thought Phæacians had no brains.”

Thus, one, perhaps, more sober than the rest,
Observ'd, and justly, of their travell'd guest,
Who spoke of prodigies till then unknown;
Yet brought no attestation but his own.

189

—I bring my wonders, too; and I can tell,
When Junius, late, was consul, what befel,
Near Coptus' walls; tell of a people stain'd,
With deeper guilt, than tragedy e'er feign'd:
For, sure, no buskin'd bard, from Pyrrha's time,
E'er tax'd a whole community with crime;
Take then a scene yet to the stage unknown,
And, by a nation, acted—in our own!

Between two neighbouring towns a deadly hate,
Sprung from a sacred grudge of ancient date,
Yet burns; a hate no lenients can assuage,
No time subdue, a rooted, rancorous rage!
Blind bigotry, at first, the evil wrought:
For each despised the others gods, and thought

190

Its own the true, the genuine, in a word,
The only deities to be adored!

And now the Ombite festival drew near:
When the prime Tent'rites, envious of their cheer,

191

Resolv'd to seize the occasion, to annoy
Their feast, and spoil the sacred week of joy.—
It came: the hour the thoughtless Ombites greet,
And crowd the porches, crowd the publick street,
With tables richly spread; where, night and day,
Plunged in the abyss of gluttony, they lay:
(For savage as the nome appears, it vies
In luxury, if I may trust my eyes,
With dissolute Canopus:) Six were past,
Six days of riot, and the seventh and last
Rose on the feast: and now the Tent'rites thought,
A cheap, a bloodless victory might be bought,
O'er such a helpless crew; nor thought they wrong,
Nor could the event be doubtful, where a throng
Of drunken revellers, stammering, reeling-ripe,
And capering to a sooty minstrel's pipe,
Coarse unguents, chaplets, flowers, on this side fight;
On that, keen hatred, and deliberate spite!

192

At first both sides, though eager to engage,
With taunts and jeers, the heralds of their rage,
Blow up their mutual fury; and anon,
Kindled to madness, with loud shouts rush on;
Deal, though unarm'd, their vengeance blindly round,
And with clench'd fists print many a ghastly wound.
Then might you see, amid the desperate fray,
Features disfigured, noses torn away,
Hands, where the gore of mangled eyes yet reeks,
And jaw-bones starting through the cloven cheeks!

But this is sport, mere children's play, they cry—
As yet beneath their feet no bodies lie,
And, to what purpose should such armies fight
The cause of heaven, if none be slain outright?
Roused at the thought, more fiercely they engage,
With stones, the weapons of intestine rage;
Yet not precisely such, to tell you true,
As Turnus erst, or mightier Ajax, threw;
Nor quite so large as that two-handed stone,
Which bruised Æneas on the huckle-bone;
But such as men, in our degenerate days,
Ah, how unlike to theirs! make shift to raise.

193

Even in his time, Mæonides could trace,
Some diminution of the human race:

194

Now, earth, grown old and frigid, rears with pain
A pigmy brood, a weak and wicked train;
Which every god, who marks their passions vile,
Regards with laughter, though he loaths the while.

But to our tale. Inforced with arm'd supplies,
The zealous Tent'rites feel their courage rise,
And wave their swords, and, kindling at the sight,
Press on, and with fell rage renew the fight.
The Ombites flee; they follow:—in the rear,
A luckless wretch, confounded by his fear,
Trips and falls headlong; with loud yelling cries,
The pack rush in, and seize him as he lies.

And now the conquerours, none to disappoint
Of the dire banquet, tear him joint by joint,
And dole him round; the bones yet warm, they gnaw,
And champ the flesh that heaves beneath their jaw.
They want no cook to dress it—'twould be long,
And appetite is keen, and rage is strong.

195

And here, Volusius, I rejoice at least,
That fire was unprofaned by this curs'd feast,
Fire, rapt from heaven! and you will, sure, agree
To greet the element's escape, with me.
—But all who ventured on the carcase, swore
They never tasted—aught so sweet before!
Nor did the relish charm the first alone—
Those who arrived too late for flesh, or bone,
Stoop'd down, and scraping where the wretch had lain,
With savage pleasure lick'd the gory plain!

The Vascons once, (the story yet is rife,)
With such dire sustenance prolong'd their life;

196

But then the cause was different: Fortune, there,
Proved adverse: they had born the extremes of war,
The rage of famine, the still-watchful foe,
And all the ills beleagured cities know.
(And nothing less, should prompt mankind to use
Such desperate means.) May this their crime excuse!
For after every root and herb were gone,
And every aliment to hunger known;
When their lean frames, and cheeks of sallow hue,
Struck even the foe with pity at the view,
And all were ready their own flesh to tear,
They first adventured on this horrid fare.
And surely every god would pity grant,
To men so worn by wretchedness and want,
And even the very ghosts of those they ate,
Absolve them, mindful of their dreadful state!

True, we are wiser; and, by Zeno taught,
Know life itself may be too dearly bought;
But the poor Vascon, in that early age,
Knew nought of Zeno, or the Stoick page.—

197

Now, thanks to Greece and Rome, in wisdom's robe,
The bearded tribes rush forth, and seize the globe:
Already, learned Gaul aspires to teach,
Your British orators the Art of Speech;
And Thulé, blessings on her! seems to say,
She'll hire a good grammarian, cost what may.

The Vascons, then, who thus prolong'd their breath,
And the Saguntines, true, like them, to death,

198

Brave too, like them, but by worse ills subdued,
Had some small plea for this abhorred food.

Diana first, (and let us doubt no more,
The barbarous rites we disbelieved of yore,)
Rear'd her dread altar near the Taurick flood,
And ask'd the sacrifice of human blood:
Yet there the victim only lost his life,
And fear'd no cruelty beyond the knife.
Far, far more savage, Egypt's frantick train,
They butcher first, and then devour the slain!
But say, what cause impell'd them to proceed,
What siege, what famine, to this monstrous deed?
What could they more, had Nile refused to rise,
And the soil gaped with ever-glowing skies,
What could they more, the guilty Flood to shame,
And heap opprobrium on his hateful name!

199

Lo! what the barbarous hordes of Scythia, Thrace,
Gaul, Britain, never dared,—dared by a race

200

Of puny dastards, who, with fingers frail,
Tug the light oar, and hoist the little sail,
In painted pans! What tortures can the mind,
Suggest for miscreants of this abject kind,
Whom spite impell'd worse horrours to pursue,
Than famine, in its deadliest form, e'er knew!

Nature, who gave us tears, by that alone,
Proclaims she made the feeling heart our own;
And 'tis her noblest boon: This bids us fly,
To wipe the drops from sorrowing friendship's eye,

201

Sorrowing ourselves; to wail the prisoner's state,
And sympathize in the wrong'd orphan's fate,
Compell'd his treacherous guardian to accuse,
While many a shower his blooming cheek bedews,
And through his scatter'd tresses, wet with tears,
A doubtful face, or boy or girl's, appears.
As Nature bids, we sigh, when some bright maid
Is, ere her spousals, to the pyre convey'd;
Some babe—by fate's inexorable doom,
Just shown on earth, and hurried to the tomb.

For who, that to the sanctity aspires,
Which Ceres, for her mystick torch, requires,
Feels not another's woes? This marks our birth;
The great distinction from the beasts of earth!
And therefore,—gifted with superiour powers,
And capable of things divine,—'tis ours,
To learn, and practise, every useful art;
And, from high heaven, deduce that better part,

202

That moral sense, denied to creatures prone,
And downward bent, and found with man alone!—
For He, who gave this vast machine to roll,
Breathed life in them, in us a reasoning soul;
That kindred feelings might our state improve,
And mutual wants conduct to mutual love;
Woo to one spot the scatter'd hordes of men,
From their old forest, and paternal den;
Raise the fair dome, extend the social line,
And, to our mansion, those of others join,
Join too our faith, our confidence to theirs,
And sleep, relying on the general cares:—
In war, that each to each support might lend,
When wounded, succour, and when fall'n, defend;
At the same trumpet's clangor rush to arms,
By the same walls be shelter'd from alarms,
Near the same tower the foe's incursions wait,
And trust their safety to one common gate.
—But serpents, now, more links of concord bind:
The cruel leopard spares the spotted kind;
No lion spills a weaker lion's gore,
No boar expires beneath a stronger boar;

203

In leagues of friendship, tigers roam the plain,
And bears with bears perpetual peace maintain.
While man, alas! flesh'd in the dreadful trade,
Forges without remorse the murderous blade,
On that dire anvil, where primæval skill,
As yet untaught a brother's blood to spill,
Wrought only what meek nature would allow,
Goads for the ox, and coulters for the plough!

Even this is trifling: we have seen a rage,
Too fierce for murder only to assuage;
Seen a whole state their victim piecemeal tear,
And count each quivering limb delicious fare.

O, could the Samian Sage these horrours see,
What would he say? or to what deserts flee?
He, who the flesh of beasts, like man's, declined,
And scarce indulged in pulse—of every kind!

205

SATIRE XVI.

207

TO GALLUS.

Who can recount the advantages that wait,
Dear Gallus, on the Military State?—
For let me once, beneath a lucky star,
Faint as I am of heart, and new to war,

208

But join the camp, and that ascendant hour
Shall lord it o'er my fate with happier power,
Than if a line from Venus should commend
My suit to Mars, or Juno stand my friend!

209

And first, of benefits which all may share:
'Tis somewhat—that no citizen shall dare
To strike you, or, though struck, return the blow:
But wave the wrong; nor to the Prætor show
His teeth dash'd out, his face deform'd with gore,
And eyes, no skill can promise to restore!

A Judge, if to the camp your plaints you bear,
Coarse shod, and coarser greaved, awaits you there:
By antique law proceeds the cassock'd sage,
And rules prescribed in old Camillus' age;
To wit, Let soldiers seek no foreign bench,
Nor plead to any charge, without the trench.

210

O nicely do Centurions sift the cause,
When buff-and-belt-men violate the laws!
And ample, if with reason we complain,
Is, doubtless, the redress our injuries gain!
Even so:—but the whole legion are our foes,
And, with determined aim, the award oppose.
“These snivelling rogues take special pleasure still,
“To make the punishment outweigh the ill.”
So runs the cry; and he must be possest,
Of more, Vagellius, than thy iron breast,
Who braves their anger, and with ten poor toes,
Defies such countless hosts of hobnail'd shoes.

Who so untutor'd in the ways of Rome?
Say, who so true a Pylades? to come,
Within the camp?—no: let thy tears be dried,
Nor ask that kindness, which must be denied.

211

For, when the Court exclaims, “Your witness, here!”
Let that firm friend, that man of men, appear,
And testify but what he saw and heard;
And I pronounce him, worthy of the beard,
And hair of our forefathers! You may find,
False witnesses against an honest hind,
Easier than true, (and who their fears can blame?)
Against a soldier's purse, a soldier's fame!

But there are other benefits, my friend,
And greater, which the sons of war attend:
Should a litigious neighbour bid me yield
My vale irriguous, and paternal field;
Or from my bounds the sacred landmark tear,
To which, with each revolving spring, I bear,

212

In pious duty to the grateful soil,
My humble offerings, honey, meal, and oil;

213

Or a vile debtor my just claims withstand,
Deny his signet, and abjure his hand;

214

Term after Term I wait, till months be past,
And scarce obtain a hearing at the last.
Ev'n when the hour is fix'd, a thousand stays
Retard my suit, a thousand vague delays:
The Cause is call'd, the witnesses attend,
Chairs brought, and cushions laid—and there an end!
Cæditius finds his cloak or gown too hot,
And Fuscus slips aside to seek the pot;
Thus, with our dearest hopes the judges sport,
And when we rise to speak, dismiss the Court!
But spear-and-shield-men may command the hour:
The time to plead, is always in their power;
Nor are their wealth and patience worn away,
By the slow drag-chain of the law's delay.

Add that the soldier, while his father lives,
And he alone, his wealth bequeaths or gives;
For what by pay is earn'd, by plunder won,
The law declares, vests solely in the son.

215

Coranus therefore sees his hoary sire,
To gain his Will, by every art, aspire!—
He rose by service; rank in fields obtain'd,
And well deserved the fortune which he gain'd.
And every prudent chief must, sure, desire,
That still the worthiest should the most acquire;
That those who merit, their rewards should have,
Trappings, and chains, and all that decks the brave.

THE SATIRES OF AULUS PERSIUS FLACCUS,

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE.

------ MIHI TRAMA FIGURÆ
EST RELIQUA.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE ROBERT EARL GROSVENOR, VISCOUNT BELGRAVE, BARON GROSVENOR, THIS TRANSLATION OF PERSIUS IS INSCRIBED, AS A GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE TESTIMONY OF RESPECT FOR THE LONG AND UNINTERRUPTED KINDNESS WITH WHICH HE HAS HONOURED THE TRANSLATOR, AND OF THE SINCEREST ADMIRATION OF HIS TALENTS AND VIRTUES.

Oct. 1st, 1817.

PROLOGUE.

['Twas never yet my luck, I ween]

'Twas never yet my luck, I ween,
To drench my lips in Hippocrene;

Nor, if I recollect aright,
On the fork'd Hill to sleep a night,
That I, like others of the trade,
Might wake—a poet ready made!

Thee, Helicon, with all the Nine,
And pale Pyrene, I resign,
Unenvied, to the tuneful race,
Whose busts (of many a fane the grace)

Sequacious ivy climbs, and spreads
Unfading verdure round their heads.

Enough for me, too mean for praise,
To bear my rude, uncultured lays
To Phœbus and the Muses' shrine,
And place them near their gifts divine,

Who bade the parrot χαιρε cry;
And forced our language on the pie?
The Belly: Master, He, of Arts,
Bestower of ingenious parts;

Powerful the creatures to endue
With sounds their natures never knew!

For, let the wily hand unfold
The glittering bait of tempting gold,
And straight the choir of daws and pies,
To such poetick heights shall rise,
That, lost in wonder, you will swear
Apollo and the Nine are there!

SATIRE I.

Alas, for man! How vain are all his cares!
And oh! what bubbles, his most grave affairs!

Tush! who will read such trite—Heavens! this to me?
Not one, by Jove. Not one? Well, two, or three;
Or rather—none: a piteous case, in truth!
Why piteous? lest Polydamas, forsooth,

And Troy's proud dames, pronounce my merits fall,
Beneath their Labeo's! I can bear it all.
Nor should my friend, though still, as fashion sways,
The purblind town conspire to sink or raise,
Determine, as her wavering beam prevails,
And trust his judgment to her coarser scales.

O not abroad for vague opinion roam;
The wise man's bosom is his proper home:
And Rome is—What? Ah, might the truth be told!—
And, sure it may, it must.—When I behold
What fond pursuits have form'd our prime employ,
Since first we dropt the play-things of the boy,
To gray maturity, to this late hour,
When every brow frowns with censorial power,
Then, then—O yet suppress this carping mood.
Impossible: I could not if I wou'd;
For nature framed me of satyrick mould,
And spleen, too petulant to be controll'd.

Immured within our studies, we compose;
Some, shackled metre; some, free-footed prose;
But all, bombast: stuff, which the breast may strain,
And the huge lungs puff forth with awkward pain.

'Tis done! and now the bard, elate and proud,
Prepares a grand rehearsal for the crowd.
Lo! he steps forth in birth-day splendour bright,
Comb'd and perfumed, and robed in dazzling white;

And mounts the desk; his pliant throat he clears,
And deals, insidious, round his wanton leers:
While Rome's first nobles, by the prelude wrought,
Watch, with indecent glee, each prurient thought,
And squeal with rapture, as the luscious line
Thrills through the marrow, and inflames the chine.

Vile dotard! Canst thou thus consent to please!
To pandar for such itching fools as these!
Fools,—whose applause must shoot beyond thy aim,
And tinge thy cheek, bronzed as it is, with shame!

But wherefore have I learn'd, if, thus represt,
The leaven still must swell within my breast?
If the wild fig-tree, deeply rooted there,
Must never burst its bounds, and shoot in air?

Are these the fruits of study! these, of age!
O times, O manners!—Thou misjudging sage,
Is science only useful as 'tis shown,
And is thy knowledge nothing, if not known?

“But, sure, 'tis pleasant, as we walk, to see
The pointed finger, hear the loud That's He,
On every side:—and seems it, in your sight,
So poor a trifle, that whate'er we write,
Is introduced to every school of note,
And taught the youth of quality, by rote?
—Nay, more! Our nobles, gorged, and swill'd with wine,
Call, o'er the banquet, for a lay divine.

Here one, on whom the princely purple glows,
Snuffles some musty legend through his nose;
Slowly distils Hypsipyle's sad fate,
And love-lorn Phillis, dying for her mate,
With what of woeful else, is said, or sung;
And trips up every word, with lisping tongue.

The maudlin audience, from the couches round,
Hum their assent, responsive to the sound.—
And are not now, the poet's ashes blest!
Now lies the turf not lightly on his breast!
They pause a moment—and again, the room
Rings with his praise: now will not roses bloom,
Now, from his reliques, will not violets spring,
And o'er his hallow'd urn their fragrance fling!

“You laugh ('tis answer'd,) and too freely here,
Indulge that vile propensity to sneer.
Lives there, who would not at applause rejoice,
And merit, if he could, the publick voice?
Who would not leave posterity such rhymes,
As cedar oil might keep to latest times;
Rhymes, which should fear no desperate grocer's hand,
Nor fly with fish and spices through the land!

Thou, my kind monitor, whoe'er thou art,
Whom I suppose to play the opponent's part,
Know—when I write, if chance some happier strain,
(And chance it needs must be,) rewards my pain,
Know, I can relish praise with genuine zest;
Not mine the torpid, mine th' unfeeling breast:

But that I merely toil for this acclaim,
And make these eulogies my end and aim:
I must not, cannot grant: for—sift them all,
Mark well their value, and on what they fall:
Are they not shower'd (to pass these trifles o'er)
On Labeo's Iliad, drunk with hellebore?
On princely love-lays drivell'd without thought,
And the crude trash on citron couches wrought?

You spread the table—'tis a master-stroke,
And give the shivering guest a thread-bare cloke,
Then, while his heart with gratitude dilates,
At the glad vest, and the delicious cates,
Tell me, you cry,—for truth is my delight,
What says the Town of me, and what I write?

He cannot:—he has neither ears nor eyes.
But shall I tell you, who your bribes despise?
—Bald trifler! cease at once your thriftless trade;
That mountain paunch for verse was never made.

O Janus, happiest of thy happy kind!—
No waggish stork can peck at thee behind;

No tongue thrust forth, expose to passing jeers;
No twinkling fingers, perk'd like ass's ears,
Point to the vulgar mirth:—but you, ye Great,
To a blind occiput condemn'd by fate,
Prevent, while yet you may, the rabble's glee,
And tremble at the scoff you cannot see!—

“What says the Town”—precisely what it ought:
All you produce, sir, with such skill is wrought,
That o'er the polish'd surface, far and wide,
The critick nail without a jar, must glide;
Since every verse is drawn as straight and fine,
As if one eye had fix'd the ruddled line.
—Whate'er the subject of his varied rhymes,
The humours, passions, vices of the times;

The pomp of nobles, barbarous pride of kings,
All, all is great, and all inspired he sings!

Lo! stripplings, scarcely from the ferule freed,
And smarting yet from Greek, with headlong speed,

Rush on heroicks; though devoid of skill
To paint the rustling grove, or purling rill;
Or praise the country, robed in cheerful green,
Where hogs, and hearths, and ozier frails are seen,
And happy hinds, who leap o'er smouldering hay,
In honour, Pales, of thy sacred day.
—Scenes of delight!—there Remus lived, and there,
In grassy furrows, Quinctius tired his share;
Quinctius, on whom his wife, with trembling haste,
The dictatorial robes, exulting placed,
Before his team; while homeward, with his plough,
The lictors hurried—Good! a Homer, thou!

There are, who hunt out antiquated lore;
And never, but on musty authors, pore;

These, Accius' jagg'd, and knotty lines engage,
And those, Pacuvius' hard and horny page;

Where, in quaint tropes, Antiopa is seen
To—prop her dolorifick heart with teen!

O, when you mark the sire, to judgment blind,
Commend such models to the infant mind,
Forbear to wonder whence this olio sprung,
This sputtering jargon which infests our tongue;
This scandal of the times, which shocks my ear,
And which our knights bound from their seats to hear!

How monstrous seems it, that we cannot plead,
When call'd to answer for some felon deed,
Nor danger from the trembling head repel,
Without a wish for—Bravo! Vastly well!
This Pedius is a thief, the accusers cry.
You hear them, Pedius: now, for your reply?
In terse antitheses he weighs the crime,
Equals the pause, and balances the chime;
And with such skill his flowery tropes employs,
That the rapt audience scarce contain their joys.
O charming! charming! he must sure prevail.
This, charming! Can a Roman wag the tail?

Were the wreck'd mariner to chaunt his woe,
Should I, or sympathy, or alms bestow?
Sing you, when, in that tablet on your breast,
I see your story to the life exprest;
A shatter'd bark, dash'd madly on the shore,
And you, scarce floating, on a broken oar?—
No, he must feel that would my pity share,
And drop a natural, not a studied tear.

But yet, our numbers boast a grace unknown
To our rough sires, a smoothness all our own.

True: the spruce metre in sweet cadence flows,
And answering sounds a tuneful chime compose:
Blue Nereus here, the Dolphin swift divides;
And Idè there, sees Attin climb her sides:

Nor this alone—for, in some happier line,
We win the chine of the long Apennine!

Arms and the man—Here, too, perhaps, you find,
A pithless branch beneath a fungous rind?

Not so;—a season'd trunk of many a day,
Whose gross and watery parts are drawn away.

But what, in fine, (for still you jeer me,) call
For the moist eye, bow'd head, and lengthen'd drawl,
What strains of genuine pathos?

—O'er the hill
The dismal slug-horn sounded, loud and shrill

A Mimallonian blast: fired at the sound,
In maddening groupes the Bacchants pour around,
Mangle the haughty calf with gory hands,
And scourge the indocile lynx with ivy wands;
While Echo lengthens out the barbarous yell,
And propagates the din from cell to cell!

O were not every spark of manly sense,
Of pristine vigour quench'd, or banish'd hence,
Could this be borne! this cuckoo-spit of Rome,
Which gathers round the lips in froth and foam!
—The haughty calf, and Attin's jangling strain,
Dropt, without effort, from the rheumy brain;
No savour they of bleeding nails afford,
Or desk, oft smitten for the happy word.

But why must you, alone, displeased appear,
And with harsh truths thus grate the tender ear?

O yet beware! think of the closing gate!
And dread the cold reception of the great:
This currish humour you extend too far,
While every word growls with that hateful gnar!

Right! From this hour, (for now my fault I see,)
All shall be charming—charming all, for me:

What late seem'd base, already looks divine,
And wonders start to view, in every line!
'Tis well, you cry: this spot let none defile,
Or turn to purposes obscene and vile.
Paint, then, two snakes entwined; and write around,
Urine not, children, here; 'tis holy ground.

Aw'd, I retire: and yet—when vice appear'd,
Lucilius, o'er the town, his falchion rear'd;
On Lupus, Mutius, pour'd his rage by name,
And broke his grinders on their bleeding fame.
And yet—arch Horace, while he strove to mend,
Probed all the foibles of his smiling friend;
Play'd lightly round and round the peccant part,
And won, unfelt, an entrance to his heart:
Well skill'd the follies of the crowd to trace,
And sneer, with gay good humour in his face.

And I!—I must not mutter? No; nor dare—
Not to myself? No. To a ditch? Nowhere.
Yes, here I'll dig—here, to sure trust confide
The secret which I would, but cannot, hide.
My darling book, a word;—“King Midas wears
(These eyes beheld them, these!) such ass's ears!”—

This quip of mine, which none must hear, or know,
This fond conceit, which takes my fancy so,
This nothing, if you will; you should not buy,
With all those Iliads that you prize so high.

But thou, whom Eupolis' impassion'd page,
Hostile to vice, inflames with kindred rage,

Whom bold Cratinus, and that awful sire,
Force, as thou read'st, to tremble and admire;

O, view my humbler labours:—there, if aught,
More highly finish'd, more maturely wrought,
Detain thy ear, and give thy breast to glow
With warmth, responsive to the inspiring flow—
I seek no further:—Far from me the rest,
Yes, far the wretch, who, with a low-born jest,
Can mock the blind for blindness, and pursue
With vulgar ribaldry, the Grecian shoe:

Bursting with self-conceit, with pride elate,
Because, forsooth, in magisterial state,
His worship (ædile of some paltry town,)
Broke scanty weights, and put false measures down.

Far too, be he—the monstrous witty fool,
Who turns the numeral scale to ridicule;

Derides the problems traced in dust or sand,
And treads out all Geometry has plann'd—
Who roars outright to see Nonaria seize,
And tug the cynick's beard—To such as these,
I recommend, at morn, the Prætor's bill,
At eve, Calirrhoë, or—what they will.

SATIRE II.

TO PLOTIUS MACRINUS; (ON HIS BIRTH-DAY.)

Health to my friend! and while my vows I pay,
O mark, Macrinus, this auspicious day,
Which, to your sum of years already flown,
Adds yet another—with a whiter stone.

Indulge your Genius, drench in wine your cares:—
It is not yours, with mercenary prayers,

To ask of Heaven what, you would die with shame,
Unless you drew the gods aside, to name;

While other great ones stand, with down-cast eyes,
And, with a silent censer, tempt the skies!—

Hard, hard the task, from the low, mutter'd prayer,
To free the fanes; or find one suppliant there,
Who dares to ask but what his state requires,
And live to heaven and earth with known desires!

Sound sense, integrity, a conscience clear,
Are begg'd aloud, that all at hand may hear:

But prayers like these (half-whisper'd, half supprest)
The tongue scarce hazards from the conscious breast:
O that I could my rich old uncle see,
In funeral pomp!—O, that some deity,
To pots of buried gold would guide my share!
O, that my ward, whom I succeed as heir,
Were once at rest! poor child, he lives in pain,
And death to him must be accounted gain.—
By wedlock, thrice has Nerius swell'd his store,
And now—is he a widower once more!

These blessings, with due sanctity, to crave,
Once, twice and thrice in Tiber's eddying wave

He dips each morn, and bids the stream convey
The gather'd evils of the night, away!

One question, friend:—an easy one, in fine—
What are thy thoughts of Jove? My thoughts! Yes; thine.
Wouldst thou prefer him to the herd of Rome?
To any individual?—But, to whom?
To Staius, for example. Heavens! a pause?
Which of the two would best dispense the laws?
Best shield th' unfriended orphan? Good! Now move
The suit to Staius, late preferr'd to Jove:—
“O Jove! good Jove!” he cries, o'erwhelm'd with shame,
And must not Jove himself, O Jove! exclaim?

Or dost thou think the impious wish forgiven,
Because, when thunder shakes the vault of heaven,
The bolt innoxious flies o'er thee and thine,
To rend the forest oak, and mountain pine?
—Because, yet livid from the lightning's scath,
Thy smouldering corpse (a monument of wrath)

Lies in no blasted grove, for publick care
To expiate, with sacrifice and prayer;
Must, therefore, Jove, unscepter'd and unfear'd,
Give, to thy ruder mirth, his foolish beard?
What bribe hast thou to win the Powers divine,
Thus, to thy nod? The lungs and lights of swine

Lo! from his little crib, the grandam hoar,
Or aunt, well vers'd in superstitious lore,
Snatches the babe; in lustral spittle dips
Her middle finger, and anoints his lips,

And forehead:—“Charms of potency,” she cries,
“To break the influence of evil eyes!”
The spell complete, she dandles high in air
Her starveling Hope; and breathes a humble prayer,

That heaven would only tender to his hands,
All Crassus' houses, all Licinius' lands!—
“Let every gazer by his charms be won,
“And kings and queens aspire to call him son:
“Contending virgins fly his smiles to meet,
“And roses spring where'er he sets his feet!”

Insane of soul—But I, O Jove, am free.
Thou know'st, I trust no nurse with prayers for me:
In mercy, then, reject each fond demand,
Though, robed in white, she at thy altar stand.

This begs for nerves to pain and sickness steel'd,
A frame of body, that shall slowly yield
To late old age:—'Tis well, enjoy thy wish.—
But the huge platter, and high-season'd dish,

Day after day, the willing gods withstand,
And dash the blessing from their opening hand.

That sues for wealth: the labouring ox is slain,
And frequent victims woo the “god of gain.”
“O crown my hearth with plenty and with peace,
And give my flocks and herds a large increase!”—
Madman! how can he, when, from day to day,
Steer after steer, in offerings, melts away?—
Still he persists; and still new hopes arise,
With harslet and with tripe, to storm the skies.
“Now swell my harvests! now my fields! now, now,
“It comes—it comes—auspicious to my vow!”
While thus, poor wretch, he hangs 'twixt hope and fear,
He starts, in dreadful certainty, to hear
His chest reverberate the hollow groan
Of his last piece, to find itself alone!

If from my side-board, I should bid you take
Goblets of gold or silver, you would shake
With eager rapture; drops of joy would start,
And your left breast scarce hold your fluttering heart:

Hence, you presume the gods are bought and sold;
And overlay their busts with captured gold.
For, of the brazen brotherhood, the Power
Who sends you dreams, at morning's truer hour,

Most purg'd from phlegm, enjoys your best regards,
And a gold beard his prescient skill rewards!

Now, from the temples, Gold has chased the plain,
And frugal ware of Numa's pious reign;
The ritual pots of brass are seen no more,
And Vesta's pitchers blaze in burnish'd ore.

O grovelling souls! and void of things divine!
Why bring our passions to the Immortals' shrine,

And judge, from what this carnal sense delights!
Of what is pleasing in their purer sights?—
This, the Calabrian fleece with purple soils,
And mingles cassia with our native oils;
Tears from the rocky conch its pearly store,
And strains the metal from the glowing ore.
This, this, indeed, is vicious; yet it tends
To gladden life, perhaps; and boasts its ends;
But you, ye priests, (for, sure, ye can,) unfold—
In heavenly things, what boots this pomp of gold?
No more, in truth, than dolls to Venus paid,
(The toys of childhood,) by the riper maid!

No; let me bring the Immortals, what the race
Of great Messala, now depraved and base,
On their huge charger, cannot;—bring a mind,
Where legal and where moral sense are join'd,

With the pure essence; holy thoughts, that dwell
In the soul's most retired, and sacred cell;
A bosom dyed in honour's noblest grain,
Deep-dyed:—with these, let me approach the fane,
And Heaven will hear the humble prayer I make,
Though all my offering be a barley cake.

SATIRE III.

What! ever thus? See! while the beams of day,
In broad effulgence, o'er the shutters play,
Stream through the crevice, widen on the walls,
On the fifth line the gnomon's shadow falls!

Yet still you sleep, like one that, stretch'd supine,
Snores off the fumes of strong Falernian wine.
Up! up! mad Sirius parches every blade,
And flocks and herds lie panting in the shade.

Here my youth rouses, rubs his heavy eyes,
“Is it so late? so very late?” he cries;
“Shame, shame! Who waits? Who waits there? quick, my page!
Why, when!” His bile o'erflows; he foams with rage,
And brays so loudly, that you start in fear,
And fancy all Arcadia at your ear.

Behold him, with his bedgown and his books,
His pens and paper, and his studious looks,

Intent and earnest! What arrests his speed,
Alas! the viscous liquid clogs the reed.
Dilute it. Pish! now every word I write
Sinks through the paper, and eludes the sight:
Now the pen leaves no mark, the point's too fine;
Now 'tis too blunt, and doubles every line!

O wretch! whom every day more wretched sees—
Are these the fruits of all your studies? these!
Give o'er at once: and like some callow dove,
Some prince's heir, some lady's infant love,
Call for chew'd pap; and, pouting at the breast,
Scream at the lullaby that woos to rest!

“But why such warmth? See what a pen! nay, see!”—
And is this subterfuge employed on me?
Fond boy! your time, with your pretext, is lost;
And all your arts are at your proper cost.

While with occasion thus you madly play,
Your best of life unheeded leaks away,
And scorn flows in apace: the ill-baked ware,
Rung by the potter, will its fault declare;
Thus—But you yet are moist and yielding clay:
Call for some plastic hand without delay,
Nor cease the labour, till the wheel produce
A vessel nicely form'd, and fit for use.

“But wherefore this? My father, thanks to fate,
Left me a fair, if not a large, estate:—

A salt unsullied on my table shines,
And due oblations, in their little shrines,

My household gods receive; my hearth is pure,
And all my means of life confirm'd, and sure:
What need I more”? Nay, nothing; it is well.
—And it becomes you, too, with pride to swell,
Because, the thousandth in descent, you trace
Your blood, unmix'd, from some high Tuscan race;
Or, when the knights march by the censor's chair,
In annual pomp, can greet a kinsman there!

Away! these trappings to the rabble show:
Me, they deceive not; for your soul I know,
Within, without.—And blush you not to see,
Loose Natta's life and yours so well agree?

—But Natta's is not life: the sleep of sin
Has seiz'd his powers, and palsied all within;
Huge cawls of fat envelope every part,
And torpor weighs on his insensate heart:
Absolv'd from blame by ignorance so gross,
He neither sees, nor comprehends his loss;
Content in guilt's profound abyss to drop,
Nor, struggling, send one bubble to the top!

Dread sire of Gods! when lust's envenom'd stings
Stir the fierce natures of tyrannick kings;

When storms of rage within their bosoms roll,
And call, in thunder, for thy just control,
O, then relax the bolt, suspend the blow,
And thus and thus alone, thy vengeance show,
In all her charms, set Virtue in their eye,
And let them see their loss, despair, and—die!

Say, could the wretch severer tortures feel,
Closed in the brazen bull?—Could the bright steel,

That, while the board with regal pomp was spread,
Gleam'd o'er the guest, suspended by a thread,
Worse pangs inflict, than he endures, who cries,
(As, on the rack of conscious guilt, he lies,
In mental agony,) “Alas! I fall,
Down, down the unfathom'd steep, without recal!”
And withers at the heart, and dares not show
His bosom wife the secret of his woe!

Oft (I remember yet,) my sight to spoil,
Oft, when a boy, I blear'd my eyes with oil,

What time I wish'd my studies to decline,
Nor make great Cato's dying speeches mine;
Speeches, my master to the skies had raised,
Poor pedagogue! unknowing what he praised;
And which my sire, suspense 'twixt hope and fear,
With venial pride, had brought his friends to hear.

For then alas! 'twas my supreme delight
To study chances, and compute aright,

What sum the lucky sice would yield in play,
And what the fatal aces sweep away:
Anxious, no rival candidate for fame
Should hit the long-neck'd jar with nicer aim;

Nor, while the whirling top beguiled the eye,
With happier skill the sounding scourge apply.

But you have pass'd the schools; have studied long,
And learn'd the eternal bounds of Right and Wrong,
And what the Porch, (by Mycon limn'd, of yore,
With trowser'd Medes,) unfolds of ethick lore,

Where the shorn youth, on herbs and pottage fed,
Bend, o'er the midnight page, the sleepless head:
And, sure, the letter where, divergent wide,
The Samian branches shoot, on either side,

Has to your view, with no obscure display,
Mark'd, on the right, the strait but better way.

And yet you slumber still! and still opprest,
With last night's revels, knock your head and breast!
And, stretching o'er your drowsy couch, produce
Yawn after yawn, as if your jaws were loose!
Is there no certain mark, at which to aim?—
Still must your bow be bent at casual game?
With clods, and potsherds, must you still pursue,
Each wandering crow that chance presents to view;
And, careless of your life's contracted span,
Live from the moment, and without a plan?

When bloated dropsies every limb invade,
In vain to hellebore you fly for aid:
Meet, with preventive skill, the young disease,
And Craterus will boast no golden fees.

Mount, hapless youths, on Contemplation's wings,
And mark the Causes and the End of things:—
Learn what we are, and for what purpose born,
What station here 'tis given us to adorn;
How best to blend security with ease,
And win our way through life's tempestuous seas;
What bounds the love of property requires,
And what to wish, with unreprov'd desires:

How far the genuine use of wealth extends;
And the just claims of country, kindred, friends;
What Heaven would have us be, and where our stand,
In this Great Whole, is fix'd by high command.

Learn these—and envy not the sordid gains,
Which recompense the well-tongued lawyer's pains;
Though Umbrian rusticks, for his sage advice,
Pour in their jars of fish, and oil, and spice,

So thick and fast, that, ere the first be o'er,
A second, and a third, are at the door.

But here, some brother of the blade, some coarse
And shag-hair'd captain, bellows loud and hoarse;

“Away with this cramp, philosophick stuff!
My learning serves my turn, and that's enough.
I laugh at all your dismal Solons, I;
Who stalk with downcast looks, and heads awry,

Muttering within themselves, where'er they roam,
And churning their mad silence, till it foam!
Who mope o'er sick men's dreams, howe'er absurd,
And on protruded lips poise every word;
Nothing can come from nothing. Apt and plain!
Nothing return to nothing. Good, again!
And this it is, for which they peak and pine
This precious stuff, for which they never dine!”

Jove, how he laughs! the brawny youths around,
Catch the contagion, and return the sound;
Convulsive mirth on every cheek appears,
And every nose is wrinkled into sneers!

“Doctor, a patient said, employ your art,
I feel a strange wild fluttering at the heart;
My breast seems tighten'd, and a fetid smell
Affects my breath,—feel here; all is not well.”

Med'cine and rest the fever's rage compose,
And the third day, his blood more calmly flows.

The fourth, unable to contain, he sends
A hasty message to his wealthier friends,
And just about to bathe—requests, in fine,
A moderate flask of old Surrentin wine.

“Good heavens! my friend, what sallow looks are here?”
Pshaw, nonsense! nothing! “Yet 'tis worth your fear,

Whate'er it be: the waters rise within,
And, though unfelt, distend your sickly skin.”
—And yours still more! Whence springs this freedom, tro'?
Are you, forsooth, my guardian? Long ago
I buried him; and thought my nonage o'er:
But you remain to school me! “Sir, no more.”—

Now to the bath, full gorged with luscious fare,
See the pale wretch his bloated carcase bear;
While from his lungs, that faintly play by fits,
His gasping throat sulphureous steam emits!—
Cold shiverings seize him, as for wine he calls,
His grasp betrays him, and the goblet falls!

From his loose teeth, the lip, convuls'd, withdraws,
And the rich cates drop through his listless jaws.
Then trumpets, torches come, in solemn state;
And my fine youth, so confident of late,

Stretch'd on a splendid bier, and essenced o'er,
Lies, a stiff corpse, heels foremost at the door.
Romans of yesterday, with cover'd head,
Shoulder him to the pyre, and—all is said!

“But why to me? Examine every part;
My pulse:—and lay your finger on my heart;

You'll find no fever: touch my hands and feet,
A natural warmth, and nothing more, you'll meet.”

'Tis well! But if you light on gold by chance,
If a fair neighbour cast a sidelong glance,
Still will that pulse with equal calmness flow,
And still that heart no fiercer throbbings know?

Try yet again. In a brown dish behold,
Coarse gritty bread, and coleworts stale and old:
Now, prove your taste. Why those averted eyes?
Hah! I perceive:—a secret ulcer lies
Within that pamper'd mouth, too sore to bear
Th' untender grating of plebeian fare!

Where dwells this natural warmth, when danger's near,
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 warp'd betray,
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 remov'd,
Thus to address the stripling that he lov'd.)—
On what apt talents for a charge so high,
Ward of great Pericles, do you rely?
Forecast on others by gray hairs conferr'd,
Haply, with you, anticipates the beard!

And prompts you, prescient of the public weal,
Now to disclose your thoughts, and now conceal!
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 majestick wafture of your hand!

Lo! all is hush'd: what now, what will he speak,
What floods of sense from his charg'd 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,
With even hand; can with intentive view,
Amidst deflecting curves, the right pursue;

Or, where the rule deceives the vulgar eye
With its warp'd foot, th' unerring line apply:
And, while your sentence strikes with doom precise,
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,
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,
And doze the careless hours of life away.”—

Hold, hold! yon tatter'd beldame, hobbling by,
If haply ask'd, would make the same reply.
“But I am nobly born.” Agreed. “And fair.”
'Tis granted too: yet goody Baucis there,
Who, to the looser slaves, her pot-herbs cries,
Is just as philosophick, just as wise.—

How few, alas! their proper faults explore!
While, on his loaded back, who walks before,

Each eye is fix'd,—You touch a stranger's arm,
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!

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;
And, while his hungry hinds, exulting dine
On barley-broth, sucks up, with thrifty care,
The mothery dregs of his pall'd vinegar!”

But, if “you bask you in the sunny ray,
And doze the careless hours of youth away,”
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 unhallow'd fires.—
“Why, while the beard is nurst with every art,
Those anxious pains to bare the shameful part?

In vain:—should five athletick 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!”

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!—
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?

100

“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 uncontroll'd;
Or, bent on outrage, at the midnight hour,
Girt with a ruffian band, the Forum scour;

101

Then, wretch! in vain the voice of praise you hear,
And drink the vulgar shout with greedy ear.

102

Hence, with your spurious claims! Rejudge your cause,
And fling the rabble back their vile applause:
To your own breast, in quest of worth, repair,
And blush to find how poor a stock is there!

103

SATIRE V.

105

TO ANNÆUS CORNUTUS.

PERSIUS.
Poets are wont a hundred mouths to ask,
A hundred tongues,—whate'er the purposed task;
Whether a Tragick tale of Pelops' line
For the sad actor, with deep-mouth, to whine;
Or Epick lay;—the Parthian wing'd with fear,
And wrenching from his groin the Roman spear.

106

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?

Let fustian bards to Helicon repair,
And suck the spungy 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?
Puff'd by thy heaving lungs no metal glows;

107

Nor dost thou, mumbling o'er some close-pent strain,
Croak the grave nothings of an idle brain;
Nor swell, until thy cheeks, with thundering sound
Displode, and spirt their airy froth around.

Confined to common life, thy numbers flow,
And neither soar too high, nor sink too low:

108

There strength and ease in graceful union meet,
Though polish'd, subtle, and though poignant, sweet;
Yet powerful to abash the front of crime,
And crimson errour'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.

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,
To open (prompted by the inspiring Nine)
The close recesses of my breast, and bare
To your keen eye, each thought, each feeling, there;

109

Yes, best of friends! 'tis now my wish to prove,
How much you fill my heart, engross my love.
Ring then—for, to your practised ear, the sound
Will shew the solid, and where guile is found
Beneath the varnish'd tongue: for this, in fine,
I dared to wish an hundred voices mine;
Proud to declare, in language void of art,
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,
Approach'd the hearth, and on the Lares hung
The bulla, from my willing neck unstrung;

110

When gay associates, sporting at my side,
And the white boss, display'd with conscious pride,

111

Gave me, uncheck'd, the haunts of vice to trace,
And throw my wandering eyes on every face,

112

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,
I fled to you, Cornutus, pleased to rest
My hopes and fears on your Socratick breast,
Nor did you, gentle Sage, the charge decline:
Then, dextrous to beguile, your steady line
Reclaim'd, I know not by what winning force,
My morals, warp'd from virtue's straighter course;
While reason press'd incumbent on my soul,
That struggled to receive the strong control,
And took like wax, temper'd by plastick skill,
The form your hand imposed; and bears it still!

Can I forget, how many a summer's day,
Spent in your converse, stole, unmark'd, away?
Or how, while listening with increas'd delight,
I snatch'd from feasts, the earlier hours of night?
—One time (for to your bosom still I grew)
One time of study, and of rest, we knew;

113

One frugal board where, every care resign'd,
An hour of blameless mirth relax'd the mind.

And sure our lives, which thus accordant move,
(Indulge me here, Cornutus,) clearly prove,
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,
And to the Twins, a sacred charge assign'd;
Or Jove, benignant, broke the gloomy spell
By angry Saturn wove;—I know not well—
But sure some star there is, whose bland controul,
Subdues, to yours, the temper of my soul!

Countless the various species of mankind,
Countless the shades which separate mind from mind;

114

No general object of desire is known;
Each has his will, and each pursues his own:
With Latian wares, one roams the Eastern main,
To purchase spice, and cummin's blanching grain;
Another, gorged with dainties, swill'd with wine,
Fattens in sloth, and snores out life, supine;
This loves the Campus; that, destructive play;
And those, in wanton dalliance, melt away:—
But when the knotty gout their strength has broke,
And their dry joints crack like some wither'd oak,

115

Then they look back, confounded and aghast,
On the gross days in fogs and vapours past;
With late regret the waste of life deplore,
No purpose gain'd, and time, alas! no more.

But you, my friend, whom nobler views delight,
To pallid vigils give the studious night;

116

Cleanse youthful breasts from every noxious weed,
And sow the tilth with Cleanthean seed.
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.”
Alas! to-morrow, like to-day, will fare.

117

“What! is one day, forsooth, so great a boon?”
But when it comes, (and come it will too soon,)
Reflect, that yesterday's to-morrow's o'er.—
Thus “one to-morrow! one to-morrow! more,”
Have seen long years before them fade away;
And still appear no nearer than to-day!
So while the wheels on different axles roll,
In vain, (though govern'd by the self-same pole,)
The hindmost to o'ertake the foremost tries;
Fast as the one pursues, the other flies!

Freedom, in truth, it steads us much to have:
Not that, by which each manumitted slave,
Each Publius, with his tally, may obtain
A casual dole of coarse and damaged grain.

118

—O souls! involv'd in Error's thickest shade,
Who think a Roman with one turn is made!
Look on this paltry groom, this Dama here,
Who, at three farthings, would be prized too dear;

119

This blear-eyed scoundrel, who your husks would steal,
And outface truth to hide the starving meal;
Yet—let his master twirl this knave about,
And Marcus Dama, in a trice, steps out!
Amazing! Marcus surety?—yet distrust!
Marcus your judge?—yet fear a doom unjust!
Marcus avouch it?—then the fact is clear.
The writings!—set your hand, good Marcus, here.”

This is mere liberty,—a name, alone:
Yet this is all the cap can make our own.

“Sure, there's no other. All mankind agree,
That those who live without controul, are free:
I live without controul; and therefore hold
Myself more free, than Brutus was, of old.

120

Absurdly put; a Stoick cries, whose ear,
Rins'd with sharp vinegar, is quick to hear:
True;—all who live without controul are free;
But that you live so, I can ne'er agree.

“No? From the Prætor's wand when I withdrew,
Lord of myself, why, might I not pursue
My pleasure unrestrain'd, respect still had,
To what the rubrick of the law forbad?”

121

Listen,—but first your brows from anger clear,
And bid your nose dismiss that rising sneer;
Listen, while I the genuine truth impart,
And root those old-wives' fables from your heart.

It was not, is not in the “Prætor's wand,”
To gift a fool with power, to understand
The nicer shades of duty, and educe,
From short and rapid life, its end and use:
The labouring hind shall sooner seize the quill,
And strike the lyre with all a master's skill.
Reason condemns the thought, with mien severe,
And drops this maxim in the secret ear,
“Forbear to venture, with preposterous toil,
On what, in venturing, you are sure to spoil.”
In this plain sense of what is just and right,
The laws of nature and of man unite;
That Inexperience should some caution show,
And spare to reach, at what she does not know.

Prescribe you hellebore! without the skill,
To weigh the ingredients, or compound the pill?—
Physick, alarm'd, the rash attempt withstands,
And wrests the dangerous mixture from your hands.

Should the rude clown, skill'd in no star to guide
His dubious course, rush on the trackless tide,
Would not Palemon at the fact exclaim,
And swear the world had lost all sense of shame!

122

Say, is it your's, by wisdom's steady rays,
To walk secure, through life's entangled maze?
Your's, to discern the specious from the true,
And where the gilt conceals the brass from view?
Speak, can you mark, with some appropriate sign,
What to pursue, and what, in turn, decline?
Does moderation all your wishes guide,
And temperance at your cheerful board preside?
Do friends your love experience? are your stores,
Now dealt with closed and now with open doors,
As fit occasion calls? Can you restrain
The eager appetite of sordid gain;
Nor feel, when, in the mire, a doit you note,
Mercurial spittle gurgle in your throat?

123

If you can say, and truly, “These are mine,
And This I can:”—suffice it. I decline
All further question; you are Wise and Free,
No less by Jove's, than by the Law's decree.

But if, good Marcus, you, who form'd so late,
One of our batch, of our enslaved estate,
Beneath a specious outside, still retain
The foul contagion of your ancient strain;
If the sly fox still burrow in some part,
Some secret corner, of your tainted heart;
I straight retract the freedom which I gave,
And hold you Dama still, and still a slave!

124

Reason concedes you nothing. Let us try.
Thrust forth your finger. “See.” O, heavens, awry!

125

Yet what so trifling?—But, though altars smoke,
Though clouds of incense every god invoke,
In vain you sue, one drachm of right to find,
One scruple, lurking in the foolish mind.
Nature abhors the mixture: the rude clown,
As well may lay his spade and mattock down,
And with light foot, and agile limbs prepare
To dance three steps with soft Bathyllus' air!

126

“Still I am free.” You! subject to the sway
Of countless masters, free! What datum, pray,
Supports your claim? Is there no other yoke,
Than that which, from your neck, the Prætor broke!—
“Go, bear these scrapers to the bath with speed;
What! loitering, knave?”—Here's servitude, indeed!
Yet you unmov'd the angry sounds would hear;
You owe no duty, and can know no fear.
But if, within, you feel the strong controul—
If stormy passions lord it o'er your soul,
Are you more free, than he whom threat'nings urge,
To bear the strigils, and escape the scourge?

'Tis morn; yet sunk in sloth, you snoring lie.
“Up! up!” cries Avarice, “and to business hie;
Nay, stir.” I will not. Still she presses, “Rise!”
I cannot. “But you must and shall,” she cries.
And to what purpose? “This a question! Go,
Bear fish to Pontus, and bring wines from Co;

127

Bring ebon, flax, whate'er the East supplies,
Musk for perfumes, and gums for sacrifice:

128

Prevent the mart, and the first pepper take
From the tired camel, ere his thirst he slake.
Traffick, forswear, if interest intervene”—
But Jove will over-hear me.—“Hold, my spleen!
O dolt! but, mark—that thumb will bore and bore
The empty salt, (scraped to the quick before,)
For one poor grain, a vapid meal to mend,
If you aspire to thrive with Jove your friend!”

You rouse, (for who can truths like these withstand?)
Victual your slaves, and urge them to the strand.
Prepared, in haste, to follow; and, ere now,
Had to the Ægean turn'd your vent'rous prow,
But that sly Luxury the process eyed,
Waylaid your desperate steps, and, taunting, cried,

129

“Ho, madman! whither, in this hasty plight?
What passion drives you forth? what furies fright?
Whole urns of hellebore might hope, in vain,
To cool this high-wrought fever of the brain.
What! quit your peaceful couch, renounce your ease,
To rush on hardships, and to dare the seas!
And, while a broken plank supports your meat,
And a coil'd cable proves your softest seat,
Suck from squab jugs that pitchy scents exhale,
The seaman's beverage, sour at once and stale!
And all, for what? that sums, which now are lent
At modest five, may sweat out twelve per cent.!—

O rather cultivate the joys of sense,
And crop the sweets which youth and health dispense;
Give the light hours to banquets, love, and wine:
These are the zest of life, and these are mine!
Dust, and a shade are all you soon must be:
Live, then, while yet you may. Time presses.—See!
Even while I speak, the present is become
The past, and lessens still life's little sum.”

Now, sir, decide; shall this, or that, command?
Alas! the bait, display'd on either hand,
Distracts your choice:—but, ponder as you may,
Of this be sure; both, with alternate sway,

130

Will lord it o'er you, while, with slavish fears,
From side to side your doubtful duty veers.

Nor must you, though in some auspicious hour,
You spurn their mandate, and resist their power,
At once conclude their future influence vain:—
With struggling hard the dog may snap his chain;
Yet little freedom from the effort find,
If, as he flies, he trails its length behind.
“Yes, I am fix'd; to Love a long adieu!—
Nay, smile not, Davus; you will find it true.”

131

So, while his nails, gnawn to the quick, yet bled,
The sage Chærestratus, deep-musing, said.—
“Shall I my virtuous ancestry defame,
Consume my fortune, and disgrace my name,
While, at a harlot's wanton threshold laid,
Darkling, I whine my drunken serenade!”

'Tis nobly spoken:—Let a lamb be brought
To the Twin Powers that this deliv'rance wrought.

“But—if I quit her, will she not complain?
Will she not grieve? Good Davus, think again.”

Fond trifler! you will find her “grief” too late;
When the red slipper rattles round your pate,
Vindictive of the mad attempt to foil
Her potent spell, and all-involving toil.
Dismiss'd you storm and bluster: hark! she calls,
And, at the word, your boasted manhood falls.
“Mark, Davus; of her own accord, she sues!
Mark, she invites me! Can I now refuse?

132

Yes Now, and Ever. If you left her door,
Whole and intire, you must return no more.

Right. This is He, the man whom I demand;
This, Davus; not the creature of a wand
Waved by some foolish lictor.—

And is he,
This master of himself, this truly free,
Who marks the dazzling lure Ambition spreads,
And headlong follows where the meteor leads?
“Watch the nice hour, and, on the scrambling tribes,
Pour, without stint, your mercenary bribes,
Vetches and pulse; that, many a year gone by,
Greybeards, as basking in the sun they lie,
May boast how much your Floral Games surpast,
In cost and splendor, those they witness'd last!”

133

A glorious motive!

And on Herod's day,
When every room is deck'd in meet array,

134

And lamps along the greasy windows spread,
Profuse of flowers, gross, oily vapours shed;

135

When the vast tunny's tail in pickle swims,
And the crude must foams o'er the pitcher's brims;
You mutter secret prayers, by fear devised,
And dread the sabbaths of the circumcised!

Then, a crack'd egg-shell fills you with affright,
And ghosts and goblins haunt your sleepless night.

Last, the blind priestess, with her sistrum shrill,
And Galli, huge and high, a dread instill
Of gods, prepared to vex the human frame
With dropsies, palsies, ills of every name,
Unless the trembling victim champ, in bed,
Thrice every morn, on a charm'd garlick-head,

136

Preach to the martial throng these lofty strains,
And lo! some chief more famed for bulk than brains,
Some vast Vulfenius, bless'd with lungs of brass,
Laughs loud and long at the scholastick ass;
And, for a clipt cent-piece, sets, by the tale,
A hundred Greek philosophers to sale!

137

SATIRE VI.

139

TO CÆSIUS BASSUS.

Say, have the wintry storms, which round us beat,
Chased thee, my Bassus, to thy Sabine seat?

140

Does musick there thy sacred leisure fill,
While the strings quicken to thy manly quill?—
O skill'd, in matchless numbers, to disclose
How first from Night this fair creation rose;
And kindling, as the lofty themes inspire,
To smite, with daring hand, the Latian lyre!
Anon, with youth and youth's delights to toy,
And give the dancing chords to love and joy;
Or wake, with moral touch, to accents sage,
And hymn the heroes of a nobler age!

141

To me, while tempests howl and billows rise,
Liguria's coast a warm retreat supplies,
Where the huge cliffs an ample front display,
And, deep within, recedes the sheltering bay.

The Port of Luna, friends, is worth your note—
So, in his sober moments, Ennius wrote,

142

When, all his dreams of transmigration past,
He found himself plain Quintus, at the last!

Here to repose I give the cheerful day,
Careless of what the vulgar think or say;

143

Or what the South, from Africk's burning air,
Unfriendly to the fold, may haply bear:
And careless still, though richer herbage crown
My neighbours' fields, or heavier crops embrown.
—Nor, Bassus, though capricious Fortune grace,
Thus, with her smiles, a low-bred, low-born race,
Will e'er thy friend, for that, let Envy plough
One careful furrow on his open brow;
Give crooked age upon his youth to steal,
Defraud his table of one generous meal;
Or, stooping o'er the dregs of mothery wine,
Touch, with suspicious nose, the sacred sign.

144

But inclinations vary:—and the Power
That beams, ascendant, on the natal hour,
Even Twins produces of discordant souls,
And tempers, wide asunder as the poles.

The One, on birth-days, and on those alone,
Prepares (but with a forecast all his own)
On tunny-pickle, from the shops, to dine,
And dips his wither'd pot-herbs in the brine;
Trembles the pepper from his hands to trust,
And sprinkles, grain by grain, the sacred dust.
The Other, large of soul, exhausts his hoard,
While yet a stripling, at the festive board.

To use my fortune, Bassus, I intend:
Nor, therefore, deem me so profuse, my friend,
So prodigally vain, as to afford,
The costly turbot, for my freedmen's board;
Or so expert in flavours, as to show
How, by the relish, thrush from thrush I know.

145

“Live to your means”—'tis wisdom's voice you hear—
And freely grind the produce of the year:
What scruples check you? Ply the hoe and spade,
And lo! another crop is in the blade.

True; but the claims of duty caution crave.
A friend, scarce rescued from the Ionian wave,

146

Grasps a projecting rock, while, in the deep,
His treasures, with his prayers, unheeded sleep:
I see him stretch'd, desponding, on the ground,
His tutelary gods all wreck'd around,
His bark dispers'd in fragments o'er the tide,
And sea-mews sporting on the ruins wide.

Sell, then, a pittance ('tis my prompt advice,)
Of this your land, and send your friend the price;

147

Lest, with a pictured storm, forlorn and poor,
He ask cheap charity, from door to door.

148

“But then, my angry heir, displeased to find
His prospects lessen'd by an act so kind,
May slight my obsequies; and, in return,
Give my cold ashes to a scentless urn;
Reckless what vapid drugs he flings thereon,
Adulterate cassia, or dead cinnamon!—
Can I (bethink in time) my means impair,
And, with impunity, provoke my heir?
—Here Bestius rails—“A plague on Greece,” he cries,
“And all her pedants!—there the evil lies;

149

For since their mawkish, their enervate lore,
With dates and pepper, curs'd our luckless shore,

150

Luxury has tainted all; and ploughmen spoil
Their wholesome barley-broth with luscious oil.”

Heavens! can you stretch (to fears like these a slave)
Your fond solicitude beyond the grave?
Away!—

But thou, my heir, whoe'er thou art,
Step from the crowd, and let us talk apart.
Hear'st thou the news? Cæsar has won the day,
(So, from the camp, his laurell'd missives say,)

151

And Germany is ours! The city wakes,
And from her altars the cold ashes shakes.—
Lo! from the imperial spoils, Cæsonia brings
Arms, and the martial robes of conquer'd kings,
To deck the temples; while, on either hand,
Chariots of war, and bulky captives stand,

152

In long array. I, too, my joy to prove,
Will to the emperor's Genius, and to Jove,
Devote, in gratitude, for deeds so rare,
Two hundred well-match'd fencers, pair by pair.
Who blames—who ventures to forbid me? You?
Woe to your future prospects! if you do.
—And, sir, not this alone; for I have vow'd
A supplemental largess, to the crowd,
Of corn and oil. What! muttering still? draw near,
And speak aloud, for once, that I may hear.
“My means are not so low, that I should care
For that poor pittance, your may leave your heir.”

153

Just as you please: but were I, sir, bereft
Of all my kin; no aunt, no uncle left;

154

No nephew, niece; were all my cousins gone,
And all my cousins' cousins, every one,
Aricia soon some Manius would supply,
Well pleased to take that “pittance,” when I die.

“Manius! a beggar of the first degree,
A son of earth, your heir!” Nay, question me,
Ask who my grandsire's sire? I know not well,
And yet, on recollection, I might tell;
But urge me one step further—I am mute:
A son of earth, like Manius, past dispute.

155

Thus, his descent and mine are equal prov'd,
And we at last are cousins, though remov'd.

But why should you, who still before me run,
Require my torch, ere yet the race be won?

156

Think me your Mercury: Lo! here I stand,
As painters represent him, purse in hand:

157

Will you, or not, the proffer'd boon receive,
And take, with thankfulness, whate'er I leave?

Something, you murmur, of the heap is spent.
True: as occasion call'd, it freely went;
In life 'twas mine: but death your chance secures,
And what remains, or more, or less, is yours.
Of Tadius' legacy no questions raise,
Nor turn upon me with a grandsire-phrase,
“Live on the interest of your fortune, boy;
To touch the principal, is to destroy.”

“What, after all, may I expect to have?”
Expect!—Pour oil upon my viands, slave,
Pour with unsparing hand! shall my best cheer,
On high and solemn days, be the singed ear
Of some tough, smoke-dried hog, with nettles drest;
That your descendant, while in earth I rest,
May gorge on dainties, and, when lust excites,
Give, to patrician beds, his wasteful nights?

Shall I, a napless figure, pale and thin,
Glide by, transparent, in a parchment skin,

158

That he may strut with more than priestly pride,
And swag his portly paunch from side to side?

Go, truck your soul for gain! buy, sell, exchange;
From pole to pole, in quest of profit range.
Let none more shrewdly play the factor's part;
None bring his slaves more timely to the mart;

159

Puff them with happier skill, as caged they stand,
Or clap their well-fed sides with nicer hand.

Double your fortune—treble it—yet more—
'Tis four, six, ten-fold what it was before:
O bound the heap—You, who could yours confine,
Tell me, Chrysippus, how to limit mine!