A. PERSIUS FLACCUS (continued 3)

111. rite: ‘regularly.’—positum est: ‘served up.’

114. putre quod haud deceat: The Relative with the Subjunctive is parallel with the Adjective. G., 439, R. Comp. 1, 14. Haud deceat, ‘it won’t do,’ ‘it won’t answer.’—plebeia beta: The beet is a vulgar vegetable, Mart., 13, 13 (Jahn). The irony is evident, as the beet is proverbially tender. See Dictionaries, s.v. betizare.

116. face supposita: The heart is the caldron and passion the fire-brand.

118. Orestes: the typical madman.

FOURTH SATIRE.

The theme of this Satire is contained in the closing verses. It is the Apollinic γνῶθι σαυτόν. Want of self-knowledge is the fault which is scourged. The basis is furnished by the Platonic dialogue, known as the First Alcibiades, and the characters are the same. The person lectured under the mask of Alcibiades is a young Roman noble, in whom commentators of a certain school have recognized the familiar features of Nero.

Argument.—Socrates is supposed to be addressing Alcibiades. You undertake to engage in politics? You rely on your genius, do you? What do you know of the norms of right and wrong, you callow youngster? What do you know of the subtle distinctions of casuistry, that you undertake to say what is just and what is unjust? You have a goodly outside, but that is all, and you are fitter for a course of hellebore than for a career of statesmanship. What is your end and aim in life? Dainty dishes and basking in the sunshine? The first old crone you meet has the same exalted ideal. Or do you boast of your descent? You praise your lineage, you trumpet forth your beauty, just as yon market-woman cries up her greens (1-22).

You do not know yourself. Who knows himself? Every one sees his neighbor’s faults, no one his own. You sneer at the curmudgeon who groans out a health over the sour stuff he gives his laborers on a holiday (23-32). And while you make mock at him, some fellow, who is standing at your side, nudges you with his elbow, and tells you that you are as bad as he, though in another way (33-41). And so we give and take punishment. This is our plan of life. We hide our faults from ourselves. We get testimonials from our neighbors to impose on our own consciences. Awake to righteousness! Put your goodness to the test! If you yield to the temptation of covetousness, of lust, in vain will you drink in the praises of the rabble. Reject what you are not. Let Rag, Tag, and Bobtail take away their tributes. Live with yourself, and you will find out how scanty is your moral furniture (42-52).

Jahn regards this Satire as the earliest of the six, and it certainly shows even greater immaturity than the others. The well-known individuality of Socrates is coarsely handled, the irony lacks the subtle play, the mischievous good-nature of the great Athenian; and though the glaring anachronisms may be defended by such exemplars as Horace (notably in Sat., 2, 5), there is all the difference in the world between the sly humor of the older poet, who peeps from behind the Greek mask and winks at the Roman audience, and the grim contortions of the beardless representative of the bearded master.

The indecency of a part of the Satire is considered by Teuffel a valid objection to the view taken by Jahn, but the imagination of early youth and the experience of corrupt old age often meet in disgusting detail, and the obscenities of bookish men are among the worst in literature. Add to this the peculiar views of the Stoic school as to the corruption of the flesh (2, 63), and the consequent Stoic tendency to degrade the body by the most contemptuous representations of physical functions, and we can the more readily understand how Marcus Antoninus, the purest character of his time, should have besmirched his Meditations with passages which lack a parallel for their crudity; and why Persius, the poet of virginal life, should have outdone the praegrandis senex of Attic comedy in the coarseness of his expressions.

1-22. Socrates exposes the incompetence of Alcibiades for affairs of state, his lack of ethical training, his need of a just balance, his grovelling views of life, his puerile pride in his ancient family and in his handsome face. Socrates and Alcibiades were contrasts so tempting that dialogues between them were favorite philosophical exercises.

2. sorbitio: ‘draught,’ ‘dose.’ So Sen., E. M., 78, 25.—tollit = sustulit. A solitary Historical Present with a relative is harsh to us for all the examples and all the commentators.

4. scilicet: Ironical, 1, 15; 2, 19. ‘Of course.’ Comp. the old ‘God wot.’—ingenium et rerum prudentia: ‘wit and wisdom.’ Prudentia may be translated ‘knowledge,’ and rerum ‘world,’ ‘life,’ but not necessarily. See 1, 1.—velox: Predicative (Schol.), ‘have been quick in coming’ (Conington).

6. commota fervet bile: Comp. Hor., Od., 1, 13, 4: fervens difficili bile tumet iecur.

7. fert animus: Well-known phrase of Ov., Met., 1, 1. So in Greek, φέρει ὁ νοῦς, ἡ γνώμη, ἡ φρήν. The verse has a stately irony, and should have a stately translation. ‘The spirit moves you’ (Pretor) is degraded to slang. ‘Your bosom’s lord biddeth you wave a hush profound.’—fecisse: Comp. 1, 91.—silentia: Comp. 3, 81.

8. maiestate manus: ‘with majestic hand’. (G., 357, R. 2), ‘by the imposing action of your hand’ (Conington).—quid deinde loquere? The orator has not considered his speech. ‘Now that you have got your silence, what have you got to say.’—Quirites: Persius drops his Greek. Alcibiades is a mere quintain.

9. puta: ‘put case,’ ‘say,’ ‘for instance,’ is an iambic Imperative, with the ultimate shortened, like cavē̆, vidē̆, etc., 1, 108. Hermann gives it to Socrates, which is favored by the sense; Jahn and others to Alcibiades, as caricatured by Socrates, which is favored by the position. Heinrich reads puto.

13. potis es: See 1, 56.—theta: Θ, the initial of θάνατος, was the mark of condemnation used in the time of Persius, instead of the older C (condemno). It was also employed in epitaphs, in army lists, and the like, for ‘deceased.’ Translate ‘black mark.’

14. quin desinis: See 2, 71.—tu: The elision of the monosyllable is harsh (Jahn). See 1, 51. 66. 131.—igitur: ‘If all this is so, why then—.’ Comp. the indignant igitur (εἶτα) of 1, 98.—summa pelle decorus: Hor. Ep., 1, 16, 45: Introrsus turpem, speciosum pelle decora.—nequiquam: ‘because you can not impose on me.’ Comp. 3, 30 (Conington).

16. Anticyras: There were two towns of that name, one on the Maliac Gulf, the other in Phocis; both famous for their hellebore, but especially the latter. The town for its product, after the pattern of Hor., Sat., 2, 3, 83; A. P., 300 (Jahn). The Plural is the familiar poetic exaggerative.—meracas: ‘undiluted,’ ‘without a drop of water.’Hor., Ep., 2, 2, 137: expulit helleboro morbum bilemque meraco. On the use of hellebore as a preparative for philosophy, comp. the well-known experience of Chrysippus: οὐ θέμις γενέσθαι σοφόν, ἢν μὴ τρὶς ἐφεξῆς τοῦ ἐλλεβόρου πιῃς, Lucian, Vit. Auct., 23 (1, 564 R.).—melior sorbere = qui melius sorberes (comp. quo graves Persae melius perirent, Hor., Od., 1, 2, 22).

17. summa boni = summum bonum.—uncta patella: ‘rich dishes.’ Comp. 3, 102. The reference to a sacrificial dish (3, 26) is less likely. As the character of Alcibiades is not kept up with any care by Persius, it is hardly worth while to note that he was a most sensitive gourmet, as is shown by the curious anecdote, Teles ap. Stob., Flor., 5, 67.—vixisse: The Perfect with intention. G., 275, 1; A., 58, 11, e. ‘To have the satisfaction of having lived on the daintiest fare,’ so that you may say when you come to die, vixi dum vixi bene. Comp. Sen., Ep., 23, 10: Id agendum est ut satis vixerimus.

21. dum ne: Comp. G., 575; A., 61, 3. Final sentences are often elliptical (comp. note on 1, 4). ‘Only you must admit that,’ etc.; ‘dum ne neges deterius sapere.’—pannucia: Here not ‘ragged,’ but ‘shrivelled.’ Comp. Mart., 11, 46, 3.—Baucis: The name is copied from the Baucis of Ovid, Met., 8, 640, the wife of Philemon, the Joan of the antique Darby; a poor woman, who had a patch of vegetables. The anicula quae agreste holus vendebat, in Petron., 6, is a similar figure.

23-41. The satire becomes more general. No one tries to know his own faults; each has his eyes fixed on his neighbor’s short-comings. Take some rich skinflint, and, as soon as he is mentioned, the details of his meanness will be spread before us. And yet you are as great a sinner in a different direction. Comp. M. Anton., 7, 71: γελοῖόν ἐστι τὴν μὲν ἰδίαν κακίαν μὴ φεύγειν ὃ καὶ δυνατόν ἐστι, τὴν δὲ τῶν ἄλλων φεύγειν ὅπερ ἀδύνατον.

23. Ut: how.—in sese descendere: ‘go down into his own heart.’ The thought is simply noscere se ipsum. The heart is a depth, a well, a cellar, a sea. This is not the recede in te ipsum quantum potes of Sen., Ep., 7, 8. Comp. M. Anton., 4, 3. Still less is it Mr. Pretor’s ‘enter the lists against yourself,’ which would make ‘self’ at once the arena and the antagonist.

24. spectatur: The positive (quisque) must be supplied from the preceding negative. Comp. G., 446, R.; M., 462 b.—mantica: According to the familiar fable of Aesop (Phaedr., 4, 10), each man carries two wallets. The one which holds his own faults is carried on his back; the other, which contains his neighbor’s, hangs down over his breast. Comp. Catull., 22, 21: sed non videmus manticae quod in tergo est. Persius reduces the two wallets to one. Each man’s knapsack of faults is open to the inspection of all save himself.

26. Curibus: in the land of the Sabines, the land of frugal habits. Comp. 6, 1.—miluus errat: So Jahn (1868). Miluus is trisyllabic, as in Hor., Epod., 16, 31. Hermann, oberrat; Jahn (1843), oberret. The expression is proverbial: quantum milvi volant, Petron., 37. Comp. Juv., 9, 55.

27. dis iratis genioque sinistro: Comp. Hor., Sat., 2, 3, 8: iratis natus paries dis atque poetis. A substantive expression of quality without a common noun is rare in Latin as in English (M., 287, Obs. 3), but not limited in time. See Dräger, Histor. Syntax, § 226. ‘The aversion of the gods and at war with his genius,’ his ‘second self,’ who ‘delights in good living,’ quia genius laute vivendo gaudere putabatur (Jahn).

28. quandoque = quandocumque, as Hor., Od., 4, 1, 17, 2, 34.—pertusa = pervia, according to Jahn; ‘roads and thoroughfares’ (Conington); = calcata, trita, Heinr., which seems more natural.—compita: ‘The compitalia is meant. Comp. Cato, R. R., 5, 4: Rem divinam nisi compitalibus in compito [vilicus] ne faciat. It was one of the feriae conceptivae, held in honor of the Lares compitales on or about the 2d of January. It is said to have been instituted by Servius Tullius, and restored by Augustus (Suet., Aug., 31), and was observed with feasting. Comp. Cato, R. R., 5, 7, and uncta compitalia. Anthol. Lat., 2, 246, 27B. n. 105, 27M.’ So Pretor, after Jahn. With com-pit-a comp. Greek πάτ-ος, path.—figit: The suspension of the yoke symbolizes the suspension of labor. The yoke stands for the plough as well, Tibull., 2, 1, 5.

29. metuens deradere: See 1, 47. Comp. Hor., Sat., 2, 4, 80: metuentis reddere soldum.—limum: ‘the dirt’ on the jar. Comp. sive gravis veteri craterae limus adhaesit, Hor., Sat., 2, 4, 80. The Scholiast understands ‘the seal.’

31. farrata olla: ‘porridge pot of spelt,’ an every-day meal with others, holiday fare with these unfortunates, hence plaudentibus. The Abl. of Cause. Farratam ollam (Jahn [1843] and Hermann) may be defended by Stat., Silv., 5, 3, 140 (cited by Jahn): fratrem plausere Therapnae, but there is danger of the miser’s eating it.

32. pannosam: ‘mothery.’ Every word tells. It is not wine, but vinegar; it is not even good vinegar, but vinegar that is getting flat; it is not even clear vinegar, but the lees of vinegar; and not even honest lees, but mothery lees.—morientis: ‘Dying vinegar’ is not so familiar to us as ‘dead wines.’ Comp. Mart., 1, 18, 8.—aceti: Comp. faece rubentis aceti, Mart., 11, 56, 7.

33. Picture of a sensualist.—figas in cute solem: εἰληθερεῖν, ‘fix the sun in your skin,’ ‘let the sun’s rays pierce your skin,’ instead of bibere, combibere solem, Juv., 11, 203 (quoted above, v. 18), and Mart., 10, 12, 7; or the more prosaic sole uti, Mart., 1, 77, 4.

34. cubito tangat: an immemorial familiarity. Examples range from Homer, Od., 14, 485 to Aristaen., 1, 19, 27. Persius has in mind Hor., Sat., 2, 5, 42: nonne vides (aliquis cubito stantem prope tangens) inquiet, etc.

42-52. Such is life. We hit and are hit in turn. We disguise our faults—our vulnera vitae—even from ourselves, and appeal to that common jade, common fame, for a certificate of health. But temptation reveals the corruption within. You are guilty of avarice, lust, swindling, and the praises of the mob are of no moment. Be yourself. Examine yourself, and know how scantily furnished you are.

43. vivitur hoc pacto: Negatively expressed non aliter vivitur. In other words: haec est condicio vivendi, Hor., Sat., 2, 8, 65, which Casaubon compares. ‘These are the terms, this the rule of life.’—sic novimus = notum est (Jahn). ‘So we have learned it.’ ‘This is its lesson.’—ilia subter: G., 414, R. 3. The danger of the wound is well known.

44. caecum: ‘hidden.’—lato balteus auro: The baldric covered the groin, and was often ornamented with bosses of gold. Comp. Verg., Aen., 5, 312: lato quam circumplectitur auro | balteus. This broad gold belt is the symbol of wealth and rank.

47. non credam? G., 455; A., 71, 1, R.—inprobe: The inprobus is hard-headed as well as hard-hearted. Comp. plorantesque inproba natos—reliquit, Juv., 6, 86.

48. amarum: Jahn reads amorum in his ed. of 1843, but was sorry for it. In 1868 he reads amarum, and punctuates so as to throw it into the grave of the next line.

51. cerdo: Κέρδων, a plebeian proper name. Conington translates by the ‘Hob and Dick’ of Shakspeare’s Coriolanus. The common rendering, ‘cobbler,’ is a false inference from Mart., 3, 59, 1; 99, 1.

52. tecum habita: Comp. 1, 7.—noris: The punctuation of all the editors makes noris an Imperative Subjunctive. Still a kind of condition is involved = si habites, noris. G., 594, 4; A., 60, 1, b. One of the most threadbare quotations from Latin poetry.

FIFTH SATIRE.

The theme of the Fifth Satire is the Stoic doctrine of True Liberty. All men are slaves except the philosopher, and Persius has learned to be a philosopher—thanks to Cornutus, to whom the Satire is addressed. Compare and contrast Horace’s handling of a like subject in Sat., 2, 3. In Teuffel’s commentary on his translation of this Satire, the matter is briefly summed up in these words: Horace is an artist, Persius a Preacher. See Introd., xxvi. Comp. also Hor., Sat., 2, 7, 46 seqq.

Argument.—Persius speaks: Poets have a way of asking for a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, whether the theme be tragedy or epic.—Cornutus: A hundred mouths, a hundred tongues! What do you want with them? Or, for that matter, with a hundred gullets either, to worry down the tragic diet which other poets affect. You do not pant like a bellows, nor croak like a jackdaw, nor strain your cheeks to bursting in the high epic fashion. Your language is to be the language of every-day life, to which you are to give an edge by skilful combination. Your utterance is modest, and your art is shown in rasping the unhealthy body of the age, and in impaling its faults with high-bred raillery. Be such your theme. Let others sup full with tragic horrors, if they will. Do you know nothing beyond the frugal luncheon of our daily food (1-18).

Persius: It is not my aim to have my pages swollen with ‘Bubbles from the Brunnen of Poesy.’ We are alone, far from the madding crowd, and I may throw open my heart to you, for I would have you know how great a part of my soul you are. Knock at the walls of my heart, for you are skilful to distinguish the solid from the hollow, to tell the painted stucco of the tongue from the strong masonry of the soul. To this end I fain would ask—and ask until I get—a hundred voices, to show how deeply I have planted you in my heart of hearts; to tell you all that is past telling in my inmost being (19-29). When first the purple garb of boyhood withdrew its guardianship, and the amulet—no longer potent—was hung up, an offering to the old-fashioned household gods, when all about me humored me, and when the dress of manhood permitted my eyes to rove at will through the Subura with all its wares and wiles, what time the youth’s path is doubtful, and bewilderment, ignorant of life, brings the excited mind to the spot where the great choice of roads is to be made—in that decisive hour I made myself son to you, and you took me, Cornutus, to your Socratic heart. Where my character was warped, the quiet application of the rule of right straightened what in me was crooked. My mind was constrained by reason, wrestled with its conqueror, and took on new features under your forming hand. How I remember the long days I spent with you, the first-fruits of the festal nights I plucked with you. Our work, our rest we ordered both alike, and the strain of study was eased by the pleasures of a modest table (30-44). Nay, never doubt that there is a harmony between our stars. Our constellation is the Balance or the Twins. The same aspect rules our nativities. Some star, be that star what it may, blends my fate with yours (45-51).

We are attuned each to other; but look abroad, and see how different men are from us and from each other. Each has his own aims in life. One is bent on active merchandise, one is given up to sluggish sleep, another is fond of athletic sports. One is drained dry by dicing, another by chambering and wantonness; but when the chalk-stones of gout rattle among their fingers and toes, they awake to the choke-damp and the foggy light in which they have spent their days, and mourn too late their wasted life (52-61).

But you delight to wax pale over nightly studies. A tiller of the human soul, you prepare the soil, and sow the field of the ear with the pure grain of Stoic wisdom. Hence seek, young and old, an aim for your higher being, provision for your hoary head (62-65).

‘Hoary head, you say?’ interposes an objector. ‘That can be provided for as well to-morrow.’ To-morrow! ‘Next day the fatal precedent will plead.’ Another to-morrow comes, and we have used up yesterday’s to-morrow, and so our days are emptied one by one. To-morrow! It is always ahead of us, as the hind wheel can never overtake the front wheel, though both be in the self-same chariot (66-72).

The remedy for this and all the other ills of life is True Liberty—not such as gives a dole of musty meal, a soup-house ticket to the new-made citizen; not such as makes a tipsy slave free in the twinkling of an eye. Now Dama is a worthless groom, and would sell himself for a handful of provender. Anon he is set free, as you call it—becomes Marcus Dama. Excellent surety! Most excellent judge! If Marcus says it is so, it is so. Your sign and seal here, good Marcus. Pah! This is the liberty that manumission gives. Up speaks Marcus: ‘Well! Who is free except the man that can do as he pleases? I can do as I please. Argal I am free as air.’—‘Not so,’ says your learned Stoic. ‘Your logic is at fault. I grant the rest, but I demur to the clause “as you please.”’—‘The praetor’s wand made me my own man. May I not do what I please, if I offend not against the statute-book?’ (73-90).

‘Do what you please!’ cries Persius, who identifies himself with the Stoic philosopher. ‘Stop just there and learn of me; but first cease to be scornful, and let me get these old wives’ notions out of your head. The praetor could not teach you any thing about the conduct of life with all its perplexities. As well expect a man to teach an elephant to dance the tight-rope. Reason bars the way, and whispers, “You must not do what you will spoil in the doing.” This is nature’s law, the law of common-sense. You mix medicine, and know nothing of scales and weights? You, a clodhopper, and undertake to pilot a ship? Absurd, you say; and yet what do you know of life? How can you walk upright without philosophy? How can you tell the ring of the genuine metal, and detect the faulty sound of the base alloy? Do you know what to seek, what to avoid, what to mark with white, what with black? Can you control your wishes, moderate your expenses, be indulgent to your friends? Do you know how to save and how to spend? Can you keep your month from watering at the sight of money, from burning at the taste of ginger? When you can say in truth, “All this is mine,” then you are truly free. But if you retain the old man under the new title, I take back all that I have granted. You can do nothing that is right. Every action is a fault. Put forth your finger—you sin. There is not a half-ounce of virtue in your silly carcass. You must be all right or all wrong. Man is one. You can not be virtuous by halves. You can not be at once a ditcher and a dancer. You are a slave still, though the praetor’s wand may have waved away your bonds. You do not tremble at a master’s voice, ‘tis true, but there are other masters than those whom the law recognizes. The wires that move you do not jerk you from without, but masters grow up within your bosom’ (91-131).

Here the dialogue is dropped. We leave Dama, whose personality has been getting fainter all the time, and are treated to a series of more or less dramatic scenes in illustration of the Ruling Passions.

So Avarice and Luxury dispute about the body and soul of an un-Stoic slave (132-160).

A Lover tries to break the chain that binds him to an unworthy mistress (161-175).

Another is led captive by Ambition at her will (176-179).

Yet another is under the dominion of Superstition (180-188).

But why discourse thus? Imagine what the military would say to such a screed of doctrine. I hear the horse-laugh of Pulfennius, as he bids a clipped dollar for a hundred Greek philosophers—a cent apiece (189-191).

This Satire is justly considered by many critics the best of all the productions of Persius, as it is the least obscure. The warm tribute to his master Cornutus may have had its share in commending the poem to teachers, who, of all men, are most grateful for gratitude. But apart from this revelation of a pure and loving heart, the peculiar talent of Persius, which consists in vivid portraiture of character and situation, appears to great advantage in this composition. True, the introduction is not wrought into the poem, and the poet’s discourse is too distinctly a Stoic school exercise, and reminiscence crowds on reminiscence, but there is a certain movement in the Satire, or Epistle, as it were better called, which carries us on over the occasional rough places, without the perpetual jolt which we feel every where else on the ‘corduroy road’ of Persius’s Gradus ad Parnassum.

1-4. Persius: Oh for a hundred voices, a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues!

1. Vatibus hic mos est: Comp. Hor., Sat., 1, 2, 86: regibus hic mos est. Vatibus, with a sneer. see Prol., 7.—centum sibi poscere voces: Examples might be multiplied indefinitely from Homer to Charles Wesley. Comp. Il., 2, 489: οὐδ᾽ εἴ μοι δέκα μὲν γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόματ᾽ εἶεν; and Verg., Aen., 6, 625: non mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum; also Georg., 2, 43; Ov., Met., 8, 532. Conington burlesques the passage by translating poscere ‘put in a requisition for,’ and optare ‘bespeak.’ By such devices humor of a certain kind might be extracted from elegies, and Vergil be made ‘to put in a requisition for Quintilius at the Bureau of the Gods,’ Hor., Od., 1, 24, 12.

3. seu ponatur: The mood after seu—seu is determined on general principles (A., 61, 4, c). In practice, however, the Indicative is more common (G., 597, R. 4). The Subjunctive is to be explained by G., 666 (see last example), and A., 66, 2.—ponatur = proponatur (Cic., Tusc. Dis., 1, 4, 7). Comp. θεῖναι, θέσις. Jahn understands it as ponere lucum, 1, 70, posuisse figuras, 1, 86. Perhaps there is a play on the different senses of ponere. ‘Serve up’ would not be bad in view of vv. 9, 10.—hianda: ‘To be spouted by some doleful actor.’ ‘Hianda has reference to the tragic mask, in which a wide aperture was cut for the mouth, to facilitate a distinct enunciation. From the appearance presented by the speaker, it soon came to be used of a bombastic style of utterance. Comp. carmen hiare, Prop., 2, 31, 6, and grande Sophocleo carmen bacchamur hiatu, Juv., 6, 636.’ Pretor, after Jahn.

4. vulnera Parthi: Is Parthi object or subject? The passage is a reminiscence of Hor., Sat., 2, 1, 15: aut labentia equo describat vulnera Parthi. If Parthi is the object, an interpretation which is favored by the Horatian passage and by the propriety of the epic theme—for why should a Roman enlarge upon the wounds that the Parthian deals?—ducentis ab inguine ferrum must be rendered ‘drawing the dart from his groin.’ Still ab is not a suitable preposition, nor can it be defended by such expressions as ducere suspiria ab imo pectore, Ov., Met., 10, 402. Others think of ‘trailing the shaft from his groin,’ in which it had been imbedded. Comp. v. 160: a collo trahitur pars longa catenae. If Parthi is the subject, translate, ‘The Parthian who draws the arrow from [the quiver] near his groin.’ The Eastern nations wore the quiver low, the Greeks upon the shoulder. This line refers to epic poetry as the preceding to tragedy.

5-18. Cornutus: What need have you of a hundred mouths? You have no foolish tragedy to cram, no big epics to mouth. Your simple satire demands a simple style, the talk of every day, only better put. Your business is to scourge and pierce, and yet remember that you are a gentleman. Let these themes suffice you, and leave to others the stage-horrors of cannibalic feasts; yourself content with the pot-luck of the Roman cit.

6. ingeris: ‘cram.’ The whole passage is intended to be coarse. ‘What great gobbets of stuffing song are you cramming yourself with, that you require a hundred throats to strain them down?’ Others understand: ingeris sc. populo. See v. 177.—centeno gutture = centum gutturibus. So centena arbore, Verg., Aen., 10, 207 (Conington).

7. grande: See 1, 14.—locuturi: See 1, 100.—nebulas: Jahn is reminded of Hor., A. P., 230: nubes et inania captet. Observe that legunto suggests the culinary figure below. The mists represent the vegetables, Procne and Thyestes furnish the meat.—Helicone: See Prologue. Persius is as intensely Roman in poetic practice as he is Greek in philosophic theory.—legunto: The Imperative, instead of the Subjunctive, gives the tone of an edict or of a cookery-book.

8. Prognes—Thyestae: See Classical Dictionaries for the familiar myths. Observe the balance. Procne served up her son, Thyestes made a dinner off his. Both are common tragic themes. See Hor., A. P., 91. 186-187.—olla fervebit: ‘Who are going to set Thyestes’s pot a-boiling’ (Conington).

9. Glyconi: Glyco was a stupid actor of the day, who could not understand a joke. The Neronians have made the most of the fact, as reported by the Scholiast, that G. was manumitted by Nero, who paid his half-owner Vergilius 300,000 sesterces for his share. So, for instance, Lehmann (De A. Persii Satira Quinta, p. 17), who has nosed out all manner of subtle Neronian flavors in this innocent satire.—cenanda: Comp. 3, 46.

11. folle: The wind is squeezed ‘with’ or ‘in’ the bellows rather than ‘from’ the bellows. The Scholiast notices the Horatian reminiscence, Sat., 1, 4, 19: at tu conclusas hircinis follibus auras | usque laborantes, dum ferrum molliat ignis | ut mavis, imitare. Comp. also Juv., 7, 111: tunc immensa cavi spirant mendacia folles.—nec clauso murmure, etc.: ‘Nor with pent-up murmur croak to yourself until you are hoarse some solemn nonsense.’

13. scloppo: So Jahn (1868), instead of stloppo (1843). This is supposed to be a word coined to express the sound (comp. bombis, 1, 99). Conington renders ‘plop.’ Vaniček records it under SKAR, S. 183, and it may well be the ‘slap’ with which the distended cheeks are reduced, and hence the ‘plop’ which is heard. The childish trick may be witnessed wherever there are children. Persius multiplies absurd and meaningless noises without any sharp distinction.

16. ingenuo ludo: ‘with high-bred raillery,’ ‘with raillery that a gentleman may speak and hear.’ Persius has in mind εὐτραπελία, the πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις of Aristotle, Rhet., 2, 12, as Conington suggests.—defigere: Variously explained. So ‘post up,’ ‘placard’ (Casaubon); ‘pin to the ground’ (Conington); ‘pierce,’ like an arrow (Jahn); ‘sting,’ like a hornet, as in Ov., Fast., 3, 753: milia crabronum coeunt et vertice nudo, | spicula defigunt oraque summa notant. Comp. the use of figere, 3, 80.

17. hinc: From every-day life. König compares Hor., A. P., 318: vivas hinc ducere voces.—quae dicis: So Jahn (1868), after the best MSS. In 1843 we find dicas, which is more natural, but not necessary.—Mycenis: Dative, far more forcible than the locative Ablative. Jahn comp. Prol., 5: illis relinquo, a reading which he afterward abandoned. See G., 344, R. 3.

18. cum capite et pedibus: served up to Thyestes after he had finished his dinner. Comp. Aeschyl., Ag., 1594; Sen., Thyest., 764.—plebeia prandia: Your theme is ‘human nature’s daily food,’ not the heroic suppers of ‘raw-head and bloody-bones’ that teach us nothing. Mensa is contrasted with prandia (comp. Seneca’s sine mensa prandium, cited 1, 67) as ‘banquet’ with ‘meal,’ ‘Tafel’ with ‘Tisch.’

19-29. Persius: You understand my aims. I do not care to swell my page with frothy nonsense. And now that we are alone, I desire you to examine my heart, that you may see how you are enshrined in it—a theme for which I might well desire a hundred voices.

19. equidem: Here in accordance with common usage. See 1, 110.—bullatis nugis: ‘air-blown trifles’ (Gifford). Bullatis: so Jahn (1868) with Hermann. The reading of the oldest MSS., pullatis, ‘sad colored,’ explained now as ‘tragic stuff’ (because mourners were pullati); now as stuff for the groundlings (because the common people were pullati), is scarcely tenable. Ampullatis, Jahn’s conjecture, though defended by Lachmann (Lucret., 6, 1067), is metrically bad; but the sense is excellent, and the reference would be to a passage which Persius must have had in his mind. Hor., A. P., 97: proicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba. Even Thyestes is mentioned in the context, l.c. 91. Bullatis, ‘bubbly.’ Hermann (L. P., I., 32) comp. alata avis, and makes bullatis refer to tumorem et inanem verborum strepitum.

22. excutienda: See 1, 49. But the figure changes below, or there is a figure within a figure, the heart being compared to a wall, the wall to a dress. On the construction, see G., 431; A., 72, 5, c.

23. pars animae: Comp. te meae partem animae, Hor., Od., 2, 17, 5; animae dimidium meae, Od., 1, 3, 8.—Cornute: See Introduction, ix.

24. ostendisse: once for all. See G., 275, 1; A., 58, 11, d.—pulsa: κροῦε. See 3, 21.—dinoscere cautus: Hor., Sat., 1, 6, 51: cautum adsumere dignos. Comp. Prol., 11.

26. his, ut = ad haec ut. Comp. hoc, ut, v. 19. Others read hic.—centenas = centum. G., 310, R.; A., 18, 2, d.—deposcere: Notice the determination that lies in deposcere.

28. voce: carelessly repeated after voces.—pura: ‘honest.’

30-51. When first I put away the things of boyhood and encountered the temptations of youth, and stood bewildered at the cross-roads of life, I threw myself into your sheltering arms, and put myself under your guiding hand. Happy the memory of those days and nights, as they brought common work and common rest. Surely a common star controls our destinies and makes us one.

32. blandi: (fuerunt).—comites: Jahn considers these comites the same as those mentioned in 3, 7. See note. The epigram of Mart., cited above, v. 30, makes for this view: the harsh tutors have become blandi comites. But most commentators prefer to take comites in its general sense.—tota Subura: On the construction, see G., 386; A., 55, 3, f. The Subura, as the focus of business life, was the haunt of persons who are sufficiently characterized as Suburanae magistrae, Mart., 11, 78, 11.

34. iter ambiguuum: See 3, 56.—vitae nescius error: is bewilderment from ignorance of life.

36. supposui: Almost ‘I made you adopt me.’ Supponere is used of supposititious children. As Persius’s own father died while the poet was young, there is a tone of orphanage about the expression that appeals to our sympathy. ‘I threw myself as a son into your arms.’—suscipis: is the correlative of supposui.

37. Socratico sinu: The loving care of Socrates is meant, as well as his wisdom, as Jahn has observed.—fallere sollers: On the construction, see G., 424, R. 4; A., 57, 8, f, 3; Prol., 11. ‘Skilful to deceive,’ in the sense of the gradual Socratic approach. The rule is not rudely applied, but cheats the warped nature into rectitude. Jahn’s note amounts to this, that a ruler that understands deception, understands detection, and hence is a true ruler.

38. regula: ‘ruler.’ See note on 4, 11.

39. premitur ratione: Comp. Verg., Aen., 6, 80: fera corda domans fingitque premendo.—vinci laborat = dum vincitur laborat, cum labore vincitur. ‘Laborat shows that the pupil’s mind co-operated with his teacher’ (Conington).

41. etenim: καὶ γὰρ. See 3, 48.—memini consumere: See Prol., 2.—soles = dies. The antithesis runs throughout. Soles—opus—seria are opposed to noctes—requiem—mensa.

42. primas noctes: ‘the early hours of the night.’—epulis: ‘for feasting.’ Others, ‘from feasting,’ i.e., for study, 3, 54; 5, 62.—decerpere: The expression is a cross between carpe diem (Hor., Od., 1, 11, 8) and partem solido demere de die (Hor., Od., 1, 1, 20). Decerpere is to pluck with resolute, eager hand.

43. unum opus et requiem = unum opus et (unam) requiem (Jahn). Casaubon comp. Verg., Georg., 4, 184.

44. laxamus seria: Jahn comp. Verg., Aen., 9, 223: laxabant curas.

47. aequali Libra: So Hor., Od., 2, 17, 17: seu Libra seu me Scorpios adspicit. Comp. the whole passage.

48. Parca tenax veri: Comp. Parca non mendax, Hor., Od., 2, 16, 39. ‘Fate is represented with scales in her hands, also as marking the horoscope on the celestial globe’ (Jahn). The Parca of mythology is identified with the Fatum of the Stoics.—seu: Observe the irregularity of vel—seu instead of seu—seu.—nata fidelibus: ‘ordained for faithful friends.’ ‘The hour of birth is said to be born itself, as in Aeschyl., Ag., 107, ξύμφυτος αἰών; Soph., O. R., 1082, συγγενεῖς μῆνες’ (Conington).

49. Geminos: Casaubon quotes Manil., 2, 628: magnus erit Geminis amor et concordia duplex.

51. nescio quod: almost = aliquod. See v. 12.—est quod temperat: On the Mood, see G., 634, R. 1; M., 365, Obs. 2. With the expression, comp. Hor., Ep., 2, 2, 187: scit genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum, where the parts are reversed.—me tibi temperat: The Dative is used after the analogy of miscere. ‘Blends my being with thine.’

52-61. Our aims, our lives are one. But ‘many men, many minds.’ Each has his passion—the merchant, the man of ease, the lover of sport, the gamester, the rake—but they have to reckon with disease at last, and groan over the failure of their lives.

52. Mille hominum species: The Schol. quotes Hor., Sat., 2, 1, 27: quot capitum vivunt, totidem studiorum | milia. Proverbial is Ter., Phorm., 2, 3, 14: quot homines, tot sententiae: suos cuique mos.—usus rerum: ‘practice of life,’ ‘practice.’ See 1, 1, note.—discolor: ‘of various hue.’

53. velle suum cuique est: Comp. Verg., Ecl., 2, 65: trahit sua quemque voluptas. On velle suum, see 1, 9.—nec uno vivitur voto: Comp. 2, 7: aperto vivere voto. The negative form of a proposition following the positive strengthens it. Nec uno, ‘far different.’ With the examples that follow, Jahn comp. Hor., Ep., 1, 18, 21 seqq.

54. mercibus mutat piper: On the Abl., see G., 404, R.; A., 54, 8. The normal construction is merces mutat pipere; the other does not occur in archaic Latin nor in model prose. Horace is the first to use it, e.g., Od., 3, 1, 47; Epod., 9, 27. Livy introduces it into prose, but employs it only once (5, 30, 3). So Dräger, Histor. Syntax, § 235.—sub sole recenti: The Schol. comp. Hor., Sat., 1, 4, 29: hic mutat merces surgente a sole ad eum quo | vespertina tepet regio.

56. inriguo somno: Inriguo is active. Sleep waters him, as it were, and increases his fat. Comp. Verg., Aen., 3, 511: fessos sopor inrigat artus. ‘Dewy sleep’ is almost too sweet for the passage. König, a prosaic soul, thinks of the ‘sweaty sleep’ of a man who is gorged with meat and drink.

57. campo: The gymnastic exercises of the campus, and especially of the campus Martius in Rome, are familiar. See Hor., Od., 1, 8, 4; Ep., 1, 7, 59; A. P., 162, referred to by Jahn.—decoquit = coquendo vires absumit. The word is employed of a man who has used up, run through, his means. So Cic., Phil., 2, 18, 44: tenesne memoria praetextatum te decoxisse? Here it is the man who is used up, who is made to go to pot.

58. putris: Gr. τακερός. ‘In wanton dalliance melts away’ (Gifford).—lapidosa cheragra: Comp. Hor., Ep., 1, 1, 31: nodosa cheragra. The chalk-stones of gout are compared with hailstones.

59. fregerit: Perf. Subj. in a generic sense. G., 569, R. 2 (end). Comp. postquam illi iusta cheragra | contudit articulos, Hor., Sat., 2, 7, 15 seqq.—veteris ramalia fagi: The comparison is between the fingers and the knotty boughs. Comp. Hesiod’s πέντοζος, O. et D., 744.—fagi: Fagus, φηγός, and ‘beech’ (BHAG) are etymologically, but not botanically, the same. See Curtius, Grundzüge, No. 160.

61. sibi: with ingemuere (Conington).—iam seri: ‘too, too late.’ On iam, see v. 33. On seri, G., 324, R. 6; A., 47, 6.—ingemuere: like the Gr. Aorist. Comp. v. 187 and 3, 101. G., 228, R. 2; A., 58, 5, c. ‘Heave a sigh’ (Conington).—relictam: anteactam (Casaubon). Iam post terga reliquit | sexaginta annos, Juv., 13, 16.

62-65. Contrast of Cornutus’s noble mission. His creed the only creed for life.

62. at: in lively contrast.—nocturnis: Comp. 1, 90.—inpallescere: Comp. 1, 26.

63. purgatas: Purgare is an agricultural term like our ‘clean,’ and the metaphor is kept up. The field is the ear.—inseris: where we should expect seris.

64. fruge Cleanthea: Cleanthes is selected here on account of his strict life and virtuous poverty, in opposition to the luxury and wealth of the Romulidae, as Knickenberg remarks, l.c. p. 9.—petite: Mr. Pretor supposes that this is Cornutus’s invitation to the world. But if Cornutus speaks here, where does Persius come in again?—unless he takes up the cudgels for his master in v. 66.

66-72. ‘There is time enough for that,’ says an impersonal sinner. ‘To-morrow will do as well.’ ‘“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.” To-morrow never becomes to-day.’

66. Cras hoc fiet, etc.: ‘I will do this that you ask of me to-morrow.’ ‘You will do to-morrow just what you are doing to-day.’ Jahn comp. Ov., R. A., 104: Cras quoque fiet idem. Hermann arranges: Cras hoc fiet idem. Cras fiet? ‘This will, can be done to-morrow as well as to-day.’ ‘To-morrow, you say?’ Comp. Petron., 82: quod hodie non est, cras erit.

67. nempe diem donas: ‘Well, what of it? Suppose I go on the same way to-morrow; it will only be a day—a great present, forsooth, to be haggling about!’ On nempe, see G., 500, R. 2.—cum venit—consumpsimus: more lively than cum venerit—consumpserimus (G., 229). One clause is involved in the other. G., 236, R. 4. This seems to be better than making venit iterative, and consumpsimus an Aoristic Perf.

69. egerit: ‘unloads,’ ‘carts off.’ Egerere is the opposite of ingerere (v. 6). Comp. Sen., Ep., 47, 2: venter maiore opera omnia egerit quam ingessit. Jahn makes egerit = impulerit, in order to save the figure. Compare truditur dies die, Hor., Od., 2, 18, 15, and Petron., 45: dies diem trudit; and 82: vita truditur. But even this does not save the figure, and the sudden change of metaphor is in Persius’s vein.—paulum erit ultra: ‘To-morrow will always be a little further on,’ is the common rendering, the figure changing at this point.

72. cum curras: ‘seeing that you are running.’ Here cum is nearly equivalent to si, as it is thrown by sectabere into the future, and is thus made hypothetical. Comp. G., 591, R. 3, and 584.

73-90. What men need is Liberty—not the freedom of the city, which insures a quota of damaged corn; not the freedom of the freedman, which gives a slave a name to be free, while he is yet a slave; but the liberty wherewith Philosophy sets men free. The freedman demurs to this hard doctrine, but a Stoic adept silences him by his ‘Short Method.’

73. hac, ut, quisque: Hac is the adverb, ut = qua, quisque = quicunque (comp. quandoque = quandocumque, 4, 28), a sad complex of harshnesses, which may be rendered thus: ‘Liberty is what is wanted; not after the prevalent (G., 290, 7) fashion, by which each man that has worked his way up to a Publius in the Veline tribe is owner of a ticket for a ration of musty spelt.’ Other readings, such as hac quam ut quisque (Passow), hac qua quisque (Meister), are mere devices to relieve the grammatical situation, which is doubtless unnatural in the extreme, as hac seems to belong to libertate, and ut quisque is a familiar combination. Conington makes non hac the beginning of an independent sentence, and translates: ‘It is not by this freedom that every fire-new citizen, who gets his name enrolled in a tribe, is privileged to get a pauper’s allowance for his ticket.’—Velina: Comp. Hor., Ep., 1, 6, 52: hic multum in Fabia valet, ille Velina. The Veline was one of the last two tribes instituted (Becker, Rom. Alt., 2, 1, 170), and is supposed by some to be one of the four city tribes to which the libertini were restricted. The name of the tribe to which a man belongs is put in the Abl. (as a whence case). So M. Larcius L. f. Pomptina Pudens (Becker, l.c. 198).

74. Publius: Only freemen were entitled to the praenomen. Comp. Hor., Sat., 2, 5, 32: Quinte, puta, aut Publi (gaudent praenomine molles | auriculae).—emeruit: literally ‘has served his time’ (of a soldier), ‘has worked his way up to be a Publius’ (supplying esse).—tesserula: the well-known tessera frumentaria, Suet., Aug., 41.

77. vappa: ‘dead wine,’ hence ‘mean liquor.’—lippus: the effect of drinking.—in farragine tenui: ‘in the matter of,’ and hence ‘for a poor feed of corn.’

78. verterit—exit = si verterit—exit. G., 257; A., 57, 5. Comp. v. 189. The Perf. is aoristic, ‘give him a whirl.’—momento: literally by the ‘motion,’ ‘by virtue,’ ‘by the act of whirling.’ ‘By dint’ would give an ironical turn.

79. Marcus: as Publius, v. 74. Jahn cites an inscription: M · FVFIVS · M · L · DAMA.—papae: Ironical admiration. ‘Wondrous change! Every body will trust this thief, this liar now!’ Papae (Gr. παπαῖ, βαβαί). ‘Whew!’ ‘Prodigious!’—recusas? Fie on you, if you do! See note on 4, 1.

82. mera: ‘pure and simple’ (ironical).—pillea: See 3, 106.

83. An quisquam—Bruto: These words are generally assigned to Dama, and it is certainly more humorous to make the promoted stable-boy argue in mood and figure than to rake up one of Persius’s dead-alive spectators, as König does, and after him Pretor. Quisquam, because of the negative answer expected. See 1, 112, and G., 304; A., 21, 2, h.

84. ut voluit: The Stoic formula did not differ from the popular definition. Certainly it does not sound recondite to say: libertas est potestas vivendi ut velis, Cic., Parad., 5, 1, 34; or with Arrian, Diss., 4, 1, 1: ἐλεύθερός ἐστιν ὁ ζῶν ὡς βούλεται, but the words must be understood in their Stoic sense.

86. stoicus hic: ‘our Stoic friend’ (Conington). Persius himself.—aurem—lotus: Comp. v. 63 and 1, 126. Lotus may be reflexive. G., 332, R. 2; A., 53, 3, c, R.—aceto: Vinegar was used in cases of deafness, Cels., 6, 7, 2, 3 (König).

87. accipio—tolle: ‘Persius admits the major, but denies the minor; denies both that the man has a will (volo) and that he is free (licet) to follow it’ (Conington). Mr. Pretor limits the concession to vivere (τὸ ζῆν), and explains: ‘The mere fact that you are a living creature, I admit; the inference contained in licet and ut volo, I altogether deny.’ ‘This dissection of the argument word by word’ may be ‘more in keeping with the character of the Stoic’—the Stoics were great choppers of logic—but it is not in keeping with the style of Persius, who is subtle every where except in his arguments.

91-131. A Stoic sermon. Text: Do nothing that you will spoil in the doing. You know nothing as you ought to know it, and you can do nothing as you ought to do it. You are ignorant of the first principles of morals; you have no control over your desires, your appetites. You may call yourself free, but you are a slave for all that. For one master without, you have a legion of masters within.

91. Disce: Comp. 3, 66.—naso: the simple Abl. as a whence case. Comp. 1, 83. The nose is the familiar seat of anger. Theocr., 1, 18: καί οἱ ἀεὶ δριμεῖα χολὰ ποτὶ ῥινὶ κάθηται. For Biblical parallels, see Gesenius or Fürst, s.v. אַף . The anger is shown by snorting, or, as here, by snarling.—rugosa: Comp. corruget nares, Hor., Ep., 1, 5, 23.—sanna: 1, 62.

92. dum revello: ‘while I am plucking’ = ‘until I have plucked.’ See note on v. 10.—veteres avias: ‘old grandmothers,’ for ‘inveterate, rooted, grandmotherish notions.’ Comp. patruos sapere, 1, 11, and ὁ λεγόμενος γραῶν ὕθλος, Plat., Theaet., 176B.—de pulmone: The lung is the seat of pride in 3, 27 (comp. suffla, 4, 20). Jahn regards it here as the seat of wrath.

93. erat: ‘as you thought.’ G., 224, R. 3; A., 58, 3, d.—tenuia rerum officia: ‘mastery of the subtle distinctions of duty.’ Tenuia, a trisyllable, as often. G., 717. Rerum, parallel with vitae. See 1, 1.

94. usum rapidae vitae: ‘the right management of the rapid course of life.’ The metaphor is taken either from a river (rapidus amnis, rapidi fluminum lapsus, rapidum flumen, rapidus Tigris, Hor.), which sweeps away the man who does not understand its current, or from a race-course in which there is no stopping, as Conington thinks (3, 67). Others understand rapidae simply as ‘fleeting.’

96. stat contra: ‘confronts,’ ‘stops the way.’ Jahn comp. Mart., 1, 53, 12: stat contra, dicitque tibi tua pagina: Fur es, a parallel which no conscientious commentator can quote without qualms. Juv., 3, 290: stat contra starique iubet.—ratio: ‘Right reason’ here is equivalent to natura below, which is itself equivalent to publica lex hominum. See Knickenberg, l.c. p. 20 seqq.—secretam: ‘private.’—garrit: It is hard choosing between gannit and garrit. Martial has garrire in aurem, in auriculam, 1, 89, 1; 3, 28, 2, and aurem dum tibi praesto garrienti, 11, 24, 2; Afran., ap. Non., 452, 11 (283 Ribb.): gannire ad aurem numquam didici dominicam.

97. liceat: with reference to v. 84.

98. publica lex hominum naturaque: ‘The universal law of human nature.’ Of course in the peculiar Stoic sense. See note on 3, 67. ‘The doctrine of a supreme law of Nature, the actual source and ideal standard of all particular laws, was characteristic of the Stoics, and lay at the bottom of the Roman juristical notion of a ratio naturalis or ius gentium’ (Conington).

99. teneat actus: As tenere cursum is sometimes used in the sense of ‘check a course,’ ‘refrain from a course,’ so tenere vetitos actus means to refrain from, or, as Pretor translates, ‘hold in abeyance forbidden actions.’ To this effect König. But as tenere cursum is also used in the sense of ‘hold a course, keep on a course,’ Jahn’s version, which makes it a law of nature for weak ignorance to pursue forbidden actions, is not without justification. In that case fas est = ‘it is to be expected,’ as in operi longo fas est obrepere somnum. For the thought of the necessity of sin for the ignorant, see v. 119. But the immediate context favors the former interpretation. Casaubon’s tenere vetitos = habere pro vetitis is without warrant in usage.

100-104. Popular illustrations of the doctrine drawn from medicine and navigation, and from Hor., Ep., 2, 1, 114: navem agere ignarus navis timet: abrotonum aegro | non audet, nisi qui didicit dare.

102. peronatus: The pero was a thick boot of raw-hide, crudus pero, Verg., Aen., 7, 690, and Juv., 14, 186: quem non pudet alto | per glaciem perone tegi, qui summovet Euros | pellibus inversis (Jahn). The peronatus arator is a clodhopper, a country bumpkin.

103. luciferi rudis: Not a good stroke. Some knowledge of the stars was necessary for the ploughman himself, as Casaubon remarks. See Verg., Georg., 1, 204 seqq. So notably of the Pleiades, Hesiod, O. et D., 383. 615.—Melicerta: Portunus, patron of sailors, Verg., Georg., 1, 437.—perisse: Comp. Hor., Ep., 2, 1, 80: clament periisse pudorem | cuncti paene patres.

104. frontem: the seat of modesty for modesty itself. In English, ‘face,’ ‘front,’ and ‘forehead’ are used for the absence of modesty; but ‘frontless’ and ‘effrontery’ accord with the usage and in Juv., 13, 242: quando recepit | eiectum simul attrita de fronte pudorem?—de rebus: ‘from the world,’ or omitted. See 1, 1.—recto talo: Comp. Hor., Ep., 2, 1, 176: cadat an recto stet fabula talo. Jahn comp. further Pind., Isthm., 6, 12: ὀρθῷ ἔστασας ἐπὶ σφυρῷ, and Eur., Hel., 1449: ὀρθῷ βῆναι ποδί. Transl. ‘uprightly.’

106. ne qua: sc. species. Ne because of the general notion of apprehension in the sentence, as after videre. G., 548, R. 2; A., 70, 3, e.—subaerato auro: Subaeratus is a translation of ὑπόχαλκος. Ὑπόχαλκον νόμισμα is literally a coin (of gold or silver) with copper underneath. Of course we should say gilt or silvered copper coin. Subaerato auro, Abl. Abs.—mendosum tinniat: With mendosum comp. sonat vitium, 3, 21; solidum crepet, v. 25; with tinniat, Quint., 11, 3, 31: sonis homines, ut aera tinnitu, dinoscimus. Translate the line: ‘that no [seeming truth] give a faulty ring, due to the copper underneath the gold.’

107. forent: On the sequence, see G., 511, R. 2; A., 58, 10, a.

108. ilia prius creta, etc.: Comp. Hor., Sat., 2, 3, 246: sanin creta an carbone notandi.

109. modicus voti: On the Gen., see G., 374, R. 2; A., 50, 3, c.—presso lare: ‘Your establishment within your means?’ Pressus opposed to diffusus.—dulcis: ‘indulgent.’ Observe the ‘sweet reasonableness’ of the ancient religionist. He, too, was an apostle of ‘sweetness and light.’

111. inque luto: It was a favorite trick of the Roman boys to solder a piece of money to a stone in the pavement, in order to have a laugh at any one who might stoop to pick it up (Scholiast). Similar pranks are common enough now. Comp. Hor., Ep., 1, 16, 63: qui liberior sit avarus | in triviis fixum, cum se demittit ob assem | non video.

113. haec mea sunt, teneo: The commentators notice the legal tone.—cum dixeris: G., 584.

116-118. The drift of the passage is plain enough. ‘A change of fortune does not bring with it a change of character. If you possess all that you say you possess, then you are free and wise. But if you are, after all, the same old man, I take back all that I have granted. You are a fool, a slave.’ This familiar Stoic thesis is covered over with a mass of confused metaphors, at least according to the commentators and translators.—pelliculam veterem retines: is supposed to be:1. An ass in a lion’s skin, after Hor., Sat., 1, 6, 22; or, 2. A snake that has not cast its slough (Jahn).—astutam servas vulpem: is the fox dressed up like a lion, Hor., Sat., 2, 3, 186.—vapido pectore: contains an allusion to ‘dead wine,’ vappa, v. 77, and is opposed to incoctum generoso pectus honesto, 2, 74.—funem reduco: 1. Of a beast that has had rope allowed it and is pulled in; 2. Of a cock-chafer that is played at the end of a string (Ar., Nub., 763).—fronte politus: words that do not fit in very satisfactorily with ass, fox, flat wine, restiff beast, or buzzing cock-chafer. My admiration of Persius is not unqualified, but this medley is almost too wild even for his turbid genius; and here, as elsewhere, commentators have been misled by looking at mere verbal coincidences with Horace. There is an Aesopic fable (149 Halm), the moral of which gives the substance of this passage: ὁ λόγος δηλοῖ ὅτι οἱ φαῦλοι τῶν ἀνθρώπων, κἂν τὰ προσχήματα λαμπρότερα ἀναλάβωσι, τὴν γοῦν φύσιν οὐ μετατίθενται. In this fable, which bears a family likeness to ϝαλῆ ποτ᾽ ἀνδρός (Babr. 32), La Chatte Metamorphosée en Femme (La Fontaine, 2, 18), Zeus, charmed with the cleverness of Reynard, had made him king of the beasts; but wishing to try whether fortune had changed his character, he caused a beetle to fly before His Majesty’s eyes as he was borne by in state. The fox could not withstand the temptation, leaped from the litter, and tried to catch the game in such unseemly guise that Zeus deposed him. The fox is Dama, made Marcus; nay, become a philosopher (nostrae farinae), and the philosopher is king: sapiens—dives | liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum, as Horace puts the Stoic doctrine (Ep., 1, 1, 107). But if despite his fair seeming, his smooth regal brow (fronte politus), he retains his old nature (pelliculam veterem), and the old Reynard—the old rascal that swindled his master for a feed of corn—is still in his heart (astutam servas sub pectore vulpem), our deus ex machina takes back all that he has granted; he is a slave still.

117. relego: So Jahn. Inferior MSS. have repeto. Relego evidently suggested the new figure, funem reduco.

122. fossor: ‘a ditcher, a clown, a clodhopper.’ Fossor = in cultus. Comp. ‘navvy.’ Juvenal (11, 80) speaks of the squalidus fossor; Catullus (22, 10) combines fossor and caprimulgus, Eur. (El., 252), σκαφεύς and βουφορβός.

123. tris tantum ad numeros moveare: ‘dance three steps in time.’ Ad, as often, of the standard; numerus = ῥυθμός; moveri of the dance, as in Hor., Ep., 2, 2, 125, and as motus in Od., 3, 6, 21: motus doceri gaudet Ionicos | matura virgo.—satyrum: a kind of Cognate Accusative, as in Hor., l.c.: qui | nunc satyrum, nunc agrestem Cyclopa movetur. Persius selects the satyrus in distinct opposition to the agrestis Cyclops, a more congenial dance for the agrestis fossor. See the commentators on Horace.—Bathylli: Bathyllus was a famous dancer in the time of Augustus. More bookishness. See Phaedr., 5, 7, 5; Juv., 6, 63.

124. Liber ego: The language of Dama. Only Dama is fading out. ‘Persius meets this reassertion of freedom with a new answer. Before he had contended that fools had no rights; now he shows that they have no independent power’ (Conington).—Unde datum hoc sentis: So Hor., Sat., 2, 2, 31: Unde datum hoc sentis, only sentis here is equivalent to censes (Jahn). On the interrogative with the Participle, see 3, 67. Unde datum, ‘Who allowed you?’ unde being = a quo. Comp. inde, 1, 126, and G., 613, R. 1; A., 48, 5.—tot subdite rebus: Comp. Hor., Sat., 2, 7, 75: tune mihi dominus rerum imperiis hominumque | tot tantisque minor = ἥσσων = subditus.

126. I puer: sample order of a sample master.—strigiles: A man might go to a common bath, but he would not like to use a common scraper (strigilis, ξύστρα). On the strigilis, see, if needful, the commentators on Juv., 3, 263.—Crispini: Perhaps the bath-keeper. The name is Horatian, Sat., 1, 2, 120, and elsewhere.

128. nihil nec quicquam: G., 482, R. 3.

129. nervos: ‘wires.’ The figure of the puppet (sigillarium, ἄγαλμα νευρόσπαστον) as a favorite one with the Stoics, to judge by M. Antoninus, who uses it very often, e.g., σιγιλλάρια νευροσπαστούμενα, 7, 3; νευροσπαστια, 6, 28. Comp. Hor., Sat., 2, 7, 80: tu mihi qui imperitas alii servis miser atque | duceris ut nervis alienis mobile lignum.—agitet: ‘There is nothing from without to set your wires going.’ Your masters are within.—iecore: See 1, 25.

131. atque = quam. G., 311, R. 6.—hic = de quo loquimur. G., 290, 3.—metus erilis = metus eri. G., 360, R. 1; 363, R.; A., 50, 1, a. ‘If I be a master, where is my fear?’ Mal., 1, 6. The assumption of Hendiadys, ‘fear of the master’s whip,’ is unnecessary, and makes the passage less forcible.

132-191. The remainder of the Satire is taken up with descriptions of the ruling passions: Avarice (132-142), Luxury (143-160), Love (161-175), Ambition (176-179), Superstition (180-189). The language is lively and mimetic, and forcibly recalls the connection between comedy and satire.

132-160. Avarice finds you snoring, makes you get up, thrusts a bill of lading in your hand, cuts out work for you—not very honest work either—and chides you till she gets you to the ship. As you are about to embark, Luxury takes you aside, remonstrates with you, reminds you of the annoyances of a sea voyage. And all for what? The difference between five and eleven per cent. Why so greedy? ‘Life let us cherish.’ Enjoy it while you may. And so you are in a strait betwixt two. First you submit to one, then to the other master; and when you have once rebelled, you must not say, ‘I have broken my bonds.’ So a struggling hound may wrench away the staple, but drags the chain after it.

132. Mane stertis: a reminiscence of himself, 3, 3.

134. saperdam: Sing. for the Plur. Comp. mena, 3, 76. The saperda (σαπέρδης, κορακῖνος) was a cheap fish for salting. The best came from the Palus Maeotis (Sea of Azow, Balik-Denghis, or Fish-sea), where they were caught in vast quantities. ‘Salt herring.’—Ponto: a whence case.

136. recens primus piper: Recens, ‘fresh,’ ‘just in;’ primus, ‘forestall the market.’—ex sitiente camelo: The thirsty camel brings the scene before our eyes—comp. ante boves, 1, 74—and shows that the genuine Indian pepper is meant, the rugosum piper of v. 55. The camel must have come a long way to be thirsty (sitim quadriduo tolerat, Plin., H. N., 8, 18), but Madam Avarice will not let her slave wait until the camel has been unloaded and has had its drink.

137. verte aliquid; iura: Verte aliquid is said with impatience, and aliquid is to be urged. Comp. frange aliquid, 6, 32; dest aliquid, 6, 64; fodere aut arare aut aliquid ferre, Ter., Heaut., 1, 1, 17. ‘Do something or other in the way of trade.’ This obviates Jahn’s objection, who finds the expression tame after the preceding list, and prefers to make vertere = versuram facere, ‘borrow money’ (to pay debts), and to interpret iura of swearing out of the obligation. But the connection in which iura stands shows that it is professional, and hence dishonorable; and though verte aliquid is not necessarily immoral, observe that in English we add ‘honest’ to the phrase ‘turn a penny,’ if we wish to prevent a sinister interpretation, which is the interpretation here, as König remarks. As for the ‘tameness,’ mercare is ‘tame’ after vende animam lucro, 6, 75.

138. varo: or baro, ‘lout.’ This obscure word is entered by Vaniček (Etym. Wörterb., S. 36) under KAR (KVAR)—comp. varus, ‘crooked’—so that varo would be ‘a wrong-headed creature,’ ‘a perverse blockhead.’ The verb obvaro occurs in Ennius (Trag., 2 Vahl.), and varo (Subst.) would be a formation like cachinno (1, 12) and palpo (5, 176).—regustatum digito terebrare salinum: After the Greek proverb: ἁλίαν τρυπᾶν (of extreme poverty). Casaubon quotes, and every body after him, Apoll. Tyan., Ep., 7: ἐμοὶ δ᾽ εἴη τὴν ἁλιαν τρυπᾶν ἐν Θέμιδος οἴκῳ. ‘To taste and taste until you bore a hole with your finger in the salt-cellar.’ ‘To lick the platter clean.’—salinum: Only the most advanced philosophers professed to consider salt, which even the miser could not well dispense with (4, 30), as a luxury. So Thrasycles, in Luc., Tim., 56: ὄψον δὲ ἥδιστον θύμον ἢ κάρδαμον ἢ εἴ ποτε τρυφῴην ὀλίγον τῶν ἁλῶν.

142. rapias: ‘scour.’ Casaubon comp. Stat., Theb., 5, 3: rapere campum. So Verg., Georg., 3, 103: campum | corripuere. The notion is that of devouring.—sollers: ‘artful’ (literally, all-art).

143. seductum: Comp. 2, 4; 6, 42.—quo deinde ruis? So Verg., Aen., 5, 741. Deinde, ‘next.’

144. quid tibi vis? Comp. Hor., Sat., 1, 2, 69. G., 351, R.; A., 51, 7, d.—calido: is proleptic. ‘Your breast is heated by a rising of potent bile.’—mascula = robusta (Jahn). Mascula bilis means bilis nigra, μελαγχολία. Conington compares the Greek use of ἀρσην as κτύπος ἄρσην, Soph., Phil., 1455. See 6, 4.

146. mare transilias: G., 251; A., 57, 6. Conington’s ‘skip across’ would hardly answer for Horace’s non tangenda rates | transiliunt vada, Od., 1, 3, 24. Tr. ‘vault over.’—torta cannabe: ‘Twisted hemp’ is ‘rope,’ but Persius probably means a ‘coil of rope.’—fulto: with tibi. Jahn quotes Juv., 3, 82: fultusque toro meliore recumbet. A coil of rope will be your cushion and a bench your table.

147. Veientanumque rubellum: The Veientana uva (Mart., 2, 53, 4) yielded a coarse red wine. Et Veientani bibitur faex crassa rubelli, Mart., 1, 103, 9. Not a happy stroke, as Teuffel has observed. A sea voyage does not involve bad wine.

148. vapida pice: ‘fusty pitch.’ Jars were pitched to preserve the wine.—laesum: ‘damaged.’—sessilis obba: ‘broad-bottomed jorum,’ ‘squab jug’ (Gifford). Obba is an obsolete word for a large drinking-cup. Conington’s ‘noggin’ does not hold enough.

149. quincunce: As an as a month is twelve per cent. per annum, so 5/12 as (quincunx) is five per cent., and deunx eleven.

151. indulge genio: See note on 2, 3.—nostrum est quod vivis: Variously interpreted. ‘Your real life is mine,’ i.e., ‘only that part of life which you bestow on me is life’ (Casaubon, and so, in effect, Jahn). ‘Your life belongs to me and you (nostrum answering to carpamus dulcia), not to any one else, such as Avarice, and it is all that we have’ (Conington). ‘It is all in our favor that you are alive’ (Pretor)—clearly wrong. There is an evident reminiscence of the Horatian quod spiro et placeo, si placeo, tuum est (Od., 4, 3, 24), which sustains Casaubon’s view.

152. cinis et manes et fabula fies: See note on 1, 36. There are clearly three stages, as Conington suggests: ‘first ashes, then a shade, then a name.’ With fabula fies comp. Hor., Ep., 1, 13, 9: fabula fias, and Od., 1, 4, 16: iam te premet nox fabulaeque manes.

153. vive memor leti: So Hor., Sat., 2, 6, 97.—hoc quod loquor inde est: ‘What I am saying—this speech of mine—is so much off, so much time lost.’ Comp. dum loquimur fugerit invida | aetas, Hor., Od., 1, 11, 7.

156. oberres: Gr. δραπετεύειν, ‘go at large’ (Pretor).

157-158. nec—dicas = neu dicas. See note on 1, 5.

161-175. Persius, knowing little of love or liaison, goes to his Greek books for an example, and finds it, where it was not far to seek, in Menander’s Eunuch. Horace (Sat., 2, 3, 259 seqq.) follows Terence’s adaptation, Persius seems to have stuck to the original. Hence the dialogue is between Chaerestratus (Χαιρέστρατος), the young master, and Davus (Δᾶος), the confidential servant, and not between Phaedria and Parmeno, as in the Latin dramatist.

Ch. Davus, I’m going to put a stop to this sort of thing.—D. Thank Heaven for that!—Ch. But—I should not like to hurt her feelings. Do you think she’ll cry?—D. Well, if you talk that way, you had better not kick over the traces at all. She will give it to you soundly when she gets hold of you again, and she will get hold of you again as soon as she calls you. Don’t be making suppositions. Go back to her in no case.

A man who can make such a resolution and keep it—here is your free man, not the lictor’s whirligig.

162. praeteritos: logically superfluous with finire, and yet not bad dramatically; ‘that I have been having, undergoing.’—crudum: predicative, ‘to the raw,’ ‘to the quick.’ Comp. 1, 106: demorsos unguis.

163. adrodens: more natural than abrodens. ‘He is in meditation, not in despair’ (Hermann).—siccis: opp. to madidis, ebriis. ‘What! shall I be a standing disgrace in the way of my sober relations?’

164. rumore sinistro: ‘What? make myself the talk of all the scandal-mongers by squandering my estate?’

166. Comp. Hor., Sat., 1, 4, 51: ebrius et, magnum quod dedecus, ambulet ante | noctem cum facibus.—ante fores canto: Antique erotic literature is full of the caterwaulings of excluded lovers (παρακλαυσίθυρα).

167. puer: ‘Davus encourages his master, hence puer instead of Terence and Horace’s ere’ (Conington). ‘My young master’ gives the tone here, ‘my boy’ below.—sapias: ‘I do hope you are going to show your sense.’ Rather optative than imperative.—dis depellentibus: depulsoribus = dis averruncis. The Gr. is ἀποτρόπαιος, ἀπωσίκακος, ἀλεξίκακος. Comp. ἀποτρόποισι δαίμοσι, Aesch., Pers., 203 (quoted by Pretor).

169. Nugaris: ‘at your old nonsense, I see.’ See v. 127.—solea: The slipper was and is a matronly instrument of torture (Luc., D. D., 11, 1), and hence the fun of its application to grown-up men, as in the familiar story of Hercules and Omphalé, Luc., D. D., 13, 2. ‘To slipper’ would be understood as well in a modern nursery as βλαυτοῦν was in a Greek gynaikonitis. Philtra quibus valeat mentem vexare mariti | et solea pulsare natis, Juv., 6, 611-12.—obiurgabere: a terminus technicus. Petron., 34: colaphis objurgare puerum iussit.—rubra: A dramatic touch. This ‘No Goody Two Shoes’ wore the fashionable red slippers. Comp. the talon rouge of the last century.

171. The distribution of what follows is not clear. Jahn and Hermann make Davus’s speech end with dicas, so that haud mora is the reply which the slave puts into the mouth of his master. ‘If she should call you, you would say: “Anon, anon, mistress.”’ Chaerestratus speaks the words from Quidnam to accedam, and Davus concludes with si totus—nec nunc. If Jahn’s view be adopted, I do not see how we are to reject the old conjecture ne tunc or nec tunc for the reading ne nunc, nec nunc, v. 174. According to Heinrich, followed by Macleane and Conington, haud mora is adverbial, and the words quidnam—accedam are attributed by Davus to Chaerestratus. ‘In Terence,’ says Conington, ‘the lover has received a summons before the scene begins, and he deliberates whether to obey it. In Persius he is trying to resolve under the pressure of disappointment, and even then can not make up his mind; so that his servant tells him that if he should be summoned back, he is pretty sure to entertain the question.’ I have followed Heinrich’s arrangement. Speech within speech is as characteristic of Persius as metaphor within metaphor.

172. nec nunc: So Jahn in his ed. of 1868. Ne nunc, his former reading, for ne nunc quidem, condemned by Madvig, has a doubtful support in Hor., Sat., 2, 3, 262, a clear support in Petron., 9, 47.—arcessat: So Jahn for arcessor, which is excessively harsh, by reason of the double change, person and mood, in supplicet.

174. si exieras: εἴ γ᾽ ἐξέβης. ‘If (as you pretend you did) you got away heart-whole and fancy-free, don’t go to her even now.’ Si with Pluperf. Ind. (not iterative) is not common, Cic., N. D., 2, 35, 90. Others read exieris.—nec nunc: sc. accedas.—hic, hic: The Adverb, as appears from in festuca. Comp. Hor., Ep., 1, 17, 39: hic est aut nusquam quod quaerimus.

176-179. Ambition’s Slave.

176. palpo: literally ‘patter, stroker,’ ‘softsawder-man,’ i.e., electioneerer. Another of the verba togae. See note on 1, 12. Palpo is explained by Io. Sarisberiensis (ap. Jahn) as ‘one who feels his way with the people;’ but this is not so simple nor so much in accordance with the use of palpare.—ducit hiantem: Comp. Hor., Sat., 1, 2, 88: emptorem inducat hiantem, where Bentley reads ducat on account of this passage. Also Verg., Georg., 2, 508: hunc plausus hiantem— | corripuit, and Solon, 13, 36 (Bergk), χάσκοντες κούφαις ἐλπίσι τερπόμεθα.

178. nostra: nobis aedilibus celebrata (Jahn). On the ironical First Person, see 3, 3.—Floralia: See the Dictionaries.

179. aprici = apricantes. See 4, 18. 19. To ‘love to live i’ th’ sun’ (Shaksp.) is common to the feebleness of age and the luxury of youth, 4, 33.—quid pulchrius: Snatch of the old men’s chat (Hermann). Ironical comment of Persius (Jahn). The former is more in Persius’s manner.

at: An abrupt transition to the Thraldom of Superstition (180-188). Whether the slave of superstition is identical with the slave of ambition or not is not certain—probably not.

181. lucernae: Those who wish illustrations for what they can see with their own eyes, may consult Friedländer, l.c. 1, 292. The lights remind one of the Feast of Tabernacles.

182. violas: Comp. Juv., 12, 90: omnis violae iactabo colores. The violet may be our violet or the pansy (viola bicolor).—rubrumque amplexa catinum: The tunny is so large that it embraces the dish, and is not embraced by it. Comp. Hor., Sat., 2, 4, 77: angustoque vagos piscis urgere catino. Rubrum, the common color of pottery.

183. cauda thynni: The tunny has a large tail, hence some such adjective as ‘taily’ is desiderated. Comp. note on 6, 10.—natat: Makes fun of the fish’s swimming in the circumstances.—tumet: ‘bulges.’ The big belly of the jar looks as if it were ‘swollen’ with wine.

184. labra movet tacitus: Comp. Hor., Ep., 1, 16, 60: labra movet, metuens audiri (of a prayer to Laverna). A recondite allusion to the secret prayer of the Jews is unlikely.—recutita sabbata = recutitorum sabbata. Comp. Ov., Rem. Am., 219, 220: nec te peregrina morentur | sabbata.—palles = pallidus times. G., 329, R. 1; A., 52, 1, a. Comp. our English ‘blanch’ or ‘blench.’

187. incussere: Gr. Aorist. Comp. 3, 101. The expression, ‘strike the gods into you,’ after the analogy of incutere metum, terrorem, is the other side of Vergil’s famous magnum si pectore postit | excussisse deum (Aen., 6, 78).—inflantis: ‘who have a way of swelling.’ Compare the use of depellentibus for depulsoribus, v. 167. See G., 439.

188. praedictum: ‘prescribed.’—alli: The superstitious usage here referred to has not yet been paralleled.

189-91. Last scene of all. Horse-laughter of the muscular military.

189. Dixeris—ridet = si dixeris—ridet. Comp. v. 78.—varicosos: Comp. Juv., 6, 397: varicosus fiet haruspex (from long-standing). Varicose veins would naturally be common with men who were as much on their legs as the soldiers of that day. But as varicare means to stand or walk, as if one had varices, ‘to straddle’ (Quint., 11, 3, 125), and as vāricus means ‘straddling’ (Ov., A. A., 3, 304), it seems better to translate varicosos ‘straddling’ here, always remembering the origin. With the change of quantity, comp. văcillo and vācillo (vaccillo), Lachm., Lucret., p. 37.—centurionum: See note on 3, 77.

191. Graecos: Comp. doctores Graios, 6, 38.—curto: ‘clipped.’—licetur: A similar notion is worked out with admirable humor in Lucian’s Vitarum Auctio.

SIXTH SATIRE.

The Sixth Satire is addressed to Caesius Bassus, a friend of Persius. The theme of it is the Proper Use of the Goods of this Life, which takes the personal form of a vindication of the poet’s course in preferring moderate enjoyment to mean parsimony or grasping avarice.

Argument.—Are you by this time snugly ensconced by your Sabine fire? And do the chords of your lyre wake to life at your vigorous touch? O cunning craftsman! in whose song the noble tongue of our sires is set to manly music, while young and old alike feel the play of your sportive wit, which in all its sport never forgets the gentleman (1-6).

While you are yonder, I am in my dear Liguria, where the coast is warm, the sea is wintry but kindly, the rocks bar out the storm, and the shore retreats far inland.

This was a saying of Ennius, as he woke up in his senses from his Pythagorean dreams and became plain Quintus, instead of the ‘blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle,’ and a wise saying of that hearty old cock it was (7-11).

Well, here I am, caring nothing for the rabble rout, caring nothing what an ill wind may be getting up for my flock. My neighbor may have a better patch of ground, men of lower birth may be growing rich over me. I will not fret myself into a crooked old man for that, nor dine without a bit of something nice, nor nose out a swindle in the imperfect seal of a flagon of flat wine (12-17).

How men differ in such matters! The very same horoscope may bring forth rights and lefts. Here is one that even on his birthday allows himself only the scantiest and meanest fare. Here is another that eats up, like a spirited lad as he is, a vast estate. For my part, ‘Enjoyment, enjoyment,’ is my motto, although I do not intend to treat my freedmen to turbots, and do not understand the difference between cock-ortolan and hen-ortolan after they are cooked (18-24).

Now this is the way to live, I take it. Up to your harvest, up to the last grain of your garners. What are you afraid of? It is a mere matter of harrowing, and lo! another crop is there (25, 26).

But you say, Mr. Critic, ‘There are claims on one. A friend is shipwrecked, the poor fellow is utterly ruined. One must do something for him.’

Well and good! Sell a piece of land, give the proceeds to the needy friend, and keep him from begging up and down with a pictorial appeal to the benevolent (27-33).

Ay, but what of the heir? He will dock the funeral meats, if you dock the estate. One, sure, would not be stenchful when one’s dead, and your bones will not be perfumed, or the perfumes will be stale or adulterated. One can not expect to diminish one’s property without paying for it. Why, I heard Bestius say of your Greek teachers, from whom you learned this precious wisdom of yours, that ever since this new doctrine came to town the very haymakers have been spoiling their good, wholesome fare by rancid grease.

Well, what of all this—the heir’s neglect and Bestius’s fault-finding—would you fear them beyond the grave? (34-41).

But come, my heir, let us dismiss the critic, and have a quiet chat together. Consider the claims on me. Here comes a glorious piece of news from the Emperor. The Germans have been defeated with great slaughter. A grand triumph is preparing. This is no time to hold back. I am going to bring out a hundred pairs of gladiators in honor of the occasion. Forbid it, if you dare. If you don’t like that, I am going to give largess to the people—none of your vile vetches, but oil and pasties. Do you object? Out with it (42-51).

What do you say? ‘My farm is hardly worth having after that.’ Well, if you don’t want it, I can get some of the women to take it; and if there is none of them left, I can go to the next village, and Hodge will accept. ‘A son of earth?’ you say; ‘a nobody?’ Pshaw! If you come to that, I can just remember who my great-great-grandfather was. Two generations further back and I come to a son of earth, a nobody, and Hodge is a relation—a distant relation, but still a relation—a kind of great-great-uncle. Believe me, the Lord No Zoo is father of us all (52-60).

You are an impatient heir, I must say. Why can’t you wait for my shoes until I take them off? I am the God of Fortune to you, just as he is painted in the pictures, with a purse in his hand. Will you take what I leave, and be glad to get it? It falls short; I know it does. But if I have lessened it, it is for myself that I have lessened it, and what is left is all yours. Don’t stop to ask about that old legacy, and serve up a stale dish of fatherly advice. I know how fathers talk. ‘Credit yourself by the interest. Debit yourself by the expenses. What is the remainder?’ Remainder? Fudge! Souse the cabbage, boy. Don’t spare the oil. Am I to dine off cow-heel and turnips on a holiday, that your graceless grandson may stuff himself with pâté de foie gras, and indulge himself in aristocratic connections? Am I to go through the eye of a cambric needle that he may have a priestly paunch? (61-74).

Furthermore, if you are not content with the little that I can leave you, sell your life for gain. Try every trade. Try every nook and corner of the earth. Go to Cappadocia, for instance, where you can make something by dealing in slaves, and become an adept in that dainty business. Double your capital. ‘I have done so. Nay, I have trebled it, quadrupled it, decupled it. Tell me where to draw the line.’ Tell you where to draw the line? Why, Chrysippus himself could not find the limit between wealth and poverty. A dollar more does not make a man rich, a dollar less does not make him poor. Where is the turning-point? And yet this man talks as if the turning-point had been found! (75-80.)

The Sixth Satire is the most obscure and unsatisfactory of the poems of Persius, and baffled interpreters have taken refuge in the hypothesis that the Satire is incomplete. The roughness of the metre and the harshness of the transitions favor this view; but parts are wrought out with all the minuteness of detail that is characteristic of our author’s style, and some of the highest authorities, such as Jahn, consider the Satire complete. The close, as Mr. Pretor remarks, is exactly in Persius’s manner, and we must look elsewhere in the Satire for the breaks—if breaks there be.

1-11. Are you spending the winter on your Sabine farm, Bassus, and have you resumed your poetry? I am in my Ligurian resort, so praised by Ennius.

2. tetrico: ‘austere.’—vivunt: Persius was thinking of Horace’s vivuntque commissi calores | Aeoliae fidibus puellae, Od., 4, 9, 11. 12. Iam vivunt, ‘wake to life’ (Pretor), where ‘wake’ represents iam. See note on 5, 33.

3. mire: is an Adjective or an Adverb, according as opifex is a Substantive or an Adjective.—opifex: Commentators supply es, but the Nom. can be used in characteristic exclamation. See G., 340, R. 1, and comp. 1, 5. With opifex intendisse comp. Prol., 11, and egregius lusispe below. For the Perf., see 1, 41, note.—veterum primordia vocum: Perhaps ‘the racy richness of our early tongue.’ Lucr. (4, 531) uses primordia vocum of the beginnings of articulate sound, as Quint., 1, 9, 1, uses dicendi primordia of instruction in the rudimentary preparation for rhetoric. Bassus, as the whole context shows, affected to belong to the antiquiores homines, and imitated the diction of an earlier time. Persius belongs to a different school of art, and his friendship makes him guarded. Jahn understands a grammatical poem, of which Lucilius furnishes a familiar example in his Ninth Book (see L. Müller’s Lucilius, p. 221), but, as Pretor remarks, numeris—marem strepitum fidis intendisse Latinae indicates lyric poetry.

(1.) Jahn reads in both editions (1843 and 1868) iocos and senes.

(2.) Hermann’s senex, the reading of Montepess., was enthusiastically advocated by Hermann himself.

(3.) Heinrich’s iocis has the merit of making a perfectly clear sense, and is accepted by Mr. Pretor.

(1.) If we read iocos with the MSS., iuvenes must be considered an Adjective, and iuvenes iocos = iuvenilis iocos. This almost compels us to make senes an Adjective also, and the following translation may be given: ‘Rare genius for carrying on the frolics of youth [in song], and for giving play with virtuous skill to the jests of the aged.’

(2.) Hermann’s reading labors under the difficulty of requiring us to understand senex of Bassus, who was not an old man at the time; but compare the note on praegrandi sene, 1, 124. Notice also the want of balance in the absolute lusisse. ‘Then showing yourself excellent in your old age at wakening young loves and frolicking over the chords with a virtuous touch’ (Conington). Iocus is often used of love. Comp. Catull., 8, 6: ibi illa multa tum iocosa fiebant.

(3.) Heinrich’s iocis gives us, ‘Rarely skilled to rally the young with jibe and jest and have a fling at old sinners, but all in high-bred style.’ Pollice honesto is the ingenuo ludo of 5, 16. Comp. also 2, 74: generoso honesto; and the honesta oratio of Ter., Andr., 1, 1, 114: quae opponitur plebeiae, as Gesner says, s.v. It is hardly necessary to say that the English language has no synonyme for honestus, which embraces the goodly outside as well as the pure heart.

Mr. Conington translates Hermann’s text and comments on Jahn’s. Lusisse senes he understands as amavisse senili more, the poet being said to do the deed he writes about, Verg., Ecl., 9, 19. It would be far more simple to make iocos senes = amores senilis, harsh as that would be. Old men’s philanderings are fair game for the satirist or comic poet to have his fling at (lusisse). Turpe senilis amor, as the master says, Ov., Am., 1, 9, 4. Compare the Casina of Plautus.—pollice: the cithern being played chiefly with the thumb.

6. lusisse: Comp. scit risisse, 1, 132.—mihi: The step-father of Persius probably had a seat there.

7. intepet: The warmth of the coast made it a favorite resort for invalids. It is not unlikely that Persius was a man of delicate constitution.—hibernat: According to some, ‘my sea winters,’ that is, ‘rests for the winter,’ is not vexed by the keels of ships (Schol.). According to others, ‘is wintry,’ like hiemat (the more common word in this sense). A stormy sea was supposed to lash itself warm. Jahn quotes, among other passages, Cic., N. D., 2, 10, 26: maria agitata ventis tepescunt.—meum: ‘my sea,’ ‘my favorite haunt.’ Some have inferred falsely from this passage that Luna was the birthplace of Persius.

8. latus dant: ‘present their giant side,’ ‘interpose a mighty barrier’ against the winds. Jahn comp. Verg., Aen., 1, 105: undis dat latus.—valle = sinu. The Abl. of manner may be translated locally; ‘into a deep bay’ (Conington).—se receptat: ‘retreats,’ ‘retires’ from the storms. So Horace (Od., 1, 17, 17; Epod., 2, 11) speaks of a reducta vallis. Jahn refers the frequentative to the windings of the bay. ‘Keeps retreating,’ ‘retreats further and further,’ might very well be said from the traveller’s point of view. The description of the harbor, now the Gulf of Spezia, is said to be very accurate.

9. Lunai portum, etc.: Ennius, Ann., v. 16 (Vahl.). Luna, from which the harbor took its name, was not on the gulf, but on the eastern side of the Macra (Magra), near the modern Sarzana.—est operae: Commonly explained by the ellipsis of pretium. But the Gen. is very elastic.—cognoscite: is easier in tone, cognoscere is easier for translation. cives: ‘good people all.’ Ger. Leutlein. Jahn notices the antiqua gramtas of civis.

11. Maeonides: poetic ‘flash-name,’ like the ‘Bard of Avon.’—Quintus: ‘plain Quintus’ (Gifford). The Scholiast fancies that quintus is a numeral, and gives the following order of transmigrations: 1. Pythagoras; 2. A peacock; 3. Euphorbus; 4. Homer. Tertullian gives: 1. Euphorbus; 2. Pythagoras; 3. Homer; 4. A peacock. The pun would be a wretched one, but that is no objection; more serious is the wrong use of the Preposition ex for ab. Heinrich combines confidently Maeonides Quintus, ‘Homer with a Roman praenomen.’ Conington follows doubtingly.—pavone: Memini me fiere pavum, Enn., Ann., v. 15 (Vahl.).—Pythagoreo: ‘Since Pythagoras’ time that I was an Irish rat,’ Shaksp.

12-17. Here I am in happy unconcern, caring naught for vulgar herd or threatened flock. I do not pine because my neighbor waxes fat. Let who will get up in the world; I won’t let my hair turn gray for that, nor stint myself, nor poke my nose into the wax of every jar of wine I open to see whether somebody has not been tampering with the seal.

12. securus: with Gen., Verg., Aen., 1, 350; 10, 326.—quid praeparet auster: Jahn comp. quid cogitet umidus auster, Verg., Georg., 1, 462; and 444: arboribusque satisque Notus pecorique sinister.

13. infelix: with Dat. Verg., Georg., 2, 239: tellus—infelix frugibus, quoted by Conington.—pecori: as it were, doubly dependent.—securus et: The trajection of et (1, 23) gives securus a better position.—angulus: as in O si angulus ille | proximus accedat, Hor., Sat., 2, 6, 8.

14. pinguior: Jahn quotes appositely for the thought, fertilior seges est alienis semper in agris, Ov., A. A., 1, 349. So Juv., 14, 142: maiorque videtur | et melior vicina seges.—adeo omnes: The emphasis of adeo may be given by repetition, all, ay, all. The supposition is an extreme one, hence the Subjunctive ditescant. Notice the harsh elision at this point, which is avoided by smoother writers. Persius has it fourteen times in all—eight times in this one Satire—which may be interpreted as an indication of its incompleteness.

16. curvus: ‘bent double.’—minui: ‘lose flesh’ (Conington).—senio: before my time. Comp. 1, 26.—uncto: synonymous with ‘dainty.’ Jahn comp. Hor., A. P., 422, and 3, 102; 4, 17.

17. signum tetigisse: Only good wines were sealed. The miser not only seals up his vile stuff, but, in his anxious scrutiny into the state of the seal, butts his nose against it—perhaps with the additional idea of helping the sense of sight with the sense of smell. Recusem tetigisse = nolim tetigisse. Comp. note on 1, 91.

18-24. Others may not agree with me in these views. Even twins born under the same star may be widely different. One gives himself a treat only on his birthday, and a poor treat it is. Another devours his substance before he comes of age. I am for enjoyment, but not for waste; for enjoyment, but not for a subtle discernment of the pleasures of the table.

18. his: On the Dat., see G., 388, R. 1; A., 51, 2, g. His is Neuter. ‘These views of mine.’—geminos: Comp. Hor., Ep., 2, 2, 183 seqq.—horoscope: ‘natal star,’ ‘star of nativity.’ Comp. note on 5, 46.—varo genio: ‘of diverging temper.’ Varus is often used of distorted, bowed legs, and varo genio is only Persius’s way of saying that the dispositions of twins often go apart.

21. sacrum: Acerbe dictum quia avarus tamquam sacro parcit (Jahn). Jahn compares ἅλς θεῖος, but has not overlooked the real point, as Mr. Pretor intimates.—inrorans: Comp. instillat in a similar description of a miser (Avidienus), in Hor., Sat., 2, 2, 62.—dente peragit: ‘gobbles up’ (Conington). Peragere, ‘go through,’ ‘run through.’

22. magnanimus: Ironical, like Hor., Ep., 1, 15, 27: rebus maternis atque paternis | fortiter absumptis. ‘High-hearted hero.’—puer: while a mere lad. ‘Gifford notices the rapidity of the metre, and contrasts it with the slowness of v. 20.’ It would have been more to the purpose if he had noticed the mockery of the position, which suspends the sense. ‘He—his property—with nothing but his teeth—his vast estate—heroic being—runs through—while nothing but a boy.’

23. rhombos: It suffices to refer to Juv., Sat., 4.—ponere: 1, 53. For the construction, see Prol., 11.

24. tenuis—salivas: ‘delicate juices,’ ‘subtle flavors.’ Saliva = sapor, as in Plin., H. N., 22, 1, 22: sua cuique vino saliva, by a natural transfer from the consumer to the consumed; or, as Conington puts it, from effect to cause. See 5, 112.—sollers nosse: Prol., 11.—turdarum: ‘thrushes,’ ‘fieldfares,’ a well-known delicacy, Hor., Sat., 2, 5, 10; Ep., 1, 15, 41. The Scholiast tells us that the feminine is used for the ordinary masculine, because the Brillat-Savarins of the period undertook to tell the sex by the taste. The difference between turdorum and turdarum reminds one of ‘calipash’ and ‘calipee.’

25-33. The true course is to live fully up to your income and trust to the next crop. ‘But suppose an extraordinary demand is made on you. Suppose a friend is shipwrecked.’ What easier than to sell a piece of land and relieve his wants?

26. emole: to the last grain.—occa: Comp. Hor., Ep., 2, 2, 161: cum segetes occat tibi mox frumenta daturas.—in herba: ‘in the blade.’ Ov., Her., 17, 263: adhuc tua messis in herba est. Have something of the farmer’s hopeful spirit. Comp. the Gr. proverb: ἀεὶ γεωργὸς εἰς νέωτα πλούσιος.

27. ast: 2, 39. An impersonal objector speaks.—officium = τὸ καθῆκον, which embraces our charity. The Stoics insisted on χρηστότης, without prejudice to ἀπάθεια. They wanted benevolentia without misericordia. See Knickenberg, l.c. p. 90. The poet gets the better of the philosopher in Persius.—trabe rupta: Comp. 1, 89.—Bruttia saxa: In the toe of the Italian boot.

28. prendit: Casaubon comp. prensantemque uncis manibus capita aspera montis, Verg., Aen., 6, 360 (of Palinurus).—surdaque vota: Surdus is ‘dull of hearing’ and ‘dull of sound,’ ‘deaf,’ and, as here, ‘unheard,’ Comp. κωφός, The radical is SVAR, ‘heavy;’ ‘neither his ear heavy that it can not hear.’

29. Ionio: sc. sinu, if we may judge by Juv., 6, 92: lateque sonantem pertulit Ionium. Gr. Ἰόνιος κόλπος. Comp. Thuc., 1, 24 with 6, 30. It is used here in a wide sense, as is shown by Bruttia saxa, v. 27. Comp. Serv. ad Aen., 3, 211: sciendum Ionium sinum esse immensum ab Ionia usque ad Siciliam. On the translation and construction of Ionio, see note on Prol., 1.—ipse: the master of the vessel. G., 297, R. 1.

31. lacerae: Conington comp. Ov., Her., 2, 45: at laceras etiam puppes furiosa refeci.—et: καί, ‘if need be.’—caespite vivo: Comp. Hor., Od., 1, 19, 13; 3, 8, 4; ‘live sod,’ ‘green turf.’ Here landed property is meant, in contrast to the income, represented by the messis.

32. pictus: See note on 1, 89. ‘With his picture’ (Conington).—oberret: ‘go up and down the country.’—tabula caerulea: ‘a sea-green board,’ as might be expected from the subject.

33-41. ‘But,’ resumes the interlocutor, ‘your heir will object to your curtailing your property, and not show you the proper respect when you are dead. You can’t expect to diminish your property without scath. And, in fact, you philosophers are very much spoken against on account of the bad example you set, the bad influence you have exerted on the common people.’—Well, what of it? Would you care any thing about what was done to you or said of you after you are dead?

The connection is much disputed.

34. curtaveris: G., 542; A., 70, 5, b.—urnae: Do not efface the personal conception (G., 344, R. 3; A., 51, N.) by translating ‘put into.’ The urn receives; hence dabit = ‘commit,’ ‘consign.’

36. ceraso: This passage is our only authority for the fraudulent admixture. Tr., ‘whether the cinnamon have lost the fragrance of its breath, or cassia be taken in adulteration with cherry-bark.’—nescire puratus: here ‘fully resolved,’ rather than as in 1, 132.

37. tune bona incolumis minuas: In his ed. of 1868 Jahn has followed Sinner’s suggestion, and transposed parts of vv. 37 and 41, so as to read Haec cinere ulterior metuas here, and Tune bona incolumis minuas below, as Hermann had done before him, only Hermann puts the words in the mouth, not of the objector, but of Persius. I am unable to see how either arrangement helps us out of the difficulties of the passage. In his ed. of 1843, Jahn makes tune bona incolumis minuas? the language of the heir, who asks angrily, ‘Do you expect to diminish your property without suffering for it?’ It is rather the language of the objector, who had just told Persius that he would miss a good funeral by curtailing his estate, and who goes on to cite Bestius, as another opponent of this new-fangled philosophy. Persius dismisses this tirade by the single question: ‘What would all this be to you or me after we are dead?’ This gets rid of Bestius as a new speaker. He is quoted by the objector. Mr. Pretor translates: ‘Do you mean to say, Persius, that you would thus break up your property, while hearty and strong, instead of waiting to bequeath it by will on your death-bed?’—incolumis: χαίρων, impune.—et: Others besides the heir are dissatisfied.—Bestius: the corrector Bestius of Hor., Ep., 1, 15, 37, who is quoted here by the opponent of Persius, as inveighing against doctrines that have taught the lower classes to waste their substance on condiments and spoil their wholesome fare, after the pattern of such gentlemen as Persius. Comp. usque recusem—cenare sine uncto, v. 16, and ungue, puer, caules, v. 69.

38. doctores Graios: Comp. 5, 191.—Ita fit: ‘That is the way of it.’—sapere nostrum: 1, 9.—urbi: with venit. Venire with the Dat., like the Greek ἐλθεῖν, on account of the personal interest involved, ‘came’ being = ‘was brought,’ allatum est. See Kühner, A. G., 2, 351, and Weissenborn on Liv., 32, 6, 4.

39. cum pipere et palmis: notoriously foreign productions. Comp. advectus Romam quo pruna et cottona vento, Juv., 3, 83. Palmis = ‘dates.’—nostrum hoc: ‘this new wisdom of our day.’—maris expers: Hor., Sat., 2, 8, 15: Chium maris expers. The explanations are by no means convincing. Maris expers. (1) Not mixed with salt water, which was supposed to be wholesome, as in Horace, l.c. (2) insulum, Heinr., the most simple, ‘foolish philosophy,’ ‘insipid sapience.’ (3) Devoid of manliness (Casaubon). Comp. 1, 103, 104, in which case maris would be a pun, as there is an evident Horatian reminiscence. See Introd., xxiii. But the Horatian passage is itself variously interpreted. (4) The rendering, ‘innocent of the sea,’ i.e., ‘home-grown,’ is in manifest contradiction to the drift of the passage.

41. cinere ulterior: ‘when you are the other side of the grave’ (comp. 5, 152); περαιτέρω κόνεως (Casaubon).

41-60. Persius turns on his heir: ‘Glorious news has come of a great victory. I wish to celebrate it by games—by largess. Will you forbid it? If you don’t want what is left, let it alone. I can get somebody to take it—some beggar, perhaps, related to me through that son of earth, Adam.’