JUVENAL'S SATIRES. (continued 3)
Lewis Evans translation
Every club,[688] the baths, every knot of loungers, every theatre,[689] is full of Rutilus. For while his sturdy and youthful limbs are fit to bear arms,[690] and while he is hot in blood, he is driven[691] (not indeed forced to it, but unchecked by the tribune) to copy out[692] the instructions and imperial commands of the trainer of gladiators. Moreover, you see many whom their creditor, often cheated of his money, is wont to look out for at the very entrance of the market;[693] and whose inducement to live exists in their palate alone. The greatest wretch among these, one who must soon fail, since his ruin is already as clear[694] as day, sups the more extravagantly and the more splendidly. Meanwhile they ransack all the elements for dainties;[695] the price never standing in the way of their gratification. If you look more closely into it, those please the more which are bought for more. Therefore they have no scruple[696] in borrowing a sum, soon to be squandered, by pawning[697] their plate, or the broken[698] image of their mother; and, with the 400[699] sesterces, seasoning an earthen[700] dish to tickle their palate. Thus they are reduced to the hotch-potch[701] of the gladiator.
It makes therefore all the difference who it is that procures these same things. For in Rutilus it is luxurious extravagance. In Ventidius it takes a praiseworthy name, and derives credit from his fortune.
I should with reason despise the man who knows how much more lofty Atlas is than all the mountains in Libya, yet this very man knows not how much a little purse differs from an iron-bound chest.[702] "Know thyself," came down from heaven:[703] a proverb to be implanted and cherished in the memory, whether you are about to contract matrimony,[704] or wish to be in a part of the sacred[705] senate:—(for not even Thersites[706] is a candidate for the breast-plate of Achilles: in which Ulysses exhibited himself in a doubtful character:[707])—or whether you take upon yourself to defend a cause of great moment. Consult your own powers; tell yourself who you are; whether you are a powerful orator, or like a Curtius, or a Matho,[708] mere spouters.
One must know one's own measure, and keep it in view, in the greatest and in most trifling matters; even when a fish is to be bought. Do not long for a mullet,[709] when you have only a gudgeon in your purse. For what end awaits you, as your purse[710] fails and your gluttony increases: when your patrimony and whole fortune is squandered[711] upon your belly, what can hold your money out at interest, your solid plate, your flocks, and lands?
By such proprietors as these, last of all[712] the ring is parted with, and Pollio[713] begs with his finger bare. It is not the premature funeral pile, or the grave, that is luxury's horror, but old age,[714] more to be dreaded than death itself. These are most commonly the steps: money, borrowed at Rome, is spent before the very owners' faces; then when some trifling residue is left, and the lender of the money is growing pale, they give leg-bail[715] and run to Baiæ and Ostia. For now-a-days to quit the forum[716] is not more discreditable to you than to remove to Esquiline from hot[717] Suburra. This is the only pain that they who flee their country feel, this their only sorrow, to have lost the Circensian games[718] for one[719] year. Not a drop of blood remains in their face; few attempt to detain modesty, now become an object of ridicule and fleeing from the city.
You shall prove to-day by your own experience, Persicus, whether all these things, which are very fine to talk about, I do not practice in my life, in my moral conduct, and in reality: but praise vegetables,[720] while in secret I am a glutton: in others' hearing bid my slave bring me water-gruel,[721] but whisper "cheese-cakes" in his ear. For since you are my promised guest, you shall find me an Evander:[722] you shall come as the Tirynthian, or the guest, inferior indeed to him, and yet himself akin by blood to heaven: the one sent to the skies by water,[723] the other by fire.
From my farm at Tibur there shall come a little kid, the fattest and tenderest of the whole flock, ignorant of the taste of grass, that has never yet ventured to browse even on the low twigs of the willow-bed, and that has more milk than blood in his veins: and asparagus[726] from the mountains, which my bailiff's wife, having laid down her spindle, gathered. Some huge eggs besides, and still warm in their twisted hay, shall be served up together with the hens themselves: and grapes kept a portion of the year, just as they were when fresh upon the vines: pears from Signia[727] and Syria: and, from the same basket, apples rivaling those of Picenum,[728] and smelling quite fresh; that you need not be afraid of, since they have lost their autumnal moisture, which has been dried up by cold, and the dangers to be feared from their juice if crude. This would in times gone by have been a luxurious supper for our senate. Curius[729] with his own hands used to cook over his little fire pot-herbs which he had gathered in his little garden: such herbs as now the foul digger in his heavy chain rejects with scorn, who remembers the flavor of the vile dainties[730] of the reeking cook-shop. It was the custom formerly to keep against festival days the flitches of the smoked swine, hanging from the wide-barred rack, and to set bacon as a birthday treat before one's relations, with the addition of some fresh meat, if a sacrificial victim furnished any. Some one of the kin, with the title of "Thrice consul," that had held command in camps, and discharged the dignity of dictator, used to go earlier[731] than his wont to such a feast as this, bearing his spade over his shoulder from the mountain he had been digging on. But when men trembled at the Fabii,[732] and the stern Cato, and the Scauri and Fabricii;[733] and when, in fine, even his colleague stood in dread of the severe character of the strict Censor; no one thought it was a matter of anxiety or serious concern what kind of tortoise[734] floated in the wave of ocean, destined to form a splendid and noble couch for the Trojugenæ. But with side devoid of ornament, and sofas of diminutive size, the brazen front displayed the mean head of an ass wearing a chaplet,[735] at which the country lads laughed in wantonness.
The food then was in keeping with the master of the house and the furniture. Then the soldier, uncivilized, and too ignorant[736] to admire the arts of Greece, used to break up the drinking-cups, the work of some renowned artists, which he found in his share of the booty when cities were overthrown, that his horse might exult in trappings,[737] and his embossed helmet might display to his enemy on the point of perishing, likenesses of the Romulean wild beast bidden to grow tame by the destiny of the empire, and the twin Quirini beneath the rock, and the naked image of the god coming down[738] with buckler and spear, and impending over him. Whatever silver he possessed glittered on his arms[739] alone. In those days, then, they used to serve all their furmety in a dish of Tuscan earthenware: which you may envy, if you are at all that way inclined.[740]
The majesty of temples also was more evidently near[741] to men, and a voice[742] heard about midnight and through the midst of the city, when the Gauls were coming from the shore of ocean, and the gods discharged the functions of a prophet, warned us of these.
This was the care which Jupiter used to show for the affairs of Latium, when made of earthenware,[743] and as yet profaned by no gold. Those days saw tables made of wood grown at home and from our native trees.[744] To these uses was the timber applied, if the east wind had chanced to lay prostrate some old walnut-tree. But now the rich have no satisfaction in their dinner, the turbot and the venison lose their flavor, perfumes and roses seem to lose their smell, unless the broad circumference of the table is supported by a huge mass of ivory, and a tall leopard with wide-gaping jaws, made of those tusks, which the gate of Syene[745] transmits, and the active Moors, and the Indian of duskier hue than the Moor;[746] and which the huge beast has deposited in some Nabathæan[747] glen, as now grown too weighty and burdensome to his head: by this their appetite[748] is whetted: hence their stomach acquires its vigor. For a leg of a table made only of silver is to them what an iron ring on their finger would be: I therefore cautiously avoid a proud guest, who compares me with himself, and looks with scorn on my paltry estate. Consequently I do not possess a single ounce of ivory: neither my chess-board[749] nor my men are of this material; nay, the very handles of my knives are of bone. Yet my viands never become rank in flavor by these, nor does my pullet cut up the worse on that account. Nor yet will you see a carver, to whom the whole carving-school[750] ought to yield the palm, some pupil of the professor Trypherus, at whose house the hare, with the large sow's udders,[751] and the wild boar, and the roebuck,[752] and pheasants,[753] and the huge flamingo,[754] and the wild goat[755] of Gætulia, all forming a most splendid supper, though made of elm, are carved with the blunted knife, and resounds through the whole Suburra. My little fellow, who is a novice, and uneducated all his days, does not know how to take dexterously off a slice of roe, or the wing of a Guinea-hen;[756] only versed in the mysteries of carving the fragments of a small collop.[757]
My slave, who is not gayly dressed, and only clad so as to protect him from cold, will hand you plebeian cups[758] bought for a few pence. He is no Phrygian or Lycian, or one purchased from the slave-dealer[759] and at great price. When you ask for any thing, ask in Latin. They have all the same style of dress; their hair close-cropped and straight, and only combed to-day on account of company. One is the son of a hardy shepherd, another of a neat-herd: he sighs after his mother, whom he has not seen for a long time, and pines for his hovel[760] and his playmate kids. A lad of ingenuous face, and ingenuous modesty; such as those ought to be who are clothed in brilliant purple. He shall hand you wine[761] made on those very hills from which he himself comes, and under whose summit he has played; for the country of the wine and the attendant is one and the same.
Gambling is disgraceful, and so is adultery, in men of moderate means. Yet when rich men commit all those abominations, they are called jovial, splendid fellows. Our banquet to-day will furnish far different amusements. The author of the Iliad[762] shall be recited, and the verses of high-sounding Mars, that render the palm doubtful. What matter is it with what voice such noble verses are read?[763] But now having put off all your cares, lay aside business, and allow yourself a pleasing respite, since you will have it in your power to be idle all day long. Let there be no mention of money out at interest. Nor if your wife is accustomed to go out at break of day and return at night, let her stir up your bile,[764] though you hold your tongue. Divest yourself at once of all that annoys you, at my threshold. Banish all thoughts of home and servants, and all that is broken and wasted[765] by them—especially forget ungrateful friends! Meantime, the spectacles of the Megalesian towel[766] grace the Idæan solemnity: and, like one in a triumph, the prey of horses, the prætor, sits: and, if I may say so without offense to the immense and overgrown crowd, the circus to-day incloses the whole of Rome;[767] and a din reaches my ears, from which I infer the success of the green faction.[768] For should it not win, you would see this city in mourning and amazement, as when the consuls were conquered in the dust[769] of Cannæ. Let young men be spectators of these, in whom shouting and bold betting, and sitting by a trim damsel is becoming. Let our skin,[770] which is wrinkled with age, imbibe the vernal sun and avoid the toga'd crowd. Even now, though it wants a whole hour to the sixth, you may go to the bath with unblushing brow. You could not do this for five successive days; because even of such a life as this there would be great weariness. It is a more moderate use[771] that enhances pleasures.
FOOTNOTES:
SATIRE XII.
This day, Corvinus, is a more joyful one to me than even my own birthday;[772] in which the festal altar of turf[773] awaits the animals promised to the gods.
To the queen of the gods we sacrifice a snow-white[774] lamb: a similar fleece shall be given to her that combated the Mauritanian Gorgon.[775] But the victim reserved for Tarpeian Jupiter, shakes, in his wantonness, his long-stretched[776] rope, and brandishes his forehead. Since he is a sturdy calf; ripe for the temple and the altar, and ready to be sprinkled with wine; ashamed any longer to drain his mother's[777] teats, and butts the oaks with his sprouting horn.[778] Had I an ample fortune, and equal to my wishes, a bull fatter than Hispulla,[779] and slow-paced from his very bulk, should be led to sacrifice, and one not fed in a neighboring pasture; but his blood should flow, giving evidence of the rich pastures of Clitumnus,[780] and with a neck that must be struck by a ministering priest of great strength, to do honor to the return of my friend who is still trembling, and has recently endured great horrors, and wonders to find himself safe.
For besides the dangers of the sea, and the stroke of the lightning which he escaped, thick darkness obscured the sky in one huge cloud, and a sudden thunder-bolt struck the yard-arms, while every one fancied he was struck by it, and at once, amazed, thought that no shipwreck could be compared in horror with a ship on fire.[781] For all things happen so, and with such horrors accompanying, when a storm arises in poetry.[782]
Now here follows another sort of danger. Hear, and pity him a second time; although the rest is all of the same description. Yet it is a very dreadful part, and one well known to many, as full many a temple testifies with its votive picture. (Who does not know that painters[783] are maintained by Isis?) A similar fortune befell our friend Catullus also: when the hold was half full of water, and when the waves heaved up each side alternately of the laboring ship, and the skill of the hoary pilot could render no service, he began to compound with the winds by throwing overboard, imitating the beaver who makes a eunuch[784] of himself, hoping to get off by the sacrifice of his testicles; so well does he know their medicinal properties. "Throw overboard all that belongs to me, the whole of it!" cried Catullus, eager to throw over even his most beautiful things—a robe of purple fit even for luxurious Mæcenases, and others whose very fleece the quality of the generous pasture has tinged, moreover the exquisite water with its hidden properties, and the atmosphere of Bætica[785] contributes to enhance its beauty. He did not hesitate to cast overboard even his plate, salvers the workmanship of Parthenius, a bowl[786] that would hold three gallons, and worthy of Pholus when thirsty, or even the wife of Fuscus.[787] Add to these bascaudæ,[788] and a thousand chargers, a quantity of embletic work, out of which the cunning purchaser of Olynthus[789] had drunk. But what other man in these days, or in what quarter of the globe, has the courage to prefer his life to his money, and his safety to his property? Some men do not make fortunes for the sake of living, but, blinded by avarice, live for the sake of money-getting. The greatest part even of necessaries is thrown overboard: but not even do these sacrifices relieve the ship—then, in the urgency of the peril, it came to such a pitch that he yielded his mast to the hatchet, and rights himself at last, though in a crippled state. Since this is the last resource in danger we apply, to make the ship lighter.
Go now, and commit your life to the mercy of the winds; trusting to a hewn plank, with but four digits[790] between you and death, or seven at most, if the deal is of the thickest. And then together with your provision-baskets and bread and wide-bellied flagon,[791] look well that you lay in hatchets,[792] to be brought into use in storms.
But when the sea subsided into calm, and the state of affairs was more propitious to the mariner, and his destiny prevailed over Eurus and the sea, when now the cheerful Parcæ draw kindlier tasks with benign hand, and spin white wool,[793] and what wind there is, is not much stronger than a moderate breeze, the wretched bark, with a poor make-shift, ran before it, with the sailors' clothes spread out, and with its only sail that remained: when now the south wind subsided, together with the sun hope of life returned. Then the tall peak beloved by Iulus, and preferred as a home by him to Lavinium,[794] his stepmother's seat, comes in sight; to which the white sow[795] gave its name—(an udder that excited the astonishment of the gladdened Phrygians)—illustrious from what had never been seen before, thirty paps. At length he enters the moles,[796] built through the waters inclosed within them, and the Pharos of Tuscany, and the arms extending back, which jut out into the middle of the sea, and leave Italy far behind. You would not bestow such admiration on the harbor which nature formed: but with damaged bark, the master steers for the inner smooth waters of the safe haven, which even a pinnace of Baiæ could cross; and there with shaven crowns[797] the sailors, now relieved from anxiety, delight to recount their perils that form the subject of their prating.
Go then, boys, favoring with tongues and minds,[798] and place garlands in the temples, and meal on the sacrificial knives, and decorate the soft hearths and green turf-altar. I will follow shortly, and the sacrifice which is most important[799] having been duly performed, I will then return home, where my little images, shining in frail wax, shall receive their slender chaplets. Here I will propitiate[800] my own Jove, and offer incense to my hereditary Lares,[801] and will display all colors of the violet. All things are gay; my gateway has set up long branches,[802] and celebrates the festivities[803] with lamps lighted in the morning.
Nor let these things be suspected by you, Corvinus. Catullus, for whose safe return I erect so many altars, has three little heirs. You may wait long enough for a man that would expend even a sick hen at the point of death for so unprofitable a friend. But even this is too great an outlay. Not even a quail will ever be sacrificed in behalf of one who is a father. If rich Gallita[804] and Paccius, who have no children, begin to feel the approach of fever, every temple-porch is covered with votive tablets,[805] affixed according to due custom. There are some who would even promise a hecatomb[806] of oxen. Since elephants are not to be bought here or in Latium, nor is there any where in our climate such a large beast generated; but, fetched from the dusky nation, they are fed in the Rutulian forests, and the field of Turnus, as the herd of Cæsar, prepared to serve no private individual, since their ancestors used to obey Tyrian Hannibal, and our own generals,[807] and the Molossian king, and to bear on their backs cohorts—no mean portion of the war—and a tower that went into battle. It is no fault, consequently, of Novius, or of Ister Pacuvius,[808] that that ivory is not led to the altars, and falls a sacred victim before the Lares of Gallita, worthy of such great gods, and those that court their favor! One of these two fellows, if you would give him license to perform the sacrifice, would vow the tallest or all the most beautiful persons among his flock of slaves, or place sacrificial fillets on his boys and the brows of his female slaves. And if he has any Iphigenia[809] at home of marriageable age, he will offer her at the altars, though he can not hope for the furtive substitution of the hind of the tragic poets. I commend my fellow-citizen, and do not compare a thousand[810] ships to a will; for if the sick man shall escape Libitina,[811] he will cancel his former will, entangled in the meshes of the act,[812] after a service so truly wonderful: and perhaps in one short line will give his all to Pacuvius as sole[813] heir. Proudly will he strut over his defeated rivals. You see, therefore, what a great recompense the slaughtered Mycenian maid earns.
Long live Pacuvius, I pray, even to the full age of Nestor.[814] Let him own as much as ever Nero plundered,[815] let him pile his gold mountains high, and let him love no one,[816] and be loved by none.
FOOTNOTES:
SATIRE XIII.
Every act that is perpetrated, that will furnish a precedent for crime, is loathsome[817] even to the author himself. This is the punishment that first lights upon him, that by the verdict[818] of his own breast no guilty man is acquitted; though the corrupt influence of the prætor may have made his cause prevail, by the urn[819] being tampered with. What think you, Calvinus,[820] is the opinion of all men touching the recent villainy, and the charge you bring of breach of trust? But it is your good fortune not to have so slender an income, that the weight of a trifling loss can plunge you into ruin; nor is what you are suffering from an unfrequent occurrence. This is a case well known to many—worn threadbare—drawn from the middle of fortune's heap.[821]
Let us, then, lay aside all excessive complaints. A man's grief ought not to blaze forth beyond the proper bounds, nor exceed the loss sustained. Whereas you can scarcely bear even the very least diminutive particle of misfortune, however trifling, boiling with rage in your very bowels because your friend does not restore to you the deposit he swore to return. Can he be amazed at this, that has left threescore years behind him, born when Fonteius was consul?[822] Have you gained[823] nothing by such long experience of the world? Noble indeed are the precepts which philosophy, that triumphs over fortune, lays down in her books of sacred wisdom. Yet we deem those happy too who, with daily life[824] for their instructress, have learned to endure with patience the inconveniences of life, and not shake off the yoke.[825]
What day is there so holy that is not profaned by bringing to light theft, treachery, fraud—filthy lucre got by crime of every dye, and money won by stabbing or by poison?[826] Since rare indeed are the good! their number is scarce so many as the gates of Thebes,[827] or the mouths of fertilizing Nile. We are now passing through the ninth age of the world: an era far worse than the days of Iron; for whose villainy not even Nature herself can find a name, and has no metal[828] base enough to call it by. Yet we call heaven and earth to witness, with a shout as loud as that with which the Sportula,[829] that gives them tongues, makes his clients applaud Fæsidius as he pleads. Tell me, thou man of many years, and yet more fit to bear the boss[830] of childhood, dost thou not know the charms that belong to another's money? Knowest thou not what a laugh thy simplicity would raise in the common herd, for expecting that no man should forswear himself, but should believe some deity is[831] really present in the temples and at the altars red with blood? In days of old the aborigines perhaps used to live after this fashion: before Saturn in his flight laid down his diadem, and adopted the rustic sickle: in the days when Juno was a little maid; and Jupiter as yet in a private[832] station in the caves of Ida: no banquetings of the celestials above the clouds, no Trojan boy or beauteous wife of Hercules as cup-bearer; or Vulcan (but not till he had drained the nectar) wiping[833] his arms begrimed with his forge in Lipara. Then each godship dined alone; nor was the crowd of deities so great[834] as it is now-a-days: and the heavens, content with a few divinities, pressed on the wretched Atlas with less grievous weight. No one had as yet received as his share the gloomy empire of the deep: nor was there the grim[835] Pluto with his Sicilian bride, nor Ixion's wheel, nor the Furies, nor Sisyphus' stone, nor the punishment of the black vulture,[836] but the shades passed jocund days with no infernal king.
In that age villainy was a prodigy! They used to hold it as a heinous sin, that naught but death could expiate, if a young man had not risen up to pay honor to an old one,[837] or a boy to one whose beard was grown; even though he himself gloated over more strawberries at home, or a bigger pile of acorns.[838]
So just a claim to deference had even four years' priority; so much on a par with venerated old age was the first dawn of youth! Now, if a friend should not deny the deposit[839] intrusted to him, if he should give back the old leathern purse with all its rusty[840] coin untouched, it is a prodigy of honesty, equivalent to a miracle,[841] fit to be entered among the marvels in the Tuscan records,[842] and that ought to be expiated by a lamb crowned for sacrifice.[843] If I see a man above the common herd, of real probity, I look upon him as a prodigy equal to a child born half man, half brute;[844] or a shoal of fish turned up by the astonished[845] plow; or a mule[846] with foal! in trepidation as great as though the storm-cloud had rained stones;[847] or a swarm of bees[848] had settled in long cluster from some temple's top; as though a river had flowed into the ocean with unnatural eddies,[849] and rushing impetuous with a stream of milk.
Do you complain of being defrauded of ten sestertia by impious fraud? What if another has lost in the same way two hundred, deposited without a witness![850] and a third a still larger sum than that, such as the corner of his capacious strong-box could hardly contain! So easy and so natural is it to despise the gods above,[851] that witness all, if no mortal man attest the same! See with how bold a voice he denies it! What unshaken firmness in the face he puts on! He swears by the sun's rays, by the thunderbolts of Tarpeian Jove, the glaive of Mars, the darts of the prophet-god of Cirrha,[852] by the arrows and quiver of the Virgin Huntress, and by thy trident, O Neptune, father of the Ægæan! He adds the bow of Hercules, Minerva's spear, and all the weapons that the arsenals of heaven hold.[853] But if he be a father also, he says, "I am ready to eat my wretched son's head boiled, swimming in vinegar from Pharos."[854]
There are some who refer all things to the accidents of fortune,[855] and believe the universe moves on with none to guide its course; while nature brings round the revolutions of days and years. And therefore, without a tremor, are ready to lay their hands[856] on any altar. Another does indeed dread that punishment will follow crime; he thinks the gods do exist. Still he perjures himself, and reasons thus with himself: "Let Isis[857] pass whatever sentence she pleases upon my body, and strike my eyes with her angry Sistrum, provided only that when blind I may retain the money I disown. Are consumption, or ulcerous sores, or a leg shriveled to half its bulk, such mighty matters? If Ladas[858] be poor, let him not hesitate to wish for gout that waits on wealth, if he is not mad enough to require Anticyra[859] or Archigenes.[860] For what avails the honor of his nimble feet, or the hungry branch of Pisa's olive? All-powerful though it be, that anger of the gods, yet surely it is slow-paced! If, therefore, they set themselves to punish all the guilty, when will they come to me? Besides, I may perchance discover that the deity may be appeased by prayers! "It is not unusual with him to pardon[861] such perjuries as these. Many commit the same crimes with results widely different. One man receives crucifixion[862] as the reward of his villainy; another, a regal crown!"
Thus they harden their minds, agitated by terror inspired by some heinous crime. Then, when you summon him to swear on the sacred shrine, he will go first![863] Nay, he is quite ready to drag you there himself, and worry you to put him to this test. For when a wicked cause is backed by impudence, it is believed by many to be the confidence[864] of innocence. He acts as good a farce as the runaway slave, the buffoon in Catullus'[865] Vision! You, poor wretch, cry out so as to exceed Stentor,[866] or, rather, as loudly as Gradivus[867] in Homer: "Hearest thou[868] this, great Jove, and openest not thy lips, when thou oughtest surely to give vent to some word, even though formed of marble or of brass? Or, why then do we place on thy glowing altar the pious[869] frankincense from the wrapper undone, and the liver of a calf cut up, and the white caul of a hog?[870] As far as I see, there is no difference to be made between your image and the statue of Vagellius!"[871]
Now listen to what consolation on the other hand he can offer, who has neither studied the Cynics, nor the doctrines of the Stoics, that differ from the Cynics only by a tunic,[872] and pays no veneration to Epicurus,[873] that delighted in the plants of his diminutive garden. Let patients whose cases are desperate be tended by more skillful physicians; you may trust your vein even to Philippus' apprentice. If you can show me no act so heinous in the whole wide world, then, I hold my tongue; nor forbid you to beat your breast with your fists, nor thump your face with open palm. For, since you really have sustained loss, your doors must be closed; and money is bewailed with louder lamentations from the household, and with greater tumult,[874] than deaths. No one, in such a case, counterfeits sorrow; or is content with merely stripping[875] down the top of his garment, and vexing his eyes for forced rheum.[876] The loss of money is deplored with genuine tears.
But if you see all the courts filled with similar complaints, if, after the deeds have been read ten times over, and each time in a different quarter,[877] though their own handwriting,[878] and their principal signet-ring,[879] that is kept so carefully in its ivory casket, convicts them, they call the signature a forgery and the deed not valid; do you think that you, my fine fellow, are to be placed without the common pale? What makes you the chick of a white hen, while we are a worthless brood, hatched from unlucky eggs? What you suffer is a trifle; a thing to be endured with moderate choler, if you but turn your eyes to crimes of blacker dye. Compare with it the hired assassin, fires that originate from the sulphur of incendiaries,[880] when your outer gate is the first part that catches fire. Compare those who carry off the ancient temple's massive cups,[881] incrusted with venerable rust—the gifts of nations; or, crowns[882] deposited there by some king of ancient days. If these are not to be had, there comes some sacrilegious wretch that strikes at meaner prey; who will scrape the thigh of Hercules incased in gold, and Neptune's face itself, and strip off from Castor his leaf-gold. Will he, forsooth, hesitate, that is wont to melt down whole the Thunderer[883] himself? Compare, too, the compounders and venders of poisons;[884] or him that ought to be launched into the sea in an ox's hide,[885] with whom the ape,[886] herself innocent, is shut up, through her unlucky stars. How small a portion is this of the crimes which Gallicus,[887] the city's guardian, listens to from break of day to the setting of the sun! Would you study the morals of the human race, one house is quite enough. Spend but a few days there, and when you come out thence, call yourself, if you dare, a miserable man!
Who is astonished at a goitred throat[888] on the Alps? or who, in Meroë,[889] at the mother's breast bigger than her chubby infant? Who is amazed at the German's[890] fierce gray eyes, or his flaxen hair with moistened ringlets twisted into horns? Simply because, in these cases, one and all are alike by nature.
The pigmy[891] warrior in his puny panoply charges the swooping birds of Thrace, and the cloud that resounds with the clang of cranes. Soon, no match for his foe, he is snatched away by the curved talons, and borne off through the sky by the fierce crane. If you were to see this in our country, you would be convulsed with laughter: but there, though battles of this kind are sights of every day, no one even smiles, where the whole regiment is not more than a foot high.
"And is there, then, to be no punishment at all for this perjured wretch and his atrocious villainy?"
Well, suppose him hurried away at once, loaded with double irons, and put to death in any way our wrath dictates (and what could revenge wish for more?) still your loss remains the same, your deposit will not be refunded! "But the least drop of blood from his mangled body will give me a consolation that might well be envied. Revenge is a blessing, sweeter than life itself!" Yes! so fools think, whose breasts you may see burning with anger for trivial causes, sometimes for none at all. How small soever the occasion be, it is matter enough for their wrath. Chrysippus[892] will not hold the same language, nor the gentle spirit of Thales, or that old man that lived by sweet Hymettus'[893] hill, who, even amid those cruel bonds, would not have given his accuser one drop of the hemlock[894] he received at his hands!
Philosophy, blessed[895] power! strips us by degrees of full many a vice and every error! She is the first to teach us what is right. Since revenge is ever the pleasure of a paltry spirit, a weak and abject mind! Draw this conclusion at once from the fact, that no one delights in revenge more than a woman!
Yet, why should you deem those to have escaped scot-free whom their mind,[896] laden with a sense of guilt, keeps in constant terror, and lashes with a viewless thong! Conscience, as their tormentor, brandishing a scourge unseen by human eyes! Nay! awful indeed is their punishment, and far more terrible even than those which the sanguinary Cæditius[897] invents, or Rhadamanthus! in bearing night and day in one's own breast a witness against one's self.
The Pythian priestess gave answer to a certain Spartan,[898] that in time to come he should not go unpunished, because he hesitated as to retaining a deposit, and supporting his villainy by an oath. For he inquired what was the opinion of the deity, and whether Apollo counseled him to the act.
He did restore it therefore; but through fear,[899] not from principle. And yet he proved that every word that issued from the shrine was worthy of the temple, and but too true: being exterminated together with all his progeny and house, and, though derived from a wide-spreading clan, with all his kin! Such is the penalty which the mere wish to sin incurs. For he that meditates within his breast a crime that finds not even vent in words,[900] has all the guilt of the act!
What then if he has achieved his purpose? A respiteless anxiety is his: that ceases not, even at his hours of meals: while his jaws are parched as though with fever, and the food he loathes swells[901] between his teeth. All wines[902] the miserable wretch spits out; old Alban wine,[903] of high-prized antiquity, disgusts him. Set better before him! and thickly-crowding wrinkles furrow his brow, as though called forth by sour[904] Falernian. At night, if anxious care has granted him perchance a slumber however brief, and his limbs, that have been tossing[905] over the whole bed, at length are at rest, immediately he sees in dreams the temple and the altar of the deity he has insulted; and, what weighs upon his soul with especial terrors,[906] he sees thee! Thy awful[907] form, of more[908] than human bulk, confounds the trembling wretch, and wrings confession[909] from him.
These are the men that tremble and grow pale at every lightning-flash; and, when it thunders,[910] are half dead with terror at the very first rumbling[911] of heaven; as though not by mere chance, or by the raging violence of winds, but in wrath and vengeance the fire-bolt lights[912] upon the earth![913] That last storm wrought no ill! Therefore the next is feared with heavier presage, as though but deferred by the brief respite of this calm.
Moreover, if they begin to suffer pain in the side, with wakeful fever, they believe the disease is sent to their bodies from the deity, in vengeance. These they hold to be the stones and javelins of the gods!
They dare not vow the bleating sheep to the shrine, or promise even a cock's[914] comb to their Lares. For what hope is vouchsafed to the guilty sick?[915] or what victim is not more worthy of life? The character of bad men is for the most part fickle and variable.[916] While they are engaged in the guilty act they have resolution enough, and to spare. When their foul deeds are perpetrated, then at length they begin to feel what is right and wrong.
Yet Nature[917] ever reverts to her depraved courses, fixed and immutable. For who ever prescribed to himself a limit to his sins? or ever recovered the blush[918] of ingenuous shame once banished from his brow now hardened? What mortal man is there whom you ever saw contented with a single crime? This false friend of ours will get his foot entangled in the noose, and endure the hook of the gloomy dungeon; or some crag[919] in the Ægean Sea, or the rocks that swarm with exiles of rank. You will exult in the bitter punishment of the hated name; and at length with joy confess[920] that no one of the gods is either deaf or a Tiresias.[921]
FOOTNOTES:
SATIRE XIV.
There are very many things, Fuscinus,[922] that both deserve a bad name, and fix a lasting spot on a fortune otherwise splendid, which parents themselves point the way to, and inculcate upon their children. If destructive gambling[923] delights the sire, the heir while yet a child plays[924] too; and shakes the selfsame weapons in his own little dice-box. Nor will that youth allow any of his kin to form better hopes of him who has learned to peel truffles,[925] to season a mushroom,[926] and drown beccaficas[927] swimming in the same sauce, his gourmand sire with his hoary gluttony[928] showing him the way. When his seventh[929] year has past over the boy's head, and all his second teeth are not yet come, though you range a thousand bearded[930] philosophers on one side of him, and as many on the other, still he will be ever longing to dine in sumptuous style, and not degenerate from his sire's luxurious kitchen.
Does Rutilus[931] inculcate a merciful disposition and a character indulgent to venial faults? does he hold that the souls and bodies of our slaves[932] are formed of matter like our own and of similar elements? or does he not teach cruelty, that Rutilus, who delights in the harsh clang of stripes, and thinks no Siren's[933] song can equal the sound of whips; the Antiphates[934] and Polyphemus of his trembling household? Then is he happy indeed whenever the torturer[935] is summoned, and some poor wretch is branded with the glowing iron for stealing a couple of towels! What doctrine does he preach to his son that revels in the clank of chains, that feels a strange delight in branded slaves,[936] and the country jail? Do you expect that Larga's[937] daughter will not turn out an adulteress, who could not possibly repeat her mother's lovers so quickly, or string them together with such rapidity, as not to take breath thirty times at least? While yet a little maid she was her mother's confidante; now, at that mother's dictation[938] she fills her own little tablets, and gives them to her mother's agents to bear to lovers of her own.
Such is Nature's law.[939] The examples of vice that we witness at home[940] more surely and quickly corrupt us, when they insinuate themselves into our minds, under the sanction of those we revere. Perhaps just one or two young men may spurn these practices, whose hearts the Titan has formed with kindlier art, and moulded out of better clay.[941]
But their sire's footsteps, that they ought to shun, lead on all the rest, and the routine[942] of inveterate depravity, that has been long before their eyes, attracts them on.
Therefore refrain[943] from all that merits reprobation. One powerful motive, at least, there is to this—lest our children copy our crimes. For we are all of us too quick at learning to imitate base and depraved examples; and you may find a Catiline in every people and under every sky; but nowhere a Brutus,[944] or Brutus' uncle!
Let nothing shocking to eyes or ears approach those doors that close upon your child. Away! far, far away,[945] the pander's wenches, and the songs of the parasite[946] that riots the livelong night! The greatest reverence[947] is due to a child! If you are contemplating a disgraceful act, despise not your child's tender years, but let your infant son act as a check upon your purpose of sinning. For if, at some future time, he shall have done any thing to deserve the censor's[948] wrath, and show himself like you, not in person only and in face, but also the true son of your morals, and one who, by following your footsteps, adds deeper guilt to your crimes—then, forsooth! you will reprove and chastise him with clamorous bitterness, and then set about altering your will. Yet how dare you assume the front severe,[949] and license of a parent's speech; you, who yourself, though old, do worse than this; and the exhausted cupping-glass[950] is long ago looking out for your brainless head?
If a friend is coming to pay you a visit, your whole household is in a bustle. "Sweep the floor, display the pillars in all their brilliancy, let the dry spider come down with all her web; let one clean[951] the silver, another polish the embossed[952] plate—" the master's voice thunders out, as he stands over the work, and brandishes his whip.
You are alarmed then, wretched man, lest your entrance-hall, befouled by dogs, should offend the eye of your friend who is coming, or your corridor be spattered with mud; and yet one little slave could clean all this with half a bushel of saw-dust. And yet, will you not bestir yourself that your own son may see your house immaculate and free from foul spot or crime? It deserves our gratitude that you have presented a citizen to your country and people,[953] if you take care that he prove useful to the state—of service to her lands; useful in transacting the affairs both of war and peace. For it will be a matter of the highest moment in what pursuits and moral discipline you train him.
The stork feeds her young on snakes[954] and lizards which she has discovered in the trackless fields. They too, when fledged, go in quest of the same animals. The vulture, quitting the cattle, and dogs, and gibbets, hastens to her callow brood, and bears to them a portion of the carcass. Therefore this is the food of the vulture too when grown up, and able to feed itself and build a nest in a tree of its own.
Whereas the ministers of Jove,[955] and birds of noble blood, hunt in the forest for the hare[956] or kid. Hence is derived the quarry for their nest: hence too, when their progeny, now matured, have poised themselves on their own wings, when hunger pinches they swoop to that booty, which first they tasted when they broke the shell.
Centronius had a passion for building; and now on the embayed shore of Caieta,[957] now on the highest peak of Tibur,[958] or on Præneste's[959] hills, he reared the tall roofs of his villas, of Grecian[960] and far-fetched marbles; surpassing the temple of Fortune[961] and of Hercules as much as Posides[962] the eunuch outvied our Capitol. While, therefore, he is thus magnificently lodged, Centronius lessened his estate and impaired his wealth. And yet the sum of the portion that he left was no mean one: but all this his senseless son ran through by raising new mansions of marble more costly than his sire's.
Some whose lot it is to have a father that reveres sabbaths, worship nothing save clouds and the divinity of heaven; and think that flesh of swine, from which their sire abstained, differs in naught from that of man. Soon, too, they submit to circumcision. But, trained to look with scorn upon the laws of Rome, they study and observe and reverence all those Jewish statutes that Moses in his mystic volume handed down: never to show the road except to one that worships the same sacred rites—to conduct to the spring they are in quest of, the circumcised[963] alone. But their father is to blame for this; to whom each seventh[964] day was a day of sloth, and kept aloof from all share of life's daily duties.
All other vices, however, young men copy of their own free choice. Avarice is the only one that even against their will they are constrained to put in practice. For this vice deceives men under the guise and semblance[965] of virtue. Since it is grave in bearing—austere in look and dress. And without doubt, the miser is praised "a frugal[966] character," "a sparing man," and one that knows how to guard his own,[967] more securely than if the serpent of the Hesperides[968] or of Pontus had the keeping of them. Besides, the multitude considers the man of whom we are speaking, a splendid carver[969] of his own fortune. Since it is by such artificers as these that estates are increased. But still, increase they do by all means, fair or foul, and swell in bulk from the ceaseless anvil and ever-glowing forge.
The father, therefore, considers misers as men of happy minds,[970] since he admires wealth, and thinks no instance can be found of a poor man that is also happy; and therefore exhorts his sons to follow the same track, and apply themselves earnestly to the doctrines of the same sect. There are certain first elements[971] of all vices. These he instills into them in regular order, and constrains them to become adepts in the most paltry lucre. Presently he inculcates an insatiable thirst for gain. While he is famishing himself, he pinches his servants'[972] stomachs with the scantiest allowance.[973] For he never endures to consume the whole of the blue fragments of mouldy[974] bread, but saves, even in the middle of September,[975] the mince[976] of yesterday;[977] and puts by till to-morrow's dinner the summer bean,[978] with a piece of stockfish and half a stinking shad:[979] and, after he has counted them, locks up the shreds of chopped leek.[980] A beggar from a bridge[981] would decline an invitation to such a meal as this! But to what end is money scraped together at the expense of such self-torture? Since it is undoubted madness,[982] palpable insanity, to live a beggar's life, simply that you may die rich.
Meanwhile, though the sack swells, full to the very brim, the love of money grows[983] as fast as the money itself grows. And he that has the less, the less he covets. Therefore you are looking out for a second villa, since one estate is not enough for you, and it is your fancy to extend[984] your territories; and your neighbor's corn-land seems to you more spacious and fertile than your own; therefore you treat for the purchase of this too, with all its woods and its hill that whitens with its dense olive-grove. But if their owner will not be prevailed upon to part with them at any price, then at night, your lean oxen and cattle with weary necks, half-starved, will be turned into his corn-fields while still green, and not quit it for their own homes before the whole crop[985] has found its way into their ruthless[986] stomachs—so closely cropped that you would fancy it had been mown. You could hardly tell how many have to complain of similar treatment, and how many estates wrongs like this have brought to the hammer. "But what says the world? What the trumpet of slanderous fame?—"
"What harm does this do me?"[987] he says; "I had rather have a lupin's pod, than that the whole village neighborhood[988] should praise me, if I am at the same time to reap the scanty crops of a diminutive estate."
You will then, forsooth, be free from all disease[989] and all infirmity, and escape sorrow and care; and a lengthened span of life will hereafter be your lot with happier destiny, if you individually own as much arable land as the whole Roman people used to plow under king Tatius. And after that, to men broken down with years, that had seen the hard service of the Punic wars, and faced the fierce Pyrrhus and the Molossian swords, scarce two acres[990] a man were bestowed at length as compensation for countless wounds. Yet that reward for all their blood and toil never appeared to any less than their deserts—or did their country's faith appear scant or thankless. Such a little glebe as this used to satisfy the father himself and all his cottage troop: where lay his pregnant wife, and four children played—one a little slave,[991] the other three free-born. But for their grown-up brothers[992] when they returned from the trench or furrow, there was another and more copious supper prepared, and the big pots smoked with vegetables. Such a plot of ground in our days is not enough for a garden.
It is from this source commonly arise the motives to crime. Nor has any vice of the mind of man mingled more poisons or oftener dealt[993] the assassin's knife, than the fierce lust for wealth unlimited. For he that covets to grow rich,[994] would also grow rich speedily. But what respect for laws, what fear or shame is ever found in the breast of the miser hasting to be rich? "Live contented with these cottages, my lads, and these hills of ours!" So said, in days of yore, the Marsian and Hernican and Vestine sire—"Let us earn our bread, sufficient for our tables, with the plow. Of this the rustic deities[995] approve; by whose aid and intervention, since the boon of the kindly corn-blade, it is man's fortune to loathe the oaks he fed upon before. Naught that is forbidden will he desire to do who is not ashamed of wearing the high country boots[996] in frosty weather, and keeps off the east winds by inverted skins. The foreign purple, unknown to us before, leads on to crime and impiety of every kind."
Such were the precepts that these fine old fellows gave to their children! But now, after the close of autumn, even at midnight[997] the father with loud voice rouses his drowsy son:
"Come, boy, get your tablets and write! Come, wake up! Draw indictments! get up the rubricated statutes[998] of our fathers—or else draw up a petition for a centurion's post. But be sure Lælius observe your hair untouched by a comb, and your nostrils well covered with hair,[999] and your good brawny shoulders. Sack the Numidian's hovels,[1000] and the forts of the Brigantes,[1001] that your sixtieth year may bestow on you the eagle that will make you rich. Or, if you shrink from enduring the long-protracted labors of the camp, and the sound of bugles and trumpets makes your heart faint, then buy something that you may dispose of for more than half as much again as it cost you; and never let disgust at any trade that must be banished beyond the other bank of Tiber, enter your head, nor think that any difference can be drawn between perfumes or leather. The smell of gain is good[1002] from any thing whatever! Let this sentiment of the poet[1003] be forever on your tongue—worthy of the gods, and even great Jove himself!—'No one asks how you get it, but have it you must.' This maxim old crones impress on boys before they can run alone. This all girls learn before their A B C."
Any parent whatever inculcating such lessons as these I would thus address: Tell me, most empty-headed of men! who bids you be in such a hurry? I engage your pupil shall better your instruction. Don't be alarmed! You will be outdone; just as Ajax outstripped Telamon, and Achilles excelled Peleus.[1004] Spare their tender years![1005] The bane of vice matured has not yet filled the marrow of their bones! As soon as he begins to trim a beard, and apply the long razor's edge, he will be a false witness—will sell his perjuries at a trifling sum, laying his hand[1006] on Ceres' altar and foot. Look upon your daughter-in-law as already buried, if she has entered your family with a dowry that must entail death on her.[1007] With what a gripe will she be strangled in her sleep! For all that you suppose must be gotten by sea and land, a shorter road[1008] will bestow on him! Atrocious crime involves no labor! "I never recommended this," you will hereafter say, "nor counseled such an act." Yet the cause and source of this depravity of heart rests at your doors; for he that inculcated a love for great wealth, and by his sinister lessons trained up his sons to avarice,[1009] does give full license, and gives the free rein[1010] to the chariot's course; then if you try to check it, it can not be restrained, but, laughing you to scorn, is hurried on, and leaves even the goal far behind. No one holds it enough to sin just so much as you allow him, but men grant themselves a more enlarged indulgence.
When you say to your son, "The man is a fool that gives any thing to his friend,[1011] or relieves the burden[1012] of his neighbor's poverty," you are, in fact, teaching him to rob and cheat, and get riches by any crime, of which as great a love exists in you as was that of their country in the breast of the Decii;[1013] as much, if Greece speaks truth, as Menæceus[1014] loved Thebes! in whose furrows[1015] legions with their bucklers spring from the serpent's teeth, and at once engage in horrid war, as though a trumpeter had arisen along with them. Therefore you will see that fire[1016] of which you yourself supplied the sparks, raging far and wide, and spreading universal destruction. Nor will you yourself escape, poor wretch! but with loud roar the lion-pupil[1017] in his den will mangle his trembling master.
Your horoscope is well known to the astrologers.[1018] Yes! but it is a tedious business to wait for the slow-spinning[1019] distaffs. You will be cut off long before your thread[1020] is spun out. You are long ago standing in his way, and are a drag upon his wishes. Long since your slow and stag-like[1021] age is irksome to the youth. Send for Archigenes[1022] at once! and buy what Mithridates[1023] compounded, if you would pluck another fig, or handle this year's roses. You must possess yourself of that drug which every father, and every king, should swallow before every meal.
I now present to you an especial gratification, to which you can find no match on any stage, or on the platform of the sumptuous prætor. If you only become spectator at what risk to life the additions to fortune are procured, the ample store in the brass-bound[1024] chest, the gold to be deposited in watchful Castor's[1025] temple; since Mars the avenger has lost helmet and all, and could not even protect his own property. You may give up, therefore, the games of Flora,[1026] of Ceres,[1027] and of Cybele,[1028] such far superior sport is the real business of life!
Do bodies projected from the petaurum,[1029] or they that come down the tight-rope, furnish better entertainment than you, who take up your constant abode in your Corycian[1030] bark, ever to be tossed up and down by Corus and by Auster? the desperate merchant of vile and stinking wares! You, who delight in importing the rich[1031] raisin from the shores of ancient Crete, and wine-flasks[1032]—Jove's own fellow-countrymen! Yet he that plants his foot with hazardous tread by that perilous barter earns his bread, and makes the rope ward off both cold and hunger. You run your desperate risk, for a thousand talents and a hundred villas. Behold the harbor! the sea swarming with tall ships! more than one half the world is now at sea. Wherever the hope of gain invites, a fleet will come; nor only bound over the Carpathian and Gætulian seas, but leaving Calpe[1033] far behind, hear Phœbus hissing in the Herculean main. A noble recompense indeed for all this toil! that you return home thence with well-stretched purse; and exulting in your swelled money-bags,[1034] brag of having seen Ocean's monsters,[1035] and young mermen!
A different madness distracts different minds. One, while in his sister's arms, is terrified at the features and torches of the Eumenides.[1036] Another, when he lashes the bull[1037], believes it is Agamemnon or Ulysses roars. What though he spare his tunic or his cloak, that man requires a keeper,[1038] who loads his ship with a cargo up to the very bulwarks, and has but a plank[1039] between himself and the wave. While the motive cause to all this hardship and this fearful risk, is silver cut up into petty legends and minute portraits. Clouds and lightning oppose his voyage. "All hands unmoor!" exclaims the owner of the corn and pepper he has bought up. "This lowering sky, that bank of sable clouds portends no ill! It is but summer lightning!"
Unhappy wretch! perchance that selfsame night he will be borne down, overwhelmed with shivering timbers and the surge, and clutch his purse with his left hand and his teeth. And he, to whose covetous desires[1040] but lately not all the gold sufficed which Tagus[1041] or Pactolus[1042] rolls down in its ruddy sand, must now be content with a few rags to cover his nakedness, and a scanty morsel, while as a "poor shipwrecked mariner" he begs for pence, and maintains himself by his painting of the storm.[1043]
Yet, what is earned by hardships great as these, involves still greater care and fear to keep. Wretched, indeed, is the guardianship[1044] of a large fortune.
Licinus,[1045] rolling in wealth, bids his whole regiment of slaves mount guard with leathern buckets[1046] all in rows; in dread alarm for his amber, and his statues, and his Phrygian marble,[1047] and his ivory, and massive tortoise-shell.
The tub of the naked Cynic[1048] does not catch fire! If you smash it, another home will be built by to-morrow, or else the same will stand, if soldered with a little lead. Alexander felt, when he saw in that tub its great inhabitant, how much more really happy was he who coveted nothing, than he who aimed at gaining to himself the whole world; doomed to suffer perils equivalent to the exploits he achieved.
Had we but foresight, thou, Fortune, wouldst have no divinity.[1049] It is we that make thee a goddess! Yet if any one were to consult me what proportion of income is sufficient, I will tell you. Just as much as thirst and hunger[1050] and cold require; as much as satisfied you, Epicurus,[1051] in your little garden! as much as the home of Socrates contained before. Nature never gives one lesson, and philosophy another. Do I seem to bind you down to too strict examples? Then throw in something to suit our present manners. Make up the sum[1052] which Otho's law thinks worthy of the Fourteen Rows.
If this make you contract your brows, and put out your lip, then take two knights' estate, make it the three Four-hundred![1053] If I have not yet filled your lap, but still it gapes for more, then neither Crœsus' wealth nor the realms of Persia will ever satisfy you. No! nor even Narcissus'[1054] wealth! on whom Claudius Cæsar lavished all, and whose behest he obeyed, when bidden even to kill his wife.
FOOTNOTES:
SATIRE XV.
Who knows not, O Volusius[1055] of Bithynia, the sort of monsters Egypt,[1056] in her infatuation, worships? One part venerates the crocodile:[1057] another trembles before an Ibis gorged with serpents. The image of a sacred monkey glitters in gold, where the magic chords sound from Memnon[1058] broken in half, and ancient Thebes lies buried in ruins, with her hundred gates. In one place they venerate sea-fish, in another river-fish; there, whole towns worship a dog;[1059] no one Diana. It is an impious act to violate or break with the teeth a leek or an onion.[1060] O holy nations! whose gods grow for them in their gardens![1061] Every table abstains from animals that have wool: it is a crime there to kill a kid. But human flesh is lawful food.
Were Ulysses[1062] to relate at supper such a deed as this to the amazed Alcinous, he would perhaps have excited the ridicule or anger of some, as a lying babbler.[1063] "Does no one hurl this fellow into the sea, that deserves indeed a savage Charybdis and a real one[1064] too, for inventing[1065] his huge Læstrygones[1066] and Cyclops. For I would far more readily believe in Scylla, or the Cyanean rocks that clash together,[1067] and the skins filled with stormy winds; or that Elpenor, struck with the light touch of Circe's wand, grunted in company with his messmates turned to hogs. Does he suppose the heads of the Phæacians so void[1068] of brains?"
So might any one with reason have argued, who was not yet drunk,[1069] and had taken but a scanty draught[1070] of the potent wine from the Corcyræan[1071] bowl; for the Ithacan[1072] told his adventures alone, with none to attest his veracity. We are about to relate events, wondrous indeed, but achieved only lately, while Junius[1073] was consul, above the walls of sultry Coptos.[1074] We shall recount the crime of a whole people, deeds more atrocious than any tragedy could furnish. For from the days of Pyrrha,[1075] though you turn over every tragic theme,[1076] in none is a whole people[1077] made the perpetrators of the guilt. Here, then, an instance which even in our own days ruthless barbarism[1078] produced. There is an inveterate and long-standing grudge,[1079] a deathless hatred and a rankling wound that knows no cure, burning fiercely still between Ombos[1080] and Tentyra, two neighboring peoples. On both sides the principal rancor arises from the fact that each place hates its neighbor's gods,[1081] and believes those only ought to be held as deities which itself worships. But at a festive period of one of those peoples, the chiefs and leaders of their enemies determined that the opportunity must be seized, to prevent their enjoying their day of mirth and cheerfulness, and the delights of a grand dinner, when their tables were spread near the temples and cross-ways, and the couch that knows not sleep, since occasionally even the seventh day's sun finds it still there, spread without intermission of either night or day.[1082] Savage,[1083] in truth, is Egypt! But in luxury, so far as I myself remarked, even the barbarous mob does not fall short of the infamous Canopus.[1084]
Besides, victory is easily gained over men reeking[1085] with wine, stammering[1086] and reeling. On one side there was a crew of fellows dancing to a black piper; perfumes, such as they were; and flowers, and garlands in plenty round their brows. On the other side was ranged fasting hate. But, with minds inflamed, they begin first of all to give vent to railings[1087] in words.
This was the signal-blast[1088] of the fray. Then with shouts from both sides, the conflict begins; and in lieu of weapons,[1089] the unarmed hand rages.
Few cheeks were without a wound. Scarcely one, if any, had a whole nose out of the whole line of combatants. Now you might see, through all the hosts engaged, mutilated faces,[1090] features not to be recognized, bones showing ghastly beneath the lacerated cheek, fists dripping with blood from their enemies' eyes. But still the combatants themselves consider they are only in sport, and engaged in a childish[1091] encounter, because they do not trample any corpses under foot. What, forsooth, is the object of so many thousands mixing in the fray, if no life is to be sacrificed? The attack, therefore, is more vigorous; and now with arms inclined along the ground they begin to hurl stones[1092] they have picked up—Sedition's[1093] own peculiar weapons.
Yet not such stones as Ajax[1094] or as Turnus[1095] hurled; nor of the weight of that with which Tydides[1096] hit Æneas' thigh; but such as right hands far different to theirs, and produced in our age, have power to project. For even in Homer's[1097] lifetime men were beginning to degenerate. Earth now gives birth to weak and puny mortals.[1098] Therefore every god that looks down on them sneers and hates them!
After this digression[1099] let us resume our story. When they had been re-enforced by subsidies, one of the parties is emboldened to draw the sword, and renew the battle with deadly-aiming[1100] arrows. Then they who inhabit Tentyra,[1101] bordering on the shady palms, press upon their foes, who all in rapid flight leave their backs exposed. Here one of them, in excess of terror urging his headlong course, falls[1102] and is caught. Forthwith the victorious crowd having cut him up into numberless bits and fragments, in order that one dead man might furnish a morsel for many, eat him completely up, having gnawed his very bones. They neither cooked him in a seething caldron, nor on a spit. So wearisome[1103] and tedious did they think it to wait for a fire, that they were even content with the carcass raw. Yet at this we should rejoice, that they profaned not the deity of fire which Prometheus[1104] stole from highest heaven and gave to earth. I congratulate[1105] the element! and you too, I ween, are glad.[1106] But he that could bear to chew a human corpse, never tasted a sweeter[1107] morsel than this flesh. For in a deed of such horrid atrocity, pause not to inquire or doubt whether it was the first maw alone that felt the horrid delight! Nay! he that came up last,[1108] when the whole body was now devoured, by drawing his fingers along the ground, got a taste of the blood!
The Vascones,[1109] as report says, protracted their lives by the use of such nutriment as this. But the case is very different. There we have the bitter hate of fortune! the last extremity of war, the very climax of despair, the awful destitution[1110] of a long-protracted siege. For the instance of such food of which we are now speaking, ought to call forth our pity.[1111] Since it was only after they had exhausted herbs of all kinds,[1112] and every animal to which the gnawings of an empty stomach drove them, and while their enemies themselves commiserated their pale and emaciated features and wasted limbs, they in their ravenous famine tore in pieces others' limbs, ready to devour even their own! What man, or what god even, would refuse his pardon to brave men[1113] suffering such fierce extremities? men, whom the very spirits of those whose bodies they fed on, could have forgiven! The precepts of Zeno teach us a better lesson. For he thinks that some things only, and not all, ought to be done to preserve life.[1114] But whence could a Cantabrian learn the Stoics' doctrines? especially in the days of old Metellus. Now the whole world has the Grecian and our Athens.
Eloquent Gaul[1115] has taught the Britons[1116] to become pleaders; and even Thule[1117] talks of hiring a rhetorician.
Yet that noble people whom we have mentioned, and their equal in courage and fidelity, their more than equal in calamity, Saguntum,[1118] has some excuse to plead for such a deed as this! Whereas Egypt is more barbarous even than the altar of Mæotis. Since that Tauric[1119] inventress of the impious rite (if you hold as worthy of credit all that poets sing) only sacrifices men; the victim has nothing further or worse to fear than the sacrificial knife. But what calamity was it drove these to crime? What extremity of hunger, or hostile arms that bristled round their ramparts, that forced these to dare a prodigy of guilt so execrable? What greater enormity[1120] than this could they commit, when the land of Memphis was parched with drought to provoke the wrath[1121] of Nile when unwilling to rise?
Neither the formidable Cimbri, nor Britons, nor fierce Sarmatians or savage Agathyrsi, ever raged with such frantic brutality, as did this weak and worthless rabble, that wont to spread their puny sails in pinnaces of earthenware,[1122] and ply the scanty paddles of their painted pottery-canoe. You could not invent a punishment adequate to the guilt, or a torture bad enough for a people in whose breasts "anger" and "hunger" are convertible terms.
Nature confesses that she has bestowed on the human race hearts of softest mould, in that she has given us tears.[1123] Of all our feeling this is the noblest part. She bids us therefore bewail the misfortunes of a friend in distress, and the squalid appearance of one accused, or an orphan[1124] summoning to justice the guardian who has defrauded him. Whose girl-like hair throws doubt[1125] upon the sex of those cheeks bedewed with tears!
It is at nature's dictate that we mourn when we meet the funeral of a virgin of marriageable years, or see an infant[1126] laid in the ground, too young for the funeral pyre. For what good man, who that is worthy of the mystic torch,[1127] such an one as Ceres' priest would have him be, ever deems the ills of others[1128] matter that concerns not himself?
This it is that distinguishes us from the brute herd. And therefore we alone, endued with that venerable distinction of reason[1129] and a capacity for divine things, with an aptitude for the practice as well as the reception of all arts and sciences, have received, transmitted to us from heaven's high citadel,[1130] a moral sense, which brutes prone[1131] and stooping toward earth, are lacking in. In the beginning of the world, the common Creator of all vouchsafed to them only the principle of vitality; to us he gave souls[1132] also, that an instinct of affection reciprocally shared, might urge us to seek for, and to give, assistance; to unite in one people, those before widely-scattered;[1133] to emerge from the ancient wood, and abandon the forests[1134] where our fathers dwelt; to build houses, to join another's dwelling to our own homes, that the confidence mutually engendered by a neighbor's threshold might add security[1135] to our slumbers; to cover with our arms a fellow-citizen[1136] when fallen or staggering from a ghastly wound; to sound the battle-signal from a common clarion; to be defended by the same ramparts, and closed in by the key of a common portal.
But now the unanimity[1137] of serpents is greater than ours. The wild beast of similar genus spares his kindred[1138] spots. When did ever lion, though stronger, deprive his fellow-lion of life? In what wood did ever boar perish by the tusks of a boar[1139] larger than himself? The tigress of India[1140] maintains unbroken harmony with each tigress that ravens. Bears, savage to others, are yet at peace among themselves. But for man![1141] he is not content with forging on the ruthless anvil the death-dealing steel! While his progenitors, those primæval smiths, that wont to hammer out naught save rakes and hoes, and wearied out with mattocks and plowshares, knew not the art of manufacturing swords.[1142] Here we behold a people whose brutal passion is not glutted with simple murder, but deem[1143] their fellows' breasts and arms and faces a kind of natural food.
What then would Pythagoras[1144] exclaim; whither would he not flee, could he be witness in our days to such atrocities as these! He that abstained from all that was endued with life as from man himself; and did not even indulge his appetite with every kind of pulse.
FOOTNOTES:
SATIRE XVI.
Who could possibly enumerate, Gallus,[1145] all the advantages that attend military service when fortunate? For if I could but enter the camp with lucky omen, then may its gate welcome me, a timid and raw recruit, under the influence of some auspicious planet. For one hour of benignant Fate is of more avail than even if Venus'[1146] self should give me a letter of recommendation to Mars, or his mother Juno, that delights in Samos' sandy shore.[1147]
Let us treat, in the first place, of advantages in which all share; of which not the least important is this, that no civilian[1148] must dare to strike you. Nay, even though he be himself the party beaten,[1149] he must dissemble his wrath, and not dare to show the prætor[1150] the teeth he has had knocked out, and the black bruises on his face with its livid swellings, and all that is left of his eye, which the physician can give him no hopes of saving. If he wish to get redress for this, a Bardiac[1151] judge is assigned him—the soldier's boot, and stalwart calves that throng the capacious benches of the camp, the old martial law and the precedent of Camillus[1152] being strictly observed, "that no soldier shall be sued outside the trenches, or at a distance from the standards."
Of course, where a soldier is concerned, the decision of the centurion will needs be most equitable;[1153] nor shall I lack my just revenge, provided only the ground of the complaint I lay be just and fair.
Yet the whole cohort is your sworn enemy; and all the maniples, with wonderful unanimity, obstruct the course of justice. Full well will they take care that the redress you get shall be more grievous than the injury itself. It will be an act, therefore, worthy of even the long-tongued Vagellius' mulish heart,[1154] while you have still a pair of legs to provoke the ire of so many buskins, so many thousand hob-nails![1155]
For who can go so far from Rome? Besides, who will be such a Pylades[1156] as to venture beyond the rampart of the camp? So let us dry up our tears forthwith, and not trouble our friends, who will be sure to excuse themselves. When the judge calls on you, "Produce your witness,"[1157] let the man, whoever he may be, that saw the cuffs, have the courage to stand forth and say, "I saw[1158] the act," and I will hold him worthy of the beard,[1159] and worthy of the long hair of our ancestors. You could with greater ease suborn a false witness against a civilian,[1160] than one who would speak the truth against the fortune and the dignity of the man-at-arms.
Now let us observe other prizes and other solid advantages of the military life. If some rascally neighbor has defrauded me of a portion of the valley of my paternal fields, or encroached on my land, and removed the consecrated stone from the boundary that separates our estates, that stone which my pulse has yearly[1161] honored with the meal-cake derived from ancient days, or if my debtor persists in refusing repayment of the sum I lent him, asserting that the deed is invalid and the signature a forgery: I shall have to wait a whole year occupied with the causes of the whole nation, before my case comes on. But even then I must put up with a thousand tedious delays, a thousand difficulties. So many times the benches only are prepared; then, when the eloquent Cæditius[1162] is laying aside his cloak, and Fuscus must retire for a little, though all prepared, we must break up; and battle in the tediously-protracted arena of the court. But in the case of those who wear armor, and buckle on the belt, whatever time suits them is fixed for the hearing of their cause, nor is their fortune frittered away by the slow drag-chain[1163] of the law.
Besides, it is only to soldiers that the privilege is granted, of making their wills while their fathers are still alive.[1164] For it has been determined that all that has been earned by the hard toil of military service should not be incorporated with that sum of which the father holds the entire disposal. And so it is, that while Coranus follows the standards and earns his daily pay, his father, though tottering on the edge of the grave, pays court to his son that he may make him his heir.
His duties regularly discharged procure the soldier advancement; and yield to every honest exertion[1165] its justly merited guerdon.[1166] For doubtless it appears to be the interest of the general himself, that he that proves himself brave should also be most distinguished for good fortune, that all may glory in their trappings,[1167] all in their golden chains.