Note Q — JUVENAL[Q]

Juvenal was born, it is usually believed, at Aquinum, about 55 a.d. He lived to an advanced age, but the year of his death is unknown. Rome he evidently knew well, and from long experience. But there is great obscurity about his career. His "Satires," in declamatory indignation, form a powerful contrast to the genial mockery of Horace (p. 91): where Horace may be said to have a Chaucerian smile for human weakness, Juvenal displays the wrath of a Langland. Juvenal denounces abuses at Rome in unmeasured terms. Frequently Zolaesque in his methods of exposing vice, he contrives by his realism to produce a loathing for the objects of his attack. Dryden rendered into free and vigorous English several of the satires; and Gifford wrote a complete translation, often of great merit. The translation here has, with adaptations, been drawn from both, and a few lines have been incorporated from Johnson, whose two best-known poems, "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes," were paraphrases from Juvenal.