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.'
110. #iam nunc-- iam nunc#: 'At the very moment,' 'just at the right
time,' hence 'at one instant, at another.' --#astringas# --#laxes#:
'shut tight-- open wide.' --#granaria#: 6, 25, Plural of abundance.
Comp. 2, 33.
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_.
112. #glutto#: On the formation, see _cachinno_, 1, 12.
'Lickerish-mouthed that you are' would give the coarse tone.
--#salivam#: Doth not our mouth water? --#Mercurialem#: Excited by gain
and not by food. See 2, 12. 'Water of treasure-trove' (Conington).
113. #haec mea sunt, teneo#: The commentators notice the legal tone.
--#cum dixeris#: G., 584.
114. #-que ac#: a rare combination. --#praetoribus ac Iove dextro#:
a kind of Zeugma = _praetoribus [auctoribus] et Iove dextro_, 'by the
grace of the praetors and Jove.' The Jupiter here meant is the _Iuppiter
Liberator_ (+Zeus eleutherios+), so famous in connection with the death
of Persius's friend, Thrasea Paetus, Tac., Ann., 16, 35. See Introd.,
xiii.
115. #sin#: '(if not) but if,' G., 593; A., 59, 1, _a_; Ribbeck, l.c.
14. --#cum#: 'whereas,' 'after,' adversative. --#nostrae farinae#: 'one
of our grain, batch, set,' 'one of our kidney'-- doubtless a proverbial
expression. The metaphor is taken from the mill or from the bakery. The
batch referred to is the Stoic school. Of course the statement is
ironical. 'Whereas (to judge by your bold pretensions to liberty) you
were a little while ago in our set.'
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: +ho logos dêloi hoti hoi phauloi tôn anthrôpôn, kan ta
proschêmata lamprotera analabôsi, tên goun phusin ou metatithentai+. In
this fable, which bears a family likeness to +walê pot' andros+ (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_.
119. #digitum exsere, peccas#: a favorite expression with the Stoics to
show that the wise man alone understands the conduct of life. Epictet.,
fr. 53: +hê philosophia phêsin hoti oude ton daktulon ekteinein eikê
prosêkei+ (Casaubon).
120. #nullo ture litabis#: Comp. 2, 75. Here _litabis_ = _litando
impetrabis_.
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), +skapheus+ and +bouphorbos+.
123. #tris tantum ad numeros moveare#: 'dance three steps in time.'
_Ad_, as often, of the standard; _numerus_ = +ruthmos+; _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_ = +hêssôn+ = _subditus_.
125. #an#: 'or' (do you mean to say?) 'what?' See 1, 41. --#relaxat#: in
a general sense. Exit Dama. Enter Impersonal _Tu_.
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_, +xustra+). 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.
127. #si increpuit#: The slave loiters, the master scolds. --#'cessas
nugator:'# Much more effective in the mouth of the master than as an
apodosis to _si increpuit_, as Hermann has it, and Jahn (1868); though
Schlüter's remark, _verba_ '_cessas nugator?' dominum, non philosophum
decent_, does not amount to much, when we consider that the philosopher
is Persius himself. _Nugator_ is used here of wasting time; but the use
of _nugari_ and its forms, which were often addressed to slaves, is
wider, like the English 'fool.' So in Petron., 52, a boy lets a cup
fall, and Trimalchio cries, _ne sis nugax_. With _cessas_ comp. Hor.,
Ep., 2, 2, 14: _semel hic cessavit_. 'What do you mean by this
loitering, you dawdler, you?' --#servitium acre#: 'the goad of bondage,'
as Conington suggests. _Acre_, from the same radical as _aculeus_.