Yes, I believe that CHASTITY was known,

And prized on earth, while Saturn filled the throne;

When rocks a bleak and scanty shelter gave,

When sheep and shepherds thronged one common cave,

And when the mountain wife her couch bestrewed 5

With skins of beasts, joint tenants of the wood,

And reeds, and leaves plucked from the neighboring tree:--

A woman, Cynthia, far unlike to thee,

Or thee, weak child of fondness and of fears,

Whose eyes a sparrow's death suffused with tears: 10

But strong, and reaching to her burly brood

Her big-swollen breasts, replete with wholesome food,

And rougher than her husband, gorged with mast,

And frequent belching from the coarse repast.

For when the world was new, the race that broke, 15

Unfathered, from the soil or opening oak,

Lived most unlike the men of later times,

The puling brood of follies and of crimes.

Haply some trace of Chastity remained,

While Jove, but Jove as yet unbearded, reigned: 20

Before the Greek bound, by another's head,

His doubtful faith; or men, of theft in dread,

Had learned their herbs and fruitage to immure,

But all was uninclosed, and all secure!

At length Astrea, from these confines driven, 25

Regained by slow degrees her native heaven;

With her retired her sister in disgust,

And left the world to rapine, and to lust.

'Tis not a practice, friend, of recent date,

But old, established, and inveterate, 30

To climb another's couch, and boldly slight

The sacred Genius of the nuptial rite:

All other crimes the Age of Iron curst;

But that of Silver saw adulterers first.

Yet thou, it seems, art eager to engage 35

Thy witless neck, in this degenerate age!

Even now, thy hair the modish curl is taught,

By master-hands; even now, the ring is bought;

Even now--thou once, Ursidius, hadst thy wits,

But thus to talk of wiving!--O, these fits! 40

What more than madness has thy soul possest?

What snakes, what Furies, agitate thy breast?

Heavens! wilt thou tamely drag the galling chain,

While hemp is to be bought, while knives remain?

While windows woo thee so divinely high, 45

And Tiber and the Æmilian bridge are nigh?--

"O, but the law," thou criest, "the Julian law,

Will keep my destined wife from every flaw;

Besides, I die for heirs." Good! and for those,

Wilt thou the turtle and the turbot lose, 50

And all the dainties, which the flatterer, still

Heaps on the childless, to secure his Will?

But what will hence impossible be held,

If thou, old friend, to wedlock art impelled?

If thou, the veriest debauchee in town, 55

With whom wives, widows, every thing went down,

Shouldst stretch the unsuspecting neck, and poke

Thy foolish nose into the marriage yoke?

Thou, famed for scapes, and, by the trembling wife,

Thrust in a chest so oft, to save thy life!-- 60

But what! Ursidius hopes a mate to gain,

Frugal, and chaste, and of the good old strain:

Alas, he's frantic! ope a vein with speed,

And bleed him copiously, good doctor, bleed.

Jewel of men! thy knees to Jove incline, 65

And let a heifer fall at Juno's shrine,

If thy researches for a wife be blest,

With one, who is not--need I speak the rest?

Ah! few the matrons Ceres now can find,

Her hallowed fillets, with chaste hands, to bind; 70

Few whom their fathers with their lips can trust,

So strong their filial kisses smack of lust!

Go then, prepare to bring your mistress home,

And crown your doors with garlands, ere she come.--

But will one man suffice, methinks, you cry, 75

For all her wants and wishes? Will one eye!

And yet there runs, 'tis said, a wondrous tale,

Of some pure maid, who lives--in some lone vale.

There she MAY live; but let the phœnix, placed

At Gabii or Fidenæ, prove as chaste 80

As at her father's farm!--Yet who will swear,

That naught is done in night and silence there?

Time was, when Jupiter and Mars, we're told, }

With many a nymph in woods and caves made bold; }

And still, perhaps, they may not be too old. } 85

Survey our public places; see you there

One woman worthy of your serious care?

See you, through all the crowded benches, one

Whom you might take securely for your own?--

Lo! while Bathyllus, with his flexile limbs, 90

Acts Leda, and through every posture swims,

Tuccia delights to realize the play,

And in lascivious trances melts away;

While rustic Thymele, with curious eye,

Marks the quick pant, the lingering, deep-drawn sigh, 95

And while her cheeks with burning blushes glow,

Learns this--learns all the city matrons know.

Others, when of the theatres bereft,

When nothing but the wrangling bar is left,

In the long tedious months which interpose 100

'Twixt the Cybelian and Plebeian shows,

Sicken for action, and assume the airs,

The mask and thyrsus, of their favorite players.

--Midst peals of mirth, see Urbicus advance

(Poor Ælia's choice), and, in a wanton dance, 105

Burlesque Autonoë's woes! the rich engage

In higher frolics, and defraud the stage;

Take from Chrysogonus the power to sing,

Loose, at vast prices, the comedian's ring,

Tempt the tragedian--but I see you moved-- 110

Heavens! dreamed you that QUINTILIAN would be loved!

Then hie thee, Lentulus, and boldly wed,

That the chaste partner of thy fruitful bed

May kindly single from this motley race

Some sturdy Glaphyrus, thy brows to grace: 115

Haste; in the narrow streets long scaffolds raise,

And deck thy portals with triumphant bays;

That in thy heir, as swathed in state he lies,

The guests may trace Mirmillo's nose and eyes!

Hippia, who shared a rich patrician's bed, 120

To Egypt with a gladiator fled,

While rank Canopus eyed, with strong disgust,

This ranker specimen of Roman lust.

Without one pang, the profligate resigned

Her husband, sister, sire; gave to the wind 125

Her children's tears; yea, tore herself away

(To strike you more)--from PARIS and the PLAY!

And though, in affluence born, her infant head

Had pressed the down of an embroidered bed,

She braved the deep (she long had braved her fame; 130

But this is little--to the courtly dame),

And, with undaunted breast, the changes bore,

Of many a sea, the swelling and the roar.

Have they an honest call, such ills to bear?

Cold shiverings seize them, and they shrink with fear; 135

But set illicit pleasure in their eye,

Onward they rush, and every toil defy!

Summoned by duty, to attend her lord,

How, cries the lady, can I get on board?

How bear the dizzy motion? how the smell? 140

But--when the adulterer calls her, all is well!

She roams the deck, with pleasure ever new,

Tugs at the ropes, and messes with the crew;

But with her husband--O, how changed the case!

Sick! sick! she cries, and vomits in his face. 145

But by what youthful charms, what shape, what air,

Was Hippia won, the opprobrious name to bear

Of FENCER'S TRULL? The wanton well might dote!

For the sweet Sergius long had scraped his throat,

Long looked for leave to quit the public stage, 150

Maimed in his limbs, and verging now to age.

Add, that his face was battered and decayed;

The helmet on his brow huge galls had made,

A wen deformed his nose, of monstrous size,

And sharp rheum trickled from his bloodshot eyes: 155

But then he was a SWORDSMAN! that alone

Made every charm and every grace his own;

That made him dearer than her nuptial vows,

Dearer than country, sister, children, spouse.--

'TIS BLOOD THEY LOVE: Let Sergius quit the sword, 160

And he'll appear, at once--so like her lord!

Start you at wrongs that touch a private name,

At Hippia's lewdness, and Veiento's shame?

Turn to the rivals of the immortal Powers,

And mark how like their fortunes are to ours! 165

Claudius had scarce begun his eyes to close,

Ere from his pillow Messalina rose

(Accustomed long the bed of state to slight

For the coarse mattress, and the hood of night);

And with one maid, and her dark hair concealed 170

Beneath a yellow tire, a strumpet veiled!

She slipt into the stews, unseen, unknown,

And hired a cell, yet reeking, for her own.

There, flinging off her dress, the imperial whore

Stood, with bare breasts and gilded, at the door, 175

And showed, Britannicus, to all who came,

The womb that bore thee, in Lycisca's name!

Allured the passers by with many a wile,

And asked her price, and took it, with a smile.

And when the hour of business now was spent, 180

And all the trulls dismissed, repining went;

Yet what she could, she did; slowly she past,

And saw her man, and shut her cell, the last,

--Still raging with the fever of desire,

Her veins all turgid, and her blood all fire, 185

With joyless pace, the imperial couch she sought,

And to her happy spouse (yet slumbering) brought

Cheeks rank with sweat, limbs drenched with poisonous dews,

The steam of lamps, and odor of the stews!

'Twere long to tell what philters they provide, 190

What drugs, to set a son-in-law aside.

Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,

By every, gust of passion borne along,

Act, in their fits, such crimes, that, to be just,

The least pernicious of their sins is lust. 195

But why's Cesennia then, you say, adored,

And styled the first of women, by her lord?

Because she brought him thousands: such the price

It cost the lady to be free from vice!--

Not for her charms the wounded lover pined, 200

Nor felt the flame which fires the ardent mind,

Plutus, not Cupid, touched his sordid heart;

And 'twas her dower that winged the unerring dart.

She brought enough her liberty to buy,

And tip the wink before her husband's eye. 205

A wealthy wanton, to a miser wed,

Has all the license of a widowed bed.

But yet, Sertorius what I say disproves,

For though his Bibula is poor, he loves.

True! but examine him; and, on my life, 210

You'll find he loves the beauty, not the wife.

Let but a wrinkle on her forehead rise,

And time obscure the lustre of her eyes;

Let but the moisture leave her flaccid skin,

And her teeth blacken, and her cheeks grow thin; 215

And you shall hear the insulting freedman say,

"Pack up your trumpery, madam, and away!

Nay, bustle, bustle; here you give offense,

With sniveling night and day;--take your nose hence!"--

But, ere that hour arrives, she reigns indeed! 220

Shepherds, and sheep of Canusinian breed,

Falernian vineyards (trifles these), she craves,

And store of boys, and troops of country slaves;

Briefly, for all her neighbor has, she sighs,

And plagues her doting husband, till he buys. 225

In winter, when the merchant fears to roam,

And snow confines the shivering crew at home;

She ransacks every shop for precious ware,

Here cheapens myrrh and crystal vases; there,

That far-famed gem which Berenice wore, 230

The hire of incest, and thence valued more;

A brother's present, in that barbarous State,

Where kings the sabbath, barefoot, celebrate;

And old indulgence grants a length of life

To hogs, that fatten fearless of the knife. 235

What! and is none of all this numerous herd

Worthy your choice? not one, to be preferred?

Suppose her nobly born, young, rich, and fair,

And (though a coal-black swan be far less rare)

Chaste as the Sabine wives, who rushed between 240

The kindred hosts, and closed the unnatural scene;

Yet who could bear to lead an humbled life,

Cursed with that veriest plague, a faultless wife!--

Some simple rustic at Venusium bred,

O let me, rather than Cornelia, wed, 245

If, to great virtues, greater pride she join,

And count her ancestors as current coin.

Take back, for mercy's sake, thy Hannibal!

Away with vanquished Syphax, camp and all!

Troop, with the whole of Carthage! I'd be free 250

From all this pageantry of worth--and thee.

"O let, Apollo, let my children live,

And thou, Diana, pity, and forgive;"

Amphion cries; "they, they are guiltless all!

The mother sinned, let then the mother fall." 255

In vain he cries; Apollo bends his bow,

And, with the children, lays the father low?

They fell; while Niobe aspired to place

Her birth and blood above Latona's race;

And boast her womb--too fruitful, to be named 260

With that WHITE SOW, for thirty sucklings famed.

Beauty and worth are purchased much too dear,

If a wife force them hourly on your ear;

For, say, what pleasure can you hope to find,

Even in this boast, this phœnix of her kind, 265

If, warped by pride, on all around she lour,

And in your cup more gall than honey pour?

Ah! who so blindly wedded to the state,

As not to shrink from such a perfect mate,

Of every virtue feel the oppressive weight, 270

And curse the worth he loves, seven hours in eight?

Some faults, though small, no husband yet can bear:

'Tis now the nauseous cant, that none is fair,

Unless her thoughts in Attic terms she dress;

A mere Cecropian of a Sulmoness! 275

All now is Greek: in Greek their souls they pour,

In Greek their fears, hopes, joys;--what would you more?

In Greek they clasp their lovers. We allow

These fooleries to girls: but thou, O thou,

Who tremblest on the verge of eighty-eight, 280

To Greek it still!--'tis, now, a day too late.

Foh! how it savors of the dregs of lust,

When an old hag, whose blandishments disgust,

Affects the infant lisp, the girlish squeak,

And mumbles out, "My life!" "My soul!" in Greek! 285

Words, which the secret sheets alone should hear,

But which she trumpets in the public ear.

And words, indeed, have power--But though she woo

In softer strains than e'er Carpophorus knew,

Her wrinkles still employ her favorite's cares; 290

And while she murmurs love, he counts her years!

But tell me;--if thou CANST NOT love a wife,

Made thine by every tie, and thine for life,

Why wed at all? why waste the wine and cakes,

The queasy-stomached guest, at parting, takes? 295

And the rich present, which the bridal right

Claims for the favors of the happy night?

The charger, where, triumphantly inscrolled,

The Dacian Hero shines in current gold!

If thou CANST love, and thy besotted mind 300

Is, so uxoriously, to one inclined,

Then bow thy neck, and with submissive air

Receive the yoke--thou must forever wear.

To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows:--

Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes, 305

And triumphs in his spoils: her wayward will

Defeats his bliss, and turns his good to ill!

Naught must be given, if she opposes; naught,

If she opposes, must be sold or bought;

She tells him where to love, and where to hate, } 310

Shuts out the ancient friend, whose beard his gate }

Knew, from its downy to its hoary state: }

And when pimps, parasites, of all degrees

Have power to will their fortunes as they please,

She dictates his; and impudently dares 315

To name his very rivals for his heirs!

"Go, crucify that slave." For what offense?

Who the accuser? Where the evidence?

For when the life of MAN is in debate,

No time can be too long, no care too great; 320

Hear all, weigh all with caution, I advise--

"Thou sniveler! is a slave a MAN?" she cries.

"He's innocent! be't so:--'tis my command,

My will; let that, sir, for a reason stand."

Thus the virago triumphs, thus she reigns: 325

Anon she sickens of her first domains,

And seeks for new; husband on husband takes,

Till of her bridal veil one rent she makes.

Again she tires, again for change she burns,

And to the bed she lately left returns, 330

While the fresh garlands, and unfaded boughs,

Yet deck the portal of her wondering spouse.

Thus swells the list; EIGHT HUSBANDS IN FIVE YEARS:

A rare inscription for their sepulchres!

While your wife's mother lives, expect no peace. 335

She teaches her, with savage joy, to fleece

A bankrupt spouse: kind creature! she befriends

The lover's hopes, and, when her daughter sends

An answer to his prayer, the style inspects,

Softens the cruel, and the wrong corrects: 340

Experienced bawd! she blinds, or bribes all eyes,

And brings the adulterer, in despite of spies.

And now the farce begins; the lady falls

"Sick, sick, oh! sick;" and for the doctor calls:

Sweltering she lies, till the dull visit's o'er, 345

While the rank lecher, at the closet door

Lurking in silence, maddens with delay,

And in his own impatience melts away.

Nor count it strange: What mother e'er was known

To teach severer morals than her own?-- 350

No;--with their daughters' lusts they swell their stores,

And thrive as bawds when out of date as whores!

Women support the BAR; they love the law,

And raise litigious questions for a straw;

They meet in private, and prepare the Bill, 355

Draw up the Instructions with a lawyer's skill,

Suggest to Celsus where the merits lie,

And dictate points for statement or reply.

Nay, more, they FENCE! who has not marked their oil,

Their purple rugs, for this preposterous toil? 360

Room for the lady--lo! she seeks the list,

And fiercely tilts at her antagonist,

A post! which, with her buckler, she provokes,

And bores and batters with repeated strokes;

Till all the fencer's art can do she shows, 365

And the glad master interrupts her blows.

O worthy, sure, to head those wanton dames,

Who foot it naked at the Floral games;

Unless, with nobler daring, she aspire,

And tempt the arena's bloody field--for hire! 370

What sense of shame is to that female known,

Who envies our pursuits, and hates her own?

Yet would she not, though proud in arms to shine

(True woman still), her sex for ours resign;

For there's a thing she loves beyond compare, 375

And we, alas! have no advantage there.--

Heavens! with what glee a husband must behold

His wife's accoutrements, in public, sold;

And auctioneers displaying to the throng

Her crest, her belt, her gauntlet, and her thong! 380

Or, if in wilder frolics she engage,

And take her private lessons for the stage,

Then three-fold rapture must expand his breast,

To see her greaves "a-going" with the rest.

Yet these are they, the tender souls! who sweat 385

In muslin, and in silk expire with heat.--

Mark, with what force, as the full blow descends,

She thunders "hah!" again, how low she bends

Beneath the opposer's stroke; how firm she rests,

Poised on her hams, and every step contests: 390

How close tucked up for fight, behind, before,

Then laugh--to see her squat, when all is o'er!

Daughters of Lepidus, and Gurges old,

And blind Metellus, did ye e'er behold

Asylla (though a fencer's trull confess'd) 395

Tilt at a stake, thus impudently dress'd!

'Tis night; yet hope no slumbers with your wife;

The nuptial bed is still the scene of strife:

There lives the keen debate, the clamorous brawl,

And quiet "never comes, that comes to all." 400

Fierce as a tigress plundered of her young,

Rage fires her breast, and loosens all her tongue,

When, conscious of her guilt, she feigns to groan,

And chides your loose amours, to hide her own;

Storms at the scandal of your baser flames, 405

And weeps her injuries from imagined names,

With tears that, marshaled, at their station stand,

And flow impassioned, as she gives command.

You think those showers her true affection prove,

And deem yourself--so happy in her love! 410

With fond caresses strive her heart to cheer,

And from her eyelids suck the starting tear:

--But could you now examine the scrutore

Of this most loving, this most jealous whore,

What amorous lays, what letters would you see, 415

Proofs, damning proofs, of her sincerity!

But these are doubtful--Put a clearer case:

Suppose her taken in a loose embrace,

A slave's or knight's. Now, my Quintilian, come,

And fashion an excuse. What! are you dumb? 420

Then, let the lady speak. "Was't not agreed

The MAN might please himself?" It was; proceed.

"Then, so may I"--O, Jupiter! "No oath:

MAN is a general term, and takes in both."

When once surprised, the sex all shame forego; 425

And more audacious, as more guilty, grow.

Whence shall these prodigies of vice be traced?

From wealth, my friend. Our matrons then were chaste,

When days of labor, nights of short repose,

Hands still employed the Tuscan wool to tose, 430

Their husbands armed, and anxious for the State,

And Carthage hovering near the Colline gate,

Conspired to keep all thoughts of ill aloof,

And banished vice far from their lowly roof.

Now, all the evils of long peace are ours; 435

Luxury, more terrible than hostile powers,

Her baleful influence wide around has hurled,

And well avenged the subjugated world!

--Since Poverty, our better Genius, fled,

Vice, like a deluge, o'er the State has spread. 440

Now, shame to Rome! in every street are found

The essenced Sybarite, with roses crowned,

The gay Miletan, and the Tarentine,

Lewd, petulant, and reeling ripe with wine!

Wealth first, the ready pander to all sin, 445

Brought foreign manners, foreign vices in;

Enervate wealth, and with seductive art,

Sapped every homebred virtue of the heart;

Yes, every:--for what cares the drunken dame

(Take head or tail, to her 'tis just the same), 450

Who, at deep midnight, on fat oysters sups,

And froths with unguents her Falernian cups;

Who swallows oceans, till the tables rise,

And double lustres dance before her eyes!

Thus flushed, conceive, as Tullia homeward goes, 455

With what contempt she tosses up her nose

At Chastity's hoar fane! what impious jeers

Collatia pours in Maura's tingling ears!

Here stop their litters, here they all alight,

And squat together in the goddess' sight:-- 460

You pass, aroused at dawn your court to pay,

The loathsome scene of their licentious play.

Who knows not now, my friend, the secret rites

Of the GOOD GODDESS; when the dance excites

The boiling blood; when, to distraction wound, 465

By wine, and music's stimulating sound,

The mænads of Priapus, with wild air,

Howl horrible, and toss their flowing hair!

Then, how the wine at every pore o'erflows!

How the eye sparkles! how the bosom glows! 470

How the cheek burns! and, as the passions rise,

How the strong feeling bursts in eager cries!--

Saufeia now springs forth, and tries a fall

With the town prostitutes, and throws them all;

But yields, herself, to Medullina, known 475

For parts, and powers, superior to her own.

Maids, mistresses, alike the contest share,

And 'tis not always birth that triumphs there.

Nothing is feigned in this accursed game:

'Tis genuine all; and such as would inflame 480

The frozen age of Priam, and inspire

The ruptured, bedrid Nestor with desire.

Stung with their mimic feats, a hollow groan

Of lust breaks forth; the sex, the sex is shown!

And one loud yell re-echoes through the den, 485

"Now, now, 'tis lawful! now admit the men!"

There's none arrived. "Not yet! then scour the street,

And bring us quickly, here, the first you meet."

There's none abroad. "Then fetch our slaves." They're gone.

"Then hire a waterman." There's none. "Not one!"-- 490

Nature's strong barrier scarcely now restrains

The baffled fury in their boiling veins!

And would to heaven our ancient rites were free!--

But Africa and India, earth and sea,

Have heard, what singing-wench produced his ware, 495

Vast as two Anti Catos, there, even there,

Where the he-mouse, in reverence, lies concealed,

And every picture of a male is veiled.

And who was THEN a scoffer? who despised

The simple rites by infant Rome devised, 500

The wooden bowl of pious Numa's day,

The coarse brown dish, and pot of homely clay?

Now, woe the while! religion's in its wane;

And daring Clodii swarm in every fane.

I hear, old friends, I hear you: "Make all sure: 505

Let spies surround her, and let bolts secure."

But who shall KEEP THE KEEPERS? Wives contemn

Our poor precautions, and begin with THEM.

Lust is the master passion; it inflames,

Alike, both high and low; alike, the dames, 510

Who, on tall Syrians' necks, their pomp display,

And those who pick, on foot, their miry way.

Whene'er Ogulnia to the Circus goes,

To emulate the rich, she hires her clothes,

Hires followers, friends, and cushions; hires a chair, 515

A nurse, and a trim girl, with golden hair,

To slip her billets:--prodigal and poor,

She wastes the wreck of her paternal store

On smooth-faced wrestlers; wastes her little all,

And strips her shivering mansion to the wall! 520

There's many a woman knows distress at home;

Not one who feels it, and, ere ruin come,

To her small means conforms. Taught by the ant,

Men sometimes guard against the extreme of want,

And stretch, though late, their providential fears, 525

To food and raiment for their future years:

But women never see their wealth decay;

With lavish hands they scatter night and day,

As if the gold, with vegetative power,

Would spring afresh, and bloom from hour to hour; 530

As if the mass its present size would keep,

And no expense reduce the eternal heap.

Others there are, who centre all their bliss

In the soft eunuch, and the beardless kiss:

They need not from his chin avert their face, 535

Nor use abortive drugs, for his embrace.

But oh! their joys run high, if he be formed,

When his full veins the fire of love has warmed;

When every part's to full perfection reared,

And naught of manhood wanting, but the beard. 540

But should the dame in music take delight,

The public singer is disabled quite:

In vain the prætor guards him all he can;

She slips the buckle, and enjoys her man.

Still in her hand his instrument is found, 545

Thick set with gems, that shed a lustre round;

Still o'er his lyre the ivory quill she flings,

Still runs divisions on the trembling strings,

The trembling strings, which the loved Hedymel

Was wont to strike--so sweetly, and so well! 550

These still she holds, with these she soothes her woes,

And kisses on the dear, dear wire bestows.

A noble matron of the Lamian line

Inquired of Janus (offering meal and wine)

If Pollio, at the Harmonic Games, would speed, 555

And wear the oaken crown, the victor's meed!

What could she for a husband, more, have done,

What for an only, an expiring son?

Yes; for a harper, the besotted dame

Approached the altar, reckless of her fame, 560

And veiled her head, and, with a pious air,

Followed the Aruspex through the form of prayer;

And trembled, and turned pale, as he explored

The entrails, breathless for the fatal word!

But, tell me, father Janus, if you please, 565

Tell me, most ancient of the deities,

Is your attention to such suppliants given?

If so--there is not much to do in heaven!

For a comedian, this consults your will,

For a tragedian, that; kept standing, still, 570

By this eternal route, the wretched priest

Feels his legs swell, and dies to be releas'd.

But let her rather sing, than roam the streets,

And thrust herself in every crowd she meets;

Chat with great generals, though her lord be there, 575

With lawless eye, bold front, and bosom bare.

She, too, with curiosity o'erflows,

And all the news of all the world she knows;

Knows what in Scythia, what in Thrace is done;

The secrets of the step-dame and the son; 580

Who speeds, and who is jilted: and can swear, }

Who made the widow pregnant, when and where, }

And what she said, and how she frolicked there.-- }

She first espied the star, whose baleful ray,

O'er Parthia, and Armenia, shed dismay: 585

She watches at the gates, for news to come,

And intercepts it, as it enters Rome;

Then, fraught with full intelligence, she flies

Through every street, and, mingling truth with lies,

Tells how Niphates bore down every mound, 590

And poured his desolating flood around;

How earth, convulsed, disclosed its caverns hoar,

And cities trembled, and--were seen no more!

And yet this itch, though never to be cured,

Is easier, than her cruelty, endured. 595

Should a poor neighbor's dog but discompose

Her rest a moment, wild with rage she grows;

"Ho! whips," she cries, "and flay that brute accurs'd;"

"But flay that rascal there, who owns him, first."

Dangerous to meet while in these frantic airs, 600

And terrible to look at, she prepares

To bathe at night; she issues her commands,

And in long ranks forth poor the obedient bands,

With tubs, cloths, oils:--for 'tis her dear delight

To sweat in clamor, tumult, and affright. 605

When her tired arms refuse the balls to ply,

And the lewd bath-keeper has rubbed her dry,

She calls to mind each miserable guest,

Long since with hunger, and with sleep oppress'd,

And hurries home; all glowing, all athirst, 610

For wine, whole flasks of wine! and swallows, first,

Two quarts, to clear her stomach, and excite

A ravenous, an unbounded appetite!

Huisch! up it comes, good heavens! meat, drink, and all,

And flows in purple torrents round the hall; 615

Or a gilt ewer receives the foul contents,

And poisons all the house with vinous scents.

So, dropp'd into a vat, a snake is said

To drink and spew:--the husband turns his head,

Sick to the soul, from this disgusting scene, 620

And struggles to suppress his rising spleen.

But she is more intolerable yet,

Who plays the critic when at table set;

Calls Virgil charming, and attempts to prove

Poor Dido right, in venturing all for love. 625

From Maro, and Mæonides, she quotes

The striking passages, and, while she notes

Their beauties and defects, adjusts her scales,

And accurately weighs which bard prevails.

The astonished guests sit mute: grammarians yield, 630

Loud rhetoricians, baffled, quit the field;

Even auctioneers and lawyers stand aghast,

And not a woman speaks!--So thick, and fast,

The wordy shower descends, that you would swear

A thousand bells were jangling in your ear, 635

A thousand basins clattering. Vex no more

Your trumpets and your timbrels, as of yore,

To ease the laboring moon; her single yell

Can drown their clangor, and dissolve the spell.

She lectures too in Ethics, and declaims 640

On the CHIEF GOOD!--but, surely, she who aims

To seem too learn'd, should take the male array;

A hog, due offering, to Sylvanus slay,

And, with the Stoic's privilege, repair

To farthing baths, and strip in public there! 645

Oh, never may the partner of my bed

With subtleties of logic stuff her head;

Nor whirl her rapid syllogisms around,

Nor with imperfect enthymemes confound!

Enough for me, if common things she know, 650

And boast the little learning schools bestow.

I hate the female pedagogue, who pores

O'er her Palæmon hourly; who explores

All modes of speech, regardless of the sense,

But tremblingly alive to mood and tense: 655

Who puzzles me with many an uncouth phrase,

From some old canticle of Numa's days;

Corrects her country friends, and can not hear

Her husband solecize without a sneer!

A woman stops at nothing, when she wears 660

Rich emeralds round her neck, and in her ears

Pearls of enormous size; these justify

Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye.

Sure, of all ills with which mankind are curs'd,

A wife who brings you money is the worst. 665

Behold! her face a spectacle appears,

Bloated, and foul, and plastered to the ears

With viscous paste:--the husband looks askew,

And sticks his lips in this detested glue.

She meets the adulterer bathed, perfumed, and dress'd, 670

But rots in filth at home, a very pest!

For him she breathes of nard; for him alone

She makes the sweets of Araby her own;

For him, at length, she ventures to uncase,

Scales the first layer of roughcast from her face, 675

And, while the maids to know her now begin,

Clears, with that precious milk, her frouzy skin,

For which, though exiled to the frozen main,

She'd lead a drove of asses in her train!

But tell me yet; this thing, thus daubed and oiled, 680

Thus poulticed, plastered, baked by turns and boiled,

Thus with pomatums, ointments, lackered o'er,

Is it a FACE, Ursidius, or a SORE?

'Tis worth a little labor to survey

Our wives more near and trace 'em through the day. 685

If, dreadful to relate! the night foregone,

The husband turned his back, or lay alone,

All, all is lost; the housekeeper is stripped,

The tiremaid chidden, and the chairman whipped:

Rods, cords, and thongs avenge the master's sleep, 690

And force the guiltless house to wake and weep.

There are, who hire a beadle by the year,

To lash their servants round; who, pleased to hear

The eternal thong, bid him lay on, while they,

At perfect ease, the silkman's stores survey, 695

Chat with their female gossips, or replace

The cracked enamel on their treacherous face.

No respite yet:--they leisurely hum o'er

The countless _items_ of the day before,

And bid him still lay on; till, faint with toil, 700

He drops the scourge; when, with a rancorous smile,

"Begone!" they thunder in a horrid tone,

"Now your accounts are settled, rogues, begone!"

But should she wish with nicer care to dress,

And now the hour of assignation press 705

(Whether the adulterer for her coming wait

In Isis' fane, to bawdry consecrate,

Or in Lucullus' walks), the house appears

A true Sicilian court, all gloom and tears.

The wretched Psecas, for the whip prepared, 710

With locks disheveled, and with shoulders bared,

Attempts her hair: fire flashes from her eyes,

And, "Strumpet! why this curl so high?" she cries.

Instant the lash, without remorse, is plied,

And the blood stains her bosom, back, and side. 715

But why this fury?--Is the girl to blame,

If your air shocks you, or your features shame?

Another, trembling, on the left prepares

To open and arrange the straggling hairs

In ringlets trim: meanwhile, the council meet: 720

And first the nurse, a personage discreet,

Late from the toilet to the wheel removed

(The effect of time), yet still of taste approved,

Gives her opinion: then the rest, in course,

As age, or practice, lends their judgment force. 725

So warm they grow, and so much pains they take,

You'd think her honor or her life at stake!

So high they build her head, such tiers on tiers,

With wary hands, they pile, that she appears,

Andromache, before:--and what behind? 730

A dwarf, a creature of a different kind.--

Meanwhile, engrossed by these important cares,

She thinks not on her lord's distress'd affairs,

Scarce on himself; but leads a separate life,

As if she were his neighbor, not his wife? 735

Or, but in this--that all control she braves;

Hates where he loves, and squanders where he saves.

Room for Bellona's frantic votaries! room

For Cybele's mad enthusiasts! lo, they come!

A lusty semivir, whose part obscene, 740

A broken shell has severed smooth and clean,

A raw-boned, mitred priest, whom the whole choir

Of curtailed priestlings reverence and admire,

Enters, with his wild rout; and bids the fair

Of autumn, and its sultry blasts, beware, 745

Unless she lustrate, with an hundred eggs,

Her household straight:--then, impudently begs

Her cast-off clothes, that every plague they fear

May enter them, and expiate all the year!

But lo! another tribe! at whose command, 750

See her, in winter, near the Tiber stand,

Break the thick ice, and, ere the sun appears,

Plunge in the crashing eddy to the ears;

Then, shivering from the keen and eager breeze,

Crawl round the banks, on bare and bleeding knees. 755

Should milkwhite Iö bid, from Meroë's isle

She'd fetch the sunburnt waters of the Nile,

To sprinkle in her fane; for she, it seems,

Has heavenly visitations in her dreams--

Mark the pure soul, with whom the gods delight 760

To hold high converse at the noon of night!

For this she cherishes, above the rest,

Her Iö's favorite priest, a knave profess'd,

A holy hypocrite, who strolls abroad,

With his Anubis, his dog-headed god! 765

Girt by a linen-clad, a bald-pate crew

Of howling vagrants, who their cries renew

In every street, as up and down they run,

To find OSIRE, fit father to fit son!

He sues for pardon, when the liquorish dame 770

Abstains not from the interdicted game

On high and solemn days; for great the crime,

To stain the nuptial couch at such a time,

And great the atonement due;--the silver snake,

Abhorrent of the deed, was seen to quake! 775

Yet he prevails:--Osiris hears his prayers,

And, softened by a goose, the culprit spares.

Without her badge, a Jewess now draws near,

And, trembling, begs a trifle in her ear.

No common personage! she knows full well 780

The laws of Solyma, and she can tell

The dark decrees of heaven; a priestess she,

An hierarch of the consecrated tree!

Moved by these claims thus modestly set forth,

She gives her a few coins of little worth; 785

For Jews are moderate, and, for farthing fees,

Will sell what fortune, or what dreams you please.

The prophetess dismissed, a Syrian sage

Now enters, and explores the future page,

In a dove's entrails: there he sees express'd 790

A youthful lover: there, a rich bequest,

From some kind dotard: then a chick he takes,

And in its breast, and in a puppy's, rakes,

And sometimes in--an infant's: he will teach

The art to others, and, when taught, impeach! 795

But chiefly in Chaldeans she believes:

Whate'er they say, with reverence she receives,

As if from Hammon's secret fount it came;

Since Delphi now, if we may credit fame,

Gives no responses, and a long dark night 800

Conceals the future hour from mortal sight.

Of these, the chief (such credit guilt obtains!)

Is he, who, banished oft, and oft in chains,

Stands forth the veriest knave; he who foretold

The death of Galba--to his rival sold! 805

No juggler must for fame or profit hope,

Who has not narrowly escaped the rope;

Begged hard for exile, and, by special grace,

Obtained confinement in some desert place.--

To him your Tanaquil applies, in doubt 810

How long her jaundiced mother may hold out;

But first, how long her husband: next, inquires,

When she shall follow, to their funeral pyres,

Her sisters, and her uncles; last, if fate

Will kindly lengthen out the adulterer's date 815

Beyond her own;--content, if he but live,

And sure that heaven has nothing more to give!

Yet she may still be suffered; for, what woes

The louring aspect of old Saturn shows;

Or in what sign bright Venus ought to rise, 820

To shed her mildest influence from the skies;

Or what fore-fated month to gain is given,

And what to loss (the mysteries of heaven),

She knows not, nor pretends to know: but flee

The dame, whose Manual of Astrology 825

Still dangles at her side, smooth as chafed gum,

And fretted by her everlasting thumb!--

Deep in the science now, she leaves her mate

To go, or stay; but will not share his fate,

Withheld by trines and sextiles; she will look, 830

Before her chair be ordered, in the book,

For the fit hour; an itching eye endure,

Nor, till her scheme be raised, attempt the cure;

Nay, languishing in bed, receive no meat,

Till Petosyris bid her rise and eat. 835

The curse is universal: high and low

Are mad alike the future hour to know.

The rich consult a Babylonian seer,

Skilled in the mysteries of either sphere;

Or a gray-headed priest, hired by the state, 840

To watch the lightning, and to expiate.

The middle sort, a quack, at whose command

They lift the forehead, and make bare the hand;

While the sly lecher in the table pries,

And claps it wantonly, with gloating eyes. 845

The poor apply to humbler cheats, still found

Beside the Circus wall, or city mound;

While she, whose neck no golden trinket bears,

To the dry ditch, or dolphin's tower, repairs,

And anxiously inquires which she shall choose, 850

The tapster, or old-clothes man? which refuse?

Yet these the pangs of childbirth undergo,

And all the yearnings of a mother know;

These, urged by want, assume the nurse's care,

And learn to breed the children which they bear. 855

Those shun both toil and danger; for, though sped,

The wealthy dame is seldom brought to bed:

Such the dire power of drugs, and such the skill

They boast, to cause miscarriages at will!

Weep'st thou? O fool! the blest invention hail, 860

And give the potion, if the gossips fail;

For, should thy wife her nine months' burden bear,

An Æthiop's offspring might thy fortunes heir;

A sooty thing, fit only to affray,

And, seen at morn, to poison all the day! 865

Supposititious breeds, the hope and joy

Of fond, believing husbands, I pass by;

The beggars' bantlings, spawned in open air,

And left by some pond side, to perish there.--

From hence your Flamens, hence your Salians come; 870

Your Scauri, chiefs and magistrates of Rome!

Fortune stands tittering by, in playful mood,

And smiles, complacent, on the sprawling brood;

Takes them all naked to her fostering arms,

Feeds from her mouth, and in her bosom warms: 875

Then, to the mansions of the great she bears

The precious brats, and, for herself, prepares

A secret farce; adopts them for her own:

And, when her nurslings are to manhood grown,

She brings them forth, rejoiced to see them sped, 880

And wealth and honors dropping on their head!

Some purchase charms, some, more pernicious still,

Thessalian philters, to subdue the will

Of an uxorious spouse, and make him bear

Blows, insults, all a saucy wife can dare. 885

Hence that swift lapse to second childhood; hence

Those vapors which envelop every sense;

This strange forgetfulness from hour to hour;

And well, if this be all:--more fatal power,

More terrible effects, the dose may have, 890

And force you, like Caligula, to rave,

When his Cæsonia squeezed into the bowl

The dire excrescence of a new-dropp'd foal.--

Then Uproar rose; the universal chain

Of Order snapped, and Anarchy's wild reign 895

Came on apace, as if the queen of heaven

Had fired the Thunderer, and to madness driven.

Thy mushroom, Agrippine! was innocent,

To this accursed draught; that only sent

One palsied, bedrid sot, with gummy eyes, 900

And slavering lips, heels foremost to the skies:

This, to wild fury roused a bloody mind,

And called for fire and sword; this potion joined

In one promiscuous slaughter high and low,

And leveled half the nation at a blow. 905

Such is the power of philters! such the ill,

One sorceress can effect by wicked skill!

They hate their husband's spurious issue:--this,

If this were all, were not, perhaps, amiss:

But they go farther; and 'tis now some time 910

Since poisoning sons-in-law scarce seemed a crime.

Mark then, ye fatherless! what I advise,

And trust, O, trust no dainties, if you're wise:

Ye heirs to large estates! touch not that fare,

Your mother's fingers have been busy there; 915

See! it looks livid, swollen:--O check your haste,

And let your wary fosterfather taste,

Whate'er she sets before you: fear her meat,

And be the first to look, the last to eat.

But this is fiction all! I pass the bound 920

Of Satire, and encroach on Tragic ground!

Deserting truth, I choose a fabled theme,

And, like the buskined bards of Greece, declaim,

In deep-mouthed tones, in swelling strains, on crimes

As yet unknown to our Rutulian climes! 925

Would it were so! but Pontia cries aloud,

"No, I performed it." See! the fact's avowed--

"I mingled poison for my children, I;

'Twas found upon me, wherefore then deny?"

What, two at once, most barbarous viper! two! 930

"Nay, seven, had seven been mine: believe it true!"

Now let us credit what the tragic stage

Displays of Progne and Medea's rage;

Crimes of dire name, which, disbelieved of yore,

Become familiar, and revolt no more; 935

Those ancient dames in scenes of blood were bold,

And wrought fell deeds, but not, as ours, for gold:--

In every age, we view, with less surprise,

Such horrors as from bursts of fury rise,

When stormy passions, scorning all control, 940

Rend the mad bosom, and unseat the soul.

As when impetuous winds, and driving rain,

Mine some huge rock that overhangs the plain,

The cumbrous mass descends with thundering force,

And spreads resistless ruin in its course. 945

Curse on the woman, who reflects by fits,

And in cold blood her cruelties commits!--

They see, upon the stage, the Grecian wife

Redeeming with her own her husband's life;

Yet, in her place, would willingly deprive 950

Their lords of breath to keep their dogs alive!

Abroad, at home, the Belides you meet,

And Clytemnestras swarm in every street;

But here the difference lies:--those bungling wives,

With a blunt axe hacked out their husbands' lives; 955

While now, the deed is done with dexterous art,

And a drugged bowl performs the axe's part.

Yet, if the husband, prescient of his fate,

Have fortified his breast with mithridate,

She baffles him e'en there, and has recourse 960

To the old weapon for a last resource.

SATIRE VII.

TO TELESINUS.

Yes, all the hopes of learning, 'tis confess'd,

And all the patronage, on CÆSAR rest:

For he alone the drooping Nine regards--

When, now, our best, and most illustrious bards,

Quit their ungrateful studies, and retire, 5

Bagnios and bakehouses, for bread, to hire;

With humbled views, a life of toil embrace,

And deem a crier's business no disgrace;

Since Clio, driven by hunger from the shade,

Mixes in crowds, and bustles for a trade. 10

And truly, if (the bard's too frequent curse)

No coin be found in your Pierian purse,

'Twere not ill done to copy, for the nonce,

Machæra, and turn auctioneer at once.

Hie, my poetic friend; in accents loud, 15

Commend your precious lumber to the crowd,

Old tubs, stools, presses, wrecks of many a chest,

Paccius' damned plays, Thebes, Tereus, and the rest.--

And better so--than haunt the courts of law,

And swear, for hire, to what you never saw: 20

Leave this resource to Cappadocian knights,

To Gallogreeks, and such new-fangled wights,

As want, or infamy, has chased from home,

And driven, in barefoot multitudes, to Rome.

Come, my brave youths!--the genuine sons of rhyme, 25

Who, in sweet numbers, couch the true sublime,

Shall, from this hour, no more their fate accuse,

Or stoop to pains unworthy of the Muse.

Come, my brave youths! your tuneful labors ply,

Secure of favor; lo! the imperial eye 30

Looks round, attentive, on each rising bard,

For worth to praise, for genius to reward!

But if for other patronage you look,

And therefore write, and therefore swell your book,

Quick, call for wood, and let the flames devour 35

The hapless produce of the studious hour;

Or lock it up, to moths and worms a prey,

And break your pens, and fling your ink away:--

Or pour it rather o'er your epic flights,

Your battles, sieges (fruit of sleepless nights), 40

Pour it, mistaken men, who rack your brains

In dungeons, cocklofts, for heroic strains;

Who toil and sweat to purchase mere renown,

A meagre statue, and an ivy crown!

Here bound your expectations: for the great, 45

Grown, wisely, covetous, have learned, of late,

To praise, and ONLY praise, the high-wrought strain,

As boys, the bird of Juno's glittering train.

Meanwhile those vigorous years, so fit to bear

The toils of agriculture, commerce, war, 50

Spent in this idle trade, decline apace,

And age, unthought of, stares you in the face:--

O then, appalled to find your better days

Have earned you naught but poverty and praise,

At all your barren glories you repine, 55

And curse, too late, the unavailing Nine!

Hear, now, what sneaking ways your patrons find,

To save their darling gold:--they pay in kind!

Verses, composed in every Muse's spite,

To the starved bard, they, in their turn, recite; 60

And, if they yield to Homer, let him know,

'Tis--that he lived a thousand years ago!

But if, inspired with genuine love of fame,

A dry rehearsal only be your aim,

The miser's breast with sudden warmth dilates, 65

And lo! he opes his triple-bolted gates;

Nay, sends his clients to support your cause,

And rouse the tardy audience to applause:

But will not spare one farthing to defray

The numerous charges of this glorious day, 70

The desk where, throned in conscious pride, you sit,

The joists and beams, the orchestra and the pit.

Still we persist; plow the light sand, and sow

Seed after seed, where none can ever grow:

Nay, should we, conscious of our fruitless pain, 75

Strive to escape, we strive, alas! in vain;

Long habit and the thirst of praise beset,

And close us in the inextricable net.

The insatiate itch of scribbling, hateful pest,

Creeps like a tetter, through the human breast, 80

Nor knows, nor hopes a cure; since years, which chill

All other passions, but inflame the ill!

But HE, the bard of every age and clime,

Of genius fruitful, ardent and sublime,

Who, from the glowing mint of fancy, pours 85

No spurious metal, fused from common ores,

But gold, to matchless purity refined,

And stamped with all the godhead in his mind;

He whom I feel, but want the power to paint,

Springs from a soul impatient of restraint, 90

And free from every care; a soul that loves

The Muse's haunts, clear founts and shady groves.

Never, no never, did He wildly rave,

And shake his thyrsus in the Aonian cave,

Whom poverty kept sober, and the cries 95

Of a lean stomach, clamorous for supplies:

No; the wine circled briskly through the veins,

When Horace poured his dithyrambic strains!--

What room for fancy, say, unless the mind,

And all its thoughts, to poesy resigned, 100

Be hurried with resistless force along,

By the two kindred Powers of Wine and Song!

O! 'tis the exclusive business of a breast

Impetuous, uncontrolled--not one distress'd

With household cares, to view the bright abodes, 105

The steeds, the chariots, and the forms of gods:

And the fierce Fury, as her snakes she shook,

And withered the Rutulian with a look!

Those snakes, had Virgil no Mæcenas found, }

Had dropp'd, in listless length, upon the ground; } 110

And the still slumbering trump, groaned with no mortal sound. }

Yet we expect, from Lappa's tragic rage,

Such scenes as graced, of old, the Athenian stage;

Though he, poor man, from hand to mouth be fed,

And driven to pawn his furniture for bread! 115

When Numitor is asked to serve a friend,

"He can not; he is poor." Yet he can send

Rich presents to his mistress! he can buy

Tame lions, and find means to keep them high!

What then? the beasts are still the lightest charge; 120

For your starved bards have maws so devilish large!

Stretched in his marble palace, at his ease,

Lucan may write, and only ask to please;

But what is this, if this be all you give,

To Bassus and Serranus? They must live! 125

When Statius fixed a morning, to recite

His Thebaid to the town, with what delight

They flocked to hear! with what fond rapture hung

On the sweet strains, made sweeter by his tongue!

Yet, while the seats rung with a general peal 130

Of boisterous praise, the bard had lacked a meal,

Unless with Paris he had better sped,

And trucked a virgin tragedy for bread.

Mirror of men! he showers, with liberal hands,

On needy poets, honors and commands:-- 135

An actor's patronage a peer's outgoes,

And what the last withholds, the first bestows!

--And will you still on Camerinus wait,

And Bareas? will you still frequent the great?

Ah, rather to the player your labors take, 140

And at one lucky stroke your fortune make!

Yet envy not the man who earns hard bread

By tragedy: the Muses' friends are fled!--

Mæcenas, Proculeius, Fabius, gone,

And Lentulus, and Cotta--every one! 145

THEN worth was cherished, then the bard might toil,

Secure of favor, o'er the midnight oil;

Then all December's revelries refuse,

And give the festive moments to the Muse.

So fare the tuneful race: but ampler gains 150

Await, no doubt, the grave HISTORIANS' pains!

More time, more study they require, and pile

Page upon page, heedless of bulk the while,

Till, fact conjoined to fact with thought intense,

The work is closed, at many a ream's expense! 155

Say now, what harvest was there ever found,

What golden crop, from this long-labored ground?

'Tis barren all; and one poor plodding scribe

Gets more by framing pleas than all the tribe.

True:--'tis a slothful breed, that, nursed in ease, 160

Soft beds, and whispering shades, alone can please.

Say then, what gain the LAWYER'S toil affords,

His sacks of papers, and his war of words?

Heavens! how he bellows in our tortured ears;

But then, then chiefly, when the client hears, 165

Or one prepared, with vouchers, to attest

Some desperate debt, more anxious than the rest,

Twitches his elbow: then, his passions rise!

Then, forth he puffs the immeasurable lies

From his swollen lungs! then, the white foam appears, 170

And, driveling down his beard, his vest besmears!

Ask you the profit of this painful race?

'Tis quickly summed: Here, the joint fortunes place

Of five-score lawyers; there, Lacerta's sole--

And that one charioteer's, shall poise the whole! 175

The Generals take their seats in regal wise.

You, my pale Ajax, watch the hour, and rise,

In act to plead a trembling client's cause,

Before Judge Jolthead--learned in the laws.

Now stretch your throat, unhappy man! now raise 180

Your clamors, that, when hoarse, a bunch of bays,

Stuck in your garret window, may declare,

That some victorious pleader nestles there!

O glorious hour! but what your fee, the while?

A rope of shriveled onions from the Nile, 185

A rusty ham, a jar of broken sprats,

And wine, the refuse of our country vats;

Five flagons for four causes! if you hold,

Though this indeed be rare, a piece of gold;

The brethren, _as per contract_, on you fall, 190

And share the prize, solicitors and all!

Whate'er he asks, Æmilius may command,

Though more of law be ours: but lo! there stand

Before his gate, conspicuous from afar,

Four stately steeds, yoked to a brazen car: 195

And the great pleader, looking wary round,

On a fierce charger that disdains the ground,

Levels his threatening spear, in act to throw,

And seems to meditate no common blow.

Such arts as these, to beggary Matho brought, 200

And such the ruin of Tongillus wrought,

Who, with his troop of slaves, a draggled train,

Annoyed the baths, of his huge oil-horn vain;

Swept through the Forum, in a chair of state,

To every auction--villas, slaves, or plate; 205

And, trading on the credit of his dress,

Cheapened whate'er he saw, though penniless!

And some, indeed, have thriven by tricks like these:

Purple and violet swell a lawyer's fees;

Bustle and show above his means conduce 210

To business, and profusion proves of use.

The vice is universal: Rome confounds

The wealthiest;--prodigal beyond all bounds!

Could our old pleaders visit earth again,

Tully himself would scarce a brief obtain, 215

Unless his robe were purple, and a stone,

Diamond or ruby, on his finger shone.

The wary plaintiff, ere a fee he gives,

Inquires at what expense his counsel lives;

Has he eight slaves, ten followers? chairs to wait, 220

And clients to precede his march in state?

This Paulus knows full well, and, therefore, hires

A ring to plead in; therefore, too, acquires

More briefs than Cossus:--preference not unsound,

For how should eloquence in rags be found? 225

Who gives poor Basilus a cause of state?

When, to avert a trembling culprit's fate,

Shows he a weeping mother? or who heeds

How close he argues, and how well he pleads?

Unhappy Basilus!--but he is wrong: 230

Would he procure subsistence by his tongue,

Let him renounce the forum, and withdraw

To Gaul, or Afric, the dry-nurse of law.

But Vectius, yet more desperate than the rest,

Has opened (O that adamantine breast!) 235

A RHETORIC school; where striplings rave and storm

At tyranny, through many a crowded form.--

The exercises lately, sitting, read,

Standing, distract his miserable head,

And every day and every hour affords 240

The selfsame subjects, in the selfsame words;

Till, like hashed cabbage served for each repast,

The repetition--kills the wretch at last!

Where the main jet of every question lies,

And whence the chief objections may arise, 245

All wish to know; but none the price will pay.

"The price," retorts the scholar, "do you say!

What have I learned?" There go the master's pains,

Because, forsooth, the Arcadian brute lacks brains!

And yet this oaf, every sixth morn, prepares 250

To split my head with Hannibal's affairs,

While he debates at large, "Whether 'twere right

To take advantage of the general fright,

And march to Rome; or, by the storm alarmed,

And all the elements against him armed, 255

The dangerous expedition to delay,

And lead his harassed troops some other way."

--Sick of the theme, which still returns, and still

The exhausted wretch exclaims, Ask what you will,

I'll give it, so you on his sire prevail, 260

To hear, thus oft, the booby's endless tale!

So Vectius speeds: his brethren, wiser far,

Have shut up school, and hurried to the bar.

Adieu the idle fooleries of Greece,

The soporific drug, the golden fleece, 265

The faithless husband, and the abandoned wife,

And Æson, coddled to new light and life,

A long adieu! on more productive themes,

On actual crimes, the sophist now declaims:

Thou too, my friend, would'st thou my counsel hear, 270

Should'st free thyself from this ungrateful care;

Lest all be lost, and thou reduced, poor sage,

To want a tally in thy helpless age!

Bread still the lawyer earns; but tell me yet,

What your Chrysogonus and Pollio get 275

(The chief of rhetoricians), though they teach

Our youth of quality, THE ART OF SPEECH?

Oh, no! the great pursue a nobler end:--

Five thousand on a bath they freely spend;

More on a portico, where, while it lours, 280

They ride, and bid defiance to the showers.

Shall they, for brighter skies, at home remain,

Or dash their pampered mules through mud and rain?

No: let them pace beneath the stately roof,

For there no mire can soil the shining hoof. 285

See next, on proud Numidian columns rise

An eating-room, that fronts the eastern skies,

And drinks the cooler sun. Expensive these!

But (cost whate'er they may), the times to please,

Sewers for arrangement of the board admired, 290

And cooks of taste and skill must yet be hired.

Mid this extravagance, which knows no bounds,

Quintilian gets, and hardly gets, ten pounds:--

On education all is grudged as lost,

And sons are still a father's lightest cost. 295

Whence has Quintilian, then, his vast estate?

Urge not an instance of peculiar fate:

Perhaps, by luck. The lucky, I admit,

Have all advantages; have beauty, wit,

And wisdom, and high blood: the lucky, too, 300

May take, at will, the senatorial shoe;

Be first-rate speakers, pleaders, every thing;

And, though they croak like frogs, be thought to sing.

O, there's a difference, friend, beneath what sign

We spring to light, or kindly or malign! 305

FORTUNE IS ALL: She, as the fancy springs,

Makes kings of pedants, and of pedants kings.

For, what were Tullius, and Ventidius, say,

But great examples of the wondrous sway

Of stars, whose mystic influence alone, 310

Bestows, on captives triumphs, slaves a throne?

He, then, is lucky; and, amid the clan,

Ranks with the milk-white crow, or sable swan:

While all his hapless brethren count their gains,

And execrate, too late, their fruitless pains. 315

Witness thy end, Thrasymachus! and thine,

Unblest Charinas!--Thou beheld'st him pine,

Thou, Athens! and would'st naught but bane bestow;

The only charity--thou seem'st to know!

Shades of our sires! O, sacred be your rest, 320

And lightly lie the turf upon your breast!

Flowers round your urns breathe sweets beyond compare,

And spring eternal shed its influence there!

You honored tutors, now a slighted race,

And gave them all a parent's power and place. 325

Achilles, grown a man, the lyre assayed

On his paternal hills, and, while he played,

With trembling eyed the rod;--and yet, the tail

Of the good Centaur, scarcely, then, could fail

To force a smile: such reverence now is rare, 330

And boys with bibs strike Rufus on his chair,

Fastidious Rufus, who, with critic rage,

Arraigned the purity of Tully's page!

Enough of these. Let the last wretched band,

The poor GRAMMARIANS, say, what liberal hand 335

Rewards their toil: let learned Palæmon tell,

Who proffers what his skill deserves so well.

Yet from this pittance, whatsoe'er it be

(Less, surely, than the rhetorician's fee),

The usher snips off something for his pains, 340

And the purveyor nibbles what remains.

Courage, Palæmon! be not over-nice,

But suffer some abatement in your price;

As those who deal in rugs, will ask you high,

And sink by pence and half-pence, till you buy. 345

Yes, suffer this; while something's left to pay

Your rising hours before the dawn of day,

When e'en the laboring poor their slumbers take,

And not a weaver, not a smith's awake:

While something's left to pay you for the stench 350

Of smouldering lamps, thick spread o'er every bench,

Where ropy vapors Virgil's pages soil,

And Horace looks one blot, all soot and oil!

Even then, the stipend thus reduced, thus small,

Without a lawsuit, rarely comes at all. 355

Add yet, ye parents, add to the disgrace,

And heap new hardships on this wretched race.

Make it a point that all, and every part,

Of their own science, be possessed by heart;

That general history with our own they blend, 360

And have all authors at their fingers' end:

Still ready to inform you, should you meet,

And ask them at the bath, or in the street,

Who nursed Anchises; from what country came

The step-dame of Archemorus, what her name; 365

How long Acestes flourished, and what store

Of generous wine the Phrygians from him bore--

Make it a point too, that, like ductile clay,

They mould the tender mind, and day by day

Bring out the form of Virtue; that they prove 370

A father to the youths, in care and love;

And watch that no obscenities prevail--

And trust me, friend, even Argus' self might fail,

The busy hands of schoolboys to espy,

And the lewd fires which twinkle in their eye. 375

All this, and more, exact; and, having found

The man you seek, say--When the year comes round,

We'll give thee for thy twelve months' anxious pains,

As much--as, IN AN HOUR, A FENCER GAINS!

SATIRE VIII.

TO PONTICUS.

"Your ancient house!" no more.--I can not see

The wondrous merits of a pedigree:

No, Ponticus;--nor of a proud display

Of smoky ancestors, in wax or clay;

Æmilius, mounted on his car sublime, 5

Curius, half wasted by the teeth of time,

Corvinus, dwindled to a shapeless bust,

And high-born Galba, crumbling into dust.

What boots it, on the LINEAL TREE to trace,

Through many a branch, the founders of our race, 10

Time-honored chiefs; if, in their sight, we give

A loose to vice, and like low villains live?

Say, what avails it, that, on either hand,

The stern Numantii, an illustrious band,

Frown from the walls, if their degenerate race 15

Waste the long night at dice, before their face?

If, staggering, to a drowsy bed they creep,

At that prime hour when, starting from their sleep,

Their sires the signal of the fight unfurled,

And drew their legions forth, and won the world? 20

Say, why should Fabius, of the Herculean name,

To the GREAT ALTAR vaunt his lineal claim,

If, softer than Euganean lambs, the youth,

His wanton limbs, with Ætna's pumice, smooth,

And shame his rough-hewn sires? if greedy, vain, 25

If, a vile trafficker in secret bane,

He blast his wretched kindred with a bust,

For public vengeance to--reduce to dust!

Fond man! though all the heroes of your line

Bedeck your halls, and round your galleries shine 30

In proud display; yet, take this truth from me,

VIRTUE ALONE IS TRUE NOBILITY.

Set Cossus, Drusus, Paulus, then, in view,

The bright example of their lives pursue;

Let these precede the statues of your race, 35

And these, when Consul, of your rods take place.

O give me inborn worth! dare to be just,

Firm to your word, and faithful to your trust:

These praises hear, at least deserve to hear,

I grant your claim, and recognize the peer. 40

Hail! from whatever stock you draw your birth,

The son of Cossus, or the son of Earth,

All hail! in you, exulting Rome espies

Her guardian Power, her great Palladium rise;

And shouts like Egypt, when her priests have found, 45

A new Osiris, for the old one drowned!

But shall we call those noble, who disgrace

Their lineage, proud of an illustrious race?

Vain thought!--but thus, with many a taunting smile,

The dwarf an Atlas, Moor a swan, we style; 50

The crookbacked wench, Europa; and the hound,

With age enfeebled, toothless, and unsound,

That listless lies, and licks the lamps for food,

Lord of the chase, and tyrant of the wood!

You, too, beware, lest Satire's piercing eye 55

The slave of guilt through grandeur's blaze espy,

And, drawing from your crime some sounding name,

Declare at once your greatness and your shame.

Ask you for whom this picture I design?

Plautus, thy birth and folly make it thine. 60

Thou vaunt'st thy pedigree, on every side

To noble and imperial blood allied;

As if thy honors by thyself were won,

And thou hadst some illustrious action done,

To make the world believe thee Julia's heir, 65

And not the offspring of some easy fair,

Who, shivering in the wind, near yon dead wall,

Plies her vile labor, and is all to all.

"Away, away! ye slaves of humblest birth,

Ye dregs of Rome, ye nothings of the earth, 70

Whose fathers who shall tell! my ancient line

Descends from Cecrops." Man of blood divine!

Live, and enjoy the secret sweets which spring

In breasts, affined to so remote a king!--

Yet know, amid these "dregs," low grandeur's scorn, 75

Will those be found whom arts and arms adorn:

Some, skilled to plead a noble blockhead's cause,

And solve the dark enigmas of the laws;

Some, who the Tigris' hostile banks explore,

And plant our eagles on Batavia's shore: 80

While thou, in mean, inglorious pleasure lost,

With "Cecrops! Cecrops!" all thou hast to boast,

Art a full brother to the crossway stone,

Which clowns have chipped the head of Hermes on:

For 'tis no bar to kindred, that thy block 85

Is formed of flesh and blood, and theirs of rock.

Of beasts, great son of Troy, who vaunts the breed,

Unless renowned for courage, strength, or speed?

'Tis thus we praise the horse, who mocks our eyes,

While, to the goal, with lightning's speed, he flies! 90

Whom many a well-earned palm and trophy grace,

And the Cirque hails, unrivaled in the race!

--Yes, he is noble, spring from whom he will,

Whose footsteps, in the dust, are foremost still;

While Hirpine's stock are to the market led, 95

If Victory perch but rarely on their head:

For no respect to pedigree is paid,

No honor to a sire's illustrious shade.

Flung cheaply off, they drag the cumbrous wain,

With shoulders bare and bleeding from the chain; 100

Or take, with some blind ass in concert found,

At Nepo's mill, their everlasting round.

That Rome may, therefore, YOU, not YOURS, admire,

By virtuous actions, first, to praise aspire;

Seek not to shine by borrowed light alone, 105

But with your father's glories blend your own.

THIS to the youth, whom Rumor brands as vain,

And swelling--full of his Neronian strain;

Perhaps, with truth:--for rarely shall we find

A sense of modesty in that proud kind. 110

But were my Ponticus content to raise

His honors thus, on a forefather's praise,

Worthless the while--'twould tinge my cheeks with shame--

'Tis dangerous building on another's fame,

Lest the substructure fail, and on the ground 115

Your baseless pile be hurled, in fragments, round.--

Stretched on the plain, the vine's weak tendrils try

To clasp the elm they drop from; fail--and die!

Be brave, be just; and when your country's laws

Call you to witness in a dubious cause, 120

Though Phalaris plant his bull before your eye,

And, frowning, dictate to your lips the lie,

Think it a crime no tears can e'er efface,

To purchase safety with compliance base,

At honor's cost a feverish span extend, 125

AND SACRIFICE FOR LIFE, LIFE'S ONLY END!

LIFE! 'tis not life--who merits death is dead;

Though Gauran oysters for his feasts be spread,

Though his limbs drip with exquisite perfume,

And the late rose around his temples bloom! 130

O, when the province, long desired, you gain,

Your boiling rage, your lust of wealth, restrain,

And pity our allies: all Asia grieves--

Her blood, her marrow, drained by legal thieves.

Revere the laws, obey the parent state; 135

Observe what rich rewards the good await.

What punishments the bad: how Tutor sped,

While Rome's whole thunder rattled round his head!

And yet what boots it, that one spoiler bleed,

If still a worse, and still a worse succeed; 140

If neither fear nor shame control their theft,

And Pansa seize the little Natta left?

Haste then, Chærippus, ere thy rags be known,

And sell the few thou yet canst call thine own,

And O, conceal the price! 'tis honest craft; 145

Thou could'st not keep the hatchet--save the haft.

Not such the cries of old, nor such the stroke,

When first the nations bowed beneath our yoke.

Wealth, then, was theirs, wealth without fear possess'd,

Full every house, and bursting every chest-- 150

Crimson, in looms of Sparta taught to glow,

And purple, deeply dyed in grain of Co;

Busts, to which Myro's touch did motion give,

And ivory, taught by Phidias' skill to live;

On every side a Polyclete you viewed, 155

And scarce a board without a Mentor stood.

These, these, the lust of rapine first inspired,

These, Antony and Dolabella fired.

And sacrilegious Verres:--so, for Rome

They shipped their secret plunder; and brought home 160

More treasures from our friends, in peace obtained,

Than from our foes, in war, were ever gained!

Now all is gone! the stallion made a prey,

The few brood mares and oxen swept away,

The Lares--if the sacred hearth possess'd } 165

One little god, that pleased above the rest-- }

Mean spoils, indeed! but such were now their best }

Perhaps you scorn (and may securely scorn)

The essenced Greek, whom arts, not arms, adorn:

Soft limbs, and spirits by refinement broke, 170

Would feebly struggle with the oppressive yoke.

But spare the Gaul, the fierce Illyrian spare,

And the rough Spaniard, terrible in war;

Spare too the Afric hind, whose ceaseless pain

Fills our wide granaries with autumnal grain, 175

And pampers Rome, while weightier cares engage

Her precious hours--the Circus and the Stage!

For, should you rifle them, O think in time,

What spoil would pay the execrable crime,

When greedy Marius fleeced them all so late, 180

And bare and bleeding left the hapless state!

But chief the brave, and wretched--tremble there;

Nor tempt too far the madness of despair:

For, should you all their little treasures drain,

Helmets, and spears, and swords, would still remain; 185

THE PLUNDERED NE'ER WANT ARMS. What I foretell }

Is no trite apophthegm, but--mark me well-- }

True as a Sibyl's leaf! fixed as an oracle! }

If men of worth the posts beneath you hold,

And no spruce favorite barter law for gold; 190

If no inherent stain your wife disgrace,

Nor, harpy-like, she flit from place to place,

A fell Celæno, ever on the watch,

And ever furious, all she sees to snatch;

Then choose what race you will: derive your birth 195

From Picus, or those elder sons of earth,

Who shook the throne of heaven; call him your sire,

Who first informed our clay with living fire;

Or single from the songs of ancient days,

What tale may suit you, and what parent raise. 200

But--if rash pride, and lust, your bosom sway,

If, with stern joy, you ply, from day to day

The ensanguined rods, and head on head demand,

Till the tired axe drop from the lictor's hand;

Then, every honor, by your father won, 205

Indignant to be borne by such a son,

Will, to his blood, oppose your daring claim,

And fire a torch to blaze upon your shame!--

Vice glares more strongly in the public eye,

As he who sins, in power or place is high. 210

SEE! by his great progenitors' remains

Fat Damasippus sweeps, with loosened reins.

Good Consul! he no pride of office feels,

But stoops, himself, to clog his headlong wheels.

"But this is all by night," the hero cries. 215

Yet the MOON sees! yet the STARS stretch their eyes,

Full on your shame!--A few short moments wait,

And Damasippus quits the pomp of state:

Then, proud the experienced driver to display,

He mounts his chariot in the face of day, 220

Whirls, with bold front, his grave associate by,

And jerks his whip, to catch the senior's eye:

Unyokes his weary steeds, and, to requite

Their service, feeds and litters them, at night.

Meanwhile, 'tis all he can, what time he stands 225

At Jove's high altar, as the law commands,

And offers sheep and oxen, he forswears

The Eternal King, and gives his silent prayers

To thee, Hippona, goddess of the stalls,

And gods more vile, daubed on the reeking walls! 230

At night, to his old haunts he scours, elate

(The tavern by the Idumean gate),

Where, while the host, bedrenched with liquid sweets,

With many a courteous phrase his entrance greets,

And many a smile; the hostess nimbly moves, 235

And gets the flagon ready, which he loves.

Here some, perhaps, my growing warmth may blame:

"In youth's wild hours," they urge, "we did the same."

'Tis granted, friends; but then we stopped in time,

Nor hugged our darling faults beyond our prime. 240

Brief let our follies be! and youthful sin

Fall, with the firstlings of the manly chin!--

Boys we may pity, nay, perhaps, excuse:

But Damasippus STILL frequents the stews,

Though now mature in vigor, ripe in age, 245

Of Cæsar's foes to check the headlong rage,

On Tigris' banks, in burnished arms, to shine,

And sternly guard the Danube, or the Rhine.

"The East revolts." Ho! let the troops repair

To Ostium, quick! "But where's the General?" Where! 250

Go, search the taverns; there the chief you'll find,

With cut-throats, plunderers, rogues of every kind,

Bier-jobbers, bargemen, drenched in fumes of wine,

And Cybele's priests, mid their loose drums, supine!

There none are less, none greater than the rest, 255

There my lord gives, and takes the scurvy jest;

There all who can, round the same table sprawl.

And there one greasy tankard serves for all.

Blessings of birth!--but, Ponticus, a word:

Owned you a slave like this degenerate lord, 260

What were his fate? your Lucan farm to till,

Or aid the mules to turn your Tuscan mill.

But Troy's great sons dispense with being good,

And boldly sin by courtesy of blood;

Wink at each other's crimes, and look for fame 265

In what would tinge a cobbler's cheek with shame.

And have I wreaked on such foul deeds my rage,

That worse should yet remain to blot my page!--

See Damasippus, all his fortune lost,

Compelled, for hire, to play a squealing ghost! 270

While Lentulus, his brother in renown,

Performs, with so much art, the perjured clown,

And suffers with such grace, that, for his pains,

I hold him worthy of--the CROSS he feigns.

Nor deem the heedless rabble void of blame:-- 275

Strangers alike to decency and shame,

They sit with brazen front, and calmly see

The hired patrician's low buffoonery;

Laugh at the Fabii's tricks, and grin to hear

The cuffs resound from the Mamerci's ear! 280

Who cares how low their blood is sold, how high?--

No Nero drives them, now, their fate to try:

Freely they come, and freely they expose

Their lives for hire, to grace the public shows!

But grant the worst: suppose the arena here, 285

And there the stage; on which would you appear?

The first: for who of death so much in dread,

As not to tremble more, the stage to tread,

Squat on his hams, in some blind nook to sit,

And watch his mistress, in a jealous fit!-- 290

But 'tis not strange, that, when the Emperor tunes

A scurvy harp, the lords should turn buffoons;

The wonder is, they turn not fencers too,

Secutors, Retiarians--AND THEY DO!

Gracchus steps forth: No sword his thigh invests-- 295

No helmet, shield--such armor he detests,

Detests and spurns; and impudently stands,

With the poised net and trident in his hands.

The foe advances--lo! a cast he tries,

But misses, and in frantic terror flies 300

Round the thronged Cirque; and, anxious to be known,

Lifts his bare face, with many a piteous moan.

"'Tis he! 'tis he!--I know the Salian vest,

With golden fringes, pendent from the breast;

The Salian bonnet, from whose pointed crown 305

The glittering ribbons float redundant down.

O spare him, spare!"--The brave Secutor heard,

And, blushing, stopped the chase; for he preferred

Wounds, death itself, to the contemptuous smile,

Of conquering one so noble, and--so vile! 310

Who, Nero, so depraved, if choice were free,

To hesitate 'twixt Seneca and thee?

Whose crimes, so much have they all crimes outgone,

Deserve more serpents, apes, and sacks, than one.

Not so, thou say'st; there are, whom I could name, 315

As deep in guilt, and as accursed in fame;

Orestes slew HIS mother. True; but know,

The same effects from different causes flow:

A father murdered at the social board,

And heaven's command, unsheathed his righteous sword. 320

Besides, Orestes, in his wildest mood,

Poisoned no cousin, shed no consort's blood,

Buried no poniard in a sister's throat,

Sung on no public stage, NO TROICS WROTE.--

THIS topped his frantic crimes! THIS roused mankind! 325

For what could Galba, what Virginius find,

In the dire annals of that bloody reign,

Which called for vengeance in a louder strain?

Lo here, the arts, the studies that engage

The world's great master! on a foreign stage, 330

To prostitute his voice for base renown,

And ravish, from the Greeks, a parsley crown!

Come then, great prince, great poet! while we throng

To greet thee, recent from triumphant song,

Come, place the unfading wreath, with reverence meet, 335

On the Domitii's brows! before their feet

The mask and pall of old Thyestes lay,

And Menalippé; while, in proud display,

From the colossal marble of thy sire,

Depends, the boast of Rome, thy conquering lyre! 340

Cethegus! Catiline! whose ancestors

Were nobler born, were higher ranked, than yours?

Yet ye conspired, with more than Gallic hate,

To wrap in midnight flames this hapless state;

On men and gods your barbarous rage to pour, 345

And deluge Rome with her own children's gore:

Horrors, which called, indeed, for vengeance dire,

For the pitched coat and stake, and smouldering fire!

But Tully watched--your league in silence broke,

And crushed your impious arms, without a stroke. 350

Yes he, poor Arpine, of no name at home,

And scarcely ranked among the knights at Rome,

Secured the trembling town, placed a firm guard

In every street, and toiled in every ward:--

And thus, within the walls, the GOWN obtained, 355

More fame, for Tully, than Octavius gained

At Actium and Philippi, from a SWORD,

Drenched in the eternal stream by patriots poured!

For Rome, free Rome, hailed him, with loud acclaim,

THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY--glorious name! 360

Another Arpine, trained the ground to till,

Tired of the plow, forsook his native hill,

And joined the camp; where, if his adze was slow,

The vine-twig whelked his back with many a blow:

And yet, when the fierce Cimbri threatened Rome 365

With swift, and scarcely evitable doom,

This man, in the dread hour, to save her rose,

And turned the impending ruin on her foes!

For which, while ravening birds devoured the slain,

And their huge bones lay whitening on the plain, 370

His high-born colleague to his worth gave way,

And took, well pleased, the secondary bay.

The Decii were plebeians! mean their name,

And mean the parent stock from which they came:

Yet they devoted, in the trying hour, 375

Their heads to Earth, and each infernal Power;

And by that solemn act, redeemed from fate, }

Auxiliars, legions, all the Latian state; }

More prized than those they saved, in heaven's just estimate! }

And him, who graced the purple which he wore 380

(The last good king of Rome), a bondmaid bore.

The Consul's sons (while storms yet shook the state,

And Tarquin thundered vengeance at the gate),

Who should, to crown the labors of their sire,

Have dared what Cocles, Mutius, might admire, 385

And she, who mocked the javelins whistling round,

And swam the Tiber, then the empire's bound;

Had to the tyrant's rage the town exposed,

But that a slave their dark designs disclosed.--

For Him, when stretched upon his honored bier, 390

The grateful matrons shed the pious tear,

While, with stern eye, the patriot and the sire

Saw, by the axe, the high-born pair expire:

They fell--just victims to the offended laws,

And the first sacrifice to FREEDOM'S cause! 395

For me, who naught but innate worth admire,

I'd rather vile Thersites were thy sire,

So thou wert like Achilles, and could'st wield

Vulcanian arms, the terror of the field,

Than that Achilles should thy father be, 400

And, in his offspring, vile Thersites see.

And yet, how high soe'er thy pride may trace

The long-forgotten founders of thy race,

Still must the search with that Asylum end,

From whose polluted source we all descend. 405

Haste then, the inquiry haste; secure to find

Thy sire some vagrant slave, some bankrupt hind,

Some--but I mark the kindling glow of shame,

And will not shock thee with a baser name.

SATIRE IX.

JUVENAL, NÆVOLUS.

Juv. still drooping, Nævolus! What, prithee, say,

Portends this show of grief from day to day,

This copy of flayed Marsyas? what dost thou

With such a rueful face, and such a brow,

As Ravola wore, when caught--Not so cast down 5

Looked Pollio, when, of late, he scoured the town,

And, proffering treble rate, from friend to friend,

Found none so foolish, none so mad, to lend!

But, seriously, for thine's a serious case,

Whence came those sudden wrinkles in thy face? 10

I knew thee once, a gay, light-hearted slave,

Contented with the little fortune gave;

A sprightly guest, of every table free,

And famed for modish wit and repartee.

Now all's reversed: dejected is thy mien, 15

Thy locks are like a tangled thicket seen;

And every limb, once smoothed with nicest care,

Rank with neglect, a shrubbery of hair!

What dost thou with that dull, dead, withered look,

Like some old debauchee, long ague-shook? 20

All is not well within; for, still we find

The face the unerring index of the mind,

And as THIS feels or fancies joys or woes,

THAT pales with sorrow, or with rapture glows.

What should I think? Too sure the scene is changed, 25

And thou from thy old course of life estranged:

For late, as I remember, at all haunts,

Where dames of fashion flock to hire gallants,

At Isis and at Ganymede's abodes,

At Cybele's, dread mother of the gods, 30

Nay, at chaste Ceres' (for at shame they spurn,

And even her temples now to brothels turn),

None was so famed: the favorites of the town,

Baffled alike in business and renown,

Murmuring retired; wives, daughters, were thy own, 35

And--if the truth MUST come--not THEY alone.

NÆV. Right: and to some this trade has answered yet;

But not to me: for what is all I get?

A drugget cloak, to save my gown from rain, }

Coarse in its texture, dingy in its grain, } 40

And a few pieces of the "second vein!" }

FATE GOVERNS ALL. Fate, with full sway, presides

Even o'er those parts, which modest nature hides;

And little, if her genial influence fail,

Will vigor stead, or boundless powers avail: 45

Though Virro, gloating on your naked charms,

Foam with desire, and woo you to his arms,

With many a soothing, many a flattering phrase--

For your cursed pathics have such winning ways!

Hear now this prodigy, this mass impure, 50

Of lust and avarice! "Let us, friend, be sure:

I've given thee this, and this;--now count the sums:"

(He counts, and woos the while), "behold! it comes

To five sestertia, five!--now, look again,

And see how much it overpays thy pain:" 55

What! "overpays?"--but you are formed for love,

And worthy of the cup and couch of Jove!

--Will those relieve a client!--those, who grudge

A wretched pittance to the painful drudge

That toils in their disease?--O mark, my friend, 60

The blooming youth, to whom we presents send,

Or on the Female Calends, or the day

Which gave him birth! in what a lady-way

He takes our favors as he sits in state,

And sees adoring crowds besiege his gate! 65

Insatiate sparrow! whom do your domains,

Your numerous hills await, your numerous plains?

Regions, that such a tract of land embrace,

That kites are tired within the unmeasured space!

For you the purple vine luxuriant glows, 70

On Trifoline's plain, and on Misenus' brows;

And hollow Gaurus, from his fruitful hills,

Your spacious vaults with generous nectar fills:

What were it, then, a few poor roods to grant

To one so worn with lechery and want? 75

Sure yonder female, with the child she bred,

The dog their playmate, and their little shed,

Had, with more justice, been conferred on me,

Than on a cymbal-beating debauchee!

"I'm troublesome," you say, when I apply, 80

"And give! give! give! is my eternal cry."--

But house-rent due solicits to be sped,

And my sole slave, importunate for bread,

Follows me, clamoring in as loud a tone

As Polyphemus, when his prey was flown. 85

Nor will this one suffice, the toil's so great!

Another must be bought; and both must eat.

What shall I say, when cold December blows,

And their bare limbs shrink at the driving snows,

What shall I say, their drooping hearts to cheer? 90

"Be merry, boys, the spring will soon be here!"

But though my other merits you deny,

One yet must be allowed--that had not I,

I, your devoted client, lent my aid,

Your wife had to this hour remained a maid. 95

You know what motives urged me to the deed,

And what was promised, could I but succeed:--

Oft in my arms the flying fair I caught,

And back to your cold bed, reluctant, brought,

Even when she'd canceled all her former vows, 100

And now was signing to another spouse.

What pains it cost to set these matters right,

While you stood whimpering at the door all night,

I spare to tell:--a friend like me has tied

Full many a knot, when ready to divide. 105

Where will you turn you now, sir? whither fly?

What, to my charges, first, or last, reply?

Is it no merit, speak, ungrateful! none,

To give you thus a daughter, or a son,

Whom you may breed with credit at your board, 110

And prove yourself a man upon record?--

Haste, with triumphal wreaths your gates adorn,

You're now a father, now no theme for scorn;

My toils have ta'en the opprobrium from your name,

And stopp'd the babbling of malicious fame. 115

A parent's rights you now may proudly share,

Now, thank my industry, be named an heir;

Take now the whole bequest, with what beside,

From lucky windfalls, may in time betide;

And other blessings, if I but repeat 120

My pains, and make the number THREE complete.

JUV. Nay, thou hast reason to complain, I feel:

But, what says Virro?

NÆV. Not a syllable;

But, while my wrongs and I unnoticed pass,

Hunts out some other drudge, some two-legged ass. 125

Enough;--and never, on your life, unfold

The secret thus to you, in friendship told;

But let my injuries, undivulged, still rest

Within the closest chamber of your breast:

How the discovery might be borne, none knows-- 130

And your smooth pathics are such fatal foes!

Virro, who trusts me yet, may soon repent,

And hate me for the confidence he lent;

With fire and sword my wretched life pursue,

As if I'd blabbed already all I knew. 135

Sad situation mine! for, in your ear,

The rich can never buy revenge too dear;

And--but enough: be cautious, I entreat,

And secret as the Athenian judgment-seat.

JUV. And dost thou seriously believe, fond swain, 140

The actions of the great unknown remain?

Poor Corydon! even beasts would silence break,

And stocks and stones, if servants did not, speak.

Bolt every door, stop every cranny tight,

Close every window, put out every light; 145

Let not a whisper reach the listening ear,

No noise, no motion; let no soul be near;

Yet all that passed at the cock's second crow,

The neighboring vintner shall, ere daybreak, know;

With what besides the cook and carver's brain, 150

Subtly malicious, can in vengeance feign!

For thus they glory, with licentious tongue,

To quit the harsh command and galling thong.

Should these be mute, some drunkard in the streets

Will pour out all he knows to all he meets, 155

Force them, unwilling, the long tale to hear,

And with his stories drench their hapless ear.

Go now, and earnestly of those request,

To lock, like me, the secret in their breast:

Alas! they hear thee not; and will not sell 160

The dear, dear privilege--to see and tell,

For more stolen wine than late Saufeia boused,

When, for the people's welfare, she--caroused!

LIVE VIRTUOUSLY:--thus many a reason cries,

But chiefly this, that so thou may'st despise 165

Thy servant's tongue; for, lay this truth to heart,

The tongue is the vile servant's vilest part:

Yet viler he, who lives in constant dread

Of the domestic spies that--eat his bread.

NÆV. Well have you taught, how we may best disdain 170

The envenomed babbling of our household train;

But this is general, and to all applies:--

What, in my proper case, would you advise?

After such flattering expectations cross'd,

And so much time in vain dependence lost? 175

For youth, too transient flower! of life's short day

The shortest part, but blossoms--to decay.

Lo! while we give the unregarded hour

To revelry and joy, in Pleasure's bower,

While now for rosy wreaths our brows to twine, 180

And now for nymphs we call, and now for wine,

The noiseless foot of Time steals swiftly by,

And ere we dream of manhood, age is nigh!

JUV. Oh, fear not: thou canst never seek in vain

A pathic friend, while these seven hills remain. 185

Hither in crowds the master-misses come,

From every point, as to their proper home:

One hope has failed, another may succeed;

Meanwhile do thou on hot eringo feed.

NÆV. Tell this to happier men; the Fates ne'er meant 190

Such luck for me: my Clotho is content,

When all my oil a bare subsistence gains,

And fills my belly, by my back and reins.

O, my poor Lares! dear, domestic Powers!

To whom I come with incense, cakes, and flowers, 195

When shall my prayers, so long preferred in vain,

Acceptance find? O, when shall I obtain

Enough to free me from the constant dread

Of life's worst ill, gray hairs and want of bread?

On mortgage, six-score pounds a year, or eight, 200

A little sideboard, which, for overweight,

Fabricius would have censured; a stout pair

Of hireling Mæsians, to support my chair,

In the thronged Circus: add to these, one slave

Well skilled to paint, another to engrave; 205

And I--but let me give these day-dreams o'er--

Wish as I may, I ever shall be poor;

For when to Fortune I prefer my prayers,

The obdurate goddess stops at once her ears;

Stops with that wax which saved Ulysses' crew, } 210

When by the Syrens' rocks and songs they flew, }

False songs and treacherous rocks, that all to ruin drew. }

SATIRE X.

In every clime, from Ganges' distant stream

To Gades, gilded by the western beam,

Few, from the clouds of mental error free,

In its true light or good or evil see.

For what, with reason, do we seek or shun? 5

What plan, how happily soe'er begun,

But, finished, we our own success lament,

And rue the pains, so fatally misspent?--

To headlong ruin see whole houses driven,

Cursed with their prayers, by too indulgent heaven! 10

Bewildered thus by folly or by fate,

We beg pernicious gifts in every state,

In peace, in war. A full and rapid flow

Of eloquence, lays many a speaker low:

Even strength itself is fatal; Milo tries 15

His wondrous arms, and--in the trial dies!

But avarice wider spreads her deadly snare,

And hoards amassed with too successful care,

Hoards, which o'er all paternal fortunes rise,

As o'er the dolphin towers the whale in size. 20

For this, in other times, at Nero's word,

The ruffian bands unsheathed the murderous sword,

Rushed to the swelling coffers of the great,

Chased Lateranus from his lordly seat,

Besieged too-wealthy Seneca's wide walls, 25

And closed, terrific, round Longinus' halls:

While sweetly in their cocklofts slept the poor,

And heard no soldier thundering at their door.

The traveler, freighted with a little wealth,

Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth: 30

Even then, he fears the bludgeon and the blade,

And starts and trembles at a rush's shade;

While, void of care, the beggar trips along,

And, in the spoiler's presence, trolls his song.

The first great wish, that all with rapture own, 35

The general cry, to every temple known,

Is, gold, gold, gold!--"and let, all-gracious Powers,

The largest chest the Forum boasts be ours!"

Yet none from earthen bowls destruction sip:

Dread then the draught, when, mantling, at your lip, 40

The goblet sparkles, radiant from the mine,

And the broad gold inflames the ruby wine.

And do we, now, admire the stories told

Of the two Sages, so renowned of old;

How this forever laughed, whene'er he stepp'd 45

Beyond the threshold; that, forever wept?

But all can laugh:--the wonder yet appears,

What fount supplied the eternal stream of tears!

Democritus, at every step he took,

His sides with unextinguished laughter shook, 50

Though, in his days, Abdera's simple towns

No fasces knew, chairs, litters, purple gowns.--

What! had he seen, in his triumphal car,

Amid the dusty Cirque, conspicuous far,

The Prætor perched aloft, superbly dress'd 55

In Jove's proud tunic, with a trailing vest

Of Tyrian tapestry, and o'er him spread

A crown, too bulky for a mortal head,

Borne by a sweating slave, maintained to ride

In the same car, and mortify his pride! 60

Add now the bird, that, with expanded wing,

From the raised sceptre seems prepared to spring;

And trumpets here; and there the long parade

Of duteous friends, who head the cavalcade;

Add, too, the zeal of clients robed in white, } 65

Who hang upon his reins, and grace the sight, }

Unbribed, unbought--save by the dole, at night! }

Yes, in those days, in every varied scene,

The good old man found matter for his spleen:

A wondrous sage! whose story makes it clear 70

That men may rise in folly's atmosphere,

Beneath Bœotian fogs, of soul sublime,

And great examples to the coming time.--

He laughed aloud to see the vulgar fears,

Laughed at their joys, and sometimes at their tears: 75

Secure the while, he mocked at Fortune's frown,

And when she threatened, bade her hang or drown!

Superfluous then, or fatal, is the prayer,

Which, to the Immortals' knees, we fondly bear.

Some, POWER hurls headlong from her envied height, 80

Some, the broad tablet, flashing on the sight,

With titles, names: the statues, tumbled down,

Are dragged by hooting thousands through the town;

The brazen cars torn rudely from the yoke,

And, with the blameless steeds, to shivers broke-- 85

Then roar the flames! the sooty artist blows,

And all Sejanus in the furnace glows;

Sejanus, once so honored, so adored,

And only second to the world's great lord,

Runs glittering from the mould, in cups and cans, 90

Basins and ewers, plates, pitchers, pots, and pans.

"Crown all your doors with bay, triumphant bay!

Sacred to Jove, the milk-white victim slay,

For lo! where great Sejanus by the throng,

A joyful spectacle! is dragged along. 95

What lips! what cheeks! ha, traitor!--for my part,

I never loved the fellow--in my heart."

"But tell me; Why was he adjudged to bleed?

And who discovered? and who proved the deed?"

"Proved!--a huge, wordy letter came to-day 100

From Capreæ." Good! what think the people? They!

They follow fortune, as of old, and hate,

With their whole souls, the victim of the state.

Yet would the herd, thus zealous, thus on fire,

Had Nurscia met the Tuscan's fond desire, 105

And crushed the unwary prince, have all combined,

And hailed Sejanus, MASTER OF MANKIND!

For since their votes have been no longer bought,

All public care has vanished from their thought;

And those who once, with unresisted sway, 110

Gave armies, empire, every thing, away,

For two poor claims have long renounced the whole,

And only ask--the Circus and the Dole.

"But there are more to suffer." "So I find;

A fire so fierce for one was ne'er designed. 115

I met my friend Brutidius, and I fear,

From his pale looks, he thinks there's danger near.

What if this Ajax, in his phrensy, strike,

Suspicious of our zeal, at all alike!"

"True: fly we then, our loyalty to show; 120

And trample on the carcass of his foe,

While yet exposed on Tiber's banks it lies"--

"But let our slaves be there," another cries:

"Yes; let them (lest our ardor they forswear,

And drag us, pinioned, to the Bar) be there." 125

Thus of the favorite's fall the converse ran,

And thus the whisper passed from man to man.

Lured by the splendor of his happier hour,

Would'st thou possess Sejanus' wealth and power;

See crowds of suppliants at thy levee wait, 130

Give this to sway the army, that the state;

And keep a prince in ward, retired to reign

O'er Capreæ's crags, with his Chaldean train?

Yes, yes, thou would'st (for I can read thy breast)

Enjoy that favor which he once possess'd, 135

Assume all offices, grasp all commands,

The Imperial Horse, and the Prætorian Bands.

'Tis nature, this; even those who want the will,

Pant for the dreadful privilege to kill:

Yet what delight can rank and power bestow, 140

Since every joy is balanced by its woe!

--STILL would'st thou choose the favorite's purple, say?

Or, thus forewarned, some paltry hamlet sway?

At Gabii, or Fidenæ, rules propound,

For faulty measures, and for wares unsound; 145

And take the tarnished robe, and petty state,

Of poor Ulubræ's ragged magistrate?--

You grant me then, Sejanus grossly erred,

Nor knew what prayer his folly had preferred:

For when he begged for too much wealth and power, 150

Stage above stage, he raised a tottering tower,

And higher still, and higher; to be thrown,

With louder crash, and wider ruin down!

What wrought the Crassi, what the Pompeys' doom,

And his, who bowed the stubborn neck of Rome? 155

What but the wild, the unbounded wish to rise,

Heard, in malignant kindness, by the skies!

Few kings, few tyrants, find a bloodless end,

Or to the grave, without a wound, descend.

The child, with whom a trusty slave is sent, 160

Charged with his little scrip, has scarcely spent

His mite at school, ere all his bosom glows

With the fond hope he never more foregoes,

To reach Demosthenes' or Tully's name,

Rival of both in eloquence and fame!-- 165

Yet by this eloquence, alas! expired

Each orator, so envied, so admired!

Yet by the rapid and resistless sway

Of torrent genius, each was swept away!

Genius, for that, the baneful potion sped, 170

And lopp'd, from this, the hands and gory head:

While meaner pleaders unmolested stood,

Nor stained the rostrum with their wretched blood.

"_How fortuNATE A NATAL day was thine,_

_In that LATE conSULATE, O Rome, of mine!_" 175

Oh, soul of eloquence! had all been found

An empty vaunt, like this, a jingling sound,

Thou might'st, in peace, thy humble fame have borne,

And laughed the swords of Antony to scorn!

Yet this would I prefer, the common jest, 180

To that which fired the fierce triumvir's breast,

That second scroll, where eloquence divine

Burst on the ear from every glowing line.

And he too fell, whom Athens, wondering, saw

Her fierce democracy, at will, o'erawe, 185

And "fulmine over Greece!" some angry Power

Scowled, with dire influence, on his natal hour.--

Bleared with the glowing mass, the ambitious sire,

From anvils, sledges, bellows, tongs, and fire,

From tempting swords, his own more safe employ, 190

To study RHETORIC, sent his hopeful boy.

The spoils of WAR; the trunk in triumph placed

With all the trophies of the battle graced,

Crushed helms, and battered shields; and streamers borne

From vanquished fleets, and beams from chariots torn; 195

And arcs of triumph, where the captive foe

Bends, in mute anguish, o'er the pomp below,

Are blessings, which the slaves of glory rate

Beyond a mortal's hope, a mortal's fate!

Fired with the love of these, what countless swarms, 200

Barbarians, Romans, Greeks, have rushed to arms,

All danger slighted, and all toil defied,

And madly conquered, or as madly died!

So much the raging thirst of fame exceeds

The generous warmth, which prompts to worthy deeds, 205

That none confess fair virtue's genuine power,

Or woo her to their breast, without a dower.

Yet has this wild desire, in other days,

This boundless avarice of a few for praise,

This frantic rage for names to grace a tomb, 210

Involved whole countries in one general doom;

Vain "rage!" the roots of the wild fig-tree rise,

Strike through the marble, and their memory dies!

For, like their mouldering tenants, tombs decay,

And, with the dust they hide, are swept away. 215

Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,

And weigh the mighty dust, which yet remains:

AND IS THIS ALL! Yet THIS was once the bold,

The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold,

Though stretched in breadth from where the Atlantic roars, 220

To distant Nilus, and his sun-burnt shores;

In length, from Carthage to the burning zone,

Where other moors, and elephants are known.

--Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds:

Nature opposed her everlasting mounds, 225

Her Alps, and snows; o'er these, with torrent force,

He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course.

Already at his feet, Italia lies;--

Yet thundering on, "Think nothing done," he cries,

"Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls, 230

And Afric's standards float along her walls!"

Big words!--but view his figure! view his face!

O, for some master-hand the lines to trace,

As through the Etrurian swamps, by floods increas'd,

The one-eyed chief urged his Getulian beast! 235

But what ensued? Illusive Glory, say.

Subdued on Zama's memorable day,

He flies in exile to a petty state,

With headlong haste! and, at a despot's gate,

Sits, mighty suppliant! of his life in doubt, 240

Till the Bithynian's morning nap be out.

No swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled,

Shall quell the man whose frown alarmed the world:

The vengeance due to Cannæ's fatal field,

And floods of human gore, a ring shall yield!-- 245

Fly, madman, fly! at toil and danger mock,

Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock,

To please the rhetoricians, and become

A DECLAMATION for the boys of Rome!

One world, the ambitious youth of Pella found 250

Too small; and tossed his feverish limbs around,

And gasped for breath, as if immured the while

In Gyaræ, or Seripho's rocky isle:

But entering Babylon, found ample room

Within the narrow limits of a tomb! 255

Death, the great teacher, Death alone proclaims

The true dimensions of our puny frames.

The daring tales, in Grecian story found,

Were once believed:--of Athos sailed around,

Of fleets, that bridges o'er the waves supplied, 260

Of chariots, rolling on the steadfast tide,

Of lakes exhausted, and of rivers quaff'd,

By countless nations, at a morning's draught,

And all that Sostratus so wildly sings,

Besotted poet, of the king of kings. 265

But how returned he, say? this soul of fire,

This proud barbarian, whose impatient ire

Chastised the winds, that disobeyed his nod,

With stripes, ne'er suffered from the Æolian god;

Fettered the Shaker of the sea and land-- 270

But, in pure clemency, forbode to brand!

And sure, if aught can touch the Powers above,

This calls for all their service, all their love!

But how returned he? say;--His navy lost,

In a small bark he fled the hostile coast, 275

And, urged by terror, drove his laboring prore,

Through floating carcasses, and floods of gore.

So Xerxes sped, so speed the conquering race;

They catch at glory, and they clasp disgrace!

"LIFE! LENGTH OF LIFE!" For this, with earnest cries, 280

Or sick or well, we supplicate the skies.

Pernicious prayer! for mark what ills attend,

Still, on the old, as to the grave they bend:

A ghastly visage, to themselves unknown,

For a smooth skin, a hide with scurf o'ergrown, 285

And such a cheek, as many a grandam ape,

In Tabraca's thick woods, is seen to scrape.

Strength, beauty, and a thousand charms beside,

With sweet distinction, youth from youth divide;

While age presents one universal face: 290

A faltering voice, a weak and trembling pace,

An ever-dropping nose, a forehead bare,

And toothless gums to mumble o'er its fare.

Poor wretch, behold him, tottering to his fall,

So loathsome to himself, wife, children, all, 295

That those who hoped the legacy to share,

And flattered long--disgusted, disappear.

The sluggish palate dulled, the feast no more

Excites the same sensations as of yore;

Taste, feeling, all, a universal blot, 300

And e'en the rites of love remembered not:

Or if--through the long night he feebly strives

To raise a flame where not a spark survives;

While Venus marks the effort with distrust,

And hates the gray decrepitude of lust. 305

Another loss!--no joy can song inspire,

Though famed Seleucus lead the warbling quire:

The sweetest airs escape him; and the lute,

Which thrills the general ear, to him is mute.--

He sits, perhaps, too distant: bring him near; 310

Alas! 'tis still the same: he scarce can hear

The deep-toned horn, the trumpet's clanging sound,

And the loud blast which shakes the benches round.

Even at his ear, his slave must bawl the hour,

And shout the comer's name, with all his power! 315

Add that a fever only warms his veins,

And thaws the little blood which yet remains;

That ills of every kind, and every name,

Rush in, and seize the unresisting frame.

Ask you how many? I could sooner say 320

How many drudges Hippia kept in pay,

How many orphans Basilus beguiled,

How many pupils Hæmolus defiled,

How many men long Maura overmatched,

How many patients Themison dispatched 325

In one short autumn; nay, perhaps, record,

How many villas call my quondam barber lord!

These their shrunk shoulders, those their hams bemoan;

This hath no eyes, and envies that with one:

This takes, as helpless at the board he stands, 330

His food, with bloodless lips, from others' hands;

While that, whose eager jaws, instinctive, spread

At every feast, gapes feebly to be fed,

Like Progne's brood, when, laden with supplies,

From bill to bill, the fasting mother flies. 335

But other ills, and worse, succeed to those:

His limbs long since were gone; his memory goes.

Poor driveler! he forgets his servants quite,

Forgets, at morn, with whom he supped at night;

Forgets the children he begot and bred; 340

And makes a strumpet heiress in their stead.--

So much avails it the rank arts to use,

Gained, by long practice, in the loathsome stews!

But grant his senses unimpaired remain;

Still woes on woes succeed, a mournful train! 345

He sees his sons, his daughters, all expire,

His faithful consort on the funeral pyre,

Sees brothers, sisters, friends, to ashes turn,

And all he loved, or loved him, in their urn.

Lo here, the dreadful fine we ever pay 350

For life protracted to a distant day!

To see our house by sickness, pain pursued,

And scenes of death incessantly renewed:

In sable weeds to waste the joyless years,

And drop, at last, mid solitude and tears! 355

The Pylian's (if we credit Homer's page)

Was only second to the raven's age.

"O happy, sure, beyond the common rate,

Who warded off, so long, the stroke of fate!

Who told his years by centuries, who so oft 360

Quaffed the new must! O happy, sure"--But, soft.

This "happy" man of destiny complained,

Cursed his gray hairs, and every god arraigned;

What time he lit the pyre, with streaming eyes,

And, in dark volumes, saw the flames arise 365

Round his Antilochus:--"Tell me," he cried,

To every friend who lingered at his side,

"Tell me what crimes have roused the Immortals' hate,

That thus, in vengeance, they protract my date?"

So questioned heaven Laertes--Peleus so-- 370

(Their hoary heads bowed to the grave with woe)

While this bewailed his son, at Ilium slain;

That his, long wandering o'er the faithless main.

While Troy yet flourished, had her Priam died,

With what solemnity, what funeral pride, 375

Had he descended, every duty paid,

To old Assaracus, illustrious shade!--

Hector himself, bedewed with many a tear,

Had joined his brothers to support the bier;

While Troy's dejected dames, a numerous train, 380

Followed, in sable pomp, and wept amain,

As sad Polyxena her pall had rent,

And wild Cassandra raised the loud lament:

Had he but fallen, ere his adulterous boy

Spread his bold sails, and left the shores of Troy. 385

But what did lengthened life avail the sire?

To see his realm laid waste by sword and fire.

Then too, too late, the feeble soldier tried

Unequal arms, and flung his crown aside;

Tottered, his children's murderer to repel, 390

With trembling haste, and at Jove's altar fell,

Fell without effort; like the steer, that, now,

Time-worn and weak, and, by the ungrateful plow,

Spurned forth to slaughter, to the master's knife

Yields his shrunk veins and miserable life. 395

His end, howe'er, was human; while his mate,

Doomed, in a brute, to drain the dregs of fate,

Pursued the foes of Troy from shore to shore,

And barked and howled at those she cursed before.

I pass, while hastening to the Roman page, 400

The Pontic king, and Crœsus, whom the Sage

Wisely forbade in fortune to confide,

Or take the name of HAPPY, till he died.

That Marius, exiled from his native plains,

Was hid in fens, discovered, bound in chains; 405

That, bursting these, to Africa he fled,

And, through the realms he conquered, begged his bread,

Arose from age, from treacherous age alone:

For what had Rome, or earth, so happy known,

Had he, in that bless'd moment, ceased to live, 410

When, graced with all that Victory could give,

"Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war,"

He first alighted from his Cimbrian car!

Campania, prescient of her Pompey's fate,

Send a kind fever to arrest his date: 415

When lo! a thousand suppliant altars rise,

And public prayers obtain him of the skies.

Ill done! that head, thus rescued from the grave,

His Evil Fate and ours, by Nilus' wave,

Lopp'd from the trunk:--such mutilation dire } 420

Cornelius 'scaped; Cethegus fell entire; }

And Catiline pressed, whole, the funeral pyre. }

Whene'er the fane of Venus meets her eye,

The anxious mother breathes a secret sigh

For handsome boys; but asks, with bolder prayer, 425

That all her girls be exquisitely fair!

"And wherefore not? Latona, in the sight

Of Dian's beauty, took unblamed delight."

True; but Lucretia cursed her fatal charms,

When spent with struggling in a Tarquin's arms; 430

And poor Virginia would have changed her grace

For Rutila's crooked back and homely face.

"But boys may still be fair?" No; they destroy

Their parents' peace, and murder all their joy;

For rarely do we meet, in one combined, 435

A beauteous body and a virtuous mind,

Though, through the rugged line, there still has run

A Sabine sanctity, from sire to son.--

Besides, should Nature, in her kindest mood,

Confer the ingenuous flush of modest blood, 440

The disposition chaste as unsunned snow--

(And what can Nature more than these bestow,

These, which no art, no care can give)?--even then,

They can not hope, they must not, to be men!

Smit with their charms, the imps of hell appear, 445

And pour their proffers in a parent's ear,

For prostitution!--infamously bold,

And trusting to the almighty power of gold:

While youths in shape and air less formed to please

No tyrants mutilate, no Neros seize. 450

Go now, and triumph in your beauteous boy,

Your Ganymede! whom other ills annoy,

And other dangers wait: his graces known,

He stands professed, the favorite of the town;

And dreads, incessant dreads, on every hand, 455

The vengeance which a husband's wrongs demand:

For sure detection follows soon or late;

Born under Mars, he can not scape his fate.

Oft on the adulterer, too, the furious spouse

Inflicts worse evils than the law allows; 460

By blows, stripes, gashes some are robbed of breath

And others, by the mullet, racked to death.

"But my Endymion will more lucky prove,

And serve a beauteous mistress, all for love."

No; he will soon to ugliness be sold, 465

And serve a toothless grandam, all for gold.

Servilia will not lose him; jewels, clothes,

All, all she sells, and all on him bestows;

For women naught to the dear youth deny,

Or think his labors can be bought too high: 470

When love's the word, the naked sex appear,

And every niggard is a spendthrift here.

"But if my boy with virtue be endued,

What harm will beauty do him?" Nay, what good?

Say, what availed, of old, to Theseus' son, 475

The stern resolve? what to Bellerophon?--

O, then did Phædra redden, then her pride

Took fire, to be so steadfastly denied!

Then, too, did Sthenobœa glow with shame,

And both burst forth with unextinguished flame! 480

A woman scorned is pitiless as fate,

For, there, the dread of shame adds stings to hate.

But Silius comes.--Now, be thy judgment tried:

Shall he accept, or not, the proffered bride,

And marry Cæsar's wife? hard point, in truth: 485

Lo! this most noble, this most beauteous youth,

Is hurried off, a helpless sacrifice

To the lewd glance of Messalina's eyes!

--Haste, bring the victim: in the nuptial vest

Already see the impatient Empress dress'd; 490

The genial couch prepared, the accustomed sum

Told out, the augurs and the notaries come.

"But why all these?" You think, perhaps, the rite

Were better, known to few, and kept from sight;

Not so the lady; she abhors a flaw, 495

And wisely calls for every form of law.

But what shall Silius do? refuse to wed?

A moment sees him numbered with the dead.

Consent, and gratify the eager dame?

He gains a respite, till the tale of shame, 500

Through town and country, reach the Emperor's ear,

Still sure the last--his own disgrace to hear.

Then let him, if a day's precarious life

Be worth his study, make the fair his wife;

For wed or not, poor youth, 'tis still the same, 505

And still the axe must mangle that fine frame!

Say then, shall man, deprived all power of choice,

Ne'er raise to heaven the supplicating voice?

Not so; but to the gods his fortunes trust:

Their thoughts are wise, their dispensations just. 510

What best may profit or delight they know,

And real good for fancied bliss bestow:

With eyes of pity they our frailties scan;

More dear to them, than to himself, is man.

By blind desire, by headlong passion driven, 515

For wife and heirs we daily weary Heaven:

Yet still 'tis Heaven's prerogative to know,

If heirs, or wife, will bring us weal or woe.

But (for 'tis good our humble hope to prove),

That thou may'st, still, ask something from above, 520

Thy pious offerings to the temple bear,

And, while the altars blaze, be this thy prayer.

O THOU, who know'st the wants of human kind,

Vouchsafe me health of body, health of mind;

A soul prepared to meet the frowns of fate, 525

And look undaunted on a future state;

That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear

Existence nobly, with its weight of care;

That anger and desire alike restrains,

And counts Alcides' toils, and cruel pains, 530

Superior far to banquets, wanton nights,

And all the Assyrian monarch's soft delights!

Here bound, at length, thy wishes. I but teach

What blessings man, by his own powers, may reach.

THE PATH TO PEACE IS VIRTUE. We should see, 535

If wise, O Fortune, naught divine in thee:

But we have deified a name alone,

And fixed in heaven thy visionary throne!

SATIRE XI.

TO PERSICUS.

If Atticus in sumptuous fare delight,

'Tis taste: if Rutilus, 'tis madness quite:

And what diverts the sneering rabble more

Than an Apicius miserably poor?

In every company, go where you will, 5

Bath, forum, theatre, the talk is still

Of Rutilus!--While fit (they cry) to wield,

With firm and vigorous arm, the spear and shield,

While his full veins beat high with youthful blood,

Forced by no tribune--yet by none withstood, 10

He cultivates the gladiator's trade,

And learns the imperious language of the blade.

What swarms we see of this degenerate kind!

Swarms whom their creditors can only find

At flesh and fish-stalls:--thither they repair, 15

Sure, though deceived at home, to catch them there.

These live but for their palate; and, of these,

The most distressed (while Ruin hastes to seize

The crumbling mansion and disparting wall),

Spread richer feasts, and riot as they fall!-- 20

Meanwhile, ere yet the last supply be spent,

They search for dainties every element,

Awed by no price; nay, making this their boast,

And still preferring that which costs them most,

Joyous, and reckless of to-morrow's fate, 25

To raise a desperate sum, they pledge their plate,

Or mother's fractured image; to prepare

Yet one treat more, though but in earthen ware!

Then to the fencer's mess they come, of course,

And mount the scaffold as a last resource. 30

No foe to sumptuous boards, I only scan,

When such are spread, the motives, and the man,

And praise or censure, as I see the feast

Or by the noble or the beggar dress'd:

In this, 'tis gluttony; in that, fit pride, 35

Sanctioned by wealth, by station dignified.--

Whip me the fool, who marks how Atlas soars

O'er every hill on Mauritania's shores,

Yet sees no difference 'twixt the coffer's hoards,

And the poor pittance a small purse affords! 40

Heaven sent us "KNOW THYSELF!"--Be this impress'd

In living characters, upon thy breast,

And still revolved; whether a wife thou choose,

Or to the SACRED SENATE point thy views.--

Or seek'st thou rather, in some doubtful cause, 45

To vindicate thy country's injured laws?

Knock at thy bosom, play the censor's part,

And note with caution what and who thou art,

An orator of force and skill profound,

Or a mere Matho, emptiness and sound! 50

Yes, KNOW THYSELF: in great concerns, in small,

Be this thy care, for this, my friend, is all:

Nor, when thy purse will scarce a gudgeon buy,

With fond intemperance for turbots sigh!

O think what end awaits thee, timely think, 55

If thy throat widens as thy pockets shrink,

Thy throat, of all thy father's thrift could save,

Flocks, herds, and fields, the insatiable grave!--

At length, when naught remains a meal to bring,

The last poor shift, off comes the knightly ring, 60

And "sad Sir Pollio" begs his daily fare,

With undistinguished hands, and finger bare!

To these, an early grave no terror brings,

"A short and merry life!" the spendthrift sings;

Death seems to him a refuge from despair, 65

And far less terrible than hoary hair.

Mark now the progress of their rapid fate!

Money (regardless of the monthly rate),

On every side, they borrow, and apace,

Waste what is borrowed before the lender's face: 70

Then, while they yet some wretched remnant hold,

And the pale usurer trembles for his gold,

They wisely sicken for the country air,

And flock to Baiæ, Ostia, Jove knows where.--

For now 'tis held (so rife the evil's grown) 75

No greater shame, for debt, to flee the town,

Than from the thronged Suburra to remove,

In dog-days, to the Esquilian shades above.

One thought alone, what time they leave behind

Friends, country, all, weighs heavy on their mind, 80

One thought alone--for twelve long months to lose

The dear delights of Rome, the public shows!

Where sleeps the modest blood! In all our veins,

No conscious drop, to form a blush, remains:

SHAME, from the town, derided, speeds her way, 85

And few, alas! solicit her to stay.

Enough: to-day my Persicus shall see

Whether my precepts with my life agree;

Whether, with feigned austerity, I prize

The spare repast, a glutton in disguise! 90

Bawl for coarse pottage, that my friends may hear,

But whisper "sweetmeats!" in my servant's ear.

For since, by promise, you are now my guest,

Know, I invite you to no sumptuous feast,

But to such simple fare, as long, long since, 95

The good Evander bade the Trojan prince.

Come then, my friend, you will not, sure, despise

The food that pleased the offspring of the skies;

Come, and while fancy brings past times to view,

I'll think myself the king, the hero you. 100

Take now your bill of fare: my simple board

Is with no dainties from the market stored,

But dishes all my own. From Tibur's stock

A kid shall come, the fattest of the flock,

The tenderest too, and yet too young to browse 105

The thistle's shoots, the willow's watery boughs,

With more of milk than blood; and pullets dress'd

With new-laid eggs, yet tepid from the nest,

And sperage wild, which, from the mountain's side,

My housemaid left her spindle to provide; 110

And grapes long kept, yet pulpy still, and fair,

And the rich Signian and the Syrian pear;

And apples, that in flavor and in smell

The boasted Picene equal, or excel:--

Nor need you fear, my friend, their liberal use, 115

For age has mellowed and improved their juice.

How homely this! and yet this homely fare

A senator would, once, have counted rare;

When the good Curius thought it no disgrace

O'er a few sticks a little pot to place, 120

With herbs by his small garden-plot supplied--

Food, which the squalid wretch would now deride,

Who digs in fetters, and, with fond regret,

The tavern's savory dish remembers yet!

Time was, when, on the rack, a man would lay 125

The seasoned flitch, against a solemn day;

And think the friends who met, with decent mirth,

To celebrate the hour which gave him birth,

On this, and what of fresh the altars spared

(For altars then were honored), nobly fared. 130

Some kinsman, who had camps and senates swayed,

Had thrice been consul, once dictator made,

From public cares retired, would gayly haste,

Before the wonted hour, to such repast,

Shouldering the spade, that, with no common toil, 135

Had tamed the genius of the mountain soil.--

Yes, when the world was filled with Rome's just fame,

And Romans trembled at the Fabian name,

The Scauran, and Fabrician; when they saw

A censor's rigor even a censor awe, 140

No son of Troy e'er thought it his concern,

Or worth a moment's serious care, to learn,

What land, what sea, the fairest tortoise bred,

Whose clouded shell might best adorn his bed.--

His bed was small, and did no signs impart 145

Or of the painter's or the sculptor's art,

Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass,

Showed the rude features of a vine-crowned ass;

An uncouth brute, round which his children played,

And laughed and jested at the face it made! 150

Briefly, his house, his furniture, his food,

Were uniformly plain, and simply good.

Then the rough soldier, yet untaught by Greece

To hang, enraptured, o'er a finished piece,

If haply, 'mid the congregated spoils 155

(Proofs of his power, and guerdon of his toils),

Some antique vase of master-hands were found,

Would dash the glittering bauble on the ground;

That, in new forms, the molten fragments dress'd,

Might blaze illustrious round his courser's chest, 160

Or, flashing from his burnished helmet, show

(A dreadful omen to the trembling foe)

The mighty sire, with glittering shield and spear,

Hovering, enamored, o'er the sleeping fair,

The wolf, by Rome's high destinies made mild, 165

And, playful at her side, each wondrous child.

Thus, all the wealth those simple times could boast,

Small wealth! their horses and their arms engross'd;

The rest was homely, and their frugal fare,

Cooked without art, was served in earthen ware: 170

Yet worthy all our envy, were the breast

But with one spark of noble spleen possess'd.

THEN shone the fanes with majesty divine,

A present god was felt at every shrine!

And solemn sounds, heard from the sacred walls, 175

At midnight's solemn hour, announced the Gauls,

Now rushing from the main; while, prompt to save,

Stood Jove, the prophet of the signs he gave!

Yet, when he thus revealed the will of fate,

And watched attentive o'er the Latian state, 180

His shrine, his statue, rose of humble mould,

Of artless form, and unprofaned with gold.

Those good old times no foreign tables sought;

From their own woods the walnut-tree was brought,

When withering limbs declared its pith unsound, 185

Or winds uptore, and stretched it on the ground.

But now, such strange caprice has seized the great,

They find no pleasure in the costliest treat,

Suspect the flowers a sickly scent exhale,

And think the ven'son rank, the turbot stale, 190

Unless wide-yawning panthers, towering high--

Enormous pedestals of ivory,

Formed of the teeth which Elephantis sends,

Which the dark Moor, or darker Indian, vends,

Or those which, now, too heavy for the head, 195

The beasts in Nabathea's forest shed--

The spacious ORBS support: then they can feed,

And every dish is delicate indeed!

For silver feet are viewed with equal scorn,

As iron rings upon the finger worn. 200

To me, forever be the guest unknown,

Who, measuring my expenses by his own,

Remarks the difference with a scornful leer,

And slights my humble house and homely cheer.

Look not to me for ivory; I have none: 205

My chess-board and my men are all of bone;

Nay, my knife-handles; yet, my friend, for this,

My pullets neither cut nor taste amiss.

I boast no artist, tutored in the school

Of learned Trypherus, to carve by rule; 210

Where large sow-paps of elm, and boar, and hare,

And phœnicopter, and pygargus rare,

Getulian oryx, Scythian pheasants, point,

The nice anatomy of every joint;

And dull blunt tools, severing the wooden treat, 215

Clatter around, and deafen all the street.

My simple lad, whose highest efforts rise

To broil a steak in the plain country guise,

Knows no such art; humbly content to serve,

And bring the dishes which he can not kerve. 220

Another lad (for I have two to-day),

Clad, like the first, in homespun russet gray,

Shall fill our earthen bowls: no Phrygian he,

No pampered attribute of luxury,

But a rude rustic:--when you want him, speak, 225

And speak in Latin, for he knows not Greek.

Both go alike, with close-cropp'd hair, undress'd,

But spruced to-day in honor of my guest;

And both were born on my estate, and one

Is my rough shepherd's, one, my neatherd's son. 230

Poor youth! he mourns, with many an artless tear,

His long, long absence from his mother dear;

Sighs for his little cottage, and would fain

Meet his old playfellows, the goats, again.

Though humble be his birth, ingenuous grace 235

Beams from his eye, and flushes in his face;

Charming suffusion! that would well become

The youthful offspring of the chiefs of Rome.--

He, Persicus, shall fill us wine which grew

Where first the breath of life the stripling drew, 240

On Tibur's hills;--dear hills, that many a day

Witnessed the transports of his infant play.

But you, perhaps, expect a wanton throng

Of Gaditanian girls, with dance and song,

To kindle loose desire; girls, that now bound } 245

Aloft with active grace, now, on the ground, }

Quivering, alight, while peals of praise go round. }

Lo! wives, beside their husbands placed, behold,

What could not in their ear, for shame, be told;

Expedients of the rich, the blood to fire, 250

And wake the dying embers of desire.

Behold? O heavens! they view, with keenest gust,

These strong provocatives of jaded lust;

With every gesture feel their passions rise,

And draw in pleasure both at ears and eyes! 255

Such vicious fancies are too great for me.

Let him the wanton dance unblushing see,

And hear the immodest terms which, in the stews,

The veriest strumpet would disdain to use,

Whose drunken spawlings roll, tumultuous, o'er 260

The proud expansion of a marble floor:

For there the world a large allowance make,

And spare the folly for the fortune's sake.--

Dice, and adultery, with a small estate,

Are damning crimes; but venial, with a great; 265

Venial? nay, graceful: witty, gallant, brave,

And such wild tricks "as gentlemen should have!"

My feast, to-day, shall other joys afford:

Hushed as we sit around the frugal board.

Great Homer shall his deep-toned thunder roll, 270

And mighty Maro elevate the soul;

Maro, who, warmed with all the poet's fire,

Disputes the palm of victory with his sire:

Nor fear my rustic clerks; read as they will,

The bard, the bard, shall rise superior still! 275

Come then, my friend, an hour to pleasure spare,

And quit awhile your business and your care;

The day is all our own: come, and forget

Bonds, interest, all; the credit and the debt;

Nay, e'en your wife: though, with the dawning light, 280

She left your couch, and late returned at night;

Though her loose hair in wild disorder flowed,

Her eye yet glistened, and her cheek yet glowed,

Her rumpled girdle busy hands express'd--

Yet, at my threshold, tranquilize your breast; 285

There leave the thoughts of home, and what the haste

Of heedless slaves may in your absence waste;

And, what the generous spirit most offends,

O, more than all, leave there UNGRATEFUL FRIENDS.

But see! the napkin, waved aloft, proclaims 290

The glad commencement of the Idæan games,

And the proud prætor, in triumphal state,

Ascends his car, the arbiter of fate!

Ere this, all Rome (if 'tis, for once, allowed,

To say all Rome, of so immense a crowd) 295

The Circus throngs, and--Hark! loud shouts arise--

From these, I guess the GREEN has won the prize;

For had it lost, all joy had been suppress'd,

And grief and horror seized the public breast;

As when dire Carthage forced our arms to yield, 300

And poured our noblest blood on Cannæ's field.

Thither let youth, whom it befits, repair,

And seat themselves beside some favorite fair,

Wrangle, and urge the desperate bet aloud;

While we, retired from business and the crowd, 305

Stretch our shrunk limbs by sunny bank or stream,

And drink, at every pore, the vernal beam.

Haste, then: for we may use our freedom now,

And bathe, an hour ere noon, with fearless brow--

Indulge for once:--Yet such delights as these, 310

In five short morns, would lose the power to please;

For still, the sweetest pleasures soonest cloy,

And its best flavor temperance gives to joy.

SATIRE XII.

TO CORVINUS.