Accruing to the mighty man of war!
For if into a lucky camp I light, }
Though raw in arms, and yet afraid to fight, }
Befriend me my good stars, and all goes right. }
One happy hour is to a soldier better,
Than mother Juno's[167] recommending letter,
Or Venus, when to Mars she would prefer
My suit, and own the kindness done to her.[168]
See what our common privileges are;
As, first, no saucy citizen shall dare
To strike a soldier, nor, when struck, resent
The wrong, for fear of farther punishment.
Not though his teeth are beaten out, his eyes
Hang by a string, in bumps his forehead rise,
Shall he presume to mention his disgrace,
Or beg amends for his demolished face.
A booted judge shall sit to try his cause,
Not by the statute, but by martial laws;
Which old Camillus ordered, to confine
The brawls of soldiers to the trench and line:
A wise provision; and from thence 'tis clear,
That officers a soldier's cause should hear;
And taking cognizance of wrongs received,
An honest man may hope to be relieved.
So far 'tis well; but with a general cry,
The regiment will rise in mutiny,
The freedom of their fellow-rogue demand,
And, if refused, will threaten to disband.
Withdraw thy action, and depart in peace,
The remedy is worse than the disease.
This cause is worthy him, who in the hall
Would for his fee, and for his client, bawl:[169]
But would'st thou, friend, who hast two legs alone,
(Which, heaven be praised, thou yet may'st call thy own,)
Would'st thou to run the gauntlet these expose
To a whole company of hob-nailed shoes?[170]
Sure the good-breeding of wise citizens
Should teach them more good-nature to their shins.
Besides, whom canst thou think so much thy friend,
Who dares appear thy business to defend?
Dry up thy tears, and pocket up the abuse, }
Nor put thy friend to make a bad excuse; }
The judge cries out, "Your evidence produce." }
Will he, who saw the soldier's mutton-fist,
And saw thee mauled, appear within the list,
To witness truth? When I see one so brave,
The dead, think I, are risen from the grave;
And with their long spade beards, and matted hair,
Our honest ancestors are come to take the air.
Against a clown, with more security,
A witness may be brought to swear a lie,
Than, though his evidence be full and fair,
To vouch a truth against a man of war.
More benefits remain, and claimed as rights,
Which are a standing army's perquisites.
If any rogue vexatious suits advance
Against me for my known inheritance,
Enter by violence my fruitful grounds,
Or take the sacred land-mark[171] from my bounds,
Those bounds, which with procession and with prayer,
And offered cakes, have been my annual care;
Or if my debtors do not keep their day,
Deny their hands, and then refuse to pay;
I must with patience all the terms attend,
Among the common causes that depend,
Till mine is called; and that long-looked-for day
Is still encumbered with some new delay;
Perhaps the cloth of state is only spread,[172]
Some of the quorum may be sick a-bed;
That judge is hot, and doffs his gown, while this
O'er night was bowsy, and goes out to piss:
So many rubs appear, the time is gone
For hearing, and the tedious suit goes on;
But buft and beltmen never know these cares,
No time, nor trick of law, their action bars:
Their cause they to an easier issue put;
They will be heard, or they lug out, and cut.
Another branch of their revenue still }
Remains, beyond their boundless right to kill,-- }
Their father yet alive, impowered to make a will.[173] }
For what their prowess gained, the law declares
Is to themselves alone, and to their heirs:
No share of that goes back to the begetter,
But if the son fights well, and plunders better,
Like stout Coranus, his old shaking sire
Does a remembrance in his will desire,
Inquisitive of fights, and longs in vain
To find him in the number of the slain:
But still he lives, and rising by the war,
Enjoys his gains, and has enough to spare;
For 'tis a noble general's prudent part
To cherish valour, and reward desert;
Let him be daub'd with lace, live high, and whore;
Sometimes be lousy, but be never poor.
FOOTNOTES:
[167] Juno was mother to Mars, the god of war; Venus was his mistress.
[168] Camillus, (who being first banished by his ungrateful countrymen
the Romans, afterwards returned, and freed them from the Gauls,) made a
law, which prohibited the soldiers from quarrelling without the camp,
lest upon that pretence they might happen to be absent when they ought
to be on duty.
[169] The poet names a Modenese lawyer, whom he calls Vagellius, who
was so impudent, that he would plead any cause, right or wrong, without
shame or fear.
[170] The Roman soldiers wore plates of iron under their shoes, or
stuck them with nails, as countrymen do now.
[171] Land-marks were used by the Romans, almost in the same manner
as now; and as we go once a year in procession about the bounds of
parishes, and renew them, so they offered cakes upon the stone, or
land-mark.
[172] The courts of judicature were hung, and spread, as with us; but
spread only before the hundred judges were to sit, and judge public
causes, which were called by lot.
[173] The Roman soldiers had the privilege of making a will, in their
father's life-time, of what they had purchased in the wars, as being
no part of their patrimony. By this will, they had power of excluding
their own parents, and giving the estate so gotten to whom they
pleased: Therefore, says the poet, Coranus, (a soldier contemporary
with Juvenal, who had raised his fortune by the wars,) was courted by
his own father, to make him his heir.
TRANSLATIONS
FROM
PERSIUS.
THE
FIRST SATIRE
OF
PERSIUS.
ARGUMENT OF THE PROLOGUE
TO THE FIRST SATIRE.
_The design of the author was to conceal his name and quality.
He lived in the dangerous times of the tyrant Nero, and
aims particularly at him in most of his Satires. For which
reason, though he was a Roman knight, and of a plentiful
fortune, he would appear in this Prologue but a beggarly
poet, who writes for bread. After this, he breaks into the
business of the First Satire; which is chiefly to decry the
poetry then in fashion, and the impudence of those who were
endeavouring to pass their stuff upon the world._
PROLOGUE
TO
THE FIRST SATIRE.
I never did on cleft Parnassus dream,
Nor taste the sacred Heliconian stream;[174]
Nor can remember when my brain, inspired,
Was by the Muses into madness fired.
My share in pale Pyrene[175] I resign,
And claim no part in all the mighty Nine.
Statues, with winding ivy crowned,[176] belong
To nobler poets, for a nobler song;
Heedless of verse, and hopeless of the crown, }
Scarce half a wit, and more than half a clown, }
Before the shrine[177] I lay my rugged numbers down. }
Who taught the parrot human notes to try,
Or with a voice endued the chattering pye?
'Twas witty Want, fierce hunger to appease;
Want taught their masters, and their masters these.
Let gain, that gilded bait, be hung on high,
The hungry witlings have it in their eye;
Pyes, crows, and daws, poetic presents bring;
You say they squeak, but they will swear they sing.
THE
FIRST SATIRE.
IN DIALOGUE BETWIXT
THE POET AND HIS FRIEND, OR MONITOR.
ARGUMENT.
_I need not repeat, that the chief aim of the author is against
bad poets in this Satire. But I must add, that he includes
also bad orators, who began at that time (as Petronius
in the beginning of his book tells us) to enervate manly
eloquence by tropes and figures, ill placed, and worse
applied. Amongst the poets, Persius covertly strikes
at Nero; some of whose verses he recites with scorn and
indignation. He also takes notice of the noblemen, and
their abominable poetry, who, in the luxury of their
fortunes, set up for wits and judges. The Satire is in
dialogue betwixt the author, and his friend, or monitor;
who dissuades him from this dangerous attempt of exposing
great men. But Persius, who is of a free spirit, and has
not forgotten that Rome was once a commonwealth, breaks
through all those difficulties, and boldly arraigns the
false judgment of the age in which he lives. The reader may
observe, that our poet was a Stoic philosopher; and that
all his moral sentences, both here and in all the rest of
his Satires, are drawn from the dogmas of that sect._
PERSIUS.
How anxious are our cares, and yet how vain
The bent of our desires!
FRIEND.
Thy spleen contain;
For none will read thy satires.?
PERSIUS.
This to me?
FRIEND.
None, or, what's next to none, but two or three.
'Tis hard, I grant.
PERSIUS.
'Tis nothing; I can bear,
That paltry scribblers have the public ear;
That this vast universal fool, the town,
Should cry up Labeo's stuff,[178] and cry me down.
They damn themselves; nor will my muse descend
To clap with such, who fools and knaves commend:
Their smiles and censures are to me the same;
I care not what they praise, or what they blame.
In full assemblies let the crowd prevail;
I weigh no merit by the common scale.
The conscience is the test of every mind;
"Seek not thyself, without thyself, to find."
But where's that Roman----Somewhat I would say,
But fear----let fear, for once, to truth give way.
Truth lends the Stoic courage; when I look
On human acts, and read in Nature's book,
From the first pastimes of our infant age,
To elder cares, and man's severer page;
When stern as tutors, and as uncles hard,
We lash the pupil, and defraud the ward,
Then, then I say--or would say, if I durst--
But, thus provoked, I must speak out, or burst.
FRIEND.
Once more forbear.
PERSIUS.
I cannot rule my spleen;
My scorn rebels, and tickles me within.
First, to begin at home:--Our authors write
In lonely rooms, secured from public sight;
Whether in prose, or verse, 'tis all the same,
The prose is fustian, and the numbers lame;
All noise, and empty pomp, a storm of words,
Labouring with sound, that little sense affords.
They comb, and then they order every hair; }
A gown, or white, or scoured to whiteness, wear, }
A birth-day jewel bobbing at their ear;[179] }
Next, gargle well their throats; and, thus prepared,
They mount, a God's name, to be seen and heard;
From their high scaffold, with a trumpet cheek,
And ogling all their audience ere they speak.
The nauseous nobles, even the chief of Rome,
With gaping mouths to these rehearsals come,
And pant with pleasure, when some lusty line
The marrow pierces, and invades the chine;
At open fulsome bawdry they rejoice,
And slimy jests applaud with broken voice.
Base prostitute! thus dost thou gain thy bread?
Thus dost thou feed their ears, and thus art fed?
At his own filthy stuff he grins and brays,
And gives the sign where he expects their praise.
Why have I learned, sayst thou, if thus confined,
I choke the noble vigour of my mind?
Know, my wild fig-tree, which in rocks is bred,
Will split the quarry, and shoot out the head.[180]
Fine fruits of learning! old ambitious fool,
Darest thou apply that adage of the school,
As if 'tis nothing worth that lies concealed,
And "science is not science till revealed?"
Oh, but 'tis brave to be admired, to see
The crowd, with pointing fingers, cry,--That's he;
That's he, whose wonderous poem is become
A lecture for the noble youth of Rome!
Who, by their fathers, is at feasts renowned,
And often quoted when the bowls go round.
Full gorged and flushed, they wantonly rehearse,
And add to wine the luxury of verse.
One, clad in purple, not to lose his time,
Eats and recites some lamentable rhyme;
Some senseless Phillis, in a broken note,
Snuffling at nose, and croaking in his throat.
Then graciously the mellow audience nod;
Is not the immortal author made a god?
Are not his manes blest, such praise to have?
Lies not the turf more lightly on his grave?
And roses (while his loud applause they sing)
Stand ready from his sepulchre to spring?
All these, you cry, but light objections are,
Mere malice, and you drive the jest too far:
For does there breathe a man, who can reject
A general fame, and his own lines neglect?
In cedar tablets[181] worthy to appear, }
That need not fish, or frankincense, to fear? }
Thou, whom I make the adverse part to bear, }
Be answered thus:--If I by chance succeed
In what I write, (and that's a chance indeed,)
Know, I am not so stupid, or so hard,
Not to feel praise, or fame's deserved reward;
But this I cannot grant, that thy applause
Is my work's ultimate, or only cause.
Prudence can ne'er propose so mean a prize;
For mark what vanity within it lies.
Like Labeo's Iliads, in whose verse is found
Nothing but trifling care, and empty sound;
Such little elegies as nobles write,
Who would be poets, in Apollo's spite.
Them and their woeful works the Muse defies;
Products of citron beds,[182] and golden canopies.
To give thee all thy due, thou hast the heart }
To make a supper, with a fine desert, }
And to thy thread-bare friend a cast old suit impart. }
Thus bribed, thou thus bespeak'st him--Tell me, friend,
(For I love truth, nor can plain speech offend,)
What says the world of me and of my muse?
The poor dare nothing tell but flattering news;
But shall I speak? Thy verse is wretched rhyme,
And all thy labours are but loss of time.
Thy strutting belly swells, thy paunch is high;
Thou writ'st not, but thou pissest poetry.
All authors to their own defects are blind;
Hadst thou but, Janus-like,[183] a face behind,
To see the people, what splay-mouths they make;
To mark their fingers, pointed at thy back;
Their tongues lolled out, a foot beyond the pitch,
When most athirst, of an Apulian bitch:
But noble scribblers are with flattery fed,
For none dare find their faults, who eat their bread.
To pass the poets of patrician blood,
What is't the common reader takes for good?
The verse in fashion is, when numbers flow,
Soft without sense, and without spirit slow;
So smooth and equal, that no sight can find
The rivet, where the polished piece was joined;
So even all, with such a steady view,
As if he shut one eye to level true.
Whether the vulgar vice his satire stings,
The people's riots, or the rage of kings,
The gentle poet is alike in all;
His reader hopes no rise, and fears no fall.
FRIEND.
Hourly we see some raw pin-feathered thing
Attempt to mount, and fights and heroes sing;
Who for false quantities was whipt at school
But t'other day, and breaking grammar-rule;
Whose trivial art was never tried above
The bare description of a native grove;
Who knows not how to praise the country store, }
The feasts, the baskets, nor the fatted boar, }
Nor paint the flowery fields that paint themselves before; }
Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born,[184]
Whose shining plough-share was in furrows worn,
Met by his trembling wife returning home,
And rustically joyed, as chief of Rome:
She wiped the sweat from the Dictator's brow, }
And o'er his back his robe did rudely throw; }
The lictors bore in state their lord's triumphant plough. }
Some love to hear the fustian poet roar,
And some on antiquated authors pore;
Rummage for sense, and think those only good
Who labour most, and least are understood.
When thou shalt see the blear-eyed fathers teach
Their sons this harsh and mouldy sort of speech,
Or others new affected ways to try,
Of wanton smoothness, female poetry;
One would enquire from whence this motley style
Did first our Roman purity defile.
For our old dotards cannot keep their seat,
But leap and catch at all that's obsolete.
Others, by foolish ostentation led,
When called before the bar, to save their head,
Bring trifling tropes, instead of solid sense,
And mind their figures more than their defence;
Are pleased to hear their thick-skulled judges cry,
Well moved, oh finely said, and decently!
Theft (says the accuser) to thy charge I lay,
O Pedius: what does gentle Pedius say?
Studious to please the genius of the times,
With periods, points, and tropes,[185] he slurs his crimes:
"He robbed not, but he borrowed from the poor,
And took but with intention to restore."
He lards with flourishes his long harangue;
'Tis fine, say'st thou;--what, to be praised, and hang?
Effeminate Roman, shall such stuff prevail
To tickle thee, and make thee wag thy tail?
Say, should a shipwrecked sailor sing his woe,
Wouldst thou be moved to pity, or bestow
An alms? What's more preposterous than to see
A merry beggar? Mirth in misery?
PERSIUS.
He seems a trap for charity to lay,
And cons, by night, his lesson for the day.
FRIEND.
But to raw numbers, and unfinished verse,
Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse:
"'Tis tagged with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys,
The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is.[186]
The dolphin brave, that cuts the liquid wave,
Or he who in his line can chine the long-ribbed Appennine."
PERSIUS.
All this is doggrel stuff.
FRIEND.
What if I bring
A nobler verse? "Arms and the man I sing."
PERSIUS.
Why name you Virgil with such fops as these?
He's truly great, and must for ever please:
Not fierce, but aweful, is his manly page;
Bold is his strength, but sober is his rage.
FRIEND.
What poems think you soft, and to be read
With languishing regards, and bending head?
PERSIUS.
"Their crooked horns the Mimallonian crew
With blasts inspired;[187] and Bassaris, who slew
The scornful calf, with sword advanced on high,
Made from his neck his haughty head to fly:
And Mænas, when with ivy bridles bound, }
She led the spotted lynx, then Evion rung around; }
Evion from woods and floods repairing echo's sound." }
Could such rude lines a Roman mouth become,
Were any manly greatness left in Rome?
Mænas and Atys[188] in the mouth were bred,
And never hatched within the labouring head;
No blood from bitten nails those poems drew,
But churned, like spittle, from the lips they flew.
FRIEND.
'Tis fustian all; 'tis execrably bad;
But if they will be fools, must you be mad?
Your satires, let me tell you, are too fierce;
The great will never bear so blunt a verse.
Their doors are barred against a bitter flout;
Snarl, if you please, but you shall snarl without.
Expect such pay as railing rhymes deserve;
You're in a very hopeful way to starve.
PERSIUS.
Rather than so, uncensured let them be;
All, all is admirably well, for me.
My harmless rhyme shall 'scape the dire disgrace
Of common-shoars, and every pissing-place.
Two painted serpents[189] shall on high appear;
'Tis holy ground; you must not urine here.
This shall be writ, to fright the fry away,
Who draw their little baubles when they play.
Yet old Lucilius[190] never feared the times,
But lashed the city, and dissected crimes.
Mutius and Lupus both by name he brought;
He mouthed them, and betwixt his grinders caught.
Unlike in method, with concealed design,
Did crafty Horace his low numbers join;
And, with a sly insinuating grace,
Laughed at his friend, and looked him in the face;
Would raise a blush where secret vice he found,
And tickle while he gently probed the wound;
With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled,
But made the desperate passes when he smiled.
Could he do this, and is my muse controuled
By servile awe? Born free, and not be bold?
At least, I'll dig a hole within the ground,
And to the trusty earth commit the sound;
The reeds shall tell you what the poet fears,
"King Midas has a snout, and asses ears."[191]
This mean conceit, this darling mystery,
Which thou think'st nothing, friend, thou shalt not buy;
Nor will I change for all the flashy wit,
That flattering Labeo in his Iliads writ.
Thou, if there be a thou in this base town,
Who dares, with angry Eupolis, to frown;
He who, with bold Cratinus, is inspired
With zeal,[192] and equal indignation fired;
Who at enormous villainy turns pale,
And steers against it with a full-blown sail,
Like Aristophanes, let him but smile
On this my honest work, though writ in homely style;
And if two lines or three in all the vein
Appear less drossy, read those lines again.
May they perform their author's just intent,
Glow in thy ears, and in thy breast ferment!
But from the reading of my book and me,
Be far, ye foes of virtuous poverty;
Who fortune's fault upon the poor can throw,[193]
Point at the tattered coat, and ragged shoe;
Lay nature's failings to their charge, and jeer
The dim weak eye-sight when the mind is clear;
When thou thyself, thus insolent in state,
Art but, perhaps, some country magistrate,
Whose power extends no farther than to speak
Big on the bench, and scanty weights to break.
Him also for my censor I disdain,
Who thinks all science, as all virtue, vain;
Who counts geometry, and numbers toys,
And with his foot the sacred dust destroys;[194]
Whose pleasure is to see a strumpet tear
A cynick's beard, and lug him by the hair.
Such all the morning to the pleadings run; }
But when the business of the day is done, }
On dice, and drink, and drabs, they spend their afternoon. }
FOOTNOTES:
[174] Parnassus and Helicon were hills consecrated to the Muses, and
the supposed place of their abode. Parnassus was forked on the top; and
from Helicon ran a stream, the spring of which was called the Muses'
well.
[175] Pyrene, a fountain in Corinth, consecrated also to the Muses.
[176] The statues of the poets were crowned with ivy about their brows.
[177] Before the shrine; that is, before the shrine of Apollo, in his
temple at Rome, called the Palatine.
[178] Note I.
[179] Note II.
[180] Note III.
[181] Note IV.
[182] Note V.
[183] Note VI.
[184] Note VII.
[185] Note VIII.
[186] Note IX.
[187] Note X.
[188] Note XI.
[189] Note XII.
[190] Note XIII.
[191] Note XIV.
[192] Note XV.
[193] Note XVI.
[194] Note XVII.
NOTES
ON
TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS.
SATIRE I.
Note I.
_Should cry up Labeo's stuff, and cry me down._--P. 208.
Nothing is remaining of Atticus Labeo (so he is called by the learned
Casaubon); nor is he mentioned by any other poet, besides Persius.
Casaubon, from an old commentator on Persius, says, that he made a very
foolish translation of Homer's Iliads.
Note II.
_They comb, and then they order every hair;
A gown, or white, or scoured to whiteness, wear;
A birth-day jewel bobbing at their ear._--P. 209.
He describes a poet, preparing himself to rehearse his works in public,
which was commonly performed in August. A room was hired, or lent, by
some friend; a scaffold was raised, and a pulpit placed for him who was
to hold forth; who borrowed a new gown, or scoured his old one, and
adorned his ears with jewels, &c.
Note III.
_Know, my wild fig-tree, which in rocks is bred,
Will split the quarry, and shoot out the head._--P. 209.
Trees of that kind grow wild in many parts of Italy, and make their way
through rocks, sometimes splitting the tomb-stones.
Note IV.
_In cedar tablets worthy to appear._--P. 210.
The Romans wrote on cedar and cypress tables, in regard of the duration
of the wood. Ill verses might justly be afraid of frankincense; for the
papers in which they were written, were fit for nothing but to wrap it
up.
Note V.
_Products of citron beds._--P. 210.
Writings of noblemen, whose bedsteads were of the wood of citron.
Note VI.
_Hadst thou but, Janus-like, a face behind._--P. 211.
Janus was the first king of Italy, who refuged Saturn when he was
expelled, by his son Jupiter, from Crete (or, as we now call it,
Candia). From his name the first month of the year is called January.
He was pictured with two faces, one before and one behind; as regarding
the past time and the future. Some of the mythologists think he was
Noah, for the reason given above.
Note VII.
_Where Romulus was bred, and Quintius born._--P. 212.
He speaks of the country in the foregoing verses; the praises of
which are the most easy theme for poets, but which a bad poet cannot
naturally describe: then he makes a digression to Romulus, the first
king of Rome, who had a rustical education; and enlarges upon Quintius
Cincinnatus, a Roman senator, who was called from the plough to be
dictator of Rome.
Note VIII.
_With periods, points, and tropes, he slurs his crimes._ P. 213.
Persius here names antitheses, or seeming contradictions; which, in
this place, are meant for rhetorical flourishes, as I think, with
Casaubon.
Note IX.
_'Tis tagged with rhyme, like Berecynthian Atys,
The mid-part chimes with art, which never flat is._ P. 213.
Foolish verses of Nero, which the poet repeats; and which cannot be
translated, properly, into English.
Note X.
_Their crooked horns the Mimallonian crew
With blasts inspired._--P. 214.
Other verses of Nero, that were mere bombast. I only note, that the
repetition of these and the former verses of Nero, might justly give
the poet a caution to conceal his name.
Note XI.
_Mænas and Atys._--P. 214.
Poems on the Mænades, who were priestesses of Bacchus; and of Atys, who
made himself an eunuch to attend on the sacrifices of Cybele, called
Berecynthia by the poets. She was mother of the gods.
Note XII.
_Two painted serpents shall on high appear._--P. 215.
Two snakes, twined with each other, were painted on the walls, by the
ancients, to show the place was holy.
Note XIII.
_Old Lucilius._--P. 215.
Lucilius wrote long before Horace, who imitates his manner of satire,
but far excels him in the design.
Note XIV.
_King Midas has a snout, and asses ears._--P. 215.
The story is vulgar, that Midas, king of Phrygia, was made judge
betwixt Apollo and Pan, who was the best musician: he gave the prize
to Pan; and Apollo, in revenge, gave him asses ears. He wore his hair
long to hide them; but his barber discovering them, and not daring to
divulge the secret, dug a hole in the ground, and whispered into it:
the place was marshy; and, when the reeds grew up, they repeated the
words which were spoken by the barber. By Midas, the poet meant Nero.
Note XV.
_Who dares, with angry Eupolis, to frown;
He who, with bold Cratinus, is inspired
With zeal._--P. 215.
Eupolis and Cratinus, as also Aristophanes, mentioned afterwards, were
all Athenian poets; who wrote that sort of comedy which was called the
Old Comedy, where the people were named who were satirized by those
authors.
Note XVI.
_Who fortune's fault upon the poor can throw._--P. 216.
The people of Rome, in the time of Persius, were apt to scorn the
Grecian philosophers, particularly the Cynics and Stoics, who were the
poorest of them.
Note XVII.
_Who counts geometry, and numbers toys,
And with his foot the sacred dust destroys._--P. 216.