dust, or sand; in which the numbers and diagrams were made and drawn,
which they might strike out at pleasure.
THE
SECOND SATIRE
OF
PERSIUS.
DEDICATED TO HIS FRIEND
PLOTIUS MACRINUS,
ON HIS BIRTH-DAY.
THE ARGUMENT.
_This Satire contains a most grave and philosophical argument,
concerning prayers and wishes. Undoubtedly it gave
occasion to Juvenal's tenth satire; and both of them had
their original from one of Plato's dialogues, called the
"Second Alcibiades." Our author has induced it with great
mystery of art, by taking his rise from the birth-day of
his friend; on which occasions, prayers were made, and
sacrifices offered by the native. Persius, commending,
first, the purity of his friend's vows, descends to the
impious and immoral requests of others. The satire is
divided into three parts. The first is the exordium to
Macrinus, which the poet confines within the compass of
four verses: the second relates to the matter of the prayers
and vows, and an enumeration of those things, wherein
men commonly sinned against right reason, and offended
in their requests: the third part consists in showing
the repugnances of those prayers and wishes, to those of
other men, and inconsistencies with themselves. He shows
the original of these vows, and sharply inveighs against
them; and, lastly, not only corrects the false opinion of
mankind concerning them, but gives the true doctrine of
all addresses made to heaven, and how they may be made
acceptable to the powers above, in excellent precepts, and
more worthy of a Christian than a Heathen._
Let this auspicious morning be exprest
With a white stone,[195] distinguished from the rest,
White as thy fame, and as thy honour clear,
And let new joys attend on thy new added year.
Indulge thy genius, and o'erflow thy soul,
Till thy wit sparkle, like the cheerful bowl.
Pray; for thy prayers the test of heaven will bear,
Nor need'st thou take the gods aside to hear;
While others, even the mighty men of Rome,
Big swelled with mischief, to the temples come,
And in low murmurs, and with costly smoke,
Heaven's help to prosper their black vows, invoke:
So boldly to the gods mankind reveal
What from each other they, for shame, conceal.
Give me good fame, ye powers, and make me just;
Thus much the rogue to public ears will trust:
In private then,--When wilt thou, mighty Jove;
My wealthy uncle from this world remove?
Or, O thou Thunderer's son, great Hercules,
That once thy bounteous deity would please
To guide my rake upon the chinking sound
Of some vast treasure, hidden under ground![196]
O were my pupil fairly knocked o' the head,
I should possess the estate if he were dead!
He's so far gone with rickets, and with the evil,
That one small dose would send him to the devil.
This is my neighbour Nerius his third spouse,
Of whom in happy time he rids his house;
But my eternal wife!--Grant, heaven, I may
Survive to see the fellow of this day!
Thus, that thou may'st the better bring about
Thy wishes, thou art wickedly devout;
In Tyber ducking thrice, by break of day,
To wash the obscenities of night away.[197]
But, pr'ythee, tell me, ('tis a small request,)
With what ill thoughts of Jove art thou possest?
Wouldst thou prefer him to some man? Suppose
I dipped among the worst, and Staius chose?
Which of the two would thy wise head declare
The trustier tutor to an orphan heir?
Or, put it thus:--Unfold to Staius, straight,
What to Jove's ear thou didst impart of late:
He'll stare, and O, good Jupiter! will cry,
Canst thou indulge him in this villainy?
And think'st thou Jove himself with patience then
Can hear a prayer condemned by wicked men?
That, void of care, he lolls supine in state,
And leaves his business to be done by fate,
Because his thunder splits some burly tree,
And is not darted at thy house and thee;
Or that his vengeance falls not at the time,
Just at the perpetration of thy crime,
And makes thee a sad object of our eyes,
Fit for Ergenna's prayer and sacrifice?[198]
What well-fed offering to appease the God,
What powerful present to procure a nod,
Hast thou in store? What bribe hast thou prepared,
To pull him, thus unpunished, by the beard?
Our superstitions with our life begin;[199]
The obscene old grandam, or the next of kin,
The new-born infant from the cradle takes,
And, first, of spittle a lustration makes;
Then in the spawl her middle-finger dips,
Anoints the temples, forehead, and the lips,
Pretending force of magic to prevent,
By virtue of her nasty excrement;
Then dandles him with many a muttered prayer,
That heaven would make him some rich miser's heir,
Lucky to ladies, and in time a king;
Which to ensure, she adds a length of navel-string.
But no fond nurse is fit to make a prayer,
And Jove, if Jove be wise, will never hear;
Not though she prays in white, with lifted hands.
A body made of brass the crone demands
For her loved nursling, strung with nerves of wire,
Tough to the last, and with no toil to tire;
Unconscionable vows, which, when we use,
We teach the gods, in reason, to refuse.
Suppose they were indulgent to thy wish,
Yet the fat entrails in the spacious dish
Would stop the grant; the very over-care
And nauseous pomp, would hinder half the prayer.
Thou hop'st with sacrifice of oxen slain
To compass wealth, and bribe the god of gain
To give thee flocks and herds, with large increase;
Fool! to expect them from a bullock's grease!
And think'st that when the fattened flames aspire,
Thou see'st the accomplishment of thy desire!
Now, now, my bearded harvest gilds the plain, }
The scanty folds can scarce my sheep contain, }
And showers of gold come pouring in amain! }
Thus dreams the wretch, and vainly thus dreams on,
Till his lank purse declares his money gone.
Should I present them with rare figured plate,
Or gold as rich in workmanship as weight;
O how thy rising heart would throb and beat,
And thy left side, with trembling pleasure, sweat!
Thou measur'st by thyself the powers divine;
Thy gods are burnished gold, and silver is their shrine.
The puny godlings of inferior race,
Whose humble statues are content with brass,
Should some of these, in visions purged from phlegm,
Foretel events, or in a morning dream;[200]
Even those thou would'st in veneration hold,
And, if not faces, give them beards of gold.
The priests in temples now no longer care
For Saturn's brass,[201] or Numa's earthen ware;[202]
Or vestal urns, in each religious rite;
This wicked gold has put them all to flight.
O souls, in whom no heavenly fire is found,
Fat minds, and ever grovelling on the ground!
We bring our manners to the blest abodes,
And think what pleases us must please the gods.
Of oil and cassia one the ingredients takes,
And, of the mixture, a rich ointment makes;
Another finds the way to dye in grain,
And makes Calabrian wool[203] receive the Tyrian stain;
Or from the shells their orient treasure takes,
Or for their golden ore in rivers rakes,
Then melts the mass. All these are vanities,
Yet still some profit from their pains may rise:
But tell me, priest, if I may be so bold,
What are the gods the better for this gold?
The wretch, that offers from his wealthy store
These presents, bribes the powers to give him more;
As maids to Venus offer baby-toys,[204]
To bless the marriage-bed with girls and boys.
But let us for the gods a gift prepare,
Which the great man's great chargers cannot bear;
A soul, where laws, both human and divine,
In practice more than speculation shine;
A genuine virtue, of a vigorous kind,
Pure in the last recesses of the mind:
When with such offerings to the gods I come,
A cake, thus given, is worth a hecatomb.[205]
FOOTNOTES:
[195] Note I.
[196] Note II.
[197] Note III.
[198] Note IV.
[199] Note V.
[200] Note VI.
[201] Note VII.
[202] Note VIII.
[203] Note IX.
[204] Note X.
[205] Note XI.
NOTES
ON
TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS.
SATIRE II.
Note I.
_Let this auspicious morning be exprest
With a white stone._----P. 222.
The Romans were used to mark their fortunate days, or any thing that
luckily befel them, with a white stone, which they had from the island
Creta, and their unfortunate with a coal.
Note II.
----_Great Hercules,
That once thy bounteous deity would please
To guide my rake upon the chinking sound
Of some vast treasure, hidden under ground._--P. 222.
Hercules was thought to have the key and power of bestowing all hidden
treasure.
Note III.
_In Tyber ducking thrice, by break of day,
To wash the obscenities of night away._--P. 223.
The ancients thought themselves tainted and polluted by night itself,
as well as bad dreams in the night; and therefore purified themselves
by washing their heads and hands every morning, which custom the Turks
observe to this day.
Note IV.
_Fit for Ergenna's prayer and sacrifice_.--P. 223.
When any one was thunderstruck, the soothsayer (who is here called
Ergenna) immediately repaired to the place, to expiate the displeasure
of the gods, by sacrificing two sheep.
Note V.
_Our superstitions with our life begin_.--P. 223.
The poet laughs at the superstitious ceremonies which the old women
made use of in their lustration, or purification days, when they named
their children, which was done on the eighth day to females, and on the
ninth to males.
Note VI.
_Should some of these, in visions purged from phlegm,
Foretel events, or in a morning dream._--P. 225.
It was the opinion both of Grecians and Romans, that the gods, in
visions and dreams, often revealed to their favourites a cure for
their diseases, and sometimes those of others. Thus Alexander dreamed
of an herb which cured Ptolemy. These gods were principally Apollo
and Esculapius; but, in aftertimes, the same virtue and good-will was
attributed to Isis and Osiris. Which brings to my remembrance an odd
passage in Sir Thomas Brown's Religio Medici, or in his Vulgar Errors;
the sense whereof is, that we are beholden, for many of our discoveries
in physic, to the courteous revelation of spirits. By the expression,
of "visions purged from phlegm," our author means such dreams or
visions as proceed not from natural causes, or humours of the body, but
such as are sent from heaven; and are, therefore, certain remedies.
Note VII.
_The priests in temples, now no longer care
For Saturn's brass._--P. 225.
Brazen vessels, in which the public treasures of the Romans were kept:
it may be the poet means only old vessels, which were called #Kronia#,
from the Greek name of Saturn. Note also, that the Roman treasury was
in the temple of Saturn.
Note VIII.
----_Or Numa's earthen ware._--P. 225.
Under Numa, the second king of Rome, and for a long time after him,
the holy vessels for sacrifice were of earthen-ware; according to the
superstitious rites which were introduced by the same Numa: though
afterwards, when Memmius had taken Corinth, and Paulus Emilius had
conquered Macedonia, luxury began amongst the Romans, and then their
utensils of devotion were of gold and silver, &c.
Note IX.
_And makes Calabrian wool, &c._--P. 225.
The wool of Calabria was of the finest sort in Italy, as Juvenal also
tells us. The Tyrian stain is the purple colour dyed at Tyrus; and I
suppose, but dare not positively affirm, that the richest of that dye
was nearest our crimson, and not scarlet, or that other colour more
approaching to the blue. I have not room to justify my conjecture.
Note X.
_As maids to Venus offer baby-toys._--P. 225.
Those baby-toys were little babies, or poppets, as we call them; in
Latin, pupæ; which the girls, when they came to the age of puberty, or
child bearing, offered to Venus; as the boys, at fourteen or fifteen,
offered their _bullæ_, or bosses.
Note XI.
_A cake, thus given, is worth a hecatomb._--P. 226.
A cake of barley, or coarse wheat-meal, with the bran in it. The
meaning is, that God is pleased with the pure and spotless heart of
the offerer, and not with the riches of the offering. Laberius, in the
fragments of his "Mimes," has a verse like this--_Puras, Deus, non
plenas aspicit manus_.--What I had forgotten before, in its due place,
I must here tell the reader, that the first half of this satire was
translated by one of my sons, now in Italy; but I thought so well of
it, that I let it pass without any alteration.
THE
THIRD SATIRE
OF
PERSIUS.
THE ARGUMENT.
_Our author has made two Satires concerning study, the first
and the third: the first related to men; this to young
students, whom he desired to be educated in the Stoic
philosophy. He himself sustains the person of the master,
or preceptor, in this admirable Satire, where he upbraids
the youth of sloth, and negligence in learning. Yet he
begins with one scholar reproaching his fellow-students
with late rising to their books. After which, he takes
upon him the other part of the teacher; and, addressing
himself particularly to young noblemen, tells them, that,
by reason of their high birth, and the great possessions
of their fathers, they are careless of adorning their
minds with precepts of moral philosophy: and, withal,
inculcates to them the miseries which will attend them
in the whole course of their life, if they do not apply
themselves betimes to the knowledge of virtue, and the end
of their creation, which he pathetically insinuates to them.
The title of this satire, in some ancient manuscripts,
was, "the Reproach of Idleness;" though in others of the
scholiasts it is inscribed, "Against the Luxury and Vices
of the Rich." In both of which, the intention of the poet
is pursued, but principally in the former._
[I remember I translated this satire when I was a king's
scholar at Westminster school, for a Thursday-night's
exercise; and believe, that it, and many other of my
exercises of this nature in English verse, are still in the
hands of my learned master, the Rev. Dr Busby.]