THE

FIRST SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

The poet gives us first a kind of humorous reason for his writing: That being provoked by hearing so many ill poets rehearse their works, he does himself justice on them, by giving them as bad as they bring. But since no man will rank himself with ill writers, 'tis easy to conclude, that if such wretches could draw an audience, he thought it no hard matter to excel them, and gain a greater esteem with the public. Next he informs us more openly why he rather addicts himself to Satire, than any other kind of poetry. And here he discovers that it is not so much his indignation to ill poets, as to ill men, which has prompted him to write. He therefore gives us a summary and general view of the vices and follies reigning in his time. So that this first Satire is the natural groundwork of all the rest. Herein he confines himself to no one subject, but strikes indifferently at all men in his way: in every following Satire he has chosen some particular moral which he would inculcate; and lashes some particular vice or folly (an art with which our lampooners are not much acquainted). But our poet being desirous to reform his own age, and not daring to attempt it by an overt act of naming living persons, inveighs only against those who were infamous in the times immediately preceding his, whereby he not only gives a fair warning to great men, that their memory lies at the mercy of future poets and historians, but also, with a finer stroke of his pen, brands even the living, and personates them under dead men's names.

I have avoided as much as I could possibly the borrowed learning of marginal notes and illustrations, and for that reason have translated this Satire somewhat largely; and freely own (if it be a fault) that I have likewise omitted most of the proper names, because I thought they would not much edify the reader. To conclude, if in two or three places I have deserted all the commentators, it is because they first deserted my author, or at least have left him in so much obscurity, that too much room is left for guessing.

Ver. 1. Still shall I hear,] It is not without caution, and a fear of reprehension, that I venture to mention what may appear too personal, that when I first had the honour of presiding at Winchester school, I found the youths of the upper class were in the habit of frequently repeating, without book, the Satires of Juvenal. I soon perceived, that, from the multiplicity of allusions to Roman history, manners, customs, and opinions, they unavoidably could not understand half they repeated. And I also perceived that their compositions were unnaturally and improperly tinctured with a mixture of Juvenal's harsh, far-fetched, metaphorical, and tumid expressions, and of the purity of Virgil and Horace. I therefore laid aside the practice, and adhered closely and solely to the two last-mentioned authors. After our author himself has so clearly and copiously, in his dedication, marked the characteristical differences betwixt Horace and Juvenal, it would be vain and superfluous to attempt to add any thing on a subject 80 exhausted. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 2. Codrus] Or it may be Cordus, a bad poet who wrote the life and actions of Theseus.

Or Mars his grove, or hollow winds that blow
From Etna's top, or tortured ghosts below.
I know by rote the famed exploits of Greece;
The Centaurs' fury, and the golden fleece;
Through the thick shades th' eternal scribbler
bawls,

And shakes the statues on their pedestals.
The best and worst on the same theme employs
His muse, and plagues us with an equal noise.
Provoked by these incorrigible fools,

I left declaiming in pedantic schools;
Where, with men-boys, I strove to get renown,
Advising Sylla to a private gown.

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But, since the world with writing is possess'd,
I'll versify in spite; and do my best,
To make as much waste paper as the rest.
But why I lift aloft the Satire's rod,
And tread the path which famed Lucilius trod,
Attend the causes which my Muse have led:
When sapless eunuchs mount the marriage-bed,
When mannish Mevia, that two-handed whore, 30.
Astride on horseback hunts the Tuscan boar,
When all our lords are by his wealth outvied,
Whose razor on my callow beard was tried;
When I behold the spawn of conquer'd Nile,
Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile,
Pacing in pomp, with cloak of Tyrian dye,
Changed oft a day for needless luxury;
And finding oft occasion to be fann'd,
Ambitious to produce his lady-hand;
Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat,
Unable to support a gem of weight:
Such fulsome objects meeting everywhere,
"Tis hard to write, but harder to forbear.

To view so lewd a town, and to refrain,
What hoops of iron could my spleen contain !
When pleading Matho, borne abroad for air,
With his fat paunch fills his new-fashion'd chair,
And after him the wretch in pomp convey'd,
Whose evidence his lord and friend betray'd,
And but the wish'd occasion does attend
From the poor nobles the last spoils to rend,
Whom ev'n spies dread as their superior fiend,
And bribe with presents; or, when presents fail,
They send their prostituted wives for bail:

Ver. 11.

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Mars his grove,] Some commentators take this grove to be a place where poets were used to repeat their works to the people; but, more probably, both this and Vulcan's grot, or cave, and the rest of the places and names here mentioned, are only meant for the commonplaces of Homer, in his Iliads and Odysseys.

Ver. 17. The best and worst] That is the best and the worst poets.

Ver. 20. I left declaiming] But he did not forsake his declamatory style. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 22. Advising Sylla, &c.] This was one of the themes given in the schools of rhetoricians, in the deliberative kind: Whether Sylla should lay down the supreme power of dictatorship, or still keep it.

Ver. 27.

-Lucilius] The first satirist of the Romans, who wrote long before Horace. Ver. 30.

Mevia,] A name put for any impudent

or mannish woman. Ver. 33. Whose razor, &c.] Juvenal's barber, now grown wealthy. Ver. 35. Crispinus,] An Egyptian slave; now by his riches transformed into a nobleman.

Ver. 40. Charged with light summer-rings, &c.] The Romans were grown so effeminate in Juvenal's time, that they wore light rings in the summer, and heavier in the winter.

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When night-performance holds the place of merit,
And brawn and back the next of kin disherit;
For such good parts are in preferment's way,
The rich old madam never fails to pay
Her legacies, by Nature's standard given,
One gains an ounce, another gains eleven:
A dear-bought bargain, all things duly weigh'd,
For which their thrice concocted blood is paid:
With looks as wan, as he who in the brake
At unawares has trod upon a snake;
Or play'd at Lyons a declaiming prize,
For which the vanquish'd rhetorician dies.
What indignation boils within my veins,
When perjured guardians, proud with impious
gains,

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Choke up the streets, too narrow for their trains!
Whose wards by want betray'd, to crimes are led 70
Too foul to name, too fulsome to be read!
When he who pill'd his province 'scapes the laws,
And keeps his money, though he lost his cause:
His fine begg'd off, contemns his infamy,
Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three: 75
Enjoys his exile, and, condemn'd in vain,
Leaves thee, prevailing province, to complain!
Such villanies roused Horace into wrath :
And 'tis more noble to pursue his path,
Than an old tale of Diomede to repeat,
Or labouring after Hercules to sweat,
Or wandering in the winding maze of Creto;
Or with the winged smith aloft to fly,
Or fluttering perish with his foolish boy.

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With what impatience must the Muse behold 85 The wife, by her procuring husband sold?

For though the law makes null th' adulterer's

deed

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Of lands to her, the cuckold may succeed;
Who his taught eyes up to the ceiling throws,
And sleeps all over but his wakeful nose.
When he dares hope a colonel's command,
Whose coursers kept, ran out his father's land;
Who, yet a stripling, Nero's chariot drove,
Whirl'd o'er the streets, while his vain master
strove

With boasted art to please his eunuch-love.

Would it not make a modest author dare
To draw his table-book within the square,
And fill with notes, when lolling at his ease,
Mecænas-like, the happy rogue he sees
Borne by six wearied slaves in open view,
Who cancell'd an old will, and forged a new ;
Made wealthy at the small expense of signing
With a wet seal, and a fresh interlining?

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So well the fashionable med'cine thrives,
That now 'tis practised ev'n by country wives:
Poisoning, without regard of fame or fear:
And spotted corps are frequent on the bier.
Would'st thou to honours and preferments climb?
Be bold in mischief, dare some mighty crime, 11
Which dungeons, death, or banishment deserves:
For virtue is but drily praised, and sterves.
Great men, to great crimes, owe their plate
emboss'd,

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Fair palaces, and furniture of cost;
And high commands: a sneaking sin is lost.
Who can behold that rank old lecher keep
His son's corrupted wife, and hope to sleep?
Or that male-harlot, or that unfledged boy,
Eager to sin, before he can enjoy?
If nature could not, anger would indite
Such woful stuff as I or Shadwell write.
Count from the time, since old Deucalion's boat,
Raised by the flood, did on Parnassus float;
And scarcely mooring on the cliff, implored
An oracle how man might be restored;
When soften'd stones and vital breath ensued,
And virgius naked were by lovers view'd;
What ever since that Golden Age was done,
What human kind desires, and what they shun,
Rage, passions, pleasures, impotence of will,
Shall this satirical collection fill.

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What age so large a crop of vices bore,
Or when was avarice extended more?
When were the dice with more profusion thrown!
The well-fill'd fob not emptied now alone,
But gamesters for whole patrimonies play;
The steward brings the deeds which must convey
The lost estate: what more than madness reigns.
When one short sitting many hundreds drains, 40
And not enough is left him to supply
Board-wages, or a footman's livery?

What age so many summer-seats did see?
Or which of our forefathers fared so well,
As on seven dishes, at a private meal?
Clients of old were feasted; now a poor
Divided dole is dealt at th' outward door;
Which by the hungry rout is soon dispatch'd:
The paltry largess, too, severely watch'd
Ere given; and every face observed with care,
That no intruding guest usurp a share.
Known, you receive: the crier calls aloud
Our old nobility of Trojan blood,

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150

Who gape among the crowd for their precarious

food.

The prætors' and the tribunes' voice is heard; 155
The freedman jostles, and will be preferr'd;
First come, first served, he cries; and I, in spite
Of your great lordships, will maintain my right.
Though born a slave, though my torn ears are
bored,

'Tis not the birth, tis money makes the lord. 100

Ver. 118. and hope to sleep?] The meaning is, that the very consideration of such a crime, will hinder virtuous man from taking his repose.

Ver. 123. Deucalion and Pyrrha, when the world was drowned, escaped to the top of Mount Parnassus; and were commanded to restore mankind by throwing stones over their heads. The stones he threw became men, and those she threw became women.

Ver. 159. though my torn ears are bored] The ears of all slaves were bored as a mark of their servitude; which custom is still usual in the East Indies, and in other parts, even for whole nations; who bore prodigious holes in their ears, and wear vast weights at them.

165

The rent of five fair houses I receive;
What greater honours can the purple give?
The poor patrician is reduced to keep,
In melancholy walks, a grazier's sheep:
Not Pallas nor Licinius had my treasure;
Then let the sacred tribunes wait my leisure.
Once a poor rogue, 'tis true, I trod the street,
And trudged to Rome upon my naked feet:
Gold is the greatest god; though yet we see
No temples raised to Money's majesty,
No altars fuming to her power divine,
Such as to Valour, Peace, and Virtue shine,
And Faith, and Concord: where the stork on high
Seems to salute her infant progeny:
Presaging pious love with her auspicious cry.

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But since our knights and senators account To what their sordid begging vails amount, Judge what a wretched share the poor attends, Whose whole subsistence on those alms depends! Their household fire, their raiment, and their food, Prevented by those harpies; when a wood Of litters thick besiege the donor's gate, And begging lords and teeming ladies wait The promised dole: nay, some have learn'd the trick To beg for absent persons; feign them sick, Close mew'd in their sedaus, for fear of air: And for their wives produce an empty chair. This is my spouse: dispatch her with her share. "Tis Galla: Let her ladyship but peep: No, Sir, 'tis pity to disturb her sleep.

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Such fine employments our whole days divide: The salutations of the morning-tide Call up the sun; those ended, to the hall We wait the patron, hear the lawyers bawl; Then to the statues; where amidst the race Of conquering Rome, some Arab shows his face, Inscribed with titles, and profanes the place; Fit to be piss'd against, and somewhat more. The great man, home conducted, shuts his door; Old clients, wearied out with fruitless care, Dismiss their hopes of eating, and despair. Though much against the grain forced to retire, Buy roots for supper, and provide a fire.

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Ver. 163. The poor patrician] The poor nobleman. Ver. 165. Pallas nor Licinius] Pallas, a slave freed by Claudius Cæsar, and raised by his favour to great riches. Licinius was another wealthy freedman, belonging to Augustus.

Ver. 173.

where the stork on high, &c.] Perhaps the storks were used to build on the top of the temple dedicated to Concord.

Ver. 181. Prevented by those harpies;] He calls the Roman knights, &c. harpies, or devourers. In those days the rich made doles intended for the poor; but the great were either so covetous, or so needy, that they came in their litters to demand their shares of the largess; and thereby prevented, and consequently starved the poor.

Ver. 189. 'Tis Galla, &c.] The meaning is, that noblemen would cause empty litters to be carried to the giver's door, pretending their wives were within them: "Tis Galla, that is, my wife. The next words, Let her ladyship but peep, are of the servant who distributes the dole; let me see her, that I may be sure she is within the litter. The husband answers, She is asleep, and to open the litter would disturb her rest.

Ver. 195. Then to the statues, &c.] The poet here tells you how the idle passed their time: in going first to the levees of the great, then to the hall, that is, to the temple of Apollo, to hear the lawyers plead, then to the marketplace of Augustus, where the statues of the famous Romans were set in ranks on pedestals; amongst which statues were seen those of foreigners, such as Arabs &c.; who, for no desert, but only on the account of their wealth, or favour, were placed amongst the noblest.

(A creature form'd to furnish out a feast.)
But present punishment pursues his maw,
When surfeited and swell'd, the peacock raw 215
He bears into the bath; whence want of breath,
Repletions, apoplex, intestate death.

His fate makes table-talk, divulged with scorn,
And he, a jest, into his grave is borne.

220

No age can go beyond us; future times Can add no farther to the present crimes. Our sons but the same things can wish and do; Vice is at stand, and at the highest flow; Then, Satire, spread thy sails; take all the winds can blow.

Some may, perhaps, demand what Muse can yield

Sufficient strength for such a spacious field? From whence can be derived so large a vein, Bold truths to speak, and spoken to maintain; When god-like freedom is so far bereft

225

The noble mind, that scarce the name is left? 230 Ere scandalum magnatum was begot,

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No matter if the great forgave or not:
But if that honest licence now you take,
If into rogues omnipotent you rake,
Death is your doom, impaled upon a stake.
Smear'd o'er with wax, and set on fire, to light
The streets, and make a dreadful blaze by night.
Shall they, who drench'd three uncles in a
draught

Of poisonous juice, be then in triumph brought,
Make lanes among the people where they go,
And, mounted high on downy chariots, throw
Disdainful glances on the crowd below?
Be silent, and beware, if such you see;
"Tis defamation but to say, That's he!

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Against bold Turnus the great Trojan arm, Amidst their strokes the poet gets no harm: Achilles may in epic verse be slain, And none of all his Myrmidons complain: Hylas may drop his pitcher, none will cry; Not if he drown himself for company: But when Lucilius brandishes his pen, And flashes in the face of guilty men, A cold sweat stands in drops on every part; And rage succeeds to tears, revenge to smart. Muse, be advised; 'tis past considering time, When enter'd once the dangerous lists of rhyme : Since none the living villains dare implead, Arraign them in the persons of the dead.

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Ver. 231. Ere scandalum] A strange introduction of an offence purely English, followed immediately by a Roman punishment. So also above, verse 189, the mention of her ladyship; and his lordship, verse 204. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 245. Against bold Turnus, &c.] A poet may safely write an heroic poem, such as that of Virgil, who describes the duel of Turnus and Eneas; or of Homer, who writes of Achilles and Hector; or the death of Hylas, the Catamite of Hercules; who, stooping for water, dropped his pitcher, and fell into the well after it. But 'tis dangerous to write satire like Lucilius.

THE

THIRD SATIRE OF JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

The story of this Satire speaks itself. Umbritius, the supposed friend of Juvenal, and himself a poet, is leaving Rome, and retiring to Cumæ. Our author accompanies him out of town. Before they take leave of each other, Umbritius tells his friend the reasons which oblige him to lead a private life, in an obscure place. He complains that an honest man cannot get his bread at Rome. That none but flatterers make their fortunes there. That Grecians and other foreigners raise themselves by those sordid arts which he describes, and against which he bitterly inveighs. He reckons up the several inconveniences which arise from a city life; and the many dangers which attend it. Upbraids the noblemen with covetousness, for not rewarding good poets; and arraigns the government for starving them. The great art of this Satire is particularly shown, in common-places; and drawing in as many vices as could naturally fall into the compass of it.

But worse than all, the clattering tiles; and worse Than thousand padders, is the poet's curse. Rogues that in dog-days cannot rhyme forbear: 15 But without mercy read, and make you hear.

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Now while my friend, just ready to depart, Was packing all his goods in one poor cart; He stopp'd a little at the Conduit-gate, Where Numa modell'd once the Roman state, In mighty councils with his Nymph retired: Though now the sacred shades and founts are hired

By banish'd Jews, who their whole wealth can lay

In a small basket, on a wisp of hay;
Yet such our avarice is, that every tree
Pays for his head; nor sleep itself is free:
Nor place, nor persons, now are sacred held,
From their own grove the Muses are expell'd.
Into this lonely vale our steps we bend,
I and my sullen discontented friend:

Ver. 3.

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Cuma] A small city in Campania, near Puteoli, or Puzzolo, as it is called. The habitation of the Cumaan Sibyl.

Ver. 6.

Baja,] Another little town in Campania, near the sea: a pleasant place.

Ver. 8. Prochyta] A small barren island belonging to the kingdom of Naples.

Ver. 15. in dog-days] The poets in Juvenal's time used to rehearse their poetry in August. Ver. 20. Numa] The second king of Rome; whe made their laws, and instituted their religion.

Ver. 21.

Nymph] Egeria, a nymph, or goddess; with whom Numa feigned to converse by night; and to be instructed by her, in modelling his superstitions.

Contented with an urn of native stone !

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Then thus Umbritius (with an angry frown, And looking back on this degenerate town) : Since noble arts in Rome have no support, And ragged virtue not a friend at court, No profit rises from th' ungrateful stage, My poverty increasing with my age, 'Tis time to give my just disdain a vent, And, cursing, leave so base a government. Where Dædalus his borrow'd wings laid by, To that obscure retreat I choose to fly: While yet few furrows on my face are seen, While I walk upright, and old age is green, And Lachesis has somewhat left to spin. Now, now 'tis time to quit this cursed place, And hide from villains my too honest face: Here let Arturius live, and such as he: Such manners will with such a town agree. Knaves who in full assemblies have the knack Of turning truth to lies, and white to black; Can hire large houses, and oppress the poor By farm'd excise; can cleanse the common-shore; And rent the fishery; can bear the dead; And teach their eyes dissembled tears to shed, All this for gain; for gain they sell their very head.

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These fellows (see what fortune's power can do)
Were once the minstrels of a country show:
Follow'd the prizes through each paltry town,
By trumpet-cheeks and bloated faces known.
But now, grown rich, on drunken holidays,
At their own costs exhibit public plays;
Where influenced by the rabble's bloody will,
With thumbs bent back, they popularly kill.
From thence return'd, their sordid avarice rakes
In excrements again, and hires the jakes.
Why hire they not the town, not every thing,
Since such as they have fortune in a string?
Who, for her pleasure, can her fools advance;
And toss 'em topmost on the wheel of chance.
What's Rome to me, what business have I there, 75
I who can neither lie, nor falsely swear?

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Ver. 31. The marble caves,] The preference here given to the beauties of simple nature above those of art, is remarkable.-The lines of the original are worth quoting, as written in a pure taste, and very different from the turgid declamatory style into which Juvenal too frequently falls: "Quanto præstantius esset

Numen aquæ viridi si margine clanderet undas Herba, nec ingenuum violarent marmora tophum." The translation is quite equal, if not superior. Violarent is a strong and emphatical word, but is answered by edul terate; as is ingenuum by living turf, and contented. Dr. J. WARTON.

Ver. 45. Where Daedalus, &c.] Meaning at Cuma. Ver. 49. Lachesis] One of the three Destinies, whose office was to spin the life of every man as it was of Clotho to hold the distaff, and Atropos to cut the thread. Ver. 52. Arturius] Any debauched wicked fellow who gains by the times.

Ver. 68. With thumbs bent back,] In a prize of swordplayers, when one of the fencers had the other at his mercy, the vanquished party implored the clemency of the spectators. If they thought he deserved it not, they held up their thumbs and bent them backwards, in sign of death.