Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

thought, a somewhat tame and bald version, and what is called "a spirited rendering," I have deliberately preferred the former; my object being to translate, as a help to those who wish to make acquaintance with the original, not to paraphrase for the benefit of what is called "the English reader."

I have added some Notes-they should perhaps rather be described as the materials and memoranda for notes-which were collected by me with the view of carrying out a project which occurred to me, on the completion of the translation, that of attempting a completely new edition (as I understand the word "edition") of this poet. But circumstances compelled me to abandon this project shortly after it was conceived, without much hope of being able at any future time to take it seriously in hand. I have accordingly printed my Notes as they stand; and it is my hope that, even in their present state, they may be found to contain some useful hints and helps towards a correct understanding of a difficult author.

Every illustrative passage quoted by me has been collected in the course of my own reading; or, in the few cases where I have taken from another editor, he is scrupulously named. But where so many have been over the ground before me, it must of course follow that a great number of these passages have appeared in previous editions. I have selected these illustrations almost exclusively from the books of Roman authors, and in preference from such as flourished in or near the time of Juvenal, as Martial and the younger Pliny; and I hope they will generally be found pertinent. By bringing together everything which might be forced into a connection, however remote, with our author, from every one who ever wrote in Greek as well as in Latin-down to Fulgentius, Johannes Sarisburensis, and, possibly, Erasmus-it would have been easy to swell these Notes into twelve times their present dimensions. My only fear, however, is that I may have quoted too much, as it is.

Much that will be found in the Notes will be ABC to scholars. But I was anxious to make them sufficient for the student, and the ordinary reader. The course I have

adopted with regard to well-known subjects is simply to give
a few words of explanation, ex gr., . . . Chrysippus, the Stoic
philosopher; Electra, the sister of Orestes; Infamia imposed
certain legal disabilities... referring to the generally accessible
Dictionaries of Dr Smith for fuller information. To go more
into detail would be mere book-making: on the other hand,
it is not agreeable to a reader, who merely wants enough
explanation to help him on, to be driven off straightway to
a book of reference.

The English editions of Juvenal which have come under
my notice are that of Mr Macleane, and three school-books
by Messrs Escott, Prior, and Simcox, respectively. Macleane
is an editor of masculine judgment, hardly inferior to that of
Heinrich, whose commentary he with justice admires. I
have sometimes, in my translation, borrowed a word or a
turn of expression from him, owing to the fact that it lingered
in my memory, and that I could not find anything better to
replace it. His failing is in being at times too dogmatic.
Mr Escott and Mr Prior have published two excellent school-
books. Mr Simcox, whose Juvenal forms part of the "Ca-
tena Classicorum," offers some acute suggestions: but his
vice is precisely over-acuteness, a perpetual straining after
some meaning, other than the apparent one, of a word or a
passage, which at times makes his notes very misleading to
the school-boy, or else absolute nonsense.*

Mr Mayor's Juvenal I have not had the advantage of
seeing, except the text and the notes to Satire i and Satire
iii 1-9. I have frequently inquired for the entire work,
and have always been told that it was out of print, and that
a second edition would shortly appear. The portion just
alluded to is Part 1 of this second edition. Sheridan, if
I remember rightly, speaks somewhere of a rivulet of text
meandering through a plain of margin. If this part be a

* Ez gr., Notes to i 59-62, iii 34-36 (quemlibet, "the most expensive gladia-
tors"), 221, iv 48 104, v 5 33 104, vii 193 194, viii 162, x 18 21, xi 6 203, xiii 28,
xiv 2-9 102 133 217 253-254 257 298, xv 117, and the exquisitely ridiculous note
at xvi 46. Mr Simcox's Introduction commences in these words, "About the
life of Juvenal, only three things can be said to be known: that he was the heir
of a freedman, that he practised declamation, and that he was banished for
affronting an actor." This is not a proper way of introducing the Author to the
school-boy's notice. None of these things are known.

fair specimen of the whole work, it might be described as a thin stream of commentary on Juvenal running under the surface of a vast sea of citations and excursuses. Thus, for instance, on hortos, i 75, we have an essay of more than two closely-printed pages, and with over one hundred and fifty citations on the subject, bringing in almost everything that every ancient author has said about gardens, from Naboth's vineyard downwards. On iii 9, we have an excursus of several pages-how many, I do not know; Part 1 ends with the fourth-on recitations. In other places, ex gr., i 74 laudatur, 75 debent, 77 dormire, we have passages quoted apparently for no other reason than because they contain the same word. All this, which is very well in its proper place, is not to edit an author, but to smother him; to put not his meaning but one's own erudition before the world; to make him not the editor's chief consideration, but merely a peg on which to hang the signs of the editor's learning. Mr Mayor has edited only thirteen of Juvenal's Satires, the sixth (the longest and, in many respects, the most important) not being included in his work.

In the text, I have not followed any editor exclusively, but, where different readings occur, have selected that which seemed to me the best. I had thought of saying something about the MSS. of Juvenal, but to do so hardly seems within the scope of this volume, which has already reached to larger limits than I had expected. The most important of the "various readings" are given in Jahn's edition. One MS. only is alluded to in these Notes, the Codex Pithoeus, under the usual abbreviation (P). It is generally considered the most ancient and valuable extant (if it be still extant) MS. of Juvenal, but its readings are often hopelessly corrupt, and some editors seem to me not to have evinced sound judgment in relying, as they have done, almost exclusively upon it.

WESTBURY HOUSE, PETERSFIELD,
April 1873.

D. IUNII IUVENALIS SATIRAE

« ZurückWeiter »