IVVENALIS SATVRAE SATVRA I SEMPER ego auditor tantum? numquamne reponam vexatus totiens rauci Theseide Cordi ? inpune ergo mihi recitaverit ille togatas, 5 Vulcani. Quid agant venti, quas torqueat umbras Aeacus, unde alius furtivae devehat aurum pelliculae, quantas iaculetur Monychus ornos, Frontonis platani convulsaque marmora clamant semper et adsiduo ruptae lectore columnae : expectes eadem a summo minimoque poeta. et nos ergo manum ferulae subduximus, et nos 10 15 1 An epic poem. Names of tragedies. One of the judges in Hades. A Centaur, alluding to the battle between the Centaurs and the Lapithae. Jason. THE SATIRES OF JUVENAL SATIRE I DIFFICILE EST SATURAM NON SCRIBERE WHAT? Am I to be a listener only all my days? Am I never to get my word in-I that have been so often bored by the Theseid1 of the ranting Cordus? Shall this one have spouted to me his comedies, and that one his love ditties, and I be unavenged? Shall I have no revenge on one who has taken up the whole day with an interminable Telephus,2 or with an Orestes,2 which, after filling the margin at the top of the roll and the back as well, hasn't even yet come to an end? No one knows his own house so well as I know the groves of Mars, and the cave of Vulcan near the cliffs of Aeolus. What the winds are brewing; whose souls Aeacus & has on the rack; from what country another worthy is carrying off that stolen golden fleece; how big are the ash trees which Monychus 5 tosses about: these are the themes with which Fronto's plane trees and marble halls are for ever ringing until the pillars quiver and quake under the continual recitations; such is the kind of stuff you may look for from every poet, greatest or least. Well, I too have slipped my hand from under the cane; I too have counselled Sulla to 4 • A rich patron who lends his house for recitations. 3 consilium dedimus Sullae, privatus ut altum dormiret; stulta est clementia, cum tot ubique vatibus occurras, periturae parcere chartae. cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo per quem magnus equos Auruncae flexit alumnus, 20 si vacat ac placidi rationem admittitis, edam. Cum tener uxorem ducat spado, Mevia Tuscum figat aprum et nuda teneat venabula mamma, patricios omnis opibus cum provocet unus quo tondente gravis iuveni mihi barba sonabat, cum pars Niliacae plebis, cum verna Canopi Crispinus Tyrias umero revocante lacernas ventilet aestivum digitis sudantibus aurum, nec sufferre queat maioris pondera gemmae, difficile est saturam non scribere. iniquae nam quis tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se, Carus et a trepido Thymele summissa Latino ? noctibus Vind.: non tibi P. 25 30 35 1 Referring to the retirement of Sulla from public life in B.C. 79. Such themes would be prescribed to schoolboys as rhetorical exercises, of the kind called suasoriae. See Mayor's n. and Sat. vii. 150-170. 2 Lucilius, the first Roman satirist, в c. 148-103. 3 Some barber who had made a fortune. The line is repeated in x. 226. retire from public life and sleep his fill1; it is a foolish clemency when you jostle against poets at every corner, to spare paper that will be wasted anyhow. But if you can give me time, and will listen quietly to reason, I will tell you why I prefer to run in the same course over which the great nursling of Aurunca 2 drove his steeds. 22 When a soft eunuch takes to matrimony, and Maevia, with spear in hand and breasts exposed, to pig-sticking; when a fellow under whose razor my stiff youthful beard used to grate3 challenges, with his single wealth, the whole nobility; when a guttersnipe of the Nile like Crispinus - a slave-born denizen of Canopus 5-hitches a Tyrian cloak on to his shoulder, whilst on his sweating finger he airs a summer ring of gold, unable to endure the weight of a heavier gem-it is hard not to write satire. For who can be so tolerant of this monstrous city, who so iron of soul, as to contain himself when the brandnew litter of lawyer Matho comes along, filled with his huge self; after him one who has informed against his noble patron and will soon sweep away the remnant of our nobility already gnawed to the bone— one whom Massa dreads, whom Carus propitiates by a bribe, and to whom Thymele7 was sent as envoy by the terrified Latinus;7 when you are thrust on one side by men who earn legacies by nightly performances, and are raised to heaven by that now royal road to high preferment-the favours of an aged and wealthy woman? Each of the lovers will have A favourite aversion of Juvenal's as a rich Egyptian parvenu who had risen to be princeps equitum. See iv 1, 31, 108. 5 A city in the Nile Delta. • Notorious informers under Domitian. 7 Both actors: the allusion is not known. unciolam Proculeius habet, sed Gillo deuncem, partes quisque suas ad mensuram inguinis heres. accipiat sane mercedem sanguinis, et sic palleat ut nudis pressit qui calcibus anguem aut Lugudunensem rhetor dicturus ad aram. Quid referam quanta siccum iecur ardeat ira, cum populum gregibus comitum premit hic spoliator pupilli prostantis et hic damnatus inani 40 45 iudicio? quid enim salvis infamia nummis ? exul ab octava Marius bibit et fruitur dis iratis, at tu victrix provincia ploras. Haec ego non credam Venusina digna lucerna ? haec ego non agitem? sed quid magis Heracleas aut Diomedeas aut mugitum labyrinthi et mare percussum puero fabrumque volantem, 50 55 60 1 Alluding to a rhetorical contest instituted at Lyons by Caligula (Suet. Cal. 20). Severe and humiliating punishments were inflicted on those defeated in these contests. 2 Condemned for extortion in Africa in A.D. 100. |