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Si nondum implevi gremium, si panditur ultra,

Nec Croesi fortuna unquam, nec Persica regna
Sufficient animo, nec divitiae Narcissi,

Indulsit Caesar cui Claudius omnia, cujus

330

Paruit imperiis, uxorem occidere jussus.

If yet, in spite of this prodigious store,
Your craving bosom yawn, unfill'd, for more,
Then, all the wealth of Lydia's king, increast
By all the treasures of the gorgeous East,
Will not content you; no, nor all the gold

Of that proud slave, whose mandate Rome controll'd,
Who sway'd the Emperour, and whose fatal word.
Plunged, in the Empress' breast, the lingering sword!

ARGUMENT OF THE FIFTEENTH

SATIRE

AFTER a contemptuous reference to Egypt and to the gods there worshipped, Juvenal describes a fight between two neighbouring Egyptian townships; a fight caused by religious intolerance and hatred, which ended in a detestable scene of cannibalism; he deplores the savage cruelty of the whole affair, and laments the decay of that sympathy and affection which nature gives to man and to man alone, and which is the foundation of all society. The satire seems to be directed against superstition and bigotry, no less than against the savage actions which they engender.

Quis nescit, Volusi Bithynice, qualia demens
Aegyptus portenta colat? Crocodilon adorat
Pars haec; illa pavet saturam serpentibus ibin.
Effigies sacri nitet aurea cercopitheci,
Dimidio magicae resonant ubi Memnone chordae
Atque vetus Thebe centum jacet obruta portis.
Illic aeluros, hic piscem fluminis, illic
Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam.
Porrum et caepe nefas violare et frangere morsu.
O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis
Numina ! Lanatis animalibus abstinet omnis
Mensa; nefas illic fetum jugulare capellae :
Carnibus humanis vesci licet. Attonito quum
Tale super coenam facinus narraret Ulixes
Alcinoo, bilem aut risum fortasse quibusdam
Moverat, ut mendax aretalogus.

In mare nemo

Hunc abicit, saeva dignum veraque Charbydi,

Fingentem immanes Laestrygonas atque Cyclopas?
Nam citius Scyllam vel concurrentia saxa
Cyaneas plenos et tempestatibus utres
Crediderim, aut tenui percussum verbere Circes
Et cum remigibus grunnisse Elpenora porcis.
Tam vacui capitis populum Phaeaca putavit?

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