Juvenal and Persius/The Satires of Persius/Satire 4

by Persius

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SUMMARY OF SATIRE IV

Puffed up by his ancestry, the youthful Alcibiades would fain guide the state. Knowledge of men and morals have come to him before his beard; trusting to his birth, his beauty, and his wheedling tongue, he advises the multitude on the most delicate points of right and policy. Yet he has none but the lowest conceptions of life; he has no higher ideals than an old woman who hawks vegetables in the street (1–22).

Not one of us has any knowledge of himself, though we are all ready to discourse about our neighbours. Ask a question about Vettidius, and you will learn all the particulars of his life; how miserly he is, how he starves alike himself and his slaves. And are you any better, though your vices lie in an opposite direction to his? (23–41).

Thus we lash and are lashed in turn. Do not deceive yourself; however much the neighbourhood may praise you, care for no man's opinion but your own. Look carefully into your own heart, and acknowledge how poorly you are furnished (42–52).

 

SATIRE IV

"What? Are you busying yourself with affairs of state?"

Imagine these to be the words of the bearded sage^[1] who was carried off by that deadly draught of hemlock. Tell me, you ward of the mighty Pericles,^[2] what are your qualifications? Sagacity, no doubt, and a knowledge of affairs, have come to you quickly, before your beard; you know well what to say, and what to leave unsaid. So when the bile of the multitude has been stirred to heat, the spirit moves you to impose silence on the fevered mob by a lordly waving of the hand. What will you say after that? "Fellow citizens! This proposal is unjust; that other one is bad; this third plan is the best!" For, of course, you know exactly how to weigh justice in the twin scales of the wavering balance; you can detect the straight line when it comes in between curves,^[3] even when the straddling leg of the foot-rule would lead you wrong; and you know how to affix to guilt the black mark of death.^[4] But seeing that your sleek outside skin will avail you not, why not stop waving that tail of yours to the fawning multitude before your time, when it would be better for you to be swallowing whole islands-full^[5] of hellebore undiluted?

¹⁷What is your notion of the highest good? Is it to live off dainty dishes every day, and to have your delicate cuticle comforted by continual basking in the sun? Wait a bit, and this old woman here will give no other answer. Go, then, and blow your trumpet; "I am Dinomache's son; I am the pink of beauty!" Good! only remember that you are no wiser than this tattered old Baucis when she puffs off her greengroceries to some slipshod slave!^[6]

²³Not a soul is there—no, not one—who seeks to get down into his own self;^[7] all watch the wallet on the back that walks before! Ask any one whether he knows the property of Ventidius; "Whom do you mean?" he will ask. "O that rich man at Cures who owns more land than a kite can fly over." "What? Do you mean that fellow, hateful alike to the gods and his own Genius, who, on the day when he hangs up his yoke at the Cross Roads, hesitates to wipe off the dirt that has gathered round his cannikin of wine, and groans out, 'May it all be for the best!' and while the slave-lads are revelling over their hasty-pudding, munches an onion, skin and all, with a pinch of salt to it, and sucks down the dregs of some expiring vinegar?"

But, on the other hand, should you be living in lazy luxury, basking in the sunshine, there is always some one you never knew to jog you with his elbow, and, spitting savagely at you, cry, "Are these your vile practices?" . . .

⁴²We keep smiting by turns and by turns presenting our own legs to the arrow. That is the rule of life; that is the lesson of experience. You have a secret wound beneath the groin; but a broad golden belt keeps it out of view. Well, as you please; trick your body and befool it if you can!

⁴⁶"What? If all my neighbours call me a fine fellow, am I not to believe them?" If, in your greed, you change colour at the sight of gold; if you yield to every foul desire; if by some crafty trick you flog the money-market with whipcord,^[8] in vain will you lend your thirsty ears to the flattery of the mob. Cast off everything that is not yourself; let the mob take back what they have given you; live in your own house, and recognise how poorly it is furnished.

Footnotes

1. Socrates.
2. Pericles was guardian to Alcibiades, and introduced him to public life.
3. See Sat. iii. 52 and note.
4. The Greek letter θ, the initial letter of θάνατος, was used by judges in passing a death sentence.
5. There were two towns called Anticyra, one in Phocis, one in Thessaly. Both produced hellebore, the sovereign remedy for madness.
6. The lines 21 and 22 have been variously, but not satisfactorily, explained. The name Baucis is that of a peasant-woman in one of Ovid's tales (Met. viii. 640 foll.). The general sense seems to be that the arts employed by Alcibiades are no better in their way than those used by an old woman in hawking vegetables to some slovenly fellow-slave.
7. From line 23 to the end the subject is once more the want of self-knowledge.
8. This line has not been satisfactorily explained. Puteal, or Puteal Libonis, seems to stand for the Forum, which was the Roman money-market, and the line is supposed to refer to some fishy or fraudulent operation on the Stock Exchange.