Juvenal and Persius/The Satires of Persius/Satire 6

by Persius

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SUMMARY OF SATIRE VI

Has winter taken you back, Caesius Bassus, to your Sabine home, with that manly lyre of yours that strikes every note so fitly, whether grave or gay? I am wintering in my own Luna, regardless of the multitude, without care of flocks, without envy of inferiors richer than myself (1–17). Others may think differently; there are some who meanly stint themselves on feast-days; others waste their substance in good living. Use what you have, say I; thrash out your harvest, and commit a new crop to the soil (18–26). O, but a friend needs help, you say, lying shipwrecked on the Bruttian shore; then break off a bit of your estate for him, that he may not want. "What? am I to incur the wrath of my heir, and tempt him to neglect my funeral rites?" Bestius does well in condemning all foreign notions (27–40). Come, my heir, let me have a quiet talk with you. Have you heard that there's grand news from the front? that the Germans have had a tremendous smashing, and that there are to be rejoicings on a grand scale? Woe to you if you don't join in! I am going to treat the multitude: do you dare stay my hand? (41–52). Well, if you refuse, and if I can find no legitimate heir of my own; if I can find no relation, male or female, sprung from ancestors of mine up to the fourth generation, I will go to Bovillae and find one on the beggars' stand (52–60). Do you object to my spending on myself some part of what is my own? You will have the rest; take what I leave you and be thankful; don't force me to live scurvily for your benefit, and don't serve up to me wise sayings about living on one's income and keeping one's capital intact. Am I to be starved in order that some scape-grace heir of yours may grow a belly? Sell your life for gain; ransack the world in your quest for wealth; let it come back to you with a two-fold, a three-fold, ay a ten-fold increase; if you can tell me where to stop, Chrysippus, your fallacy of the Sorites will have been solved (61–80)!

SATIRE VI

Has winter yet brought thee, Bassus, to thy Sabine hearth? Are thy lyre and its strings still alive under thy sturdy quill? Thou that art so rare a craftsman in setting to numbers the beginnings of our ancient tongue,^[1] and bringing out the manly notes of the Latin lyre; then again a wonderful old man to ply the youthful jest, and sing in lighter but not indecorous strains.^[2] To me now the Ligurian coast, and my own winter sea,^[3] are giving all their warmth; here the cliffs form a mighty wall, with a deep valley running in from the shore. "'Tis worth your while, O citizens, to know the port of Luna";^[4] so did Ennius speak his mind^[5] when he had given up dreaming that he was Maeon's son, fifth in descent from the peacock of Pythagoras.^[6]

¹²Here I live, heedless of the mob, or of what trouble the baleful Auster may be brewing for my herd, untroubled because that corner of my neighbour's field is richer than my own—ay,^[7] and though men of baser birth than I were growing rich, I should still refuse, on that account, to be bent double and grow thin with vexation, or to dine without a savoury, or explore with my nose the seal of a bottle of vapid wine. Others may think differently; one horoscope will bring forth twins of diverse temperament. One man, on birthdays only, moistens his dry cabbage with a brine which, knowing dog that he is, he has bought in a cup, sprinkling the sacred pepper over the platter with his own hand; another is a lordly youth who runs through^[8] a whole estate in gormandising. Enjoy what I have, say I; being neither grand enough to feed my freedmen upon turbots, nor yet epicure enough to distinguish the fine flavour of a hen thrush.

²⁵Use up your crop, and grind out your granaries, as is right. Why need you be afraid? harrow again, and a second crop is in the blade. "But duty," you say, "has a call on you; a poor shipwrecked friend is clutching hold of the rocks of Bruttium, all his goods and his unheeded prayers sunk in the Ionian Sea; he himself lies upon the shore, the great Gods from the ship's poop beside him; the gulls are by this time flocking to the shattered timbers." Well then, break off a bit from your green turf, and bestow it on your needy friend, that he may not have to roam the country with his picture on a sea-green plank. But your heir, you say, will be wrathful that you have curtailed your property; he will stint the funeral feast, and will commit your bones unscented to the urn, not caring to enquire whether the cinnamon has lost its fragrance or the casia lias been adulterated with cherry. "What?" he will say, "are you to squander your property, and not suffer for it?" And then Bestius^[9] has his fling at the Greek philosophers; "It's always so; ever since this emasculated^[10] wisdom of ours entered the city along with dates and pepper, our haymakers have spoilt their porridge with thick oils!"—What? are you to be afraid of taunts like these on the other side of the grave? And as for you, my heir, whoever you may be, come away from the crowd for one moment and listen:—^[11]

⁴³Have you not heard the news, my good fellow? A laurelled despatch has arrived from Caesar because of a splendid victory over the Germans; the cold ashes are being raked out from the altars; Caesonia^[12] is contracting for arms to put up over the gates, with regal mantles, and yellow perukes for the prisoners, and chariots, and life-sized effigies of the Rhine.^[13] So in honour of the Gods and the Genius of our General, I am putting on a hundred pairs of gladiators to celebrate these grand doings. Who dares to say me nay? Woe to you if you don't fall in with my humour! I am giving the mob a largess of oil and bread and meat. Do you forbid? Speak out plainly. "No, no," you say, "that field there close by is not sufficiently cleared of stones."^[14] Well then, if none of my paternal aunts survives, if I have no cousin on my father's side, if my paternal uncle has left no great-grand-daughters, if my maternal aunt has died without issue, and there is no living descendant of my grandmother, I go off to Bovillae and the hill of Virbius,^[15] and there I find in Manius an heir ready to my hand! "What? the son of a clod?" you say. Well, just ask of me who is my great-great-grandfather; I could tell you that, though perhaps not in a moment; add one step more, and then again another, and by that time you come to a son of earth, so that by strict lineal ascent this Manius turns out to be a kind of great-great-uncle. Why do you, who are before me, ask for my torch while I am still running?^[16] I am for you a Mercury, I come to you just as that God is represented in pictures. Do you reject the gift? Won't you take what I leave you and be thankful?—"There is a shortage in the amount," you say. Yes; I lessened it for my own use; but what remains, whatever it is, is all for you. Don't ask where is the sum that Tadius left me long ago, and don't serve up to me your paternal saws:—"Let interest accrue on your capital, and take your expenses out of that."—"Yes, and what will be left?" "Left," do you ask? Here, boy, drench the cabbage with oil, and d——n the expense! Am I to have my holiday dinner off nettles and a smoked pig's cheek with his ear split through, in order that some day or other your young ne'er-do-weel may regale himself on a goose's liver? . . . Am I to be reduced to a thread-paper while his belly is to wag with fat like that of a priest?

⁷⁵Go, sell your soul for gain; buy and sell; ransack cunningly every corner of the earth, let no one outstrip you in patting fat Cappadocian^[17] slaves in their pen; turn every coin into two. "Done already," you say; "with a threefold, fourfold, ay, and a tenfold increase."^[18] Mark the point at which I am to stop, and the finisher of your heap,^[19] Chrysippus, will have been found!

Footnotes

1. The phrase primordia vocum is from Lucretius, iv. 531, who uses it to mean the bodily "first beginnings of voices," i.e. the actual corporeal atoms of which he supposes voices and words to consist. Here it seems to refer to the beginnings of Latin, with an indication of the manly and archaic character of the style of Bassus.
2. The readings vary between egregius senex and egregios senes. Conington translates senex, but has senes in his text. Büch. reads egregius senex.
3. For the difficulties raised by the words intepet and hibernat, see Professor Housman (l.c. p. 65).
4. This line is a quotation from Ennius.
5. The Romans considered the heart, not the brain, to be the seat of intelligence. Cicero quotes from Ennius the phrase egregie cordatus homo = "a clever man."
6. This is the explanation of the Scholiast, who imagines Ennius in his dream to have gone through five transformations, the stages being (1) Pythagoras, (2) a peacock, (3) Euphorbus, (4) Homer, (5) Ennius. But in his Annals Ennius only relates that he had seen Homer in a dream, who told him he had once been a peacock; and it seems simpler to take Quintus to refer to Ennius' own praenomen, "when he ceased to dream himself Homer, becoming Quintus, i.e. himself (Quintus being his own praenomen) out of the Pythagorean peacock."
7. Adeo here seems to be used in the old Plautine sense, = "Nay, more," "in addition to that."
8. Lit. "goes through an entire property with his teeth," i.e. spends it in gormandising.
9. The name Bestius is taken from the corrector Bestius of Horace (Epp. I. xv. 37), and is used to represent the vulgar irrelevant critic, who connects all the evils of his day with the bringing in of new-fangled Greek learning along with foreign articles like pepper, dates, etc. " Your heir will snarl," says Persius, "and Bestius will talk drivel; but why should that trouble you in the grave?" Sapere of course has a punning meaning, referring to Greek Philosophy as well as to the smack of dates and pepper.
10. The words maris expers are taken from Horace (Chium maris expers, Sat. II. viii. 15), but the context is quite different from the Horatian. They have been usually explained as meaning "destitute of salt," and therefore "tasteless," or foolish. But Professor Housman has shown that Casaubon's rendering, "destitute of virility," gives the true meaning (l.c. pp. 27–28). Bestius complains that modern Greek ideas have destroyed the old robustness of Rome; even the rustics have corrupted the homely porridge by mixing with it scented oils.
11. Persius remonstrates with his heir. On an occasion of national rejoicing, he intends to spend freely and patriotically (43–51).
12. Caligula's wife.
13. Besides actual trophies, pictures illustrative of the recent campaign, and even pictures of rivers, were carried in a triumphal procession.
14. This obscure phrase has been variously explained. Exossatus means "cleared of bones." Some interpret "cleared of stones," i.e. good land prepared for a crop; others "land from which the bones, the strength and marrow of the soil, have been taken," and so "poor land." In line 51 Persius challenges his heir to reply. Conington takes adeo as a verb; "I decline the inheritance," says the heir; to which Persius replies, "Here is a field, now, cleared for ploughing," for which I can easily find an heir. Professor Housman follows an interpretation given by Hermann; Persius says to his heir, "Do you forbid my extravagance? Tell me plainly." "I would rather not," says the heir; "that field close by is far too full of stones"; i.e. he is afraid that the populace will stone him if he lifts his voice against the proposed entertainment (l.c. p. 29). "Very well," says Persius, "I can find another heir elsewhere."
15. i.e. the clivus Aricinus, near Bovillae, which was a great resort for beggars. Virbius, another name for Hippolytus, was worshipped at Aricia along with Diana.
16. This line is evidently based on Lucretius, ii. 77; Inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum, Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt. The idea is that of passing on a blazing torch from one hand to another; but it is not easy to reconcile the words qui prior es with the accounts given of the Athenian λαμπαδηφορία. See Dict. Ant. It is not impossible that Persius, whose phrases are taken from books rather than life, copied the phrase of Lucretius without quite realising its meaning.
17. Cappadocian slaves, being tall, were much prized as litter-bearers.
18. Ruga is a "crease," or "fold," so that redire decies in rugam expresses exactly "a ten-fold increase." Many editors have wrongly explained the word as the fold or sinus in the toga, and so = "a purse."
19. Referring to the well-known Sorites, the fallacy of the heap; Dum cadat elusus ratione mentis acervi (Hor. Epp. II. i. 47). The analogous fallacy demonstrating the impossibility of motion was met by the famous "solvitur ambulando."