PROLOGUE TO THE SATIRES

At no time have I sluiced my mouth in the Fountain
Of Hippocrene, nor (if my memory serves me)
Have I dreamed ever on two-peaked Parnassus, that I
Should burst forth this way, without warning, a poet.
I leave to them whose busts the fawning ivy
Favors all claim to the Muses of Helicon
And the spring at Pirene which imparts pallor: not more
Than half a member of their clan, I offer my song
At the bards' banquet. Who loosened the parrot's
Racketing tongue and got the magpie to talk
But that master of arts, that disburser of genius,
And incomparable ventriloquist: The Belly.
Flash these crow-poets and magpie-poetizing
Females one glimpse of the ready cash, and you'd swear
The Muses' nectar was no sweeter than their song.

SATIRE ONE

PERSIUS

"Oh mortal ambition, oh towering emptiness
Of human enterprise . . ."

THE OTHER

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Who'll read that sort of thing?

PERSIUS

Are you asking me? No one, by Hercules.

THE OTHER

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　No one?

PERSIUS

At most one or two.

THE OTHER

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Lamentable and disgraceful!

PERSIUS

Why? Are you sad that our Dames of Unrelieved Virtue
Prefer Labeo? Spare yourself. Let dim-witted Rome
Disparage at leasure; why appoint yourself to straighten
Her shamelessly crooked scales? Stick to your own judgment.
For there's not a soul in the place who--oh if only I
Could tell the secret--well, and I must tell it, what with
These grizzled heads of ours and our glum customs coming
To mind, in fact all that we've busied ourselves with
Since we left off playing marbles and grew long-faced
And avuncular. So, please, your forgiveness. For I can't
Help myself. My wit has a mind of its own and makes me
Laugh.
　　　　Locked in, we get down to it--verse, prose, something
Grand, making uncommon demands on the breath.
And in due course you'll favor the crowd with it, out of
A raised chair, in a new white robe, groomed to a hair,
Your throat loosened with syrup, a birthday sardonyx
Large in your gestures, and your eye, every so often,
Letting them in on it. Then, as the deft phrases
Find the way to their loins and stroke them within there,
You'll see the hefty sons of Rome's best families roused
Not in a nice way: quivering, and their words not edifying.
Dirty old thing, concocting temptations for the ears
Of others, now that you're poxed, shrivelled, and past it!

THE OTHER

And what good's your knowledge if your inner ferment, that
Wild fig tree, born in you, never bursts from your breast?

PERSIUS

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　We're white
And senile with study. Oh shame on you! Is all your
Learning nothing to you unless people know about it?

THE OTHER

But it's delicious when they point and say, "That's him." And
To have a hundred unkempt schoolboys worrying over
Your text, really, wouldn't you like it?

PERSIUS

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　See, Romulus' sons,
Glutted with food, inquire over their cups, "Now what has
Divine poetry to offer?" And at this point there's always
A character in a purple cloak to lisp and whine
A rancid number about Phyllis, Hypsipyle, or
Some such elevated and chop-fallen rot, making it
Melt word by word in his mouth. The others appreciate it:
"How happy," they say, "Your poet's ashes must be
At this moment. You'll have made the grave-stone seem
　　positively
Light over his bones." From the head of the table this; at
Its foot they agree that his tomb and blessed ashes
Cannot fail to produce violets.

THE OTHER

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　You laugh, and you
Turn up your hooked nose too often. Would you have me
　　believe
That any man whose writings seemed worth the cedar oil
To save them from moths is above hankering after
Men's mention for such an issue of songs as need have
No fear that they'll end up wrapping mackerel or twisted
Around a pinch of frankincense?

PERSIUS

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Whoever you are
Whom I've made up to argue with, if at any time
I should write something fine (it would be a rare bird,
　　of course),
Something felicitous, I'm not one to shy away
From praise. I'm not constructed of horn. Only don't expect me
To agree that your cries of "Bravo" and "Exquisite"
Constitute some final criterion. Consider
What else is called "Exquisite": Labeo's drunken Iliad,
The lovelorn compositions which the gentry declaim
After heavy dinners, and for that matter the verses scrawled
By sprawlers on citron-wood couches. You're an old hand
At dishing up hot tripe and palming off a rattled client
With an old cloak, and yet, "Truth," as you put it, "is my
Love, tell me the truth about myself." How could one?
Do you want me to try? You bald ninny with your bulbous
Stomach sagging a good half yard ahead of you. Oh
Fore-and-aft-facing Janus, whom no needling stork
Can sneak up on, whom no hand can make fun of, mimicking
Ass's ears, at whom no tongue can be stuck out like some
Apulian hound's with a thirst on him! As for you,
Gentlemen with the pedigrees, who must get along
Without eyes in the backs of your heads, you'd do as well
To face the irreverent performances behind you.
What do people say?

THE OTHER

They say, "Now at last there are
Soft songs and verses flowing so smoothly that a nail
Could slither over their polish and not find the joints.
The poet gets his lines as straight as though he'd surveyed them;
Whether he writes of morals, luxury, or the luncheons
Of kings, the Muse sees to it that he hits it off
In the grand manner."

PERSIUS

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　That's how we come to have
Heroics haled forth by habitual dabblers
In Greek, whose whole art is not up to describing
A few trees or extolling the country life--its plenty,
Its paniers and hearths, the hay-piles smoking for
The feast of Palilia, and out of them stepping
Remus, and you, Cincinnatus, with your polished
Plow-share, and your flustered wife coming to robe you
Dictator, while the oxen look on; the lictor
Will drive home your plow . . . Ah, that's exquisite, poet!
One buries his nose in the dessicated pages
Of Bacchanalian Accius; and there exist some who
Can't tear themselves away from Pacuvius' warty
Antiope and "her dismal heart propped up with woes."
And when you see bleary fathers stuffing their sons with
This sort of instruction, do you wonder how the latter
Come to gabble such a goulash of language? And can't you
Guess the origin of those mincing lyrics which give
The seated gentry such pleasure?
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Aren't you ashamed
That you can't save some oldgeezer's bacon without wanting
A pat on the back? "You're a thief," someone announces
To Pedius. For answer he juggles the charges
Into elegant antitheses, and is applauded
For his high-toned figures of speech: "Why, it's beautiful!"
Beautiful? Romulus, does that really send you? Maybe
You're not the man you used to be. Do you think I'm likely
To snivel and fish out a coin because some ship-wrecked
Individual belabors us with a song, meanwhile
Holding up a picture of himself adrift on a bit
Of ship's timber? No, tell him if be wants to dissolve me
With his sad story, it takes real tears, not salt water
Which someone's been up all night preparing.

THE OTHER

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Well, anyway
There's elegance in the recent verse, and suavity
Instead of the crude old style. When you think how they
　　manage
To round out a line with "Berecynthian Attis,"
Or, "the dolphin then clove cerulean Nereus," or
Thus, "from the long Appenines we borrow a rib."

PERSIUS

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Oh arms
And the man! What have we here but bubbles, and the sort
Of swollen bark under which you find the old bough
Shrivelled up to nothing? Now let's have something tender,
To be recited with a limp neck.

THE OTHER

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"They filled their fierce horns
With Mimallonean bellowings." Or, "The Bassarid,
About to rip the head from the gambolling calf," or
Again, "The Maenad, ready to rein in the lynx
With braids of ivy, redoubles the Dionysian
Cry, and reverberant Echo returns it."

PERSIUS

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Do you think
Stuff like that would get written if our generation
Hadn't been born without balls? Maenads! Attis! Watery
Saliva slopping around on the lips with the rest
Of the spit! No sign there of a table pummelled
For the one word, and nails bitten to the quick.

THE OTHER

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　But why
Harrow delicate ears with your cutting truths? You know,
you're likely to find the doorsteps of the great
chilly, and--listen--there's the snarl of the dog.

PERSIUS

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　All right, as
Far as I'm concerned, from now on everything's white. Bravo,
Everybody's nice, everybody's incomparably
Wonderful! Now are you happy? "Please," you say, "do not
　　make
A smell here." So paint a couple of snakes upon the wall
To say, "Boys, the place is sacrosanct: do your pissing
Elsewhere." I'm off, myself.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And yet Lucilius took
The skin off this city; he flayed you, Lupus, and you,
Mucius, and ground you till his molars broke. And sly Horace
Could tease his way into the guts of his laughing friend
And touch the fault there; he had a trick of sticking out
His nose and hanging people on it. And I mustn't
Mutter a word? Not to myself? Not into a ditch? Not
Anywhere? Well, I will. I'll bury it here. Little book,
I've seen this, seen it. There's not one of them who doesn't
Have ass's ears! And this secret, this diminutive
Joke of mine I wouldn't swap for all your Iliads.
　　　　　　　　　You that have been fanned by the fire-eating breath
Of Cratinus, oh you that have grown pale with poring
Over Aristophanes and the rage of Eupolis,
If your taste runs to such diet, glance at these lines.
For I hope for a reader whom those authors have
Kindled and purified. I can forgo the sort
That gets a kick out of laughing at Greek slippers and
Nearly splits with the humor of shouting, "Hey One-Eye!"
At one-eyed men. And I can get along without, say,
The hick magistrate who's so impressed with himself
For having put down short pint measures somewhere
In the benighted provinces, that he's convinced
He's an ornament to the empire. As for the card
Who finds the sight of an arithmetical computation
Or a geometrician's figures traced in the sand
Inexpressibly funny, and that other who's ready
To dissolve into guffaws if some little skirt plucks
A Cynic by the beard, I'm delighted to forfeit
Their attentions. Let them go spell out
The playbills plastered up in the Forum, for
Their morning reading. And the maundering phrases
Of Calliroe are good enough for their afternoons.

SATIRE TWO

PERSIUS

Set a white stone, Macrinus, against this day which marks
In the lapse of your years another ended. And pour out
To your Genius the unmixed wine. You're not one of those
Who bargain in their prayers--such bargains in such prayers
　　that
The gods themselves have to be taken to one side
To hear them. So many of our best citizens feel
The need to seal up their offerings in incense pots
Which breathe no secrets. It's not everyone who'd be willing
To have mutterings and low whispers forbidden in
The temples, and few could be open about everything
They apply for. Oh yes, they pitch up their voices ( and
In the hearing of strangers ) to request "a sound mind,
Good reputation, reliable conscience"--adding
Under their breath, for nobody's benefit
But their own, "Please let my uncle cash in his chips, I'll give
　　him
A rousing send-off," or, "Hercules, patron of windfalls,
Kindly let my hoe turn up a crock full of silver
And please remove my ward, who stands between me and
The inheritance; after all he's one solid scab
From head to foot, puffy with acrid bile, and there's
Nerius burying his third wife." Do you slosh your head
In Tiber twice and three times of a morning and there
Sluice off the night's leavings, just so you can go
Through all the holy motions and send up prayers like these?
　　　　I've one question. It's not much to ask. How do you feel
About Jupiter? I mean, would you place him above--
"Above whom?" Well, say above Stains; is anything
Wrong with him, for a choice? Name me a more punctilious
Judge, or more suitable guardian for an orphan.
Well, this same prayer, now, with which you'd planned to
　　solicit
The attention of Jove, go repeat it to Stains.
You'll hear him exclaim, "Holy Jupiter!", and not just
The once. And do you think Jupiter will be able
To hear you without taking his own name in vain?
Just because when it's thundery the fire from heaven
Blasts an oak instead of your roof-tree, maybe you think
That your peccadillos have been overlooked. And because
You're not lying out in a little enclosure (Victim
Of Lightning: Avoid) under the combined auspices
Usual in such cases--an Etruscan witch
And the sacrificed guts of a two-year-old sheep--do you
Think it follows that Jupiter will allow you
To pluck out his insensitive beard in handfuls? And what
Have you bestowed upon the gods, that they're so willing
To indulge you? Those little favors of greasy offal?
　　　　　　Watch granny (or aunty), fearful of the gods, lift
Baby out of his cradle and--a great one at fending off
The evil eye--with her middle finger smear
His forehead and his drooling lips with her charmed spit, then
Rock that shrivelled Hope in her arms, her prayers collaring
The estates of Licinus for him one minute, the mansions
Of Crassus, the next. "And may kings and queens pick him
For a son-in-law and the girls fight over him and
Roses pop up in his footsteps!" May no prayer of mine
Ever be mouthed by a nurse! Refuse her, I beg you
Jupiter, though she puts on a white dress to pray in!
You petition for sound limbs and a body which will answer
Even in age. Good. But then those mountainous platters,
Course after rich course, compel the gods to ignore your
Prayer, and forbid the compliance of Jupiter.
　　　　　　Itching for wealth, you slit a bullock's throat, and
With the guts invoke Mercury: "Let my household gods
Contrive fortune for me, my flocks and herds multiply."
And how will they manage that, half-wit, if the fat
Of your beasts, one after the other, is rendered
In the flames? But he keeps slogging away with his entrails
And fatty pasties, determined to get rich : "This one
Means more and more fields, this one more flocks, and this one
Is a lot more, then this one, and this one . . ." till
His sigh at finding himself with no more hopes, no more
Money, nothing but his disappointment.
　　　　　　If I regaled you with silver wine bowls crusted thick
With gold your heart would thump, you'd go damp with pleasure,
Sweat would drip from your left breast. No wonder you think
The gods' faces ought to be gilded; you assume they'd
Be proud of it. You say, "Let's set at the head of this
Bronze brotherhood the one who sends us the nicest
Dreams and none of the sticky kind. Let's give him
A gold beard." So much for Nutria's earthenware, and
The bronze vessels of Saturn; so much for
The water jars of the Vestals, and the Tuscan
Crockery. They've all been replaced by gold.
　　　　　　Oh souls hunched low, with thoughts empty of heaven, what
Point is there in filling the temples, too, with our ways,
And from our iniquitous flesh deducing
What would please the gods? It's the flesh, you know, which has
Polluted our olive oil with cassia,4 and made nonsense
Of the Tyrian purple, using it to steep fleeces
From Calabria. It's made us grub in shells after
Pearls and root shiny ore out of the ground. It does
Wrong, and again wrong, and yet grows rich by its own
Degradation. As for you, priests, there's one thing I wish
You'd explain. What's gold doing in the sanctuary?
I should think it's about as much use to the gods as
Those dolls which virgins present to Venus. We'd do better
To bring to the altar what no bleary scion
Of great Messala can afford on his magnificent
Salver, namely, a soul in harmony with the dictates
Of heaven, a mind pure in its secret places,
A generous and honest heart. Grant me these to dedicate
In the temples and over plain bread I shall offer up thanks.

SATIRE THREE

PERSIUS

"Aren't you ever going to get up? There's the morning light
Getting in at your window, jimmying the cracks. And if we'd
Been plastered on Falernian last night, surely we could have
Snored it off by this time, when the shadow's at the fifth
Mark on the dial? Well, what have you in mind? The mad
　　Dog-Star
Has been parching the dry harvest for some time now, and
The cattle are under the broad elms . . ." it's a friend talking.
Whereupon: "You don't mean it! Really? Oh, somebody
Come this minute! Is the house empty?" He's bursting
With vitreous bile and he bawls, "I'm splitting," till you'd swear
It was all the asses in Arcadia braying.
Then the book is snatched up, the hairless parchment in two
　　colors,
Paper, jointed reed-pen--and then the whining starts : the
Ink's too thick, it sticks to the pen when it's watered
It's not black enough, and it splatters.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Idiot, getting
More idiotic by the day, have we really come
To this?
Go on fuss like some coddled dove or rich man s
Infant that insists on its food being sieved for it
And has tantrums at the sound of a lullaby.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"But how
Can I write with a pen like this?" And who do you think
You're fooling with those excuses tuned in the minor?
It's you yourself that's at stake, and you're drifting into
Imbecility; it's contemptible. Consider
A jug potted from cheap clay and poorly fired; it will ring
False when you strike it, and betray its flaw. As for you,
　　you re
Soft, you're wet (to continue the image), you ought to be
Grabbed before you're a minute older, and licked
Tirelessly into shape on a fast wheel. But you've got
The family acres, wheat enough to get by on,
You can display to your household gods an immaculate
Salt-cellar, and for the rites of the hearth you know
Where the next offering's coming from. So why worry?
But does that really satisfy you? Are you quite happy
Till you've puffed yourself up fit to split because you're
A descendant (number one thousand) of some Tuscan
Ancestor, and parade once a year with the gentry,
In purple, to salute your censor? Oh throw your
Baubles to the crowd! I know you outside and in,
And I wonder--does shame have no hold on you? You're
　　heading
For habits as slack as loose-living Natta's, with his
Wits vice-rotted, every organ imbedded
In fat, and himself beyond any notion
Of wrong, of what he's lost, sunk so deep that he doesn't
Even send up a bubble!
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Great father of the gods, upon
Raging tyrants whose brains, tainted with the venom
Of ruinous lust, are turned by it, oh visit
No punishment but this: let them behold Virtue
And die of the knowledge that they have lost her! Never
Did the bronze bull of Sicily, roasting its victims, roar
With more horrible torments, nor did sword
Ever waken such terror, swinging from the gilded panels
Of a ceiling over the purple necks beneath,
As the torments and terror with which a man beholds
The abyss open and says to himself, "I'm falling," and
His liver goes lily-white, and the wretch can't even tell
His wife about it.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　I remember, when I was a boy
I used to make my eyes bleary with olive oil, rather
Than have to declaim Cato's grandiloquent death-speech (that
Delight of my feeble-minded preceptor, a piece
Which my father would drag his friends in to hear, and then
　　drip
With joy as he listened). Wasn't I right? For at that time
All I cared about was what I could rake in if
The dice turned up high sixes, or lose on a low throw,
And not being foxed, at pebble-toss, by the small throat
Of the jar, nor worsted at whipping the boxwood top.
　　　　　　　　But you're over your ignorance now: you can sort out
What's straight from what isn't; your education
Favored the doctrines of the learned Porch that's daubed
All over with Medes in breeches; you've been pumped full of
Philosophy..and the Stoic persuasion, at that,
Which young men with shaved heads, nourished on husks and
　　big plates
Of barley gruel, and short on sleep, night after night
Pore over; Pythagoras' Letter Of Life has made
Plain to you bow it branches, with the steep road on the right,
And still you're snoring? Still wobble-headed and slack-jawed
Yawning like a box, and limp, after yesterday's ,
Debauch? Had you hoped to get anywhere? Were you
Aiming your bow at anything in particular?
Or do you just fling brick-bats and rubble after
Any old crow, and go where your feet prefer, drifting
From moment to moment?
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　It's no use fussing for a dose
Of hellebore when the skin's already puffed up
And sickly; check the ailment before it's got to you
And you won't have to sign away vast sums to the doctor.
Oh wretches, come learn the causes of things--what we are,
What manner of life we were born for, to what station
Brought forth, how and when to ease round the turning point,
　　and
The limitations of wealth, what it's right to wish for,
The uses of new-minted coin, how much should be spent
On your relatives, how much on your country, to what
Calling God has summoned you, and what your position is
In human affairs. Get these straight, and don't envy
Some character because his cellar's so crammed with food from
Bulging Umbrians whose cases he's taken that the stuff
Stinks in corners, along with pepper and gammons,
Souvenirs of Marsian clients--or because his
First keg of sardines isn't empty.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　At this point
You can count on some goat-odored centurion to
Butt in with, "I know what I know and that's good enough
For me. I don't hanker to be an Arcesilaus
Or some old limp-necked wreck of a Solon with
Eyes glued to the ground, mouth working away mumbling
To himself like a dog with the rabies, and his words
Balancing on his jutting lip as he mulls over
The dreams of who knows what prostrate old wheeze, about
　　how
Nothing can be born out of nothing, and nothing into
Nothing can return. And you grow pale over pronouncements
Like this? You give up a good dinner for them?" Whereupon
The crowd positively splits and, wrinkling his nose, our
Muscular lad goes of into billowing guffaws.
　　Then there's this case who says to his doctor, "Examine me,
I've this funny fluttering in my chest, there's something
The matter with my throat, and my breath's bad; please
Have a good look." So he's told to rest, but after three nights
(The blood behaving more soberly in his veins)
He hales a thirsty moderate-sized jar to a friend
Who's comfortably off: could he have some vintage Surrentine,
Please, just now before he takes his bath? "You're looking pale,
Old fellow." "It's nothing." "I'd keep an eye on it,
Whatever it is: you're sallow, and you may not
Have noticed it, but look how you're swelling." "Your color's
　　worse
Than mine. Don't try that tutor act on me, I attended
My Tutor's funeral ages ago. But you're still here." "Forget
I mentioned it! I won't again" So, wadded with dinner till
His stiff belly's white, with a steady eructation
Of sulphurous marsh-gas wafting from his gullet,
He goes to be bathed. Where a fit of the shakes catches him
Sozzling, knocks the hot tumbler out of his hand; his
Bared teeth chatter, and little chunks of meat, still running
With gravy, slither from his loosened lips. Then come trumpet
And torches, and our fine friend, daubed thick all over
With ointments (for the aroma) and laid out on
A high bed, presents his stiff heels to the door. And
Yesterday's freedmen (sporting liberty caps to prove it)
Cart him off.
　　　　　　　　"All right, stupid, take my pulse; come on,
Put your hand on my heart. I haven't any fever.
Feel my hands and my feet. They're not cold." I'd like to follow
The results if your eyes lit on a bit of cash
Or if that little dish next door were to slip you
A nice smile. Heart still steady? Or if we were to sit down
To a cold dish of stringy greens and the gritty
Loaf of the populace, we'd finger our throat, wouldn't we,
And discover a hidden sore festering in
Our tender mouth, which the vulgarian beet ("It's so
Rough") would be bad for. When pallid fright makes your hair
　　bristle
You quake all over. Then, if one just brings a torch
Too near you, your blood boils, your eyes glint with temper.
And you give way to such mouthings and behavior
That insane Orestes himself would swear, "This man is mad!"

SATIRE FOUR

"Turned to public service?" You can just hear him ask it, that
Philosopher whom a fatal broth of hemlock
Disposed of. Well, Alcibiades, what can you
Lay claim to? Intelligence, of course. Still beardless, you knew
The ropes already. A fine sense of what to tell
And what not to. So when the mob's bile has been worked up
The spirit moves you to still their fever with a noble
Sweep of the hand. Then what do you say? "Citizens,
Romans, there's no justice in that measure, in that other
No virtue, but this one is excellent" For indeed
You've a talent for dangling justice in the twin pans
Of the dubious balance. You can fish out a straight line
From among curves, in spite of a crooked footerule,
And you're always ready to pronounce the death sentence on
　　vice.
You, prospect of well-groomed quite useless skin, how long till
　　you
Quit twitching your rump at the crooning populace? Better
For you to gulp neat hellebore by the city-full.
　　　　　　What' s the highest good, to your way of thinking? Rich dishes
Everlastingly, and nothing to trouble your sunbaths?
You'll find this hag has the same ideas. Then blow your horn:
"I'm Dinomache's son," (that's the way) "I'm a dazzler"--...
You, as high-minded as the rag-propping crone
Screeching, "Buy my cabbages," to slatternly house-slaves.
　　　　　　And none tries the descent into himself, no, not one:
Each eyeing the wallet on the shoulders in front of him.
Ask one: "You know Ventidius' place?" "Whose? At Cures?
old Made-of-Money, who has so much land that a kite
Couldn't fly from one end of it to the other?"
Him? That one? The gods loathe him; his own soul can't stand
　　him.
Feast days, when the empty yoke's hung up at the crossroads,
It hurts him to scrape the old mould from his tankard;
While the slave-boys celebrate over the victuals, he
Groans, "I hope it will be all right," salting and nibbling
One onion, still in its skin, and sipping with it
His senile vinegar, half dregs, half mother. But suppose
You're lolling oiled and naked in the sun; still some
Total stranger, knocking your elbow, will spit
Savagely at you, "Some habits: plucking your crotch
To make public its secrets--penis and shrivelled testes!
You pamper a perfumed beard on your jaws, why then
Must your cock emerge from an unwhiskered groin? When even
If five wrestlers hauled on the hairs there, attacking
Your flabby buttocks with tweezers shaped for the job,
Still that fern-patch would not be plowed as it should be,'
　　　　　　"By turns strike and offer your legs to the arrow"---
That's the rule, we find, which governs our life. There under
Your privates you've a secret sore, but a broad gold belt
keeps it covered. Well, that's your business: play fast and loose
With your body if you can.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"But the neighbors agree I'm
A good sport. Am I not to believe them?"
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　If the blood
Leaves your face and your few scruples forsake you
At the mere sight of money, if you'll follow your phallus
Into anything and try any sharp trick to milk
The market, it's pointless to offer the populace
Your ears thirsting for praise. Reject all that is not
Yourself. Let the mob have back what it gave you. Live in
Your own house and learn what a bare lodging it is.

SATIRE FIVE

　　　　　　　　"Oh for a hundred voices"--it's the done thing
For a poet to want them----"one hundred mouths, and the same
Number of tongues"---to recite his own poems, whether
His specialty is the tirade, meant to be mouthed
By some hair-tearing tragedian, or the piece
In which a wounded Parthian extracts a spear-head
From his groin.
　　　　　　　　"What's all this leading up to? If you're going
To shovel in great poetical gobs like those
It's not surprising if you're in need of a hundred throats
To swallow them. If anyone's anxious to set
Procne's or Thyestes' pot boiling, to provide
That dreary Glyco ( playing Tereus ) with his supper,
Let loftier bards collect clouds on Mount Helicon.
You're not one to grasp and squeeze the air like a forge-bellows
When they're smelting ore, nor is it your custom to
Caw to yourself, like a crow, a lot of grave drivel,
Nor do you inflate your cheeks till they pop. You employ
The language of common speech, not specially orotund
However trenchant and to the point; you're adept
At ripping into unseemly practices, and can nail
Iniquity precisely with a flick of wit. Take your
Text from these: leave to Mycenaean Thyestes
His banquet of ( human ) head and members; you stick to
Simple fare?'
　　　　　　　　I'd rather. I don't want to cram my page
Full of ceremonious nothings suitable only
For anchoring smoke. Now as the Muse prompts me,
Addressing myself to you only, Cornutus, I shake
The veils from my breast, dear friend, rejoicing to show you
How great a part of my soul is yours. Strike it, cocking
A sharp ear, and learn how much of it's solid, how much
Is just crusted cosmetics and lip-service. For this one
Theme I would venture to covet those hundred voices:
To make plain to you how fast you are planted in
The whorls of my heart; because I am reminded
Of the limitations of words, when I would disclose all
That is buried, unseen and unsayable, within me.
When, as a shy youth, I put off the purple gown
Of boyhood, and its protection, and hung up my
Amulet to the short-girt gods of the hearth, then when
Companionship held most delight and, robed at last
In a man's white toga, with no part of the city
Closed to me, I could explore as I chose, at that time of life
When the path forks and, with innocent footsteps fetched
To the crossroads, the bashful psyche itself is drawn
Down the branches into division, I consigned
Myself to your charge, Cornutus, and you gathered
My tender years to your Socratic heart. And you applied
The rule with unsuspected cunning, straightening
My crooked ways, and my spirit, laboring to be
Subdued, was molded to the cast of your thought, and took
Form and expression under your shaping thumb,
Oh yes, I remember spending with you the long days
And with you snatching the first hours of the night from
　　feasting.
We worked as one person, we gave ourselves up to rest
Together and, at ease in each other's presence, relaxed
At the frugal table. I hope you do not doubt
That some powerful affinity knits together
Our two lives, drawn both from the same stars. For whether one
Of the Parcae to whom truth is most precious suspends
Our days in the even Scales, or the same hour which brought
　　forth
The faithful Twins has disposed between them our friendly
Destinies, or beneficent Jove, in our case
Has overthrown malign Saturn, one constellation
Surely governs us both. Men and the complexions
Of their lives vary in a thousand ways; tastes differ,
And prayers, from one another. Here's a man who trades
Goods from Italy, in the Levant, for wrinkled
Pepper and blanching cumin seed, while that one prefers
To stuff, soak, sleep, get fat, and there's one whose sole interest
Is sport. One gets cleaned out in crap games, another's
Clapped up in cat-houses. But when the stony gout
Has reshaped their knuckles to resemble the burls
Of an old beech, then they groan for their days wasted
Brutishly, they complain that their light was
A will-o-the wisp, and they grieve for a life
They never knew.
　　　　　　　　　　But you have found your joy in growing pale
Over the page night after night, in your ambition
To cultivate the young and in their scrubbed ears sow
The seed of Cleanthes. Oh, you others in your first youth,
And you old men too, from now on seek a firm purpose
For your lives, and make provision for the miseries
Of old age. "I'll do it tomorrow." That's what you'll say
Tomorrow. "You'd grudge me one day?" I tell you, when
Another day is upon us, yesterday's tomorrow
Will have vanished, and look: tomorrow after tomorrow,
Always just out of reach, bearing away your years.
And though its rim comes close to you, and you both revolve
Behind the same wagon-tongue, don't hope to catch up,
Back wheel, strung on the rear axle.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 We desire liberty
Though not the sort which any slob can acquire along with
A chit for one ration of mouldy wheat) by getting
His name listed in the last tribe to be granted
Citizenship. Oh you in whom truth is not even
Conceivable, who think you can twirl a man round once
(Pronouncing the prescribed gibberish) and he'll be
Free. Here, for instance is Dama: two cents' worth of hired
　　man,
Woozy with flat booze and happy to perjure himself
For a handful of wheat. This one his master accords
The ceremonious whirl and, abracadabra, he
Comes out of the spin a free man, with a first name: he's
Marcus Dama now! And don't tell me you're cagey
About lending him cash--a man with a name like Marcus
For security! You blanch at the thought of having
Marcus try your case? Of course that's a fact: Marcus says so.
Please, Marcus, would you sign these deeds? . . . Well, here's
　　unmixed
Freedom, at least the sort that passes among us
under freedmen's liberty caps.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　"All right, what else is it
To be free but to be able to live as one pleases?
I can suit myself; am I not more free than Brutus?"
"Your deduction's misleading," a Stoic answers, his
Ears scoured with caustic vinegar. "The rest can pass
If you delete, 'I'm free' and I can suit myself; "
"The praetor touched me with his staff and pronounced me
My own boss, what do you mean I'm not free----as long
As I don't go breaking the statutes in the red--lettered
Code of Masurius?"
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　If you'll keep your shirt on,
Wipe that sneer off your face and listen, I'll relieve you
Of your old-womanish notions. It's hardly the praetor's place
To provide every fat-head with a fine conscience
And teach him how best to employ his brief span--about
As easy as teaching some ham-fisted boob to melt you
With selections on the harp. Its against reason, as
A little voice in your ear tells you, to let a man
Proceed with something he's bound to make a mess of. In
The self-evident law of man and nature limits
The actions of incompetents and half-wits. Try
Making up hellebore prescriptions when you can't
So much as hold the scales steady, and see how long it takes
Till the medical profession cracks down on you. Or let
Some clumping yokel, raw to the regimen of
The morning star, claim command of a vessel: you'll soon hear
His Marine Deity Melicerta declaring
That modesty has deserted the world.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Have the disciplines
Taught you the right way to live and how to discern
The face of truth--not its imitations, which later,
From beneath the gold give out the false clink of copper?
Have you made up your mind what to aim for and what
To steer clear of, marking one with chalk, the other
With charcoal? Are your wishes within reason, is
Your place unpretentious, are you nice to your friends?
Can you close your granaries or open them as you please?
Can you walk past a piece of money stuck in the mud
Without watering at the mouth and swallowing hard
Out of cupidity? When you can honestly claim
All these I'll agree that you're a free man and wise under
Heaven, not merely under the law. However,
If you stick to your old skin (and it's no time, after all,
Since you were baked of the same dough as the rest of us)
With your face all blandness, but the devious fox
Still there in your dull breast, I take it all back,
I reel it in, every last bit. You were born without
A grain of sense. You can't stick out your finger (a little
Thing like that) without doing it wrong. Not all
The frankincense you could set fire to on the altars
Could get one gram of good judgment installed in a fool's head.
Deliberate confusion is impious. If you're
A hick in all other respects, don't fancy you'll be able
To prance and dance like Bathyllus for part of one number.
　　　　　　　"I'm free, say what you like." Can you believe it when
You're so easily led by the nose? You don't imagine
That the only master is the one from whom the praetor's wand
Can release you? True, if a voice nags, "Here, boy, take these
Scrapers down to Crispinus at the bath. Get a move on,
Shiftless!" you're nobody's bondsman, you don't have to go,
No influence from without makes you move a muscle.
But if masters spring up within you, there in your
Feeble guts, do you think you'll get off lightly,
Any more than that lash-harried slave with the scrapers?
　　　　　　　In the morning you're dead to the world, snoring, when
"Get up," says Avarice, "Come on, up you get."
Nothing doing. But she keeps at it: "I said get up!"
"I can't." "Up." "What for?" "What a question! With those
Dried fish from Pontus to be fetched in, to say nothing
Of the beaver oil, oakum,1 ebony, frankincense,
Shimmering Coan cloth2--and the fresh pepper's come, you
　　want
To get at that first and grab yours off the camel
Before he's had his drink. Then a bit of haggling (swearing
By the immortals)"--"But Jupiter will hear me." "Listen,
Stupid, get used to life on your uppers, with a thumb-hole
Of your own making worn into your salt-cellar,
Dinner and supper, if you're thinking of keeping in
With Jupiter."
　　　　　　　　 So you get ready: you load up
Your slaves with bales and wine jars, and start bawling, "Get it
on board!" And you're off--almost--in a huge vessel,
Making tracks across the Aegean. There's nothing
To stop you. Only just then sly Luxury nudges you
To one side and puts it to you this way: "Where's the rush?
And where's it taking you (except farther out of
Your senses)? What's the attraction? What can have got you
All overheated like this, and your chest so congested
With virile humors that a whole jug of hemlock
Wouldn't help you? Think of you, you, bouncing around
On the billow! You taking your dinner propped on a thwart
With a coil of rope for a cushion, while from a thick
Wine-pot you catch the reek of a red Veientan vintage
Which has not been improved by its contact with pitch.
What for? To belabor that bit of money
Which you've been nursing along at a quiet five per cent
Till it sweats out an extortionate eleven?
Oh, indulge your genius a bit? Let's taste what pleasures
We can while life is ours. Soon enough it will be
Ashes, and a shade, and an ended story. Live with
Your death before you, for the hour slips by even now
As I speak."
　　　　　　　　 So what do you do? Hooked two ways and the strain
Tearing you apart, which is it to be? You have no choice but
To submit your two-faced allegiance first to the one
Master, and then, forsaking him, to the other.
And even if, once, you should manage to call
A halt, and refuse to obey the command,
You can't say, "I'm free of my chain." For even a dog
Can contend with his leash till he breaks it, but as he
Runs away you'll observe a good bit of it trailing
From his neck still
　　　　　　　　　　　　"Davus! Come here! Hurry! This time
I really mean it,I've made up my mind, I'm going
To mend my ways," says Chaerestratus, gnawing his nails raw.
"Do you suppose I want to be a shame and a nuisance
To my starchy relatives? And waste my inheritance
And get a bad name, bawling indecent lyrics,
Blind drunk, with my torch doused, at that whore Chrisidis'
　　　dripping
Doorway?
　　　　　　"My boy, I'm happy to hear it. You'd do well
To offer a lamb to the protecting gods. "But do
You think she'll cry, Davus, if I leave her?" "Oh, you were
Only joking! Boy, with that red slipper of hers
She'll make you burn so you won't soon try to weigh out
On your own again, or tear her tight-woven webs!
You storm, you carry on, but if she sends for you, right
In the middle of it, it brings you up short: then it's all
Now what am I to do? I really can't refuse, can I,
When she sends to ask me, when she positively
Begs me to come?' If you'd really got free of her
Whole and in one piece, you could refuse even so."
Yes, and that's the sort of freedom we're after, not
The kind that can be conferred with a stick and a bit
Of hocus-pocus by any fool lictor.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　And that
Smooth candidate gaping for office like a fish
At a fly, would you consider him his own master?
Not missing a trick, littering the place with
Chickpea tickets for the crowd to scrap over, so that
Basking gaffers3 may keep harking back to the gorgeous
Floral Games of our day. Isn't that a pretty ambition?
But on Herod's birthday, when the violet-garlanded
Lamps arrayed at their greasy windows have puked out
Fat clouds of smoke, when the tails of swimming tuna
Embrace the red bowls, and the white wine-jugs brim over,
Your lips twitch in silence and you turn pale at the sabbath
Of the circumcised. Other times there are black ghosts,
Dangers attendant on broken eggs, the looming
Emasculate priests of Ceres and the one-eyed priestess
With her rattle, to hammer demons into your frame
If you don't take the prescribed three heads of garlic
Upon rising.
　　　　　　　　However, bring up such things among
Those varicose centurions and you'll fetch a horse-laugh
Out of some muscle-bound Pulfenius and hear how he'd
Not give a clipped coin for a hundred of your highbrow Greeks.

SATIRE SIX

Has the season, descending into winter,
Fetched you, bv now, Bassus, to your Sabine fireside?
Is your strung harp alive to the chastening plectrum,
Oh artisan without peer at ordering in verse
The primal elements of our language and waking
The virile tones of the Latin lyre, oh marvellous
Old man, alive with the merriment of youth and with
Songs, besides, which are gay without being dirty.
For the moment the Ligurian coast and my own
Winter sea offered me their little warmth; from a breach
In the bastion of towering cliffs at the seas edge
A deep valley here runs inland. As Ennuis put it:
'Citizens, you would do well to know the harbor
Of Luna'--speaking in his right mind, when he had
Done dreaming that he was Homer, the Lydian
Descendant of Pythagoras 's peacock.
　　　　　　　　Here I live, neither troubled by the multitude
Nor flustered by the south wind's ill humors menacing
My flocks, nor miserable because that corner
0f my neighbor's fields is richer than my own. Even
Though men whose birth was beneath mine were to grow rich,
Every one of them, I would still not get all hunched up
And scrawnv with fussing over it, nor go without
Sauce for my meat, nor descend to sniffing the seals
Of wine jars to see whether the rank stuff could Possibly
Still be swallowed. People aren't all alike. You get twins, with
The same horoscope, turning out to have different
Temperaments. One man makes a habit (but only
On birthdays) of sprinkling his dry greens with brine
Which the sly fellow buys by the cupful--and you can tell
By the way he dribbles the pepper onto the platter
That the stuff is holy. Here's another, a large-mannered
Young man who will shortly have eaten his way through
A huge inheritance. As for me, I try
To make the most of things, without being so lavish
As to feed my freedmen on turbot,4 nor of so
Sophisticated a palate that I can tell
Hen thrush from cock thrush by the taste.
　　　　　Live on your own harvest, mill your own grain, that's as it
Should be. Why should you worry? You have only
To harrow again to have another crop on the way.
But obligations nag at your elbow: there's that
Friend who washed up on the Bruttian rocks,
in the wreckage
Of his ship, and hauled himself in. He's penniless.
His possessions, accompanied by his useless prayers,
Have settled under the Ionian Sea, and he himself
Is stretched on the beach with the great statues of the gods
From off the vessel's stern strewn round him, while already
The gulls are gathering on the splintered ship's timbers.
Why not divest yourself of a plot of good farmland
And give it to the unfortunate man, and save him
From toting his picture around on a blue board?
Are you hesitant because your heir would be angry
At a cut like that in the property, and after holding
A cheap funeral supper over you, would stuff your bones
Unperfumed into the urn, never bothering
To make sure that the cinnamon was fresh and the cassia
unmixed with cherry, merely mumbling, "Thought you could
Shave bits off your estate and get away with it,
Did you?" And Bestius will drone on, libelling
The sages of Greece: "That's how it goes, ever since
That neutered brand of philosophy was imported
Into this city with the dates and pepper, our
Farmhands have been getting dainty. Now they've taken
To polluting their gruel with rich oil." But why
Should you worry about this sort of thing once you're on
The other side of the fire? As for you, my heir,
Whoever you are, leave the crowd for a minute and lend me
Your attention.
　　　　　　　　　Haven't you heard, friend? A laurelled
Dispatch has arrived from Caesar, announcing
Victory, the pick of the Germans routed--sand already
They're sweeping the dead ashes from the altars, and
Caligula's wife is seeing to the arrangements:
Bouquets of arms for over the gates, costumes for kings,
Yellow wigs for prisoners, and chariots, and monstrous
Models of the Rhine. I'm putting on a little show
Myself to celebrate the occasion and the gods
And the Emperor's guiding spirit--with a hundred pairs
Of gladiators. Well who says I shouldnt? Who
Would dare to say I shouldn't? God help you if you don't
String along! Oh, and I'm having a largesse of bread,
And meat, and oil distributed to the populace.
Any objections? Speak up. "Oh no, you say, Not with that
Field full of stones within easy range." Because even
If none of my father's sisters are left, and
I survive all my cousins, and my father's brother
Leaves no great-granddaughters, and my mother's sister
Dies without issue, and my grandmother is survived
By no other descendant, I can always take myself
Over to Bovillae, to the hill of Virbius.
Where there's a wonderful selection of beggars, and there
I'll find me an heir in no time. Manius, for example--
"A son of the soil?" Well ask me who my own grandfather's
Grandfather was. Maybe I can tell you, though again
It might take a moment. But carry it back one more
Generation, then another, and sooner or later
You'll end up with a son of the soil. So if you're going to be
Clannish and stuffy about it, this Manius is really
A sort of great uncle indefinitely removed.
Besides, you've got a nerve, when you're ahead of me, grabbing
For my torch before I've finished my race. Think of me
As your private Mercury, for I come to you like
That god (in the pictures) with a moneybag in my hand.
Don't you want it? Are you determined not to be happy
With what I leave you? "It's not all here." All right, I spent
Some of it for my own uses, but whatever's left
Is all yours. Only you'll get nowhere if you expect me
To give an account of every cent I inherited
Ages ago, from Tadius. And don't come plying me
With fatherly maxims about investing capital
And living on the interest. "But what will be left?"
Left? Here, boy, don't lose a minute: pour out the oil.
Pour, I said! I want my cabbage drowned in it. Maybe
You think I'm going to confine myself on holidays
To smoked cheek of pork and split pig's ear garnished with
　　nettles
So that on some future occasion a prodigal unripe
Sot, my heir, his guts stuffed with goose livers, and the fretful
Vein in his privates setting up a restive throbbing,
May piss into a high-born pussy. Or that I should
Abstain till I'm diaphanous so that his paunch
Can jiggle like a priest's.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Go, peddle your soul
For lucre, and haggle, and drag the ends of the earth for
Merchandise. See to it that no one outdoes you
At slapping the fat of Cappadocian slaves, up on the
Auction block. Turn every penny into two. "I have. And
Into three. And. four. I've got it up to ten." Well, make
A mark where you want me to stop and I'll inform Chrysippus
That you're the man to finish his unfinishable pile.