Juvenal, Satire 6
Translated by G.G. Ramsay
Updated, with additions by C. Chinn

	IN the days of Saturn,1 I believe, Chastity still lingered on the earth, 
	and was to be seen for a time--days when men were poorly housed in chilly caves, 
	which under one common shelter enclosed hearth 
	and household gods, herds and their owners; 
5	when the hill-bred wife spread her silvan bed 
	with leaves and straw and the skins of her neighbors 
	the wild beasts --a wife not like thee, O Cynthia,2 nor to thee, 
	Lesbia,3 whose bright eyes were clouded by a sparrow’s death, 
	but one whose breasts gave suck to lusty babes, 
10	often more unkempt herself than her acorn-belching husband. 
	For in those days, when the world was young and the skies were new, 
	men born of the riven oak,4 or formed of dust, 
	lived differently from now, and had no parents of their own. 
	Under Jupiter, perchance, some few traces 
15	of ancient modesty may have survived; 
	but that was before he had grown his beard, before the Greeks 
	had learned to swear by someone else’s head, when men feared 
	not thieves for their cabbages or fruits, and lived with unwalled gardens. 
	After that Astraea5 withdrew by degrees to heaven, 
20	with Chastity as her comrade, the two sisters taking flight together. 
	
	To set your neighbor’s bed a-shaking, Postumus, and to flout the Genius 
	of the sacred couch,6 is now an ancient and long-established practice. 
	All other sins came later, the products of the age of Iron; 
	but it was the silver age that saw the first adulterers. 
25	Nevertheless, in these days of ours, you are preparing for a covenant, 
	a marriage-contract and a betrothal; you are by now getting your hair combed 
	by a master barber; you have also perhaps given a pledge to her finger. 
	What! Postumus, are you, you who once had your wits, taking to yourself a wife? 
	Tell me what Tisiphone, what snakes are driving you mad? 
30	Can you submit to a she-tyrant when there is so much rope to be had, 
	so many dizzy heights of windows standing open, 
	and when the Aemilian bridge offers itself to your hand? 
	Or if none of all these modes of exit hit your fancy, 
	how much better to take some boy-bedfellow, 
35	who would never wrangle with you o’ nights, 
	never ask presents of you when in bed, and never complain 
	that you took your ease and were indifferent to his solicitations! 
	
	But Ursidius approves of the Julian Law.7 He purposes to bring up 
	a dear little heir, though he will thereby have to do without the fine turtle-doves, 
40	the bearded mullets, and all the legacy-hunting delicacies of the meat-market. 
	What can you think impossible if Ursidius takes to himself 
	a wife? if he, who has long been the most notorious of gallants, 
	who has so often found safety in the corn-bin of the luckless Latinus,8 
	puts his silly head into the connubial noose? 
45	And what think you of his searching for a wife of the 
	good old virtuous sort? O doctors, lance his over-blooded veins. 
	A pretty fellow you! Why, if you have the good luck to find a modest spouse, 
	you should prostrate yourself before the Tarpeian threshold, 
	and sacrifice a heifer with gilded horns to Juno; 
50	so few are the wives worthy to handle the fillets of Ceres, 
	or from whose kisses their own father would not shrink! Weave a garland 
	for thy doorposts, and set up wreaths of ivy over thy lintel! 
	But will Hiberina be satisfied with one man? 
	Sooner compel her to be satisfied with one eye! 
55	You tell me of the high repute of some maiden, who lives 
	on her paternal farm: well, let her live at Gabii, at Fidenae, 
	as she lived in her own country, and I will believe in your little paternal farm. 
	But will anyone tell me that nothing ever took place on a mountain side 
	or in a cave? Have Jupiter and Mars become so senile? 
	
60	Can our arcades show you one woman worthy 
	of your vows? Do all the tiers in all our theatres hold one 
	whom you may love without misgiving, and pick out thence? 
	When the soft Bathyllus dances the part of the gesticulating Leda, 
	Tuccia cannot contain herself; your Apulian maiden heaves a sudden 
65	and longing yelp of ecstasy, as though she were in a man’s arms; 
	the rustic Thymele is all attention, it is then that she learns her lesson. 
	
	Others again, when the stage draperies have been put away; 
	when the empty theatres are closed, and all is silent save in the courts, 
	and the Megalesian games are far off from the Plebeian,9 ease their dullness 
70	by taking to the mask, the thyrsus and the tights of Accius. 
	Urbicus, in an Atellane after-piece, raises a laugh 
	by the gestures of Autonoe; the penniless Aelia is in love with him. 
	Other women pay great prices for the favors of a comedian; some 
	will not allow Chrysogonus10 to sing. Hispulla has a fancy 
75	for tragedians; but do you suppose that any will be found to love Quintilian?11 
	If you marry a wife, it will be that the lyrist Echion 
	or Glaphyrus, or the flute player Ambrosius, may become a father. 
	Then up with a long dais in the narrow street! 
	Adorn your doors and doorposts with wreaths of laurel, 
80	that your highborn son, O Lentulus, may exhibit, in his 
	tortoiseshell cradle12: the lineaments of Euryalus13 or of a murmillo!14 
	When Eppia, the senator’s wife, ran off with a gladiator14 
	to Pharos and the Nile and the ill-famed city of Lagus, 
	Canopus itself cried shame upon the monstrous morals of our town. 
85	Forgetful of home, of husband and of sister, 
	without thought of her country, she shamelessly abandoned 
	her weeping children; and--more marvelous still--deserted Paris and the games. 
	Though born in wealth, though as a babe she had slept 
	in bedizened cradle on the paternal down, 
90	she made light of the sea, just as she had long made light of her good name--
	a loss but little accounted of among our soft litter-riding dames. 
	And so with stout heart she endured the tossing 
	and the roaring of the Tyrrhenian and Ionian Seas, 
	and all the many seas she had to cross. For when danger comes 
95	in a right and honorable way, a woman’s heart grows chill 
	with fear and dread, she cannot stand upon her trembling feet: 
	but if she be doing a bold, bad thing, her courage fails not. 
	For a husband to order his wife on board ship is cruelty: 
	the bilge-water then sickens her, the heavens go round and round. 
100	But if she is running away with a lover, she feels no qualms: 
	then she vomits over her husband; now she messes with the sailors, 
	she roams about the deck, and delights in hauling at hard ropes. 
	
	And what were the youthful charms which captivated Eppia? 
	What did she see in him to allow herself to be called “a she-Gladiator”? 
105	Her dear Sergius had already begun to shave; 
	a wounded arm gave promise of a discharge, 
	and there were sundry deformities in his face: 
	a scar caused by the helmet, a huge wen upon his nose, 
	a nasty humor always trickling from his eye. 
110	But then he was a gladiator! It is this that transforms these fellows 
	into Hyacinthuses! it was this that she preferred to children and to country, 
	to sister and to husband. What these women love is the sword: had this same Sergius 
	received his discharge, he would have been no better than a Veiento.16 
	
	Do the concerns of a private household and the doings of Eppia affect you? 
115	Then look at those who rival the Gods,17 and hear what 
	Claudius endured. As soon as his wife perceived that her husband was asleep, 
	this august harlot was shameless enough to prefer 
	a common mat to the imperial couch. 
	Assuming night-cowl, and attended by a single maid, she issued forth; 
120	then, having concealed her raven locks under a light-colored peruque, 
	she took her place in a brothel reeking with long-used coverlets. 
	Entering an empty cell reserved for herself, she there took her stand, 
	under the feigned name of Lycisca, her nipples bare and gilded, 
	and exposed to view the womb that bore thee, O nobly-born Britannicus!18 
125	Here she graciously received all comers, asking from each his fee; 
127	and when at length the keeper dismissed his girls, 
	she remained to the very last before closing her cell, 
	and with passion still raging hot within her went sorrowfully away. 
130	Then exhausted by men but unsatisfied, with soiled cheeks, 
	and begrimed with the smoke of lamps, she took back 
	to the imperial pillow all the odors of the stews. 
	
	Why tell of love potions and incantations, of poisons brewed and administered 
	to a stepson, or of the grosser crimes to which women are driven 
135	by the imperious power of sex? Their sins of lust are the least of all their sins. 
	
	“But tell me why is Censennia, on her husband’s testimony, the best of wives?” 
	She brought him a million sesterces; that is the price at which he calls her chaste. 
	He has not pined under the arrows of Venus’ quiver; he was never burnt by her torch. 
	It was the dowry that lighted his fires, the dowry that shot those arrows! 
	That dowry bought liberty for her: she may make what signals, 
140	and write what love letters she pleases, 
	before her husband’s face; the rich woman who marries 
	a money-loving husband is as good as unmarried. 
	
	“Why does Sertorius burn with love for Bibula?” 
	If you shake out the truth, it is the face that he loves, not the wife. 
	Let three wrinkles make their appearance; let her skin become dry and flabby; 
145	let her teeth turn black, and her eyes lose their luster: 
	then will his freedman give her the order, “Pack up your traps and be off! 
	you’ve become a nuisance; you are for ever blowing your nose; 
	be off, and quick about it! There’s another wife coming who will not sniffle.” 
	But till that day comes, the Lady rules the roost, asking her husband 
150	for shepherds and Canusian sheep, and elms for her Falernian vines. 
	But that’s a mere nothing: she asks for all his slave-boys, all his prison-gangs; 
	everything that her neighbor possesses, and that she does not possess, must be bought. 
	Then in the winter time, when the merchant Jason is shut out 
	from view, and his armed sailors are blocked out by the white booths,19 
155	she will carry off huge crystal vases, vases bigger still 
	of agate, and finally a diamond of great renown, made precious 
	by the finger of Berenice.20 It was given as a present long ago 
	by the barbarian Agrippa to his incestuous sister, 
	in that country where kings celebrate festal sabbaths with bare feet,21 
160	and where a long-established clemency suffers pigs to attain old age.22
	
	“Do you say no worthy wife is to be found among all these crowds?” 
	Well, let her be handsome, charming, rich and fertile; 
	let her have ancient ancestors ranged about her halls; let her be more chaste 
	than all the disheveled Sabine maidens who stopped the war—
165	a prodigy as rare upon the earth as a black swan! 
	yet who could endure a wife that possessed all perfections? I would rather 
	have a Venusian wench for my wife than you, O Cornelia, mother 
	of the Gracchi, if, with all your virtues, you bring me 
	a haughty brow, and reckon up Triumphs as part of your marriage portion. 
170	Away with your Hannibal, I beseech you! Away with Syphax 
	overpowered in his camp! Take yourself off, Carthage and all!23
	
	“Be merciful, I pray, O Apollo! and thou, O goddess, lay down 
	thine arrows. These babes have done naught: shoot down their mother!” 
	Thus prayed Amphion;24 but Apollo bends his bow, 
175	and Niobe25 led forth to the grave her troop of sons, and their father to boot, 
	because she deemed herself nobler in her offspring than Latona 
	was in hers, and more prolific than the white sow of Alba. 
	For is any dignity in a wife, any beauty, worth the cost, if she is for ever 
	reckoning up her merits against you? These high and transcendent qualities 
180	lose all their charm when spoilt by a pride that savors 
	more of aloes than of honey. And who was ever 
	so enamored as not to shrink from the woman whom he praises to the skies, 
	and to hate her for seven hours out of every twelve? 
	
	Some small faults are intolerable to husbands. What can be more 
185	offensive than this, that no woman believes in her own beauty 
	unless she has converted herself from a Tuscan into a Greekling, 
	or from a maid of Sulmo26 into a true maid of Athens? They talk nothing but Greek, 
	though it is a greater shame for our people to be ignorant of Latin. 
	Their fears and their wrath, their joys and their troubles—
190	all the secrets of their souls--are poured forth in Greek; their very loves 
	are carried on in Greek fashion. All this might be pardoned in a girl; 
	but will you, who are hard on your eighty-sixth year, 
	still talk in Greek? That tongue is not decent in 
	an old woman’s mouth. When you come out with the wanton words 
195	zoe kai psyche, you are using in public the language 
	of the bed-chamber. Caressing and naughty words like these 
	incite to love; but though you say them more tenderly 
	than a Haemus or a Carpophorus,27 they will cause 
	no fluttering of the heart--your years are counted upon your face! 
	
200	If you are not to love the woman betrothed and united to you 
	in due form, what reason have you for marrying? 
	Why waste the supper, and the wedding cakes to be given 
	to the well-filled guests when the company is slipping away—
	to say nothing of the first night’s gift of a salver rich 
205	with glittering gold inscribed with Dacian or Germanic victories?28 
	If you are honestly uxorious, and devoted to one woman, 
	then bow your head and submit your neck ready to bear the yoke. 
	Never will you find a woman who spares the man who loves her; 
	for though she be herself aflame, she delights to torment and plunder him. 
210	So the better the man, the more desirable he be as a husband, 
	the less good by far will he get out of his wife. 
	No present will you ever make if your wife forbids; nothing will you ever sell 
	if she objects; nothing will you buy without her consent. 
	She will arrange your friendships for you; she will turn your now-aged friend 
215	from the door which saw the beginnings of his beard. 
	Panders and trainers can make their wills as they please, 
	as also can the gentlemen of the arena; but you will have to write down 
	among your heirs more than one rival of your own. 
	
	“Crucify that slave!” says the wife. “But what crime worthy of death has he 
220	committed?” asks the husband; “where are the witnesses? who informed against him? 
	Give him a hearing at least; no delay can be too long when a man’s life is at stake!” 
	“What, you numskull? you call a slave a man, do you? He has done no wrong, 
	you say? Be it so; this is my will and my command: let my will be the voucher for the deed.” 
	Thus does she lord it over her husband. But before long she vacates her kingdom; 
225	she flits from one home to another, wearing out her bridal veil; then back 
	she flies again and returns to her own imprints in the bed that she has abandoned, 
	leaving behind her the newly decorated door, the festal hangings on the walls, 
	and the branches green still over the threshold. 
	Thus does the tale of her husbands grow; there will be eight of them 
230	in the course of five autumns—a fact worthy of commemoration on her tomb! 
	
	Give up all hope of peace so long as your mother-in-law is alive. 
	It is she that teaches her daughter to revel in stripping and despoiling her husband; 
	it is she that teaches her to reply to a seducer’s love-letters 
	in no unskilled and innocent fashion; she eludes or bribes 
235	your guards; it is she that calls in Archigenes29 when your daughter 
	has nothing the matter with her, and tosses about the heavy blankets; 
	the lover meanwhile is in secret and silent hiding, 
	trembling with impatience and expectation. 
	Do you really expect the mother to teach her daughter 
240	honest ways--ways different from her own? Nay, the vile old woman 
	finds a profit in bringing up her daughter to be vile. 
	
	There never was a case in court in which the quarrel was 
	not started by a woman. If Manilia is not a defendant, she’ll be the plaintiff; 
	she will herself frame and adjust the pleadings; she will be ready 
245	to instruct Celsus30 himself how to open his case, and how to urge his points. 
	
	Why need I tell of the purple wraps31 and the wrestling-oils 
	used by women? Who has not seen one of them smiting a stump, 
	piercing it through and through with a foil, lunging at it with a shield, 
	and going through all the proper motions?--a matron truly qualified 
250	to blow a trumpet at the Floralia!32 Unless, indeed, she is nursing 
	some further ambition in her bosom, and is practicing for the real arena. 
	What modesty can you expect in a woman who wears a helmet, 
	abjures her own sex, and delights in feats of strength? Yet she would not 
	choose to be a man, knowing the superior joys of womanhood. 
255	What a fine thing for a husband, at an auction of his wife’s effects, 
	to see her belt and armlets and plumes put up for sale, with a gaiter 
	that covers half the left leg; or if she fight another sort33 of battle, 
	how charmed you will be to see your young wife disposing of her greaves! 
	Yet these are the women who find the thinnest of thin robes too hot for them; 
260	whose delicate flesh is chafed by the finest of silk tissue. 
	See how she pants as site goes through her prescribed exercises; 
	how she bends under the weight of her helmet; how big 
	and coarse are the bandages which enclose her haunches; 
	and then laugh when she lays down her arms and shows herself to be a woman! 
265	Tell us, ye grand-daughters of Lepidus, or of the blind Metellus, 
	or of Fabius Gurges, what gladiator’s wife ever assumed accoutrements 
	like these? When did the wife of Asylus34 ever gasp against a stump? 
	
	The bed that holds a wife is never free from wrangling 
	and mutual bickerings; no sleep is to be got there! 
270	It is there that she sets upon her husband, more savage than a tigress 
	that has lost her cubs; conscious of her own secret slips, she affects a grievance, 
	abusing his boys, or weeping over some imagined mistress. 
	She has an abundant supply of tears always 
	ready in their place, awaiting her command 
275	in which fashion they should flow. You, poor worm, 
	are delighted, believing them to be tears of love, 
	and kiss them away; but what notes, what love-letters would you find 
	if you opened the desk of your green-eyed adulterous wife! 
	If you find her in the arms of a slave or of a knight, “Speak, 
280	speak, Quintilian,35 give me one of your colors,36” she will say. 
	But Quintilian says “I’m stuck. Find it yourself,” says he. 
	“We agreed long ago,” says the lady, “that you were to go your way, and I mine. 
	You may confound sea and sky with your bellowing, I am a human being after all.” 
	There’s no effrontery like that of a woman caught in the act; 
285	her very guilt inspires her wrath and insolence. 
	
	But whence come these monstrosities? you ask; from what fountain 
	do they flow? In days of old, the wives of Latium were kept chaste by their 
	humble fortunes. It was toil and brief slumbers that kept vice 
	from polluting their modest homes; hands chafed 
290	and hardened by Tuscan fleeces, Hannibal nearing the city, 
	and husbands standing to arms at the Colline tower.37 
	We are now suffering the calamities of long peace. Luxury, more deadly 
	than any foe, has laid her hand upon us, and avenges a conquered world. 
	Since the day when Roman poverty perished, no deed of crime 
295	or lust has been wanting to us; from that moment 
	Sybaris and Rhodes and Miletus have poured in upon 
	our hills with the begarlanded and drunken and unabashed Tarentum.38 
	Filthy lucre first brought in amongst us foreign ways; 
	wealth enervated and corrupted the ages with foul indulgences. 
300	What decency does Venus observe when she is drunken? 
	when she knows not head from tail, 
	eats giant oysters at midnight, 
	pours foaming unguents into her unmixed Falerian, 
	and drinks out of perfume-flasks, while the roof spins dizzily around, 
305	the table dances, and every light shows double! 
	
	Go to now and wonder what means the sneer with which 
	Tullia snuffs the air, or what Maura whispers to her ill-famed 
	foster-sister, when she passes by the altar of Chastity?39 
	It is there that they set down their litters at night, and befoul 
310	the image of the Goddess, playing their filthy pranks 
	for the moon to witness. Thence home they go; 
	while you, when daylight comes, and you are on your way 
	to salute your mighty friends, will trend upon the traces of your wife’s abominations. 
	
	Well known to all are the mysteries of the Good Goddess, when the flute 
315	stirs the loins and the Maenads of Priapus sweep along, 
	frenzied alike by the horn-blowing and the wine, whirling their locks 
	and howling. What foul longings burn within their breasts! 
	What cries they utter as the passion palpitates within! 
	How drenched their limbs in torrents of old wine! 
320	Saufeia challenges the slave-girls to a contest. 
	Her agility wins the prize, but she has herself 
	in turn to bow the knee to Medullina. 
	And so the palm remains with the mistress, whose exploits match her birth! 
	There is no pretence as in a game; all is enacted 
325	to the life in a manner that warm 
	the cold blood of a Priam or a Nestor. 
	And now impatient nature can wait no longer: woman shows herself 
	as she is, and the cry comes from every corner of the den, 
	“Now we can act! Let in the men!” If one favored youth is asleep, 
330	another is bidden to put on his cowl and hurry along; 
	if better cannot be got, a run is made upon the slaves; if they too fail, 
	the water-carrier will be paid to come in. If still there are
	no men available, then in an instant
	they get ready to have intercourse with a donkey.
335	O would that our ancient practices, or at least our public rites, 
	were not polluted by scenes like these! But every 
	Moor and Indian knows who was the she-lutist who carried 
	a penis bigger than the two Anticatos of Caesar 
	into a place whence every buckmouse scuttles away 
340	conscious of his virility, and in which every picture 
	of the male form must be veiled. 
	
	Who ever sneered at the Gods in the days of old? Who would have 
	dared to laugh at the earthen-ware bowls or black pots of Numa, 
	or at the brittle plates made out of Vatican clay? 
345	But nowadays at what altar will you not find a Clodius?40
	
	I hear all this time the advice of my old friends—
	“Put on a lock and keep your wife indoors.” Yes, but who will ward 
	the warders? The wife arranges accordingly and begins with them. 
	High or low their passions are all the same. She who wears out 
350	the black cobble-stones with her bare feet is no better 
	then she who rides upon the necks of eight stalwart Syrians.
	
	Ogulnia hides clothes to see the games; 
	she hires attendants, a litter, cushions, female friends, 
	a nurse, and a fair-haired girl to run her messages; 
355	yet she will give all that remains of the family plate, 
	down to the last flagon, to some smooth-faced athlete. 
	Many of these women are poor, but none of them pay 
	any regard to their poverty, or measures themselves by the standard 
	which that prescribes and lays down for them. Men on the other hand, 
360	do sometimes have an eye to utility; the ant has at last 
	taught some of them to dread cold and hunger. 
	But your extravagant woman is never sensible of her dwindling means; 
	and just as though money were for ever sprouting up afresh from her exhausted coffers, 
	and she had always a full heap to draw from, 
365	she never gives a thought to what her pleasures cost her. 
	
O-1	“In whatever house a sex-teacher lives and plays, 
	and promises everything with a trembling right hand,
	you will find everyone else is foul and perverted.
	Folks let these fellows eat and drink with them, 
O-5	and merely have the vessels washed, not shivered 
	to atoms as they should be when such lips have touched them.
	So even the lanista’s establishment is better ordered than yours, 
	for in his crowd the good fighters are separated
	from the bad and and so even are the nets from
O-10	the ill-famed tunic. He who is accustomed to fight naked
	does not place his arm-guard or trident
	in the same locker. The remote part of the training school 
	and a separate place in prison house these men.
	But your wife condemns you to drink out of the same cup 
O-15	as these gentry, with whom the poorest trull 
	would refuse to sip the choicest wine. 
	Them do women consult about marriage and divorce, 
	with their society do they relieve boredom or business, 
	from them do they learn lascivious motions 
O-20	and whatever else the teacher knows.
	But beware! that teacher is not always true, he darkens his eyes 
	and dresses like a woman, but adultery is his design. 
	Mistrust him the more for his show of effeminacy 
	and for his hands on his hips.
O-25	This man will be very formidable in bed; 
	there Triphallus drops the mask of Thais. Whom are you fooling?41 
	not me; play this farce to those who cannot pierce the masquerade. 
	I wager you are every inch a man; do you own it, 
	or must we wring the truth out of the maid servants?” 

O-30	I know well the advice and warnings of my old friends—
	“Put on a lock and keep your wife indoors.” Yes, but who is to ward 
	the warders? They get paid in kind for holding their tongues 
	as to their young lady’s escapades; participation seals their lips. 
O-34	The wily wife arranges accordingly and begins with them.

366	There are those who always delight in weak eunuchs, 
	soft kisses, those who are desperate for a beard,
	and whatever does not require abortions. There is, however,
	the greatest pleasure when the private parts, in the bloom of youth
370	and with pubic hair already dark, are given over to doctors.
	After their testicles appear and grow, 
	and begin to weigh two pounds,
	Heliodorus takes them away to the chagrin of the barber.
373a	A real and miserable disability afflicts the boys
373b	of slave-dealers: they’re ashamed of their empty sacks.
	Highly visible and known to all he enters
375	the bath and challenges the guardian of vines and gardens:
	such is the one made a eunuch by his mistress. Let him sleep
	with his mistress, but, Postumus, don’t entrust
	a Bromius, ready to be shorn, to a eunuch.
	If your wife is musical, none of those who sell their voices42 
380	to the praetor will hold out against her charms. She is for ever handling 
	musical instruments; her sardonyx rings sparkle thick 
	all over the tortoise-shell; the quivering quill with which she runs over 
	the chords will be that with which the gentle Hedymeles performed; she hugs it, 
	consoles herself with it, and lavishes kisses on the dear implement. 
385	A certain lady of the lineage of the Lamiae and the Appii43 
	inquired of Janus and Vesta, with offerings of cake and wine, 
	whether Pollio could hope for the Capitoline oak-chaplet 
	and promise victory to his lyre.44 What more could she have done 
	had her husband been ill, or if the doctors had been shaking their heads 
390	over her dear little son? There she stood before the altar, thinking it no shame 
	to veil her head45 on behalf of a harper; she repeated, in due form, 
	all the words prescribed to her; her cheek blanched when the lamb was opened. 
	Tell me now, I pray, O father Janus, thou most ancient of the Gods, 
	dost thou answer such as she? You have much time on your hands in heaven; 
395	so far as I can see, there is nothing for you Gods to do. 
	One lady consults you about a comedian, another wishes to commend 
	to you a tragic actor; the soothsayer will soon be troubled with varicose veins.46
	
	Better, however that your wife should be musical than that she should be 
	rushing boldly about the entire city, attending men’s meetings, 
400	talking with unflinching face and hard breasts to Generals 
	in their military cloaks, with her husband looking on! 
	This same woman knows what is going on all over the world: 
	what the Chinese and Thracians are after, what has passed between the stepmother 
	and the stepson; she knows who loves whom, what gallant is the rage; 
405	she will tell you who got the widow with child, and in what month; 
	how every woman behaves to her lovers, and what she says to them. 
	She is the first to notice the comet threatening the kings 
	of Armenia and Parthia; she picks up the latest rumors 
	at the city gates, and invents some herself: how the Niphates47 
410	has burst out upon the nations, and is inundating entire districts yonder; 
	how cities are tottering and lands subsiding, 
	she tells to every one she meets at every street crossing. 
	
	No less insufferable is the woman who loves to catch hold 
	of her poor neighbors, and deaf to their cries for mercy 
415	lays into them with a whip. If her sound slumbers are disturbed 
	by a barking dog, “Quick with the rods!” she cries; 
	“thrash the owner first, and then the dog!” 
	She is a formidable woman to encounter; she is terrible to look at. 
	She frequents the baths by night; not till night does she order her oil-flasks and 
420	her quarters to be shifted thither; she loves all the bustle and sweat of the bath;
	when her arms drop exhausted by the heavy weights, 
	the anointer passes his hand skillfully over her body, 
	bringing it down at last with a resounding smack upon the top of her thigh. 
	Meanwhile her unfortunate guests are overcome with sleep 
425	and hunger, till at last she comes in with a flushed face, 
	and with thirst enough to drink off the vessel containing full three gallons 
	which is laid at her feet, and from which she tosses off a couple 
	of pints before her dinner to create a raging appetite; 
	then she brings it all up again and souses the floor with the washings of her inside. 
430	The stream runs over the marble pavement; the gilt basin reeks 
	of Falernian, for she drinks and vomits like a big snake 
	that has tumbled into a vat. The sickened husband 
	closes his eyes and so keeps down his bile. 
	
	But most intolerable of all is the woman who as soon as she has 
435	sat down to dinner commends Virgil, pardons the dying Dido, 
	and pits the poets against each other, putting Virgil 
	in the one scale and Homer in the other. 
	The grammarians make way before her; the rhetoricians give in; 
	the whole crowd is silenced: no lawyer, no auctioneer will get a word in, 
440	no, nor any other woman; so torrential is her speech 
	that you would think that all the pots and bells were being 
	clashed together. Let no one more blow a trumpet or clash a cymbal: 
	one woman will be able to bring succor to the laboring moon!48 
	She lays down definitions, and discourses on morals, 
445	like a philosopher; thirsting to be deemed both wise and eloquent, 
	She ought to tuck up her skirts knee-high,49 
	sacrifice a pig to Silvanus,50 take a penny bath.51 
	Let not the wife of your bosom possess a special style 
	of her own; let her not hurl at you in whirling speech 
450	the crooked enthymeme! Let her not know all history; 
	let there be some things in her reading which she does not understand. 
	I hate a woman who is for ever consulting and poring over 
	the “Grammar” of Palaemon,52 who observes all the rules and laws of language, 
	who like an antiquary quotes verses that I never heard of, 
455	and corrects her unlettered53 female friends for slips of speech that no man 
	need trouble about: let husbands at least be permitted to make slips in grammar! 
	
	There is nothing that a woman will not permit herself to do, nothing 
	that she deems shameful, when she encircles her neck with green emeralds, 
	and fastens huge pearls to her elongated ears: 
460	there is nothing more intolerable than a wealthy woman. 
	Meanwhile she ridiculously puffs out and disfigures her face 
	with lumps of dough; she reeks of rich Poppaean54 unguents 
	which stick to the lips of her unfortunate husband. 
	Her lover she will meet with a clean-washed skin; but when does she ever 
465	care to look nice at home? It is for her lovers that she provides the spikenard, 
	for them she buys all the scents which the slender Indians bring to us. 
	In good time she discloses her face; she removes the first layer of plaster, 
	and begins to be recognizable. She then laves herself with that milk 
	for which she takes a herd of she-asses in her train 
470	if sent away to the Hyperborean pole. 
	But when she has been coated over and treated 
	with all those layers of medicaments, and had those lumps 
	of moist dough applied to it, shall we call it a face or a sore? 
	
	It is well worthwhile to ascertain how these ladies 
475	busy themselves all day. If the husband has turned 
	his back upon his wife at night, the wool maid is done for; the tire-women 
	will be stripped of their tunics; the Liburnian chair-man will be accused 
	of coming late, and will have to pay for another man’s55 drowsiness; one will 
	have a rod broken over his back, another will be bleeding from a strap, 
480	a third from the cat; some women engage their executioners by the year. 
	While the flogging goes on, the lady will be daubing her face, or listening 
	to her lady-friends, or inspecting the widths of a gold-embroidered robe. 
	While thus flogging and flogging,56 she reads the lengthy Gazette, 
	written right across the page,57 till at last, the floggers being exhausted, 
485	and the inquisition ended, she thunders out a gruff “Be off with you!” 
	
	Her household is governed as cruelly as a Sicilian Court.58 
	If she has an appointment and wishes to be turned out more nicely 
	than usual, and is in a hurry to meet some one waiting for her in the gardens, 
	or more likely near the chapel of the wanton Isis, 
490	the unhappy maid that does her hair will have her own hair torn, 
	and the clothes stripped off her shoulders and her breasts. 
	“Why is this curl standing up?” she asks, and then down comes 
	a thong of bull’s hide to inflict chastisement for the offending ringlet. 
	Pray how was Psecas in fault? How would the girl be to blame 
495	if you happened not to like the shape of your own nose? Another maid 
	on the left side combs out the hair and rolls it into a coil; 
	a maid of her mother’s, who has served her time at sewing, 
	and has been promoted to the wool department, assists at the council. 
	She is the first to give her opinion; after her, her inferiors in age or skill 
500	will give theirs, as though some question of life or honor 
	were at stake. So important is the business of beautification; 
	so numerous are the tiers and storeys piled one upon another 
	on her head! In front, you would take her for an Andromache59; 
	she is not so tall behind: you would not think it was the same person. What if 
505	nature has made her so short of stature that, 
	if unaided by high heels, she looks no bigger than a pigmy, 
	and has to rise nimbly on tip-toe for a kiss! 
	Meantime she pays no attention to her husband; she never speaks 
	of what she costs him. She lives with him as if she were only his neighbor; 
510	in this alone more near to him, that she hates his friends and his slaves, 
	and plays the mischief with his money. And now, behold! 
	in comes the chorus of the frantic Bellona and the mother of the Gods, 
	attended by a giant eunuch60 to whom his obscene inferiors must do reverence 
	and who grabbed a potsherd and cut off his genitalia. 
515	Before him the howling herd with the timbrels give way; 
	his plebeian cheeks are covered with a Phrygian tiara. 
	With solemn utterance he bids the lady beware the coming 
	of the September Siroccos if she do not purify herself with a hundred eggs, 
	and present him with some old mulberry-colored garments 
520	in order that any great and unforeseen calamity impending 
	may pass into the clothes, and make expiation for the entire year. 
	In winter she will go down to the river of a morning, break the ice, 
	and plunge three time into the Tiber, dipping her 
	trembling head even in its whirling waters, and crawling out thence 
525	naked and shivering, she will creep with bleeding knees 
	right across the field61 of Tarquin the Proud. If the white Io62 shall so order, 
	she will journey to the confines of Egypt, and fetch water got 
	from hot Meroe63 with which to sprinkle the Temple 
	of Isis which stands hard by the ancient sheepfold.64 For she believes 
530	that the command was given by the voice of the Goddess herself—
	a pretty kind of mind and spirit for the Gods to have converse with by night! 
	Hence the chief and highest place of honor is awarded 
	to Anubis,65 who, with his linen-clad and bald crew, 
	mocks at the weeping of the people as he runs along.66 
535	He it is that obtains pardon for wives who break the law 
	of purity on days that should be kept holy, 
	and exacts huge penalties when the coverlet has been profaned, 
	or when the silver serpent has been seen to nod his head. 
	His tears and carefully-studied mutterings make sure 
540	that Osiris will not refuse a pardon for the fault, bribed, 
	no doubt, by a fat goose and a slice of sacrificial cake. 
	
	No sooner has that fellow departed than a palsied Jewess, 
	leaving her basket and her truss of hay,67 comes begging to her secret ear; 
	she is an interpreter of the laws of Jerusalem, a high priestess 
545	of the tree,68 a trusty go-between of highest heaven. 
	She, too, fills her palm, but more sparingly, for a Jew will tell you 
	dreams of any kind you please for the minutest of coins. 
	
	An Armenian or Commagenian sooth-sayer, after examining 
	the lungs of a dove that is still warm, will promise a youthful lover, 
550	or a big bequest from some rich and childless man; 
	he will probe the breast of a chicken, or the entrails of a puppy, 
	sometimes even of a boy; he’ll do it and then inform on his customer. 
	
	Still more trusted are the Chaldaeans; every word uttered by 
	the astrologer they will believe has come from Hammon’s fountain, 
555	for now that the Delphian oracles are dumb, 
	man is condemned to darkness as to his future. 
	Chief among these was one69 who was oft in exile, 
	through whose friendship and venal ticket 
	of prophecy the great citizen70 died whom Otho feared. 
560	For nowadays no astrologer has credit unless he have been imprisoned 
	in some distant camp, with chains clanking on either arm; 
	none believe in his powers unless he has been condemned 
	and all but put to death, having just contrived to get deported 
	to a Cyclad, or to escape at last from the diminutive Seriphos.71 
	
565	Your excellent Tanaquil72consults as to the long-delayed death 
	of her jaundiced mother--having previously enquired about your own; she will ask 
	when she may expect to bury her sister, or her uncles; and whether her lover 
	will outlive herself--what greater boon could the Gods bestow upon her? 
	And yet your Tanaquil does not herself understand the gloomy threats 
570	of Saturn, or under what constellation Venus will show herself propitious, 
	which months will be months of losses, which of gains; 
	but beware of ever encountering one whom you see 
	clutching a well-worn calendar in her hands as if it were a ball 
	of clammy amber73; one who inquires of none, but is now herself inquired of; 
575	one who, if her husband is going forth to camp, or returning home from abroad, 
	will not bear him company if the numbers of Thrasyllus74 call her back. 
	If she wants to drive as far as the first mile-stone, she finds the right hour 
	from her book; if there is an itch when she rubs a corner of her eye, 
	she will not call for a salve until she has consulted her horoscope: 
580	and if she be ill in bed, deems no hour so suitable for taking food 
	as that prescribed to her by Petosiris.75 
	
	If the woman be of humble rank, she will promenade between 
	the turning-posts76 of the Circus; she will have her fortune told, and will 
	present her brow and her hand to the seer who asks for many an approving smack.77 
585	Wealthy women will pay for answers from a Phrygian or Indian augur 
	well skilled in the stars and the heavens, 
	or one of the elders employed to expiate thunderbolts.78 
	Plebeian destinies are determined in the Circus or on the ramparts79: 
	the woman80 who displays a long gold chain on her bare neck 
590	inquires before the pillars and the columns of dolphins 
	whether she shall throw over the tavern-keeper and marry the old-clothes-man. 
	
	These poor women, however, endure the perils of child-birth, 
	and all the troubles of nursing to which their lot condemns them; 
	but how often does a gilded bed contain a woman that is lying in? 
595	So great is the skill, so powerful the drugs, 
	of the abortionist, paid to murder mankind within the womb. 
	Rejoice, poor wretch; give her the stuff to drink whatever it be, 
	with your own hand: for were she willing to get big 
	and trouble her womb with bouncing babes, you might perhaps 
600	find yourself the father of an Ethiopian; and some day a colored heir, 
	whom you would rather not meet by daylight, would fill all the places in your will. 
	
	I say nothing of supposititious children, of the hopes and prayers 
	so often cheated at those filthy pools81 from which are supplied 
	Priests and Salii,82 with bodies that will falsely bear 
605	the name of Scauri. There Fortune shamelessly takes her stand by night, 
	smiling on the naked babes; she fondles them all and folds them in her bosom, 
	and then, to provide herself with a secret comedy, she sends them forth 
	to the houses of the great. These are the children that she loves, on these 
	she lavishes herself, and with a laugh brings them always forward as her own nurslings. 
	
610	One man supplies magical spells; another sells Thessalian83 charms 
	by which a wife may upset her husband’s mind, and lather his buttocks 
	with a slipper; thence come loss of reason, and darkness of soul, 
	and blank forgetfulness of all that you did 
	but yesterday. Yet even that can be endured, if only 
615	you become not raving mad like that uncle84 of Nero’s 
	into whose drink Caesonia poured the whole brow of a weakly foal85; 
	and what woman will not follow when an Empress leads the way? 
	The whole world was ablaze then and falling down in ruin 
	just as if Juno had made her husband mad. 
620	Less guilty therefore will Agrippina’s mushroom86 be deemed, 
	seeing that it only stopped the breath 
	of one old man, and sent down his palsied head 
	and slobbering lips to heaven, 
	whereas the other potion demanded fire and sword and torture, 
625	mingling Knights and Fathers in one mangled bleeding heap. 
	Such was the cost of one mere’s offspring; and of one she-poisoner. 
	
	A wife hates the children of a concubine; let none demur or forbid, 
	seeing that it has long been deemed right and proper to slay a stepson. 
	But I warn you wards--you that have a good estate—
630	keep watch over your lives; trust not a single dish: 
	those hot pastries are black with poison of a mother’s baking. 
	Whatever is offered you by the mother, let someone taste it first; 
	let your trembling tutor take the first taste of every cup. 
	
	Now think you that all this is a fancy tale, and that our Satire is taking 
635	to herself the high heels of tragedy? Think you that I have out-stepped 
	the limits and the laws of those before me, and am mouthing in Sophoclean 
	tones a grand theme unknown to the Rutulian hills and the skies of Latium? 
	Would indeed that my words were idle! But here is Pontia proclaiming 
	“I did the deed; I gave aconite, I confess it, to my own children; 
640	the crime was detected, and is known to all; yes, with my own hands I did it.” 
	“What, you most savage of vipers? you killed two, did you, two, 
	at a single meal?” “Aye, and seven too, had there chanced to be seven to kill!” 
	
	Let us believe all that Tragedy tells us of the savage Colchian87 
	and of Procne88; I seek not to gainsay her. Those women 
645	were monsters of wickedness in their day; but it was not for money 
	that they sinned. We marvel less at great crimes 
	when it is wrath that incites the sex to the guilty deed, 
	when burning passion carries them headlong, 
	like a rock torn from a mountain side, when the ground beneath 
650	gives way, and the overhanging slopes of the hillside fall in. 
	I cannot endure the woman who calculates, and commits a great crime 
	in her sober senses. Our wives look on at Alcestis undergoing 
	her husband’s fate; if they were granted a like liberty of exchange, 
	they would fain let the husband die to save a puppy-dog’s life. 
655	You will meet a daughter of Belus89 or an Eriphyle 
	every morning: no street but has its Clytemnestra.90 
	The only difference is this: the daughter of Tyndareus91 wielded 
	in her two hands a clumsy two-headed axe, 
	whereas nowadays a slice of a toad’s lung will do the business. 
660	Yet it may be done by steel as well, if the wary husband, son92 of Atreus, 
	have beforehand tasted the medicaments of the thrice-conquered king of Pontus.93