Juvenal, Satire 9
Translated by Lewis Evans (1889)
Formatted, modified, and with notes by C. Chinn (2007)
I SHOULD like to know, Naevolus,1 why you so often meet me
with clouded brow forlorn, like Marsyas after his defeat.2
What have you to do with such a face as Ravola had when detected
wearing out the loins of Rhodope with his wet beard?3
5 We give a slave a box on the ear, if he licks the pastry.
Why! Crepereius Pollio4 had not a more woe-begone face than yours;
he that went about ready to pay three times the ordinary interest,
and could find none fools enough to trust him. Where do so many wrinkles
come from all of a sudden? Why, surely before, contented with little,
10 you used to live like a gentleman’s gentleman--a witty boon-companion
with your biting jest, and sharp at repartees that savour of town-life!
Now all is the reverse; your looks are dejected; your tangled hair
bristles like a thicket; there is none of that sleekness over your whole skin,
such as the Bruttian plaster of hot pitch used to give you;5
15 but your legs are neglected and rank with a shrubbery of hair.
What means this emaciated form, like that of some old invalid parched
this many a day with quartan ague6 and fever that has made his limbs its home?
You may detect the anguish of the mind that lurks in the sickly body--
and discover its joys also. For the face, the index of the mind,
20 takes its complexion from each. You seem, therefore, to have
changed your course of life, and to run counter to your former habits.
For, but lately, as I well remember, you used to haunt the temple of Isis,
and the statue of Ganymede in the temple of Peace, and the secret palaces
of the imported mother of the gods;7 ay, and Ceres too, (for what temple is there
25 in which you may not find a woman,)8--a more notorious adulterer even
than Aufidius,9 and under the rose, not confining your attentions to the wives!
“Yes:10 even this way of life is profitable to many. But I never
made it worth my while: we do occasionally get greasy cloaks,
that serve to save our toga, of coarse texture and indifferent dye,
30 the clumsy workmanship of some French weaver’s lay;11
or a small piece of silver of inferior metal. The Fates control
the destinies of men: nay, there is fate even in those very parts
which the lap of the toga conceals from view. For if the stars are unpropitious,
your manly powers, remaining unknown, will profit you nothing,
35 even though the liquorish Virro12 has seen you stripped, and seductive
billets-doux,13 closely following each other, are for ever
assailing you: for such a fellow as he even entices others to sin.14
Yet, what monster can be worse than one miserly as well as effeminate?
‘I gave you so much, then so much, and then soon after you had more!’
40 He reckons up and still acts the wanton. Let us settle our accounts!
Send for the slaves with my account-book! Reckon up
five thousand sesterces in all! Then count up your services!
Or is it easy to introduce an appropriately sized penis up to
the stomach and to encounter yesterday’s dinner?
45 Far less wretched will be the poor slave that digs the great man’s land
than digs the great man himself! But you, forsooth, thought yourself delicate,
and young, and beautiful, fit to be cup-bearer in heaven!15
Will you ever bestow favours on a humble dependant, or be generous to one
that pays you court, when you grudge even the money you spend on
50 your unnatural gratifications? See the fellow! to whom you are to send
a present of a green parasol and large amber bowls, as often as his birthday
comes round, or rainy spring begins; or pillowed on his cushioned
sofa, he fingers presents set apart for the female Kalends!16
Tell me, you sparrow,17 for whom it is you are keeping so many hills, so many
55 Apulian farms,18 so many kites wearied in flying across your pastures?19
Your Trifoline estate enriches you with its fruitful vines;
and the hill that looks down on Cumae, and caverned Gaurus.20
Who seals up more casks of wine that will bear long keeping?
How great a matter would it be to present the loins of your client,
60 worn out in your service, with a few acres? Would yon rustic child,
with his mother, and her hovel, and his playmate cur, more justly
become the inheritance of your cymbal-beating friend?21
‘You are a most importunate beggar!’ he says: But Rent cries out to me,
‘Beg!’ My only slave calls on me; a slave as singular as Polyphemus’
65 one broad eye, by which the crafty Ulysses made his escape.22
I shall be compelled to buy a second, for this one is not enough for me;
both must be fed. What shall I do in mid-winter? When the chill north wind
whistles in December, what shall I say, pray, to my poor slaves’ naked feet
and shoulders?23 ‘Courage, my boys! and wait for the grasshoppers?’24
70 But however you may dissemble and pass by all other matters,
at how much do you estimate it, that, had I not been
your devoted client, your wife would still remain a maid?25
At all events, you know all about those services, how hard you begged,
how much you promised! Often when your young wife was eloping, I caught her
75 in my embrace. She had actually torn the marriage contract, and was on
the point of signing a new one. It was with difficulty that I set this matter right
by a whole night’s work, while you stood whimpering outside the door.
I appeal to the bed as my witness! nay, to yourself, who heard the noise, and the
lady’s cries! In many a house, when the marriage bonds were growing feeble and
80 beginning to give way, and were almost severed, an adulterer has set all matters
right. However you may shift your ground, whatever services you may reckon
first or last, is it indeed no obligation, ungrateful and perfidious man! is it none,
that you have an infant son or daughter born to you through me? For you
bring them up as yours! and plume yourself on inserting at intervals in the
85 public registers these evidences of your virility! Hang garlands on your doors!
You are now a father! I have given you what you may cast in slander’s teeth!
You have a father’s privileges;26 through me you may inherit a legacy,
yes, the whole sum left to you, not to mention some pleasant windfall!
Besides, many other advantages will be added to these windfalls,
90 if I make the number complete and add a third!” Your27 ground
of complaint is just indeed, Naevolus: what does he allege in answer?
“He28 casts me off, and looks out for some other two-legged ass to serve his turn?
But remember that these secrets are intrusted to you alone; keep them
to yourself, therefore, buried in the silence of your own breast;29 for one
95 of these pumice-smoothed fellows30 is a deadly thing if he becomes your enemy.
He that intrusted his secret to me but the other day, now is furious, and detests me
just as though I had divulged all I know. He does not hesitate to use
his dagger, to break my skull with a bludgeon, or place a firebrand
at my doors: and deem it no light or contemptible matter
100 that to men of his wealth the price of poison is never too costly.
Therefore you must keep my secrets as religiously as the court of Mars at Athens.”31
Oh!32 Corydon, poor simple Corydon!33 Do you think aught that a rich man
does can be secret? Even though his slaves should hold their tongues,
his cattle will tell the tale; and his dogs, and door-posts, and marble statues!
105 Close the shutters, cover all the chinks with tapestry, fasten the doors,
remove every light from the chamber, let each one keep his counsel,
let not a soul lie near: Yet what he does at the second cock-crow,
the next tavern-keeper will know before dawn of day: and will hear
as well all the fabrications of his steward, cooks, and carvers.
110 For what charge do they scruple to concoct against their masters,
as often as they revenge themselves for their strappings by the lies
they forge? Nor will there be wanting one to hunt you out against your will in
the public thoroughfares, and pour his drunken tale into your miserable ears.
Therefore ask them what you just now begged of me!
115 They hold their tongues! Why they would rather blaze abroad a secret
than drink as much Falernian34 (all the sweeter because stolen)
as Saufeia35 used to drink, when sacrificing for the people!
One should lead an upright life for very many reasons;
but especially for this--that you may be able to despise
120 your servants’ tongues. For bad as your slave may be,
his tongue is the worst part about him: Yet far worse still
is he that places himself in the power of those whose body and
soul he keeps together with his own bread and his own money.
“Well,36 the advice you have just given me to enable me to laugh to scorn my
125 servants’ tongues is very good, but too general. Now, what do you advise
in my particular case, after the loss of my time and the disappointment of my
hopes. For the short-lived bloom and contracted span of a brief and wretched
life is fast fleeting away! While we are drinking, and calling for garlands,
and perfumes, and women, old age steals on us unperceived!”
130 Do37 not be alarmed! So long as these seven hills stand fast
you will never lack a pathic friend.38 Those effeminates,
who scratch their heads with one finger,39 will flock from all quarters
to these hills, in carriages and ships. You have still another and a better
hope in store. All you have to do is to chew eringo40 vigorously.
135 “Tell41 this to luckier wights! My Clotho and Lachesis42
are well content, if I can earn a subsistence by my vile labours.
Oh! ye small Lares,43 that call me master, whom I supplicate
with a fragment of frankincense, or meal, and a poor garland,
when shall I secure a sum that may insure my old age against
140 the beggar’s mat and crutch? Twenty thousand sesterces as interest,
with good security for the principal; some small vessels of silver not
enchased, but such as Fabricius, if censor, would condemn;44 and two
sturdy Moesian45 slaves, who, bearing me on their shoulders,
might bid me stand without inconvenience in the noisy circus!
145 Let me have besides an engraver stooping over his work, and another
who may with all speed paint me a row of portraits.46 This is quite enough--
since poor I ever shall be. A poor, wretched wish indeed! and yet I have
no hope even of this! For when dame Fortune is invoked for me,
she stops her ears with wax fetched from that ship
150 which escaped the Sirens’ songs with its deaf rower.”47
Notes
1 This poem is in dialogue form (the only such poem of Juvenal) with two speakers, Naevolus and an unnamed interlocutor. Naevolus characterized as a gigolo complaining about his treatment by his wealthy male lover.
2 Marsyas was a satyr. He was defeated by Apollo in a lyre-playing contest.
3 A generic male and female name, respectively. Rhodope is probably a prostitute’s name.
4 A man victimized by high interest rates.
5 The pitch was used for depilation (the mark of effeminate men). Bruttium is the region on the toe of Italy.
6 A mild but potentially chronic condition.
7 The three shrines mentioned here were evidently good places for propositioning women.
8 The fourth shrine mentioned is for rhetorical effect. The worship of Ceres (a grain goddess) often involved abstinence.
9 Not otherwise known.
10 Naevolus speaks from here until line 90.
11 Gallic textiles were evidently of poor quality.
12 A generic man’s name appearing also in Satire 5.
13 Wax tablets on which love letters could be written.
14 Juvenal here modifies a line from Homer who says “iron attracts the man.” Juvenal replaces the word “iron” with the word for “passive homosexual.”
15 Ganymede was the cupbearer of the gods. He was originally a mortal boy whom Jupiter took a fancy to.
16 The Matronalia, a festival in honor of the goddess Juno celebrated on the first of March.
17 A term of endearment, used ironically here.
18 Possession of farms in the countryside was the hallmark of the wealthy. Apulia is the region in SE Italy.
19 I.e. the farms are so large that the birds get tired flying over them.
20 These three places are near the Bay of Naples.
21 A reference to the eunuch priests who worshipped the eastern fertility goddess Cybele.
22 Polyphemus was a Cyclops (a creature with one eye). Ulysses effected his escape from Polyphemus by blinding him.
23 All these statements about the slaves are probably meant to be understood as excessive whining on Naevolus’ part.
24 I.e. warmer weather.
25 Because Naevolus provides sexual satisfaction to both his patron and his patron’s wife.
26 Emperors encouraged procreation among the upper classes by providing financial and social incentives.
27 Here the interlocutor responds briefly.
28 Naevolus speaking again.
29 For whatever reason Naevolus here seems to repent of his candor, and asks the interlocutor to keep the information he has disclosed secret.
30 Pumice was used for exfoliation and depilation, marks of these effeminate gigolos.
31 The law court of the Areopagus at Athens was known for the secrecy with which it conducted itself.
32 The interlocutor is now speaking.
33 A quotation from Vergil. The gist of the allusion is to portray Naevolus as a frustrated and deluded lover. The “argument” that follows claims that the wealthy patron is immune to blackmail since everyone knows about this vices already.
34 A type of wine.
35 A drunken women mentioned elsewhere by Juvenal. Possibly generic.
36 Naevolus speaking again.
37 The interlocutor is now speaking.
38 I.e. a passive (male) sexual partner.
39 I.e. those who are afraid to mess up their hair.
40 An aphrodisiac.
41 Naevolus is now speaking.
42 Two of the Fates, who determine the length of men’s lives.
43 Roman household gods.
44 Fabricius was a paragon of ancient Republican virtue. The office of censor was responsible for, among other things, the regulation of morals. The public ostentation of one’s wealth was in ancient times considered a moral failing.
45 From the region north of the Danube.
46 Perhaps an allusion to the aristocratic practice of having wax portraits of one’s illustrious ancestors in the front hall of one’s house.
47 An allusion to the Odyssey. Odysseus, desiring to hear the song of the Sirens (who lure sailors to their death) has himself tied to the mast of his ship and his the ears of his men plugged with wax.