Juvenal, Satire 1
Translated by Lewis Evans (1889)
Formatted and with notes by C. Chinn (2007)
MUST I always be a hearer only? Shall I never retaliate,
though plagued so often with the Theseid of Codrus,1 hoarse with reciting it?
Shall one man, then, recite to me his Comedies, and another his Elegies,2
with impunity? Shall huge "Telephus" waste a whole day for me,
5 or "Orestes,"3 with the margin of the manuscript full to the very edge,
and written on the back too, and yet not finished, and I not retort?
No one knows his own house better than I do the grove
of Mars, and Vulcan's cave close to the Aeolian
rocks.4 The agency of the winds, what ghosts Aeacus
10 is torturing, whence another bears off the gold of the stolen
fleece, what huge mountain-ashes Monychus hurls,5
all this the plane-groves of Fronto,6 and the statues shaken
and the columns split by the eternal-reciter, are for ever re-echoing.
You may look for the same themes from the greatest poet and the least.
15 And yet I too have shirked my hand away from the rod.7 I too
have given advice to Sulla, that he should enjoy a sound sleep by returning to
a private station.8 When at every turn you meet so many poetasters,
it were a foolish clemency to spare paper that is sure to be wasted.
Yet why I rather choose to trace my course over that plain
20 through which the great foster-son of Aurunca9 urged his steeds,
I will, if you are at leisure, and with favorable ear listen to reason, tell you.
When a soft eunuch marries a wife; when Maevia10 transfixes
the Tuscan boar, and, with breasts exposed, grasps the hunting-spears;
when one man singly vies in wealth with the whole body of patricians,
25 under whose razor my beard, grown exuberant, sounded while I was in my prime;11
when Crispinus,12 one of the dregs of the mob of the Nile, a born-slave
of Canopus, (while his shoulder hitches up his Syrian cloak,)
airs his summer ring13 from his sweating fingers,
and can not support the weight of his heavier gem;--
30 it is difficult not to write satire. For who can be so tolerant of
this iniquitous city, who so case-hardened, as to contain himself!
When there comes up the bran-new litter of Matho the lawyer,14
filled with himself; and after him, he that informed upon his powerful friend,
and will soon plunder the nobility, already close-shorn, of the little
35 that remains to them; one whom even Massa15 fears, whom Carus16
soothes with a bribe; or a Thymele suborned by some trembling Latinus.17
When fellows supplant you, who earn their legacies
by night-work, lifted up to heaven by what is now the surest road
to the highest advancement, the lust of some ancient harridan.18
40 Proculeius gets one poor twelfth; but Gillo has eleven twelfths.19
Each gets the share proportioned to his powers.20
Well! let him take the purchase-money of his blood, and be as pale
as one that has trodden on a snake with naked heel,21
or a rhetorician about to declaim at the altar at Lyons.22
45 Why need I tell with what indignation my parched liver boils, when here,
the plunderer of his ward (reduced by him to the vilest gains) presses on the people
with his crowds of menials,23 and there, he that was condemned by a powerless
sentence.24 (For what cares he for infamy while he retains the plunder)?
Marius, though an exile, drinks from the eighth hour, and laughs at
50 the angry gods, while thou, O Province, victorious in the suit, art in tears!
Shall I not deem these themes worthy of the lamp of Venusium?25
Shall I not lash these? Why rather sing tales of Hercules
or Diomede, or the bellowing of the Labyrinth,
and the sea struck by the boy Icarus, and the winged artificer?26
55 When the pander27 inherits the wealth of the adulterer (since the wife
has lost the right of receiving it), taught to gaze at the ceiling,
and snore over his cups with well-feigned sleep.
When he considers himself privileged to expect the command of a cohort,
who has squandered his money on his stables,28 and has run through
60 all his ancestors' estate, while he flies with rapid wheel along the
Flaminian road;29 for while yet a youth, like Automedon,30 he held the reins,
while the great man showed himself off to his "mistress-in-his-cloak."31
Do you not long to fill your capacious tablets, even in the middle of
the cross-ways, when there comes borne on the shoulders of six slaves,
65 exposed to view on either side, with palanquin almost uncurtained,
and aping the luxurious Maecenas,32 the forger,
who made himself a man of splendor and wealth
by a few short lines, and a moistened seal!33 Next comes the powerful
matron, who when her husband thirsts, mingles the toad's-poison in
70 the mellow wine of Cales34 which she is herself about to hand him, and ,with skill
superior even to Locusta,35 initiates her neighbors, too simple before, in the art of
burying their husbands, livid from the poison, in despite of infamy and the public gaze.
Dare some deed to merit scanty Gyarus36 and the jail,
if you wish to be somebody. Honesty is commended, and starves.
75 It is to their crimes they are indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables,
their fine old plate, and the goat standing "in high relief from the cup.”37
Whom does the seducer of his own daughter-in-law, greedy for gold, suffer
to sleep? Or the unnatural brides,38 or the adulterer not out of his teens?
If nature denies the power, indignation would give birth to verses,
80 such as it could produce, like mine and Cluvienus'.39
From the time that Deucalion ascended the mountain in his boat,40
while the storm upheaved the sea, and consulted the oracle,
and the softening stones by degrees grew warm with life,41
and Pyrrha displayed to the males the virgins unrobed;
85 all that men are engaged in, their wishes, fears, anger, pleasures,
joys, and varied pursuits, form the hatch-patch of my book.42
And when was the crop of vices more abundant? When
wore the sails of avarice more widely spread? When had gambling
its present spirits? For now men go to the hazard at the gaming-table
90 not simply with their purses, but play with their whole chest staked.
What fierce battles will you see there, while the steward supplies the weapons
for the contest!43 Is it then mere common madness to lose a hundred
sestertia, and not leave enough for a tunic for your shivering slave!
Which of our grandsires erected so many villas? Which of them ever dined
95 by himself on seven courses? In our days the diminished sportula44 is set
outside the threshold, ready to be seized upon by the toga-clad crowd.
Yet he (that dispenses it), before giving, scans your features, and dreads
lest you should come with counterfeit pretense and under a false name.
When recognized you will receive your dole. He bids the crier summon
100 the very Troiugenae themselves.45 For even they asssail the door
with us. "Give the praetor his! Then to the tribune."46
But the freedman must first be served!47 "I was before him!" he says.
"Why should I fear or hesitate to stand up for my turn, though
I was born on the banks of Euphrates,48 which the soft windows in my ears49
105 would attest, though I myself were to deny the fact. But my five shops
bring me in four hundred sestertia. What does the Laticlave50 bestow
that's worth a wish, since Corvinus keeps sheep for hire
in the Laurentine fields?51 I own more than Pallas
and the Licini.52 Let the tribunes wait then!" Let Riches
110 carry the day, and let not him give place even to the sacrosanct
magistrate,53 who came but the other day to this city with chalked feet.54
Since with us the most revered majesty is that of riches;
even though as yet, pernicious money, thou dwellest
in no temple, nor have we as yet reared altars to coin,
115 as we worship Peace and Faith, Victory and Virtue, and Concord,
whose temple resounds with the noise of storks returning to their nests.55
But when a magistrate of the highest rank reckons up at the end of the year
what the sportula brings him in, how much it adds to his revenue,
what shall the poor retainers do, who look to this for their toga, for their shoes,
120 their bread and fire at home! A closely-wedged crowd of litters
is clamorous for the hundred quadrantes,56 and his wife, though sick
or pregnant, accompanies and goes the rounds with her husband.
One practicing a crafty trick now worn threadbare, asks for his wife
though really absent, displaying in her stead an empty and closed palanquin:
125 "My Galla is inside," he says, "dispatch us with all speed. Why hesitate?"
"Put out your head, Galla!" "O don't disturb her! she's asleep!"
The day is portioned out with a fine routine of engagements.
First the sportula; then the Forum; and Apollo learned in the law;57
and the triumphal statues,58 among which some unknown Egyptian
130 or Arabarch59 has dared set up his titles, whose image,
as though sacred, one dare not venture to defile.60
At length, the old and wearied-out clients quit the vestibule
and give up all their hopes; although their expectation of a dinner has been
full-long protracted: the poor wretches must buy their cabbage and fire.
135 Meanwhile their patron-lord will devour the best that the forest and ocean can
supply, and will recline in solitary state with none but himself on his couches.
For out of so many fair, and broad, and such ancient dishes,
they gorge whole patrimonies at a single course.
In our days there will not be even a parasite!61 Yet who could tolerate
140 such sordid luxury! How gross must that appetite be, which sets
before itself whole boars, an animal created to feast a whole company!
Yet thy punishment is hard at band, when distended with food
thou layest aside thy garments, and bearest to the bath the peacock undigested!
Hence sudden death, and old age without a will.62
145 The news travels to all the dinner-tables, but calls forth no grief;
and thy funeral procession advances, exulted over by disgusted friends!
There is nothing farther that future times can add to our immorality.
Our posterity must have the same desires, perpetrate the same acts.
Every vice has reached its climax. Then set sail!63
150 spread all your canvas! Yet here perchance you may object,
whence can talent be elicited able to cope with the subject?
Whence that blunt freedom of our ancestors, whose very name
I dare not utter, of writing whatever was dictated by their kindling soul.
What matter, whether Mucius forgive the libel, or not!64
155 But take Tigellinus for your theme, and you will shine in that tunic,65
in which they blaze standing, who smoke with throat transfixed,
and you will draw a broad furrow in the middle of the sand.
"Must he then, who has given aconite to his three uncles, be borne
on down cushions, suspended aloft, and from thence look down on us?”
160 Yes! when he meets yon press your finger to your lip!
There will be some informer standing by to whisper in his ear, That's he!
Without fear for the consequences you may match Aeneas and the fierce
Rutulian.66 The death of Achilles breeds ill-will in no one;
or the tale of the long-sought Hylas, who followed his pitcher.67
165 But whensoever Lucilius, fired with rage, has brandished as it were
his drawn sword, his hearer, whose conscience chills with the remembrance
of crime, grows red. His heart sweats with the pressure of guilt concealed.
Then bursts forth rage and tears! Ponder well, therefore, these things
in your mind, before you sound the signal blast. The soldier when helmeted
170 repents too late of the fight. I will try then what I may be allowed to vent
on those whose ashes are covered by the Flaminian or Latin road.68
Notes
1 An epic poem of an unknown poet.
2 Elegy was a form of love poetry.
3 Telephus and Orestes are the names of tragedies.
4 The grove of Mars and Vulcan’s cave were frequent topics of digressions in epic poems.
5 More topics of epic: storms, the Underworld, the story of the Golden Fleece, and the story of the Lapiths and the Centaurs.
6 Evidently a famous contemporary literary figure.
7 A reference to corporal discipline in Roman education.
8 This sentence refers to the practice of declamation in Roman education. Students were given problems from myth and history and told to give a speech taking one position or another. Here Juvenal recalls having to give a speech urging the dictator Sulla (1st century BCE) to give up his powers.
9 Lucilius, the first Roman satirist (2nd century BCE).
10 A generic Roman woman.
11 Barbers are here presented as exemplars of low status individuals.
12 Evidently an Egyptian freedman (as the epithets Nile and Canopus attest).
13 Crispinus has evidently achieved equestrian status (the second-highest property ranking in Roman society): the gold ring was the symbol of the equestrian class.
14 A generic upstart figure.
15 A notorious informer under Domitian.
16 Another notorious informer under Domitian.
17 Thymele and Latinus were famous actors.
18 An aspiring Roman politician could often make good his debts by marrying a rich widow.
19 Both unknown. They seem to stand for the legacy-seekers mentioned just above.
20 The Latin here actually suggests that each gets his share according to the size of his penis.
21 A simile borrowed from epic indicating the pallor of one who feels great fear.
22 See Suetonius, Caligula 20.
23 Another upstart who now has a large retinue.
24 This type, exemplified by Marius below, is a provincial governor who is prosecuted for extortion. Because of collective class interests these corrupt governors were often let off very lightly.
25 This is a reference to Horace, a famous satirist of the 1st century BCE.
26 Again, a rejection of epic and tragic themes.
27 I.e. the husband who pimps out his wife for gain.
28 The breeding and racing of horses was a distinguished (and extremely expensive) mark of high status.
29 A highway leading north from Rome.
30 Achilles’ charioteer.
31 His girlfriend is portrayed as wearing a military cloak. As Braund puts it, she wants to look “butch.”
32 Maecenas was a man of refined taste who served as Augustus’ de facto cultural minister.
33 The modern equivalent would be a notary who willingly attests to false documents.
34 A well-known wine from southern Italy.
35 A notorious poisoner of the 1st century CE.
36 An island in the Aegean sea, here symbolizing a place of exile.
37 Some form of expensive decoration.
38 Girls who “commit adultery” even before marriage.
39 An unknown poet.
40 The Greco-Roman version of the Flood story. Deucalion and Pyrrha are the only two mortals to survive the flood that Zeus/Jupiter sends to destroy humankind.
41 The human race was reborn, according to this myth, when Deucalion and Pyrrha, at the instigation of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, threw stones over their shoulders. These stones became people.
42 I.e. Juvenal’s topic in his Satires is human folly from the beginning.
43 Continuing the metaphor, the gambler’s assistant hands him his money like an arms-bearer giving a warrior his weapons.
44 A basket of food or money set out by patrons for his clients in the front of his house.
45 The “Trojan-born” refers to the oldest (and hence, most aristocratic and wealthy) families in Rome.
46 In a parody of the dispensation of patronage, the dole is given to those of very high rank first.
47 A further step in the parody: freedmen now outrank the old aristocrats.
48 I.e. he comes from the eastern provinces.
49 Ear-piercing was an eastern custom. At any rate Juvenal presents it as un-Roman.
50 I.e. man of senatorial rank.
51 Corvinus is the name of a storied Roman aristocratic family. Evidently this Corvinus has fallen on hard times.
52 Pallas was a freedman of Claudius, and proverbially wealthy. Licinus was a freedman of similar status under Augustus. The generic plural suggests that his name too is proverbial associated with wealth.
53 The tribune, who was protected by a sacred oath of the plebeians.
54 A mark of slavery.
55 A list of traditional Roman virtues (and the personified versions of them that were worshipped).
56 I.e. very wealthy individuals waiting around for a very small dole of money.
57 I.e. to the law courts.
58 Probably a reference to one of the imperial fora.
59 “Presider over Arabs,” some kind of native eastern official.
60 The Latin suggests urination.
61 A hyperbolic irony. Parasites (cadgers who flattered wealthy patrons) were fixtures at the dinner parties of the wealthy. Luxury has reached such a point that even these individuals are excluded from the patrons total self-indulgence.
62 The glutton patron dies from overeating.
63 I.e. write satire. Sailing is a common metaphor in antiquity for writing poetry.
64 Publius Mucius Scaevola, a Roman politician of the 2nd century BCE, attacked by Lucilius.
65 Tigellinus was Nero’s praetorian prefect. Juvenal seems to be contrasting the freedom of speech during the Republic (exemplified by Lucilius’ attacks on Scaevola) to the lack of such freedom during the principate: if you attack someone like Tigellinus you’re liable to be put to death.
66 More epic (and therefore not dangerous) themes.
67 Still more epic (and therefore not dangerous) themes.
68 I.e. Juvenal will only attack those who are dead.