Juvenal, Satire 10
Translated by Lewis Evans (1889)
Formatted and with notes by C. Chinn (2007)

	IN all the regions which extend from Gades1 even to the farthest 
	east and Ganges,2 there are but few that can discriminate between 
	real blessings and those that are widely different, all the mist of error 
	being removed. For what is there but we either fear or wish for, as reason 
5	would direct? What is there that you enter on under such favorable auspices, 
	that you do not repent of your undertaking, and the accomplishment of your wish! 
	The too easy gods have overthrown whole families by granting their 
	owners' prayers. Our prayers are put up for what will injure us in peace 
	and injure us in war. To many the copious fluency of speech, 
10	and their very eloquence, is fatal. It was owing to his strength and wondrous 
	muscle, in which he placed his trust, that the Athlete met his death.3 
	But money heaped up with overwhelming care, and a revenue 
	surpassing all common patrimonies as much as the whale 
	of Britain4 exceeds dolphins, causes more to be strangled. 
15	Therefore it was, that in that reign of Terror, and at Nero's bidding, 
	a whole cohort blockaded Longinus and the spacious gardens of the 
	over-wealthy Seneca, and laid siege to the splendid mansion of 
	the Laterani.5 It is but rarely that the soldier pays his visit to a garret.6 
	Though you are conveying ever so few vessels of unembossed silver, 
20	entering on your journey by night, you will dread the bandit's knife and bludgeon, 
	and tremble at the shadow of a reed as it quivers in the moonshine. 
	The traveler with empty pockets will sing even in the robber's face. 
	The prayers that are generally the first put up and best known in all the temples 
	are that riches, that wealth may increase; that our chest may be the largest 
25	in the whole forum. But no aconite7 is drunk from 
	earthenware.8 It is time to dread it when you quaff jeweled 
	cups, and the ruddy Setine9 blazes in the broad gold. 
	And do you not, then, now commend the fact that of the two sages,10 
	one used to laugh whenever he had advanced a single step from 
30	his threshold; the other, with sentiments directly contrary, used to weep. 
	But easy enough to anyone is the stern censure of a sneering laugh: 
	the wonder is how the other's eyes could ever have a sufficient supply of tears. 
	Democritus used to shake his sides with perpetual laughter, 
	though in the cities of those regions there were no praetextae, 
35	no trabeae, no fasces, no litter, no tribunal!11 
	What, had he seen the praetor12 standing pre-eminent in his 
	lofty car, and raised on high in the mid dust of the circus,13 
	dressed in the tunic of Jove,14 and wearing on his shoulders 
	the Tyrian15 hangings of the embroidered toga; and the circlet of 
40	a ponderous crown, so heavy that no single neck could endure the weight: 
	since the official, all in a sweat, supports it, and, that the consul 
	may not be too elated, the slave rides in the same car.16 
	Then, add the bird that rises from his ivory sceptre:17 on one side 
	the trumpeters; on the other, the long train of attendant clients, that march 
45	before him, and the Quirites,18 all in white togas, walking by his horses' heads; 
	men whose friendship he has won by the sportula19 buried deep in his chest. 
	Even in those days he found subject for ridicule in every place 
	where human beings meet, whose wisdom proves 
	that men of the highest intellect, men that will furnish noble examples, 
50	may be born in the country of wether-sheep, and in a foggy atmosphere.20 
	He21 used to laugh at the cares and also the joys of the common herd; 
	sometimes even at their tears: while be himself would bid Fortune, 
	when she frowned, "Go hang!" and point at her his finger in scorn!22 
	
	Superfluous therefore, or else destructive, are all those objects of our prayers, 
55	for which we think it right to cover the knees of the gods with waxen tablets. 
	Power, exposed to great envy, hurls some headlong down to ruin. 
	The long and splendid list of their titles and honors sinks into the 
	dust. Down come their statues, and are dragged along with ropes: 
	then the very wheels of the chariot23 are smashed by the vigorous stroke 
60	of the axe, and the legs of the innocent horses are demolished. 
	Now the fires roar! Now that head, once worshiped by 
	the mob, glows with the bellows and the furnace! Great Sejanus24 
	crackles! Then from that head, second only in the whole wide 
	world, are made pitchers, basins, frying-pans, and platters! 
65	"Crown your doors with bays! Lead to Jove's Capitol a huge 
	and milk-white ox! Sejanus is being dragged along by the 
	hook! a glorious sight!" Every body is delighted. "What lips he had! 
	and what a face! If you believe me, I never could endure 
	this man!" "But what was the charge under which he fell! Who was 
70	the accuser? what the information laid? By whose witness did he prove it?" 
	"Nothing of the sort! a wordy and lengthy epistle came 
	from Capreae."25 "That 's enough! I ask no farther. But how does 
	the mob of Remus26 behave?" "Why, follow Fortune, as mobs always do, and hate 
	him that is condemned?" That self-same people, had Tuscan Nortia27 
75	smiled propitious on her countryman--had the old age of the emperor28 
	been crushed while he thought all secure--would in that very hour have saluted 
	Sejanus as Augustus. Long ago they have thrown overboard 
	all anxiety. For that sovereign people that once gave away 
	military command, consulships, legions, and every thing, now bridles 
80	its desires, and limits its anxious longings to two things only—
	bread, and the games of the circus!29 "I hear that many are involved in 
	his fall." "No doubt: the little furnace is a capacious one; I met 
	my friend Brutidius30 at the altar of Mars looking a little pale!" 
	"But I greatly fear that Ajax, being baffled, will wreak fearful vengeance, 
85	as having been inadequately defended.31 Let us rush headlong; and, 
	while he still lies on the river-bank, trample on Caesar's foe! 
	But take care that our slaves witness the act! lest any of them should deny it, 
	and drag his master to trial with a halter round his neck" Such were the conversations 
	then about Sejanus; such the smothered whispers of the populace! 
90	Would you then have the same court paid to you that Sejanus had? 
	possess as much, bestow on one the highest curule honors,32 
	give another the command of armies; be esteemed the lawful guardian 
	of the prince that lounged away his days with his herd of Chaldaean astrologers, 
	in the rock of Capreae that he made his palace?33 Would you have centuries 
95	and cohorts, and a picked body of cavalry, and praetorian bands at your beck!34 
	Why should you not covet these? Even those who have not the will to kill a man 
	would gladly have the power. "But what brilliant or prosperous fortune is 
	of sufficient worth that your measure of evils should balance your good luck! 
	Would you rather put on the praetexta35 of him that is being dragged along, 
100	or be the magistrate of Fidenae or Gabii,36 and give 
	sentence about false weights, and break up scanty 
	measures37 as the ragged aedile of the deserted Ulubrae?38 
	You acknowledge, therefore, that Sejanus did not know what ought to have been 
	the object of his wishes. For he that coveted excessive honors, 
105	and prayed for excessive wealth, was but rearing up the multiplied stories 
	of a tower raised on high, only that the fall might be the deeper, 
	and horrible the headlong descent of his ruin once accelerated! 
	What overthrew the Crassi? and Pompey and his sons? and him 
	that brought Rome's haughty citizens quailing beneath his lash?39 
110	Surely it was the post of highest advancement, reached by every possible 
	device, and prayers for greatness heard by gods who showed their malignity 
	in granting them! Few kings go down without slaughter and wounds 
	to Ceres' son-in-law.40 Few tyrants die a bloodless death! 
	
	He41 that as yet pays court to Minerva, purchased by a single as,42 
115	that is followed by his little slave to take charge of his diminutive satchel, 
	begins to long, and longs through all his quinquatrian holidays,43 
	for the eloquence and the renown of Demosthenes or Cicero.44 
	But it was through their eloquence that both of these orators perished:45 
	the copious and overflowing fount of talent gave over each to destruction; 
120	by talent, was his hand and head cut off!46 Nor did 
	the Rostra47 ever reek with the blood of a contemptible pleader. 
	“O fortunate Rome, whose natal day may date from me as consul!"48 
	He might have scorned the swords of Antony, had all he uttered been 
	such trash as this. I had rather write poems that excite only ridicule, 
125	than thee, divine Philippic49 of distinguished fame! 
	that art unrolled next to the first! Cruel was the end that carried him50 off also 
	whom Athens used to admire as his words flowed from his lips in a torrent 
	of eloquence, and he swayed at will the passions of the crowded theatre. 
	With adverse gods and inauspicious fate was he born, 
130	whom his father,51 blear-eyed with the grime of the glowing 
	mass, sent from the coal, and pincers, and the sword-forging 
	anvil, and sooty Vulcan,52 to the rhetorician's school! 
	
	The spoils of war, the cuirass fastened to the truncated 
	trophy, the cheek-piece hanging from the battered helm, 
135	the car shorn of its pole, the streamer of the captured 
	galley, and the sad captive on the triumphal arch-top,53 
	are held to he goods exceeding all human blessings. For these 
	each general, Roman, or Greek, or Barbarian, strains as his 
	prize! Full compensation for his dangers and his toils he sees 
140	in these! So much greater is the thirst after fame than virtue. 
	For who would embrace virtue herself if you took away the rewards 
	of virtue? And yet, ere now, the glory of a few has been the ruin of 
	their native land; that longing for renown, and those inscriptions54 
	that are to live on the marble that guards their ashes; and yet to burst 
145	asunder this, the mischievous strength of the barren fig-tree has power 
	enough.55 Since even to sepulchres themselves are fates assigned. 
	Weigh the remains of Hannibal!56 How many pounds will you find in that 
	most consummate general! This is the man whom not even Africa, 
	lashed by the Mauritanian57 ocean, and stretching even to the steaming Nile, 
150	and then again to the races of the Aethiopes and their tall elephants, 
	can contain! Spain is annexed to Carthage's domain. He bounds across 
	the Pyrenees. Nature opposed in vain the Alps with all their snows; 
	he cleaves the rocks and rives the mountains with vinegar. 
	Now he is lord of Italy! Yet still he presses on. "Naught is achieved," 
155	he says, "unless we burst through the gates of Rome with the 
	soldiery of Carthage, and I plant my standard in the heart of the Subura!"58 
	Oh what a face! and worthy what a picture! when the huge 
	Gaetulian beast59 bore on his back the one-eyed general! 
	What then was the issue? Oh glory! This self-made man60 
160	is conquered, and flees with head-long haste to exile, and there, a great 
	and much-to-be-admired client, sits at the palace of the king, 
	until his Bithynian majesty be pleased to wake!61 
	To that soul, that once shook the very world's base, 
	it is not sword, nor stone, nor javelin, that shall give the final stroke; 
165	but, that which atoned for Cannae, and avenged such mighty carnage, 
	a ring!62 Go then, madman, and hurry over the rugged Alps, 
	that you may be the delight of boys, and furnish subjects for declamations!63 
	One world is not enough for the youth of Pella!64 He chafes 
	within the narrow limits of the universe, poor soul, 
170	as though confined in Gyarus' small rock, or scanty Seriphos.65 
	Yet when he shall have entered the city that the brickmakers fortified,66 
	he will be content with a sarcophagus! Death alone discloses how very small 
	are the puny bodies of men! Men do believe that Athos was sailed through 
	of yore;67 and all the bold assertions that lying Greeks hazard 
175	in history--that the sea was bridged over by the same fleets, 
	and formed into a solid pavement for the transit of wheels.68 
	We believe that deep rivers failed, and streams were drunk dry when the Persian 
	dined; and all the flights of Sostratus’69 song, when his wings are moistened by the 
	god of wine. And yet, in what guise did he return after quitting Salamis,70 
180	who, like a true barbarian as he was, used to vent his rage in scourges 
	on Corus and Eurus,71 that had never suffered in this sort in Aeolus' prison;72 
	and bound in gyves Ennosigaeus73 himself. It was, in fact, 
	an act of clemency that he did not think he deserved branding also. 
	Would any of the gods choose to serve such a man as this? 
185	But how did he return? Why, in a single ship; through waves 
	dyed with blood, and with his galley retarded by the shoals of corpses.74 
	Such was the penalty that glory, for which he had so often prayed, exacted. 
	
	"Grant length of life, great Jove, and many years!" 
	This is your only prayer in health and sickness. 
190	But with what unremitting and grievous ills is old age 
	crowded! First of all, its face is hideous, loathsome, and altered 
	from its former self; instead of skin a hideous hide 
	and flaccid cheeks; and see! such wrinkles, as, 
	where Tabraca75 extends her shady dells, 
195	the antiquated ape scratches on her wizened jowl! 
	There are many points of difference in the young: this youth is handsomer 
	than that; and he again than a third: one is far sturdier than another. 
	Old men’s faces are all alike--limbs tottering and voice feeble, 
	a smooth bald pate, and the second childhood of a driveling nose; 
200	the poor wretch must mumble his bread with toothless gums; 
	so loathsome to his wife, his children, and even to himself, 
	that he would excite the disgust even of the legacy-hunter Cossus!76 
	His palate is grown dull ; his relish for his food and wine no more 
	the same; the joys of love are long ago forgotten; 
205	and in spite of all efforts to reinvigorate them, 
	all manly energies are hopelessly extinct. 
	Has this depraved and hoary lechery aught else 
	to hope! Do we not look with just suspicion on the lust 
	that covets the sin but lacks the power? Now turn your eyes to 
210	the loss of another sense. For what pleasure has he in a singer, 
	however eminent a harper it may be; nay, even Seleucus77 himself; 
	or those whose habit it is to glitter in a cloak of gold? 
	What matters it in what part of the wide theatre he sits, 
	who can scarcely hear the horn-blowers, and the general clang 
215	of trumpets? You must bawl out loud before his ear can distinguish 
	who it is his slave says has called, or tells him what o'clock it is. 
	Besides, the scanty blood that flows in his chill body is warmed 
	by fever only. Diseases of every kind dance round him 
	in full choir. If you were to ask their names, 
220	I could sooner tell you how many lovers Hippia78 had; 
	how many patients Themison79 killed in one autumn; 
	how many allies Basilus80 plundered; how many wards Hirrus81 
	defrauded; how many lovers long Maura82 received 
	in the day ; how many pupils Hamillus83 corrupts. 
225	I could sooner run through the list of villas owned by him now, 
	beneath whose razor my stiff beard resounded when I was in my prime.84 
	One is weak in the shoulder; another in the loins; another in the hip. 
	Another has lost both eyes, and envies the one-eyed. 
	Another's bloodless lips receive their food from others' fingers. 
230	He that was wont to relax his features to a smile at the sight 
	of his dinner, now only gapes like the young swallow to whom 
	the parent bird, herself fasting, flies with full beak. But worse 
	than all debility of limb is that idiocy which recollects 
	neither the names of his slaves nor the face of the friend 
235	with whom he supped the evening before; not even those 
	whom he begot and brought up! For by a heartless will 
	he disinherits them; and all his property is made over 
	to Phiale:85 such power has the breath of her artificial mouth, 
	that stood for hire so many years in the brothel's dungeon. 
240	Even though the powers of intellect retain their vigor, yet he must lead forth 
	the funerals of his children; must gaze upon the pyre of a beloved wife, 
	and the urns filled with all that remains of his brother and sisters. 
	This is the penalty imposed on the long-lived, that they must 
	grow old with the death-blow in their house forever falling fresh--
245	in oft-recurring sorrow--in unremitting mourning, and a suit of black. 
	The king of Pylos,86 if you put any faith in great Homer, 
	was an instance of life inferior in duration only to the crow's. 
	Happy, no doubt! was he who for so many years put off his hour 
	of death; and now begins to count his years on his right hand,87 
250	and has drunk so often of the new-made wine. I pray you, 
	lend me your ear a little space; and hear how sadly be himself complains of 
	the decrees of fate, and too great powers of life, when be watches 
	the blazing beard of Antilochus88 in his bloom, and asks of every friend 
	that stands near, why it is he lingers on to this day; what crime 
255	he has committed to deserve so long a life! Such, too, 
	is Peleus'89 strain, when he mourns for Achilles prematurely snatched from him: 
	and that other, whose lot it was to grieve for the shipwrecked Ithacensian.90 
	Priam would have joined the shade of Assaracus91 with Troy 
	still standing, with high solemnities, with Hector92 and 
260	his brothers supporting his bier on their shoulders, 
	amid the weeping Troades,93 so that Cassandra would lead off 
	the wail, and Polyxena with mantle rent,94 
	had he but died at any time but that, after 
	that Paris95 had begun to build his audacious ships. 
265	What then did length of days confer on him! He saw his all 
	overthrown: Asia96 laid low by flame and sword. 
	Then the poor tottering warrior laid down his diadem 
	and donned his arms, and fell before the altar of supreme Jove; 
	like some old ox that yields his attenuated and miserable neck 
270	to his owner's knife, long ago scorned by the ungrateful plow. 
	That was at all events the death of a human being: but his wife 
	who survived him barked fiercely from the jaws of a bitch.97 
	I hasten on to our own countrymen, and pass by the king of Pontus,98 
	and Croesus,99 whom the eloquent voice of the right-judging Solon100 
275	bade look at the closing scene of a life however long. 
	Banishment,101 and the jail, and the marshes of Minturnae,102 
	and his bread begged in conquered Carthage,103 
	took their rise from this. What could all nature, what could Rome, 
	have produced more blessed in the wide world than that citizen, 
280	had he breathed forth his soul glutted with spoils, while the 
	captive train followed around his chariot, in all the pomp and 
	circumstance of war, when he was about to alight from his Teutonic car!104 
	Campania,105 in her foresight for Pompey,106 had given him a fever he 
	should have prayed for. But the many cities and their public prayers 
285	prevailed. Therefore his own malignant fortune and that of Rome 
	preserved him only that conquered he should lose his head.107 Lentulus 
	escaped this torment; Cethegus paid not this penalty, 
	but un-mutilated; and Catiline lay with corpse entire.108 
	
	The anxious mother, when she visits Venus' temple, prays for beauty 
290	for her boys with subdued whisper; with louder voice for her girls, carrying 
	her fond wishes even to the verge of trifling. "But why should you 
	chide me?" she says; "Latona109 delights in the beauty of Diana." 
	But, Lucretia110 forbids a face like hers to be the subject of 
	your prayers: Virginia111 would gladly give hers to Rutilia,112 
295	and receive her wen in exchange. But, a son possessed of 
	exquisite person keeps his parents in a constant state of misery 
	and alarm. So rare is the union of beauty with chastity. 
	Though the house, austere in virtue, and emulating 
	the Sabines113 of old, may have handed down, like an inheritance, 
300	purity of morals, and bounteous Nature with benignant hand 
	may give, besides, a chaste mind and a face glowing with 
	modest blood (for what greater boon can Nature bestow on a youth? 
	Nature, more powerful than any guardian, or any watchful care!), 
	still they are not allowed to attain to manhood. For the villainy of the corrupter, 
305	prodigal in its guilt, dares to assail with tempting offers the parents themselves. 
	So great is their confidence in the success of bribes! No tyrant 
	in his cruel palace ever castrated a youth that was deformed; 
	nor did even Nero carry off a stripling if club-footed, 
	or disfigured by wens, pot-bellied, and humpbacked! 
310	Go then, and exult in the beauty of your darling boy! Yet 
	for whom are there greater perils in store? He will become the adulterer 
	of the city, and dread all the punishments that angry husbands 
	inflict. Nor will he be more lucky than the star of Mars, 
	even though he never fall like Mars into the net.114 But sometimes 
315	that bitter wrath exacts even more than any law permits, to satisfy 
	the husband's rage. One dispatches the adulterer with the sword; another 
	cuts him in two with bloody lashes; some have the punishment of the mullet.115 
	But your Endymion,116 forsooth, will of course become the lover of some lady 
	of his affections! But soon, when Servilia117 has bribed him, 
320	he will serve her whom he loves not, and will despoil her 
	of all her ornaments. For what will any woman refuse, to get 
	her passions gratified? whether she be an Oppia, or a Catulla.118 
	A depraved woman has all her morality concentered there. 
	"But what harm does beauty do one that is chaste?" Nay, what did 
325	his virtuous resolve avail Hippolytus, or what Bellerophon!119 
	Surely she fired at the rejection of her suit, as though treated with indignity. 
	Nor did Sthenoboea120 burn less fiercely than the Cretan;121 and both lashed 
	themselves into fury. A woman is then most ruthless, 
	when shame sets sharper spurs to her hate. Choose what course 
330	you think should be recommended him to whom Caesar's wife122 purposes 
	to marry herself. This most noble and most beautiful of the 
	patrician race is hurried off; poor wretched man, a sacrifice to 
	the lewd eyes of Messalina. She is long since seated with her bridal veil 
	all ready: the nuptial bed with Tyrian hangings is openly prepared in the 
335	gardens, and, according to the antique rites, a dowry of a million sesterces 
	will be given; the soothsayer and the witnesses to the settlement will be there! 
	Do you suppose these acts are kept secret; intrusted only to a few! She will not 
	be married otherwise than with all legal forms. Tell me which alternative 
	you choose. If you refuse to comply, you must die before nightfall. 
340	If you do commit the crime, some brief delay will be afforded you, 
	until the thing, known to the city and the people, shall reach the prince's ears. 
	He will be the last to learn the disgrace of his house! Do you meanwhile 
	obey her behests, if you set so high a value on a few days' existence. 
	Whichever you hold the better and the safer course, that white 
345	and beauteous neck must be presented to the sword! 
	
	Is there then nothing for which men shall pray? If you will take advice, 
	you will allow the deities themselves to determine 
	what may be expedient for us, and suitable to our condition. 
	For instead of pleasant things, the gods will give us all that is most fitting. 
350	Man is dearer to them than to himself. We, led on by the impulse 
	of our minds, by blind and headstrong passions, 
	pray for wedlock, and issue by our wives; but it is known to them 
	what our children will prove; of what character our wife will be! 
	Still, that you may have somewhat to pray for, and vow to their shrines 
355	the entrails and consecrated mincemeat of the white porker, 
	your prayer must be that you may have a sound mind in a sound body. 
	Pray for a bold spirit, free from all dread of death; 
	that reckons the closing scene of life among Nature's 
	kindly boons; that can endure labor, whatever it be; 
360	that deems the gnawing cares of Hercules, and all his 
	cruel toils, far preferable to the joys of Venus, 
	rich banquets, and the downy couch of Sardanapalus.123 
	I show thee what thou canst confer upon thyself. The only path 
	that surely leads to a life of peace lies through virtue. 
365	If we have wise foresight, thou, Fortune, hast no divinity. 
	It is we that make thee a deity, and place thy throne in heaven!