Persius, Satire 5 Translated by Lewis Evans (1889) Formatted by C. Chinn (2008) IT is the custom of poets to pray for a hundred voices, and to wish for a hundred mouths and a hundred tongues for their verses; whether the subject proposed be one to be mouthed by a grim-visaged Tragoedian, or the wounds of a Parthian drawing his weapon from his groin. 5 “What is the object of this? or what masses of robust song are you heaping up, so as to require the support of a hundred throats? Let those who are about to speak on grand subjects collect mists on Helicon; all those for whom the pot of Procne or Thyestes shall boil, to be often supped on by the insipid Glycon. 10 You neither press forth the air from the panting bellows, while the mass is smelting in the furnace; nor, hoarse with pent-up murmur, foolishly croak out something ponderous, nor strive to burst your swollen cheeks with puffing. You adopt the language of the Toga, skillful at judicious combination, 15 with moderate style, well rounded, clever at lashing depraved morals, and with well-bred sportiveness to affix, the mark of censure. Draw from this source what you have to say; and leave at Mycenae the tables, with the head and feet, and study plebeian dinners.” For my part, I do not aim at this, that my page may be 20 inflated with air-blown trifles, fit only to give weight to smoke. We are talking apart from the crowd. I am now, at the instigation of the Muse, giving you my heart to sift; and delight in showing you, beloved friend, how large a portion of my soul is yours, Cornutus! Knock then, since thou knowest well 25 how to detect what rings sound, and the glozings of a varnished tongue. For this I would dare to pray for a hundred voices, that with guileless voice I may unfold how deeply I have fixed thee in my inmost breast; and that my words may unseal for thee all that lies buried, too deep for words, in my secret heart. 30 When first the guardian purple left me, its timid charge, and my boss was hung up, an offering to the short-girt Lares; when my companions were kind, and the white center-fold gave my eyes license to rove with impunity over the whole Subura; at the time when the path is doubtful, and error, ignorant of the purpose 35 of life, makes anxious minds hesitate between the branching cross-ways, I placed myself under you. You, Cornutus, cherished my tender years in your Socratic bosom. Then your rule, dexterous in insinuating itself, being applied to me, straightened my perverse morals; my mind was convinced by your reasoning, and strove to yield subjection; 40 and formed features skillfully molded by your plastic thumb. For I remember that many long nights I spent with you; and with you robbed our feasts of the first hours of night. Our work was one. We both alike arranged our hours of rest, and relaxed our serious studies with a frugal meal. 45 Doubt not, at least, this fact; that both our days harmonize by some definite compact, and are derived from the selfsame planet. Either the Fate, tenacious of truth, suspended our natal hour in the equally poised balance, or else the Hour that presides over the faithful divides between the twins the harmonious destiny of us two; and we alike 50 correct the influence of malignant Saturn by Jupiter, auspicious to both. At all events, there is some star, I know not what, that blends my destiny with thine. There are a thousand species of men; and equally diversified is the pursuit of objects. Each has his own desire; nor do men live with one single wish. One barters beneath an orient sun, wares of Italy 55 for a wrinkled pepper and grains of pale cumin. Another prefers, well-gorged, to heave in dewy sleep. Another indulges in the Campus Martius. Another is beggared by gambling. Another riots in sensual pleasures. But when the stony gout has crippled his joints, like the branches of an ancient beech— 60 then too late they mourn that their days have passed in gross licentiousness, their light has been the fitful marsh-fog; and look back upon the life they have abandoned. But your delight is to grow pale over the midnight papers; for, as a trainer of youths, you plant in their well-purged ears the corn of Cleanthes. From this source seek, ye young and old, a definite 65 object for your mind, and a provision against miserable gray hairs. "It shall be done to-morrow." "To-morrow, the case will be just the same!" What, do you grant me one day as so great a matter." But when that other day has dawned, we have already spent yesterday's to-morrow. For see, another to-morrow wears away our years, and will be always a little 70 beyond you. For though it is so near you, and under the selfsame perch, you will in vain endeavor to overtake the felloe that revolves before you, since you are the hinder wheel, and on the second axle." It is liberty, of which we stand in need not such as that which, when every Publius Velina has earned, he claims as his due the moldy corn, on the 75 production of his tally. Ah! minds barren of all truth! for whom a single twirl makes a Roman. Here is Dama, a groom, not worth three farthings! good for nothing and blear-eyed; one that would lie for a feed of beans. Let his master give him but a twirl, and in the spinning of a top, out he comes Marcus Dama! Ye gods! when Marcus is security, do you 80 hesitate to trust your money? When Marcus is judge, do you grow pale? Marcus said it: it must be so. Marcus, put your name to this deed? This is literal liberty. This it is the cap of liberty bestows on us. "Is any one else, then, a freeman, but he that may live as he pleases? I may live as I please; am not I then 85 a freer man than Brutus?” On this the Stoic (his ear well purged with biting vinegar) says, "Your inference is faulty; the rest I admit, but cancel 'I may,' and 'as I please.'" "Since I left the praetor's presence, made my own master by his rod, why may I not do whatever my inclination 90 dictates, save only what the rubric of Masurius interdicts?" Learn then! But let anger subside from your nose, and the wrinkling sneer; while I pluck out those old wives' fables from your breast. It was not in the praetor's power to commit to fools the delicate duties of life, or transmit that experience that will guide them through the rapid course of life. 95 Sooner would you make the dulcimer suit a tall porter. Reason stands opposed to you, and whispers in your secret ear, not to allow any one to do that which he will spoil in the doing. The public law of men—nay, Nature herself contains this principle—that feeble ignorance should hold all acts as forbidden. 100 Dost thou dilute hellebore, that knowest not how to confine the balance- tongue to a definite point? The very essence of medicine forbids this. If a high-shoed plowman, that knows not even the morning star, should ask for a ship, Melicerta would cry out that all modesty had vanished from the earth. Has Philosophy granted to you to walk 105 uprightly? and do you know how to discern the semblance of truth; lest it give a counterfeit tinkle, though merely gold laid over brass? And those things which ought to be pursued, or in turn avoided, have you first marked the one with chalk, and then the other with charcoal? Are you moderate in your desires? frugal in your household? kind to your 110 friends? Can you at one time strictly close, at another unlock your granaries? And can you pass by the coin fixed in the mud, nor swallow down with your gullet the Mercurial saliva? When you can say with truth, "These are my principles, this I hold;" then be free and wise too, under the auspices of the praetor and of Jove himself. 115 But if, since you were but lately one of our batch, you preserve your old skin, and though polished on the surface, retain the cunning fox beneath your vapid breast; then I recall all that I just now granted, and draw back the rope. Philosophy has given you nothing; nay, put forth your finger—and what act is there so trivial?— 120 and you do wrong. But there is no incense by which you can gain from the gods this boon, that one short half-ounce of Eight can be inherent in fools. To mix these things together is an impossibility; nor can you, since you are in all these things else a mere ditcher, move but three measures of the satyr Bathyllus. "I am free." Whence do you take this as granted, you that are in subjection to so many 125 things? Do you recognize no master, save him from whom the praetor's rod sets you free? If he has thundered out, "Go, boy, and carry my strigils to the baths of Crispinus!' Do you loiter, lazy scoundrel?" This bitter slavery affects not thee; nor does any thing from without enter which can set thy strings in motion. But if within, and in thy morbid breast, 130 there spring up masters, how dost thou come forth with less impunity than those whom the lash and the terror of their master drives to the strigils? Do you snore lazily in the morning? "Rise!" says Avarice. "Come! rise!" Do you refuse? She is urgent. "Arise!" she says. "I can not." "Rise!" "And what am I to do?" "Do you ask? Import fish from Pontus, 135 Castoreum, tow, ebony, frankincense, purgative Coan wines. Be the first to unload from the thirsty camel his fresh pepper— turn a penny, swear!" "But Jupiter will hear!" "Oh fool! If you aim at living on good terms with Jove, you must go on contented to bore your oft-tasted salt-cellar with your finger!" 140 Now, with girded loins, you fit the skin and wine flagon to your slaves— "Quick, to the ship!" Nothing prevents your sweeping over the Aegean in your big ship, unless cunning luxury should first draw you aside, and hint, "Whither, madman, are you rushing? Whither! what do you want? The manly bile has fermented in your hot 145 breast, which not even a pitcher of hemlock could quench. Would you, bound over the sea? Would you have your dinner on a thwart, seated on a coil of hemp?' while the broad-bottomed jug exhales the red Veientane spoiled by the damaged pitch! Why do you covet that the money you had here put out to interest at a modest 150 five per cent, should go on to sweat a greedy eleven per cent? Indulge your Genius I Let us crop the sweets of life! That you really live is my boon! You will become ashes, a ghost, a gossip's tale! Live, remembering you must die.—The hour flies! This very word I speak is subtracted from it!" What course, now, do you take? You are torn in different directions by a 155 two-fold hook. Do you follow this master or that? You must needs by turns, with doubtful obedience, submit to one, by turns wander forth free. Nor, even though you may have once resisted, or once refused to obey the stern behest, can you say with truth, "I have burst my bonds!" For the dog too by his struggles breaks through his leash, yet even 160 as he flies a long portion of the chain hangs dragging from his neck. "Davus! I intend at once—and I order you to believe me too!— to put an end to my past griefs. (So says Chaerestratus, biting his nails to the quick.) Shall I continue to be a disgrace to my sober relations? Shall I make shipwreck of my patrimony, and lose my good 165 name, before these shameless doors, while drunk, and with my torch extinguished, I sing before the reeking doors of Chrysis?" Well done, my boy, be wise! sacrifice a Iamb to the gods who ward off evil!" "But do you think, Davus, she will weep at being forsaken?" Nonsense! boy, you will be beaten with her red slipper, 170 for fear you should be inclined to plunge, and gnaw through your close- confining toils, now fierce and violent. But if she should call you, you would say at once, "What then shall I do? Shall I not now, when I am invited, and when of her own act she entreats me, go to her?" Had you come away from her heart-whole, you would not, even now. This, this is the man of whom we 175 are in search. It rests not on the wand which the foolish Lictor brandishes. Is that flatterer his own master, whom white-robed Ambition leads gaping with open mouth? "Be on the watch, and heap vetches bountifully upon the squabbling mob, that old men, as they sun themselves, may remember our Floralia. —What could be more splendid?" But when 180 Herod's day is come, and the lamps arranged on the greasy window-sill have disgorged their unctuous smoke, bearing violets, and the thunny's tail floats, hugging the red dish, and the white pitcher foams with wine: then in silent prayer you move your lips, and grow pale at the sabbaths of the circumcised. Then are the 185 black goblins and the perils arising from breaking an egg. Then the huge Galli, and the one-eyed priestess with her sistrum, threaten you with the gods inflating your body, unless you have eaten the prescribed head of garlic three times of a morning. Were you to say all this among the brawny centurions, 190 huge Pulfenius would immediately raise his coarse laugh, and hold a hundred Greek philosophers dear at a clipped centussis.