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Juvenal SATIRE 1 Semper
ego auditor tantum? numquamne reponam Always
me, ever an audience? Should I never
pay back, dragged
along again and again by crackling
Codrus' Theseid? Must I be always a listener only, never hit back, although so often assailed by the hoarse Theseid of Codrus? Never
obtain revenge when X (ille) has
read me his comedies, Y (hic)
his elegies? No revenge when my day has been wasted by mighty
Telephus or by Orestcs who, having covercd the final
margin, extends to the back, and still isn't finished? No
citizen's private house is marc familiar to him than the
grove of Mars and Vulcan's cave near Aeolus' rocks are to me;
what the winds are up to, what ghosts arc being tormented on
Aeacus' rack, from what far land another has stolen 10 a bit of
gold pelt, how huge are the ash-trunks Monychus hurls- the
unending cry goes up from Fronto' s plane-trees, his marble statues and columns, shaken and shattered by non-stop
readings. One gets the same from
every poet, great and small. I too have
snatched my hand from under the cane; I too have tendered advice to
Sulla to retire from public life and sleep the sleep of the
just. No point, when you meet so many bards, in sparing paper
(it's already doomed to destruction). But why, you may ask,
should I decide to cover the ground o'er which the mighty son
of Aurunca drove his team?
20 If you have time and are
feeling receptive, here's my answer. When a soft eunuch marries,
and Mevia takes to sticking a Tuscan boar, with a spear
beside her naked breast, when a fellow who made my
stiff young beard crunch with his clippers can challenge the whole
upper class with his millions. single-handed; when Crispinus, a blob of
Nilotic scum, bred in Canopus. hitches a cloak of Tyrian
purple onto his shoulder and flutters a simple ring
of gold on his sweaty finger (in summer he cannot bear
the weight of a heavy stone), it's hard not to
write satire. For who could be so inured 30 to the wicked city. so dead
to feeling, as to keep his temper when the brand-new litter
of Matho the lawyer heaves in sight. filled with himself; then
one who informed on a powerful friend and will soon be tearing
what's left of the carcass of Rome's aristocracy, one who makes even Massa
shiver, whom Carus caresses with bribes, and Thymele
too, sent by the frightened Latinus; when you're shouldered
aside by people who earn bequests at night, people who reach the top by
a form of social climbing that now ensures success -through
a rich old female's funnel? Proculcius obtains a single
twelfth, but Gillo eleven: 40
each heir's reward is
assessed by the size of his organ. Very well. Let each receive
the price of his life-blood. becoming as pale as a man who has
stepped on a snake in his bare feet, or is waiting to speak in
the contest at the grim altar of Lyons. Why need I tell how my
heart shrivels in the heat of its anger, when townsfolk are jostled
by the flocks attending on one who has cheated his ward and left him to
prostitution, or on someone condemned by a futile verdict? For
what is disgrace if he keeps the money? The exiled Marius drinks
from two, happily braving the wrath of heaven; the
province which won is awarded - tears. 50
Am I not right to think
this calls for Venusia's lamp? Am I not right to attack
it? Would you rather I reeled off epics- of Heracles or Diomedes or
the labyrinth's frantic bellows, the splash of the youngster
hitting the sea, and the flying joiner , when a pimp, if his wife is
barred from benefit, coolly pockets the gifts brought by her
lover, trained to stare at the ceiling, trained to snore in his
cups through a nose that's wide awake; when this man feels
entitled to covet command of a cohort, no longer possessing a
family fortune, having presented every cent to the
stables-look at Automedon junior 60
as he flies along the
Flaminia, whipping the horses and holding the reins himself, swanking
in front of his girl in her greatcoat. There, at the intersection,
wouldn't you like to fill a large-size notebook when
a figure comes by on six pairs of shoulders in a litter exposed on this
side and that and almost indecent, recalling in many ways the
limp and sprawling Maecenas, a forger of wills who has
turned himself into a wealthy gentleman with the simple aid of a
sheet of paper and a moistened signet? Here is a high-born lady,
who just before handing her husband some mellow Calenian adds a
dash of shrivelling toad. 70
Surpassing Lucusta herself,
she trains untutored neighbours to brave the scandal and
walk behind their blackened lords. If you want to be anything,
dare some deed that merits confinement on Gyara's narrow shore;
honesty is praised, and shivers. Crime pays - look at those
grounds and mansions and tables, the antique silver, and the
goat perched on the rim of the cup, Who can sleep when a
daughter-in-law is seduced for money, when brides-to-be are
corrupt, and schoolboys practice adultery? If nature fails, then indignation
generates verse, doing the best it can, like
mine or like Cluvienus'. 80 Once, when torrents of rain
were raising the ocean 's level, Deucalion sailed to the top
of a hill and sought for guidance. Little by little the stones
grew warm and soft with life, and Pyrrha displayed her
naked girls to the gaze of men. What folks have done ever
since-their hopes and fears and anger, their pleasures, joys, and
toing and froing-is my volume's hotch-potch. Was there, at any time, a
richer harvest of evil? When did the pocket of
greed gape wider? When was our dicing ever so reckless? Your
gambler leaves his wallet behind as he goes to the table of
chance; he plays with his safe at his elbow! 90 There what battles are to
be seen, with the banker supplying the weaponry! Is it just
simple madness to lose a hundred thousand, and then refuse a
shirt to a shivering slave? Which of our grandfathers
built so many villas, or dined off seven courses, alone? Today
a little 'basket' waits in the porch, to be
snatched away by the toga' d rabble. First, however, the steward
anxiously peers at your face for fear you may be an
impostor using another's name. No dole until you are
checked. The crier is ordered to call even the Trojan families;
they too besiege the portals 100
along with us: 'See to the
praetor, then to the tribune'. A freedman's in front: ' I
was here first, ' he says, 'why shouldn't I stand my ground, without
any fear or uneasiness ? Granted, I was born beside the
Euphrates (the fancy holes in my ear-lobes would prove it, whatever I
said); but the five boutiques that I own bring in four hundred
thousand. What use is the broader purple, if while Corvinus is
tending the flocks which someone has leased him out in the Laurentine
country, I have a bigger fortune than Pallas or Licinus?'
So, just let the tribunes wait; let wealth prevail; no
deference is due to their sacred office 110 from one who recently came
to the city with whitened feet. In our society nothing is
held in such veneration as the grandeur of riches,
although as yet there stands no temple for accursed Money to dwell
in, no altar erected to Cash, in the way we honour Pax,
Fides, Victoria, Virtus , and Concordia, who
when her nest is hailed replies with a clatter. When the highest magistrate
reckons up, at the end of the year, what the 'basket' is worth,
how much it adds to his assets, what of his clients, who
count on that for their clothes and footwear, bread and fuel for their
houses? The litters are jammed together 120
as they come for their
hundred pieces. A sick or pregnant wife follows behind her husband,
and is carted round the circuit. This man claims, with a
well-known ruse, for an absent spouse. Indicating an empty chair
with its curtains drawn, 'That's my Galla, 'he says.
'Don't keep her too long. Are you worried? Galla, put out your head. , 'Leave her, she must be sleeping. ' The day itself is arranged
in a splendid series of highlights: 'The basket', then the city
square, with Apollo the Lawyer and the generals'
statues-one, which some Egyptian wallah has had the nerve to set
up, listing all his achievements; 130
pissing (and worse) against
his image is wholly in order . ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weary old clients trudge
away from the porches, resigning what they had yearned for,
though nothing stays with a man so long as the hope of a dinner.
Cabbage and kindling have to be purchased. Meanwhile the magnate will
lounge alone among empty couches, chewing his way through the
finest produce of sea and woodland. (Yes, off all those antique
tables, so wide and so stylish, they gobble up their
ancestors 'wealth at a single sitting. ) Soon there'll be no
parasites left. But who could abide that blend of luxury and
meanness? What size of gullet could order 140 a whole boar for itself, an
animal born for parties? But a reckoning is nigh,
when you strip and, within that bloated body, carry an undigested peacock
into the bath-house. That's why sudden death is
common, and old age rare. At once the joyful news
goes dancing around the dinners. The funeral cortege departs
to the cheers of indignant friends. There'll be no scope for
new generations to add to our record of rottenness; they will be
just the same in their deeds and desires. Every evil has reached a
precipice. Up with the sail, then; crowd on every stitch of
canvas. Perhaps you may say 'But, 150
where is the talent fit for
the theme? Where is the frankness of earlier days which
allowed men to write whatever they pleased with burning passion
("Whose name do I not dare mention? What does it matter if
Mucius forgives what I say or not?")? Portray Tigellinus; soon
you will blaze as a living torch, standing with others,
smoking and burning, pinned by the throat, driving a vivid pathway
oflight across the arena.' So take this man who
administered poison to three of his uncles- is he to go by ,looking
down on us all from his aery cushions? 'Yes, when he comes to you,
seal your lips with your finger. 160
Simply to utter the words
"That's him!" will count as informing. Without a qualm you can pit
Aeneas against the ferocious Rutulian; no one is placed
at risk by the wounded Achilles; or Hylas, so long sought
when he'd gone the way of his bucket. Whenever, as though with
sword in hand, the hot Lucilius roars in wrath, the
listener flushes; his mind is affrighted with a sense of sin, and
his conscience sweats with secret guilt. That's what causes anger and
tears. So turn it over in your mind before the
bugle. Too late, when you've donned your helmet, for second thoughts about
combat.' 'I'll try what I may against
those 170 whose ashes are buried
beneath the Flaminia and the Latina.' |