PART OF

JUVENAL'S SIXTH SATIRE

MODERNISED IN

BURLESQUE VERSE

JUVENALIS SATYRA SEXTA

1

CREDO pudicitiam Saturno rege 1 moratam
In terris, visamque diu; cum frigida parvas
Præberet spelunca domos, ignemque, Laremque,
Et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra:
Silvestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor
Frondibus et culmo, vicinarumque 2 ferarum

Aureo scilicet sæculo; quod viguisse Saturno, Cœli et Vestæ filio, in Latio regnante a poetis fingitur. Regem hunc eleganter satis poeta profert, cum de moribus in Latio muatis agitur.

2 Contubernalium. Vel forsan non longe petitarum sicut nunc; et exprobrare vult sui temporis Romanis, qui ex longinquo, mollitiei vel odoris causa, ferarum pelles maximo cum pretio comparabant.

PART OF

JUVENAL'S SIXTH SATIRE

MODERNISED IN

BURLESQUE VERSE

DAME Chastity, without dispute,

Dwelt on the earth with good King Brute;
When a cold hut of modern Greenland
Had been a palace for a Queen Anne;
When hard and frugal temp'rance reign'd,
And men no other house contain'd
Than the wild thicket, or the den;

When household goods, and beasts, and men,
Together lay beneath one bough,

Which man and wife would scarce do now;
The rustic wife her husband's bed

With leaves and straw, and beast-skin made.

1

The Roman poet mentions Saturn, who was the first King of Italy; we have therefore rendered Brute the oldest to be found in our Chronicles, and whose history is as fabulous as that of his Italian brother.

1

Pellibus, haud similis tibi,' Cynthia, nec tibi, cujus
Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos;
Sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis,2
Et sæpe horridior glandem ructante marito.
Quippe aliter tunc orbe novo, coloque recenti
Vivebant homines; qui rupto robore nati,
Compositique luto nullos habuere parentes,
Multa pudicitiæ veteris vestigia forsan,

1 Cynthia propertii, Lesbia Catulli amica. Quarum quidem hanc ineptam, illam delicatulam fuisse innuit noster.

2 Grangæum quendam hic refutat Lubinus. Qui per magnos, adultæ vel saltem provectioris Etatis pueros, intelligit. Ego tamen cum Grangao sentio. Nam delicatulis et nobilissimis matronis consuetudinem pueros a matris mammis arcendi objicere vult poeta, ob quam Romanas mulieres, Juvenalis temporibus, sicut et nostræ, infames et reprehensione dignas fuisse ne minimum quidem dubito.

Rupto robore nati. Sic Virgilius.

Gensque virum truncis, et rupto robore nati.

Hanc fabulam ex eo natam fuisse volunt, quod habitantes in arborum cavitibus exinde egredi solebant. Ridicula sane conjectura, et quæ criticulorum homunculorum hallucinantem geniunculum satis exprimit. Hæc fabula et aliæ quæ de hominis origine extiterunt, ab uno et eodem fonte effluxisse videntur, ab ignorantia scilicet humana cum vanitate conjuncta. Homines enim cum sui generis originem prorsus ignorarent, et hanc ignorantiam sibi probro verterent, causas varias genitivas, ad suam cujusque regionem accommodatas invenerunt et tradiderunt; alii ab arboribus, alii a luto, alii a lapidibus orignem suam ducentes.

2

Not like Miss Cynthia,1 nor that other,
Who more bewail'd her bird than mother;
But fed her children from her bubbies,
Till they were grown up to great loobies:
Herself an ornament lest decent
Than spouse, who smell'd of acorn recent.
For, in the infancy of nature,

Man was a diff'rent sort of creature;
When dirt-engendered offspring broke

3

From the ripe womb of mother oak.

Ev'n in the reign of Jove, perhaps,

This is the first satirical stroke, in which the poet inveighs against an over affectation of delicacy and tenderness in women.

'Here the poet slyly objects to the custom of denying the mother's breast to the infant; there are among us truly conscientious persons, who agree with his opinion.

'We have here varied a little from the original, and put the two causes of generation together.

PLAYS V-20