Speak how your tickling rhymes, like amorous spells, "Oh, spare my blushes! oh, in mercy spare!" "Wit's a wild fig-tree that takes root in vain, Is knowledge nothing-worth, 'till others know it? 40 50 Intrant, et tremulo scalpuntur ubi intima versu. ¶ Quo didicisse, nisi hoc fermentum, et quæ semel intus Innata est, rupto jecore exierit caprificus?" En pallor seniumque! O mores! usque adeone ¶ At pulchrum est digito monstrari, et dicier, Hie est ! Ten' cirratorum centum dictata fuisse 25 "See, on soft couches Rome's great sons reclined, "When to the feast the rich repast of mind "Succeeds, and Bacchus crowns the sparkling bowl, "Call for the songs divine that lift the soul." Then starts up one, around whose shoulders thrown Trails on the floor an Hyacinthine gown, And pours, with whining tone and snuffling nose, Hypsipyle's or Phyllis' love-lorn woes, Or some such tale by whimpering poets sung, Shall not, the turf lie lighter on his breast? "Nay, but you trespass now on common sense, "And merry-make, methinks, at truth's expense," 60 70 Pro nihilo pendas? Ecce, inter pocula quærunt 30 Romulidæ saturi, quid dia poëmata narrent. Hic aliquis, cui circum hunieros hyacinthina læna est, Rancidulum quiddam balba de nare locutus, Phyllidas, Hypsipylas, vatum et plorabile si quid, Eliquat, et tenero supplantat verba palato. 35 Assensere viri :-Nunc non cinis ille poëtæ Nascentur violæ ? ¶ Rides (ait) et nimis uncis 40 The modern poet's advocate replies: "For is there that man breathing, who denies rage Know, brother disputant! (whoe'er thou art 80 90 Naribus indulges. An erit qui velle recuset Linquere nec scombros metuentia carmina nec thus ? ¶ Quisquis es, o modo quem ex adverso dicere feci! Non ego, cum scribo, si forte quid aptius exit- 45 50 mother and sisters about 2000 sestertia. In a codicil, however, he requested the former to give to Cornutus 190 sestertia, or (as others report) twenty-pound weight of silver-plate, together with his whole library, consisting of about seven hundred books. The philosopher accepted the books, but gave up the money to the sisters * of Persius whom he had left his heirs. He composed seldom and slowly. This very book he left behind him unfinished; for a few verses have been taken away at the end of the work, that it might appear complete so far as it goes t. Cornutus made some slight corrections, and, upon being requested by Casius Bassus to publish it, he consigned it, for that purpose, to Bassus himself. Persius had written in his youth a poem entitled the Prætexta, another entitled ‘Odoñopixa, and a copy of verses on the mother-in-law ‡ of Thrasea, * Sororibus; and yet a little above, it is said, sororem and sorori. I have translated it sisters, in all these places. It is rather surprising that Casaubon has taken no notice of this inconsistency. + I read with Reizius, ut quasi finitus esset. Casaubon has corrected sororem, which is the common reading, into socrum, which is absolutely necessary to make sense of the passage. The subject of Persius's verses was the famous Arria, the wife of Pœtus Cæcina, who, joining the party of Scribonianus against Claudius, was apprehended, and brought to Rome to suffer punishment. But his wife, determined to act a Roman's part,' stabbed herself in his presence, and, pulling out the sword from her bosom, presented it to her husband with these spirited words: Pœte, non dolet. The story is told by Pliny, B. III. Ep. 16, with some other anecdotes of this extraordinary woman. See also Martial, B.I. Epig. 14, and Murphy on the Life of Agricola, Sect. II. Note (a). the mother of Arria, who had stabbed herself in the presence of her husband. But Cornutus advised the poet's mother to suppress them all. His book of Satires was no sooner made public, than it began to be much admired, and eagerly sought after. He died of a distemper in the stomach, in the twenty-eighth † year of his age. Soon after he had left school and public tuition, happening to peruse the 10th Book of Lucilius, he was stimulated to the composition of Satires, and entered on the task with great ardor, chusing the commencement of that very book as his model for imitation. Beginning with himself first ‡, he next proceeded to cry down all others, with such vehemence of invective against the poets and orators of his time, that he spared not even Nero. For a verse of his, which at first stood thus; *Diripere is a very strong and expressive term. See Martial vii. 75. + The original is, anno ætatis xxx. But this is clearly an error, arising perhaps from taking into the account the year in which he was born, as well as that in which he died. In the Life of Horace usually prefixed to his Works is a similar error, and apparently derived from the same cause. This Life of Horace is ascribed to Suetonius by the old Commentator Porphyrio, and I have been sometimes inclined to look upon this coincidence in error as a slight argument that the Life of Persius, if it be the work of any single hand, is to be assigned to the same Biographer. It certainly is composed just in his dry gazette-like style. Alluding to the Prologue in which he disclaims all poetical inspiration. |