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Spirantesque crocos, et in urnâ perpetuum ver,
Qui præceptorem sancti voluere parentis.

Esse loco.

Metuens virgæ jam grandis Achilles

Cantabat patriis in montibus: et cui non tunc
Eliceret risum citharœdi cauda magistri ?

Sed Ruffum, atque alios cædit sua quæque juventus :
Ruffum, qui toties Ciceronem Allobroga dixit.
Quis gremio Enceladi, doctique Palamonis affert
Quantum grammaticus meruit labor? et tamen ex hoc,
Quodcunque est, (minus est autem, quam rhetoris æra,)
Discipuli custos præmordet Acœnitus ipse,

Et qui dispensat, frangit sibi. Cede, Palamon,

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Et patere inde aliquid decrescere, non aliter, quam
Institor hybernæ tegetis, niveique cadurci :

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their good wishes for the dead, in the manner here mentioned, that the earth might lie light upon them. So MARTIAL:

Sit tibi terra levis, mollique tegaris arenâ.

208. Breathing crocuses.] Breathing forth sweets.-Crocus, lit. saffron; also the yellow chives in the midst of flowers.

a crocus blows early in the spring.

What we call

Perpetual spring, &c.] May flowers be perpetually growing and blooming, as in the spring of the year. They were fond of depositing the urns of their deceased friends among banks of flowers. 209. Who would have a preceptor, &c.] Who venerated their masters and teachers as if they were their parents; and esteemed them, as standing in the place of parents.

210. Achilles, &c.] The famous son of Thetis, when almost a man, was in great awe of his tutor Chiron the Centaur.

211. Sang.] Practised lessons in vocal and instrumental music under his tutor.

In his paternal mountains.] The mountains of Thessaly, from whence came Peleus the father of Achilles.

212. Would not the tail, &c.] The upper part of Chiron was like a man, the lower like an horse. His figure must be ridiculous enough, with a man's head and with an horse's tail, and would have been laughed at by most people; but Achilles had too much reverence for his master, to make a joke of his figure, as more modern scholars would have done. Harper his master.] Chiron is said to have taught music, as well as medicine and astronomy.

213. But Ruffus, &c.] Now, so far from the masters receiving veneration from their scholars, it is a common practice for the scholar to beat the master, as had been the case of Ruffus and others. So PLAUTUS, Bacch. iii. 3. 37. Puer septuennis pædagogo tabula dirumpit caput.

214. Ruffus, &c.] This Ruffus charged Cicero with writing barbarous Latin, like an Allobrogian, or Savoyard. Even this great grammarian could not obtain respect from his scholars.

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And breathing crocuses, and perpetual spring upon their urn,

Who would have a preceptor to be in the place of a sacred
Parent.. Achilles, now grown up, fearing the rod,
Sang in his paternal mountains; and from whom then

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Would not the tail of the harper his master have drawn forth laughter?
But Ruffus, and others, each of their own young men strike,
Ruffus, who so often called Cicero an Allobrogian.

Who brings to the lap of Enceladus, or of the learned Palamon, 215
As much as grammatical labour has deserved? and yet from this,
Whatever it be, (but it is less than the money of the rhetorician,)
Acœnitus himself, the keeper of the scholar, snips,

And he who manages, breaks off some for himself. Yield, Palemon, And suffer something to decrease from thence, not otherwise than 220 A dealer in winter-rug, and white blanket.

215. Who brings, &c.] Who pays Enceladus a reward equal to his labours? He was a famous grammarian. Gremio here denotes a loose cavity, or hollow, formed by the doubling of the robe or garment. q. d. A lap, into which things were put. Gr. zoos.Comp. Luke vi. 38.

The learned Palemon.] Rhemnius Palæmon, a very learned and distinguished grammarian, but who was so conceited, as to say, that learning would live and die with him. See SUET. de Gramm. 23. See sat. vi. 1. 451.

217. Whatever it be, &c.] After all, small as the pay of a grammarian may be, (which at the most is even smaller than that of a rhetorician,) there are sad defalcations from it.

218. Acanitus-the keeper, &c.] This Acœnitus is a feigned name for some pedagogue, (Gr. Tas, a boy, and ayw, to lead,) who was a sort of servant, that followed his young master, took care of his behaviour, and particularly attended him to his exercise, and to school.

He is properly called, here, discipuli custos. He insisted on having part of the poor grammarian's pay, as a perquisite. The word præmordet is here peculiarly happy, and intimates that the pedagogue,, who, perhaps, carried the pay, took a part of it before he delivered it to the master: like a person who is to give a piece of bread to another, and bites a piece off first for himself.

219. He who manages, &c.] Qui dispensat, i. e. dispensator, the steward, or housekeeper; either that belonging to the grammarian, into whose hands the money is paid, retains some part of it for his wages, or the steward of the gentleman who pays it, retains a part of it by way of poundage, or perquisite, to himself. Frangit.metaph. from breaking something that was entire.

Yield Palamon, &c.] Submit to these abatements, and be glad to have something, though less than your due, as it fares with tradesmen who are willing to abate something in their price, rather than not sell their goods. See AINSW. Institor.

Dummodo non pereat, mediæ quod noctis ab horâ
Selisti, quâ nemo faber, quâ nemo sederet,
Qui docet obliquo lanam deducere ferro :
Dummodo non pereat totidem olfecisse lucernas,
Quot stabant pueri, cum totus decolor esset
Flaccus, et hæreret nigro fuligo Maroni.
Rara tamen merces, quæ cognitione Tribuni
Non egeat. Sed vos savas imponite leges,
Ut præceptori verborum regula constet,
Ut legat historias, auctores noverit omnes,
Tanquam ungues digitosque suos; ut forte rogatus
Dum petit aut thermas, aut Phoebi balnea, dicat
Nutricem Anchise, nomen, patriamque noverca
Archemori: dicat quot Acestes vixerit annos,
Quot Siculus Phrygibus vini donaverit urnas.
Exigite, ut mores teneros ceu pollice ducat,
Ut si quis cerâ vultum facit: exigite, ut sit

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222. Let it not be lost, c.] Only take care to have something for your trouble; let not all your pains, which you have taken, be thrown away, in rising at midnight to teach your boys-a fatigue that no common mechanic would undergo.

224. To draw out wool, &c.] To comb wool, which they did, as we find by this passage, with a card having crooked teeth made of iron-like those now in use.

225. To have smelt, &c.] Let it not be for nothing that you have been half poisoned with the stink of as many lamps as you have boys standing round you to say their lessons before it is light, and therefore are each of them with a lamp in his hand to read by.

226-7. Horace all discolour'd.] With the oil of the lamps, which the boys, through carelessness, let drop on their books.

227. Black Virgil.] Made black with the smoke of the lamps, which the boys held close to their books, when they were reading and construing their lessons.

228. Yet pay is rare, which, &c.] Though little is left of the pay to the grammarian, after all the deductions above mentioned, yet it is very rare that they get any thing at all, unless they go to law for it. The tribune here means the judge who tried civil causes.

229. But impose ye, &c.] Though the poor grammarian labours under all these difficulties, be sure, you that send your sons to them, to impose all the task upon them that ye can: make no abatement in his qualifications: expect that he knows every rule of grammar.

231. Read histories, &c.] That he should be a good historian: that he should know all authors at his fingers' ends-ad unguem-as the saying is.

233. The hot baths.] There were therma, hot baths, in Rome, as well as cold baths, balnea: to the former they went to sweat, in the other they washed. Now this poor grammarian was expected

Only let it not be lost, that from the midnight hour

You have sat, in which no smith, in which nobody would sit,
Who teaches to draw out wool with the crooked iron:

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Only let it not be lost to have smelt as many lamps
As boys were standing, when all discolour'd was
Horace, and soot stuck to black Virgil.

Yet 'pay is rare which

may not want the cognizance Of the Tribune.-But impose ye cruel laws,

That the rule of words should be clear to the preceptor:

That he should read histories, should know all authors

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As well as his own nails and fingers; that by chance, being ask’d While he is going to the hot baths, or the baths of Phœbus, he

should tell

The nurse of Anchises, the name and country of the step-mother Of Archemorus: should tell how many years Acestes lived: How many urns of wine the Sicilian presented to the Phrygians. Require, that he should form the tender manners as with his thumb, As if one makes a face with wax: require, that he should be

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to be ready to answer any questions which were asked him, by people whom he met with, when he went either to the one or the other.

233. Phabus.] The name of some bath-keeper.

234. The nurse of Anchises.] The poet here, perhaps, means to ridicule the absurd curiosity of Tiberius, who used to be often teasing the grammarians with silly and unedifying questions; as, Who was Hecuba's mother? What was the name of Achilles when dressed in woman's clothes? What the Sirens sung ?-and the like. See Suet. in TIBERIO, cap. lxx.

Such foolish questions might be asked the grammarian, when he met with people at the baths; and he was bound to answer them, under peril of being accounted an ignoramus.

Caieta, the nurse of Æneas, is mentioned, Æn. vii. 1, 2; but there is no mention of the nurse of Anchises: perhaps Juvenal means to ri. dicule the ignorance of the querist, as mistaking Anchises for Encas.

234-5. Of the step-mother of Archemorus.] For Anchemolus, (see Em x. 1. 389.) who seems here meant ; but perhaps the querist may be supposed to call it Archemorus.

235. Acestes.] Æn. i. 199; and Æn. v. 73.

236. The Sicilian.] Meaning Acestes, who was king of Sicily, of his giving wine to the Trojans. See Æn. i. 199, 200.

237. Require.] Exigite, exact-that, beside his teaching your children, (and, in order to that, he be perfectly learned,) he also should watch over their morals, and form them with as much nicety, care and exactness, as if he were moulding a face in wax with his fingers, Ducat --metaph. taken from statuaries. Comp. VIRG. Æn. vi. 1. 848.

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Et pater ipsius cœtûs, ne turpia ludant,
Ne faciant vicibus. Non est leve tot puerorum
Observare manus, oculosque in fine trementes.
Hæc, inquit, cures; sed cum se verterit annus,
Accipe, victori populus quod postulat, aurum.

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239. A father of his flock.] Require also, that he should be as anxious, and as careful of his scholars, as if he were their father.

Lest they should play, &c.] Lest they should fall into lewd and bad practices among themselves. This is the substance of this, and the two following lines, which had better, as some other passages in Juvenal, be paraphrased than translated.

242. When the year, &c.] When the year comes round-at the end of the year.

243. Accept a piece of gold.] Aurum.-The Roman aureus (according to Ainsw. Val. and Proportion of Roman coins) was about 11. 9d. of our money :-but, whatever the precise value of the aurum mentioned here might be, the poet evidently means to say that the grammarian does not get more for a whole year's labour in teaching, and watching over a boy's morals, than a victorious fencer, or swordplayer, gets by a single battle won upon the stage-viz. about 47. (or rather about 51. of our money, which Marshal, after Vet. Schol. says, was the stated sum, and which was not to be exceeded.

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