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A. PERSII FLACCI

SATURARUM

LIBER

PROLOGUS.

NEC fonte labra prolui caballino, nec in bicipiti somniasse Parnaso

'My antecedents, I believe, were not poetical: if I appear at the feast of the poets, it is only on sufferance. After all, one can sing without inspiration: at least parrots and magpies do.'

6

The Prologue may be regarded in two aspects, both historical. It may be intended as a remnant of the old practice of writing the Satura in a variety of metres. There is some reason to think that it is actually an imitation of Lucilius, as one of the speakers in Petronius' Satyricon, c. 4, says, apropos of the education of youth, Sed ne me putes improbasse schedium Lucilianae humilitatis, quod sentio et ipse carmine effingam,' and then gives twenty-two verses, the first eight scazons, the rest hexameters. On the other hand, the introduction of a Prologue marks a late stage of poetical composition. To prologuize implies consciousness-the poet reflecting on his workso early poets do not prologuize at all

as Homer: afterwards the exordium becomes personal, and contains a prologue, as would be the case in the Aeneid, if the lines Ille ego were genuine: then the prologue is a separate poem, as here. Lastly, we have a prose introduction, as in Statius' Silvae, Ausonius, and modern writers a more natural method, and in some respects more graceful, as separating off matter which may be extraneous to the poem itself, but leading, on the other hand, to interminable and indeterminate writing, to the substitution of criticism for poetry, precept for practice. Of modern English writers, Wordsworth is in one extreme, Tennyson in the other.

Here the Prologue is, of course, to all the Satires-not, as some have thought, to the first only. He disclaims the honours of poetry, not without sarcasm, and insinuates that much which professes to come from inspiration really has a more

THE SATIRES

OF

A. PERSIUS FLACCUS

PROLOGUE.

I NEVER got my lips well drenched in the hack's spring-nor do I recollect having had a dream on the two-forked Parnassus, so

prosaic source-want of bread or love of money. There seems no notion of satire as a prosaic kind of writing, so that Casaubon and Jahn's references to Horace (I S. 4. 39; 2. 6. 17) are scarcely apposite, except as showing something of the same sort of modesty on the part of both.

1. fons caballinus, a translation of Hippocrene. caballinus sarcastic, like Gorgonei caballi, also of Pegasus (Juv. 3. 118), the term being contemptuous, though its derivatives in modern languages have, as is well known, lost that shade of meaning. [Vectum Pegaseo volucri pendente caballo' Anth. Lat. 388 (Riese).]

labra prolui. Virg. Aen. 1. 739, of Bitias, pleno se proluit auro.' Hor. I S. 5. 16 'prolutus vappa.' The action implies a deep draught, here taken by stooping down to the spring. (Contrast the opposite expression, 'primoribus labris attingere.') 'I never drank those long draughts of Hippocrene, of which others

boast.' Here, as in the next verse, the image is doubtless borrowed from the Exordium of Ennius' Annals, as we may infer from Prop. 4. 3. 6 'Parvaque tam magnis admoram fontibus ora Unde pater sitiens Ennius ante bibit.' Persius may have had his eye on two other passages of the same Elegy. See v. 2 Bellerophontei qua fluit humor equi,' and v. 52 Ora Philetea nostra rigavit aqua,' and perhaps also on Hor. I Ep. 3. 10 'Pindarici fontis qui non expalluit haustus. Fastidire lacus et rivos ausus apertos.' [Iuvat integros accedere fontes, Atque haurire' Lucr. 4. 2.]

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2. biceps, diλopos, a perpetual epithet of Parnassus. The mountain has not really two tops, but as the Castalian spring rises from between two ridges, it is said to have them (Urlichs and Millingen, referred to by Jahn). Propertius, 1. c., represents himself as lying down to sleep under the shadow of Helicon. The source of both passages is again Ennius' account

memini, ut repente sic poeta prodirem.
Heliconiadasque pallidamque Pirenen
illis remitto, quorum imagines lambunt
hederae sequaces: ipse semipaganus
ad sacra vatum carmen adfero nostrum.
quis expedivit psittaco suum chaere
picamque docuit nostra verba conari?
magister artis ingenique largitor
venter, negatas artifex sequi voces;
quod si dolosi spes refulgeat nummi,

3. Memini me ut.

4. Aeliconiadasqu: pyrenen.
12. refulserit.

of himself, preserved to us by Cic. Acad. pr. 2. 16. 51, to the effect that he had gone to sleep on Parnassus, seen Homer in a dream, and heard that it was Homer's spirit which was then animating himself. Compare S. 6. 10, where Ennius'somnia Pythagorea' are again ridiculed.

2. nec.. memini is a sneer at Ennius' own words (Ann. 15, Vahlen), 'memini me fiere pavum,' said of Homer (Tert. de An. 33 foll., note on 6. 10). So Ov. M. 15. 160 Ipse ego (nam memini).. Euphorbus eram.'

3. memini, humorous; never that I can remember;' implying that Ennius must have had a good memory.

ut repente, so as to come before the world all at once as a poet.'

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prodirem, 'to come forth from this preparatory process,' which is also expressed by 'sic,' on the strength of this' (not like 'sic temere,' as Casaubon and Jahn). A ready made poet by the immediate agency of the gods.' _Possibly Persius was thinking of Hor. I Ep. 19. 7 Ennius ipse pater nunquam nisi potus ad arma Prosiluit dicenda,' which might also warrant a conjecture that Ennius himself used some similar phrase.

prodirem poeta, 'prodis e iudice turpis Dama' Hor. 2 S. 7. 54.

Heliconiadas better supported by MSS. than Heliconidas.' Lucr. 3. 1037 'Adde Heliconiadum comites.' The reference is perhaps to the opening of Hesiod's Theogony (Μουσάων Ελικωνιάδων ἀρχώμεθ ̓ ἀείδειν), where Hesiod

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relates how the Muses made him a poet. The form Heliconis' is however found in Stat. Silv. 4. 4. 90, and MSS. are so untrustworthy in the matter of proper names that the point may be doubtful. At any rate it is not worth while to scan Heliconiadas' here by synizesis, as Jahn (1843) wished, following Schneider, as proper names have a metrical licence even in tragic iambics. ['Heliconidas' Jahn 1868.]

pallidam, as causing studious paleness. 'pallentis grana cumini' 5. 55; perhaps with some reference to Horace's expalluit haustus,' quoted on v. I.

Pirene, mentioned from its connection with Pegasus, who was said to have been broken in there. Statius (Theb. 4. 60) follows or coins a story that it was produced, like Hippocrene, by a stroke of Pegasus' hoof.

5. To the poets, whose ivy-crowned busts adorn our public libraries.' Hor. I S. 4. 21. For the ivy, see Hor. I Od. 1. 29. Juvenal apparently imitates this passage (7. 29) 'ut dignus venias hederis et imagine macra.'

No sneer seems to be intended in lambunt or sequaces, which are simply poetical. [Relinquo' Jahn (1843): but 'remitto,' which he has since adopted, has better authority.]

6. semipaganus is rightly explained by Jahn after Rigalt with reference to the Paganalia, a festival celebrated by members of the same pagus. Dion. Hal. 4. 15; Sicul. Flacc. de Cond. Agr. p. 25. [See Preller, Römische Mythologie, p. 404.] This has more spirit than the

as to burst upon the world at once as a full-blown poet. The daughters of Helicon and that cadaverous Pirene I leave to the gentlemen whose busts are caressed by the climbing ivy-as for me, it is but as a poor half-brother of the guild that I bring my verses to the festival of the worshipful poets' company. Who was it made the parrot so glib with its 'Good morning,' and taught magpies to attempt the feat of talking like men? That great teacher of art and bestower of mother-wit the stomach, which has a knack of getting at speech when nature refuses it. Only let a bright glimpse of flattering money dawn on their horizon, and you

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8. Persius does not say that he writes for bread, which would have been too obviously untrue, as he was a wealthy man, but hints it in order to ridicule his contemporaries by affecting to classify himself with them.

expedivit, 'made easy.' Comp.

our use of impediment.

·

suum not foreign (Jahn), as the parrot did not come from Greece, but simply its own '-' that cry which it is now so ready with.' So there is no opposition between xaîpe and ' nostra verba,' as if the magpie were intended to talk Latin as distinguished from Greek. The parrot talks Greek as the fashionable language for small talk, as now a days he might talk French, while nostra verba means human speech. The antithesis is merely one of those which a man might use almost without intending it, between language viewed as belonging to its original owner and as afterwards appropriated -just as the parrot speaks' expedite,' while the magpie conatur,' though it is not meant that the former succeeds more perfectly than the latter. For the practice of keeping parrots and magpies in great houses, see Martial, referred to below. After v. 8 a few MSS. have a line, 'Corvos quis olim concavum salutare?' where concavum' would doubtless refer to the sound, though one MS. gives 'Caesarem,' as in the first passage of Martial.

chaere (xaîpe). Mart. 14. 73. 2 'Caesar ave;' hence the pie is said 'salutare,' ib. 76. 1.

10. Jahn refers to Theocr. 21.

I

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ingeni largitor. Plautius and Casaubon quote Manil. 1. 78 Et labor ingenium miseris dedit.' Jahn refers to Cicero's account of 'ingenium,' Fin. 5. 13. 36 Prioris generis (virtutum quae ingenerantur suapte natura) est docilitas, memoria, quae fere omnia appellantur uno ingeni nomine.' 'Ingeni largitor,' then, is a kind of oxymoron.

II. venter as in Hom. Od. 17. 286 foll. γαστέρα δ ̓ οὔπως ἔστιν ἀποκρύψαι μεμαυίαν.

negatas.. voces. Casaubon quotes Manil. 5. 378 Quinetiam linguas hominum sensusque docebit Aerias volucres Verbaque praecipiet naturae lege

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12. dolosi, a general epithet of money, though with a special application here'beguiling them to the effort.' It might be almost said to refer to 'spes' as well as to 'nummi,'

refulgeat, 'flash on the sight.' Virg. Aen. 1. 402, 588; 6. 204. 'Refulsit certa spes liberorum parentibus' Vell. 2. 103 (Freund), 'non tibi divitiae velut maximum generis humani bonum refulserunt' Sen. Cons. ad Helv. 16. (Jahn.)

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