omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico

tangit et admissus circum praecordia ludit, callidus excusso populum suspendere naso: men muttire nefas? nec clam, nec cum scrobe?'

'Hic tamen infodiam. vidi, vidi ipse, libelle: auriculas asini quis non habet? hoc ego opertum, hoc ridere meum, tam nil, nulla tibi vendo Iliade. Audaci quicumque adflate Cratino iratum Eupolidem praegrandi cum sene palles,

119. mutire, t post t superscr. 123. afflante.

May it not be done

rogue, manages to probe every fault while making his friend laugh; he gains his entrance, and plays about the innermost feelings, with a sly talent for tossing up his nose and catching the public on it. And is it sacrilege for me to mutter a word? in confidence between myself and a ditch?' F. In no place or circumstance whatever. P. 'Well, I will dig a hole and bury it here. dear book, I have seen it with my own eyes. has not the ears of an ass? This dead and buried secret, this joke of mine, trumpery as it seems, I am not going to sell you for any of your Iliads.

I have seen it, my

Who is there that

'To all who draw their inspiration from the bold blasts of Cratinus, and owe their paleness to the indignant Eupolis and the

says that Persius left Mida rex,' but Cornutus, in revising the work for posthumous publication, thought it better to suppress so obvious a reflection on Nero, and altered it into 'quis non.' Quis non,' however, is clearly required by the satire as we now have it, the fact that everybody has ass's ears being the secret with which Persius has been labouring ever since v. 8; and the whole tone of the preceding part of the poem makes it much more likely that the sarcasm, as intended, should be universal than particular.

'Operta recludit' Hor. 1 Ep. 5. 16.

122. hoc ridere meum, v. 9 note. tam nil. Usque adeo nihil est?' Juv. 3. 84.

vendo is not only I sell,' but 'I offer for sale,' (venum do) 'quoniam vendat, velle quem optime vendere' Cic. 3 Off. 12.

123. Iliade, v. 50, note on v. 4.

123-134. Persius concludes. 'Let my readers be the few that can relish the old comedy of Greece, not the idle loungers and senseless buffoons of the day-they may kill time in a more congenial manner.'

123. An answer to 'Quis leget haec,' V. 2. He has already disclaimed the reading public which his friend values; and now, after repeating that he values his own joke, slight as it is, infinitely higher than Labeo's Homer, which he foresaw from the first would be his rival, he sketches the reader whom he really wishes to attract. Thus the end of the poem corresponds to the beginning. It is evidently modelled on the latter part

D

of Hor. I S. 10. Horace intends his words to apply to the whole book of which they form a conclusion: whether Persius means his to apply merely to this Satire, or to the whole book, is not clear: probably the latter, if we suppose the Satire to be introductory-designed to clear the ground by sweeping away the popular trash of the time before he asks attention for his Own more manly strains. The appeal to the old comedians as his masters is from Hor. I S. 4. I foll.

audaci, 'bold-spoken.' Jahn refers to Platon. de Com. p. 27 où yàp wσπeр ὁ ̓Αριστοφάνης ἐπιτρέχειν τὴν χάριν τοῖς σκώμμασι ποιεῖ.. ἀλλ ̓ ἁπλῶς καὶ κατὰ τὴν παροιμίαν γυμνῇ κεφαλῇ τίθησι τὰς βλασφημίας κατὰ τῶν ἁμαρτανόντων, and to Anon. de Com. p. 29 yéyove dè ποιητικώτατος κατασκευάζων εἰς τὸν Αἰσχύλου χαρακτῆρα.

adflate, like adflata numine' Virg. Aen. 6. 50. Jahn. Possibly also with a reference to the Epigram on Cratinus, Ταῦτ ̓ ἔλεγεν, Διόνυσε, καὶ ἔπνεεν, οὐχ ἑνὸς ἀσκοῦ Κρατίνος, ἀλλὰ παντὸς ἀδωδὼς Tilov Anthol. Pal. 2. p. 543. [Nicaenetus 4. 3, Jacobs I. p. 206.] 'Adflate' voc. for nom. like 'millesime, trabeate' 3. 28, 9. 'Quibus Hector ab oris Expectate venis?' Virg. Aen. 2. 282.

124. iratum. Jahn quotes Anon. de Com. 1. c. ζηλῶν Κρατῖνον πολύ γε λοίδορον ἐπιφαίνει. Persius expressly wishes to imitate the old poets in their licence of invective.

praegrandi cum sene, as Jahn remarks, must refer to Aristophanes, who is called 'praegrandis' in respect of his

aspice et haec, si forte aliquid decoctius audis.
inde vaporata lector mihi ferveat aure:

non hic, qui in crepidas Graiorum ludere gestit
sordidus, et lusco qui possit dicere 'lusce,'
sese aliquem credens, Italo quod honore supinus
fregerit eminas Arreti aedilis iniquas;

nec qui abaco numeros et secto in pulvere metas
scit risisse vafer, multum gaudere paratus,

si cynico barbam petulans nonaria vellat.

his mane edictum, post prandia Calliroen do.'

129. sopinus.

genius, as Cic. Brut. 83 287 calls Thucy-
dides grandis,'' senex' in respect of his
antiquity as one of the ancients, as Horace
calls Lucilius, who died at forty-four,
'senex' (2 S. I. 34).
Heinr. (who
thinks Lucilius himself is meant) com-
pares Hor. 2 Ep. 1. 55 Aufert Pacuvius
docti famam senis, Attius alti.'

palles. The paleness which Persius attacks (v. 26) is that of debauchery and dilettante study; but he is ready to sympathize with the paleness of the genuine student, 3. 85., 5. 62. Possibly some connexion may be intended here, as in v. 26, between 'pallor' and 'senium'the student poring so long over the ancients that he catches their colour. At any rate Eupolidem pallere' is to be explained as a cogn. acc., like 'sapimus patruos' (v. II) 'pallere pallorem Eupolideum.' Multos pallere colores' Prop. 1. 15. 39. 'Sabbata palles' (5. 184) is a different construction.

6

=

་

131. insecto puluere.

125

130

127. Not the low wit that laughs at national peculiarities and personal infirmities.' Compare the English footman in Dr. Moore's Zeluco, quoted by Macaulay, Essay on Johnson.' Jealousy was felt of the Greek dress, the 'pallium' and 'crepidae,' as likely to encroach on the Roman, the toga' and 'calcei;' and one of the things which tended to bring Tiberius into contempt during his early residence at Rhodes was his adoption of this costume (Suet. Tib. 13, referred to by König). It would be unpopular too as associated with the professors of philosophy.

ludere in, a very rare construction. 'Who loves to have his joke at.' Heinr. remarks of this and the following lines, 'Schilderung der damaligen Römischen Philisterwelt.'

128. sordidus. Frequently in Cicero applied to a person in the sense of base or mean-opposed to generosity or liberality of mind. Jahn makes the opposition between the refinement of the elegant Greek and the vulgarity of the low Roman - the eternal feud between good clothes and bad.

possit after 'gestit,' like 'deceat' (3. 71) in the middle of a number of indicatives. Here the force may be. Who would be able on occasion,' etc. 'He knows that the man has only one eye, and can tell him so.' Jerome (c. Jovin. 2. t. 4. 2. p. 214) says, ‘Quid prodest luscum vocare luscum?' Schrevelius quotes Arist. Eth. 3. 5 Toîs did φύσιν αἰσχροῖς οὐδεὶς ἐπιτιμᾷ.

third of those ancient giants, I say, Cast a look here too, if you have an ear for something which has lost its first froth. Let my reader come with the glow of their strains still in his ears. I don't want the gentleman who loves to have his low fling at the slippers of the Greeks, and is equal to calling a one-eyed man Old One-eye, thinking himself somebody forsooth, because once, stuck up with provincial dignity, he has broken short half-pint measures officially at Arretium; nor the man who has the wit to laugh at the figures on the slab and the cones drawn in sand, ready to go off in ecstacies if a woman pulls a Cynic by the beard. To these I allow the play-bill for their morning's reading and after luncheon Calliroe.'

129. aliquem, an expression common in Greek and Latin. Theocr. 11. 79 (Jahn), Acts 5. 36, Juv. 1. 74, Cic. ad Att. 13. 15. 8, opposed to ovdeís or 6 nullus.'

Italo, provincial, opposed not to Greek, but to Roman, to the magistracies ('honores') of the metropolis.

=

supinus here 'superbus,' only more graphic, 'head in air.' · Haec et talia dum refert supinus' Mart. 5. 8. 10.

130. Imitated by Juv. 10. 10I 'Quam de mensura ius dicere, vasa minora Frangere pannosus vacuis aedilis Ulubris,' where see Mayor's notes. The same duty devolved on the aediles at Rome. In the municipia' the aediles ranked among the chief magistrates, 'sufficiunt tunicae summis aedilibus albae' Juv. 3. 179. Horace (1 S. 5. 34 foll.) laughs at the provincial importance of the praetor of Fundi. emina, half a sextarius, both dry and liquid measure.

131. Nor the man who laughs at philosophy simply because he cannot understand it.' The abacus' was a slab of marble or some other material used by mathematicians, and covered with sand for the purpose of drawing figures and making calculations. Jahn. Heinr. quotes Apul. Apol. p. 284 ‘si non modo campo et glebis, verum etiam abaco et pulvisculo te dedisses.' Others, like Casaubon, separate the abacus' from the 'pulvis,' making the former an arithmetical counting-board-the latter the sand on the ground on which geometers described their diagrams, as Archimedes, called by Cic. Tusc. 5. 23 homunculus a pulvere et radio' (König), was doing at the time of his murder. Cicero (N. D. 2. 18)

SATURA II.

HUNC, Macrine, diem numera meliore lapillo, qui tibi labentis apponit candidus annos. funde merum genio. non tu prece poscis emaci, quae nisi seductis nequeas committere divis; at bona pars procerum tacita libabit acerra.