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SATURA V.

'VATIBUS hic mos est, centum sibi poscere voces,
centum ora et linguas optare in carmina centum,
fabula seu maesto ponatur hianda tragoedo,
vulnera seu Parthi ducentis ab inguine ferrum.'’
'Quorsum haec? aut quantas robusti carminis offas
ingeris, ut par sit centeno gutture niti?

To Cornutus.

4. educentis.

The poet acknowledges bis obligations to his old tutor, and descants on the Stoic doctrine of moral freedom, proving that all the world are slaves, as Stertinius in Hor. 2 S. 3, proves to Damasippus that all the world are madmen. The subject is the same as that of Hor. 2 S. 7, the dialogue between Horace and Davus, and the treatment not unlike. Jahn has summed up the few particulars known about Cornutus, Prolegomena, pp. 8-27. L. Annaeus Cornutus was born at Lepta, flourished at Rome under Nero as a tragic poet, like Seneca, a grammarian (author of a commentary on Virgil, some fragments of which are preserved by Servius, and of a treatise, De Figuris Sententiarum) and a Stoic philosopher (author of a work against Athenodorus and Aristotle, and of another on the Theology of the Greeks, which still exists as a meagre epitome). The name Annaeus renders it probable that he was a freedman of that family, especially as Lucan is known to have been one of his pupils. He was banished by Nero, under the following circumstances. The emperor had a plan

5. rubusti.

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of writing the history of Rome, in verse, from Romulus downwards, and consulted Cornutus, among others, about the number of books of which the poem ought to consist. Some of his flatterers suggested 400. Cornutus replied that it would be too many for any one to read. It was retorted, But your great philosopher, Chrysippus, wrote many more.' True,' said Cornutus, but they do some good to mankind. Nero, enraged, first thought of putting him to death, but eventually banished him to an island.

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SATIRE V.

Persius. It is a standing rule with poets to put in a requisition for a hundred voices, to bespeak a hundred mouths and a hundred tongues for the purposes of song, whether the work before them be a play to be mouthed by some dolorous tragedian, or the wounds of the Parthian dragging the dart from his groin.'

Cornutus. 'What do you want with things like this? What are these lumps of solid poetry that you have to cram, big enough to justify the strain of a hundred-throat power? Let those who mean

trees and their cultivation, Aen. 6. 625, of crimes and their punishment in Tar

tarus.

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3. Whether the subject proposed be.'

ponatur, not as in I. 70 (which Jahn compares), to set up a thing as complete, but to set before one as a thing to be done. See Freund s. v. and compare eîval, θέσις.

hianda. Prop. 3. 23. 6 Visus.. tacita carmen hiare lyra.' Aesch. Ag. 920 χαμαιπετὲς βόαμα προσχάνῃς ἐμοί.

4. Imitated from Hor. 2 S. 1. 15 'Aut labentis equo describat vulnera Parthi,' which affords a presumption (not a certainty, as Persius sometimes takes Horace's words without his meaning) that vulnera .. Parthi is to be explained in the same manner here, of the wounds received by the Parthian.

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grande locuturi nebulas Helicone legunto,

si quibus aut Prognes, aut si quibus olla Thyestae
fervebit, saepe insulso cenanda Glyconi;

tu neque anhelanti, coquitur dum massa camino,
folle premis ventos, nec clauso murmure raucus
nescio quid tecum grave cornicaris inepte,
nec stloppo tumidas intendis rumpere buccas,
verba togae sequeris iunctura callidus acri,
ore teres modico, pallentis radere mores
doctus et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo.

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7. grande. 1. 14.

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nebulas may be from Hor. A. P. 230 Aut, dum vitat humum, nubes et inania captet,' as Jahn thinks, especially as both are speaking of tragic writing. Compare also the conception of Aristophanes' Clouds, which Persius is not likely to have forgotten. To collect mists' it would be necessary of course to ascend the mountain,

Helicone, as in Prol. I foll. 'Let those who set up to be great poets avail themselves of poetical privileges,' which are generally mere moonshine.

8. The stories of Tereus and Thyestes were common subjects of tragedy in Rome as well as at Athens. Attius wrote on both subjects. Varius was the author of a Thyestes, and Seneca, whose play is extant. See also Juv. 7. 12. 73, Mayor's notes. Thyestes was one of Nero's characters, Dio. 63. 9, etc. referred to by Mayor on Juv. 8. 228. The feast of Thyestes is mentioned twice by Horace as a stock tragic subject, A. P. 91, 186, and Progne's name occurs similarly, v. 187.

9. fervebit.. cenanda, like 'discere .. laudanda' 3. 46.

15. teris.

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15

Glyco, as the Scholiast informs us, was a slave, the joint property of Vergilius, also a tragic actor, and some other person -manumitted, on account of his great popularity, by Nero, who gave 300,000 sesterces to Vergilius for his share in him -tall and dark, with a hanging lower lip, and ill-looking when not dressed up— called 'insulsus' from his inability to understand a joke. Persius doubtless means to ridicule the people through their favourite actor, who was probably too tragic, and seemed as if he had really supped full of horrors,' in spite of the frequent repetition of the process.

Io. Imitated, as the Scholiast remarks, from Hor. 1 S. 4. 19 foll. ‘At tu conclusas hircinis follibus auras, Usque laborantes dum ferrum molliat ignis, Ut mavis, imitare.' Compare also Juv. 7. III (Jahn). The meaning is the same as Horace expresses elsewhere, A. P. 97, by ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.'

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to talk grandiose go and catch vapours on Helicon, if there be any who are going to set Progne or Thyestes' pot a-boiling, to be the standing supper of poor stupid Glycon. But you are not squeezing wind in a pair of panting bellows while the ore is smelting in the furnace, nor are you croaking mysterious nonsense to yourself in hoarse pent-up tones, nor straining and puffing your cheeks till they give way with a plop. No; your line is to follow the language of common life, with dexterous nicety in your combinations, and a moderate rounding of the cheek; your skill must be shown in rubbing against the bloated skin of morality, and pinning vice to the ground in sport which will do for gentlemen. Let this be

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inepte, perhaps from Hor. A. P. 140 ' qui nil molitur inepte,' where the simple opening of the Odyssey is contrasted with the hiatus' of the cyclic poet,—' out of taste.'

13. A graphic amplification, 'more Persii,' of Horace's 'tumido ore' A. P. 94.

stloppo, a word occurring nowhere else, perhaps coined by Persius, expressive of sound, like 'bombus' I. 99 note. • Stloppo dixit μεταφορικώς, a ludentibus pueris, qui buccas inflatas subito aperiunt, et totum simul flatum cum sonitu fundunt' Schol. The spellingstloppo' instead of scloppo,' which many MSS. give, is supported by Jahn from Priscian, I. 10. 565.

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intendis rumpere seems to be a mixture of intendis (temptas) rumpere' and intendis buccas dum rumpantur.' Compare buccae' Juv. II. 34, for noisy talkers, whom Plautus (Bacch. 5. 1. 2) calls 'buccones;' 'stloppo' with 'rumpere,' as the noise would be a concomitant of the bursting.

14. verba togae, like fabula togata' (Hor. A. P. 288), the talk of common life at Rome, opp. to the 'praetexta,' the symbol of tragedy, and the 'pallium,' which belonged to Greek subjects. We must bear in mind the relation of satire to the old comic drama, asserted by Persius himself, 1. 123. The whole line is imitated from Hor. A. P. 47 'notum si callida verbum Reddiderit iunctura novum' (compare also ib. 242 Tantum series iuncturaque pollet,

Tantum de medio sumtis accedit honoris '), so that notum' and 'de medio sumtis' answer to 'verba togae.'

iunctura (the same metaphor as in 1. 65, 92, though the application there is to the flow of the verse) refers here, as in Horace, to the combination of words in a happy phrase or expression.

acri is a well-chosen epithet, expressing the nicety of the material process, as we use 'sharp,' at the same time that it denotes keenness of mind.

15. ore teres modico. Jahn well compares ore rotundo' Hor. A. P. 323, which Persius doubtless was thinking of here and in v. 13. Os tumidum' is an exaggeration of os rotundum,' the fullness of the mouth in measured speech: but as Persius had gone beyond 'tumidum,' he is here satisfied with something less than rotundum.'

modico qualifies teres, which itself denotes smoothness within compass. 'Oratio plena, sed tamen teres' Cic. de Or. 3. 52, 'with shapely mouth, moderately rounded.'

pallentis mores. 1. 26 En pallor seniumque! O mores!' Here the paleness is doubtless that of dropsy and disease, as in 3. 94 foll. when any rough application to the skin would be acutely felt. Compare 'radere teneras auriculas' I. 107, 'radere ulcus in tenero ore' 3. II4.

16. ingenuo.. ludo answers to Aristotle's definition of evтpareλía (Rhet. 2. 12) as πεπαιδευμένη ὕβρις. No precisely similar instance of this use of 'defigere' has been adduced, but it is apparently the same as that of 'figere' in such phrases as figere aliquem maledictis,' with the additional notion of driving down.

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hinc trahe quae dicis, mensasque relinque Mycenis cum capite et pedibus, plebeiaque prandia noris.'

'Non equidem hoc studeo, bullatis ut mihi nugis pagina turgescat, dare pondus idonea fumo. secreti loquimur; tibi nunc hortante Camena excutienda damus praecordia, quantaque nostrae pars tua sit, Cornute, animae, tibi, dulcis amice, ostendisse iuvat: pulsa, dinoscere cautus, quid solidum crepet et pictae tectoria linguae. hic ego centenas ausim deposcere voces,

ut, quantum mihi te sinuoso in pectore fixi,

voce traham pura, totumque hoc verba resignent, quod latet arcana non enarrabile fibra.

Cum primum pavido custos mihi purpura cessit

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17. hinc, from common life, which is implied in the three preceding lines. König compares Hor. A. P. 317 foll. Respicere exemplar vitae morumque iubebo Doctum imitatorem, et vivas hinc ducere voces.'

Mycenis, a dative, like illis relinquo' Prol. 5, which Jahn compares.

18. cum capite et pedibus, which were put aside to show Thyestes what he had been eating: τὰ μὲν ποδήρη καὶ χερῶν ἄκρους κτένας Εθρυπτ ̓ ἄνωθεν Aesch. Ag. 1594, Tantum ora servat et datas fidei manus' Sen. Thyest. Act. 4. 764., quoted by Casaubon.

plebeia prandia. The full opposition is between banquets of an unnatural sort in the heroic ages at Mycenae, known in these days only as stage-horrors, with no lesson for life, 'raw head and bloody bones,' as Dryden renders it, and everyday meals (prandia,' not 'cenae') of the simplest kind, in common society at Rome, which show ordinary men as they are.

noris, the conj. used imperatively, as in 4. 52, because 'novi' has no imperative of its own.

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26. his.

20

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voted to you.
If I want a hundred
tongues, it is that I may tell you how
dear you are to me.'

19. Heinr. and Jahn restore 'pullatis'
from the larger number of MSS., including
the oldest, and suppose the meaning to be
'sad-coloured,' i. e. tragic. It does not
appear, however, that pullatus' is ever
applied to tragedy, though commonly
used of mourners: it answers more nearly
to 'sordidatus,' and in fact is frequently
applied to the common people, 'Ne quis
pullatorum media cavea sederet,' Suet.
Aug. 44; a most unfortunate association
here, unless we can believe with Casaubon
that'
nugae pullatae' mean trifles that
please the vulgar. Unless then 'pullatis'
be a mistake for ampullatis,' which may
be worth considering, we must return to
the common reading bullatis,' which has
very respectable MS. support, and ex-
plain it by turgescat.' Bullatus' ordi-
narily means 'furnished with bullae,' but
it may mean 'formed like a bubble,'
'swelling,' just as falcatus' means both
'furnished with a scythe,' an epithet of
'currus,' and 'formed like a scythe,'
'crooked,' an epithet of 'ensis.' 'Air-
blown trifles,' Gifford.

20. pagina. Virg. E. 6. 12.

dare pondus. . fumo, from Hor. I

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