Innuit: ergo vale nostri memor; et quoties te Me quoque ad Helvinam Cererem, vestramque Dianam 320 318. Mindful of me.] An usual way of taking leave. See HoR. lib. iii. ode xxvii. 1. 14. Et memor nostri Galatea vivas. 319. Hastening to be refreshed.] The poets, and other studious persons, were very desirous of retiring into the country from the noise and hurry of Rome, in order to be refreshed with quiet and repose. HOR. lib. i. epist. xviii. 1. 104. Me quoties reficit gelidus Digentia rivus, &c. See also that most beautiful passage, O Rus, &c. lib. ii. sat. vi. 1. 60—2. -Your Aquinum.] A town in the Latin way, famous for having been the birthplace of Juvenal, and to which, at times, he retired. 320. Helvine Ceres.] Helvinam Cererem-Helvinus is used by Pliny to denote a sort of flesh-colour. AINSW. Something perhaps approaching the yellowish colour of corn. Also a pale redcolour-Helvus. ArNsw. But we may understand Ceres to be called Helvinus or Elvinus, which was near Aquinum. Near the fons Helvinus was a temple of Hath hinted to me: therefore farewell mindful of me: and as often as Rome shall restore you, hastening to be refreshed, to your Aquinum, 320 Me also to Helvine Ceres, and to your Diana, SATIRA IV. ARGUMENT. From the luxury and prodigality of Crispinus, whom he lashes so severely, sat. i. 26-9, Juvenal takes occasion to describe a ridiculous consultation, held by Domitian over a large turbot; which was too big to be contained in any dish that could be found. The Poet, with great wit and humour, describes the senators being summoned in this exigency, and gives a particular account of their characters, speeches, and advice. After long consultation, it was proposed that the fish should be cut ECCE iterum Crispinus; et est mihi sæpe vocandus partes; monstrum nullâ virtute redemptum A vitiis, æger, solâque libidine fortis : Line 1. Again Crispinus.] Juvenal mentions him before, sat. i. 27. He was an Egyptian by birth, and of very low extraction; but having the good fortune to be a favourite of Domitian's, he came to great riches and preferment, and lived in the exercise of all kinds of vice and debauchery. 2. To his parts.] A metaphor, taken from the players, who, when they had finished the scene they were to act, retired, but were called again to their parts, as they were successively to enter and carry on the piece. Thus Juvenal calls Crispinus again, to appear in the parts, or characters, which he has allotted him in his Satires. -By no virtue, &c.] He must be a monster indeed, who had not a single 5 virtue to rescue him from the total dominion of his vices. Redemptum here is metaphorical, and alludes to the state of a miserable captive, who is enslaved to a tyrant master, and has none to ransom him from bondage. 3. Sick.] Diseased-perhaps full of infirmities from his luxury and debauchery. Eger also signifies weak, feeble. This sense too is to be here included, as opposed to fortis. -And strong in lust, &c.] Vigorous and strong in the gratification of his sensuality only. 4. The adulterer despises, &c.] g. d. Crispinus, a common adulterer, sins only from the love of vice; he neither pretends interest or necessity, like those who sold their favours to lascivious wi SATIRE IV. ARGUMENT. to pieces, and so dressed: at last they all came over to the opinion of the senator Montanus, that it should be dressed whole; and that a dish, big enough to contain it, should be made on purpose for it. The council is then dismissed, and the Satire concludes; but not without a most severe censure on the emperor's injustice and cruelty towards some of the best and most worthy of the Romans. BEHOLD again Crispinus! and he is often to be called by me The adulterer despises only the charms of a widow. What signifies it, therefore, in how large porches he fatigues His cattle, in how great a shade of groves he may be carried, How many acres near the forum, what houses he may have bought? NO BAD MAN IS HAPPY: least of all a corrupter, and the same Incestuous, with whom there lay, lately, a filletted dows, in hopes of being their heirs. Sat. i. 38-42. He was too rich for this, but yet too wicked not to gratify his passions in the most criminal manner: he would not intrigue with a widow, lest he should be suspected to have some other motives than mere vice; therefore he despises this, though he avoided no other species of lewdness. 5. In how large porches, &c.] It was a part of the Roman luxury to build vast porticos in their gardens, under which they rode in wet or hot weather, that they might be sheltered from the rain, and from the too great heat of the sun. Jumentum signifies any labouring beast, either for carriage or draught. Sat. iii. 316. 6. How great a shade, &c.] Another Sanguine adhuc vivo terram subitura sacerdos. defiling those who are near of kin-but, in the best authors, it signifies unchaste; also guilty, profane. As in HoR. lib. iii. ode ii. 1. 29. -Sæpe Diespiter Neglectus incesto addidit integrum. In this place it may be taken in the sense of profane, as denoting that sort of unchastity which is mixed with profaneness, as in the instance which follows, of defiling a vestal virgin. 9, 10. A filletted priestess.] The vestal virgins, as priestesses of Vesta, had fillets bound round their heads, made of ribbons, or the like. 10. With blood us yet alive.] The vestal virgins vowed chastity, and if any broke their vow, they were buried alive; by a law of Numa Pompilius their founder. 11. Lighter deeds.] i. e. Such faults as, in comparison with the preceding, are trivial, yet justly reprehensible, and would be so deemed in a character less abandoned than that of Crispinus, in whom they are in a manner eclipsed by greater. 12. Under the judge, &c.] This seems to be a stroke at the partiality of Domitian, who punished Maximilla, a vestal, and those who had defiled her, with the greatest severity. SUET. Domit. ch. viii. See note 2. on 1. 60. Crispinus was a favourite, and so he was suffered to escape punishment, however much he deserved it, as was the vestal whom he defiled, on the same account. Suet. says, that Domitian, particularly -Morum correctionem exercuit in vestales. 13. What would be base, &c.] So par 10 15 20 14. What can you do, &c.] q. d. What can one do with such a fellow as Crispinus? what signifies satirizing his crimes, when his person is more odious and abominable than all that can be mentioned? What he is, is so much worse than what he Does, that one is at a loss how to treat him. This is a most severe stroke, and introduces what follows on the gluttony and extravagance of Crispinus. 15. A mullet.] Mullus-a sea fish, of a red and purple colour, therefore called mullus, from mulleus, a kind of red or purple shoe, worn by senators and great persons. AINSW. I take this to be what is called the red mullet, or mullus barbatus; by some rendered barbel. Horace speaks of this fish as a great dainty: Laudas insane, trilibrem HOR. sat. ii. lib. ii. 1. 33, 4. So that about three pounds was their usual weight: that it was a rarity to find them larger, we may gather from his saying, 1. 36. His breve pondus. But Crispinus meets with one that weighed six pounds, and, rather than not purchase it, he pays for it the enor |