For who stops up more casks with wine likely to live? 60 With its mother and their cottage, and with the cur their playfellow, Should become the legacy of a friend beating the cymbals? "You are impudent when you ask," says he. "But rent calls 1 “ out, "Ask:-but my only slave calls, as Polypheme's "Broad eye, by which crafty Ulysses escaped: 65 "Another will be to be bought, for this does not suffice-both "Are to be fed. What shall I do when winter blows? what, I 66 pray, ["of December, "What shall I say to the shoulders of my slaves in the month "And to their feet?-Stay, and expect the grasshoppers!" But however you may dissemble, however omit the rest, at how great a 70 63. “But rent," &c.] q. d. You may call me what you please for asking, but my necessities force me to be thus importunate.I have rent to pay-a slave to maintain—and soon must have another these things bid me beg on. 64-5. "Polypheme's eye."] A giant of Sicily, and one of the Cyclops, who had but one eye, and that in his forehead, which Ulysses, by craft, put out, and escaped from him. See En. iii. I. 635-7. q. d. As the anguish of Polypheme's wounded eye made him roar out for revenge against Ulysses, so the wants of my poor servant make him call out upon me for a supply. Appello sometimes signi fies to call upon for a thing-to dun. AINSW. Harvey has rendered this passage: My single boy (like Polyphemus's eye) Mourns his harsh fate, and weeps for a supply. 66. " Another," &c.] I must purchase another slave, then I shall have two to keep; and when the cold winter pinches them, what shall I say to their naked shoulders, or to their shoeless feet, if I get nothing for myself? Shall I bid them wait the return of spring? Expectate cicadas. Meton.-Grasshoppers here stand for the time of year when they chirp, i. e. spring. 70. Dissemble, &c.] q. d. Dissemble as you please your sense of my deserts for what's past; nay, though you say nothing of the rest of my good services, what, if I had not been entirely devoted to you and your interest, would have become of your marriage? You know full well, that if I had not supplied your place, your wife, finding you impotent and debilitated, would have destroyed the marriage-writings-tabulas (see sat. x. 1. 336, and note): nay, she was actually upon the brink of signing fresh articles with another (signabat)-but I prevented it, by my assiduous services on your behalf. Metiris pretio, quod, ni tibi deditus essem, Mea791097 ch.99 80 85 The whole of this passage is to set forth the dreadful debauchery and profligacy of the times, when men, of Virro's character, could marry young women, liberorum procreandorum gratia, as it was expressed in the marriage-writings, and then, to save their state of debility from being known, to prevail on their wives to throw them. selves into the arms of adulterers, that they might be gotten with child, and thus prevent also the dissolution of the marriage-contract for the husband's impotency, by which they would have lost the wife's fortune, which, after the divorce, she might give to another. The 79th and 80th lines speak the frequency of such horrid deeds. Barrenness and impotency were causes of divorce among the Ro mans. 74. The flying girl.] Virro's young wife, who often attempted to elope, and was as often stopped by the blandishments of Nævolus. See sat. ii. 59, and note. 75. Broken the tables.] Cancelled the marriage-contract, written on thin tablets of wood, by breaking them. See sat. ii. 58, note 2. 81. Whither, &c.] Circumago is to turn round, or about, and here intimates the situation of a person surrounded with difficulties, as Virro is supposed to be by Nævolus, so as not to be able to answer his arguments, or, as we say in English, not to know which way to turn himself, or where to begin his defence. 84. You bring them up.] See AINSW. Tollo, No. 4.) stła pier Books of the acts.] The public registers, in which, by an' ordinance of Servius Tullius, all children were to be set down, tou gether with their names and time of their birth. ** a bare 85. Arguments of a man.] Though the child be mine, yet, being born of your wife, it is registered as yours, and thus becomes an ar gument of your manhood. Price do you reckon it, that, unless I had been to you a resigned, I caught in my embrace; she had broken the tables, and now 75 80 Whither can you turn?—what can you place first or last? 85 report. [heir, You have the rights of a parent: by my means you are written You receive all the legacy: not to say some sweet windfall. Moreover many conveniences are joined to windfalls, 85. Suspend garlands, &c.] This was usual on all festal occasions, and particularly on the birth of children. 66. I have giver, &c.] As I have occasioned your being reputed a father, I have conferred that upon you which will stop the mouth of all scandalous reports concerning your impotency. Dedimus (synec.) for dedi; or dedimus may be meant to apply to the wife as well as Nævolus, who together had brought all this to pass. 87. Written heir, &c.] If a legacy were left to a single man, it was void by the Papian law; and if to a married man having no children, he could take but a part of it, the rest fell to the public treasury; but if the legatee had children, he took the whole. 88. Windfall.] Caducum was a legacy left upon condition, as of a man's having children, or the like; on failure of which it fell to some person whom the testator had substituted heir-i. e. the person appointed heir, in case of the failure of the condition, in the room of the first legatee. This was something like what we call a windfall. Metaph. from fruit blown off a trec by the wind-figuratively, a lucky chance, some estate, or profit unexpectedly come to one. PHILLIPS. 89. Many conveniences, &c.] Added to this, you will be entitled to many convenient privileges if I should have three children by your wife, for they will all pass for yours.-The jus trium liberorum exempted a man from being a guardian, a situation of much trouble, (see KENNETT, Antiq. Rom. book III. c. 133.) a priority in offices, and a treble proportion of corn (see ib. c. 30.) on its monthly distribution. These, and other conveniences, are joinedjunguntur-i. e. are to be reckoned, as annexed to the contingencies which accrue to the man who has three children. Si numerum, si tres implevero. P. Justa doloris, 90 Nævole, causa tui: contra tamen ille quid affert ? N. Negligit, atque alium bipedem sibi quærit asellum. Hæc soli commissa tibi celare memento, Et tacitus nostras intra te fige querelas; Nam res mortifera est inimicus pumice lævis. P. O Corydon, Corydon, secretum divitis ullum 95 100 105 This was where the parents lived in Rome: if they lived else where in Italy, they were to have five children-if in any of the Roman provinces, seven; otherwise they could not claim the ad. vantages of the jus trium liberorum. In all this seemingly serious remonstrance of Nævolus with Virro, the old and impotent debauchee, Juvenal most seriously lashes all such characters as are here described, with which it is plain that Rome at that time abounded. 90. The cause, &c.] The poet here interrupts Nævolus, by ob serving that, to be sure, his complaints were just; and then, by means of Nævolus, to carry on his satire against such characters as Virro's, he demands what answer Virro could make to all this. 92. He neglects, &c.] The poet here shews the true spirit and temper of these wretches towards the drudges of their infamous pursuits and pleasures. When they begin to be importunate for money, and upbraid them with their services, they cast them off, and, on the least surmise of their revealing what has passed, will not scruple to assassinate them. Another two-legged ass.] i. e. Another poor drudge, who, like me, will be fool enough to be in the situation in which I have been. 95. Smooth with pumice, &c.] These effeminate wretches, in order to make their skins smooth, rubbed themselves with a pumicestone, to take off the hair.-By this periphrasis Nævolus describes such as Virro, whose means, as well as inclination, to revenge, would make them dangerous enemies, if provoked. 96. He who lately, &c.] Virro, who made me privy to his secret practices, is full of fear lest I should discover them, and therefore burns with anger and hatred against me, almost as much as if I had betrayed him therefore take care that you don't reveal what I have If I should fill up the number, the number three do Is just. But what does he bring against it? 90 [himself. NAV. He neglects me, and seeks another two legged ass for Remember to conceal these things committed to you alone, And silent fix within thee my complaints; For an enemy, smooth with pumice-stone, is a deadly thing. 95 He who lately committed the secret, burns, and hates, 100 As if I had betray'd whatever I know: to take the sword, And the dog, and the posts, and the marbles: shut the windows, said, for he will stick at nothing to be revenged. See sat. iii. 1. 49 -52, and 113. 99. Neither contemn, &c.] Don't make light of what I am going to say; but such rich men as Virro, if offended, never think they buy poison too dear to gratify their revenge. 101. Conceal secrets, &c.] q. d. Therefore one is forced to be as secret as the Areopagus. The judges of this court gave their suffrages by night, and in silence, by characters and alphabetical let. ters; and it was a capital crime to divulge the votes by which their sentence was past. See Areopagus. AINSW. 102. O Corydon, &c.] Juvenal humorously styles Nævolus, this paramour of old Virro, Corydon, in allusion to VIRG. Ecl. ii. 1, 2. Think you, &c.] Do you think that any thing which a man does, who is rich enough to have a number of servants, can be kept secret? If it can't be proved that the servants have been blabbing, yet every thing will be known by some means or other, however unlikely, or remote from our apprehension. 103. The cattle, &c.] By this, and the following hyperbolical expressions, is held forth the nature of guilt, which, however secretly incurred, will yet, some how or other, especially in persons of high stations, come to be known. So the prophet Habakkuk, speaking of those who build fine houses for themselves by rapine and destruction, says, "The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." Ch. ii. 9-11. A like sentiment occurs, Eccl. x. 20. 105. Take the light, &c.] That nobody may see what is doing. 106. Let all be silent.] Every thing hushed into midnight silence. Some read clament here, but surely taceant best agrees with the rest of the passage. |