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"It is known why Hister filled his will with only me "His freedman; why alive he gave much to a wench: "She will be rich, who sleeps third in a large bed. "Do thou marry, and hush-secrets bestow gems. "After all this, a heavy sentence is passed against us : "Censure excuses ravens, and vexes doves."

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Her, proclaiming things true and manifest, trembling fled The Stoicides-For what falsehood hád Laronia [uttered]? But what

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Will not others do, when thou assumest transparent garments, O Creticus, and (the people wond'ring at this apparel) thou declaimest

62. A heavy sentence, &c.] Where we are concerned no mercy is to be shewn to us; the heaviest sentence of the laws is called down upon us, and its utmost vengeance is prescribed against us.

63. Censure excuses ravens, &c.] Laronia ends her speech with a proverbial saying, which is much to her purpose.

Censura here means punishment.-The men, who, like ravens and other birds of prey, are so mischievous, are yet excused; but, alas! when we poor women, who are, comparatively, harmless as doves, when we, through simplicity and weakness, go astray, we hear of nothing but punishment.

64. Her, proclaiming, &c.] We have here the effect of Laronia's speech upon her guilty hearers-their consciences were alarmed, and away they flew, they could not stand any longer: they knew what she said to be true, and not a tittle of it could be denied: so the faster they could make their escape, the better: like those severe hypocrites we read of, John viii. 7-9. Cano signifies, as used here,

to report, to proclaim aloud.

65. The Stoicides.] Stoicidæ.-This word seems to have been framed on the occasion, with a feminine ending, the better to suit their characters, and to intimate the monstrous effeminacy of these pretended Stoics. The Stoics were called Stoici, from roa, a porch in Athens, where they used to meet and dispute. They highly com mended apathy, or freedom from all passions.

Juvenal, having severely lashed the Stoicides, or pretended Stoics, now proceeds to attack, in the person of Metellus Creticus, the effeminacy of certain magistrates, who appeared, even in the seat of justice, attired in a most unbecoming and indecent manner, and such as bespake them in the high road to the most horrid impurities.

66. Will not others do, &c.] q. d. It is no marvel that we find vice triumphant over people that move in a less conspicuous sphere of life, when plain and apparent symptoms of it are seen in those who fill the seats of justice, and are actually exhibited by them, before the public eye, in open court.

67. O Creticus. This magistrate was descended from the family of that Metellus, who was called Creticus, from his conquest of Crete. Juvenal, most probably, addresses Metellus by this surname

In Proculas, et Pollineas? est mocha Fabulla:
Damnetur si vis, etiam Carfinia: talem
Non sumet damnata togam. Sed Julius ardet,
Estuo nudus agas; minus est insania turpis.
En habitum, quo te leges, ac jura ferentem
Vulneribus crudis populus modo victor, et illud
Montanum positis audiret vulgus aratris.
Quid non proclames, in corpore Judicis ista
Si videas? quæro an deceant multicia testem?
Acer, et indomitus, libertatisque magister,
Cretice pelluces! Dedit hanc contagio labem,
Et dabit in plures: sicut grex totus in agris

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of his great ancestor, the more to expose and shame him, for acting so unworthy his descent from so brave and noble a person.

66. Transparent garments.] Multicia, quasi multilicia, of many threads. These were so finely and curiously wrought, that the body might be seen through them.

Thou declaimest.] Passest sentence in the most aggravated terms-perores. The end of a speech, in which the orator collected all his force and eloquence, was called the peroration: but the verb is used in a larger sense, and signifies to declaim and make · an harangue against any person or thing.

68. Procula and Pollineæ.] Names of particular women, who were condemned, on the Julian law, for incontinence, but, so famous in their way, as to stand here for lewd women in general.

He could condemn such in the severest manner, when before him in judgment, while he, by his immodest dress, shewed himself to be worse than they were.

-Fabulla.

69. Carpinia. Notorious adulteresses.

69-70. Such a gown, &c.] Bad as such women may be, and even convicted of incontinence, yet they would not appear in such a dress, as is worn by you who condemn them.

Or perhaps this alludes to the custom of obliging women convicted of adultery, to pull off the stola, or woman's garment, and put on the toga, or man's garment, which stigmatized them as infamous; but even this was not so infamous as the transparent dress of the judge. Horace calls a common prostitute-togata. Sat. ii. lib. i. 1. 63.

But July burns, &c.] He endeavours at an excuse, from the heat of the weather, for being thus clad.

71. Do your business, &c.] As a judge. Agere legem-sometimes signifies to execute the sentence of the law against malefactors. See AINSW.-Ago.

Madness is less shameful.] Were you to sit on the bench naked, you might be thought mad, but this would not be so shameful; madness might be some excuse.

72. Lo the habit, &c.] This, and the three following lines,

Against the Proculæ and Pollineæ? Fabulla is an adulteress : Let Carfinia too be condemned if you please: such

A gown, condemned, she'll not put on. "But July burns-- 70 (6 I'm very hot"-do your business naked: madness is less shameful.

Lo the habit! in which, thee promulgating statutes and laws, The people (with crude wounds just now victorious,

And that mountain-vulgar with ploughs laid by) might hear.
What would you not proclaim, if, on the body of a judge, those
things
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You should see? I ask, would transparent garments become a
Sour and unsubdued, and master of liberty,

O Creticus, you are transparent! contagion gave this stain,
And will give it to more: as, in the fields, a whole herd,

suppose some of the old hardy and brave Romans, just come from a victory, and covered with fresh wounds (crudis vulneribus)-rough mountaineers, who had left their ploughs, like Cincinnatus, to fight against the enemies of their country, and on their arrival at Rome, with the ensigns of glorious conquest, finding such an effeminate character upon the bench, bearing the charge of the laws, and bring ing them forth in judgment-which may be the sense of ferentem in this place.

75. What would you not proclaim, &c.] How would you exclaim! What would you not utter, that could express your indig nation and abhorrence (O ancient and venerable people) of such a silken judge!

76. I ask, would, &c.] q. d. It would be indecent for a private person, who only attends as a witness, to appear in such a dresshow much more for a judge, who sits in an eminent station, in a public character, and who is to condemn vice of all kinds.

77. Sour and unsubdued.] O Creticus, who pretendest to sto icism, and appearing morose, severe, and not overcome by your passions.

Master of liberty.] By this, and the preceding part of this tine, it should appear, that this effeminate judge was one who pretended to stoicism, which taught a great severity of manners, and an apathy both of body and mind; likewise such a liberty of living as they pleased, as to be exempt from the frailties and passions of other men. They taught-in povos o fos eλepos-that "only a wise 66 man was free."-Hence Cic. Quid est libertas? potestas vivendi ut velis.

78. You are transparent.] Your body is seen through your fine garments: so that with all your stoicism, your appearance is that of a shameless and most unnatural libertine: a slave to the vilest pas sions, though pretending to be master of your liberty of action."

Contagion gave this stain.] You owe all this to the com. pany which you have kept; by this you have been infected, 79. And will give it to more.] You will corrupt others by your

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Unius scabie cadit, et porrigine porci;
Uvaque conspectâ livorem ducit ab uvá.
Foedius hoc aliquid quandoque audebis amictu:
Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. Accipient te
Paulatim, qui longa domi redimicula sumunt
Frontibus, et toto posuêre monilia collo,
Atque Bonam tenera placant abdomine porcæ,
Et magno cratere Deam: sed more sinistro
Exagitata procul non intrat foemina limen.
Solis ara Dea maribus patet: ite profane,

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example, as you were corrupted by the example of those whom you have followed.

The language here is metaphorical, taken from distempered cattle, which communicate infection by herding together.

80. Falls by the scab, &c.] Our English proverb says-" One 62 scabby sheep mars the whole flock."

81. A grape, &c.] This is also a proverbial saying, from the ripening of the black grape, (as we call it,) which has a blue or livid hue: these do not turn to that colour all at once and together, but grape after grape, which, the vulgar supposed, was owing to one grape's looking upon another, being very near in contact, and so contracting the same colour. They had a proverb-Uva uvam videndo vária fit.

83. Nobody was on a sudden, &c.] None ever arrived at the highest pitch of wickedness at first setting out: the workings of evil are gradual, and almost imperceptible at first; but as the insinuations of vice deceive the conscience, they first blind and then harden it, until the greatest crimes are committed without remorse.

I do not recollect where I met with the underwritten lines; but as they contain excellent advice, they may not be unuseful in this place:

O Leoline, be obstinately just,

Indulge no passion, and betray no trust;
Never let man be bold enough to say,
Thus, and no farther, let my passion stray:
The first crime past compels us on to more,

And guilt proves fate, which was but choice before.

-They will receive, &c.] By degrees you will go on from one step to another till you are received into the lewd and horrid society after mentioned. The poet is now going to expose a set of unpatural wretches, who, in imitation of women, celebrated the rites of the Bona Dea.

84. Who at home, &c.] Domi-that is, secretly, privately, in some house, hired or procured for the purpose of celebrating their horrid rites, in imitation of the women, who yearly observed the rites of the Bona Dea, and celebrated them in the house of the high priest.-PLUT. in vita Ciceronis et Cæsaris.

If we say-redimicula domi—literally-fillets of the house-we may understand it to mean those fillets which, in imitation of the

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Falls by the scab and measles of one swine
And a grape derives a blueness from a grape beholden.
Some time you'll venture something worse than this dress:
Nobody was on a sudden most base. They will receive thee
By little and little, who at home bind long fillets on

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Their foreheads, and have placed ornaments all over the neck, 85
And, with the belly of a tender sow, appease the good
Goddess, and with a large goblet: but, by a perverted custom,
Woman, driven far away, does not enter the threshold:

The altar of the goddess is open to males only" Go ye pro"fane".

women, they wore around their heads on these occasions, and which, at other times, were hung up about the house, as part of the sacred furniture.

Here is the first instance, in which their ornaments and habits were like those of the women.

85. And have placed ornaments, &c.] Monilia-necklaces-consisting of so many rows as to cover the whole neck; these were also female ornaments. This is the second instance. Monile, in its largest sense, implies an ornament for any part of the body. AINSW. But as the neck is here mentioned, necklaces are most probably meant; these were made of pearls, precious stones, gold, &c.

86. The good goddess.] The Bona Dea, worshipped by the women, was a Roman lady, the wife of one Faunus; she was famous for chastity, and, after her death, consecrated. Sacrifices were performed to her only by night, and secretly; they sacrificed to her a sow pig. No men were admitted.

In imitation of this, these wretches, spoken of by our poet, that they might resemble women as much as possible, instituted rites and sacrifices of the same kind, and performed them in the same secret and clandestine manner.

The belly, &c.] The sumen, or dugs and udder of a young sow, was esteemed a great dainty, and seems here meant by abdo mine. Pliny says (xi. 84. edit. Hard.) antiqui sumen vocabant abdomen. Here it stands for the whole animal (as in sat. xii. 73.) by synec.

87. A large goblet.] Out of which they poured their libations. By a perverted custom.] More sinistro-by a perverted, awkward custom, they exclude all women from their mysteries, as men were excluded from those of the women; by the latter of which alone the Bona Dea was to be worshipped, and no men were to be admitted.

Sacra bonæ maribus non adeunda Deæ.

TIB. i. 6, 22. So that the proceeding of these men was an utter perversion of the female rites as different from the original and real institution, as the left hand is from the right, and as contrary.

89. Go ye profane.] Profana-meaning the women; as if they banished them by solemn proclamation. Juvenal here humour

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