Urbis, et Augusto recitantes mense poëtas? 10 9. And poets reciting.] Juvenal very humourously introduces this circumstance among the calamities and inconveniences of living at Rome, that even in the month of August, the hotest season of the year, when most people had retired into the country, so that one might hope to enjoy some little quiet, even then you were to be teazed to death, by the constant din of the scribbling poets reciting their wretched compositions, and forcing you to hear them. Comp. sat. i. l. 1—14. where our poet expresses his peculiar aversion to this. 10. His whole house, &c.] While all his household furniture and goods were packing up together in one waggon, (as rheda may here signify). Umbritius was moving all his bag and baggage, (as we say,) and, by its taking up no more room, it should seem to have been very moderate in quantity. 11. He stood still.] He may be supposed to have walked on out of the city, attended by his friend Juvenal, expecting the vehicle with the goods to overtake him, when loaded: he now stood still to wait for its coming up; and in this situation he was, when he began to tell his friend his various reasons for leaving Rome, which are just so many strokes of the keenest satire upon the vices and follies of its inhabitants. At the old arches.] The ancient triumphal arches of Romulus, and of the Horatii, which were in that part. Or perhaps the old arches of the aqueducts might here be meant. Wet Capena.] One of the gates of Rome, which led towards Capua: it was sometimes called Triumphalis, because those who rode in triumph passed through it-it was also called Fontina. lis, from the great number of springs that were near it, which occasioned building the aqueducts, by which the water was carried by pipes into the city: hence Juvenal calls it madidam Capenam. Here is the spot where Numa used to meet the goddess Ægeria. 12. Numa.] Pompilius-successor to Romulus. - Nocturnal mistress.] The more strongly to recommend his laws, and the better to instil into the Romans a reverence for reli gion, he persuaded them, that, every night, he conversed with a god. dess, or nymph, called Egeria, from whose mouth he received his i whole form of government, both civil and religious; that their placed of meeting was in a grove without the gate Capena, dedicated to the muses, wherein was a temple consecrated to them and to thei goddess Ægeria, whose fountain waters the grove for she is fabled to have wept herself into a fountain, for the death of Numa. This fountain, grove, and temple, were let out to the Jews, at a yearly rent, for habitation; they having been driven out of the city by 10 City, and poets reciting in the month of August? Asa Domitian, and compelled to lodge in these places, heretofore sacred to the muses. Delubra is a general term for places of worship. See AINSW. By the phrase nocturnæ amicæ constituebat, Juvenal speaks as if he were describing an intrigue, where a man meets his mistress by appointment at a particular place: from this we can be at no loss to judge of our poet's very slight opinion of the reality of the transaction. 14. A basket and hay, &c.] These were all the furniture which these poor creatures had the sum total of their goods and chattels.* This line has been looked upon as very difficult to expound. Some commentators have left it without any attempt to explain it. Others have rather added to, than diminished from, whatever its diffculty may be. They tell us, that these were the marks, not of their poverty, but, by an ancient custom, of their servitude in Ægypt, where, in baskets, they carried hay, straw, and such things, for the making of brick, and in such like labours. See Exod. v. 718. This comment, with the reasons given to support it, we can only say, is very far fetched, and is not warranted by any account we have of the Jewish customs. Others say, that the hay was to feed their cattle-But how could these poor Jews be able to purchase, or to maintain, cattle, who were forced to beg in order to maintain themselves? Others that the hay was for their bed on which they lay-but neither is this likely; for the poet, sat. vi. 541. describes a mendicant Jewess, as coming into the city, and leaving her basket and hay behind her; which implies, that the basket and hay were usually carried about with them when they went a begging elsewhere. Now it is not to be supposed that they should carry about so large a quantity of hay, as served them to lie upon when at home in the grove. It is clear that the basket and hay are mentioned together here, and in the other place of sat. vi. from whence I infer, that they had little wicker baskets in which they put the money, provisions, or other small alms which they received of the passers by, and, in order to stow them the better, and to prevent their dropping through! the interstices of the wicker, put wisps of hay, or dried grass, in the inside of the baskets. These Jew beggars were as well known by baskets with hay in them, as our beggars are by their wallets, or our soldiers by their knapsacks. Hence the Jewess, sat. vi. left her basket and hay behind her when she came into the city, for fear they should betray her, and subject her to punishment for infringing the emperor's order against the Jews coming into the city. Her manner of begging too, by a whisper in the ear, seems to confirm this supposition. The Latin cophinus is the same as Gr. xogos Omnis enim populo mercedem pendere jussa est Hic tunc Umbritius: quando artibus, inquit, honestis Res hodie minor est, here quam fuit, atque eadem cras Ire, fatigatas ubi Dædalus exuit alas: Dum nova canities, dum prima, et recta senectus, 15 20 25 which is used several times in the New Testament to denote a provision-basket, made use of among the Jews. See Matt. xiv. 20. Matt. xvi. 9, 10. Mark vi. 43. Mark viii. 19, 20. Luke ix. 17. Joh. vi. 13. 15. To pay a rent.] The grove being let out to the Jews, every tree, as it were, might be said to bring in a rent to the people at Rome. The poet seems to mention this, as a proof of the public avarice, created by the public extravagance, which led them to hire out these sacred places, for what they could get, by letting them to the poor Jews, who could only pay for them out of what they got by begging. 16. The wood begs, &c.] i. e. The Jews, who were now the inhabitants of the wood, (meton.) were all beggars; nothing else was to be seen in those once sacred abodes of the muses, who were now banished. 17. We descend, &c.] Umbritius and Juvenal sauntered on, till they came to that part of the grove which was called the vale of Ægeria, so called, probably, from the fountain, into which she was changed, running there. 17-18. And into caves unlike the true.] These caves, in their primitive state, were as nature formed them, but had been profaned with artificial ornaments, which had destroyed their native beauty and simplicity. 18. How much better.] How much more suitably situated. 19. The deity of the water.] Each fountain was supposed to have a nymph, or naiad, belonging to it, who presided over it as the goddess of the water-Egeria may be supposed to be here meant. If, with a green margin, &c] If, instead of ornamenting the banks with artificial borders made of marble, they had been left in their natural state, simple and unadorned by human art, having no other margin but the native turf, and the rude stone (tophum) which was the genuine produce of the soil. These were once consecrated in honour of the fountain-nymph, but had now been violated and destroyed, in order to make way for artificial ornaments of marble, which Roman luxury and extravagance had put in their place. For every tree is commanded to pay a rent to the people: 15 We descend into the vale of Ægeria, and into caves 20 The deity of the water, if, with a green margin, the grass inclosed to-morrow, Will diminish something from the little: we propose thither 25 21. Here then Umbritius.] Juvenal and his friend Umbritius, being arrived at this spot, at the profanation of which they were both equally scandalized, Umbritius there began to inveigh against the city of Rome, from which he was now about to depart, and spake as follows. Honest arts.] Liberal arts and sciences, such as poetry, and other literary pursuits, which are honourable. Comp. sat. vii. 1-6. Honestis artibus, in contradistinction to the dishonest and shameful methods of employment, which received countenance and encouragement from the great and opulent. Umbritius was himself a poet, See this sat. 1. 321, 2. 22. No emoluments of labour.] Nothing to be gotten by all the pains of honest industry. 23. One's substance, &c.] Instead of increasing what I have, I find it daily decrease; as I can get nothing to replace what I spend, by all the pains I can take. And the same, to-morrow, &c.] This same poor pittance of mine, will to-morrow be wearing away something from the little that is left of it to-day: and so I must find myself growing poorer from day to day. Deteret is a metaphorical expression, taken from the action of the file, which gradually wears away and diminishes the bodies to which it is applied. So the necessary expenses of Umbritius and his family were wearing away his substance, in that expensive place, which he determines to leave, for a more private and cheaper part of the country. 24. We propose.] i. e. Í and my family propose-or proponimus for propono. Synec. 25-6. Thither to go.] i. e. To Cuma, where Dædalus alighted after his flight from Crete. 26. Greyness is new.] While grey hairs, newly appearing, warn me that old age is coming upon me. Fresh and upright.] While old age in its first stage appears, and I am not yet so far advanced as to be bent double, but am able to hold myself upright. The ancients supposed old age first to commence about the 46th year. Cic. de Senectute. Philosophers Dum superest Lachesi quod torqueat, et pedibus me Et Catulus: maneant qui nigra in candida vertunt, 30 (says Holyday) divide man's life according to its several stages.First: infantia to three or four years of age.-Secondly: pueritia, thence to ten. From ten to eighteen, pubertas. Thence to twentyfive, adolescentia. Then juventus, from twenty-five to thirty-five or forty. Thence to fifty, ætas virilis. Then came senectus prima et recta till sixty-five; and then ultima et decrepita till death. 27. While there remains to Lachesis, &c.] One of the three destinies; she was supposed to spin the thread of human life. The Parcæ, or poetical fates or destinies, were Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. The first held the distaff-the second drew out, and spun the thread, which the last cut off when finished. And on my feet, &c.] While I can stand on my own legs,, and walk without the help of a staff. 29. Let us leave, &c.] Let me, and all that belongs to me, take an everlasting farewell of that detested city, which, though my native place, I am heartily tired of, as none but knaves are fit to live, there. 29-30. Arturius and Catulus.] Two knares, who, from very, low life, had raised themselves to large and affluent circumstances. Umbritius seems to introduce them as examples, to prove that such people found more encouragement in Rome, than the professors of the liberal arts could hope for. See before, 1. 21, note 2. 30. Let those stay, &c.] He means those, who by craft and subtlety could utterly invert ard change the appearances of things, making virtue appear as vice, and vice as virtue-falsehood as truth, and truth as falsehood.-Such were Arturius and Catulus. 31. To hire a building.] The word ædem, here being joined with other things of public concern, such as rivers, ports, &c. seems to imply their hiring some public buildings, of which they made money; and it should seem, from these lines, that the several branches, of the public revenue and expenditure, were farmed out to certain contractors, who were answerable to the ædiles, and to the other magistrates, for the due execution of their contracts. Juvenal here seems to point at the temples, theatres, and other public buildings, which were thus farmed out to these people, who, from the wealth which they had acquired, and of course from their responsibility, could easily procure such contracts, by which they made an immense and exorbitant profit. Edis-is-signifies any kind of edifice, AINSW. Omne ædeficium ædis dicitur. Rivers.] Fisherics perhaps, by hiring which, they monopo |