SATIRE VII DAVUS. I've been listening some time, and wishing to say a word to you, but as a slave I dare not." HORACE. Is that Davus ? DAV. Yes, Davus, a slave loyal to his master, and fairly honest that is, so that you need not think him too good to live. HOR. Come, use the licence December allows, since our fathers willed it so. Have your say. DAV. Some men persist in their love of vice and stick to their purpose; the greater number waver, now aiming at the right, at times giving way to evil. Thus Priscus, who often attracted notice by wearing three rings, but once in a while by wearing none, was so fickle in his life, that he would change his stripe every hour. Passing from a stately mansion, he would bury himself in a den, from which a decent freedman could scarcely emerge without shame. Now he would choose to live in Rome as a rake, now as a sage in Athens-a man born when every single Vertumnus was out of sorts. Volanerius, the jester, when the gout he had earned crippled his fingerjoints, kept a man, hired at a daily wage, to pick a narrow one. Rings were worn on the left hand (laeva); only a fop would wear more than one. e Vertumnus, god of the changing year, could assume any shape he pleased. For the form of expression cf. "lymphis iratis," Sat. i. 5. 97. conductum pavit; quanto constantior isdem1 20 Non dices hodie, quorsum haec tam putida tendant, furcifer? "ad te, inquam." quo pacto, pessime? Laudas 25 fortunam et mores antiquae plebis, et idem, si quis ad illa deus subito te agat, usque recuses, aut quia non sentis quod clamas rectius esse, aut quia non firmus rectum defendis, et haeres nequiquam caeno cupiens evellere plantam. Romae rus optas; absentem rusticus urbem tollis ad astra levis. si nusquam es forte vocatus ad cenam, laudas securum holus ac, velut usquam 30 vinctus eas, ita te felicem dicis amasque, quod nusquam tibi sit potandum. iusserit ad se Maecenas serum sub lumina prima venire convivam: 'nemon oleum feret ocius? ecquis audit?' cum magno blateras clamore fugisque.8 35 Mulvius et scurrae, tibi non referenda precati, discedunt. etenim fateor me,' dixerit ille, duci ventre levem, nasum nidore supinor,9 1 idem EX. 3 ac prior] acrior aE Goth. 4 illo p2 one Bland.: ille best мss., yet an error. 5 iam.. iam] tam E; becomes quam a. 6 fert El Vollmer. 8 furisque V. 2 levius] est melius, II. quam : second iam omitted a The source of the figure is probably an animal tied by a rope, and pulled up with a jerk, as it tries to get free. We are to suppose that Horace, who is already dining at home, gets a late invitation from Maecenas to fill a vacant place. The oil he calls for is needed for the lantern to light him through the streets. up the dice for him and put them in the box. As he was the more persistent in his vices, so he was the less unhappy and the better man, than the one who, with rope now taut, now loose, is in distress." HOR. Are you to take all day, you scape-gallows, in telling me the point of such rot? DAV. 'Tis you, I say. HOR. HOW SO, villain ? DAV. You praise the fortune and manners of the men of old; and yet, if on a sudden some god were for taking you back to those days, you would refuse every time; either because you don't really think that what you are ranting is sounder, or because you are wobbly in defending the right, and, though vainly longing to pull your foot from the filth, yet stick fast in it. At Rome you long for the country; in the country, you extol to the stars the distant town, you fickle one! If so it be that you are asked out nowhere to supper, you praise your quiet dish of herbs, and, as though you were in chains when you do go anywhere, you call yourself lucky, and hug yourself, because you have not to go out for some carousal. Let but Maecenas bid you at a late hour come to him as a guest, just at lamp-lighting time: Won't someone bring me oil this instant ? Does nobody hear me?" So you scream and bawl, then tear off. Mulvius and his fellow-jesters sneak off with curses for you that I cannot repeat.c Yes," he would say, 'tis true that I'm a fickle creature, led by my stomach. I curl up my nose for a savoury 66 • Mulvius was a parasite, who had come to share Horace's dinner and is now disappointed. His quoted remarks show that Davus looked upon Horace himself as a parasite at the table of Maecenas. imbecillus, iners, si quid vis, adde, popino. "Te coniunx aliena capit, meretricula Davum. peccat uter nostrum cruce dignius? acris ubi me natura intendit,2 sub clara nuda lucerna quaecumque excepit turgentis verbera caudae, clunibus aut agitavit equum lasciva supinum, dimittit neque famosum neque sollicitum ne ditior aut formae melioris meiat eodem. altercante5 libidinibus tremis ossa pavore. quid refert, uri virgis ferroque necari auctoratus eas, an turpi clausus in arca, quo te demisit peccati conscia erilis, contractum genibus tangas caput ? estne marito in corruptorem vel iustior. illa tamen se a 5 alternante Goth. 4 lucerna E. 7 ambos. Roughly equivalent to £20, or $100, a low price for a slave. 66 » Davus is a σπερμολόγος, a picker up of learning's crumbs," and he has picked them up, not from the Stoic Crispinus himself, but at second-hand from his door-keeper, who would be in a position to catch some scraps of the lectures delivered in the school-room. The term iudex implies a citizen of good standing. smell. I am weak, lazy, and, if you like to add, a toper. But you, since you are just the same and maybe worse, would you presume to assail me, as though you were a better man, and would you throw over your own vices a cloak of seemly words?" What if you are found to be a greater fool than even I, who cost you five hundred drachmas ? " Don't try to scare me by your looks. Hold back your hand and temper, while I set forth the lessons taught me by the porter of Crispinus. 46 You are the slave of another man's wife; Davus of a poor harlot. Which of us commits a sin more deserving of the cross? When vehement nature drives me, she who satisfies my passion sends me away neither disgraced nor anxious lest some richer or more handsome man possess her. You, when you have cast aside your badges, the ring of knighthood and your Roman dress, and step forth, no longer a judge, but a low Dama, with a cape hiding your perfumed head, are you not what you pretend to be? Full of fear, you are let into the house, and you tremble with a terror that clashes with your passions. What matters it, whether you go off in bondage, to be scourged and slain with the sword, or whether, shut up in a shameful chest, where the maid, conscious of her mistress's sin, has stowed you away, you touch v crouching head with your knees? Has r husband of the erring matron a just both? Over the seducer a still juste or death nor passions, and equestrian rank, and was even a "pote whole, smoothed maintained by Lily Ross Taylor in an an outside can rest Equestrian Career" in A.J.P. xlvi. (by another out of his too, Haight, Horace, etc. p. 38. See note on Sat. i. 4. 123. That Hor a The word auctoratus is technic one who sold himself as a gladiato ...at who is lord 231 |