• My antecedents, I believe, were not poetical: if I appear at the feast of the poets, it is only on sufferance. After all, one can sing without inspiration: at least parrots and magpies do.' The Prologue may be regarded in two aspects, both historical. It may be intended as a remnant of the old practice of writing the Satura in a variety of metres. There is some reason to think that it is actually an imitation of Lucilius, as one of the speakers in Petronius' Satyricon, c. 4, says, apropos of the education of youth, Sed ne me putes improbasse schedium Lucilianae improbitatis, quod sentio et ipse carmine effingam,' and then gives twenty-two verses, the first eight scazons, the rest hexameters. On the other hand, the introduction of a Prologue marks a late stage of poetical composition. To prologuize implies consciousness-the poet reflecting on his workso early poets do not prologuize at all— as Homer: afterwards the exordium becomes personal, and contains a prologue, as would be the case in the Aeneid, if the lines Ille ego were genuine : then the prologue is a separate poem, as here. Lastly, we have a prose introduction, as in Statius' Silvae, Ausonius, and modern writers a more natural method, and in some respects more graceful, as separating off matter which may be extraneous to the poem itself, but leading, on the other hand, to interminable and indeterminate writing, to the substitution of criticism for poetry, precept for practice. Of modern English writers, Wordsworth is in one extreme, Tennyson in the other. Here the Prologue is, of course, to all the Satires-not, as some have thought, to the first only. He disclaims the honours of poetry, not without sarcasm, and insinuates that much which professes to come from inspiration really has a more THE SATIRES OF A. PERSIUS FLACCUS PROLOGUE. I NEVER got my lips well drenched in the hack's spring-nor do I recollect having had a dream on the two-forked Parnassus, so prosaic source-want of bread or love of money. There seems no notion of satire as a prosaic kind of writing, so that Casaubon and Jahn's references to Horace (1 Sat. 4. 39; 2. 6. 17) are scarcely apposite, except as showing something of the same sort of modesty on the part of both. 1. fons caballinus, a translation of Hippocrene. caballinus sarcastic, like Gorgonei caballi, also of Pegasus (Juv. 3. 118), the term being contemptuous, though its derivatives in modern languages have, as is well known, lost that shade of meaning. 6 labra prolui. Virg. Ae. 1. 743, of Bitias, pleno se proluit auro.' Hor. 1 S. 5. 16 prolutus vappa.' The action implies a deep draught, here taken by stooping down to the spring. (Contrast the opposite expression, 'primoribus labris attingere.') I never drank those long draughts of Hippocrene, of which others boast.' Here, as in the next verse, the image is doubtless borrowed from the Exordium of Ennius' Annals, as we may infer from Prop. 3. 2. (4.) 4 • Parvaque tam magnis admoram fontibus ora Unde pater sitiens Ennius ante bibit.' Persius may have had his eye on two other passages of the same Elegy. See V. 2 Bellerophontei qua fluit humor equi,' and v. 52 Ora Philetea nostra rigavit aqua,' and perhaps also on Hor. 1 Ep. 3. 10 Pindarici fontis qui non expalluit haustus, Fastidire lacus et rivos ausus apertos.' 2. biceps, diλopos, a perpetual epithet of Parnassus. The mountain has not really two tops, but as the Castalian spring rises from between two ridges, it is said to have them (Urlichs and Millingen, referred to by Jahn). Propertius, 1. c., represents himself as laying down to sleep under the shadow of Helicon. The source of both passages is again Ennius' account memini, ut repente sic poeta prodirem. ad sacra vatum carmen adfero nostrum. 3. Memini me ut. 4. Aeliconiadasq: pyrenen. of himself, preserved to us by Cic. Acad. pr. 2. 16. 51, to the effect that he had gone to sleep on Parnassus, seen Homer in a dream, and heard that it was Homer's spirit which was then animating himself. Compare S. 6. 10, where Ennius' somnia Pythagorea' are again ridiculed. nec.. .. memini is a sneer at Ennius' own words (ap. Sosip. Charis. 1. p. 75), 'memini me fiere pavum,' said of Homer (Tert. de An. 24 sq., note on 6. 10). So Ov. M. 15. 160, Ipse ego (nam memini).. Euphorbus eram.' 3. memini, humorous; never that I can remember;' implying that Ennius must have had a good memory. ut repente, 'so as to come before the world all at once as a poet.' prodirem, to come forth from this preparatory process,' which is also expressed by sic,' on the strength of this' (not like 'sic temere,' as Casaubon and Jahn). 'A ready made poet, by the immediate agency of the gods.' Possibly Persius was thinking of Hor. I Ep. 19. 6 Ennius ipse pater nunquam nisi potus ad arma Prosiluit dicenda,' which might also warrant a conjecture that Ennius himself used some similar phrase. 5. relinquo. 5 10 νιάδων ἀρχώμεθ ̓ ἀείδειν), where Hesiod relates how the Muses made him a poet. The form Heliconis' is however found in Stat. Silv. 4. 4. 90, and MSS. are so untrustworthy in the matter of proper names that the point may be doubtful. At any rate it is not worth while to scan 'Heliconiadas' here by synizesis, as Jahn wishes, following Schneider, as proper names have a metrical licence even in tragic iambics. pallidam, as causing studious paleness. 'pallentis grana cumini' 5. 55; perhaps with some reference to Horace's expalluit haustus,' quoted on v. I. Pirene, mentioned from its connection with Pegasus, who was said to have been broken in there. Statius (Theb. 4. 60) follows or coins a story that it was produced, like Hippocrene, by a stroke of Pegasus' hoof. 5. To the poets, whose ivy-crowned busts adorn our public libraries.' Hor. I S. 4. 21. For the ivy, see Hor. I Od. 1. 29. Juvenal apparently imitates this passage (7. 29) 'ut dignus venias hederis et imagine macra.' No sneer seems to be intended in lambunt or sequaces, which are simply poetical. 6. semipaganus is rightly explained by Jahn after Rigalt with reference to the Paganalia, a festival celebrated by members of the same pagus. Dion. Hal. 4. 15; Sicul. Flacc. de Cond. Agr. p. 25. This has more spirit than the ordinary interpretation,' half a rustic,' and agrees as to burst upon the world at once as a full-blown poet. The daughters of Helicon and that cadaverous Pirene I leave to the gentlemen whose busts are caressed by the climbing ivy—as for me, it is but as a poor half-brother of the guild that I bring my verses to the festival of the worshipful poets' company. Who was it made the parrot so glib with its 'Good morning,' and taught magpies to attempt the feat of talking like men? That great teacher of art and bestower of mother-wit the stomach, which has a knack of getting at speech when nature refuses it. Only let a bright glimpse of flattering money dawn on their horizon, and you 8. Persius does not say that he writes for bread, which would have been too obviously untrue, as he was a wealthy man, but hints it in order to ridicule his contemporaries by affecting to classify himself with them. expedivit, 'made easy.' Comp. our use of impediment. suum not foreign (Jahn), as the parrot did not come from Greece, but simply its own'- 'that cry which it is now so ready with.' So there is no opposition between xaîpe and 'nostra verba,' as if the magpie were intended to talk Latin as distinguished from Greek. The parrot talks Greek as the fashionable language for small talk, as now a days he might talk French, while nostra verba' means human speech. The antithesis is merely one of those which a man might use almost without intending it, between language viewed as belonging to its original owner and as afterwards appropriated -just as the parrot speaks 'expedite,' while the magpie conatur,' though it is not meant that the former succeeds more perfectly than the latter. For the practice of keeping parrots and magpies in great houses, see Martial, referred to above. After v. 8 a few MSS. have a line, 'Corvos quis olim concavum salutare?' where concavum' would doubtless refer to the sound, though one MS. gives Caesarem,' as in the first passage of Martial. chaere (xaîpe). Mart. 14. 73. 2 'Caesar ave; hence the pie is said 'salutare,' ib. 76. 1. 10. Jahn refers to Theocr. 21. I ἁ πενία, Διόφαντε, μόνα τὰς τέχνας I eyeípe, Plaut. Stich. 1. 3. 23' paupertas omnes artes perdocet.' Comp. also Hor. 1 Ep. 5. 18 of wine, 'addocet artes;' Virg. G. 1. 145 Tum variae venere artes: labor omnia vicit Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas' (quoted by Plautius). ingeni largitor. Plautius and Casaubon quote Manil. 1. 26 Et labor ingenium miseris dedit.' Jahn refers to Cicero's account of ingenium,' Fin. 5. 13. 36 Prioris generis (virtutum quae ingenerantur suapte natura) est docilitas, memoria, quae fere omnia appellantur uno ingeni nomine.' 'Ingeni largitor,' then, is a kind of oxymoron. II. venter as in Hom. Od. 17. 286 foll. γαστέρα δ ̓ οὔπως ἔστιν ἀποκρύψαι με μανίαν. corvos poetas et poetridas picas cantare credas Pegaseium nectar. 13. Raven poets and poetess pies,' the substantive standing for an epithet, like 'popa venter,' 6.74. Possibly Persius meant to reverse the order to show how completely he identified the birds with the human singers. poetridas has more MS. authority than poetrias.' Both #oinTpis and woin Tpía are formed according to analogy, though only the latter is found. 14. nectar. Five MSS., including Montp. and Rom., the rest 'melos,' which is unmetrical, as the 'e' cannot be lengthened. Jahn quotes Pind. Ol. 7. 7 kai yù νέκταρ χυτόν, Μοισᾶν δόσιν, ἀθλοφόροις ἀνδράσιν πέμπων. Theocr. 7. 82 ονεκα |