D. JUNII JUVENALIS

SATIRARUM

LIBER PRIMUS.

SATIRA I.

INTRODUCTION.

THIS satire, for reasons stated in v. 47, could not have been written before A.D. 100 and was probably not written long after that date. Heinrich, whose judgment I have a great respect for, says it is not so much a satire as a preface or introduction to a volume of satires. It is certainly a satire as severe as any in the book. Juvenal had probably written others before it, but I do not see enough in this poem to entitle it to be called a preface. He says all the passions of men from the flood downwards are the hodge-podge of his book-" nostri farrago libelli " (v. 86)—and he has touched upon a good many of them in this satire, which may be the libellus' he means. If not, he must have been intending to publish a collection; for 'libellus' must mean something definite, either one ¦ poem or a collection. He begins with supposing himself persuaded by some person not to write, as Horace pretends with Trebatius (S.ii. 1). But the times are such, he says, that he cannot help it; and while there are so many indifferent poets spouting their lines every where, he may as well write as others. He then goes into a detail of some of the vile features of society; among which are the voluntary degradation of women; their lewdness; the preferment of slaves and informers; the impunity of robbers, and forgers, and murderers; men selling the honour of their wives; women poisoning their husbands; incest and adultery undisguised; avarice, gambling, extravagance, gluttony; the contempt and neglect of the poor by the rich; magistrates degraded into beggars. The burst about the poets and their recitations is only a way of introducing humorously the graver matters that follow. A good deal of what was recited was no doubt bad enough; but Juvenal's quarrel was not with his literary brethren, whose cause he takes up, as well as their recitations, in the seventh satire. They have in reality nothing to do with the satire as such, though Juvenal pretends they have. The arguments prefixed to the MSS. treat this satire as a preface to the rest. Ruperti, on the other hand, thinks it was written before all the others, and Dryden that it is "the natural groundwork of all the rest;" for "herein he confines himself to no one subject, but strikes indifferently at all men in his way; in every following satire he has chosen some particular moral which he would inculcate, and lashes some particular vice or folly." I see no proofs one way or the other. It might have been written first or last for any evidence I can find in the poem itself, irrespective of the sign of the date noticed above, which puts it later perhaps than

some.

ARGUMENT.

Am I always to be a listener, and shall I never pay these poets back in their own coin? I know all their subjects by heart; all of them, bad and good, handle the same, till the

B