REASONS FOR WRITING SATIRE..

[The figures referring to the notes correspond with the lines of the original text; and each page also corresponds with the Latin edition containing the Editor's linear translation.]

AND must I, while hoarse Codrus perseveres
To force his Theseid on my tortured ears, (2)
Hear, ALWAYS hear, nor ONCE the debt repay ?
Must this, unpunish'd, pour his comic lay?
His lyric, that? huge Telephus, at will,
The livelong day consume? or, huger still,
Orestes closely written, written too

Down the broad marge, and yet no end in view?
Away !—I know not my own house so well,
As Ilia's sacred grove, and Vulcan's cell,
Fast by the Æolian rocks !-How the winds roar,
How ghosts are tortured on the Stygian shore,
How Jason stole the golden fleece, and how
The Centaurs fought on Othry's shaggy brow,—
The walks of Fronto echo round and round,
The columns trembling with the eternal sound,
While high and low, as the mad fit invades,
Bellow the same trite nonsense through the shades.
I TOO CAN WRITE,-and, at a pedant's frown,
ONCE pour'd my fustian rhetoric on the town,
And idly proved that Sylla, far from power,
Had pass'd, unknown to fear, the tranquil hour:—
Now I resume my pen; for since we meet
Such swarms of desperate bards in every street,
"Twere vicious clemency to spare the oil,

And hapless paper, they are sure to spoil.

VER. 2-6. Codrus was a miserable but presuming poet, who published an epic poem embodying the exploits of Theseus. See Sat. iii. 203. The authors of the tragedies of Telephus and Orestes are unknown.

B

But why I choose, adventurous, to retrace

The Auruncan's route, and in the arduous race (20)
Follow his burning wheels, attentive hear,

If leisure serve, and truth be worth your ear.
When the soft eunuch weds, and the bold fair
Tilts at the Tuscan boar, with bosom bare;

When one that oft, since manhood first appear'd, (24)
Hath trimm'd the exuberance of this sounding beard,
In wealth outvies the senate; when a vile
And low-bred reptile, from the slime of Nile,
Crispinus, while he gathers now, now flings (27)
His purple open, fans his summer rings;
And, as his fingers sweat beneath the freight,
Cries, "Save me from a gem of greater weight!'
'Tis hard the rage of satire to restrain :-
For who so slow of heart, so dull of brain,
So patient of the town, as to forbear;
When Matho passes, in a new-built chair
Stuff'd with himself! follow'd, in equal state,
By that false friend, who to the imperial hate
Betray'd one noble, and now seeks to wrest
The poor remains of greatness from the rest:
Whom Massa dreads, Latinus, trembling, plies (35)
With a fair wife, and anxious Carus buys!
When those supplant thee in thy dearest rights,
Who earn rich legacies by active nights,

Those whom, the surest, shortest way to rise,
The widow's itch, advances to the skies!
Not that an equal rank her minions hold:—
Just to their various powers, she metes her gold,
And Proculeius mourns his scanty share,
While Gillo triumphs, her's and nature's heir!

20.

Aurunca alumnus.—Lucilius, a Roman Knight born at Aurunca, a town in Campania, and the first satirical writer among the Romans. 24, 25. The barber here alluded to was Cinnamus, a man who had raised himself to a Knight's estate by his vicious courses.

27. Crispinus, a tool of the tyrant Domitian. See Satire iv.

35, 36. Massa and Carus were two common informers.

Who would not, reckless of the swarm he meets, Fill his wide tablets in the public streets

With angry verse? when, through the mid-day glare,
Borne by six slaves, and in an open chair,

The forger comes, who owes his lavish state
To a wet seal and a fictitious date;

Comes, like the soft Mæcenas, lolling by,
And impudently braves the public eye!

Or the rich dame, who stanch'd her husband's thirst (69)
With generous bowls, but-drugg'd them deeply first!
Now, baffling old Locusta in her skill,

She shows her simpler neighbours how to kill,
And bids them bear the spotted corpse along,
Nor heed the curses of the indignant throng.
Dare nobly, man, if greatness be thy aim,
And practise what may chains and exile claim :
On Guilt's broad base thy towering fortunes raise,
For Virtue starves-on universal praise;
While Vice controls the penury of Fate,
Bestows the figured vase, the antique plate,
The lordly mansion, and the fair estate!
O! who can see the step-father impure,
The greedy daughter to his bed allure;
See, and suppress his feelings while he sees,
Unnatural brides, and stripling debauchees ?
When crimes like these on every side arise,
Anger shall give what mother-wit denies,
And pour, in Nature and the Nine's despite,
Such strains as I, or Cluvienus, write!

E'er since Deucalion, while on every side
The bursting clouds upraised the whelming tide,
Reach'd, in his little skiff, the forked hill,

And sought at Themis' shrine the Immortals' will ;
When softening stones with gradual life grew warm,
And Pyrrha show'd the males each virgin charm;

69. The person here alluded to was Agrippina, wife of Claudius, whom she destroyed by poison.