Because she brought him thousands: such the price And 'twas her dower that wing'd the unerring dart. Has all the license of a widow'd bed. But yet, Sertorius what I say disproves, For though his Bibula was poor, he loves. True! but examine him, and, on my life, You'll find he loves the beauty, not the wife. Let but a wrinkle on her forehead rise, And time obscure the lustre of her eyes, Let but the moisture leave her flaccid skin, And her teeth blacken, and her cheeks grow thin, And you shall hear the insulting freedman say, "Pack up your trumpery, madam, and away! robes I possess, came to me neither from Achilles, nor from Peleus. I brought them from Sparta. Menelaus, my father, presented them to me with a dowry still more considerable, to the end that I might speak with freedom!” It is amusing to observe the contrast which this custom of the Greeks and Romans forms, with the practice of the rugged nations of the North. These high-spirited barbarians could not bear the idea of dependence even on their wives, and they, therefore, refused to receive any dowries with them: Apud Gothos non mulier viro, sed vir mulieri dotem assignat, ne conjux, ob magnitudinem dotis insolescens, aliquando ex placida consorte proterva evadat, atque in maritum dominari contendat." VER. 215. "Pack up your trumpery, madam, &c.] This was the legal form and language of a divorce, according to the law of the Twelve Tables: Ut si a conjugibus alter nuntium mitteret, eumque res suas sibi habere juberet, divortium esset. "Nay, bustle, bustle; here you give offence, But ere that hour arrive, she reigns indeed! VER. 227. Here cheapens myrrh and crystal cases;] In the original myrrhina, a word about which no two of the commentators are agreed. Pliny the Elder says, that these vases were first introduced by Pompey: Eadem victoria (that_over Mithridates) primum in urbem murrhina induxit; primusque Pompeius sex pocula ex eo triumpho Capitolino Jovi dicavit, que protinus ad hominum usum transiére-excrescitque indies ejus rei luxus. Lib. xxxvII. 2. Propertius, who had undoubtedly seen them, says, "Murrheaque in Parthis pocula cocta focis." This seems a very good description of what we call porcelain, and with this we might have been content, had not Pliny, who could not be ignorant of it, added, Oriens murrhina mittit: inveniuntur enim ibi in pluribus locis, nec insignibus, maxime Parthici regni ; præcipue tamen in Carmania. Here it is manifest that Pliny took them for gems: and so, indeed, he elsewhere terms them; in which he is followed by Martial, and others. Hardouin inclines to Propertius. I am aware that all this is very unsatisfactory; but I know not where to look for any thing more to the purpose. Salmasius is confused and contradictory on the subject, and Scaliger, who agrees with Propertius, introduces a circumstance which is incompatible with his own explanation. Ainsworth says, murra is a "stone of divers colours, of which cups are made:" this is well enough; yet he refers to this passage of Juvenal, under another That far-famed gem, which on the finger glow'd word, myrrhina; i. e. says he, "of myrrh, or scented with myrrh." In some modern travels, I find that the districts mentioned by Pliny still afford a gem that answers, in some measure; to his description: it is a species of agate; and this, after all, máy be the substance in question. # VER. 229. Of Berenice, &c.] Jortin observes, on a passage in the 14th Satire, that the commentators have poured out a good of nonsense or profaneness, in attempting to explain it. He might have said the same of this before us, with equal justice. Briefly, (for here is nothing, after all, very obscure, though Dusaulx thinks it, "beyond doubt, the most difficult place in Juvenal,") the Berenice mentioned above, was the daughter of Agrippa, whose youngest son, called after his father, was suspected of an incestuous commerce with her. She was a woman equally celebrated for her lewdness and her beauty; and had prevailed on Titus to promise her marriage; a promise which nothing but his dread of an insurrection prevented him from carrying into execution: tum reginam Berenicem dimisit, invitus invitam. The incidents that enhanced the value of this ring, convey a forcible picture of the capricious and profligate extravagance which distinguished the women of Juvenal's time. VER. 230. in that State,] That is, says thé old Scholiast, in Judæa, where the Synagogue is, and where they spare the old hogs because they prefer eating the young ones! This is very good: eating young hogs is certainly not the way to have old ones. The truth, however, is that this honest man knew not what he was saying. Juvenal himself is sufficiently incorrect. The ancients observed that the Jews did not eat swine's flesh, and they, therefore, conjectured, that they held swine in reverent estimation. The fact, however, is, that they neither ate old nor young; they kept them indeed, but it was for their neighbours' eating; and hogs in Judæa, I suspect, had no particular indulgences. In the next line Juvenal says, mero pede; (barefoot ;) if it were not for his general ignorance of the Jewish ritual, I should be This young Agrippa was the Tetrarch of Galilea who heard Saint Paul at Cæsarea, during his visit to the Proconsul. And old indulgence grants a length of life What! and is none of all this numerous herd O let me, rather than Cornelia, wed, almost tempted to think, with Holyday, that he had looked into Josephus for this circumstance. See Bell. Jud. Lib. II. VER. 243. O let me, rather than Cornelia, wed,] This Cornelia was the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the wife of Cornelius, and the mother of Caius and Tiberius Gracchus. She had, as the reader sees, some reason to be proud, and it appears that she was not wanting to herself; Plutarch says, she was fond of boasting of the victories of her father over Hannibal and Syphax. To this laudable propensity Juvenal alludes; he had also in view, perhaps, a circumstance that seems to have escaped the criticks. So great was her haughtiness, that when Ptolemy King of Egypt asked her in marriage, after the death of her husband, she was seriously offended, and rejected the proposition with every mark of indignation. The unhappy fate of her two sons has been already mentioned. (Sat. 11.) Their eloquence and spirit were hers, their turbulence, I hope, was their own :-not that she seems altogether to have disapproved of it, for on the basis of a statue raised to her memory, we find CORNELIA MATER GRACCHORUM; the very words of Juvenal. Boileau has imitated this passage very happily: "Ainsi donc au plûtôt délogeant de ces lieux, If to great virtues, greater pride she join, VER. 255. And, with the children, lays the father low.] Extulit ergo gregem natorum, ipsumque parentem. This, Owen translates, "and sons, and mother slew:" perhaps it is an errour of the press; though I observe the same expression in Dryden. The satire evidently requires that we should understand it of Amphion, who fell upon the bodies of his sons, ferro per pectus adacto, as Ovid says. It is true, Niobe herself perished not long after; but this Juvenal purposely drops: his object was to show the fatal consequences of her pride, on those who had no share in her guilt. VER. 258. And dared the White Sow's &c.] This famous sow, who is introduced more than once, was found by Æneas near Lavinium, on the spot where Alba was afterwards built. Ridiculous as the incident is, it makes a conspicuous figure in the Æneid, where it is given with wonderful gravity. Juvenal has fallen into a curious anachronism in mentioning it; but of this he was as well aware as we can be: he produced it, I am persuaded, merely to vex Domitian, (whom he never forgets,) who being, as Owen observes, extremely attached to Alba, and probably interested in its glory, might be mortified at having this idle story so frequently brought forward, and ridiculed. N |