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cogitur in frontem velut acri ducta Falerno.
nocte brevem si forte indulsit cura soporem,
et toto versata toro iam membra quiescunt,
continuo templum et violati numinis aras
et, quod praecipuis mentem sudoribus urguet,
te videt in somnis; tua sacra et maior imago
humana turbat pavidum cogitque fateri.

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hi sunt qui trepidant et ad omnia fulgura pallent, cum tonat, exanimes primo quoque murmure caeli, non quasi fortuitus nec ventorum rabie sed iratus cadat in terras et iudicet ignis. illa nihil nocuit, cura graviore timetur proxima tempestas velut hoc dilata sereno. praeterea lateris vigili cum febre dolorem

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si coepere pati, missum ad sua corpora morbum infesto credunt a numine, saxa deorum haec et tela putant. pecudem spondere sacello balantem et Laribus cristam promittere galli non audent; quid enim sperare nocentibus aegris concessum? vel quae non dignior hostia vita ? mobilis et varia est ferme natura malorum : cum scelus admittunt, superest constantia ; quod fas atque nefas, tandem incipiunt sentire peractis criminibus. tamen ad mores natura recurrit damnatos fixa et mutari nescia. nam quis peccandi finem posuit sibi? quando recepit eiectum semel attrita de fronte ruborem ? quisnam hominum est quem tu contentum videris uno

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though it had been puckered up by some Falernian turned sour. In the night, if his troubles grant him a short slumber, and his limbs, after tossing upon the bed, are sinking into repose, he straightway beholds the temple and the altar of the God whom he has outraged; and what weighs with chiefest terror on his soul, he sees you in his dreams; your awful form, larger than life, frightens his quaking heart and wrings confession from him. These are the men who tremble and grow pale at every lightning-flash; when it thunders, they quail at the first rumbling in the heavens; not as though it were an affair of chance or brought about by the raging of the winds, but as though the flame had fallen in wrath and as a judgment upon the earth. If one storm pass harmless by, they look more anxiously for the next, as though this calm were only a reprieve. If, again, they suffer from pains in the side, with a fever that robs them of their sleep, they believe that the sickness has been inflicted on them by the offended Deity: these they deem to be the missiles, these the arrows of the Gods. They dare not vow a bleating victim to a shrine, or offer a crested cock to the Lares; for what hope is permitted to the guilty sick? What victim is not more worthy of life than they? Inconstant and shifty, for the most part, is the nature of bad men. In committing a crime, they have courage enough and to spare; they only begin to feel what is right and what wrong when it has been committed. Yet nature, firm and changeless, returns to the ways which it has condemned. For who ever fixed a term to his own offending? When did a hardened brow ever recover the banished blush? What man have you ever seen that was satisfied with one act of

flagitio? dabit in laqueum vestigia noster
perfidus et nigri patietur carceris uncum
aut maris Aegaei rupem scopulosque frequentes
exulibus magnis. poena gaudebis amara

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nominis invisi, tandemque fatebere laetus nec surdum nec Teresian quemquam esse deorum.

SATVRA XIV

PLURIMA sunt, Fuscine, et fama digna sinistra et nitidis maculam haesuram figentia rebus,1 quae monstrant ipsi pueris traduntque parentes. si damnosa senem iuvat alea, ludit et heres bullatus parvoque eadem movet arma fritillo. nec melius de se cuiquam sperare propinquo concedet iuvenis, qui radere tubera terrae, boletum condire et eodem iure natantis mergere ficedulas didicit nebulone parente

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et cana monstrante gula; cum septimus annus transierit puerum, nondum omni dente renato, barbatos licet admoveas mille inde magistros, hinc totidem, cupiet lauto cenare paratu

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semper et a magna non degenerare culina.

Mitem animum et mores modicis erroribus

aequos

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praecipit, atque animas servorum et corpora nostra materia constare putat paribusque elementis,

1 Büch. (1910) inserts within brackets the following line found in between 1 and 2: et quod maiorum vitia sequi

turque minores. AG read vitio for vitia.

villainy? Our scoundrel will yet put his feet into the snare; he will have to endure the dark prison-house and the staple, or one of those crags in the Aegaean sea that are crowded with our noble exiles. You will exult over the stern punishment of a hated name, and at length admit with joy that none of the Gods is deaf or like unto Tiresias.1

SATIRE XIV

NO TEACHING LIKE THAT OF EXAMPLE

THERE are many things of ill repute, friend Fuscinus,—things that would affix a lasting stain to the brightest of lives, which parents themselves point out and hand on to their sons. If the aged father delights in ruinous play, his heir too gambles in his teens, and rattles the selfsame weapons in a tiny dice-box. If a youth has learnt from the hoary gluttony of a spendthrift father to peel truffles, to preserve mushrooms, and to souse beccaficoes in their own juice, none of his relatives need expect better things of him when he grows up. As soon as he has passed his seventh year, before he has cut all his second teeth, though you put a thousand bearded preceptors on his right hand, and as many on his left, he will always long to fare sumptuously, and not fall below the high standard of his cookery.

15 When Rutilus delights in the sound of a cruel flogging, deeming it sweeter than any siren's song, and being himself a very Antiphates,2 or a Polyphemus, to his trembling household, is he inculcating 1 The soothsayer Tiresias was blind.

A cruel tyrant, king of the Laestrygones.

an saevire docet Rutilus, qui gaudet acerbo plagarum strepitu et nullam Sirena flagellis

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conparat, Antiphates trepidi laris ac Polyphemus, 20 tunc felix, quotiens aliquis tortore vocato uritur ardenti duo propter lintea ferro? quid suadet iuveni laetus stridore catenae, quem mire adficiunt inscripta, ergastula, carcer? rusticus expectas ut non sit adultera Largae filia, quae numquam maternos dicere moechos tam cito nec tanto poterit contexere cursu, ut non terdecies respiret? conscia matri virgo fuit, ceras nunc hac dictante pusillas implet et ad moechum dat eisdem ferre cinaedis. sic natura iubet: velocius et citius nos corrumpunt vitiorum exempla domestica, magnis cum subeant animos auctoribus. unus et alter forsitan haec spernant iuvenes, quibus arte benigna et meliore luto finxit praecordia Titan,

sed reliquos fugienda patrum vestigia ducunt

et monstrata diu veteris trahit orbita culpae. Abstineas igitur damnandis. huius enim vel

una potens ratio est, ne crimina nostra sequantur ex nobis geniti, quoniam dociles imitandis turpibus ac pravis omnes sumus, et Catilinam quocumque in populo videas, quocumque sub axe, sed nec Brutus erit Bruti nec avunculus usquam. nil dictu foedum visuque haec limina tangat,

1 Prometheus, who made men out of clay.

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