prima docet rectum sapientia. quippe minuti semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas ultio. continuo sic collige, quod vindicta nemo magis gaudet quam femina. Cur tamen hos tu 190 195 evasisse putes, quos diri conscia facti et quamvis longa deductis gente propinquis. Cedo si conata peregit: perpetua anxietas nec mensae tempore cessat, faucibus ut morbo siccis interque molares difficili crescente cibo, sed vina misellus expuit, Albani veteris pretiosa senectus displicet; ostendas melius, densissima ruga 1 Not known. 200 210 215 our mistakes; it is she that first teaches us the right. For vengeance is always the delight of a little, weak, and petty mind; of which you may straightway draw proof from this-that no one so rejoices in vengeance as a woman. 192 But why should you suppose that a man escapes punishment whose mind is ever kept in terror by the consciousness of an evil deed which lashes him with unheard blows, his own soul ever shaking over him the unseen whip of torture? It is a grievous punishment, more cruel far than any devised by the stern Caedicius or by Rhadamanthus, to carry in one's breast by night and by day one's own accusing witness. The Pythian prophetess once made answer to a Spartan that it would not pass unpunished in after time that he had thought of keeping back a sum entrusted to him supporting the wrong by perjury; for he asked what was the mind of the Deity, and whether Apollo counselled him to do the deed. He therefore restored the money, through fear, and not from honesty; nevertheless he found all the words of the Oracle to be true and worthy of the shrine, being destroyed with his whole race and family and relations, however far removed. Such are the penalties endured by the mere wish to sin; for he who secretly meditates a crime within his breast has all the guiltiness of the deed. 210 What then if the purposed deed be done? His disquiet never ceases, not even at the festal board; his throat is as dry as in a fever; he can scarcely take his food, it swells between his teeth; he spits out the wine, poor wretch; he cannot abide the choicest old Albanian, and if you bring out something finer still, wrinkles gather upon his brow as cogitur in frontem velut acri ducta Falerno. 220 225 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 230 235 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 240 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 245 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 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 semper et a magna non degenerare culina. Mitem animum et mores modicis erroribus 5 10 aequos 15 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 sequiturque minores. AG read vitio for vitia. |