si nescis, ut per lacrimas effundere bilem cogaris pressoque diu stridere molari. tu tibi liber homo et regis conviva videris : captum te nidore suae putat ille culinae; 160 nec male coniectat : quis enim tam nudus, ut illum bis ferat, Etruscum puero si contigit aurum vel nodus tantum et signum de paupere loro? 66 spes bene cenandi vos decipit: ecce dabit iam 165 170 SATVRA VI CREDO Pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam in terris visamque diu, cum frigida parvas praeberet spelunca domos ignemque Laremque et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra, silvestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor frondibus et culmo vicinarumque ferarum 5 let me tell you, is to compel you to pour out your wrath in tears, and to keep gnashing your molars against each other. You think yourself a free man, and guest of a grandee; he thinks-and he is not far wrong-that you have been captured by the savoury odours of his kitchen. For who that had ever worn the Etruscan bulla1 in his boyhood, or even the poor man's leather badge-could tolerate such a patron for a second time, however destitute he might be? It is the hope of a good dinner that beguiles you: "Surely he will give us," you say, "what is left of a hare, or some scraps of a boar's haunch; the remains of a capon will come our way by and by." And so you all sit in dumb silence, your bread clutched, untasted, and ready for action. In treating you thus, the great man shows his wisdom. If you can endure such things, you deserve them; some. day you will be offering your head to be shaved and slapped nor will you flinch from a stroke of the whip, well worthy of such a feast and such a friend. SATIRE VI THE WAYS OF WOMEN In the days of Saturn,2 I believe, Chastity still lingered on the earth, and was to be seen for a time -days when men were poorly housed in chilly caves, when one common shelter enclosed hearth and household gods, herds and their owners; when the hill-bred wife spread her silvan bed with leaves and straw and the skins of her neighbours the wild beasts—a wife not 1 The golden bulla, enclosing a charm, was the sign of free birth (ingenuitas). i.c. in the golden days of innocence. 83 pellibus, haut similis tibi, Cynthia, nec tibi, cuius turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos, sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis et saepe horridior glandem ructante marito. quippe aliter tunc orbe novo caeloque recenti vivebant homines, qui rupto robore nati compositive luto nullos habuere parentes. multa Pudicitiae veteris vestigia forsan 10 aut aliqua exstiterint et sub love, set love nondum 15 barbato, nondum Graecis iurare paratis per caput alterius, cum furem nemo timeret caulibus et pomis, et aperto viveret horto. paulatim deinde ad superos Astraea recessit hac comite, atque duae pariter fugere sorores. Anticum et vetus est alienum, Postume, lectum 'concutere atque sacri genium contemnere fulcri. omne aliud crimen mox ferrea protulit aetas: viderunt primos argentea saecula moechos. conventum tamen et pactum et sponsalia nostra tempestate paras, iamque a tonsore magistro pecteris, et digito pignus fortasse dedisti. certe sanus eras; uxorem, Postume, ducis? dic, qua Tisiphone, quibus exagitare1 colubris? ferre potes dominam salvis tot restibus ullam, cum pateant altae caligantesque fenestrae, 1 exagitare Py: exagitere O. 1 The Cynthia of Propertius. 2 The Lesbia of Catullus. 20 25 30 3 There was a legend that men had been born from oaktrees. Astraea, daughter of Zeus and Themis, was the last 2 like to thee, O Cynthia,1 nor to thee, Lesbia, whose bright eyes were clouded by a sparrow's death, but one whose breasts gave suck to lusty babes, often more unkempt herself than her acorn-belching spouse. For in those days, when the world was young, and the skies were new, men born of the riven oak,3 or formed of dust, lived differently from now, and had no parents of their own. Under Jove, perchance, some few traces of ancient modesty may have survived; but that was before he had grown his beard, before the Greeks had learned to swear by someone else's head, when men feared not thieves for their cabbages or apples, and lived with unwalled gardens. After that Astraea withdrew by degrees to heaven, with Chastity as her comrade, the two sisters taking flight together. 4 21 To set your neighbour's bed a-shaking, Postumus, and to flout the Genius of the sacred couch,5 is now an ancient and long-established practice. All other sins came later, the products of the age of Iron ; but it was the silver age that saw the first adulterers. Nevertheless, in these days of ours, you are preparing for a covenant, a marriage-contract and a betrothal; you are by now getting your hair cut by a master barber; you have also perhaps given a pledge to her finger. What! Postumus, are you, you who once had your wits, taking to yourself a wife? Tell me what Tisiphone, what snakes are driving you mad? Can you submit to a she-tyrant when there is so much rope to be had, so many dizzy heights of windows standing open, and when mortal to leave the earth when the Golden Age came to an end; she was placed among the stars as Virgo. 5 The fulcrum was the head of the couch, often ornamented. with the figure of the Genius in bronze. cum tibi vicinum se praebeat Aemilius pons? Sed placet Vrsidio lex Iulia, tollere dulcem 35 40 45 quaeritur? o medici, nimiam pertundite venam. 50 55 quis tamen adfirmat nil actum in montibus aut in speluncis? adeo senuerunt Iuppiter et Mars? 1 Cereris Py: Housm, conj. teretis. 1 A law to encourage marriage. |