65 Atria displiceant oculis venientis amici ? Gratum est, quod patriæ civem populoque dedisti, 70 Si facis, ut patriæ sit idoneus, utilis agris, Utilis et bellorum, et pacis rebus agendis : Plurimum enim intererit, quibus artibus, et quibus hunc tự Moribus instituas. Serpente ciconia pullos Nutrit, et inventâ per devia rura lacertã : 75 Jlli eadem sumptis quærunt animalia pennis. 80 for this purpose, art thou so over-anxious and earnest, when a very little trouble might suffice for this, and at the same time, take no pains to prevent any moral filth or turpitude from being seen in your house by your own son? This is the substance of the poet's argument. 65. Thy courts.] Atrium signifies a court-yard, a court before an house, ahall, a place where they used to dine. AINSW. All these may be meant, in this place, by the plur. atria; for, to all these places their favourite dogs might have access, and of course, might daub them. 66. The porch, &c.] A sort of gallery, with pillars, at the door (ad portam) of the house; or a place where they used to walk, and so liable to be dirty. Servant boy.] Servulus (dim. of servus) a servant lad. 67. Sawdust, &c.] Scobs signifies any manner of powder, or dust, that cometh of sawing, filing, or boring. Probably the Romans sprinkled over the floors of their porticos with saw-dust, as we do our kitchens and lower parts of the house with sand, to give them a clean appearance, and to hinder the dirt of people's shoes from sticking to the floor. See HOLYDAY, note 3, on this Satire, who observes, that Heliogabalus was said to strew his porticus, or gallery, with the dust of gold and silver. 68. Manage it, &c.] viz. To keep your house sacred to virtue and good example, and free from all vicious practices, that your son may not be corrupted by seeing them. 70. Acceptable, &c.] i. e. To the public, that, by begetting a son, you have added to the country a subject, and to Rome a citizen. 71. If you make him, &c.] If you so educate and form him, that useful member of society. he may be an In the fields.] Well skilled in agriculture. 72. In managing affairs, &c.] Capable of transacting the busiHess of a soldier, or that of a lawyer or senator. The opposition Thy courts should displease the eyes of a coming friend? 65 Lest the porch should be overspread with mud? and yet one servant boy, With one half bushel of saw-dust, can cleanse these: Dost thou not manage it, that thy son should see Thine house, sacred without all spot, and having no vice? It is acceptable, that you have given a citizen to your country and people, If 70 you make him, that he may be meet for his country, useful in the fields, Useful in managing affairs both of war and peace : For it will be of the greatest consequence, in what arts, and with what morals You may train him up. With a serpent a stork nourishes Her young, and with a lizard found in the devious fields They, when they take their wings, seek the same animals. 75 The vulture with cattle, and with dogs, and with relicks from crosses, Hence is the food also of a great vulture, and of one feeding 80 of belli et pacis, like arma et togæ, in cedant arma togæ, seems to carry this meaning. So HOLYD.-the helmet or the gown. The old Romans were careful so to breed up their sons, that afterwards they might be useful to their country in peace or war, or ploughing the ground. J. DRYDEN, junior. 73. In what arts, &c.] So as to make him useful to the public. What morale, &c.] So as to regulate his conduct, not only as to his private behaviour, but as to his demeanour in any public office which he may be called to. 74. A stork nourishes, &c.] i, e. Feeds her young ones with snakes and lizards. 75. Devious fields.] Devius (ex de and via--quasi a recta via remotum) signifies out of the way, or road, Devia rura may be understood of the remote parts of the country, where serpents and lizards are usually found. 76. Take their wings.] i. c. The young storks, when able to fly and provide for themselves, will seek the same animal for food, with which they were fed by the old ones in the nest. 77. With cattle, &c.] The vulture feeds her young-jumento-with the flesh of dead cattle, and of dead dogs. Relicks from crosses.] i. e. Feeds on the remains of the bodies of malefactors that were left exposed on crosses, or gibbets, and brings part of the carcase to her nest--1. 78. 79. Hence, &c.] From thus being supplied with such sort of food by the old one, the young vulture, when she is grown up to be a great bird, feeds upon the same. 80. When now, &c.] She feeds herself and her young in the same : Sed leporem, aut capream, famula Jovis, et generosæ Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem, 85 9Q 95 manner, whenever she has a nest of her own, in some tree which she appropriates for building in. 81. Handmaids of Jove.] Eagles. See HoR. lib. iv. ode iv. 1. 1, et seq. where the eagle is called ministrum fulminis alitem, because supposed to carry Jove's thunder. See FRANCIS, note there. 81.-2. Noble birds, &c.] Not only eagles, but the falcons of various kinds, hunt hares and kids, and having caught them, carry them to their nests to feed their young with. 83. Thence, &c.] . e. From being fed with such sort of food when young. The mature progeny.] The young ones, when grown up, and full fledged. 84. Raised itself, &c.] Upon its wings, and takes its fight. Hunger stimulating ] When sharpened by hunger. 84--5. Hastens to that prey.] To the same sort of food. 85. Which it had first tasted, &c.] Which it had been used to from the time it was first hatched-rupto ovo, from the broken egg -from its very egg-shell, as we say. 86. Centronius.] A famous extravagant architect, who, with his son, (who took after him,) built away all his estate, and had so many palaces at last, that he was too poor to live in any of them. The 87. Caieta.] A sea-port in Campania, not far from Baix, built In memory of Caieta, nurse to Æneas. See Æn. vii. 1. 1-4. shore was here remarkably sinuous and crooked. Summit of Tibur.] See sat. iii. 192, note. 88. Prenestine mountains.] On the mountains near Præneste, a city of Italy, about twenty miles from Rome. Was preparing,] Planning and building, thus preparing them for habitation. 88-9. The high tops, &c.] Magnificent and lofty country-houses. But the hare or the kid, the handmaids of Jove, and the noble In their nest: but, thence, the mature progeny, when 85 90 While thus, therefore, Centronius dwells, he diminished his estate, He impaired his wealth, nor yet was the measure of the remaining Part small: his mad son confounded all this, While he raised up new villas with better marble. Some chance to have a father who fears the Sabbaths, 95 89. With Grecian, &c.] Finished in the most superb taste with Grecian and other kinds of foreign marble. 90. Temple of Fortune.] There was one at Rome built of the fin est marble by Nero-but here is meant that at Præneste. brary. Of Hercules.] At Tibur, where there was a very great li 91. Eunuch Posides, &c.] A freedman and favourite of Claudius Cæsar, who was possessed of immense riches; he built on the shore at Baiæ some baths which were very magnificent, and called, after him, Posidianæ. Our capitals.] Of which there were several, besides that at Rome, as at Capua, Pompeia, and other places. But the poet means particularly the capitol at Rome, which, after having been burnt, was rebuilt and beautified most magnificently by Domitian. 92. While thus, &c.] While he thus builds and inhabits such expensive and magnificent houses, he outruns his income. 93. Nor yet, &c.] Nevertheless, though he lessened his fortune, yet there was no small part of it left. 94. His mad son, &c.] His son, who, from the example of his father, had contracted a sort of madness for expensive building, confounded the remaining part of his father's fortune, when it came to him after his father's death. 95. Raised up new villas, &c.] Endeavouring to excel his father, and to build at a still greater expense, with more costly materials. This instance of Centronius and his son is here given as a proof of the poet's argument, that children will follow the vices and follies of parents, and perhaps even exceed them (comp. 1. 53.); therefore parents should be very careful of the example which they set their children. 96. Some chance, &c.] Sortiti-i. e. it falls to the lot of some. Nil præter nubes, et cœli numen adorant : 100 103 96. Fears the Sabbaths.] Not only reverences the seventh day, but the other Jewish feasts, which were called Sabbaths. The poet having shewn, that children follow the example of their parents in vice and folly, here shews, that in religious matters also children are led by their parents' example. 97. Beside the clouds. Because the Jews did not worship images, but looked toward heaven when they prayed, they were charged with worshipping the clouds, the heathen having no notion but of worshipping some visible object, The Deity of heaven.] Juvenal, though he was wise enough to laugh at his own country gods, yet had not any notion of the ONE TRUE GOD, which makes him ridicule the Jewish worship. However, I doubt much, whether, by numen coli, in this place, we are not to suppose Juvenal as representing the Jews to worship the material heaven, "the blue ætherial sky," (as Mr. Addisson phrases it in his translation of the 19th Psalm,) imagining that they made a deity of it, as he supposed they did of the clouds-this I think the rather, as it stands here joined with nubes, and was likewise a visible object. See TAGIT. Hist. v. initio. As for the God of Heaven, he was to Juvenal, as to the Athenians, as Dos, (see Acts xvii. 23.) utterly unknown; and therefore the poet could not mean him by numen coli." After the "wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God." 1 Cor. i. 21. 98. Swine's flesh to be different from human.] They think it as abominable to eat the one as the other. Here he ignorantly ridicules their observance of that law, Lev. xi. 7, &c. 99. The father, &c.] He treats it as a matter of mere tradition, as if the son only did it because his father did it before him. Soon they lay aside, &c.] Here he ridicules the right of cir cumcision, which was performed on the eighth day after their birth, according to Gen. xvii. 10, et seq. 100. Used to despise, &c.] It being their wonted custom and practice to hold the laws of Rome, relative to the worship of the gods in particular, in the highest contempt. See Exod. xxiii. 24. 101. They learn.] From their childhood. Ediscunt--learn by heart. And keep.] Observe. |