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Quam tu, Coryciâ semper qui puppe moraris,
Atque habitas, Coro semper tollendus et Austro,
Perditus, ac vilis sacci mercator olentis?
Qui gaudes pingue antiquæ de littore Cretæ
Passum, et municipes Jovis advexisse lagenas?
Hic tamen ancipiti figens vestigia plantâ

270

Victum illâ mercede parat, brumamque famemque

Illâ reste cavet: tu propter mille talenta,

Et centum villas temerarius. Aspice portus,

275

Et plenum magnis trabibus mare: plus hominum est jam

In pelago: veniet classis, quocunque vocârit

Spes lucri; nec Carpathium, Gætulaque tantum

Æquora transiliet: sed longe Calpe relictâ,

dancers, in order to balance them as they dance, and throw their bodies into various attitudes on the rope. Comp. 1. 272-4.

267. Than thou.] q. d. Art not thou as much an object of laughter-full as ridiculous?

Who always abidest.] Who livest on shipboard, and art tossed up and down by every gale of wind.

A Corycian ship.] . e. Trading to Corycium, a promontory in Crete, where Jupiter was born.

269. Wretched.] Perditus signifies desperate, past being reclaimed, lost to all sense of what is right.

A stinking sack.] Olentis is capable of two senses, and may be understood either to signify that he dealt in filthy stinking goods, which were made up into bales, and packed in bags or that he dealt in perfumes, which he brought from abroad: but by the epithet vilis, I should rather think the former.

271. Thick sweet wine.] Passum was a sweet wine made of withered grapes dried in the sun. Uva passa, a sort of grape hung up in the sun to wither, and afterwards scalded in a lixivium, to be preserved dry, or to make a sweet wine of.. AINSW. The poet calls

it pingue, from its thickness and lusciousness.

born.

The countrymen of Jove.] Made in Crete, where Jove was
See sat. iv. 1. 33.

272. He nevertheless, &c.] The rope-dancer above mentioned, 1. 265, 6.

Fixing his steps.] Upon the narrow surface of the rope.

With doubtful foot.] There being great danger of falling. Planta signifies the sole of the foot.

273. By that recompence.] Which he receives from the spectators for what he does.

Winter and hunger.] Cold and hunger. See Hor. lib. i. sat. ii. 1. 6.

274. He avoids.] Cavet-takes care to provide against.

You on account, &c.] The poor rope-dancer ventures his limbs to supply his necessary wants; you rashly expose yourself to much greater dangers, to get more than you want.

Than thou, who always abidest in a Corycian ship,

And dwellest always to be lifted up by the north-west wind, and the south,

Wretched, the vile merchant of a stinking sack?

Who rejoicest, from the shore of ancient Crete, to have brought 270 'Thick sweet wine, and bottles the countrymen of Jove.

He nevertheless fixing his steps, with doubtful foot,

Procures a living by that recompence; and winter and hunger

By that rope he avoids: you on account of a thousand talents,

275

And an hundred villas are rash. Behold the ports,

And the sea full with large ships-more of men are now
On the sea: the fleet will come wherever the hope of gain
Shall call; nor the Carpathian and Gætulian seas only
Will it pass over, but, Calpe being far left,

274. A thousand talents.] Amounting to about 187,500%. of our See HOLYDAY, note 9, on this Satire.

money.

275. An hundred villas.] Or country-houses, when one would satisfy any reasonable mind.

sea.

sea.

Are rash.] Rashly run yourself into all the dangers of the

Behold the ports.] What numbers of ships are there fitting for

276. Large ships.] The sea covered with ships. Trabs signifies a beam, any large piece of timber. With these ships were built; but here, by meton. is meant the ships themselves. See VIRG. Æn. iii. 191.-cava trabe currimus æquor.

More of men, &c.] Plus hominum-the greater part of the people.-q. d. There are more people now at sea than on land. This hyperbole (for we can't take the words literally) is to be understood to express the multitudes who were venturing their lives at sea for gain. So with us, when any thing grows general, or gets into fashion, we say-every body follows it all the world does it.

277. The fleet will come.] No matter how distant or perilous the voyage may be, in whatever part of the world money is to be gotten, the hope of gain will induce, not merely, here and there, a single ship, but a whole fleet at once to go in search of it.

278. Carpathian and Gatulian seas.] The Carpathian sea lay between Rhodes and Ægypt, and was so called from the island Carpathus. By the Gætulian, we are to understand what now is called the Straits of Gibraltar.

279. Calpe being far left, &c.] Calpe, a mountain or high rock on the Spanish coasts (hod. Gibraltar), and Abyla (now Ceuta) on the African coast, were called the pillars of Hercules. These pillars were generally believed, in Juvenal's time, to be the farthest west.

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Audiet Herculeo stridentem gurgite solem.-
Grande operæ pretium est, ut tenso folle reverti
Inde domum possis, tumidâque superbus alutâ,
Oceani monstra, et juvenes vidisse marinos.
Non unus mentes agitat furor: ille sororis
In manibus vultu Eumenidum terretur et igni.
Hic bove percusso mugire Agamemnona credit,
Aut Ithacum: parcat tunicis licet atque lacernis,
Curatoris eget, qui navem mercibus implet

Ad summum latus, et tabulâ distinguitur undâ ;
Cum sit causa mali tanti, et discriminis hujus,
Concisum argentum in titulos faciesque minutas
Occurrunt nubes et fulgura: solvite funem,

280

285

290

280. The sun hissing.] Alluding to the notion of the sun's arising out of the ocean in the east, and setting in the ocean in the west.

Herculean gulph.] i. e. The Atlantic ocean, which, at the Straits, was called the Herculean gulph, because there Hercules is supposed to have finished his navigation, and on the two now opposite shores of Spain and Africa, which then united, (as is said,) to have built his pillars; (see note above, 1. 279.) If they sailed be yond these, they fancied they could, when the sun set, hear him hiss in the sea, like red-hot iron put into water. This was the notion of Posidonius the philosopher, and others.

281. It is a great reward of labour.] Grande operæ pretium—a labour exceedingly worth the while! Ironice.

A stretched purse.] Filled full of money.

282. A swelled bag.] Aluta signifies tanned or tawed leather; and, by metonym. any thing made thereof, as shoes, scrips, or bags kind-here it means a money-bag.

of

any

Swelled.] Distended-puffed out-with money.

283. Monsters, &c.] Whales, or other large creatures of the deep. Marine youths.] Tritons, which were supposed to be half men, half fish.-Mermaids also may be here meant, which are described with the bodies of young women, the rest like fishes.

Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne. HOR. de Art. Poet. 1. 4. 284. Not one madness, &c.] i. e. Madness does not always shew itself in the same shape; men are mad in different ways, and on different subjects.

He, in the hands of his sister, &c.] Alluding to the story of Orestes, who, after he had slain his mother, was tormented by furies his sister Electra embracing him, endeavoured to comfort him, but he said to her" Let me alone, thou art one of the furies; you only embrace me, that you may cast me into Tartarus." EURIP in Orest.

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285. Eumenides.] The three furies, the daughters of Acheron

Will hear the sun hissing in the Herculean gulph.

It is a great reward of labour, that with a stretched purse,
You may return home from thence, and proud with a swelled bag,
To have seen monsters of the ocean, and marine youths.

280

Not one madness agitates minds: he, in the hands of his sisters,
Is affrighted with the countenance, and fire of the Eumenides. 285
This man, an ox being stricken, believes Agamemnon to roar,
Or Ithacus. Tho' he should spare his coats and cloaks,
He wants a keeper, who fills with merchandise a ship

To the topmast edge, and by a plank is divided from the water;
When the cause of 30 great evil, and of this danger,
Is silver battered into titles, and small faces.
Clouds and lightnings occur: "Loose the cable"

290

and Nox-Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra. They were called Eumenides, by antiphrasis, from evμevns, kind, benevolent. They are described with snakes on their heads, and with lighted torches in their hands.

286. This man, an ox being stricken, &c.] Ajax, on the armour of Achilles being adjudged to Ulysses, (see Ov. Met. lib. xiii.) ran mad, and destroyed a flock of sheep, thinking he was destroying the Greeks. He slew two oxen, taking one for Agamemnon, the other for Ulysses. See SOPHOс. Ajax Mastigophorus.

287. Ithacus.] Ulysses, king of Ithaca. See sat. x. 257.

Spare his coats, c.] Though he should not be so furiously mad, as to tear his clothes off his back.

288. Wants a keeper.] Curatoris eget-stands in need of somebody to take care of him.

Who fills, &c.] Who, for the hopes of gain, loads a ship so deep, that there is nothing left of her above the water, but the uppermost part, or edges of her sides.

289. Aplank, &c.] Has nothing between him and the fathomless deep but a thin plank. See sat. xii. 57-9.

290. When the cause, &c.] The only motive to all this.

291. Silver battered, &c. A periphrasis for money.--The silver of which it was made, was first cut into pieces, then stamped with the name and titles of the reigning emperor, and also with a likeness of his face. See Matt. xxii. 20, 1.

292. Clouds and lightnings occur.] The weather appears cloudy, and looks as if there would be a storm of thunder and lightning; but this does not discourage the adventurer from leaving the port. "Loose the cable."] Says he unmoor the ship, and "prepare for sailing."

Funem may signify either the cable with which the vessel was fastened on shore; or the cable belonging to the anchor, by which she was fastened in the water.

Frumenti dominus clamat, piperisque coëmptor;
Nil color hic cæli, nil fascia nigra minatur :
Estivum tonat: infelix, ac forsitan ipsâ
Nocte cadet fractis trabibus, fluctuque premetur
Obrutus, et zonam lævâ morsuve tenebit.
Sed, cujus votis modo non suffecerat aurum,
Quod Tagus, et rutilâ volvit Pactolus arenâ,
Frigida sufficient velantes inguina panni,
Exiguusque cibus; mersâ rate naufragus assem
Dum petit, et pictâ se tempestate tuetur.
Tantis parta malis, curâ majore metuque
Servantur: misera est inagni custodia censûs.

295

300

293. Cries the owner, &c.] The owner of the freight calls out aloud.

The buyer-up of pepper.] Juvenal does not simply say, emptor, the buyer, but coemptor, the buyer-up; as if he meant to -describe a monopolizer, who buys up the whole of a commodity, in order to sell it on his own terms.

294. "This colour of the heaven."] This dark complexion of the sky.

"This black cloud."] Fascia signifies a swathe or band. A thick cloud was called fascia, because it seemed to swathe or bind up the sun, and hinder its light: but, perhaps, rather from its being an assemblage of many clouds collected and bound, as it were, together.

295. "It is summer thunder."] Nothing but a mere thunder shower, which will soon be over, and which in summer time is very common, without any storm following.

Unhappy wretch.] Who is blinded by his avarice, so as to consider no consequences.

296. Beams being broken.] Shipwrecked by the ensuing tempest, he will fall into the sea, the timbers of his ship broken to pieces.

297. His girdle, &c.] Some think that the ancients carried their money tied to their girdles, from whence Plautus calls a cut-purse sector zonarius. But I should rather think that they carried their money in their girdles, which were made hollow for that purpose. See HoR. epist. ii. lib. ii. 1. 40. Suet. Vitell. c. 16. says-Zona se aureorum plena circumdedit.

Left hand.] While he swims with his right.

Or with his bite.] i. e. With his teeth, that he may have both hands at liberty to swim with.

298. But for him, &c.] Whose wishes were boundless, and whose desires after wealth were insatiable.

299. Tagus.] A river of Portugal. See Ov. Met. ii. 251.

Pactolus.] A river in Lydia, called also Chrysorrhoas.-Both these rivers were said to have golden sands. See HoR. epad. xv. 20.

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