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Have drawn sense sent down from the cœlestial top,

Which prone things, and things looking on the earth, want.

The common builder of the world at the beginning indulged to them
Only souls; to us a mind also, that a mutual affection
Might command us to seek, and to afford help;

To draw the dispersed into a people, to migrate from the old
Forest, and to leave woods inhabited by our ancestors;
To build houses, to join to our habitations

Another roof, that safe slumbers, by a neighbouring

150

[arms 155

Threshold, a contributed confidence might give: to protect with A fallen citizen, or one staggering with a great wound :

To give signs with a common trumpet, to be defended with the same Towers, and to be secured by one key of the gates.

that by which we live; the animus, or intellectual mind, is that by which we are wise above the brutes. See sat. vi. 1. 530, note.

149. A mutual affection.] The end for which this intellectual mind is given us, so far as it relates to the purposes of society, is, to incline us to bestow, as well as to require, mutual good offices towards each other; and therefore it disposes us to mutual affection.

151. The dispersed, &c.] To collect men, who are naturally dispersed, and bring them together into society.

To migrate, &c.] To depart from the woods and forests, the ancient abodes of the earliest ages, where men lived in common with the beasts, and to coalesce and unite in civil society. See sat. vi. 1. 2-7.

153. To build houses.] For habitation, instead of living in dens and caves, like beasts.

-To join, c.] To join our houses to one another, for the greater safety and convenience of the whole, against robbers, wild beasts, &c.

155. Threshold.] Limine stands here, per syn. for the house itself. A contributed confidence.] That by thus joining houses (the original of cities and towns) each might receive and impart a confidential notion of safety, in the night time particularly, when men sleep, and, of course, are more exposed to dangers.

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To protect with arms, &c.] To protect in war, from the hands of the enemy, a fellow-citizen who had fallen, or was reeling with loss of blood from wounds.

157. To give signs, &c.] When on an expedition in time of war, to obey one common signal, given by the trumpet for battle,

158. Towers.] Turris signifies a tower, or any thing like it; so any fortified place.

Secured by one key, &c.] To be enclosed within the same walls, and locked up in security by the same key of the gates. The poet, by what he has said, has shewn the great advantages of men above brutes, in having a rational mind, which can direct them

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Sed jam serpentum major concordia: parcit
Cognatis maculis similis fera: quando leoni
Fortior eripuit vitam leo? quo nemore unquam,S
Expiravit aper majoris dentibus apri?
Indica tigris agit rabidâ cum tigride pacem
Perpetuam sævis inter se convenit ursis.
Ast homini ferrum lethale incude nefandâ
Produxisse parum est; cum rastra et sarcula tantum-
Assueti coquere, et marris ac vomere lassi
Nescierint primi gladios excudere fabri.
Aspicimus populos, quorum non sufficit iræ

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Occidisse aliquem; sed pectora, brachia, vultum,,
Crediderint genus esse cibi. Quid diceret ergo,
Vel quo non fugeret, si nunc hæc monstra videret

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to form societies, so that, by mutual help and assistance, they can secure and protect each other. All this is agreeable to the dictates of their common nature, and thus it ought to be; but such is the corruption and depravity of mankind, that, as the poet proceeds to shew, there is little of this to be found; on the contrary, beasts are not so cruel to their own species as men are.

159. Concord of serpents, &c. These venomous creatures do not hurt their own species; they agree better than men now do with each other.

160. Spares his kindred spots.] The leopard recognises the leopard, and avoids hurting him, whom he sees, by his spots, to be related to the same species with himself.

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165. But, &c.] The poet having, in several instances, shewn the harmony and agreement which subsist among the most fierce and s vage beasts, now proceeds to apply this to his main argument in this place, which is to prove, that the concord between these creatures is greater than is to be found among the human race towards each other; and indeed, that man towards man is now so savage, as to fabricate weapons for their mutual destruction, and this without any

remorse or concern.

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166. To have produced, &c.] Lit. to have lengthened out deadly iron, &c.-i. e. by drawing it out, with hammering it on the anvil, into the length of a sword, a deadly weapon, and most fatal: the poet therefore calls the anvil on which it is made impious, as being instrumental to the forming of this mischievous weapon.

Is little.] Is to be looked upon as a trifle, in comparison of what mankind are now capable of. See I. 161-71.

Whereas.] Cum--although, albeit.

Being accustomed, &c.] The first smiths set up their trade only to forge instruments of husbandry, and made nothing else. Coquere signifies, here, to heat in the fire. AINSW.

167. Tired with mattocks, &c.] They wearied themselves daily in making hoes or mattocks, or ploughshares, for tillage,

But now the concord of serpents is greater: a similar

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Beast spares his kindred spots When, from a lion,plarea mat 160 lion take life? in what forest ever,

Did a stronger

away

Did a boar expire by the teeth of a larger boar? bo

The Indian tyger observes a perpetual peace with a fierce
Tyger: there is agreement with savage bears among themselves.
But for man the deadly sword from the impious anvil

165

To have produced is little; whereas, being accustomed only to heat Rakes and spades, and tired with mattocks and the ploughshare,

The first smiths knew not how to beat out swords.

We see people, to whose anger it does not suffice

To have killed any one, but the breasts, the arms, the face,
They believed to be a kind of food.

said,

170

What therefore would he have

Or whither would he not have fled, if now Pythagoras could have

seen

168. Knew not how, &c.] So far from hammering iron inte swords, they did not even know how to set about it.

169. We see people, &c.] Meaning the savage Tentyrites before mentioned, who ate human flesh, and looked upon it as a species of ordinary food.

172. Pythagoras.] The famous philosopher, who left his country Samos, then under the tyrant Polycrates, and travelled over India, through Egypt, in search of knowledge. He forbad the eating of animals on account of the transmigration of souls; he would not allow himself to eat all sorts of vegetables, but abstained from beans, which he is supposed to have learnt from the Egyptian priests, when he was in that country, who abstained from beans, and thought it unlawful to sow or to look upon them. HERODOT, Euterpe.

What, says the poet, would Pythagoras have said, if he had seen these Ægyptians, these Tentyrites, tearing and devouring human flesh to what part of the earth would not he have flown, to have avoided such a sight? who, so far from holding it lawful to eat human flesh, would not eat the flesh of any animal any more than he would have eaten the flesh of a man, nor would he indulge his ap petite with every kind of vegetable.

The reason of this strange piece of superstition, of abstinence from beans, is not known; many causes have been assigned for it, which are full as absurd as the thing itself. The reader may find many of these collected in Holyday, note 14, on this Satire. See also ANT. Univ. Hist. vol. i. P. 53.

According to the story of his life, written by Iamblicus, we may suppose that neither Pythagoras, nor any of his followers, would ever reveal the cause of abstinence from beans. It seems that Dionysius the tyrant, the younger, desiring to know the secret, caused two Pythagoreans to be brought before him, a man and his wife,

Pythagoras? cunctis animalibus abstinuit qui

Tanquam homine, et ventri indulsit non omne legumen.

who being asked, "why the Pythagoreans would not eat beans?" "I will sooner die (said the man) than reveal it."-This, though threatened with tortures, he persisted in, and was, with indignation, sent away. The wife was then called upon, and being asked the

These monstrous things? who abstain'd from all animals, as from A man, and did not indulge every kind of pulse to his belly.

same question, and threatened also with tortures, she, rather than reveal it, bit out her tongue, and spit it in the tyrant's face. Of Pythagoras, see OVID, MET. lib. xv. 1. 60, et seq.

END OF THE FIFTEENTH SATIRE.

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