"An half-eaten hare, or something from the buttocks of a boar:

"To us will now come the lesser fat fowl"—then with prepared

And untouched, and cut bread, ye are silent.

He is wise, who uses you thus: all things, if you can,

170

You also ought to bear: with a shaven crown you will some time

Offer your head to be beat, nor will you fear hard

Lashes to endure, worthy these feasts, and such a friend.

patient expectation of the good things which you imagine are coming to

you.

170. He is wise, &c.] Meanwhile, Virro does wisely; he treats you very rightly, by sending none of his dainties to your part of the table; for if you can bear such usage repeatedly, you certainly deserve to bear it.

171. With a shaven crown, &c.] q. d.

You will soon be more abject still; like slaves, whose heads are shaven, in token of their servile condition, you will submit to a broken head; you'll not mind a hearty flogging.

173. Worthy these feasts, &c.] Thus you will prove yourself deserving of such scurvy fare as you are insulted with at Virro's table, and of just such a patron as Virro to give it you.

SATIRA VI.

ARGUMENT.

This Satire is almost twice the length of any of the rest, and is a bitter invective against the fair sex. The ladies of Rome are here represented in a very shocking light. The poet takes

CREDO pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam
In terris, visamque diu; cum frigida parvas
Præberet spelunca domos, ignemque, Laremque,
Et pecus, et dominos communi clauderet umbra:
Silvestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor
Frondibus et culmo, vicinarumque ferarum
Pellibus, haud similis tibi, Cynthia, nec tibi, cujus
Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos :
Sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis,
Et sæpe horridior glandem ructante marito.
Quippe aliter tunc orbe novo, coloque recenti
Vivebant homines; qui rupto robore nati,
Compositique luto nullos habuere parentes.
Multa pudicitiæ veteris vestigia forsan,

Aut aliqua extiterant, et sub Jove, sed Jove nondum
Barbato, nondum Græcis jurare paratis

Line 1. Saturn.] The son of Colum and Vesta. Under his reign in Italy the poets place the Golden Age, when the earth, not forced by plough or harrow, afforded all sorts of grain and fruit, the whole world was common, and without inclosure.

2. Was seen long.] During the whole of the Golden Age.

3. The household god.] Lar signifies a god, whose image was kept within the house, and set in the chimney, or on the hearth, and was supposed to preside over and protect the house and land.

5. The mountain-wife.] Living in dens and caves of the mountains.

5

10

15

7. Cynthia.] Mistress to the poet Propertius.

7, 8. Nor thee, whose bright eyes, &c.] Meaning Lesbia, mistress to Catullus, who wrote an elegy on the death of her sparrow. The poet mentions these ladies in contrast with the simplicity of life and manners in ancient times.

9. Her great children.] According to Hesiod, in the Golden Age, men were accounted infants, and under the care of their mother, till near an hundred years old. Potanda well suits this idea, for such might rather be said to drink, than to suck.

10. Belching the acorn.] The first race

SATIRE VI.

ARGUMENT.

occasion to persuade his friend Ursidius Posthumus from marriage, at the expence of the whole sex. See Mr. Dryden's Argument.

I BELIEVE that chastity, in the reign of Saturn, dwelt Upon earth, and was seen long: when a cold den afforded Small habitations, and fire, and the household-god,

And inclosed the cattle, and their masters, in one common shelter:

5

When the mountain-wife would make her rural bed
With leaves and straw, and with the skins of her neighbouring
Wild beasts, nor like thee, Cynthia, nor thee, whose bright
Eyes a dead sparrow made foul (with weeping :)
But carrying her dugs to be drunk by her great children,
And often more rough than her husband belching the acorn. 10
For then, in the new orb of earth, and recent heaven,
Men lived otherwise-who, born from a bursten oak,
And composed out of clay, had no parents.
Perhaps many traces of chastity remained,

Or some, even under Jupiter, but Jupiter not as yet.
Bearded; the Greeks not as yet prepared to swear

of men were supposed to have fed on acorns; a windy kind of food.

SO DRYDEN:

And fat with acorns belch'd their windy food.

11. Recent heaven.] Cœlum here means the air, firmament, or atmosphere.

12. From a bursten oak.] Antiquity believed men to have come forth from trees. So VIRG. Æn. viii. 315.

Gensque virum truncis et duro robore

nata.

The notion came from their inhabiting the trunks of large trees, and from thence they were said to be born of them.

15

13. And composed out of clay.] Or mud, by Prometheus, the son of Iapetus, one of the Titans. See AINSW. Prometheus.

So this poet, sat. xiv. 35.

Et meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan. See sat. iv. 133. and note.

15. Under Jupiter, &c.] When Jove had driven his father Saturn into banishment, the Silver Age began, according to the poets. Jove was the supposed son of Saturn and Ops.

16. Bearded.] The most innocent part of the Silver Age was before Jove had a beard; for when once down grew upon his chin, what pranks he played with

Per caput alterius: cum furem nemo timeret
Caulibus, aut pomis, sed aperto viveret horto.
Paulatim deinde ad superos Astræa recessit
Hac comite, atque duæ pariter fugere sorores.
Antiquum et vetus est alienum, Posthume, lectum
Concutere, atque sacri genium contemnere fulcri.
Omne aliud crimen mox ferrea protulit ætas :
Viderunt primos argentea sæcula mœchos.
Conventum tamen, et pactum, et sponsalia, nostra
Tempestate paras; jamque a tonsore magistro
Pecteris, et digito pignus fortasse dedisti.
Certe sanus eras: uxorem, Posthume, ducis?
Dic, qua Tisiphone, quibus exagitare colubris?
Ferre potes dominam salvis tot restibus ullam?
Cum pateant alta, caligantesque fenestræ?
Cum tibi vicinum se præbeat Æmilius pons?
Aut si de multis nullus placet exitus; illud
Nonne putas melius, quod tecum pusio dormit?
Pusio qui noctu non litigat: exigit a te
Nulla jacens illic munuscula, nec queritur quod
Et lateri parcas, nec, quantum jussit, anheles.
Sed placet Ursidio lex Julia: tollere dulcem
Cogitat hæredem, cariturus turture magno,

the female sex are well known; iron watch over the marriage bed, and to bars and locks could not hold against his preserve it, or punish the violation of golden key. See HOR. lib. iii. ode xvi. it. 1-8.

17. By the head of another.] The Greeks introduced forms of swearing, not only by Jupiter, who was therefore called Орkios, but by other gods, and by men, by themselves, their own heads, &c. Like Ascanius, Æn. ix. 300.

Per caput hoc juro, per quod pater ante solebat.

18. Lived with an open garden.] They had no need of inclosures to secure their fruits from thieves.

19. Astræa.] The goddess of justice, who, with many other deities, lived on earth in the Golden Age, but, being offended with men's vices, she retired to the skies, and was translated into the sign Virgo, next to Libra, who holdeth her balance. See Ov. Met. lib. i. 1. 150.

20. The two sisters.] Justice and Chastity.

22. Genius.] Signifies a good or evil dæmon, attending each man or woman at every time and place; hence, to

Of the sacred prop.] Fulcrum not only denotes the prop which supports a bed, (i. e. the bedstead, as we call it,) but, by synec. the couch or bed itself.

The poet is here describing the antiquity of the sin of adultery, or violation of the marriage bed.

23,4. The Iron Age-The Silver Age.] Of these, see Ovid. Met. lib. i. fab. iv. and v.

25. Yet, &c.] Here Juvenal begins to expostulate with his friend Ursidius Posthumus on his intention to marry. You, says he, in these our days of profligacy, are preparing a meeting of friends, a marriage-contract, and espousals. The word sponsalia sometimes denotes presents to the bride.

26. By a master barber.] You have your hair dressed in the sprucest manner, to make yourself agreeable to your sweetheart.

27. Pledge to the finger.] The wedding-ring-this custom is very ancient. See CHAMBERS-Tit. Ring.

By the head of another: when nobody feared a thief
For his herbs, or apples, but lived with an open garden.
Then, by little and little, Astræa retired to the gods,
With this her companion, and the two sisters fled away
together.

20

It is an old ancient practice, O Posthumus, to violate the bed
Of another, and to despise the genius of the sacred prop.
Every other crime the Iron Age presently brought in,
The Silver Age saw the first adulterers.

25

Yet a meeting, and a contract, and espousals, in our
Time you prepare: and already by a master barber
You are combed: and perhaps have given the pledge to the

finger.

You certainly was once sound (of mind.) Do you, Posthu

mus, marry?

Say, by what Tisiphone, by what snakes are you agitated?
Can you bear any mistress, when so many halters are safe? 30
When so many high and dizzening windows are open?
When the Æmilian bridge presents itself near you?
Or if, of so many, no one death pleases you, do not you
Think it better to live as you now do?

With those who have no nightly quarrels with you,
Who exact no presents, nor complain that

You don't comply with all their unreasonable desires?
But the Julian law pleases Ursidius, he thinks

35

To bring up a sweet heir, about to want a large turtle fish,

28. One sound (of mind).] You were once in your senses, before you took marriage into your head.

29. What Tisiphone.] She was supposed to be one of the furies, with snakes upon her head instead of hair, and to urge and irritate men to furious actions.

30. Any mistress.] A wife to domineer and govern.

-So many halters are safe.] Are left unused, and therefore readily to be come at, and you might so easily hang yourself out of the way.

31. Dizzening windows.] Altæ, caligantesque i. e. so high as to make one's head dizzy by looking down from them. Caligo-inis signifies sometimes dizziness. See AINSW.

The poet insinuates, that his friend might dispatch himself by throwing himself out at window.

32. Emilian bridge.] Built over the

Tiber by Æmilius Scaurus, about a mile from Rome.

Ursidius might throw himself over this, and drown himself in the river.

34-7. In these four lines our poet is carried, by his rage against the vicious females of his day, into an argument which ill suits with his rectitude of thought, and which had better be obscured by decent paraphrase, than explained by literal translation. See sat. ii. 1. 12. note.

38. The Julian law.] Against adultery. Vid. sat. ii. 37.

Ursidius delights himself to think that, if he marries, the Julian law will protect the chastity of his wife.

39. An heir.] To his fortune and

estate.

-About to want, &c.] Now, at a time of life to be courted, as a single man, he'll have no presents of fish, and other dainties, from people who wish to ingra