That in time to come he should not be unpunished, because he doubted To retain a deposit, and defend the fraud by swearing: 200 And whether Apollo would advise this deed to him. NESS, HATH THE GUILT OF THE FACT.-" Tell me, if he accom"plish'd his attempts?" 210 "Perpetual anxiety: nor does it cease at the time of the table, "With jaws dry as by disease, and between his grinders "The difficult food increasing. But the wretch spits out "His wine: the precious old age of old Albanian 214 "Wiil displease: if you shew him better, the thickest wrinkle by Calvinus, on hearing what Juvenal had said above. Tell me, says Calvinus, if what you say be true, that the very design to do evil makes a person guilty of what he designed to do, what would be the case of his actually accomplishing what he intended, as my false friend has done? 211. "Perpetual anxiety."] Juvenal answers the question, by setting forth, in very striking colours, the anguish of a wounded conscience. First, he would be under continual anxiety. -"The time of the table."] Even at his meals-his convivial hours. 212. With juros dry," &c.] His mouth hot and parched, like one in a fever. 213. "Difficult food increasing."] This circumstance is very natural-the uneasiness of this wretch's mind occasions the symptoms of a fever; one of which is a dryness in the mouth and throat, owing to the want of a due secretion of the saliva, by the glands appropriated for that purpose. The great use of this secretion, which we call saliva, or spittle, is in masticating and diluting the food, and making the first digestion thereof; also to lubricate the throat and œsophagus, or gullet, in order to facili tate deglutition, which, by these means, in healthy persons, is attended with ease and pleasure. But the direct contrary is the case, where the mouth and throat are quite dry, as in fevers-the food is chewed with difficulty and disgust, and cannot be swallowed without uneasiness and loathing, and may well be called diffi. cilis cibus in both these respects. Wanting also the saliva to moisten it, and make it into a sort of paste for deglutition, it breaks into pieces between the teeth, and taking up more room than when in one mass, it fills the mouth as if it had increased in quantity, and is attended with a nausea, or loathing, which still increases the uneasiness of the sensation. 213, 14. "Spits out his wine."] He can't relish it, his mouth being out of taste, and therefore spits it out as something nauseous. 214. “Albanian."] See sat. v. 1. 33, note. This was reckoned the finest and best wine in all Italy, especially when old. See HoR. lib. iv. ode xi. 1. 1, 2. 215." Shew him better."] If you could set even better wine than this before him, he could not relish it. Cogitur in frontem, velut acri ducta Falerno. 220 Hi sunt qui trepidant, et ad omnia fulgura pallent, Cum tonat; exanimes primo quoque murmure cœli: Non quasi fortuitus, nec ventorum rabie, sed 225 Iratus cadat in terras, et vindicet ignis. Illa nihil nocuit, curâ graviore timetur Proxima tempestas; velut hoc dilata sereno. Si cœpêre pati, missum ad sua corpora morbum 230 215."The thickest wrinkle," &c.] His forehead would contract into wrinkles without end, as if they were occasioned by his being offered sour Falernan wine. Densissima is here used, as in sat. i. 120, to denote a vast number; as we say, a thick crowd, where vast numbers of people are collected together. Falernan wine was in high repute among the Romans when it was of the best sort; but there was a kind of coarse, sour wine, which came from Falernus, a mountain of Campania, which, when drank, would occasion sickness and vomiting. See sat. vi, 1. 427, note; and sat. vi. 1. 429. 218." His limbs tumbled over," &c.] Tumbling and tossing from one side of the bed to the other, through the uneasiness of his mind. See sat. iii. 280, and note; and AINSW. Verso, No. 2. 219. The temple-the altars," &c.] He is haunted with dreadful dreams, and seems to see the temple in which, and the altar upon which, he perjured himself, and thus profaned and violated the majesty of the Deity. 220."What urges his mind," &c.] But that which occasions him more misery than all the rest (see AINSW. Sudor; and sat. i. 167.) is, that he fancies he beholds the man whom he has injured, appearing (as aggrandized by his fears) The greater than a human form. ancients had much superstition on the subject of apparitions, and always held them sacred; and (as fear magnifies its objects) they always were supposed to appear greater than the life. Hence Juvenal says, sacra et major imago. Comp. VIRG. Æn. ii. 1, 772, 3. 222." Compels him to confess."] i. e. The villany which he has been guilty of a confession of this is wrung from him by the terrors which he undergoes; he can no longer keep the secret within his breast. 223.“ All lightnings," &c.] The poet proceeds in his description of the miserable state of the wicked, and here represents them as filled with horror by thunder and lightning, and dreading the consequences. 224. “ First murmur," &c.] They are almost dead with fear, on hearing the first rumbling in the sky. 225. "Not as if," &c.] They do not look upon it as happening fortuitously, by mere chance or accident, without any direction or intervention of the gods, like the Epicureans. See HoR. sat. v. lib. i. 1. 101—3. -"Ruge of winds.”] Or from the violence of the winds, occasioning a collision of the clouds, and so producing the lightning, as the philosophers thought, "Is gathered on his forehead, as drawn by sour Falernan. "In the night, if haply care hath indulged a short sleep, "And his limbs tumbled over the whole bed now are quiet, Immediately the temple, and the altars of the violated Deity, "And (what urges his mind with especial pains) 220 66 "Thee he sees in his sleep: thy sacred image, and bigger "Than human, disturbs him fearful, and compels him to confess." "There are they who tremble, and turn pale at all lightnings "When it thunders: also lifeless at the first murmur of the "heavens: 225 "Not as if accidental, nor by rage of winds, but "Fire may fall on the earth enraged, and may avenge.' "That did no harm"-" the next tempest is fear'd "With heavier concern, as if deferr'd by this fair weather. "Moreover a pain of the side with a watchful fever, 66 If they have begun to suffer, they believe the disease sent 230 "To their bodies by some hostile deity: they think these things "The stones and darts of the gods: to engage a bleating sheep who treated on the physical causes of lightning, as Pliny and Seneca. 226. "Fire may full," &c.] The wretch thinks that the flashes which he sees and dreads will not confine their fury to the skies, but, armed with divine vengeance, may fall upon the earth, and destroy the guilty. 227. "That did no harm.”] i. e. That last tempest did no mischief; it is now over and harmless: "So far is well," thinks the unhappy wretch. "The next tempest," &c.] Though they escape the first storm, yet they dread the next still more, imagining that they have only had a respite from punishment, and therefore that the next will certainly destroy them. 228." As if deferr'd," &c.] As if delayed by one fair day, on purpose, afterwards, to fall the heavier. This passage of Juvenal reminds one of that wonderfully fine speech, on a similar subject, which our great and inimitable poet, Shakespeare, has put into the mouth of king Lear, when turned out by his cruel and ungrateful daughters, and, on a desolate and barren heath, is in the midst of a storm of thunder and lightning. LEAR. "Let the great gods "That keep this dreadful pother o'er our "heads, "Find out their enemies now. Trem "ble thou wretch "That hast within thee undivulged "crimes, "Unwhipt of justice: hide thee, thou "bloody hand; "Thou perjur'd and thou simular man "of virtue "That art incestuous: Cailiff, to pieces "shake "That under covert and convenient "Hast practis'd on man's life! Close LEAR, act iii. sc. 1. 229. "Pain of the side," &c.] The poet seems here to mean a pleurisy, or pleuritic fever, a painful and dangerous distemper. "A watchful fever."] i. e. A fever which will not let them sleep, or take their rest. 230. “Begun to suffer," &c.] On the first attack of such a disorder, they believe themselves doomed to suffer the wrath of an offended Deity, of which their illness seems to them an earnest. 232. "Stones and darts."] These were weapons of war among the ancients; when they attacked a place, they threw, Balantem, et Laribus cristam promittere galli Non audent. Quid enim sperare nocentibus ægris 235 Cum scelus admittunt, superest constantia: quid fas, Atque nefas, tandem incipiunt sentire, peractis Perfidus, et nigri patietur carceris uncum, 245 Aut maris Ægæi rupem, scopulosque frequentes from engines for that purpose, huge stones to batter down the wall, and darts to annoy the besieged. Here the poet uses the words in a metaphorical sense, to denote the apprehension of the sick criminal, who thinks himself, as it were, besieged by an offended Deity, who employs the pleurisy and fever, as his artillery, to destroy the guilty wretch. -"To engage a bleating sheep," &c.] Or lamb-pecus may signify either. It was usual for persons in danger, or in sickness, to engage by vow some offering to the gods, on their deliverance, or recovery; but the guilty wretches here mentioned are supposed to be in a state of utter despair, so that they dare not so much as hope for recovery, and therefore have no courage to address any vows to the gods. 233. "Comb of a cock," &c.] So far from promising a cock to Esculapius, they have not the courage to vow even a cock's comb, as a sacrifice to their household gods. 234." Allowed the guilty," &c.] Such guilty wretches can be allowed no hope whatever their own consciences tell them as much. 235. "Is not more worthy," &c.] i. e. Does not more deserve to live than they. 236. "Fickle and changeable."] i. e. Wavering and uncertain, at first; before they commit crimes, they are irresolute, and doubting whether they shall or not, and often change their mind, which is in a fluctuating state. 237. "Remains constancy."] When they have once engaged in evil actions, they become resolute. --"What is right," &c.] After the crime is perpetrated, they begin to reflect on what they have done they are forcibly stricken with the difference between right and wrong, insomuch that they feel, for a while, a remorse of conscience; but notwithstanding this 239. "Nature recurs," &c.] Their evil nature will return to its corrupt principles, and silence all remorse; fixed and unchangeable in this respect, it may be said, Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret. HOR. lib. i. epist. x. 1. 24. "To the little temple, and to promise the comb of a cock to 66 "the Lares They dare not; for what is allowed the guilty sick "To hope for? or what victim is not more worthy of life? 235 "The nature of wicked men is, for the most part, fickle, and "changeable; "When they commit wickedness, there remains constancy: "what is right "And what wrong, at length they begin to perceive, their crimes "Being finish'd: but nature recurs to its damned "Morals, fix'd, and not knowing to be changed. For who 240 "Hath laid down to himself an end of sinning? when recover'd Modesty once cast off from his worn forehead? "Who is there of men, whom you have seen content with one "Base action? our perfidious wretch will get his feet into "A snare, and will suffer the hook of a dark prison, "Or a rock of the Ægean sea, and the rocks frequent "To great exiles. You will rejoice in the bitter punishment "Of his hated name, and, at length, glad will confess, that no "one of 245 lished surface remains; so a wicked man, by frequent and continual crimes, grows hardened against all impressions of shame, of which the forehead is often represented as the seat. See Jer. iii. 3. latter part. 243. "Who is there," &c.] Who ever contented himself with sinning but once, and stopped at the first fact? 244. Our perfidious wretch," &c.] Noster perfidus, says Juvenal, meaning the villain who had cheated Calvinus, and then perjured himself. As if the poet had said, Don't be so uneasy, Calvinus, at the loss of your money, or so anxious about revenging yourself upon the wretch who has perjured you; have a little patience, he won't stop here, he'll go on from bad to worse, till you will find him sufficiently punished, and yourself amply avenged. 244, 5. "Into a snare."] He'll do something or other which will send him to gaol, and load him with fetters. Or, he will walk into a snare (comp. Job xviii. 8—10.) and be entangled in his own devices. 245. "Suffer the hook," &c.] The uncus was a drag, or hook, by which the bodies of malefactors were dragged about the streets after execution. See sat. x. 1. 66. But, by this line, it should seem as if some instrument of this sort was made use of, either for torture, or closer confinement in the dungeon. 246. "Rock of the Egean sea."] Or, if he should escape the gallows, that he will be banished to some rocky, barren island in the Egean sea, where he will lead a miserable life. Perhaps the island Seriphus is here meant. See sat. vi. 563. 246. "The rocks frequent," &c.] The rocky islands of the Cyclades, (see sat. vi. 562, note,) to which members were banished, and frequently, either by the tyranny of the emperor, or through their own crimes, persons of high rank. 247. You will rejoice," &c.] You, Calvinus, will at last triumph over the villain that has wronged you, when you see the bitter sufferings, which await him, fall upon him. 248. "His hated name."] Which will not be mentioned, but with the utmost detestation and abhorrence. -"At length-confess."] However, in time past, you may have doubted of it, you will in the end joyfully own |