Vox domini fremit instantis, virgamque tenentis. Plurimum enim intererit. quibus artibus, et quibus hunc tu 62." The rough vessels."] The wrought plate, which is rough and uneven, by reason of the embossed figures upon it, which stand out of its surface. See sat. i. 76. So En. ix. 263. 65 70 75 80 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 ser Bina dabo argento perfecta atque aspera vus) a servant lad. 63. Holding a rod.] To keep them all to their work, on pain of being scourged. -Blusters.] He is very loud and earnest in his directions to get things in order. 64. Therefore, &c.] Canst thou, wretch that thou art, be so solicitous to prevent all displeasure to thy guest, by his seeing what may be offensive about thine house, either within or without, and, 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, a hall, 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. 67. Saw-dust, &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 he may be an useful member of society. In the fields.] Well skilled in agriculture. The voice of the master, earnest, and holding a rod, blusters. Therefore, wretch, dost thou tremble, lest, foul with canine dung, 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, 70 If 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; 75 They, when they take their wings, seek the same animals. The vulture with cattle, and with dogs, and with relicks from crosses, Hastens to her young, and brings part of a dead body. Hence is the food also of a great vulture, and of one feeding Herself, when now she makes nests in her own tree. 80 72. In managing affairs, &c.] Capable of transacting the business of a soldier, or that of a lawyer or senator. The opposition of belli et pacis, like arma et togæ, in cedant arma toga, 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 morals, &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.] Devious (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. e. The young storks, when able to fly and provide for themselves, will seek the same animals 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 manner, whenever she has a nest of her own, in some tree which she appropriates for building it. Sed leporem, aut capream, famulæ Jovis, et generosæ Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem, 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.] i. 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 flight. -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 sinuous and crooked. -Summit of Tibur.] See sat. iii. 192, note. 88. Prænestine 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. 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 finest marble by Nero; but here is meant that at Præneste. -Of Hercules.] At Tibur, where there was a very great library. 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 capitols.] 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 85 But the hare or the kid, the handmaids of Jove, and the noble 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. 95 Some chance to have a father who fears the Sabbaths, They adore nothing beside the clouds, and the Deity of heaven: magnificent houses, he outruns his in come. 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 expence, 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.] Sortitii. e. it falls to the lot of some. 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 cæli, in this place, we are not to suppose Juvenal as. representing the Jews to worship the material heaven, "the blue ethereal sky," (as Mr. Addison 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 TACIT. Hist. v. initio. As for the God of Heaven, he was to Juvenal, as to the Athenians, ayveros Osos, (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 wis"dom knew not God." 1 Cor. i. 21. Nec distare putant humanâ carne suillam, Sponte tamen juvenes imitantur cætera: solam 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 be fore him. -Soon they lay aside, &c.] Here he ridicules the rite of circumcision, 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. -And fear.] And reverence102. Whatsoever Moses, &c.] i, e. Whatsoever it be that Moses, &c. From this passage it appears, that Moses was known and acknowledged, by the hea then, to be the lawgiver of the Jews. -Secret volume.] By this is meant the Pentateuch, (so called from wrs, five, and riuxos, a book or volume,) or five books of Moses. A copy of this was kept, as it is to this day, in every synagogue, locked up in a press, or chest (arca), and never exposed to sight, unless when brought out to be read at the time of 100 105 110 worship in the synagogue, and then (as Volu 103. Not to show the ways, &c.] They were forbidden certain connections with the heathen; but when the poet represents them so monstrously uncharitable, as not to shew a stranger the way to a place which he was enquiring after, unless he were a Jew, he may be supposed to speak from prejudice and misinformation. So in the next line→→→ 104. To lead, &c.] He supposes, that if a man, who was not a Jew, were ever so thirsty, and asked the way to some spring to quench his thirst, they would sooner let him perish than direct him to it, But no such thing was taught by Moses. See Exod. xxii. 21; and ch. xxiii. 9. Verpos, like Horace's apella, is a word of contempt. 105. The father, &c.] Who, as the poet would be understood, set them the example. -Every seventh day, &c.] Throughout the year this was observed as a day of rest, the other sabbaths at their stated times. The poet ignorantly imputes this merely to an idle practice, which |