Et proferre libet fines; majorque videtur, 145 150 Sed qui sermones? quam fœdæ buccina famæ ? Quid nocet hoc? inquit: tunicam mihi malo lupini, Exigui ruris paucissima farra secantem. 155 Et luctum et curam effugies, et tempora vitæ 142. It likes you to extend, &c.] You think the present limits of your estate too confined, and therefore you want to enlarge them. 143. Neighbour's corn.] Arista is properly the beard of corn, and, by synec. the whole ear; and so the corn itself, as growing. You take it into your head that your neighbour's corn looks better than yours, therefore you determine to purchase, and to possess yourself of his estate. 144. Groves of trees.] Arbustum sig. nifies a copse or grove of trees, pleasant for its shade. -Which is white, &c.] The bloom of the olive is of a white or light grey colour. Densa here means a vast quantity. See sat. i. 120, note. 145. With any price of which, &c.] If you cannot tempt the owner to part with them for any price which you offer for the purchase, then you have recourse to stratagem to make him glad to get rid of them. 146. By night the lean oxen, &c.] In the night time, when your are not likely to be discovered, you turn your oxen which are half-starved, and your other herds of grazing beasts, which are kept sharp for the purpose, into your poor neighbour's corn. 146, 7. Tired necks.] That have been yoked, and at work all day, and therefore the more hungry. 147. To the green corn, &c.] In order to eat it up. 148. Nor may they depart home, &c.] They are not suffered to stir homeward, till they have eaten up the whole crop, as clean as if it had been reaped. -The whole crop.] Tota novalia. Novale est, saith Pliny, quod alternis annis seritur-" Land sown every other "year," and therefore produces the more plentiful crops. Here, by met. novalia signifies the crops that grow on such land. See VIRG. Geor. i. 1. 71. 151. Injury, &c.] Many have had reason to complain of such treatment, and have been forced to sell their land to avoid being ruined. 152." What speeches ?"] What does the world say of you, says the poet, for such proceedings? Trumpet of foul fame"-] The poet is interrupted before he has finished, by the eager answer of the person to whom he is supposed to be speaking, and with whom he is expostulating. 153." What does this hurt?"] Says the miser; what harm can what the world says do? See HOR. sat i. I. 64-7. -Coat of a lupine.] Lupinus signifies a kind of pulse, of a bitter and harsh taste, covered with a coat, husk, or shell. See VIRG. G. i. 1. 75, 6. Isidorus says, that the best definition of lupinus is, ar ans Aurns, quod vultum gustantis amari And it likes you to extend your borders; and greater appears And better your neighbour's corn: you buy also this, and Groves of trees, and the mountain which is white with the thick olive: With any price of which if the owner be not prevailed on, 145 By night the lean oxen, and the famished herds, with tired Necks, will be sent to the green corn of this man. Nor may they depart home from thence, before the whole crop Is gone into their cruel bellies, so that you would believe it done by sickles. You can hardly say, how many may lament such things, 150 And how many fields injury has made to be set to sale. "But what speeches? how the trumpet of foul fame ?"— "What does this hurt ?" says he: "I had rather have the "coat of a lupine, "Than if the neighbourhood in the whole village should praise 66 me "Cutting the very scanty produce of a little farm." I warrant you will want both disease and weakness, 155 And you will escape mourning and care; and a long space of life, tudine contristet. Ainsworth thinks that lupinus signifies what we call hops; and this seems likely, as we may gather from the story in Athenæus, lib. ii. c. xiv. where he relates of Zeno the Stoic, that he was ill-tempered and harsh, till he had drunk a quantity of wine, and then he was pleasant and good-humoured. On Zeno's being asked the reason of this change of temper, he said, that "the same thing happened to "him as to lupines; for lupines," says he," before they are soaked in water, are very bitter; but when put into "water, and made soft by steeping, "and are well soaked, they are mild "and pleasant." Hops grow with coats, or laminæ, one over another. But whatever be the exact meaning of lupini, the meaning of this hasty answer of the miser's is as follows: Don't talk "to me of what speeches are made "about me, or what the trumpet of "fame may spread abroad, to the dis"advantage of my character. I would "not give a pin's head for all they can "say against me, if I do but get rich: "but I would not give the husk of a q. d. If I am rich, they can't hurt me by their abuse; but if poor, their praise will do me no good. 155. The very scanty produce.] Paucissima farra. Far denotes all manner of corn. Paucissima need not be taken literally in the superlative sense, but as intensive, and as meaning a very small, an exceeding scanty crop of corn. See note on densissima lectica, sat. i. 1. 120, n. 2. The comparative and superlative degrees are often used by the Latin writers only in an intensive sense. 156. I warrant, &c.] Here the poet is speaking ironically, as if he said to the miser-To be sure, Sir, people like you, who are above the praise or dispraise of the world, are doubtless exempted too from the calamities which the rest of the world suffer, such as sickness and infirmities. See sat. x. 1. 227. You are also out of the reach of affliction and sorrow. See sat. x. 1. 242-4. Carebis -you will be without--free from. Longa tibi post hæc fato meliore dabuntur; Quantum sub Tatio populus Romanus arabat. Prælia, vel Pyrrhum immanem, gladiosque Molossos, 158. After these things, &c.] Add to all this, that you must live longer than others, and be attended with uncommon happiness-meliore fato-with a more prosperous and more favourable destiny. 159. If you alone possess'd, &c.] Provided that you were so wealthy as to possess, and be the sole owner of as much arable land as the people of Rome cultivated, when the empire was in its infancy, under Romulus, and Tatius the Sabine; who, for the sake of the ladies he brought with him, was received into the city, and consociated with Romulus in the government. However this might be considered as small, to be divided among all the people, yet, in the hands of one man, it would be a vast estate. 161. Afterwards.] In after times-mox -some time after. -Broken with age.] Worn out with age and the fatigues of war. Gravis annis miles. HOR. sat, i. 5. 161, 2. Had suffer'd the Punic wars.] Had undergone the toils and dangers of the three wars with the Carthaginians, which almost exhausted the Romans. 162. Cruel Pyrrhus.] The king of Epirus, who vexed the Romans with perpetual wars, but, at last, was defeated and driven out of Italy. 160 165 170 175 162. Molossian swords.] The Molossi were a people of Epirus, who fought against the Romans in Pyrrhus's army. See sat. xii. 1. 108, note. 163. At length.] i. e. After so many toils and dangers. -Hardly two acres.] Jugerum-an acre, so called from jugum boum, being as much land as a yoke of oxen could plough in a day. Scarcely so much as two acres were given as a reward for many wounds in battle. 165. Than no deserts, &c.] And this portion of two acres, given to a soldier, as a reward for the blood which he had shed, and the toils he had undergone in the service of his country, was never found fault with as too little for his deserts, or as an instance of a breach of faith in his country towards him, by rewarding him less than he had reason to expect. Curtus means little, short, curtailed, imperfect, broken. Curta fides may be applied to express a man's coming short of his promise. 166. Little glebe.] Such a small piece of arable land. 166, 7. Satisfied the father.] The poor soldier, who was the father of a numerous family. 167. Rabble of his cottage.] Consisting After these things, will be given you with a better fate; 160 Afterwards even to those broken with age, and who had suffer'd the Punic Wars, or cruel Pyrrhus, and the Molossian swords, At length hardly two acres were given for many Than no deserts ever seem'd less, or the faith small Of an ungrateful country. Such a little glebe satisfied 165 The father himself, and the rabble of his cottage, where big lay 170 Now this measure of ground is not sufficient for our garden. Of an unbounded income; for he who would be rich, 175 But what reverence of the laws? of his wife and many children, some small, others grown up. 167. Big.] i. e. Big, or great, with child. 169. Bond-slave-three masters.] One of the four children that were playing together was a little bond-slave born of a she slave. The three others were children of the wife, and therefore masters over the little slave, but all playing together, happy and content. -Great brothers.] The elder children now big enough to go out to labour. 170. Ditch or furrow, &c.] Coming home from their day's work, at digging and ploughing. 171. More ample.] Their being grown up, and returning hungry from their labour, required a more copious meal, than the little ones who stayed at home. -Great pots.] Pots proportionably large to the provision which was to be made. -Smoked with pottage.] Boiling over the fire Puls was a kind of pottage made of meal, water, honey, or cheese and eggs sodden together. AINSW. 172. Measure of ground.] viz. Two acres, which, in ancient days, was thought a sufficient reward for an old valiant defender of his country, after all his dangers, toils, and wounds, and which provided for,and made him and all his family happy, is not, as times go, thought big enough for a pleasure-garden. 173. Thence, &c.] From covetousness. Comp. 1. 175. -Causes of villainies, &c.] i. e. From this vile principle arise, as from their source, all manner of cruel and bad actions. See 1 Tim. vi. 10. former part. -More poisons, &c.] Contrived more methods of destroying people in order to come at their property, either by poison or the sword. See James iv. 1, 2. 175. A cruel desire.] Which thinks no act of cruelty too great, so that its end may be accomplished. So VIRG. En. iii. 1. 56, 7. Quid non mortalia pectora cogis 176. Unbounded.] Lit. untamed—i, e. that cannot be kept or restrained within any bounds. A metaphor taken from animals that are wild and untamed, which are ungovernable, and not to be restrained. -He who would be rich.] So the apostle, 1 Tim. vi. 9. οἱ βουλομενοι πλουτειν. 177. Would be so quickly.] And there Quis metus, aut pudor est unquam properantis avari? O pueri, Marsus dicebat et Hernicus olim, fore takes the shortest way to carve for himself, through every obstacle. 177. Reverence of the laws.] The laws which are made to restrain all acts of murder, and violence, and fraud, are put totally out of the question; he treads them under his feet. 178. Hastening miser.] A covetous man who hastens to be rich has neither fear nor shame; he dreads not what the laws can do to him, nor what the world will say of him. See Prov. xxviii. 22. 179. Live contented," &c.] The poet here mentions what was the doctrine of ancient times, in the days of simplicity and frugality, by introducing the exhortation of some wise and thrifty father to his children. 180. "O youths," &c.] Such was the language formerly of the fathers among the Marsi, the Hernici, and the Vestini, to their children, in order to teach them contentment, frugality, and industry. -Marsian.] The Marsi were a laborious people, about fifteen miles distant from Rome. -Hernician.] The Hernici, a people of New Latium. 181. Vestinian.] The Vestini were a people of Latium, bordering on the Sabines. -"Seek bread by the plough," &c.] Let us provide our own bread by our industry, as muchas will suffice for our support. 182. "Deities of the country."] The ducit. 180 185 190 Romans had their rural gods, as Ceres, Bacchus, Flora, &c. which they parti cularly worshipped, as presiding over their lands, and as at first inventing the various parts of husbandry. 183. By whose help," &c.] He means particularly Bacchus, who first found out the use of wine, and Ceres, who found out corn and tillage. 184. Loathing," &c.] Since the invention of agriculture,and the production of corn, men disdain living upon acorns, as at first they did. See sat. vi. 1. 10; and VIRG. G. i. 1. 5-23. where may be seen an invocation to Bacchus and Ceres, and the other rural deities, as the inventors and patrons of agriculture. 185. " Any thing forbidden," &c.] Those who are bred up in poverty and hardship, are unacquainted with the temptations to vice, to which those who are in high life are liable. 186.Thro' ice to be cover'd," &c.] Pero a sort of high shoe, made of raw leather, worn by country people as a defence against snow and cold. AINSW. 187. "Inverted skins."] The skins of beasts with the wool or hair turned inwards next the body, to defend it from the cold winds, and to keep the wearer |