Curriculo; quem si revoces, subsistere nescit, from checking such dispositions, gives them full liberty to exercise themselves, pleased to see the thriftiness of a son, who is defrauding all mankind, that he may double his own property. 230." Loosens all the reins," &c.] Gives full and ample loose to every kind of evil. A metaphor, taken from a charioteer, who by loosening the reins, by which he holds and guides the horses, too freely, they run away with the chariot, and when he wants to stop them he cannot. 231." Which if you would recall," &c.] It is in vain to think of stopping or recalling such a one, who knows no restraint. 232. "You contemned."] Having forfeited the authority of a father, all you can say, to stop his career, is held in the utmost contempt. "The bounds being left."] As the charioteer is run away with by his horses (see note above, 1. 230.) beyond the bounds of his race; so your son, who has had the reins thrown upon the neck of his vices, can neither be stopped, nor kept within any bounds whatsoever in his wickedness, but is hurried on, rapitur, by his passions, without any power of control. 233. "Nobody thinks it enough," &c.] 235 240 245 Nobody will ever draw a line, so as to stop just at a given point, and only sin as far as he is permitted, and no far. ther. 234." So much do they indulge."] So prone are they to indulge their propensity to evil, in a more extensive man ner. 235. "When you say," &c.] When you tell your son, that giving money to help a distressed friend, or relation, is a folly. 236. "Who may lighten," &c.] Alleviate his distress, and raise up his state of poverty into a state of plenty and comfort. 237." You both teach him to rob.”] By thus seeking to destroy the principles of humanity and charity within him, you teach him, indirectly at least, to rob, to plunder other people. -"To cheat."] Circumscribere-to over-reach and circumvent, that he may enrich himself. -"By every crime," &c.] To scruple no villany which can enrich him. 239. "The Decii."] The father, son, and grandson, who, for the love they bare their country, devoted themselves to death for its service. See sat. viii. 254, note. 240. "Menæcius."] The son of Creon, "Which if you would recall, it knows not to stop, "And, you contemned, and the bounds being left, it is hur "ried on. "Nobody thinks it enough to offend so much, as you may "Permit, so much do they indulge themselves more widely. "When you say to a youth, he is a fool who may give to a friend, "Who may lighten, and raise up the poverty of a relation; "You both teach him to rob, and to cheat, and by every crime "To acquire riches, the love of which is in thee, "As much as of their country was in the breast of the Decii, " as much 240 "As Menæceus loved Thebes, if Greece be true, "In the furrows of which, legions from the teeth of a snake "With shields are born, and borrid wars undertake "Immediately, as if a trumpeter too had risen with them. "Therefore the fire, the sparks of which yourself have given, "You will see burning wide, and carrying off all things. 245 "Nor will he spare your miserable self, and the trembling master "The young lion in his cage, with great roaring, will take off." "Your nativity is known to astrologers."-" But it is grievous "To expect slow distaffs: you'll die, your thread not yet king of Thebes, who, that he might preserve his country, when Thebes was besieged by the Argives, devoted himself to death; the oracle having declared, that Thebes would be safe, if the last of the race of Cadmus would willingly suffer death. -“If Greece be true."] If the Grecian accounts speak truth. 241. "In the furrows of which," &c.] He alludes to the story of Cadmus, who having slain a large serpent, took the teeth, and sowing them in the ground, there sprang up from each an armed man; these presently fell to fighting, till all were slain except five, who escaped with their lives. See OVID, Met. lib. iii. fab. i. See AINSW. Cadmus. 243." Trumpeter too hud risen."] To set them together by the ears. See above, l. 199, uote. The Romans had cornets and trumpets to give the signal for battle. 244." The fire," &c.] The principles which you first communicated to the mind of your son, you will see breaking out into action, violating all law and justice, and destroying all he has to do with; like a fire that first is kindled from little sparks, then spreads far and wide, till it devours and consumes every thing in its way. 246." Nor will he spare," &c.] He will not even spare you that are his own wretched father, or scruple to take you off (i. e. murder you) to possess himself of your property. 247." The young lion," &c.] Alluding to the story of a tame lion, which, in the time of Domitian, tore his keeper, that had brought him up, to pieces. Læserat ingrato leo perfidus ore magistrum. MARTIAL, Spectac. ep. x. 248. "" Your nativity," &c.] But, say you, the astrologers, who cast nativities, and who by their art can tell how long people are to live, have settled your na tivity, and calculated that your life will be long. -"But it is grievous."] But, says Juvenal, it is a very irksome thing to your son. 249. To expect slow distaffs."] To be waiting while the fates are slowly spinning out your thread of long life. See sat. iii. 27, note; and sat. x. 252, note. -"You'll die," &c.] You'll be taken off by a premature death, not by the Abrupto jam nunc obstas, et vota moraris ; 250 Atque alias tractare rosas: medicamen habendum est, 255 260 Et Cereris licet, et Cybeles aulæa relinquas, An magis oblectant animum jactata petauro 265 course of nature, like those who live till their thread of life is cut by their destinies. See the references in the last note above. 250. "You even now hinder," &c.] You already stand in your son's way, and delay the accomplishment of his daily wishes for your death, that he may possess what you have. 251." Stag-like old age.] The ancients had a notion, that stags, as well as ravens, were very long-lived. CIC. Tuscul. iii. 69, says, that Theophrastus, the Peripatetic philosopher, when he was dying, accused nature for giving long life to ravens and stags, which was of no signification; but to men, to whom it was of great importance, a short life. See sat. x. 1. 247. -"Torments the youth."] Gives the young man, your son, daily uneasiness and vexation, and will, most likely, put you upon some means to get rid of you; therefore take the best precautions you the roses of another spring. —“ A medicine is to be had," &c.] You must get such an antidote against poison, as tyrants, who fear their subjects, and as fathers, who dread their children, always ought to swallow before they eat, in order to secure them from being poisoned at their meals; the tyrant, by some of his oppressed and discontented subjects-the father, by a son who wants to get his estate. 256. I shew, &c.] The poet is now about to expose the folly of avarice, inasmuch as the gratification of it is attended with cares, anxieties, and dangers, which its votaries incur, and for which they are truly ridiculous. Now, says he, monstro voluptatem egregiam -I'll exhibit an highly laughable scene, beyond all theatrical entertainments, &c. --No theatres.] Nothing upon the stage is half so ridiculous. 257. No stages of the sumptuous prætor.] It was the office of the prætor to preside, and have the direction at the public games. See sat. x. 1. 36—–41, notes. The pulpitum was the higher part of the stage, where poets recited their verses in public. It also signifies a scaffold, or raised place, on which the actors exhibited plays. The prætor is here called lautuş—— "Broken off: you even now hinder, and delay his wishes, 250 I shew an extraordinary pleasure, to which no theatres, 255 260 265 sumptuous, noble, splendid, from the fine garments which he wore on those occasions, as well as from the great expence which he put himself to, in treating the people with magnificent exhibitions of plays and other sports. Sat. vi. 378, note. 258. If you behold, &c.] If you only observe what hazards and perils, even of their lives, those involve themselves in, who are increasing and hoarding up wealth-so far from security, danger and riches frequently accompany each other, and the means of increasing wealth may consist in the exposing life itself to danger. 259. Increase of an house.] The enlargement and increase of family-property. In a brazen chest.] See sat. xiii. l. 74; and Hon. sat. i. lib. i. l. 67. The Romans locked up their money in chests. 260. Placed at watchful Castor.] i. e. At the temple of Castor.-They used to lay up their chests of treasure in the temples, as places of safety, being committed to the care of the gods, who were supposed to watch over them. Sat. x. 25, note, ad fin. 261. Since Mars, &c.] The wealthy used to send their chests of money to the temple of Mars; but some thieves having broken into it, and stolen the VOL. II. treasures, even stripping the helmet from the head of Mars's image, they now sent their treasures to the temple of Castor, where there was a constant guard; hence the poet says, vigilem Castora. -The avenger.] When Augustus returned from his Asian expedition, which he accounted the most glorious of his whole reign, he caused a temple to be built in the capitol to Mars the Avenger. See ANT. Univ. Hist. vol. xiii. p. 507,8. and note f. 261, 2. His own affairs, &c.] The poet takes an opportunity here, as usual, to laugh at the gods of his country. See sat. xiii. 39-52. 263. The scenes.] Aulæa were hangings, curtains, and other ornaments of the theatres; here, by synec. put for the theatres themselves. You may leave, says the poet, the public theatres; you will not want the sports and plays which are exhibited at the feasts of Flora, Ceres, or Cybele, to divert you. 264. By so much, &c.] You may be better entertained, and meet with more diversion, in observing the ridiculous businesses of mankind. 265. Bodies thrown from a machine, &c.] The petaurum (from raugo, pertica, a perch, a long staff or pole) was a machine, or engine, made of wood, hung up in an X Corpora, quique solent rectum descendere funem, 270 Victum illa mercede parat, brumamque famemque Illa reste cavet: tu propter mille talenta, Et centum villas temerarius. Aspice portus, Et plenum magnis trabibus mare: plus hominum est jam In pelago veniet classis, quocunque vocârit high place, out of which the petauristæ (the persons who exhibited such feats) were thrown into the air,and from thence flew to the ground. AINSW. Others say, that the petaurus was a wooden circle, or hoop, through which the petauristæ threw themselves, so as to light with their feet upon the ground. Holyday gives a plate of the petaurum, which is taken from Hieron. Mercurialis, whom he calls an excellent Italian antiquary, and represents the petaurus like a swing, in which a person sits, and is drawn up by people who pull ropes, which go over a pole at top, placed horizontally, and thus raise the petaurista into the air, where probably he swung backwards and forwards, exhibiting feats of activity, and then threw himself to the ground upon his feet. See more on this subject, Delph. edit. in notis. Whatever the petaurus might be, as to its form, it appears, from this passage of Juvenal, to have afforded an amusement to the spectators, something like our tumbling, vaulting, and the like. 266. To descend a strait rope, &c.] First climbing up, and then sliding down. Or if we take rectum here in the sense of tensum, stretched, we may suppose this a periphrasis for rope-dancing. After all, taking the two lines together, I should doubt whether the poet does not mean rope-dancing in both, and whether the petaurum, according to the definition given by Ainsworth, signifies, here, any thing else than the long pole 275 280 which is used by rope-dancers, in order to balance them as they dance,and throw their bodies into various attitudes on the rope. Comp. 1. 272-4. 267. Than thou.] q. d. Art not thou as much an object of laughter-full as ridiculous? -Who always abidest.] Who livest on shipboard, and art tossed up and down by every gale of wind. -A Corycian ship.] i. e. Trading to Corycium, a promontory in Crete, where Jupiter was born. 269. Wretched.] Perditus signifies desperate, past being reclaimed, lost to all sense of what is right. -A stinking sack.] Olentis is capable of two senses, and may be understood either to signify that he dealt in filthy stinking goods, which were made up into bales, and packed in bags; or that he dealt in perfumes, which he brought from abroad: but by the epithet vilis, I should rather think the former. 271. Thick sweet wine.] Passum was a sweet wine made of withered grapes dried in the sun. Uva passa, a sort of grape hung up in the sun to wither, and afterwards scalded in a lixivium, to be preserved dry, or to make a sweet wine of. AINSW. The poet calls it pingue, from its thickness and lusciousness. ---The countrymen of Jove.] Made in Crete, where Jove was born. See sat. iv. 1. 33. 272. He nevertheless, &c.] The ropedancer above mentioned, 1. 265, 6. |