Discourses then about Sejanus; these the secret murmurs of the vulgar. Will you be saluted as Sejanus? have As much and give to one chief chairs of state Set another at the head of armies? be accounted guardian Of a prince, sitting in the august rock of Capreæ, 90 With a Chaldæan band? you certainly would have javelins, cohorts, Choice horsemen, domestic tents. "Why should you not 95 "Desire these things?" Even those who would not kill any one Would be able. But what renowned and prosperous things are of so much Value, since to prosperity there may be an equal measure of evils? Had you rather take the robe of this man, who is dragg'd 100 105 Therefore, what was to be wish'd for, you will confess Sejanus To have been ignorant: for he who desired too many honours, And sought too much wealth, was preparing numerous Stories of an high tower, from whence his fall might be Higher, and the precipice of his enforced ruin be dreadful. 97. What renowned, &c.] But, to consider coolly of the matter, what is there so valuable in dignity and prosperity, since, amid the enjoyment of them, they are attended with an equal measure of uneasiness, and when a fatal reverse, even in the securest and happiest moments, may be impending? the evil, therefore, may be said, at least, to counterbalance the good. 99. Of this man, &c.] Of Sejanus. Had you rather be invested with his dignity? 100. The power.] The magistrate of some little town, like Fidenæ, or Gabii. See sat. vi. 1. 56, 7. Called in Italy, Podestà. Something like what we should call-a country justice. 102. A ragged Ædile.] Pannosus signifies patched or ragged. The Edile, in the burghs of Italy, was an officer who had jurisdiction over weights and measures, and if these were bad, he had authority to break them. He was an officer of low rank, and though, like all magistrates, he wore a gown, yet this having been delivered down from his predecessors, was old and ragged, vere unlike the fine robe of Sejanus, and other chief magistrates at Rome. See PERS. sat. i. 1. 130, and note. -Empty Ulubrae.] A small town of Campania, in Italy, very thinly inhabited. Comp. sat. iii. 1. 2. 103. Therefore, &c.] In this, and the four following lines, the poet very finely applies what he has said, on the subject of Sejanus, to the main argument of this Satire; viz. that mortals are too short-sighted to see, and too ignorant to know, what is best for them, and therefore those things which are most coveted, often prove the most destructive; and the higher we rise in the gratification of our wishes, the higher may we be raising the precipice from which we may fall. 101. Enforced ruin.] Impulsæ ruinæ, Quid Crassos, quid Pompeios evertit, et illum, Eloquium ac famam Demosthenis, aut Ciceronis 110 115 120 125 into which he was driven, as it were, by the envy and malice of those enemies, which his greatness, power, and prosperity, had created. Impulsæ, metaph. alluding to the violence with which a person is thrown, or pushed, from an high precipice. Immane-dreadfulimmense-huge-great. 108. The Crassi.] M. Crassus making war upon the Parthians for the sake of plunder, Surena, general of the enemy, slew him, and cut off his head and his hand, which he carried into Armenia to his master. -The Pompeys.] Pompey the Great, being routed at the battle of Pharsalia, fled into Egypt, where he was perfidiously slain. He left two sons, Cneius and Sextus; the first was defeated in a land battle in Spain, the other in a sea-fight on the coast of Sicily. We are not only to understand here Crassus and Pompey, but, by Crassos et Pompeios, plur. all such great men who have fallen by ill-fated ambition. 109. Brought down, &c.] i. c. Julius Cæsar, who, after he had obtained the sovereignty, partly by arms and violence, partly by art and intrigue, was publicly assassinated in the senate-house, as a tyrant and enemy to the liberty of his country. His scourges-i. e. made them slaves, as it were, and subject to his will, liable to be treated in the most humiliating manner. 110. Chief place.] The ambition of reigning absolutely. The poet here shews the fatal source of misery to the aspiring and ambitious; namely, a restless desire after greatness, so as to leave no stone unturned to come at it-nulla non arte, &c. 111. Great vows. ws.] i. c. Wishes and prayers for greatness, honours, riches, &c. -By malignant gods-] Who, provoked by the unreasonable and foolish wishes of mortals, punish them, with accepting their vows, and with granting their desires. Comp. 1. 7, 8. 112. Son-in-law of Ceres.] Pluto, the fabled god, and king of the infernal regions: he stole Proserpina, the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres, and carried her to his subterranean dominions. The poet means here to say, that few of the great and successful ambitious die, without some violence committed upon them. 113. A dry death.] Without blood shed. 115. The whole, &c.] Minerva was the goddess of learning and eloquence; her festival was celebrated for five days, hence called Quinquatria; during this the school-boys had holidays. What overthrew the Crassi, the Pompeys, and him who Brought down the subdued Romans to his scourges ? Why truly, the chief place, sought by every art, And great vows listen'd to by malignant gods. 110 To the son-in-law of Ceres, without slaughter and wound, few Kings descend, and tyrants by a dry death. For the eloquence and fame of Demosthenes, or of Cicero, He begins to wish, and does wish during the whole Quinquatria, 115 Whoever reveres Minerva, hitherto gotten for three farthings, Whom a little slave follows, the keeper of his narrow satchel: But each orator perish'd by eloquence; each 120 A large and overflowing fountain of genius consigned to death. He might have contemn'd the swords of Antony, if thus 116. Whoever reveres, &c.] The poor school-boy, who has got as much learning as has cost him about three farthings; i. e. the merest young beginner at the lower end of the school. 117. A little slave, &c.] This is a natural image of little master going to school, with a servant-boy to carry his satchel of books after him, and heightens the ridiculous idea of his coveting the eloquence of the great orators. 118. Each orator, &c.] See note on 1. 9. i. e. Both Demosthenes and Cicero. Demosthenes, to avoid the cruelty of Antipater, poisoned himself. 120. Hand and neck, &c.] Of Cicero, which were cut off by the emissaries of Antony, when they attacked and murdered him in his litter on the road. They, i. e. Tully's head and hand, were afterwards fixed up at the rostra, from whence he had spoken his Philippics, by order of Antony. -Cut off by genius.] i. e. His capacity and powers of eloquence, which he used against Antony, brought this upon him. 121. Rostru.] A place in the forum, where lawyers and orators harangued. See AINSW. Rostra, No. 2. No weak lawyer, or pleader, could ever make himself of consequence enough to be in VOL. II. 125 danger of any design against his life, by what he was capable of saying in public. 122. O fortunatam, &c.] Mr. Dryden renders this line, Fortune fore-tun'd the dying notes of Till I, thy consul sole, consol'd thy doom: and observes, that "the Latin of this "couplet is a verse of Tully's, (in which "he sets out the happiness of his own "consulship,) famous for the vanity and "ill poetry of it." It is bad enough; but Mr. Dryden has made it still worse, by adding more jingles to it. However, to attempt translating it is ridiculous, because it disappoints the purpose of the passage, which is to give a sample of Tully's bad poetry in his own words. 123. If thus, &c.] g. d. If Tully had never written or spoken better than this, he needed not to have dreaded any mischief to himself; he might have defied the swords which Antony employed against him. 124. Laughable poems.] Ridenda-ridiculous, that are only fit to be laughed at. 125. Divine Philippic.] Meaning Cicero's second Philippic, which, of all the D Volveris a primâ quæ proxima. Sævus et illum 130 Incude, et luteo Vulcano ad rhetora misit: hunk-formed Bellorum exuviæ, truncis affixa trophæis Lorica, et fractâ de casside buccula pendens, ebook Inde habuit. TANTO MAJOR FAME SITIS EST, QUAM 135 140 fourteen orations which he made against Athens. He called these orations Philippics, as he tells Atticus, because in the freedom and manner of his speech he imitated the Philippics (DiλiTTinoi Royo) of Demosthenes, whose orations against Philip were so called. 126. Roll'd up, &c.] Volveris. The books of the ancients were rolled up in volumes of paper or parchment; this famous Philippic stood second in the volume. See sat. xiv. 1. 102. 127. Athens admired.] Demosthenes. See note on 1. 9. 128. Rapid.] Torrentem, his eloquence rapid and flowing, like the torrent of a river. Of a burning mass.] Large masses of iron, when red-hot out of the forge, are very hurtful to the eyes of the workmen, from their great heat. 131. Coal and pincers, &c.] His father at first thought of bringing up his son Demosthenes to his own trade; but he took him from this, and put him to a rhetorician to be taught eloquence. 132. Dirty Vulcan.] Vulcan was the fabled god of smiths, whose trade is very filthy and dirty. Sat. xiii. 1. 44, 5. 133. Maimed trophies.] The trophy was a monument erected in memory of victory. The custom came from the Greeks, who, when they had routed their enemies, erected a tree, with all the branches cut off, on which they suspended the spoils of armour which they had taken from them, as well as other ensigns of victory: several of which the poet here enumerates; but as nothing was entire, the poet calls them maimed trophies. 134. A bearer.] Buccula, from bucca, the cheek, seems to have been that part of armour which was fastened to the helmet, and came down over the cheeks, and fastened under the chin. 135. Beam.] Temo was the beam of the wain, or the draught-tree, whereon the yoke hung: by this the chariot was 131 Who art roll'd up next from the first. Him also a cruel 137. To be greater, &c.] Such is the folly of mankind, that these wretched trifles are looked upon not only as bearing the highest value, but as something more than human. --For these, &c.] Commanders of all nations have exerted themselves, through every scene of danger and fatigue, in order to get at these ensigns of fame and victory. Erexit se-hath roused himself to mighty deeds. * 138. The Roman.] By the Roman, perhaps, we may understand Julius Cæsar, M. Antony, and others, who, while they were greedily following military glory, were preparing ruin for themselves, as well as many sad calamities to their country. -Greek.] Here Miltiades and Themistocles, the two Athenian generals, may be alluded to, who, while they were 135 catching at military fame, perished miserably. 138. Barbarian.] A name which the Greeks and Romans were fond of fixing on all but themselves. Here may be meant Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general, who, while he vexed the Romans with continual wars, occasioned the overthrow of his country, and his own miserable death. 139. Causes of danger, &c.] These things have been the grand motives of their exertions, in the very face of difficulty, and even of death. 140. So much greater, &c.] i. e. All would be great; how few wish to be good! 142. If you take away, &c.] Who is so disinterestedly virtuous, as to love and embrace virtue, merely for the sake of being and doing good? indeed, who would be virtuous at all, unless the fame and reputation of being so brought something with them to gratify the pride and vanity of the human heart? Virtue seldom walks forth, saith one, without vanity at her side. -The glory of a few.] As Marius, Sylla, Pompey, Antony, &c.-q. d. Many instances have there been, where a few men, in search of fame, and of the gratification of their ambition, have been the destroyers of their country. |
