Shall be hot, often to be supped on by foolish Glycon." murmur, 10 Foolishly croakest I know not what weighty matter with thyself: 15 Hence draw what you may say: and leave the tables at My cenæ, With the head and feet, and know plebeian dinners. PERS. I do not indeed desire this, that with empty trifles my Page should swell, fit to give weight to smoke. writing, neither rising above, nor sinking below the subject, nor flying out into that extravagance of expression, so much then in vogue. See sat. i. l. 98102. 15. To lash.] Radere, lit. signifies to scratch, or scrape up, or rub against; here, by meton. to lash or chastise. When a satirist does this effectually, the guilty turn pale at his reproof: for paleness is the effect of fear; and fear, of conscious guilt. Hence HoR. epist. i. lib. i. 1. 60, 1. Hic murus aheneus esto, Nil conscire sibi, nullâ pallescere culpâ. -Vicious manners.] Pallentes moreslit. manners turning pale-the effect for the cause. Meton. See the last note. 16. Mark a crime with ingenuous sport.] Defigere-metaph. from fixing a dagger, or critical mark, against any word or sentence, either to be corrected as faulty, or struck out as superfluous. This the Greeks called VTS), (uv, compungere, confodere, or the like. So Persius is said to stigmatize, or mark down, a crime with ingenuous sport-i. e. with well-bred raillery, in order to its correction; to fix a mark against it. Qu.-If this be not going rather too far with regard to Persius, who seems not much inclined to politeness, with respect to those whom he satirizes, but rather treats them with severity and roughness? Horace indeed deserved such an account to be given of him. Comp. sat. i. 1. 116-18. John Hanvil, a monk of St. Alban's, 20 17. Hence draw, &c.] From hence, i. e. from the vices of mankind, select the subjects of your writings. -Leave the tables, &c.] Leave the tragical banquet of Thyestes at Mycena for others to write on-trouble not yourself about such subjects. 18. With the head and feet.] Atreus reserved the heads, feet, and hands of the children; which after supper he shewed to his brother Thyestes that he might know whose flesh he had been feasting upon. -Know plebeian dinners.] Acquaint yourself only with the enormities that pass in common life-nôris-quasi, fac noscas-let these be your food for satire. 19. I do not indeed desire this.] Persius here answers his preceptor Cornutus, and tells him, that he does not want an hundred tongues and voices, in order to be writing vain and highflown poems; but that he might duly express Cornutus's worth, and his sense of it. Studeo signifies, literally, to study, but also to apply the mind to, to care for a thing, to mind, to desire it. Empty trifies.] Bullatis (from bulla, a bubble of water) nugis-by met. swelling lines, lofty words, without sense, empty expressions. AINSW. 20. Fit to give weight to smoke.] ike. Secreti loquimur: tibi nunc, hortante çamœnâ, Cum primum pavido custos mihi purpura cessit, Fit for nothing else but to give an air of consequence and importance to trifles, which, in reality, have no more substance in them than smoke. Nugis addere pondus. HoR. Epist. lib. i. epist. xix. i. 42. 21. Secret we speak.] You and I, Cornutus, are not now speaking to the multitude, but to each other in private, and therefore I will disclose the sentiments of my heart. -The Muse exhorting.] My Muse prompting and leading me to an ample disclosure of my thoughts, and to reveal how great a share have in my affecyou tions to do this is a pleasure to my 25 30 35 what I feel for you, whom I have fixed within the most intimate recesses of my breast. See AINSW. Sinuosus, No. 4. This sense of the word seems metaphorical, and to be taken from what hath many turnings and windings, and so difficult to find or trace out. 28. With pure voice.] With the utmost sincerity, pure from all guile. Words may unseal.] Resigno is to open what is sealed, to unseal hence, met. to discover and declare. 29. Not to be told.] Not fully to be expressed. In my secret inwards.] In the secret recesses of my heart and mind. Comp. sat. i. 1. 47. 30. The guardian purple.] The habit worn by younger noblemen was edged about with a border of purple; an ornament which had the repute of being sacred, and was therefore assigned to children as a sort of preservative. Hence Persius calls it custos purpura. Fearful.] Which protected me when a child, and when I was under the Pavifear and awe of a severe master. Juv. xvi. 1. 3. dum tyronem. - Yielded.] Resigned its charge, and gave place to the toga virilis, or manly gown. About the age of sixteen or seventeen they laid aside the prætexta, and put on the toga virilis, and were ranked with men. 31. And the bulla.] This was another ornament worn by children; it was worn hanging from the neck, or about the breast, and was made in the shape of an Secret we speak to you now, the Muse exhorting, I give my heart to be searched, and how great a part When first to fearful me the guardian purple yielded, 30 And the bulla presented to the girt Lares hung up; When kind companions, and, with impunity, in the whole Suburra Now the white shield permitted me to have thrown about my eyes, And when the journey is doubtful, and error, ignorant of life, Parts asunder trembling minds into the branching cross-ways, heart, and hollow within. This they left off with the prætexta, and consecrated to the household gods, and hung up in honour to them. See ANT. Univ. Hist. vol. xi. p. 289, note s. 31. The girt Lares.] The images of the Lares, or household gods, were described in a sort of military habit, which hung on the left shoulder, with a lappet fetched under the other arm, brought over the breast, and tied in a knot. The idea of this dress was first taken from the Gabini, and called Cinctus Gabinus. See AINSW. Gabinus; and VIRG. En. vii. 612. and Servius's note there. 32. Kind companions.] A set of young fellows, who were my companions, and ready to join in any scheme of debauchery with me. I cannot think that comites here is to be understood of "his school"masters, or pedagogues, who now no "longer treated him with severity." He was now a man, and had done with these. Of such a one Horace says, Imberbis juvenis, tandem custode remoto, &c. De Art. Poet. 1. 161-5. And see KENNET, Antiq. p. 311, edit. 5. 1713. -In the whole Suburra.] This was a famous and populous street in Rome, where were numbers of brothels, the harlots from which walked out by night, to the great mischief of young men. Here, says Persius, I could ramble as I pleased, and fix my eyes where I pleased, and had nobody to call me to account, or punish me for it. Juv. sat. iii. 1. 5. 33. The white shield, &c.] When the young men put on the toga virilis, they were presented with a white shield; that is to say, a shield with no engraving, device, or writing upon it, but quite blank. This shield was a token that they were now grown up, and fit for war. Its being blank, signified their not having yet achieved any warlike action worthy to be described, or recorded, upon it by a device. So VIRG. En. ix. l. 548. Ense levis nudo, parmáque inglorius alba. When this shield was a passport to me, says Persius, to go where I pleased, without being molested by my old masters. 34. When the journey is doubtful.] When the mind of a young man is doubting what road of life to take, like a traveller who comes to where two ways meet, and can hardly determine which to pursue. -And error.] So apt to beset young minds, and so easily to mislead them. -Ignorant of life.] Of the best purposes and ends of life, and wholly unknowing and ignorant of the world. 35. Parts asunder trembling minds.] Divides the young and inexperienced Me tibi supposui: teneros tu suscipis annos, Non equidem hoc dubites, amborum fœdere certo minds of young men, fearing and trembling between the choice of good and evil, now on this side, now on that. 35. Branching cross-ways.] Compitum is a place where two or more ways meet. The poet here alludes to the Pythagorean letter x. See sat. iii. 1. 56, note. 36. I put myself under you.] Under your care and instruction. -You undertake, &c.] You admitted me under your discipline, in order to season my mind with the moral philosophy of the Stoics: you not only received me as a pupil, but took me to your bosom with the affection of a parent. Antisthenes, the master of Diogenes, was a disciple of Socrates; Diogenes taught Crates the Theban, who taught Zeno the founder of the Stoic school; so that the Stoic dogmas might be said to be derived, originally, from Socrates, as from the fountain-head. 37. Dextrous to deceive, &c.] The application of your doctrine to my morals, which were depraved, and warped from the strict rule of right, first discovered this to me, and then corrected it; but this you did with so much skill and address, that I grew almost insensibly reformed: so gradually were the severities of your discipline discovered to me, that I was happily cheated, as it were, into reformation; whereas, had you at first acquainted me with the whole at once, I probably had rejected it, not only as dis 40 45 pleasing, but as unattainable by one who thought as I then did. 38. Applied rule.] Metaph. from mechanics, who, by a rule applied to the side of any thing, discover its being warped from a straight line, and set it right. -Rectifies.] Lit. extends. Metaph. from straitening a twisted or entangled cord, by extending or stretching it out. Intortos, lit. twisted, entangled. 39. My mind is pressed by reason, &c.] My mind and all its faculties were so overpowered by the conviction of reason, that it strove to coincide with what I heard from you, and to be conquered by your wisdom. -Labours, &c.] The word laborat denotes the difficulties which lie in the way of young minds to yield to instruction, and to subdue and correct their vicious habits and inclinations. 40. And draws, &c.] Metaph. from an artist who draws forth, or forms, figures with his fingers, out of wax or clay. Ducere is a word peculiar to the making of statues in marble also. Vivos ducent de marmore vultus. - An artificial countenance.] Artificem, hypallage, for artifici pollice. The sense is, My mind, by thee gently and wisely wrought upon, put on that form and appearance which you wished it should. The like thought occurs, Juv. sat. vii. 1. 237. Exigite ut mores teneros ceu pollice ducat, I put myself under you: you undertake my tender years, Cornutus, with Socratic bosom. Then, dextrous to deceive, The applied rule rectifies my depraved morals, 40 And my mind is pressed by reason, and labours to be overcome, And with you to pluck the first nights from feasts. And relax serious things with a modest table. Do not indeed doubt this, that, in a certain agreement, 45 The days of both consent, and are derived from one star. Fate, tenacious of truth, either suspended our times With equal Libra; or the hour, framed for the faithful, Divides to the twins the concordant fates of both'; 41. Consume long suns.] To have passed many long days-soles, for dies. Meton. -Sæpe ego longos Cantando puerum memini me condere soles. VIRG. ecl. ix. 1. 51, 2. 42. To pluck the first nights, &c.] Decerpere-metaph. from plucking fruit. The first nights-the first part or beginning of nights; we plucked, i. e. we took away from the hours of feasting. -q. d. Instead of supping at an early hour, and being long at table, we spent the first part of the evening in philosophical converse, thus abridging the time of feasting for the sake of improve 43. One work and rest, &c.] We, both of us, disposed and divided our hours of study, and our hours of rest and refreshment, in a like manner together. 44. And relar serious things.] Relaxed our minds from study. -A modest table.] With innocent mirth, as we sat at table, and with frugal meals. 45. Do not doubt this, &c.] Beyond a doubt, this strict union of our minds must be derived from an agreement in the time of our nativity, being born both under the same star. So Hon. lib. ii. ode xvii. 1. 21, 2. Utrumque nostrum incredibili modo The ancients thought that the minds of meu were greatly influenced by the planet which presided at their birth; and that those who were born under the same planet, had the same dispositions and inclinations. 47. Fate, tenacious of truth.] Unerring fate, as we say. -Suspended our times.] Metaph. from hanging things on the beam of a balance, in order to weigh them. Fate weighed, with equal balance, our times, when Libra had the ascendancy. 48. With equal Libra.] A constellation into which the sun enters about the twentieth of September, described by a pair of scales, the emblem of equity and justice. Felix æquata genitus sub pondere Libræ. HOR. lib. ii. ode xvii. 1. 17-22. -Framed for the faithful.] The particular hour which presides over the faithfulness of friendship. 49. Divides to the twins, &c.] The Gemini, another constellation represented by two twin-children, under which whosoever were born, were supposed by the astrologers to consent, very exactly, in their affections and pursuits. Magnus erit Geminis amor et concordia duplex. MANIL. lib. ii. 2 P |