Who says to a physician;-being order'd to rest-after an eye to it, "Whatever it is: your yellow skin "But you are pale-worse than I -- 90 "But have 95 silently rises."don't be a tutor to me, "I have long since buried him, do you remain ?""Go on "I'll be silent." He, turgid with dainties, and with a white belly is bathed, 95. "Silently rises."] Tacite-insensibly, by little and little, though you may not perceive it-quasi sensim, rises, swells. 96. "You are pale," &c.] Says the spark, in a huff, to the physician; you are paler than I am- -pray look to yourself. "Don't be a tutor."] "Don't give yourself airs, as if you "were my guardian, and had authority over me." 97. "I have long since," &c.] " It is a great while since I buried "C my tutor." "Do you remain ?"]" Dɔ you presume to take his place?" "Go on—I'll be silent".] "O pray," replies the physician, go on your own way-I shall say no more." 98. Turgid with dainties.] Having his stomach and bowels full of meat and drink. A white belly.] When the liver, or spleen, is distempered, as in the dropsy, and the chyle is not turned into blood, it circulates in the veins and small vessels of the skin, and gives the whole body a white or pallid appearance. Thus HOR. lib. ii. ode ii. Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops, Nec sitim pellit, nisi causa morbi Is bathed.] i. e. He persists in going into the bath in this manner, notwithstanding the warning which had been given him. 99. His throat slowly exhaling, &c.] The fumes of the meat and drink ascend out of the stomach into the throat, from whence they leisurely discharge themselves in filthy steams. Mephitis signifies a stink, particularly a damp, or strong sulphurcous smell arising from corrupted water. See En. vii. 1. 84. Mephitis was a name of Juno, because she was supposed to preside over stinking exhalations. 100. A trembling comes on, &c.] The riotous and gluttonous used to bathe after supper, and in the going in, and in the bath itself, they drank large draughts of hot wine, to produce sweat. Hence Juv. sat. viii. 1. 168. thermarum calices. As also after bathing they sometimes drank very hard. See my note on Juv. ubi supr. Excutit e manibus: dentes crepuere retecti; to tro andare oH Tange, miser, venas; et pone in pectore dextram : Candida vicini subrisit molle puella; Cor tibi rite salit? Positum est algente catino 110 100. Triental.] A little vessel, which was a third part of a larger, and held about a gill; this he has in his hand full of warm wine, but it is shook out of his hand by the trembling with which he is seized. 101. His uncovered teeth, &c.] His face being convulsed, the lips are drawn asunder, and discover his teeth, which grind or gnash this is frequent in convulsion-fits. 102. Greasy soups, &c.] Pulmentarium-chopped meat, with pottage or broth-AINSW. which undigested meat, vomited up, resembles. He was seized with a violent vomiting, and brought up all the dainties which he had filled his stomach with before he went into the bath. From his loose lips.] Hippocrat. in Prognostic. says, that when the lips appear loose and hanging down, it is a deadly sign. 103. Hence the trumpet.] Of this intemperance he dies. The funerals of the rich were attended with trumpets and lights-the poor had only tibiæ, small pipes which played on the occasion. This happy fellow.] Beatulus-dim. from beatus, happy. Iron. 103-4. On an high bed, &c.] Laid on an high bier.-Compositus here seems to express what we mean by laying out a corpse. 25.42 104. Daubed over, &c.] After washing the corpse with water, they anointed it with perfumed ointment, of which the amomum, an aromatic shrub, which grew in Armenia, furnished the chief ingredient. The amomum was used in embalming. Hence momy or mummy. See AINSW. 105. His rigid heels, &c.] The Romans always carried the dead heels foremost, noting thereby their last and final departure from their house. Rigid-i. e. stiff with death. 106. Hesternal Romuns.] See Juv. sat. iii. 60, note. When a person of consequence died, all the slaves which he had made free ind his life-time attended the funeral; some bore the corpse (subiere →0 put themselves under the bier), others walked in procession. These, being freedmen, were reckoned among the Roman citizens; but they were looked on in a mean light, and were contemptuously called®? hesterni, Romans of yesterday-i. e. citizens whose dignity was ofi very short standing. Thus the first gentleman or nobleman of his 1 He shakes out of his hands: his uncover'd teeth crashed, 105 The hesternal Romans, with cover'd head, sustained. [“ breast: "Touch, wretch, my veins, and put your right hand on my "Nothing is hot here: and touch the extremes of my feet and "hands: 110 "They are not cold."-" If haply money be seen, or "The fair girl of your neighbour smile gently, "Does your heart leap aright?—there is placed in a cold dish family was called novus homo.-So we, in contradistinction to families which are old, and have been long dignified, say, of some family lately ennobled, that it is a family of yesterday. 106. Cover'd head.] Wearing the pileus, or cap, which was the signal of liberty. Servum ad pileum vocare, signified to give a slave his liberty, which they did, among the Romans, by first shaving his head, and then putting a cap upon it. AINSW. 107. "Touch, wretch, my veins."] It is very evident, from the four last lines, that the case, which the philosopher has put, is to be taken in an allegorical sense; and that, by the conduct of the wretched libertine, who rejected his physician's advice, and proceeded in his absurd courses, till he fixed a disorder upon him which brought him to the grave, he meant to represent the conduct of those who despised the philosophers, those physicians of the mind, and set at nought the precepts which they taught, till, by a continuance in their vices, their case became desperate, and ended in their destruction. However, the opponent is supposed to understand what the philosopher said, in his story of the libertine, in a mere literal and gross sense, and is therefore represented as saying-"What's all this to the (6 purpose? What is this to me? I am not sick-I don't want a physician-try, feel my pulse." "On my breast."] To feel the regular pulsation of my heart. 108, Nothing is hot here."] There's no sign of any feverish heat. "Touch the extremes," &c.] You'll find there the natural heat; no coldness as in the feet and hands of a dying man. 109. "If haply money be seen."] Here the philosopher explains himself, and seems to say, "I grant that your bodily health is good, but how is your mind? does not this labour under the diseases of covetousness, fleshly lust, intemperance, fear, and anger? As a proof of this, let me ask you, if a large sum of money comes in view, or your neighbour's handsome daughter should smile upon you-does your hea heart move calmly as it ought, do you feel no desire of possess ing either?" 111. "There is placed," &c.] What think you of a vile dish of Durum olus; et populi cribro decussa farina: Alges, cum excussit membris timor albus aristas: 115 hard, half-boiled cabbage, or coleworts, and coarse bread, such as the common people eat. Farina is lit. meal or flour; here, by meton. the bread itself which is made of it.-Shaken through the sieve of the people-i. e. of the poorer sort, who used coarse sieves, which let more of the bran and husks through, and therefore their bread was coarser than that of the gentry. 113. Try your jaws.] Whether they can devour such coarse fare, or whether you would not find yourself as unable to chew, or swallow it, as if you had a sore and putrid ulcer lurking in your mouth, too tender for such coarse food, and which it would not be at all fitting to injure, by scratching or rubbing against it with vulgar food. 114. Beet.] Beta-some sort of hard, coarse, and unsavoury herb. AINSW. Put here, by meton. for any kind of ordinary harsh food. If you found this to be the case, you may be certain that you have a luxurious appetite. 115. When white fear, &c.] You said that you had no cold in the extremes of your feet and hands-but how is it with you when you' shudder with fear?-The Stoics were great advocates for apathy, or freedom from all passions, fear among the rest. White fear, so called from the paleness of countenance that attends it. 115. Rous'd the bristles.] Arista signifies an ear of corn, or the beard of corn. Sometimes, by catachresis, an hair or bristle, which is often said to stand an end when people are in a fright. 116. Now with a torch, &c.] He now charges him with the disease of violent anger, the blood set on fire, as if a burning torch were applied, and eyes sparkling and flashing fire as it were.—In this situation, says he, you say and do things, that even Orestes himself, mad as he was, would swear were the words and actions of a person out of his senses. So that, though you may think you are well, because you find no feverish heat in your body, yet you are troubled with a fever of the mind every time you are angry. Therefore in this, as well as with regard to the diseases of covetousness, lust, luxury, and fear, which are all within you, you as much stand in need of a physician for your mind, as the poor wretch whom I have been speaking of, stood in need of a physician for his body; nor did he act more oppositely to the dictates of sound reason by despising his physician, and rejecting his remedies for his bodily complaints, than you do, by despising the philosophers, and rejecting their precepts, which are the only remedies for the disorders of the mind. Both Capito and Tutor fell, the senate condemning, 95 The robbers of the Cilicians: but what does condemnation avail, Losses equal, when our associates flourished, and were just con- Much of the labour of Polycletus: few tables without Mentor. 105 of the murex taken on the shore of Laconia, a country of Pelopon. nesus, the chief city of which was Sparta. 101. Purples of Cos.] Cos, or Coos, was an island in the Ægean sea, near which the fish, from whence the purple dye was taken, was also found. Sat. iii. 1. 81, note. 102. Parrhasius.] A famous painter of Greece, who contended with Zeuxis, and gained the prize. See HoR. ode viii. lib. iv. 1. 6. Myron.] An excellent statuary, whose works were in high esteem, especially his brazen cow, which exercised the pens both of the Greek and Roman poets. Ut similis veræ vacca Myronis opus. Ov. è Pont. iv. 1. 34. 103. Phidias.] A famous painter and statuary: he is here said to have wrought so curiously in ivory, that his figures seemed to be alive. See also AINSW. Phidias. 104. Polycletus.] A Sicyonian, a famous statuary and sculptor. There were many of his works among this collection. Mentor.] A noble artist in chasing and embossing plate. We are to understand here, that there were few tables, i. e. entertainments, where, in the courses and services of the table, there were not some cups, dishes, plates, &c. of Mentor's workmanship. All these fine ornaments were permitted to remain in the houses. of the owners by their first conquerors; but the avarice and rapine of the governors who succeeded stripped them of all. 105. Thence.] These things left by the conquerors proved a source of rapine and plunder to the prefects who succeeded. Dolabella.] A proconsul of Asia, accused by Scaurus, and condemned, for plundering the province over which he presided. Antony.] C. Antonius, a proconsul of Achaia, likewise con demned for plundering the province. 106. Sacrilegious Verres.] The plunderer of Sicily, who spared not even sacred things. The province prosecuted him, and, Tully undertaking the cause, he was condemned and banished. Vid. Cic. in Verrem. |