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DECIMI

JUNII JUVENALIS

AQUINATIS

SATIRE.

SATIRA I.

ARGUMENT.

JUVENAL begins this satire with giving some humourous reasons for his writing: such as hearing, so often, many ill poets rehearse their works, and intending to repay them in kind. Next he informs us, why he addicts himself to satire, rather than to other poetry, and gives a summary and general view of the reigning vices and follies of his time. He

SEMPER ego auditor tantum? nunquamne reponam,
Vexatus toties rauci Theseïde Codri?
Impune ergo mihi recitaverit ille togatas,

Satires.] Or satyrs. Concerning this word, see CHAMBERS's Dictionary.

Line 1. Only a hearer.] Juvenal complains of the irksome recitals, which the Scribbling poets were continually making of their vile compositions, and of which he was a hearer, at the public assemblies, where they read them over. It is to be observed, that, sometimes, the Romans made private recitals of their poetry, among their particular friends. They also had public recitals, either in the temple of Apollo, or in spacious houses, which were either hired, or lent, for the purpose by some rich and great man, who was highly honoured for this, and who got his clients and dependents together on the occasion, in order to increase the audience, and to encourage

the poet by their applauses. See sat. vii. 1. 40-4. Persius, prolog. 1. 7. and note. HOR. lib. i. sat. iv. 1. 73, 4.

When a

-Repay.] Reponam here is used metaphorically; it alludes to the borrowing and repayment of money. man repaid money which he had borrowed, he was said to replace it-reponere. So our poet, looking npon himself as indebted to the reciters of their compositions for the trouble which they had given him, speaks as if he intended to repay them in kind, by writing and reciting his verses, as they had done theirs. Sat. vii. 1. 40-4. PERSIUS, prolog. 1. 7. HOR. lib. i. sat. iv. 1. 73, 4.

2. Theseis.] A poem, of which Theseus was the subject.

THE

SATIRES

OF

JUVENAL.

SATIRE I.

laments the restraints which the satirists then lay under from a fear of punishment, and professes to treat of the dead, personating, under their names, certain living vicious characters. His great aim, in this, and in all his other satires, is to expose and reprove vice itself, however sanctified by custom, or dignified by the examples of the great.

SHALL I always be only a hearer ?-shall I never repay, Who am teiz'd so often with the Theseis of hoarse Codrus? Shall one (poet) recite his comedies to me with impunity,

Hoarse Codrus.] A very mean poet; so poor, that he gave rise to the proverb, Codro pauperior." He is here supposed to have made himself hoarse, with frequent and loud reading

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mented with purple, and worn by magistrates and nobles. Hence the comedies, which treated of the actions of such, were called prætextatæ. In our time we should say, genteel comedy.

Thirdly, The Palliata; from pallium, a sort of upper garment worn by the Greeks, and in which the actors were habited, when the manners and actions of the Greeks were represented. This was also a species of the higher sort of comedy.

It is most probable that Terence's plays, which he took from Menander, were reckoned among the palliatæ, and represented in the pallium, or Grecian dress: more especially too, as the scene of every play lies at Athens.

Hic elegos? impune diem consumpserit ingens
Telephus? aut summi plenâ jam margine libri
Scriptus et in tergo necdum finitus Orestes?

Nota magis nulli domus est sua, quam mihi lucus
Martis, et Æoliis vicinum rupibus antrum

Vulcani. Quid agant venti; quas torqueat umbras
Eacus; unde alius furtivæ devehat aurum
Pelliculæ quantas jaculetur Monychus ornos;
Frontonis platani, convulsaque marmora clamant
Semper, et assiduo ruptæ lectore columnæ.
Expectes eadem a summo, minimoque poëtâ.
Et nos ergo manum ferulæ subduximus: et nos

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In sounds of pleasure, and the joys of love. FRANCIS. -Bulky Telephus.] Some prolix and tedious play, written on the subject of Telephus, king of Mysia, who was mortally wounded by the spear of Achilles, but afterwards healed by the rust of the same spear. OVID, Trist. v. 2, 15.

Waste a day.] In hearing it read over, which took up a whole day.

5. Or Orestes.] Another play on the story of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. He slew his own mother, and Ægisthus, her adulterer, who had murdered his father. This too, by the description of it in this line and the next, must have been a very long and tedious performance. It was usual to

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leave a margin, but this was all filled from top to bottom-it was unusual to write on the outside, or back, of the parchment; but this author had filled the whole outside, as well as the inside.

5. Of the whole book.] Or, of the whole of the book. Liber primarily signifies the inward bark or rind of a tree; hence a book or work written, at first made of barks of trees, afterwards of paper and parchment. Summus is derived from supremus; hence summum-i, the top, the whole, the sum.

8. The grove of Mars.] The history of Romulus and Remus, whom Ilia, otherin a grove sacred to Mars at Alba: hence wise called Rhea Sylvia, brought_forth Romulus was called Sylvius; also, the son of Mars. This, and the other subjects mentioned, were so dinned perpetually into his ears, that the places described were as familiar to him as his own house.

-The den of Vulcan.] The history of the Cyclops and Vulcan, the scene of which was laid in Vulcan's den. See VIRG. Æn. viii. 1. 416–22.

9. The Eolian rocks.] On the north of Sicily are seven rocky islands, which were called Æolian, or Vulcanian; one of which was called Hiera, or sacred, as dedicated to Vulcan. From the frequent breaking forth of fire and sulphur out of the earth of these islands, particularly in Hiera, Vulcan was supposed to keep his shop and forge there.

Here also Æolus was supposed to confine and preside over the winds. Hence these islands are called Æolian. See VIRG. Æn. i. l. 55-67.

-What the winds can do.] This probably alludes to some tedious poetical

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