Occulta ad patres produxit crimina servus 266. A slave.] Vindicius, a slave who waited at table, overhearing part of the discourse among the conspirators, went strait to the consuls, and informed them of what he had heard. The ambassadors from the Tarquins were apprehended and searched; the letters above mentioned were found upon them, and the criminals seized. -Bewailed by matrons, &c.] By the mothers of such of the conspirators as were put to death, as the sad cause of their destruction, by accusing them to the senate. -Produced.] Produxit-brought out, discovered. 267. But stripes, &c.] The proof being evident against them, they suffered the punishment (which was newly introduced) of being tied naked to a stake, where they were first whipped by the lictors, then beheaded: and Brutus, by 270 275 virtue of his office, was unhappily obliged to see this rigorous sentence executed on his own children. See Æn. vi. 817-23. 268. First axe of the laws.] i. e. The first time this sentence had been executed since the making of the law. 269. Thersites.] An ugly buffoon in the Grecian army before Troy. See HOм. Il. B. 1. 216-22. 270. Achilles.] Æacides-æ, or -is, so called from his grandfather Eacus, who was the father of Peleus, the father of Achilles. -The Vulcanian arms.] Or armour, that was made by Vulcan, at the request of Thetis, the mother of Achilles, which could be pierced by no human force. 271. Than that Achilles, &c.] The poet here still maintains his argument, viz. that a virtuous person, of low and mean birth, may be great and respectable: A slave, to be bewailed by matrons, produced their hidden crimes To the fathers: but stripes affected them with just Punishment, and the first axe of the laws. 270 I had rather thy father were Thersites, so thou art whereas a vicious and profligate person, though of the noblest extraction, is detestable and contemptible. 272. However fur, &c.] Juvenal here strikes at the root of all family-pride among the Romans, by carrying them up to their original. Revolve, roll or trace back, for however many generations. 273. An infamous asylum.] Romulus, in order to promote the peopling of the city in its first infancy, established an asylum, or sanctuary, where all outlaws, vagabonds, and criminals of all kinds, who could make their escape thither, were sure to be safe. 275. Either he was a shepherd.] As were Romulus and Remus, and, their bringer up, Faustulus. -Unwilling to say.] As the poet does not speak his own meaning, it may not be very easy to determine it: but it is likely that he would insinuate, that none of the Romans had much to brag of in point of family grandeur, and that none of them could tell but that they might have come from some robber, or cutthroat, among the first fugitives to Rome, or even from something worse than that, if worse could be: and indeed Romulus himself, their founder, was a parricide, for he is said to have killed his brother Remus. Thus Juvenal concludes this fine Satire on family-pride, which he takes every occasion to mortify, by shewing, that what a man is in himself, not what his ancestors were, is the great matter to be considered. Worth makes the man, the want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunello. POPE. 2 F VOL. 1. SATIRA IX. ARGUMENT. Juvenal, in this Satire, exposes and censures the detestable vice then practised at Rome. Some have thought that this is done too openly. So Farnaby-Obscœnam cincedorum et pathicorum turpitudinem acriter, at nimis aperte insectatur. Marshall says, that, on account of certain expressions in this Satire, Jul. C. Scaliger advised every man of probity to abstain from the whole work of Juvenal. But, surely, this is greatly mistaking the matter, and not adverting duly to the difference between such writers as exert their genius in the cause of vice, and so write upon it, as if they wished to recommend it to the imagination, and thus to the practice of mankind, (as Horace among the Romans, and Lord SCIRE velim, quare toties mihi, Nævole, tristis Line 1. Nævolus.] The poet, as an introduction to this Satire, in which he exposes and condemns the monstrous impurities then reigning in Rome, brings to view, as an example of their evil consequences, one Nævolus, a monster of vice, who appears in a most shabby and forlorn condition, more like an outcast than a member of civil society; ruined by those very vices by which he had thought to have enriched himself. Juvenal is supposed to have met him often, lately, in a state of the utmost dejection 5 and misery, and now he asks him the reason of it. 2. Marsyas.] A Phrygian musician, who challenged Apollo, but was overcome by him, and flayed alive. 4. Ravola.] Some impure wretch, who, being detected with his mistress, in the situation here described, was confounded with shame at the discovery. 5. Biscuits.] Crustula-wafers, or suchlike things; or little sweet cakes, which used to be given to children. So HoR. sat. i. 1. 25, 6. SATIRE IX. ARGUMENT. Rochester among us,) and such a writer as Juvenal, who exerted a fine genius, and an able pen, against vice, and, in particular, against that which is the chief object of this Satire; in which he sets it forth in such terms as to create a disgust and abhorrence, not only of those monsters of lewdness who practised it, but also of the vice itself: so that both might be avoided by the indignant reader, and be held in the highest detestation and horror. Such were our Poet's views in what he wrote, and therefore the plainness of his expressions he, doubtless, thought much more conducive to this desired end, as tending to render the subject the more shocking, than if he had contented himself with only touching it with the gentler hand of periphrasis, or circumlocution. I WOULD know, why so often, Nævolus, you meet me, We give a box on the ear to a servant who licks biscuits. 5 Went about, and found not fools.-Whence on a sudden Tot ruga? certe modico contentus agebas Nuper enim (ut repeto) fanum Isidis, et Ganymedem Et Cererem (nam quo non prostat fœmina templo? (Quod taceo) atque ipsos etiam inclinare maritos. 10 15 20 25 10. The knight-like slave.] i. e. Though an home-born slave, yet thou didst live as jolly and happy as if thou hadst been a knight. Verna eques was a jocose phrase among the Romans, to denote slaves who appeared in a style and manner above their condition; these they ludicrously called vernæ equites, gentlemen-slaves, as we should say. The phrase seems to be something like the French bourgeois gentilhomme, the cit-gentleman. In Falstaff's humourous account of Justice Shallow and his servants, he says, "they, by observing him, do bear "themselves like foolish justices; he, by "conversing with them, is turned into a 'justice-like serving man.' 11. Witticisms, &c.] Pomorium (quasi post murum) was a space about the walls of a city, or town, as well within as without, where it was not lawful to plough or build, for fear of hindering the defence of the city; hence, meton. a limit, or bound. By witticisms born, or brought forth, within the pomoeria, or limits of the city, Juvenal means those of a polite kind, in contradistinction to the provincial, coarse, low-born jests of the common slaves. Hence urbanitas, from urbs, a city, means courtesy, civility, good manners, or what we call politeness. 13. Of dry hair.] Instead of your hair being dressed, and moistened with perfumed ointments, it now stands up, without form or order, like trees in a wood. 14. Warm glue.] This viscus was a composition of pitch, wax, resin, and the like adhesive ingredients, which, being melted together and spread on a cloth, were applied warm to those parts of the body where the hair grew. After remaining some time, the cloth, which had been rolled round the part in form of a bandage, was taken off, bringing away the hair with it, and leaving the skin smooth. This practice was common among the wretches whom the poet is here satirizing. 16. The leanness, &c.] What is the meaning of that lean and sick appearance which thou dost exhibit? like that of an old invalid, who has long been afflicted, and consuming with a quartan ague and fever; so long, that it may be looked upon as domesticated, and as become a part of the family. 18. You may discover, &c.] The body is an index to the mind; a sickly, pale, languid countenance, bespeaks vexation and unhappiness within. |