In tabulam Syllæ si dicant discipuli tres? -Catiline Cethegus.] i. e. If Catiline were to accuse Cethegus. These were two famous conspirators against the state. See SALLUST, bell. Catilin. 28. The table of Sylla.] Sylla was a noble Roman of the family of the Scipios. He was very cruel, and first set up tables of proscription, or outlawry, by which many thousand Romans were put to death in cold blood. -Three disciples.] There were two triumvirates, the one consisting of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus, the other of Augustus, Antony, and Lepidus, who followed Sylla's example, and therefore are called disciples, i. e. in cruelty, bloodshed, and murder. 29. The adulterer.] Domitian. He took away Domitia Longina from her husband Ælius Lamia. 29-30. A tragical intrigue.] He de bauched Julia, the daughter of his brother Titus, though married to Sabinus. After the death of Titus, and of Sabinus, whom Domitian caused to be assassi nated, he openly avowed his passion for Julia, but was the death of her, by giving her medicines to make her miscarry. See below, 1. 32, 3. 30. Recalling laws.] At the very time when Domitian had this tragical intrigue with his niece Julia, he was reviving the severe laws of Julius Cæsar against adultery, which were afterwards made more severe by Augustus. 30-1. Bitter to all.] Severe and rigid to the last degree. Many persons, of both sexes, Domitian put to death for adultery. See Univ. Hist. vol. xv. p. 52. 30 35 40 31. Mars and Venus.] They were caught together by Vulcan, the fabled husband of Venus, by means of a net with which he inclosed them. Juvenal means, by this, to satirize the zeal of Dowitian against adultery in others, (while he indulged not only this, but incest also in his own practice,) by saying, that it was so great, that he would not only punish men, but gods also, if it came in his way so to do. 32. Abortives.] Embryos, of which Julia was made to miscarry. 33. Lumps.] Offas, lumps of flesh, crude births, deformed, and so resembling her uncle Domitian, the incestuous father of them. 34. Justly and deservedly.] With the highest reason and justice. -The most vicious.] Ultima vitia, i. e. ultimi vitiosi, the most abandoned, who are to the utmost degree vicious, so that they may be termed themselves, vices. The abstract is here put for the concrete. MET. S5. Despise.] Hold them in the most sovereign contempt, for their impudence in daring to reprove others for being vi cious. -The feigned Scauri.] Emilias Scan. rus, as described by Sallust, bell. Jagurth. was a nobleman, bold, factious, greedy of power, honour, and riches, but very artful in disguising his vices. Juvenal therefore may be supposed to call these hypocrites fictos, as feigning to be what they were not; Scauros, as being like E. Scaurus, appearing out. wardly grave and severe, but artfully, like him, concealing their vices. If three disciples should speak against the table of Sylla? 30 84 To all, and even to be dreaded by Mars and Venus themselves: And thus smiling: "Happy times! which thee However, I question whether the cha racter of Scaurus be not rather to be gathered from his being found among so many truly great and worthy men, Sat. xi. 1. 90, 1. Pliny also represents him as a man summæ integritatis, of the highest integrity. This idea seems to suit best with fictos Scauros, as it leads us to eonsider these hypocrites as feigning themselves men of integrity and goodness, and as seeming to resemble the probity and severity of manners for which Scaurus was eminent, the better to conceal their vices, and to deceive other people. —And being reproved, bite again.] Such hypocrites are not only despised by the most openly vicious for their insincerity, but whenever they have the impudence to reprove vice, even in the most abandoned, these will turn again and retaliate which is well expressed by the word remordent. 36 Laronia.] Martial, cotemporary with Juvenal, describes a woman of this name as a rich widow. Abnegat et retinet nostrum Laronia ser Respondens, orba est, dives, anus, vidua. By what Juvenal represents her to have said, in the following lines, she seems to have had no small share of wit. -Did not endure.] She could not bear him; she was out of all patience. -Sour.] Crabbed, stern in his appearance. Or torvum may be here put for the adverb torve-torve clamantem. Græcism. See above, 1. 3. and note. -Frem among them.] i, e. One of 40 these dissemblers; one out of this hypocritical herd. 37. Crying out so often.] Repeating aloud his seeming indignation against vice, and calling down the vengeance of the law against lewdness and effeminacy. 37. Where is the Julian law?] Against adultery and lewdness-(see 1. 30. note) why is it not executed? As it then stood, it punished adultery and sodomy with death. -Dost thou sleep?] Art thou as regardless of these enormities, as a person fast asleep is of what passes about him? 38. And thus smiling.] Laronia could not refrain herself at hearing this, and, with a smile of the utmost contempt, ready almost at the same time to laugh in his face, thus jeers him. -Happy times! &c.] That have raised up such a reformer as thou art, to oppose the evil manners of the age! 39. Now Rome may take shame.] Now, to be sure, Rome will blush, and take shame to herself, for what is practised within her walls, since such a reprover appears. Irony. 40. A third Cato.] Cato Censorius, as he was called, from his great gravity and strictness in his censorship; and Cato Uticensis, so called from his killing him. self at Utica, a city of Africa, were men highly esteemed as eminent moralists; to these, says Laronia, (continuing her ironical banter,) heaven has added a third Cato, by sending us so severe and respectable a moralist as then art. Hæc emis, hirsuto spirant opobalsama collo Quæ tibi? ne pudeat dominum monstrare tabernæ : Ante omnes debet Scantinia; respice primum 41. Perfumes.] Opobalsama eres Baλeapov-i. e. Succus balsami. This was some kind of perfumery, which the effeminate among the Romans made use of, and of which, it seems, this same rough-looking reprover smelt very strongly. 41-2. Your rough neck.] Hairy, and bearing the appearance of a most philosophic neglect of your person. 42. Don't be ashamed, &c.] Don't blush to tell us where the perfumer lives, of whom you bought these fine sweet-smell. ing ointments. Here her raillery is very keen, and tends to shew what this pretended reformer really was, notwithstanding his appearance of sanctity. She may be said to have smelt him out. 43. Statutes and laws are disturbed.] From that state of sleep in which you seem to represent them, and from which you wish to awaken them. The Roman jurisprudence seems to have been founded on a threefold basis, on which the general law, by which the government was carried on, was established; that is to say, Consulta patrum, or decrees of the senate-Leges, which seem to answer to our statute-laws-and jura, those rules of common justice, which were derived from the two former, but particularly from the latter of the two, or, perhaps, from immemorial usage and custom, like the common law of England. 45 50 55 Hon. lib. i. epist. xvi. l. 41. mentions servat. See an account of the Roman laws at large, in Kennett's Roman Antiq. part. ii. book iii. chap. xxi. and seq. 43. The Scantinian.] So called from Scantinius Aricinus, by whom it was first introduced to punish sodomy. Others think that this law was so called from C. Scantinius, who attempted this crime on the son of Marcellus, and was pu nished accordingly. 45. Examine the men.] Search diligently; scrutinize into their abominations. -These do more things.] They far outdo the other sex; they do more things worthy of severe reprehension. 46. Number defends.] This tends to shew how common that detestable vice was. (Comp. Rom. i. 27.) Such numbers were guilty of it, that it was looked upon rather as fashionable than criminal; they seemed to set the law at defiance, as not daring to attack so large a body. Battalions joined, &c.] A metaphor taken from the Roman manner of engaging. A phalanx properly signified a disposition for an attack on the enemy by the foot, with every man's shield or buckler so close to another's, as to join "Do you buy these perfumes which breathe from your rough "Neck? don't be ashamed to declare the master of the shop: "But if the statutes and laws are disturbed, the Scantinian Ought before all to be stirred up. Consider first, "And examine the men: these do more things-but them 45 "Number defends, and battalions joined with a buckler. "There is great concord among the effeminate: there will "not be any "Example so detestable in our sex: "Trædia caresses not Cluvia, nor Flora Catulla: "Hippo assails youths, and in his turn is assailed. "Do we plead causes? the civil laws 50 "Do we know? or with any noise do we make a stir in your "courts? "A few wrestle, a few eat wrestlers' diet: 55 "You card wool, and carry back in full baskets your finished "Fleeces; you the spindle, big with slender thread, "Better than Penelope do twist, and finer than Arachne, "As does a dirty harlot sitting on a log. them together and make a sort of impenetrable wall or rampart. This is said to have been first invented by the Macedonians; phalanx is therefore to be considered as a Macedonian word. 47. There is great concord, &c.] They are very fond of each other, and strongly connected and united, so that attacking one would be like attacking all. 49. Tadia-Flora, &c.] Famous Roman courtezans in Juvenal's time-bad as they were, the men were worse. 51. Do we plead, &c.] Do we women usurp the province of the men? do we take upon us those functions which belong to them? 53. A few wrestle.] A few women there are, who are of such a masculine turn of mind, as to wrestle in public. See sat. i. 22, 3. and notes; and Sat. vi. 245-57. and notes. -Wrestlers' diet.] Prepare themselves for wrestling as the wrestlers do by feeding on the coliphium-a xwλa Qia, membra robusta; a kind of dry diet which wrestlers used, to make thein strong and firm-fleshed. See AINSW. 54. You card wool.] You, effeminate wretches, forsake manly exercises, and addict yourselves to employments which are peculiar to women. In baskets. The calathi were little osier or wicker baskets, in which the women put their work when they had finished it, in order to carry it back to their employers. 56. Penelope.] Wife of Ulysses, who during her husband's absence was importuned by many noble suitors, whose addresses she refused with inviolable constancy: but, fearing they might take her by force, she amused them, by desiring them to wait till she had finished a web, which she was then about; and to make the time as long as possible, she undid during the night what she had done in the day. Arachne] A Lydian damsel, very skilful in spinning and weaving. She is fabled to have contended with Minerva, and, being outdone, she hanged herself, and was by that goddess changed into a spider. Ov. Met. lib. vi. fab. i. By mentioning these instances, Laronia ironically commends the great proficiency of the men in carding and spin. ning: both these operations seem to be distinctly marked by the poet. 57. A dirty harlot ] Pellex properly denotes the mistress of a married man. This, and the Greek aλaxıç, seem derived from Heb. wa pilgesh, which we render, concubine. Codex, from caudex, literally signifies Notum est cur solo tabulas impleverit Hister a stump or stock of a tree-of a large piece of which a log was cut out, and made an instrument of punishment for female slaves, who were chained to it on any misbehaviour towards their mistresses, but especially where there was jealousy in the case; and there they were to sit and work at spinning or the like. 58. Hister.] Some infamous character, here introduced by Laronia in order to illustrate her argument. 60 65 70 freedman, whom he afterwards made his heir, to lie in the bed with him and his wife, and gave his wife large presents of money, jewels, &c. not to betray his abominable practices. 61. Do thou marry.] This apostrophe may be supposed to be addressed to the unmarried woman, who might be standing by, and listening to Laronia's severe reproof of the husbands of that day, and contains a sarcasm of the most bitter kind. As if she had said, "You hear what "you are to expect; such of you as wish to be rich, I advise to marry, and keep "their husbands' secrets." -Filled his will.] Tabula signifies any plate or thin material on which they wrote; hence deeds, wills, and other" written instruments, were called tabula. So public edicts. See before, 1. 28. 58-9. With only his freedman.] Left him his sole heir. 59. Why alive, &c.] Why in his life time he was so very generous, and made such numbers of presents to his wife, here called puellæ, as being a very young girl when he married her but I should rather think, that the arch Laronia has a more severe meaning in her use of the term puellæ, by which she would intimate, that his young wife, having been totally neglected by him, remained still, puella, a maiden; Hister having no desire towards any thing, but what was unnatural with his favourite freedman. It is evident that the poet uses puella in this sense, sat. ix. 1. 74. See note on sat. ix. 1. 70. 60. She will be rich, &c.] By receiving (as Hister's wife did) large sums for hush-money. -Who sleeps third, &c.] By this she would insinuate, that Hister caused his -Secrets bestows gems.] Cylindrosthese were precious stones, of an oblong and round form, which the women used to hang in their ears. Here they seem to signify all manner of gems. 62. After all this.] After all I have been saying of the men, I can't help observing how hardly we women are used. -A heavy sentence, &c.] Where we are concerned no mercy is to be shewn to us; the heaviest sentence of the laws is called down upon us, and its utmost vengeance is prescribed against us, 63. Censure excuses ravens, &c.] Laro nia ends her speech with a proverbial saying, which is much to her purpose. Censura here meaus punishment. The men, who, like ravens and other birds of prey, are so mischievous, are yet excused; but, alas! when we poor women, who are, comparatively, harmless as doves, when we, through simplicity and weakness, go astray, we hear of nothing but punishinent. |