6

43. vivitur hoc pacto: Negatively expressed non aliter vivitur. In other words: haec est condicio vivendi, HOR, Sat., 2, 8, 65, which Casaubon compares. These are the terms, this the rule of life.'sic novimus notum est (Jahn). 'So we have learned it.' "This is its lesson.'-ilia subter: G., 414, R. 3. The danger of the wound is well known.

44. caecum: 'hidden.'-lato balteus auro: The baldric covered the groin, and was often ornamented with bosses of gold. Comp. VERG., Aen., 5, 312: lato quam circumplectitur auro| balteus. This broad gold belt is the symbol of wealth and rank.

45. ut mavis: Ironical. HOR., Sat., 1, 4, 21.- da verba: Comp. 3, 19.-decipe nervos: 'cheat your muscle,'' cheat yourself into the belief that you are sound;' and certainly self-deception seems to be required by the context. Otherwise decipe nervos might be considered as equivalent to mentire robur, pro sano te iacta, sanum te finge.

47. non credam? G., 455; A., 71, 1, R.-inprobe: The inprobus is hard-headed as well as hard-hearted. Comp. plorantesque inproba natos-reliquit, Juv., 6, 86.

48. amarum: Jahn reads amorum in his ed. of 1843, but was sorry for it. In 1868 he reads amarum, and punctuates so as to throw it into the grave of the next line.

49. si puteal: A versus conclamatus (Jahn). The old explanation makes this passage refer to exorbitant usury. The puteal here meant is supposed to be the one mentioned by HOR., Sat., 2, 6, 13—the puteal Libonis, situated near the praetor's tribunal, and on that account a favorite haunt of usurers, who would naturally have frequent occasion to appear in court. Comp. the poplar-tree, which was the rendezvous of a certain 'ring' of contractors in Athens, ANDOC., 1, 133. Local allusions of this kind are the despair of commentators; the puteal is, after all, as mysterious as a corner' to the uninitiated, and we can only gather that puteal flagellare is slang for some recondite swindling process; which required a certain amount of knowingness (hence cautus). Conington renders, 'flog the exchange with many a stripe.' We may Americanize by 'clean out, thrash out Wall Street.' The Neronians, Casaubon at their head, understand the passage as referring to Nero's habit of going out at night in dis

guise and maltreating people in the street-see TAC., Ann., 13, 25; SUET., Nero, 26-and cautus is supposed to allude to the measures which he took for his personal safety.

50. bibulas donaveris aures: The student is by this time familiar with PERSIUS's way of hammering a familiar figure into odd shapes. If ears drink in, then ears are thirsty; if they are thirsty, then they tipple; and if you can give ear, you can bestow ears. 'In vain would you have given up your thirsty ears to be drenched by the praises of the mob.' Donaveris, Perf. Subj., μáτην παρεσχηκώς ἂν εἴης τὰ ὦτα. Future ascertainment of a conpleted action. G., 271, 2.

51. cerdo: Képdwv, a plebeian proper name. Conington translates by the 'Hob and Dick' of SHAKSPEARE's Coriolanus. The common rendering, 'cobbler,' is a false inference from MART., 3, 59, 1; 99, 1.

52. tecum habita: Comp. 1, 7.-noris: The punctuation of all the editors makes noris an Imperative Subjunctive. Still a kind of condition is involved si habites, noris. G., 594, 4; A., 60, 1, b. One of the most threadbare quotations from Latin poetry.

=

FIFTH SATIRE.

THE theme of the Fifth Satire is the Stoic doctrine of True Liberty. All men are slaves except the philosopher, and PERSIUS has learned to be a philosopher-thanks to Cornutus, to whom the Satire is addressed. Compare and contrast HORACE's handling of a like subject in Sat., 2, 3. In Teuffel's commentary on his translation of this Satire, the matter is briefly summed up in these words: HORACE is an artist, PERSIUS a preacher. See Introd., xxvi. Comp. also HoR., Sat., 2, 7, 46 seqq.

ARGUMENT.-PERSIUS Speaks: Poets have a way of asking for a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues, whether the theme be tragedy or epic. -CORNUTUS: A hundred mouths, a hundred tongues! What do you want with them? Or, for that matter, with a hundred gullets either, to worry down the tragic diet which other poets affect. You do not pant like a bellows, nor croak like a jackdaw, nor strain your cheeks to bursting in the high epic fashion. Your language is to be the language of every-day life, to which you are to give an edge by skilful comoination. Your utterance is modest, and your art is shown in rasping the unhealthy body of the age, and in impaling its faults with high-bred

raillery. Be such your theme. Let others sup full with tragic horrors, if they will. Do you know nothing beyond the frugal luncheon of our daily food (1-18).

PERSIUS: It is not my aim to have my pages swollen with 'Bubbles from the Brunnen of Poesy.' We are alone, far from the madding crowd, and I may throw open my heart to you, for I would have you know how great a part of my soul you are. Knock at the walls of my heart, for you are skilful to distinguish the solid from the hollow, to tell the painted stucco of the tongue from the strong masonry of the soul. To this end I fain would ask—and ask until I get a hundred voices, to show how deeply I have planted you in my heart of hearts; to tell you all that is past telling in my inmost being (19–29). When first the purple garb of boyhood withdrew its guardianship, and the amulet-no longer potent-was hung up, an offering to the old-fashioned household gods, when all about me humored me, and when the dress of manhood permitted my eyes to rove at will through the Subura with all its wares and wiles, what time the youth's path is doubtful, and bewilderment, ignorant of life, brings the excited mind to the spot where the great choice of roads is to be made-in that decisive hour I made myself son to you, and you took me, Cornutus, to your Socratic heart. Where my character was warped, the quiet application of the rule of right straightened what in me was crooked. My mind was constrained by reason, wrestled with its conqueror, and took on new features under your forming hand. How I remember the long days I spent with you, the firstfruits of the festal nights I plucked with you. Our work, our rest we ordered both alike, and the strain of study was eased by the pleasures of a modest table (30-44). Nay, never doubt that there is a harmony between our stars. Our constellation is the Balance or the Twins. The same aspect rules our nativities. Some star, be that star what it may, blends my fate with yours (45–51).

We are attuned each to other; but look abroad, and see how different men are from us and from each other. Each has his own aims in life. One is bent on active merchandise, one is given up to sluggish sleep, another is fond of athletic sports. One is drained dry by dicing, another by chambering and wantonness; but when the chalk-stones of gout rattle among their fingers and toes, they awake to the choke-damp and the foggy light in which they have spent their days, and mourn too late their wasted life (52-61).

But you delight to wax pale over nightly studies. A tiller of the human soul, you prepare the soil, and sow the field of the ear with the pure grain of Stoic wisdom. Hence seek, young and old, an aim for your higher being, provision for your hoary head (62–65).

'Hoary head, you say?' interposes an objector. That can be provided for as well to-morrow.' To-morrow! 'Next day the fatal precedent

will plead.' Another to-morrow comes, and we have used up yesterday's to-morrow, and so our days are emptied one by one. To-morrow! It is always ahead of us, as the hind wheel can never overtake the front wheel, though both be in the self-same chariot (66–72).

The remedy for this and all the other ills of life is True Liberty-not such as gives a dole of musty meal, a soup-house ticket to the new-made citizen; not such as makes a tipsy slave free in the twinkling of an eye. Now Dama is a worthless groom, and would sell himself for a handful of provender. Anon he is set free, as you call it—becomes Marcus Dama. Excellent surety! Most excellent judge! If Marcus says it is so, it is

So.

Your sign and scal here, good Marcus. Pah! This is the liberty that manumission gives. Up speaks Marcus: 'Well! Who is free except the man that can do as he pleases? I can do as I please. Argal I am free as air.'-'Not so,' says your learned Stoic. 'Your logic is at fault. I grant the rest, but I demur to the clause "as you please." -The praetor's wand made me my own man. May I not do what I please, if I offend not against the statute-book?' (73-90).

་

'Do what you please!' cries PERSIUS, who identifies himself with the Stoic philosopher. 'Stop just there and learn of me; but first cease to be scornful, and let me get these old wives' notions out of your head. The praetor could not teach you any thing about the conduct of life with all its perplexities. As well expect a man to teach an elephant to dance the tight-rope. Reason bars the way, and whispers, "You must not do what you will spoil in the doing." This is nature's law, the law of common-sense. You mix medicine, and know nothing of scales and weights? You, a clodhopper, and undertake to pilot a ship? Absurd, you say; and yet what do you know of life? How can you walk upright without philosophy? How can you tell the ring of the genuine metal, and detect the faulty sound of the base alloy? Do you know what to seek, what to avoid, what to mark with white, what with black? Can you control your wishes, moderate your expenses, be indulgent to your friends? Do you know how to save and how to spend? Can you keep your mouth from watering at the sight of money, from burning at the taste of ginger? When you can say in truth, "All this is mine," then you are truly free. But if you retain the old man under the new title, I take back all that I have granted. You can do nothing that is right. Every action is a fault. Fut forth your finger-you sin. There is not a half-ounce of virtue in your silly carcass. You must be all right or all wrong. Man is one. You can not be virtuous by halves. You can not be at once a ditcher and a dancer. You are a slave still, though the praetor's wand may have waved away your bonds. You do not tremble at a master's voice, 'tis true, but there are other masters than those whom the law recognizes. The wires that move you do not jerk you from without, but masters grow up within your bosom' (91-131).

Here the dialogue is dropped. We leave Dama, whose personality has been getting fainter all the time, and are treated to a series of more or less dramatic scenes in illustration of the Ruling Passions.

So Avarice and Luxury dispute about the body and soul of an un-Stoic slave (132-160).

A Lover tries to break the chain that binds him to an unworthy mistress (161-175).

Another is led captive by Ambition at her will (176–179).

Yet another is under the dominion of Superstition (180-188).

But why discourse thus? Imagine what the military would say to such a screed of doctrine. I hear the horse-laugh of Pulfennius, as he bids a clipped dollar for a hundred Greek philosophers—a cent apiece (189–191).

This Satire is justly considered by many critics the best of all the productions of PERSIUS, as it is the least obscure. The warm tribute to his master Cornutus may have had its share in commending the poem to teachers, who, of all men, are most grateful for gratitude. But apart from this revelation of a pure and loving heart, the peculiar talent of PERSIUS, which consists in vivid portraiture of character and situation, appears to great advantage in this composition. True, the introduction is not wrought into the poem, and the poet's discourse is too distinctly a Stoic school exercise, and reminiscence crowds on reminiscence, but there is a certain movement in the Satire, or Epistle, as it were better called, which carries us on over the occasional rough places, without the perpetual jolt which we feel every where else on the 'corduroy road' of PERSIUS's Gradus ad Parnassum.

1-4. PERSIUS: Oh for a hundred voices, a hundred mouths, a hundred tongues!

1. Vatibus hic mos est: Comp. HOR., Sat., 1, 2, 86: regibus hic mos est. Vatibus, with a sneer. See Prol., 7.-centum sibi poscere voces: Examples might be multiplied indefinitely from HoMER to Charles Wesley. Comp. Il., 2, 489: ovo εi poi déкa pèv γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόματ ̓ εἶεν ; and VERG., Aen., 6, 625 : non mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum; also Georg., 2, 43; Ov., Met., 8, 532. Conington burlesques the passage by translating poscere 'put in a requisition for,' and optare 'bespeak.' By such devices humor of a certain kind might be extracted from elegies, and VERGIL be made to put in a requisition for Quintilius at the Bureau of the Gods,' HOR., Od., 1, 24, 12.

3. seu ponatur: The mood after seu-seu is determined on