[56] To-day, friend Persicus, you will discover whether I make good, in deed and in my ways of life, the fair maxims which I preach, or whether, while commending beans, I am at heart a glutton: openly bidding my slave to bring me porridge, but whispering “cheese-cakes” in his ear. For now that you have promised to be my guest, you will find in me an Evander; you yourself will be the Tirynthian, or the guest less great than he, though he too came of blood divine — the one by water, the other borne by fire, to the stars. And now hear my feast, which no meat-market shall adorn. From my Tiburtine farm there will come a plump kid, tenderest of the flock, innocent of grass, that has never yet dared to nibble the twigs of the dwarf willow, and has more of milk in him than blood; some wild asparagus, gathered by the bailiff’s wife when done with her spindle, and some lordly eggs, warm in their wisps of hay, together with the hens that laid them. There will be crapes too, kept half the year, as fresh as when they hung upon the tree; pears from Signia and Syria, and in the same baskets fresh-smelling apples that rival those of Picenum, and of which you need not be afraid, seeing that winter’s cold has dried up their autumnal juice, and removed the perils of unripeness.
[77] Such were the banquets of our Senate in days of old, when already grown luxurious; when Curius, with his own hands, would lay upon his modest hearth the simple herbs he had gathered in his little garden — herbs scoffed at nowadays by the dirty ditcher who works in chains, and remembers the savour of tripe in the reeking cookshop. For feast days, in olden times, they would keep a side of dried pork, hanging from an open rack, or put before the relations a flitch of birthday bacon, with the addition of some fresh meat, if there happened to be a sacrifice to supply it. A kinsman who had thrice been hailed as Consul, who had commanded armies, and filled the office of Dictator, would come home earlier than was his wont for such a feast, shouldering the spade with which he had been subduing the hillside. For when men quailed before a Fabius or a stern Cato, before a Scaurus or a Fabricius — when even a Censor might dread the severe verdict of his colleague — no one deemed it a matter of grave and serious concern what kind of tortoise-shell was swimming in the waves of Ocean to form a head-rest for our Troy-born grandees. Couches in those days were small, their sides unadorned: a simple headpiece of bronze would display the head of a be-garlanded ass, beside which would romp in play the children of the village. Thus house and furniture were all in keeping with the fare.
[100] The rude soldier of those days had no taste for, or knowledge of, Greek art; if allotted cups made by great artists as his share in the booty of a captured city, he would break them up to provide gay trappings for his horse, or to chase a helmet that should display to the dying foe an image of the Romulean beast bidden by Rome’s destiny to grow tame, with the twin Quirini beneath a rock, and the nude effigy of the God swooping down with spear and shield. Their messes of spelt were then served on platters of earthenware; such silver as there was glittered only on their arms — all which things you may envy if you are at all inclined that way. The majesty of the temples also was more near to help us; it was then that was heard through the entire city that midnight voice telling how the Gauls were advancing from the shores of Ocean, the Gods taking on them the part of prophecy. Such were the warnings of Jupiter, such the cave which he bestowed on the concerns of Latium when he was made of clay, and undefiled by gold.
[117] In those days our tables were home-grown, made of our own trees; for such use was kept some aged chestnut blown down perchance by the Southwestern blast. But nowadays a rich man takes no pleasure in his dinner — his turbot and his venison have no taste, his unguents and his roses no perfume — unless the broad slabs of his dinner-table rest upon a ramping, gaping leopard of solid ivory, made of the tusks sent to us by the swift-footed Moor from the portal of Syene, or by the still duskier Indian — or perhaps shed by the monstrous beast in the Nabataean forest when too big and too heavy for his head. These are the things that give good appetite and good digestion; for to these gentlemen a table with a leg of silver is like a finger with an iron ring. For this reason I will have none of your haughty guests to make comparisons between himself and me, and look down upon my humble state. So destitute am I of ivory that neither my dice nor counters are made of it; even my knife-handles are of bone. Yet are not the viands tainted thereby, nor does the pullet cut up any the worse on that account. Nor shall I have a carver to whom the whole carving-school must bow, a pupil of the learned Trypherus, in whose school is cut up, with blunt knives, a magnificent feast of hares and sow’s paunches, of boars and antelopes, of Scythian fowls and tall flamingoes and Gaetulian gazelles, until the whole Subura rings with the clatter of the elm-wood banquet. My raw youngster, untutored all his days, has never learnt how to filch a slice of kid or the wing of a guinea-fowl, unpractised save in the theft of scraps. Cups of common ware, bought for a few pence, will be handed round by an unpolished lad, clad so as to keep out the cold. No Phrygian or Lycian youth, none bought from a dealer at a huge price, will you find; when you want anything, ask for it in Latin. They are all dressed alike; their hair cut close and uncurled, and only combed to-day because of the company. One is the son of a hardy shepherd; another of the cattle-man: he sighs for the mother whom he has not seen for so long, and thinks wistfully of the little cottage and the kids he knew so well; a lad of open countenance and simple modesty, such as those ought to be who are clothed in glowing purple. No noisy frequenter he of baths, presenting his armpits to be cleared of hair, and with only an oil-flask to conceal his nudity. He will hand you a wine that was bottled on the hills among which he was born, and beneath whose tops he played — for wine and servant alike have one and the same fatherland.
[162] You may look perhaps for a troop of Spanish maidens to win applause by immodest dance and song, sinking down with quivering thighs to the floor — such sights as brides behold seated beside their husbands, though it were a shame to speak of such things in their presence. . . . My humble home has no place for follies such as these. The clatter of castanets, words too foul for the strumpet that stands naked in a reeking archway, with all the arts and language of lust, may be left to him who spits wine upon floors of Lacedaemonian marble; such men we pardon because of their high station. In men of moderate position gaming and adultery are shameful; but when those others do these same things, they are called gay fellows and fine gentlemen. My feast to-day will provide other performances than these. The bard of the Iliad will be sung, and the lays of the lofty-toned Maro that contest the palm with his. What matters it with what voice strains like these are read?
[183] And now put away cares and cast business to the winds! Present yourself with a welcome holiday, now that you may be idle for the entire day. Let there be no talk of money, and let there be no secret wrath or suspicion in your heart because your wife is wont to go forth at dawn and to come home at night with crumpled hair and flushed face and ears. Cast off straightway before my threshold all that troubles you, all thought of house and slaves, with all that slaves break or lose, and above all put away all thought of thankless friends.
[193] Meantime the solemn Idaean rite of the Megalesian napkin is being held; there sits the Praetor in his triumphal state, the prey of horseflesh; and (if I may say so without offence to the vast unnumbered mob) all Rome to-day is in the Circus. A roar strikes upon my ear which tells me that the Green has won; for had it lost, Rome would be as sad and dismayed as when the Consuls were vanquished in the dust of Cannae. Such sights are for the young, whom it befits to shout and make bold wagers with a smart damsel by their side: but let my shrivelled skin drink in the vernal sun, and escape the toga. You may go at once to your bath with no shame on your brow, though it wants a whole hour of mid-day. That you could not do for five days continuously, since even such a life has weariness. It is rarity that gives zest to pleasure.
Satire 12. How Catullus escaped Shipwreck
[1] Dearer to me, Corvinus, is this day, when my festal turf is awaiting the victims vowed to
the Gods, than my own birthday. To the Queen of Heaven I offer a snow-white lamb; a fleece as white to the Goddess armed with the Moorish Gorgon; hard by is the frolicsome victim destined for Tarpeian Jove, shaking the tight-stretched rope and brandishing his brow; for he is a bold young steer, ripe for temple and for altar, and fit to be sprinkled with wine; it already shames him to suck his mother’s milk, and with his budding horn he assails the oaks. Were my fortune large, and as ample as my love, I should have been hauling along a bull fatter than Hispulla, slow-footed from his very bulk; reared on no neighbouring herbage he, but showing in his blood the rich pastures of the Clitumnus, and marching along to to offer his neck to the stroke of the stalwart priest, to celebrate the return of my still trembling friend who has lately gone through such terrors, and now marvels to find himself safe and sound.
[17] For besides the perils of the deep he escaped a lightning stroke. A mass of dense black cloud shut out the heavens, and down came a flash of fire upon the yards. Every man believed himself smitten by the bolt, and soon in his terror bethought him that no shipwreck could be so terrible as a ship on fire. All happened in the same way and as frightfully as when a storm arises in a poem, when lo! a new kind of peril came: hear it and give your pity once again, though the rest of the tale is all of one piece: a fearful lot, well known to many, and testified by many a votive tablet in our temples. Who knows not that it is Isis who feeds our painters?
[29] A fate like to these befell our friend Catullus also. For when the hold was half full of water, and the waves rocked the hull from side to side, so that the white-haired skipper, with all his skill, could bring no succour to the labouring mast, he resolved to compound with the winds like the beaver, who gives up one part of his body that he may keep the rest; so conscious is he of the drug which he carries in his groin. “Overboard with everything!” shouted Catullus, ready to cast headlong his finest wares: purple garments, such as would have befitted a soft Maecenas, with other fabrics dyed on the sheep’s back by the noble nature of the herbage — though doubtless the hidden virtues of the water and air of Baetica also lent their aid. Nor did he hesitate to throw over pieces of silver plate — charger’s wrought by Parthenius, and bowls holding three gallons, fit to slake the thirst of the Centaur Pholus or the wife of Fuscus. Besides these were baskets and dishes without number, and much chased work out of which the crafty purchaser of Olynthus had slaked his thirst. What other man is there, in what part of the world, who would dare to value his life above his plate, or his safety above his property? Some men are so blinded and depraved that, instead of making fortunes for the sake of living, they live for their fortunes’ sake.
[52] And now most of the cargo has gone overboard, but even these losses do not ease the vessel; so in his extremity the skipper had to fall back upon cutting away the mast, and so find a way out of his straits — a dire pass indeed when no remedy can be found but one that diminishes the ship! Go now, and commit your life to the winds! Go trust yourself to a hewn plank which parts you from death by four finger-breadths, or seven if it be extra thick! Only remember in future, besides your bread and your bread-basket and your pot-bellied flagon, to take with you axes also for use in time of storm.
[62] But soon the sea fell flat, and our mariners came on better times. Destiny proved stronger than wind and wave; the glad Fates, with kindly hand, spun a yarn of white wool, there sprang up what was no stronger than a gentle breeze, under which the poor ship sped on by the sorry help of outstretched garments, and the single sail now left to her on her prow. Soon the winds abated, and out came the sun, bringing hope of life; and then there came into view the beetling height so dear to lulus, and preferred by him for his abode to his stepmother’s Lavinum, a height that took its name from the white sow whose wondrous womb made glad the Phrygians’ hearts, and gained fame for her thirty teats — a sight never seen before!
[75] And now at length the ship comes within the moles built out to enclose the sea. She passes the Tyrrhenian Pharos, and those arms which stretch out and meet again in mid-ocean, leaving Italy far behind — a port more wondrous far than those of Nature’s making. Then the skipper, with his crippled ship, makes for the still waters of the inner basin in which any Baian shallop may ride in safety. There the sailors shave their heads and delight, in garrulous ease, to tell the story of their perils.
[83] Away then, ye boys, and with reverent tongues and souls hang up garlands upon the shrines, sprinkle meal upon the knives, and deck the soft altars of verdant turf. I will quickly follow, and having duly performed the greater rite, will return thence home, where my little images of shining crumbling wax are being decked with slender wreaths. Here will I entreat my own Jupiter; here will I offer incense to my paternal Lares, and scatter pansies of every hue. Here all is bright; the gateway, in token of feast, has put up trailing branches, and is worshipping with early-lighted lamps.
[93] Look not askance, Corvinus, upon these rejoicings. The Catullus for whose return I set up all these altars has three little heirs of his own. You may wait long enough before you find anyone to bestow a sickly hen, just closing her eyes, upon so unprofitable a friend; nay, a hen would be all too costly: no quail will ever fall for a man who is a father! But if the rich and childless Gallitta or Pacius have a touch of fever, their entire porticoes will be dressed out with tablets fastened in due form; there will be some to vow hecatombs, not elephants, indeed, seeing that elephants are not for sale, nor does that beast breed in Latium, or anywhere beneath our skies, but is fetched from the dark man’s land, and fed in the Rutulian forest and the domains of Turnus. The herd is Caesar’s,’ and will serve no private master, since their forefathers were wont to obey the Tyrian Hannibal and our generals and the Molossian king, and to carry cohorts on their backs — no small fraction of a war — whole towers going forth to battle! Therefore Novius would not hesitate, Pacuvius Hister2 would not hesitate, to lead that ivoried monster to the altar, and offer it to Gallitta’s Lares, the only victim worthy of such august divinities, and of those who hunt their gold. For the latter worthy, if permitted, will vow to sacrifice the tallest and comeliest of his slaves; he will place fillets on the brows of his slave-boys and maidservants; if he has a marriageable Iphigenia at home, he will place her upon the altar, though he could never hope for the hind of tragic story to provide a secret substitute.
[121] I commend the wisdom of my fellow townsman, nor can I compare a thousand ships to an inheritance; for if the sick man escape the Goddess of Death, he will be caught within the net, he will destroy his will, and after the prodigious services of Pacuvius will maybe by a single word, make him heir to all his possessions, and Pacuvius will strut proudly over his vanquished rivals. You see therefore how well worth while it was to slaughter that maiden at Mycenae! Long live Pacuvius! may he live, I pray, as many years as Nestor; may he possess as much as Nero plundered; may he pile up gold mountain-high; may he love no one, and be by none beloved!
Satire 13. The Terrors of a Guilty Conscience
[1] No deed that sets an example of evil brings joy to the doer of it. The first punishment is this: that no guilty man is acquitted at the bar of his own conscience, though he have won his cause by a juggling urn, and the corrupt favour of the judge. What do you suppose, Calvinus, that people are now thinking about the recent villainy and the charge of trust betrayed? Your means are not so small that the weight of a slight loss will weigh you down; nor is your misfortune rare. Such a mishap has been known to many; it is one of the common kind, plucked at random out of Fortune’s heap. Away with undue lamentations! a man’s wrath should not be hotter than is fit, nor greater than the loss sustained. You are scarce able to bear, the very smallest particle of misfortune; your bowels foam hot within you because your friend will not give up to you the sacred trust committed to him; does this amaze one who was born in the Consulship of Fonteius, and has left sixty years behind him? Have you gained nothing from all your experience?
[19] Great indeed is Philosophy, the
conqueror of Fortune, and sacred are her precepts; but they too are to be deemed happy who have learnt under the schooling of life to endure its ills without fretting against the yoke. What day is there, however festal, which fails to disclose theft, treachery and fraud: gain made out of every kind of crime, and money won by the dagger or the bowl? For honest men are scarce; hardly so numerous as the gates of Thebes, or the mouths of the enriching Nile. We are living in a ninth age; an age more evil than that of iron — one for whose wickedness Nature herself can find no name, no metal from which to call it. We summon Gods and men to our aid with cries as loud as that with which the vocal dole applauds Faesidius when he pleads. Tell me, you old gentleman, that should be wearing the bulla of childhood, do you know nothing of the charm of other people’s money? Are you ignorant of how the world laughs at your simplicity when you demand of any man that he shall not perjure himself, and believe that some divinity is to be found in temples or in altars red with blood? Primitive men lived thus in the olden days, before Saturn laid down his diadem and fled, betaking himself to the rustic sickle; in the days when Juno was a little maid, and Jupiter still a private gentleman in the caves of Ida. In those days there were no banquets of the heavenly host above the clouds, there was no Trojan youth, no fair wife of Hercules for cup-bearer, no Vulcan wiping arms begrimed by the Liparaean forge after tossing off his nectar. Each God then dined by himself; there was no such mob of deities as there is to-day; the stars were satisfied with a few divinities, and pressed with a lighter load upon the hapless Atlas. No monarch had as yet had the gloomy realms below allotted to him; there was no grim Pluto with a Sicilian spouse; there was no wheel, no rock, no Furies, no black torturing Vulture; the shades led a merry life, with no kings over their nether world. Dishonesty was a prodigy in those days; men deemed it a heinous sin, worthy of death, if a youth did not rise before his elders, or a boy before any bearded man, though he himself might see more strawberries, and bigger heaps of acorns, in his own home. So worshipful was it to be older by four years, so equal to reverend age was the first down of manhood!
Delphi Complete Works of Juvena Page 10