et iam defecit nostrum mare, dum gula saeuit,
retibus adsiduis penitus scrutante macello 95
proxima, nec patimur Tyrrhenum crescere piscem.
instruit ergo focum prouincia, sumitur illinc
quod captator emat Laenas, Aurelia uendat.
[92] My lord will have a mullet dispatched from Corsica or the Rocks of Tauromenium: for in the rage for gluttony our own seas have given out; the nets of the fish-market are for ever raking our home waters, and prevent Tyrrhenian fish from attaining their full size. And so the Provinces supply our kitchens; from the Provinces come the fish for the legacy-hunter Laenas to buy, and for Aurelia to send to market.
Virroni muraena datur, quae maxima uenit
gurgite de Siculo; nam dum se continet Auster, 100
dum sedet et siccat madidas in carcere pinnas,
contemnunt mediam temeraria lina Charybdim:
uos anguilla manet longae cognata colubrae
aut ~glacie aspersus~ maculis Tiberinus et ipse
uernula riparum, pinguis torrente cloaca 105
et solitus mediae cryptam penetrare Suburae.
[99] Virro is served with a lamprey, the finest that the Straits of Sicily can purvey; for so long as the South wind stays at home, and sits in his prison-house drying his dank wings, Charybdis has no terrors for the daring fisherman. For you is reserved an eel, first cousin to a water-snake, or perchance a pike mottled with ice-spots; he too was bred on Tiber’s banks and was wont to find his way into the inmost recesses of the Subura, battening himself amid its flowing sewers.
ipsi pauca uelim, facilem si praebeat aurem.
nemo petit, modicis quae mittebantur amicis
a Seneca, quae Piso bonus, quae Cotta solebat
largiri; namque et titulis et fascibus olim 110
maior habebatur donandi gloria. solum
poscimus ut cenes ciuiliter. hoc face et esto,
esto, ut nunc multi, diues tibi, pauper amicis.
[107] And now one word with the great man himself, if he will lend his ear. “No one asks of you such lordly gifts as Seneca, or the good Piso or Cotta, used to send to their humble friends: for in the days of old, the glory of giving was deemed grander than titles or fasces. All we ask of you is that you should dine with us as a fellow-citizen : do this and remain, like so many others nowadays, rich for yourself and poor to your friends.”
anseris ante ipsum magni iecur, anseribus par
altilis, et flaui dignus ferro Meleagri 115
spumat aper. post hunc tradentur tubera, si uer
tunc erit et facient optata tonitrua cenas
maiores. ‘tibi habe frumentum’ Alledius inquit,
‘o Libye, disiunge boues, dum tubera mittas.’
[114] Before Virro is put a huge goose’s liver; a capon as big as a goose, and a boar, piping hot, worthy of yellow-haired Meleager’s steel. Then will come truffles, if it be spring-time and the longed-for thunder have enlarged our dinners. “Keep your corn to yourself, O Libya!” says Alledius; “unyoke your oxen, if only you send us truffles!”
structorem interea, ne qua indignatio desit, 120
saltantem spectes et chironomunta uolanti
cultello, donec peragat dictata magistri
omnia; nec minimo sane discrimine refert
quo gestu lepores et quo gallina secetur.
duceris planta uelut ictus ab Hercule Cacus 125
et ponere foris, si quid temptaueris umquam
hiscere tamquam habeas tria nomina. quando propinat
Virro tibi sumitue tuis contacta labellis
pocula? quis uestrum temerarius usque adeo, quis
perditus, ut dicat regi ‘bibe’? plurima sunt quae 130
non audent homines pertusa dicere laena.
quadringenta tibi si quis deus aut similis dis
et melior fatis donaret homuncio, quantus
ex nihilo, quantus fieres Virronis amicus!
‘da Trebio, pone ad Trebium. uis, frater, ab ipsis 135
ilibus?’ o nummi, uobis hunc praestat honorem,
uos estis frater. dominus tamen et domini rex
si uis tunc fieri, nullus tibi paruulus aula
luserit Aeneas nec filia dulcior illo.
[iucundum et carum sterilis facit uxor amicum.] 140
sed tua nunc Mycale pariat licet et pueros tres
in gremium patris fundat semel, ipse loquaci
gaudebit nido, uiridem thoraca iubebit
adferri minimasque nuces assemque rogatum,
ad mensam quotiens parasitus uenerit infans. 145
[120] During all this time, lest any occasion for disgust should be wanting, you may behold the carver capering and gesticulating with knife in air, and carrying out all the instructions of his preceptor: for it makes a mighty difference with what gestures a hare or a hen be carved! If you ever dare to utter one word as though you were possessed of three names, you will be dragged by the heels and thrust out of doors as Cacus was, after the drubbing he got from Hercules. When will Virro offer to drink wine with you? or take a cup that has been polluted by your lips? Which one of you would be so foolhardy, so lost to shame, as to say to your patron “A glass with you, Sir”? No, no: there’s many a thing which a man whose coat has holes in it cannot say! But if some God, or god-like manikin more kindly than the fates, should present you with four hundred thousand sesterces, O how great a personage would you become, from being a nobody; how dear a friend to Virro! “Pray help Trebius to this!” “Let Trebius have some of that!” “Would you like a cut just from the loin, good brother?” O money, money! It is to you that he pays this honour, it is you that are his brother! Nevertheless, if you wish to be yourself a great man, and a great man’s lord, let there be no little Aeneas playing about your halls, nor yet a little daughter, more sweet than he; nothing will so endear you to your friend as a barren wife. But as things now are, though your Mycale pour into your paternal bosom three boys at a birth, Virro will be charmed with the chattering brood, and will order cuirasses of green rushes to be given them, and little nuts, and pennies too if they be asked for, when the little parasites present themselves at his table.
uilibus ancipites fungi ponentur amicis,
boletus domino, sed quales Claudius edit
ante illum uxoris, post quem nihil amplius edit.
Virro sibi et reliquis Virronibus illa iubebit
poma dari, quorum solo pascaris odore, 150
qualia perpetuus Phaeacum autumnus habebat,
credere quae possis subrepta sororibus Afris:
tu scabie frueris mali, quod in aggere rodit
qui tegitur parma et galea metuensque flagelli
discit ab hirsuta iaculum torquere capella. 155
[146] Before the guests will be placed toadstools of doubtful quality, before my lord a noble mushroom, such a one as Claudius ate before that mushroom of his wife’s — after which he ate nothing more. To himself and the rest of the Virros he will order apples to be served whose scent alone would be a feast — apples such as grew in the never-failing Autumn of the Phaeacians, and which you might believe to have been filched from the African sisters; you are treated to a rotten apple like those munched on the ramparts by a monkey equipped with spear and shield who learns, in terror of the whip, to hurl a javelin from the back of a shaggy goat.
forsitan inpensae Virronem parcere credas.
hoc agit, ut doleas; nam quae comoedia, mimus
quis melior plorante gula? ergo omnia fiunt,
si nescis, ut per lacrimas effundere bilem
cogaris pressoque diu stridere molari. 160
tu tibi liber homo et regis conuiua uideris:
captum te nidore suae putat ille culinae,
nec male coniectat; quis enim tam nudus, ut illum
bis ferat, Etruscum puero si contigit aurum
uel nodus tantum et signum de paupere loro? 165
spes bene cenandi uos decipit. ‘ecce dabit iam
semesum leporem atque aliqui
d de clunibus apri,
ad nos iam ueniet minor altilis.’ inde parato
intactoque omnes et stricto pane tacetis.
ille sapit, qui te sic utitur. omnia ferre 170
si potes, et debes. pulsandum uertice raso
praebebis quandoque caput nec dura timebis
flagra pati, his epulis et tali dignus amico.
[156] You may perhaps suppose that Virro grudges the expense; not a bit of it! His object is to give you pain. For what comedy, what mime, is so amusing as a disappointed belly? His one object, let me tell you, is to compel you to pour out your wrath in tears, and to keep gnashing your molars against each other. You think yourself a free man, and guest of a grandee; he thinks — and he is not far wrong — that you have been captured by the savoury odours of his kitchen. For who that had ever worn the Etruscan bulla in his boyhood, — or even the poor man’s leather badge — could tolerate such a patron for a second time, however destitute he might be? It is the hope of a good dinner that beguiles you: “Surely he will give us,” you say, “what is left of a hare, or some scraps of a boar’s haunch; the remains of a capon will come our way by and by.” And so you all sit in dumb silence, your bread clutched, untasted, and ready for action. In treating you thus, the great man shows his wisdom. If you can endure such things, you deserve them; some day you will be offering your head to be shaved and slapped: nor will you flinch from a stroke of the whip, well worthy of such a feast and such a friend.
Satire 6. The Ways of Women
Credo Pudicitiam Saturno rege moratam
in terris uisamque diu, cum frigida paruas
praeberet spelunca domos ignemque laremque
et pecus et dominos communi clauderet umbra,
siluestrem montana torum cum sterneret uxor 5
frondibus et culmo uicinarumque ferarum
pellibus, haut similis tibi, Cynthia, nec tibi, cuius
turbauit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos,
sed potanda ferens infantibus ubera magnis
et saepe horridior glandem ructante marito. 10
quippe aliter tunc orbe nouo caeloque recenti
uiuebant homines, qui rupto robore nati
compositiue luto nullos habuere parentes.
multa Pudicitiae ueteris uestigia forsan
aut aliqua exstiterint et sub Ioue, sed Ioue nondum 15
barbato, nondum Graecis iurare paratis
per caput alterius, cum furem nemo timeret
caulibus ac pomis et aperto uiueret horto.
paulatim deinde ad superos Astraea recessit
hac comite, atque duae pariter fugere sorores. 20
[1] In the days of Saturn, I believe, Chastity still lingered on the earth, and was to be seen for a time — days when men were poorly housed in chilly caves, when one common shelter enclosed hearth and household gods, herds and their owners; when the hill-bred wife spread her silvan bed with leaves and straw and the skins of her neighbours the wild beasts — a wife not like to thee, O Cynthia, nor to thee, Lesbia, whose bright eyes were clouded by a sparrow’s death, but one whose breasts gave suck to lusty babes, often more unkempt herself than her acorn-belching spouse. For in those days, when the world was young, and the skies were new, men born of the riven oak, or formed of dust, lived differently from now, and had no parents of their own. Under Jove, perchance, some few traces of ancient modesty may have survived; but that was before he had grown his beard, before the Greeks had learned to swear by someone else’s head, when men feared not thieves for their cabbages or apples, and lived with unwalled gardens. After that Astraea withdrew by degrees to heaven, with Chastity as her comrade, the two sisters taking flight together.
anticum et uetus est alienum, Postume, lectum
concutere atque sacri genium contemnere fulcri.
omne aliud crimen mox ferrea protulit aetas:
uiderunt primos argentea saecula moechos.
conuentum tamen et pactum et sponsalia nostra 25
tempestate paras iamque a tonsore magistro
pecteris et digito pignus fortasse dedisti?
certe sanus eras. uxorem, Postume, ducis?
dic qua Tisiphone, quibus exagitere colubris.
ferre potes dominam saluis tot restibus ullam, 30
cum pateant altae caligantesque fenestrae,
cum tibi uicinum se praebeat Aemilius pons?
aut si de multis nullus placet exitus, illud
nonne putas melius, quod tecum pusio dormit?
pusio, qui noctu non litigat, exigit a te 35
nulla iacens illic munuscula, nec queritur quod
et lateri parcas nec quantum iussit anheles.
[21] To set your neighbour’s bed a-shaking, Postumus, and to flout the Genius of the sacred couch, is now an ancient and long-established practice. All other sins came later, the products of the age of Iron; but it was the silver age that saw the first adulterers. Nevertheless, in these days of ours, you are preparing for a covenant, a marriage-contract and a betrothal; you are by now getting your hair cut by a master barber; you have also perhaps given a pledge to her finger. What! Postumus, are you, you who once had your wits, taking to yourself a wife? Tell me what Tisiphone, what snakes are driving you mad? Can you submit to a she-tyrant when there is so much rope to be had, so many dizzy heights of windows standing open, and when the Aemilian bridge offers itself to hand? Or if none of all these modes of exit hit your fancy, how much better to take some boy-bedfellow, who would never wrangle with you o’ nights, never ask presents of you when in bed, and never complain that you took your ease and were indifferent to his solicitations!
sed placet Vrsidio lex Iulia: tollere dulcem
cogitat heredem, cariturus turture magno
mullorumque iubis et captatore macello. 40
quid fieri non posse putes, si iungitur ulla
Vrsidio? si moechorum notissimus olim
stulta maritali iam porrigit ora capistro,
quem totiens texit perituri cista Latini?
quid quod et antiquis uxor de moribus illi 45
quaeritur? o medici, nimiam pertundite uenam.
delicias hominis! Tarpeium limen adora
pronus et auratam Iunoni caede iuuencam,
si tibi contigerit capitis matrona pudici.
paucae adeo Cereris uittas contingere dignae, 50
quarum non timeat pater oscula. necte coronam
postibus et densos per limina tende corymbos.
unus Hiberinae uir sufficit? ocius illud
extorquebis, ut haec oculo contenta sit uno.
magna tamen fama est cuiusdam rure paterno 55
uiuentis. uiuat Gabiis ut uixit in agro,
uiuat Fidenis, et agello cedo paterno.
quis tamen adfirmat nil actum in montibus aut in
speluncis? adeo senuerunt Iuppiter et Mars?
[38] But Ursidius approves of the Julian Law. He purposes to bring up a dear little heir, though he will thereby have to do without the fine turtles, the bearded mullets, and all the legacy-hunting delicacies of the meat-market. What can you think impossible if Ursidius takes to himself a wife? if he, who has long been the most notorious of gallants, who has so often found safety in the corn-bin of the luckless Latinus, puts his head into the connubial noose? And what think you of his searching for a wife of the good old virtuous sort? O doctors, lance his over-blooded veins. A pretty fellow you! Why, if you have the good luck to find a modest spouse, you should prostrate yourself before the Tarpeian threshold, and sacrifice a heifer with gilded horns to Juno; so few are the wives worthy to handle the fillets of Ceres, or from whose kisses their own father would not shrink! Weave a garland for thy doorposts, and set up wreaths of ivy over thy lintel! But will Hiberina be satisfied with one man? Sooner compel her to be satisfied with one eye! You tell me of the high repute of some maiden, who lives on her paternal farm: well, let her live at Gabii, at Fidenae, as she lived in her own country, and I will believe in your paternal farm. But will anyone tell me that nothing ever took
place on a mountain side or in a cave? Have Jupiter and Mars become so senile?
porticibusne tibi monstratur femina uoto 60
digna tuo? cuneis an habent spectacula totis
quod securus ames quodque inde excerpere possis?
chironomon Ledam molli saltante Bathyllo
Tuccia uesicae non imperat, Apula gannit,
[sicut in amplexu, subito et miserabile longum.] 65
attendit Thymele: Thymele tunc rustica discit.
[60] Can our arcades show you one woman worthy of your vows? Do all the tiers in all our theatres hold one whom you may love without misgiving, and pick out thence? When the soft Bathyllus dances the part of the gesticulating Leda, Tuccia cannot contain herself; your Apulian maiden heaves a sudden and longing cry of ecstasy, as though she were in a man’s arms; the rustic Thymele is all attention, it is then that she learns her lesson.
ast aliae, quotiens aulaea recondita cessant,
et uacuo clusoque sonant fora sola theatro,
atque a plebeis longe Megalesia, tristes
personam thyrsumque tenent et subligar Acci. 70
Vrbicus exodio risum mouet Atellanae
gestibus Autonoes, hunc diligit Aelia pauper.
soluitur his magno comoedi fibula, sunt quae
Chrysogonum cantare uetent, Hispulla tragoedo
gaudet: an expectas ut Quintilianus ametur? 75
accipis uxorem de qua citharoedus Echion
aut Glaphyrus fiat pater Ambrosiusque choraules.
longa per angustos figamus pulpita uicos,
ornentur postes et grandi ianua lauro,
ut testudineo tibi, Lentule, conopeo 80
nobilis Euryalum murmillonem exprimat infans.
[67] Others again, when all the stage draperies have been put away; when the theatres are closed, and all is silent save in the courts, and the Megalesian games are far off from the Plebeian, ease their dullness by taking to the mask, the thyrsus and the tights of Accius. Urbicus, in an Atellane interlude, raises a laugh by the gestures of Autonoe; the penniless Aelia is in love with him. Other women pay great prices for the favours of a comedian; some will not allow Chrysogonus to sing. Hispulla has a fancy for tragedians; but do you suppose that any one will be found to love Quintilian? If you marry a wife, it will be that the lyrist Echion or Glaphyrus, or the flute player Ambrosius, may become a father. Then up with a long dais in the narrow street! Adorn your doors and doorposts with wreaths of laurel, that your highborn son, O Lentulus, may exhibit, in his tortoiseshell cradle, the lineaments of Euryalus or of a murmillo!
Delphi Complete Works of Juvena Page 31