Latin Verse Satire
Page 15
hinc causas habuere; quid illo cive tulisset
natura in terris, quid Roma beatius umquam,
si circumducto captivorum agmine et omni 280
bellorum pompa animam exhalasset opimam,
cum de Teutonico vellet descendere curru?
provida Pompeio dederat Campania febres
optandas, sed multae urbes et publica vota
vicerunt; igitur Fortuna ipsius et urbis 285
servatum victo caput abstulit. hoc cruciatu
Lentulus, hac poena caruit ceciditque Cethegus
integer et iacuit Catilina cadavere toto.
formam optat modico pueris, maiore puellis
murmure, cum Veneris fanum videt, anxia mater 290
usque ad delicias votorum. ‘cur tamen’ inquit
‘corripias? pulchra gaudet Latona Diana.’
sed vetat optari faciem Lucretia qualem
ipsa habuit, cuperet Rutilae Verginia gibbum
accipere atque suam Rutilae dare. filius autem 295
corporis egregii miseros trepidosque parentes
semper habet: rara est adeo concordia formae
atque pudicitiae. sanctos licet horrida mores
tradiderit domus ac veteres imitata Sabinos,
praeterea castum ingenium voltumque modesto 300
sanguine ferventem tribuat natura benigna
larga manu (quid enim puero conferre potest plus
custode et cura natura potentior omni?),
non licet esse viro; nam prodiga corruptoris
improbitas ipsos audet temptare parentes: 305
tanta in muneribus fiducia. nullus ephebum
deformem saeva castravit in arce tyrannus,
nec praetextatum rapuit Nero loripedem nec
strumosum atque utero pariter gibboque tumentem.
i nunc et iuvenis specie laetare tui, quem 310
maiora expectant discrimina. fiet adulter
publicus et poenas metuet quascumque mariti
irati debet, nec erit felicior astro
Martis, ut in laqueos numquam incidat. exigit autem
interdum ille dolor plus quam lex ulla dolori 315
concessit: necat hic ferro, secat ille cruentis
verberibus, quosdam moechos et mugilis intrat.
sed tuus Endymion dilectae fiet adulter
matronae. mox cum dederit Servilia nummos
fiet et illius quam non amat, exuet omnem 320
corporis ornatum; quid enim ulla negaverit udis
inguinibus, sive est haec Oppia sive Catulla?
deterior totos habet illic femina mores.
‘sed casto quid forma nocet?’ quid profuit immo
Hippolyto grave propositum, quid Bellerophonti? 325
erubuit nempe haec ceu fastidita repulsa,
nec Stheneboea minus quam Cressa excanduit, et se
concussere ambae. mulier saevissima tunc est
cum stimulos odio pudor admovet. elige quidnam
suadendum esse putes cui nubere Caesaris uxor 330
destinat. optimus hic et formonsissimus idem
gentis patriciae rapitur miser extinguendus
Messalinae oculis; dudum sedet illa parato
flammeolo Tyriusque palam genialis in hortis
sternitur et ritu decies centena dabuntur 335
antiquo, veniet cum signatoribus auspex.
haec tu secreta et paucis commissa putabas?
non nisi legitime volt nubere. quid placeat dic.
ni parere velis, pereundum erit ante lucernas;
si scelus admittas, dabitur mora parvula, dum res 340
nota urbi et populo contingat principis aurem.
dedecus ille domus sciet ultimus. interea tu
obsequere imperio, si tanti vita dierum
paucorum. quidquid levius meliusque putaris,
praebenda est gladio pulchra haec et candida cervix. 345
nil ergo optabunt homines? si consilium vis,
permittes ipsis expendere numinibus quid
conveniat nobis rebusque sit utile nostris;
nam pro iucundis aptissima quaeque dabunt di.
carior est illis homo quam sibi. nos animorum 350
inpulsu et caeca magnaque cupidine ducti
coniugium petimus partumque uxoris, at illis
notum qui pueri qualisque futura sit uxor.
ut tamen et poscas aliquid voveasque sacellis
exta et candiduli divina tomacula porci, 355
orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.
fortem posce animum mortis terrore carentem,
qui spatium vitae extremum inter munera ponat
naturae, qui ferre queat quoscumque labores,
nesciat irasci, cupiat nihil et potiores 360
Herculis aerumnas credat saevosque labores
et venere et cenis et pluma Sardanapalli.
monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare; semita certe
tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae.
nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia: nos te, 365
nos facimus, Fortuna, deam caeloque locamus.
COMMENTARY
ENNIUS
Frg. 7
The theme of culinary excess (sine modo) had been part of satire from its very beginning and may well be part of its name [12, 54].* It is reflected later in Lucilius, Horace’s second book, Persius, and Juvenal. The satiric pose seems to be intrinsically linked to gastronomic and sexual excess. The grotesque figures prominently in its Greek forebears, iambic poetry and Old Comedy [34–7], as well as in the related genre of Mennippean satire [7]. Meter: iambic trimeter [42].
Convivat < convivo, –are: “to dine, to have a banquet” = deponent in later Latin.
Frg. 15
This is the longest fragment we have from Ennius’s satires. It shows satire’s socially regulative function. It is a sharp picture of a hungry wolf. The text is cited in the scholia to Terence’s Phormio, which probably indicates that the character is to be understood as a comic parasite. Note the paratactic syntax throughout, with very little sustained subordination. Meter: iambic trimeter [42].
Lautus < lavo, –are, lavi, lautum: wash, bathe.
Infestis malis: a military metaphor: “with cheeks arrayed,” ablative of attendant circumstances.
Malis < mala, –ae: cheek, jaw.
Expedito = “at the ready.”
Alacer = “quick.”
Celsus = “proud, haughty.”
Expectans < exspecto, –are: “to long for or await.” This usage takes the ablative. 109
Abligurris < abligurrio, –ire, –ivi, –itum: “to lick away, consume.”
Quid censes domino esse animi?: “What do you estimate your host thinks?” Dominus may well imply more a relation of subservience than simply “host.” The parasite is often a social climber or freedman in comedy.
Pro divum fidem = accusative of exclamation with the interjection pro.
Ill’ tristist = archaic contraction for ille tristis est, which will not scan. The host is saddened as he watches the food he has put back devoured (voras).
Frg. 18
The word play and alliteration in this fragment are typically Ennian, while the homely morality would be at home in even the latest exemplars of the genre. The poet here rings all the possible changes on the verb frustror, “to deceive” and the related indeclinable adjective frustra (here with short final syllable). Frustra on its own means “in vain, without success,” but frustra esse means “to be in error.” The result of the word play is a confusion that mirrors that of the deceptions described. Meter: sotadean [43].
Postulat = “claims.”
Quem refers back to alterum.
Eum refers back to qui. Is also refers back to qui.
Ille refers back to quem.
*Bold numbers (e.g., [1]) in brackets refer to paragraphs in the introduction where a more expanded discussion of the topic can be found.
LUCILIUS
Frg. 26.1.589–93
This passage anticip
ates similar programmatic statements from Horace, particularly 1.10.76–90. Lucilius announces his intended audience to be neither the pedant nor the rube, but the sophisticated man of taste. These lines come from the beginning of Lucilius’s first published collection [58] and would constitute the poet’s introduction to his work. Meter: trochaic septenarius [45].
589–90. Lucilius does not aim to please the crowd, but neither is he interested only in the approval of professional writers. It should be noted that most professional writers from this period would have been of lower-class origins [19]. One of the striking things about Lucilius is he is the first upper-class Roman we hear speaking in propria persona [20].
Itidem = “in like manner.”
Populo = “the masses.”
591–3. We must assume volo or a similar verb in the lacuna.
Manium Manilium: consul in 149. He was a respected jurist. Persium =C. Persius, a learned orator, who was active in the time of the Gracchi [17–18].
Iunium Congum = Marcus Iunius Congus, at the time of the writing of this satire, was a twenty-five-year-old man of good birth and education; he would later go on to write a historical work and possibly one on law before his death in 54 BCE. Lucilius thus does not seek out the audience of the established, but that of good men from good families on whom his satirical wit can exercise its formative powers.
594. This last line is quoted by Cicero at De Oratore 2.25. Crassus explains that Laelius Decumus, was a good, not uneducated man, but nothing compared to Persius. At De Finibus 1.3.7, Cicero recalls the passage and explains that he too would have liked to appeal to Persius, but even more to Scipio and Rutilius. Scipio, of course, was Lucilius’s patron and anything but uncultured. Rutilius was consul in 105 BCE and served under Scipio at Numantia in 133 with Lucilius. There are quite possibly political undercurrents in the fragment that elude us.
Frg. 26.1.626–7
These lines also appear to form part of the opening programmatic poem. Lucilius adopts the stance, made famous by Juvenal, of the satirist as one who speaks directly from the heart (ex praecordiis). Meter: trochaic septenarius [45].
Frg. 30.2.1007–11
These lines form part of larger poem on the temptations open to a lonely wife when her husband has left on a journey. The use of an additive list is typically Lucilian. On the one hand, this type of paratactic rhetoric represents the stylistic looseness Horace would later criticize [47]. On the other, the open, freewheeling style was part of the appeal. The tone is that of the relaxed raconteur [60–1]. The fragment also provides insight into the satirical depiction of daily life and into the double standards that characterized Roman gender relations.
1007–8. Reasons for leaving the house.
Commenta < comminiscor, comminisci, commentum: “to contrive, invent.”
Viai = archaic viae.
Aurificem < aurifex, –ficis: “goldsmith.”
1009. Operatum = supine with implied verb of motion from operor, –ari: “to work, to be busy,” often as here “to be engaged in worship through the bringing of sacrifice.” This might well involve a feast.
Fano < fanum: “temple.”
1010. Lana: the archetypically virtuous wife in Rome spent her days spinning for her family or supervising the slaves occupied with such chores, hence the famous tombstone inscription for a dutiful wife “lanam fecit.”
Pallor here = “moldiness, unsightliness.”
Triniae < trinea, ae: “a gnawing moth or worm.”
1011. Iuratam se uni: “having sworn one herself to one man alone.” Lucilius alludes to the ideal of the univira, a woman who had only known one man. Such ideals of fidelity were not equally binding on Roman men. See Horace 1.2.
Deque dicata = tmesis, the splitting apart of a compound word, for dedicataque.
Frg. 30.3.1023–5
A certain “Baldy” did not perform well in the Palantine War. This fragment is a good example of satire’s socially regulatory function in disciplining deviance through ridicule. It represents the mainstream of republican libertas [21–4] and can be profitably compared with much of Catullus’s iambic poetry [28, 37].
1023. Indu = archaic form of in.
Concelebrarunt < concelebro, –are: “to spread a rumor or report about.”
1024. There appears to be a missing line, but the sequence of thought is still intelligible. Take quae as adjectival with res.
1025. Calvus = “baldy,” but the adjective may also be a cognomen. The pun may be part of the joke, but the Calvus in question has not been identified.
Palantino … bello: the Palantine campaign was led by Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 137 against Palencia in Spain.
Frg. 30.3.1051–2
This passage shows satire’s focus on matters culinary [6, 12]. If Krenkel (1970) is correct in seeing this fragment as part of the same poem as the previous one (hardly a sure thing), then excessive attention to concerns of the table might be one reason for “Baldy’s” poor performance in the Palantine war. Compare Horace 2.8.
Pulmentaria < pulmentarium, –i: “a relish or anything eaten with bread.”
Intubus = “endive.”
Aliquae = aliqua, neuter plural.
Ius = “sauce,” not law.
Maenarum < maena, –ae: a kind of small salted fish eaten by the poor.
Bene habet se: “that’s well and good.”
Mictyris = “piss.”
Frg. 3.98–118
These lines form a coherent sequence of fragments drawn from Book 3’s treatment of Lucilius’s journey to Sicily, the model for Horace’s Satire 1.5. Lucilius starts from Rome and passes through Capua before continuing on to his estates [57]. Together, they serve as a fine example of Lucilius’s leisurely narrative style and relaxed, playful diction.
98–9. This first fragment is from the book’s opening where Lucilius addresses his companion and tells him that he will share in the glory won by Book 3.
Partisses = partivisses < partio, –ire: “to share out, distribute.” The subjunctives are potential.
100–1. Lucilius describes the way distance was measured using a surveyor’s iron rod or gruma. This is probably addressed to his travelling companion as he prepares to accompany him. The gruma also marked the center of a military camp where the rod was planted to divide it in quarters.
Degrumabis < degrumo, –are: “to measure out.”
102–3. Lucilius continues discussing his proposed route with his companion. They chart a course from Capua to an unknown town fourteen miles north of Vibo on the via Popilia, built in 132 BCE. The same town would be 170 miles from Acerronia by road. Marx (1963) in his edition theorizes that Lucilius and his companions are discussing the relative merits of land and sea travel. Note the playful listing of the numbers. It represents an oral, paratactic style that delights in improvisatory play.
Bis = “twice.”
Quina < quini, –ae, –a: “five.”
Octogena < octogeni, –ae, –a: “eighty.”
Commoda here = “whole.” Understand milia passum.
104–6. Lucilius tells of the sites his interlocutor will see in Sicily.
Optasti = optavisti.
Freta = “the straits of Sicily.” Poetic plural.
Messanam = modern Messina.
Regina … moenia = “the walls of Regium,” modern Reggio di Calabria. This is an example of the rhetorical figure hysteron proteron, or the placing of what comes after before. Coming down the coast one would come to Reggio, then the straits, then Messina. The arrangement of the words may owe as much to the demands of meter, however, as to a desire for rhetorical variation.
Liparas < Liparae, arum: the Aeolian islands, north of Sicily.
Facelinae templa Dianae: a temple of Diana (Artemis) located in Mylae (modern Milazzo) on the cape of Artemesium. The plural is poetic. Facelina is an adjective related to fasces, referring to a bundle of rods that were an attribute of Taurian Diana. Her cult statue was said to have been smuggled into Italy by Orestes a
nd Iphigenia when they made their escape from the Tauric Chersonese (the modern Crimea). There is also a river Facelinus in the area of the temple.
107. labosum = an adjective that appears to have been coined by Lucilius from labor, labi, lapsus meaning “slippery.”
108–11. This passage features the colloquialisms and repetition for which Horace would later criticize Lucilius. In the past, there has been a tendency to take Horace at his word and see Lucilius as less refined. What is really at stake, however, is two very different aesthetic sensibilities. Lucilius exhibits the easy playfulness of the self-confident aristocrat [20, 59–61]. Horace’s polished perfection betrays an anxiety not only of influence, but also of social and personal instability. Lucilius in this fragment describes the approach to Aricia on the via Appia from Rome en route to Setia (modern Sezza), Setinum … finem.
Susque … deque is cited by Gellius and others as an idiom meaning “indifferent.” Lucilius here plays on the literal meaning of “up and down.” Aricia was at the base of the Alban hills. Susque < subsque.
Aγíλιπoι = “deserted even by goats,” i.e. “extremely high.” The direct use of Greek is a stylistic feature of Lucilius not found in later satirists. This affectation, as we know from Cicero’s letters, was part of casual speech among the educated. The humor comes from terming every foothill a Mount Aetna or Athos.
112. Becker’s emendation, cited by Krenkel (1970), is reasonable. The river Volturnus crosses the Via Appia three miles from Capua in Casilinum.
113–14. This passage is variously interpreted. Marx (1963) reads it as the cause of Lucilius’s trip and puts it early. He takes depostus in the strong sense of “having died.” He somewhat naively pictures Lucilius going to Sicily to see his dying oxherd. This seems unlikely. Krenkel agrees on the sense of depostus, but notes that, since Porphyrion in his scholia on Horace Satires 1.5 says Lucilius stopped at Capua, Symmachus’s illness could have provided the reason for the stop. Without more context, it is impossible to judge definitively. It should be noted, however, that depostus < depositus, past participle of depono, deponere, need not necessarily mean “died,” but can mean simply “collapsed.” The image of an out-of-breath old oxherd (bubulcus) collapsing and forcing Lucilius to pause in his journey is more in keeping with the playful tone of the other fragments and the description of the hills in lines 108–11. The fact that expirans animam can mean equally “giving up the ghost” and “losing his breath” would add to the humor. Agere animam often means “to be in the death throes,” but its basic meaning is “to drive out the breath” and hence “the animating spirit.”