Latin Verse Satire

by Miller, Paul Allen

  62–3. Quid inter est … peccesne = “what is the difference between whether you trespass.”

  In: a graphic sexual image.

  Togata: prostitutes wore the toga, symbolizing their transgression of the proper sexual role. Ancilla implies that the woman in question was not free.

  64–7. Villius in Fausta: understand peccavit. This was a famous scandal in Cicero’s time. Fausta was the wife of Milo and daughter of Sulla, the dictator. Gener here is ironic.

  Hoc … uno nomine = “by this alone, her name.”

  Exclusus fore: recalls the elegiac figure of the exclusus amator.

  Longarenus is otherwise unknown. He is apparently one of Fausta’s other lovers.

  68–71. Mutonis: see Lucilius 8.308. The comic scene is the lustful man addressed by his own penis, who reminds his owner that the needs of the body are easily satisfied.

  Verbis: ablative of means. The sexual organs normally have other means of address.

  Numquid: interrogatory particle.

  Conferbuit < confervesco, –ere, –ferbui: “to grow hot, to begin to boil.”

  72. The muto’s owner can only respond with an assertion of the woman’s status, showing that he, not the organ in question, is the one prey to irrational desire.

  73–6. Hyperbaton makes this sentence difficult. The subject of monet is natura modified by dives opis … suae. The direct objects are the neuter substantives meliora and pugnantia. Istis = dative with pugnantia. Pugnantia here means, “opposed.” Epicurean doctrine taught that nature itself was the source of true wealth, not money or political prominence. In context, however, the sense is that nature provides ample opportunities for relieving one’s lust.

  Dispensare: the poet returns to the theme of adultery’s expense. The term has both a material and a moral sense. It also means to “weigh out” and hence “evaluate.”

  Fugienda petendis immiscere = “to mix up those things which are to be fled with those that are to be sought.”

  76–7. Tuo vitio rerumne labores nil referre putas? = “Do you think it does not matter whether your travails are from your own fault or that of circumstances?” The shift from the ablative to the genitive makes the sentence more difficult. The street-corner philosopher in his diatribe appeals to the listener’s free will. The problem is whether the satire offers a position of rational moderation or if excess is our fate, nil medium est. Horace leaves this question open, by both appealing to judgment and demonstrating that the very powers of rationality to which we hearken often lead us to excess: vitant stulti vita, in contraria currunt.

  77–9. Sectarier = archaic infinitive of sector, –ari, frequentative of sequor.

  Laboris and fructus are both partitive genitives.

  Haurire = “to derive.”

  80–2. Huic refers to the matrona. Magis modifies tenerum.

  Niveos viridisque lapillos = “green and white pebbles,” hence “pearls and emeralds.” Horace deliberately uses plain language to demystify the attraction of the jewels.

  Sit licet hoc … tuum: as we would say in colloquial American English, “although this may be your thing.” See Krüger (1911). Cerinthus is unknown.

  83–5. Sine fucis = “without dyes” and hence “without disguise.”

  Venalis, –e: “to be sold.”

  Nec goes with quaerit. Honesti here refers to physical charms. The idea that prostitutes, because they are involved in a cash transaction, are more forthcoming about their blemishes is disingenuous at best. One need only think of the meretrices in comedy. If anything, they have a more compelling reason to mask defects.

  86–9. The choice of a lover is compared to the purchase of a good horse. The image of choosing lovers wearing bags on their heads is highly amusing.

  Opertos < operio, –ire, –vi, –tum: “to cover.”

  Ne is taken with inducat, a negative result clause.

  Fulta … est < fulcio, –ire, fulsi, fultum: to prop up support.

  Hiantem < hio, –are: “to stand open; to desire with open mouth.”

  Clunes < clunis, –is: the buttocks. If one picks a lover without regard for the head, neck, face, or buttocks, what part remains to be considered, except the sexual organs themselves? One could not be further from lyric and elegiac sentimentality.

  90–2. Hoc illi recte = “in this they act rightly.”

  Ne … contemplere: jussive subjunctive from contemplor, –ari. Lynceus was a member of the Argonauts famed for his eyesight. Hypsaea is unknown.

  93. Depugis, – is: “without buttocks.”

  Nasuta < nasutus, –a, –um: “having a large nose.”

  94–5. Matronae were covered to the ankles by their long stolae. Porphyrion lists Catia as a notorious adulteress who liked to show off her legs.

  96–100. The list of woes for the adulterer recounted here are essentially those described by the elegiac love poets in their intrigues.

  Vallo < vallum, –i: “a palisade or rampart.”

  Lectica, –ae: the litter.

  Ciniflones < ciniflo, –onis: an attendant who curled the hair with hot irons.

  Invideant = “begrudge.”

  101–3. Coan silks were favored by wealthy courtesans for their elegance and transparency. They had advantages for the potential client as well.

  103–5. Avellier = archaic passive infinitive < avello, –vellere: “to tear away, take away with violence.”

  Mercem < merx, mercis: “merchandise.” Note the frankly commercial vocabulary.

  105–8. The interlocutor replies: but the thrill is in the chase. The passage is a paraphrase of Callimachus epigram 1 (Page 1975) [39].

  109–10. Elegiac verse presents itself as the antidote to love. Horace says, “don’t believe it.” The followers of Callimachus will suffer even so [2].

  Hiscine < hicine, haecine, hocine: an emphatic form of hic, haec, hoc.

  Aestus < aestus, –us: “anxiety.”

  111–13. Read nonne plus prodest quaerere modum quem natura statuat cupidinibus … et abscindere inane soldo. In Epicurean doctrine, an empty desire (inane) would be one without a limit (Cicero, De Finibus 1.45).

  Latura and dolitura modify natura.

  Abscindere = “to divide, separate.”

  Soldo is syncopated for solido < solidus, –a, –um.

  114–16. Fastidis < fastidio, –ire: “to turn up one’s nose at.”

  Pavonem < pavo, pavonis: “peacock.”

  Rhombum < rhombus, –i: “turbot.”

  117. Verna refers to a house-born slave.

  Impetus: note the violence of the language. This is a rape, not a seduction.

  118. Malis = present subjunctive of malo. Tentigine < tentigo, –inis: from tendo, a graphic image of an erection.

  119. Parabilem < parabilis, –e: from paro, “easy to procure.”

  120–2. The quotation marks denote what illam, the matrona, says: “Come back later, but with more money, if my husband will have left.” Philodemus, the Epicurean philosopher says that she (illam) is fit only for the eunuch priests (Gallis) of the Great Mother goddess Cybele. He prefers the girl (hanc) who is cheap and comes when she is called. The text in which Philodemus said this is lost.

  Cunctetur < cunctor, –ari: “to delay, linger.”

  123–4. Let her be comely and natural. Hactenus = “only in so far as.”

  125–6. When she slips her body under mine, she’s as beautiful as Ilia and Egeria. Ilia was the first Vestal virgin. She became mother of Romulus and Remus when raped by Mars. Egeria, a nymph, was the consort of Numa Pompilius.

  127–31. Futuo: a low word for intercourse.

  Conscia = the matrona’s accomplice.

  Cruribus: the slave fears having her shins broken, crurifragium (see Plautus, Poenulus 882).

  Deprensa doti: an adulteress would forfeit her dowry and, if her birth family refused to accept her back in their home, would be left without the means to support herself. The sudden shift in referents for the various feminine nominatives in t
his sentence reflects the confusion of the moment.

  Egomet mi: understand metuam.

  132–3. Fugiendum est: passive periphrastic.

  Puga: see depuga, line 93. The poet fears anal rape, see line 44. Adulterers were liable to have radishes and mullets inserted in their rectums. See Catullus 15.

  134. Fabius appears to be a Stoic referred to in Satire 1. Stoic doctrine was that no harm could befall the wise man, but even Fabius would be forced to grant Horace’s case. Porphyrion asserts that the philosopher was himself caught in flagrante delicto.

  1.4

  Where 1.2 represented satire in the old republican style, owing much to Lucilius, the traditions of Roman invective [9–11, 18, 20, 27, 30, 59], and the Greek traditions of iambic poetry [36–8] and street-corner philosophy [40–1], Poem 1.4 represents a departure. Horace both explicitly embraces Lucilius and takes his distance from his great forebear. His new satire will be urbane and polished in the manner of Callimachus [38–9] and come closer to the comedy of manners we associate with Menander than to the tradition of personal attack associated with the Old Comedy of Aristophanes [37]. Horatian satire is no longer the discourse of a self-defining and self-policing oligarchic élite that we find in Lucilius and much other republican literature, in which humor is a political weapon [13–20].

  It represents a vision of refined speech and social intercourse that underwrites an as yet undefined, but ultimately very different political vision, which will become the principate and then the empire. It is a discourse of self-criticism as much as social discipline [60–6]. Horace claims to have learned this from the example of his freedman father who was constantly pointing out examples of virtue and vice to him. “As a grown man, the son dutifully internalizes his satiric father, becoming his own ever present moral instructor” (Oliensis 1998: 25). Horace ultimately seeks to redefine not only satire, but also the nature of poetry itself.

  The scenes with his father, Freudenburg (1993) and others have shown, derive directly from Terence’s Adelphi, an example of the refined new comedy that Horace likens his satire to, as opposed to the Old Comic roots of Lucilian satire. This is not to say that Horace’s father never did any of the things attributed to him. Rather it is to note that the personal, the political, and the generic are so presented in this poem as to form a seamless whole.

  1–5. Eupolis and Cratinus were practitioners of Athenian Old Comedy.

  Sicarius = “assassin.”

  Libertas was the watchword of the tradition of aristocratic free speech in Rome. Horace seeks to redefine this concept in the context of emerging autocracy [21–30].

  Notabant: notare was a technical term for the black mark placed by a censor next to a Roman senator’s name to reprove an illicit lifestyle.

  6–8. Lucilius is at once associated with some of history’s greatest literary figures and firmly relegated to the past. Hosce < hice, haece, hoce: a strengthened form of hic. On the style of these lines, see the introduction [48].

  Tantum = adverbial: “only.”

  Emunctae naris = “with a clean nose,” an odd phrase that does not have the same meaning as the English idiom. The general sense seems to be that Lucilius was able to sniff out vice. We might translate “with a keen nose.” The construction is a genitive of description.

  Componere = epexigetical infinitive. Horace faults Lucilius’s versification as crude.

  9–13. Lucilius is pictured as composing in a haphazard fashion, improvising on one foot. The lack of metrical control, however, implies a lack of self-control and potential excess. Thus vitiosus, while here referring to verse composition (hoc), commonly has a moral sense.

  Ut magnum: “as if this were a good thing.”

  Lutulentus = “muddily.” Compare Callimachus’s Hymn to Apollo (lines 108–12) where he advocates the slender style of composition: “The river Euphrates has a powerful current / but the water is muddy and filled with refuse. / The Cult of bees brings water to Deo / but their slender libations are unsullied and pure, / the trickling dew from a holy spring’s height” (Lombardo and Rayor 1988) [39].

  Piger = “lazy.”

  Nam ut multum = “as for quantity.”

  Nil moror: an idiom. “I don’t give it a moment’s notice.”

  13–16. For Horace, as an adherent of the Callimachean cult of craft, the ability to write quickly is no virtue [39].

  Crispinus: a Stoic and poetaster. He challenges Horace to a poetic duel.

  Minimo: understand digito. As the scholiast Porphyrion (third century CE) explains, the phrase is proverbial and refers to a gesture made with the little finger that signifies there is more force in the little finger than in the whole body of the person challenged (provocat). As Kiessling and Heinze note (1999), it is strange that the scholiast’s explanation should have been so commonly rejected in favor of a gloss that assumes the word pignore instead. Porphyrion, while unreliable on historical questions, is much closer to Horace’s Latin.

  Custodes = “referees.”

  17–18. Hyperbaton makes these lines difficult. Read: Di bene fecerunt quod me inopis pusillique animi finxerunt—a good example of Horace’s self-directed irony. Di bene fecerunt is a colloquialism meaning, “thank the gods.”

  Loquentis: agrees with animi and takes perpauca as its direct object. There is a lack of parallelism between the adverbial raro and the substantive perpauca.

  19–21. Crispinus is a windbag. Hircinis < hircinus, –a, –um: “made of goat skins.”

  Follibus < follis, –is: “bellows.”

  Imitare: imperative of imitor, –ari.

  21–5. This passage is much vexed. The scholiasts give a variety of different possible interpretations. The gist seems to be a contrast between the happy (beatus), and thus presumably popular, Fannius, and Horace, whom no one reads because the genre of satire is one that finds fault (culpari). Fannius: is an otherwise unknown poet mentioned again in 1.10.80. The problem centers on what is meant by delatis.

  Ultro = “voluntarily, gratuitously.”

  Delatis < defero, deferre, detuli, delatum: “to bring out,” and hence “offer.” The question is who is doing the offering and for what purpose. The most economical explanation is that Fannius’s works are widely sold and his bust (imagine) commonly displayed. But theses abound about what precisely Horace intends for us to understand.

  Capsis < capsa, –ae: “book case.”

  Timentis agrees with the genitive implicit in mea.

  Genus = “genre.”

  Utpote = “since, inasmuch as.”

  25–33. Vice is rampant. All have cause to fear the satirist.

  Nuptarum … puerorum: the gender of the object of desire was not a moral question of great moment in the ancient world. But love itself was often seen as a sickness (insanit) that overpowered reason and self-control.

  Argenti … aere: silver plate and bronze statues were both popular collector’s items in Rome.

  Stupet = “is crazed for.”

  Mutat merces = “trades his wares.”

  Surgente a sole ad eum [supply solem] quo / vespertina tepet regio: this passage contains an elegant ambiguity. The greedy merchant plies his trade from dawn to dusk and from east to west.

  Quin: the scholiast tells us to assume etiam. Translate “indeed.”

  Metuens introduces fear clauses governed by ne and ut respectively.

  Summa < summa, –ae: “total.”

  Odere = perfect.

  34–8. The satirist’s potential victim voices his fears.

  Faenum habet in cornu: bulls’ horns were wrapped in straw to keep them from harming their handlers.

  Excutiat: concessive subjunctive. Often translated to “raise a laugh” [risum], the image in Latin is more violent. The root quatio means to “shake or strike.” Compare percutio. I have adopted an alternative reading of line 35.

  Illeverit< inlino, –linere, –levi, –litum: “to smear or daub” and hence “to scribble on.”

  Omnis … redeuntis: accus
ative plural.

  Gestiet < gestio, –ire: “will desire eagerly.”

  Furno … lacuque: communal ovens and fountains used by the poor.

  Pueros = “slaves.”

  38–44. Horace launches his defense. He is not a poet, but a mere prosaic versifier. This seeming modesty establishes strict criteria for the title of poet that neither Lucilius nor Horace’s detractors could meet. Satire is redefined as purified sermo, a form of metrically heightened conversational speech [60–1]. The term poetry is reserved for the higher genres of lyric, epic, and tragedy.

  Dederim, excerpam, and dixeris are potential subjunctives. Horace is making a hypothetical argument, not asserting fact. Note the elision between me and illorum in which he metrically includes himself in the number of those (illorum … numero) called poets even as he grants the possibility of excluding himself. See 1.10.48. This ambiguity prepares us for the close of the satire. It also shows Horace subtly redefining what it means to be a poet.

  40. Concludere versum = “to produce a verse.” Verse is conceived of as the bounding of language within metrical feet.

  43–4. Ingenium = “natural talent.” Mens divinior = “an inspired mind.” Os magna sonaturum = a grand style suited to a noble matter.

  45–8. Returning to the comparison of satire with comedy that opened 1.4, Horace argues that comedy itself should not be considered poetry, citing the debates of scholars. Implicit in the examples Horace supplies in the next passage is an analogy between Horatian sermo and the New Comedy associated with Menander and his Roman followers, Plautus and particularly Terence. Lucilius is identified with the rough and ready vigor of Old Comedy [9, 25, 34–5], with its frequent use of personal invective, and Horace with the more polished and restrained works of its successor.

  45–6. The normal prose order would be; quidam quaesivere (utrum) comoedia esset poema necne. The concision and hyperbaton undermine the argument that this poem is nothing but metrical prose.

  48. Sermo merus = literally “unadulterated speech” and hence prose. But merus also implies “pure.” Merus is most often used of wine that has not been mixed with water. Horatian satire is a heady and concentrated form of speech, nothing watered down. It is sophisticated conversation raised to the level of art [60]. Thus Horace’s argument that he is not writing poetry must be taken with a grain of salt (Freudenburg 1993).