by Horace
why should your granaries be superior to our bins?
It’s as if you needed only a jug or a glass of water
and said ‘I’d sooner draw it from a big river than from this
piddling stream, although the amount would be just the same.’
That’s how people who like more than their fair share
get swept away, bank and all, by the raging Aufidus,
while the man who wants only what he needs doesn’t drink water
60 clouded with mud, nor does he lose his life in the torrent.
But many people are enticed by a desire which continually cheats them.
‘Nothing is enough,’ they say, ‘for you’re only worth what you have.’
What can you do with a man like that? You may as well tell him
to be miserable, since misery is what he enjoys. He’s like the rich
Athenian miser who treated the people’s remarks with contempt.
‘The people hiss me,’ he would say, ‘but I applaud myself
when I reach home and set eyes on all the cash in my box!’
Tantalus thirstily strains at the waters eluding his lips –
what are you laughing at? Change the name and you are the subject
70 of the story. You scrape your money-bags together and fall asleep
on top of them with your mouth agape. They must remain unused
like sacred objects, giving no more pleasure than if painted on canvas.
Do you not realize what money is for, what enjoyment it gives?
You can buy bread and vegetables, half a litre of wine,
and the other things which human life can’t do without.
Or maybe you prefer to lie awake half dead with fright,
to spend your days and nights in dread of burglars or fire
or your own slaves, who may fleece you and then disappear? For myself,
I think I can always do without blessing like those!
80 But if, you say, you happen to have caught a feverish chill,
or some other bit of bad luck has nailed you to your bed, you have someone
to sit beside you, prepare poultices, and get the doctor
to come and put you on your feet and restore you to your nearest and dearest.
Don’t you believe it. Your wife and son don’t want you to recover.
Friends and neighbours, young and old, they all hate you.
Since you put money before all else small wonder that no one
offers you any affection. What do you do to earn it?
Or take your relatives, given you by nature with no effort
on your part – I suppose if you tried to hold and keep their love
90 you’d find it a futile waste of time, like training a donkey
to answer the rein and making him run in the Park races.
So let’s put a limit to the scramble for money. As your wealth increases
your fear of poverty should diminish, and having got what you wanted
you ought to begin to bring that struggle to an end. Or else
you may finish up like Ummidius. The story won’t take long:
this Ummidius was so rich that instead of counting
his money he weighed it, and so stingy that his clothes were never
better than a servant’s, and yet to his dying day he was sure
he’d succumb to starvation. In fact he was split down the middle with an axe
100 swung by a freedwoman, one of Clytemnestra’s indomitable breed.
‘Well then, what do you want me to do? Live like Naevius or Nomentanus?’
Ah, now you are setting together
things which are poles apart. When I urge you not to be a miser
I’m not saying you should be a rake and a wastrel. There is
a stage between the frigid midget and the massive vassal.
Things have a certain proportion. In short, there are definite limits;
if you step beyond them on this side or that you can’t be right.
I return to my original point: must everyone, because of greed,
be at odds with himself and envy those in other occupations;
110 waste away because his neighbour’s goat has more milk in her udder;
and instead of comparing himself with the thousands who are worse off,
struggle to outdo first him and then him? However fast
he runs there is always somebody richer just in front;
as when the teams spring from their pens and are swept along
in a flurry of hooves, the driver presses on the car ahead,
ignoring the one he has passed as it falls back among the stragglers.
So it is that we can rarely find a man who says
he has lived a happy life and who, when his time is up,
contentedly leaves the world like a guest who has had his fill.
120 Well, that’s enough. I’d hate you to think I had pillaged the works
of old blood-shot Crispinus, so I shan’t add another word.
SATIRE 2
The opening section explores the idea that in avoiding one moral fault fools lapse into its opposite (v. 24). From v. 28 on all the examples given are of a sexual kind, and it becomes clear that the main theme of the satire is folly as opposed to good sense in sexual relations. A brief discussion of the structure will be found in the notes.
This is probably the earliest and certainly the bawdiest of all the satires. None of the English commentators prints more than the first twenty-eight lines. Pope wrote a very lively imitation entitled ‘Sober Advice from Horace’.
The federated flute-girls’ union, pedlars of quack medicines,
holy beggars, strippers, comics, and all that lot
are filled with sadness and dismay at the passing of Tigellius the singer;
he was such a generous person. This fellow here, however,
for fear of being called a wastrel would refuse a destitute friend
enough to keep out the cold and relieve the pinch of hunger.
If you ask another why, on receiving a splendid inheritance
from his father and grandfather, he is squandering it all on his greedy gullet,
ransacking the market for every kind of expensive food
10 with borrowed cash, he replies that he doesn’t want to be thought
petty and mean. He is praised by some, condemned by others.
Fufidius, rich in land and equally rich in the money
he has lent, is afraid he may get the name of a spendthrift and waster.
So he charges five per cent per month – docked from the principal –
and the greater a man’s distress the more relentlessly he hounds him.
He hunts for I.O.U.s from young men who have just
put on the adult toga and have stern fathers watching them.
Everyone who hears of him immediately says ‘Good lord! But I take it
he lives on a scale in keeping with his income.’ You’d scarcely believe
20 how harsh he is to himself. That father who appears in Terence’s
play – I mean the one who has such a miserable time after
sending his son away – is less of a masochist than he is.
If anyone asks ‘Now what’s the point of all this?’ I’ll tell him:
In avoiding one sort of fault fools rush into its opposite.
Maltinus minces around with his tunic trailing low,
another has it hoisted obscenely up to his crotch, the refined
Rufillus smells of sweet cachous, Gargonius of goat.
There’s no middle way. There are some who refuse to touch any women
unless their feet are concealed by a flounce sewn on their dress;
30 another must have the type that stands in a stinking brothel.
The sight of a certain aristocrat leaving a brothel drew
a famous remark from Cato: ‘Keep up the good work!’ he said.
‘Whenever
a young man’s veins are swollen by accursed lust
he’s right to go down to that sort of place instead of grinding
other men’s wives.’
‘I’d hate to be praised for a thing like that,’
Cupiennius says. (He fancies cunts which are dressed in white.)
It is worth your while to give ear, ye who wish ill success
to adulterous men, how on all sides they are beset by troubles,
how their pleasure is spoiled by many a pain, is won but rarely,
40 and then, as it often chances, amidst atrocious perils.
One has jumped from a roof, another has been flogged to death;
one while running away has blundered into a gang
of violent thugs; another has paid cash for his life;
another has been raped repeatedly by louts; there was even a case
where a man mowed the lover’s balls and randy prick
with a sword. ‘Perfectly legal,’ said everyone. Galba dissented.
How much safer it is to do business with the second class –
freedwomen, I mean – though Sallust is as crazy over them
as the man who chases other men’s wives. Now if Sallust wanted
50 to be kind and liberal in keeping with his means and the dictates of reason,
showing at the same time a moderately generous spirit,
he would pay an adequate price which didn’t involve ruin
and disgrace. Instead he smugly pats himself on the back
for this alone: ‘I never touch a married woman.’
He is like Marsaeus, Miss Newcome’s boyfriend, who once presented
his entire estate and family home to a striptease artist.
‘I’d never have anything to do,’ he said, ‘with other men’s wives.’
But you have with striptease artists and call-girls who damage your character
even worse than your finances. Or perhaps you think it’s enough
60 to avoid the externals of adultery without avoiding the thing
that causes harm irrespective of class. To lose your good name
and to wreck your family inheritance is always wrong. What matter
whether your partner is a married lady or a wench with a cloak?
Villius who, thanks to Joy, was Sulla’s son-in-law,
was sadly taken in by the name. He suffered enough –
and more; he was punched, attacked with a sword, and had the door
slammed in his face while Longarenus was inside.
Imagine him gazing on these disasters and hearing the voice
of his cock: ‘What do you think you’re doing? When my blood is up
70 I never insist, do I, on being provided with a cunt
descended from a mighty consul and veiled by a lady’s robe?’
What would he say? ‘But the girl has a most distinguished father!’
Nature’s advice is directly opposed to your attitude
and much more sensible. She has ample wealth of her own
if only you would use it wisely and not confuse
wholesome with harmful. Do you think it’s irrelevant whether your trouble
is your own fault or beyond your control? So stop chasing
married women or you may be sorry. You may well find
the pain and hardship far outweigh any real pleasure.
80 She may be decked in emeralds and snowy pearls, but that
doesn’t give her a straighter leg or a softer thigh than Cerinthus
boasts. And often the girl with the cloak is better still.
Also she carries her wares without disguise, revealing
what she has for sale; if she possesses a good feature
she doesn’t parade it and flaunt it while trying to hide her blemishes.
Sheiks have an interesting habit: when buying horses they cover them
before inspection, for fear a handsome shape with (as often)
a tender hoof underneath may fool the buyer as he gapes
at the lovely haunches, the small head, and the high neck.
90 And they’re very wise. You mustn’t examine the finest features
of a body with Lynx’s eyes and then be as blind as Hypsaea
to defects. ‘O legs! O arms!’ But she has a small bottom,
a big nose, a short waist, and huge feet.
With a married lady you can’t see a thing except her face.
The rest is covered by her long dress – unless she’s a Catia.
If you want forbidden fruit protected by a wall (and that,
I may say, is what drives you crazy) you’ll find a host of snags –
attendants, a litter, coiffeuses, female hangers-on,
a dress reaching to the ankles and on top of that a wrap –
100 a hundred things prevent you from getting a clear view.
With the other there’s no problem. Her Coan silk allows you
to see her virtually naked, there’s no chance of concealing
bad legs or ugly feet; you can check her profile.
Or perhaps you’d rather be taken in and fleeced of your money
before you inspect the goods?
The poet sings how the hunter
tracks the hare through the deep snow; when he sees it lying there
he won’t touch it. Then he adds ‘So with my love; it speeds
past what’s ready to hand, pursuing what flies away.’
Do you think you’ll succeed with the help of little ditties like that
110 in expelling the pain and turmoil and passion that vex your heart?
Would it not do more good to ask what limit nature
sets to desire, what privations she’ll bear, and what
will cause her pain, and so distinguish solid from void?
When your throat is parched with thirst, do you insist on having
a golden tankard? When famished do you turn up your nose at all
but peacock and turbot? When your organ is stiff, and a servant girl
or a young boy from the household is near at hand and you know
you can make an immediate assault, would you sooner burst with tension?
Not me. I like sex to be there and easy to get.
120 ‘Not just yet’, ‘But I need more money’, ‘If my husband’s away’
– that kind of girl’s for the Gauls, Philodemus says; he goes
for the one who isn’t too dear and who comes promptly when called.
She ought to be fair, well-poised, and smartly turned out, though she shouldn’t
try to appear more tall or pale than she naturally is.
When a girl like that slips her left side under my right
she is Lady Ilia or Countess Egeria; I call her what I please.
No fear, while I’m fucking, that her husband will rush back to town,
the door crash open, the dog bark, and the house resound
with an awful din; that the woman, deathly white, will jump
130 out of bed, her accomplice shriek, and we’ll all be in terror – the maid
for her legs, the guilty mistress for her dowry, and me for myself.
I have to run off barefoot with my clothes undone, or else
my cash or my arse or at least my respectability has had it.
It’s tough to be caught; even Fabius would grant me that.
SATIRE 3
The opening lines describe various kinds of unbalanced behaviour exhibited by Tigellius the Sardinian. Then, after a brief transitional passage (20–24), Horace goes on to deal with people’s lack of tolerance in social relations. They criticize their friends’ minor foibles while remaining blind to their own. Such harshness is inconsistent and unfair.
In the second main section (76–118) Horace moves from friendship to society as a whole. The argument now is ‘Everyone is prone to do wrong, so let us be fair in our punishments.’ This plea for a sense of proportion and a rational scale of penalties is direc
ted against the doctrinaire Stoics who maintained that all sins were equally culpable.
The satire ends with a picture of the Stoic preacher, friendless and
ridiculous.
Singers all have the same fault. When asked to perform
for their friends they never will; when no one asks them they never
stop. Tigellius, that typical Sard, had the same habit.
If Caesar, who could have made it an order, had merely requested
a song on the strength of his father’s friendship and of his own,
he’d have wasted his time. Yet when in the mood the fellow would sing
at dinner through every course ‘Come ye Bacchanals’, ranging
from a high tenor to the lowest note the lyre can produce.
The man was a bundle of inconsistencies. Often he’d run
10 as if someone were after his blood; more often you’d think he was carrying
the sacred vessels of Juno. Sometimes he’d keep two hundred
servants, sometimes ten. After talking in lordly tones
about kings and princes, ‘All I ask is a three-legged table,’
he’d say, ‘clean salt in a shell, and a coat, however coarse,
to keep out the cold.’ If you’d given a thousand pounds to that model
of thrift and simplicity, it would have burnt a hole in his pocket
in less than a week. He never went to bed until dawn,
and then snored all day. He was the most contradictory creature
that ever lived.
Now someone may say ‘What about you?
20 Have you no faults?’
Oh yes! but they’re different and perhaps less serious.
Once when Maenius was bitching about Newman, someone said ‘Hey there,
are you not conscious of what you’re like? Or do you think we can fail
to be conscious of it?’ ‘I’m conscious but without a conscience,’ said Maenius.
That sort of silly brazen egotism ought to be pilloried.
Before examining your own faults you smear ointment
on your bloodshot eyes, but when it comes to your friends’ foibles
your sight is as sharp as an eagle’s or the Epidaurian snake’s.
Unfortunately they in their turn scrutinize your deficiencies.
So and so’s a bit hot-tempered and not quite up to the curling
30 nostrils of modern society; he may cause amusement by his countrified
haircut, his sloppy toga, and the shoes a size too large
which barely stay on his feet. And yet he’s a good man –