Epigrams (Modern Library Classics)

by Martial

                 He sighs, pleads, pesters, sends a daily present.

                 Is she a beauty? No, a hideous peasant.

                 What’s the attraction, then? That cough will kill her.

  Michie’s close-to-literal translation manages to repeat the placement of the last word of the epigram in the original Latin, the simple verb tussit (“she coughs”), on which the epigram’s comic surprise relies, and to do so in a comically imperfect rhyme on the sickly Maronilla’s own name. And the alliterative use of the p in the fourth line of the Latin—“Quid ergo in illa petitur et placet? Tussit”—is shifted but preserved, and pops up in the second line of the English: “He sighs, pleads, pesters, sends a daily present.”

  A later epigram in this volume, VIII 69, allows us to compare Michie’s poetic tactics with those of another recent translator, William Matthews. The poem, in which Martial refuses to fulfill the one condition for poetic praise from his addressee, Vacerra, reads, more or less literally,

                 You admire old-time poets alone,

                 Vacerra, and praise them only if they’re dead.

                 I do apologize, Vacerra, but it’s not worth

                 My winning your favor by passing away.

  From Matthews’s pen comes the following version:

                 There are poets you praise,

                 But I notice they’re all dead.

                 I’d rather find another way

                 to please you, friend, instead.

  In Michie’s hands, in turn, these catchy lines become more complicated:

                 Rigidly classical, you save

                 Your praise for poets in the grave.

                 Forgive me, it’s not worth my while

                 Dying to earn your critical smile.

  Both translators have made some of the same choices: both leave out the name of the addressee, Vacerra, which can have little meaning for the English reader (though it means “blockhead” in the Latin). Both have chosen to render Martial’s metrical lines as rhyming verse in English, maintaining something of the metrical effect by manipulating the placement of word emphasis (in Michie’s hands, the last three lines are iambic). And both renditions are eminently readable. But there are significant differences in style: where Matthews has chosen to use simple, end-stopped lines that produce a jaunty and humorous poem, Michie here as elsewhere pushes the English a little farther for a slightly more complicated, more ironic and distanced effect; there is the in-joke for his modern readers of “rigidly classical” as well as the attention to assonance in “save … praise … grave,” while the mention of a critical smile invokes the sense that not only a friend but a judge awaits the fruit of Martial’s toil. Finally, the sense of Michie’s first line runs over into the second (enjambment, a favorite technique of this translator) in a way that picks up the similar flow in lines 3 and 4 in the Latin but also interrupts the coincidence of meaning and verse-end in the English.

  All this in one of the shorter poems in this collection; the longer ones hold more delights still. I hope Michie’s modern readers will run the same gamut of reactions as their ancient counterparts, but above all I hope they will feel enjoyment and appreciation for the works of both the classical poet and his contemporary translator.

  —

  SHADI BARTSCH is Chair of the Department of Classics at the University of Chicago, the editor-in-chief of Classical Philology, and the author of Decoding the Ancient Novel; Ideology in Cold Blood: A Reading of Lucan’s “Civil War”; and Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian.

  FURTHER READING

  Balsdon, J.P.V.D. Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969.

  Gowers, Emily. The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

  Grewig, Farouk, ed. Toto notus in orbe: Perspektiven der Martial-Interpretation. Palingenesia, bd. 65. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1998.

  Matthews, William, trans. The Mortal City: 100 Epigrams of Martial. Athens, Ohio: Ohio Review Books, 1995.

  Nauta, Ruurd R. Poetry for Patrons: Literary Communication in the Age of Domitian. Mnemosyne Supplementum 206. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2002.

  Richlin, Amy. The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.

  Sullivan, J. P. Martial, the Unexpected Classic: A Literary and Historical Study. Cambridge, England, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

  _____, ed. Martial. New York: Garland, 1993.

  Sullivan, J. P., and A. J. Boyle, eds. Martial in English. London and New York: Penguin, 1996.

  Vessey, D.W.T.C. “Pliny, Martial, and Silius Italicus.” Hermes 102 (1974), 109–16.

  * * *

  1   G. O. Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay. Vol. 2. London: Longmans, Green, 1878, p. 458.

  2   This and the other uncredited translations represent my own comparatively literal versions of the Latin.

  For Francis Huxley

  And then what proper person can be partial

  To all those nauseous epigrams of Martial?

  BYRON: Don Juan

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  This selection, which amounts to about a tenth of what he wrote, is not intended to represent “the best of Martial,” although much of the best is in it: the criteria for inclusion were modernity, variety and, perforce, translatability. Martial arranged his Books so that the seemingly haphazard order of the poems should reflect the odd juxtapositions of life itself. A scatological squib follows a deeply felt epitaph, a sincere tribute to a friend comes next to a contrived panegyric of Domitian. Though his brilliant compression of language is dimmed by translation, the vividness of his picture of Rome towards the end of the first century remains gloriously un-obscured. One sees, hears, smells the city—its shops, amphitheatres, law-courts, lavatories, temples, schools, tenements, gardens, taverns and public baths, its dusty or muddy streets filled with traffic, religious processions and never-ending business, its slaves, millionaires, prostitutes, philosophers, quacks, bores, touts, dinnercadgers, fortune-hunters, poetasters, politicians and layabouts. In a society supported by slave labour and provided with free bread and entertainment at the Emperor’s expense, Martial was one of the privileged citizens who preferred to “get by” without a regular profession and who were prepared to put up with the nuisance of attending a rich patron in the early morning for the sake of the client’s uncertain rewards. He led this life for thirty-five years before retiring to his native Spain, but despite the prevailing note of disgust in his work (an epigrammatist has to appear to be angry) one senses a great capacity for fun and for friendship, and an evergreen curiosity about people. Imperial Rome was probably the first city men felt a periodic need to escape from. The Roman citizen with his “getaway” villa is the direct ancestor of today’s uneasy commuter. Dependent on the financial, social and sexual amenities of the capital, but always nostalgic for the countryside, Martial was one of the first poets to celebrate, with mixed feelings, the modern megalopolis.

  The text is that of the Oxford University Press edition, edited by W. M. Lindsay, except for three alternative readings which I have preferred: Book Four, 64, line 4—“imminent” for “eminent”; Book Six, 51, line 4—“inquis” for “inquit”; Book Eleven, 99, line 6—“nimias” for “Minyas.”

  My thanks are due to Peter Howell and J.P.V.D. Balsdon (whose Life and Leisure
in Ancient Rome is an invaluable background book) for helpful criticism.

  J. M.

  PREFACE

  Peter Howell

  Marcus Valerius Martialis, known familiarly in English as “Martial,” was born, somewhere around the year 40 A.D., at Bilbilis, a town which stood high on a hill above the river Salo (Jalón) in the north-east of Spain, not far from Saragossa. He was given the cognomen Martialis because he was born on March 1. His parents were called Fronto and Flaccilla; of their origins and circumstances we know nothing, but Martial speaks of himself as a real Spaniard, with stubborn hair and bristly legs and cheeks. Under the early Empire Spain, already thoroughly Romanised, enjoyed peace and prosperity. The excellence of education available in the province is demonstrated by the number of writers of Spanish origin who achieved distinction at Rome in the first century A.D.—the two Senecas, father and son, the latter’s nephew Lucan, Columella and Quintilian, to name only the best-known. In about 64 A.D. (during the reign of Nero), Martial took the obvious course for a gifted young man from the provinces, and went to Rome.

  His earliest surviving work that we possess is the so-called Liber Spectaculorum, written to celebrate the opening of the Flavian Amphitheatre (the Colosseum) in 80. About his life during the previous fifteen or so years we can only speculate. Probably he devoted himself to literary and social pursuits, relying for his livelihood entirely on what he could get from patrons. There is reason to believe that when he first arrived in Rome he benefited from the conspicuous generosity of his compatriot the younger Seneca, and other members of his family and circle, including the blue-blooded Gaius Calpurnius Piso. However, in 65 Seneca was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Nero and substitute Piso as emperor, and the failure of this plot and the subsequent deaths of almost the whole group will have deprived Martial of this source of patronage.

  All the same, his wit and talent must soon have found him other patrons. His unwillingness to take up a profession was a matter of choice and not necessity. There is a widespread notion that men like Martial and Juvenal were helpless victims, trapped in a social system which made it impossible for middle-class, well-educated men to earn a living by respectable means, and forced them to live as dependants on the mean and contemptuous rich. This picture is false—although deliberately fostered by Martial and Juvenal themselves. The standard education was largely rhetorical: this meant that any educated man was equipped to plead cases in the courts, or, if not suited to that, at any rate to teach rhetoric. Under the Republic it had been illegal for an advocate to be paid for his services, but by the early Empire, although still not regarded as really good form, and limited by law, it was normal for lawyers to make a reasonable or even handsome living. It is highly unlikely that Martial (or for that matter Juvenal) ever practised in the courts. The reason was simply disinclination. Friends urged him to do so, including even the great Quintilian. He preferred a quiet life devoted to poetry and friendship.

  In his earlier years at Rome at least, however, his life cannot have been as quiet as he might have wished. For the disadvantage of living as a “client” of rich patrons was that it entailed certain services. The relationship between patrons and clients is not easy for us to make sense of. Originally clients were foreigners under the protection of Roman citizens. But by the early Empire they might also be free Romans. Clientship was an informal relationship, governed by custom and not law. The client acquired protection (for instance in lawsuits) and social assistance (such as dinners), while the patron could claim the client’s support on those occasions when he felt his status required a numerous entourage—for instance in the law-courts, at elections, at literary recitations, or even in his own dining-room. By Martial’s time a client seems to have been expected to call to greet his patron in the early morning, and accompany him on his social or business round, receiving at the end a small money “dole,” or, if he was lucky, an invitation to dinner. He might also receive occasional presents. All this could, of course, be very tedious and time-consuming. The client was expected to wear his toga—hot and sweaty in summer, he might have to walk long distances through crowded and muddy streets, up and down the hills of Rome, to reach his patron’s house, and then most of the day might be wasted in trailing around from one boring occupation to another. In fact, the number of men who actually depended on clientship for a living must have been small, and there is evidence to suggest that, apart from a few literary men like Martial and Juvenal (who can be suspected of satirically exaggerating the whole business), they were mostly idle parasites and layabouts. The patrons deserve sympathy as well as the clients.

  Martial, of course, had a special means of winning favour with patrons—by flattering them in his poems. This does not appeal to modern tastes, and certainly some of his patrons seem dubious choices—for example, the unscrupulous ex-informer Regulus (V 10; VII 16). We have always to beware of taking him too seriously—for example, in the poem where he tells a man whom he has flattered, but who has failed to reward him, that he has cheated him. Such rewards were virtually the only way to make money out of literature. In the absence of copyright, there could be no question of authors’ royalties. There is, however, some evidence to suggest that when an author became really well-known, as Martial was by the time he published his Book I, a bookseller might pay him for the right to be the first to get his manuscript for copying. This is probably why Martial, in the first book, recommends the two booksellers Secundus (I 2) and Atrectus (I 117), even giving their addresses.

  It may well be wondered how, at the beginning of his “Book I,” an author can describe himself as “known the world over for his neat and witty epigrams.” In fact Book I was not published until about 85, and we know that Martial had written a good deal previously. The only surviving works are the Liber Spectaculorum and the two books of couplets written to be sent along with various sorts of gifts (misleadingly known as Book XIII and Book XIV). But in Book I he refers to youthful works which are on sale. “Book I” was, in any case, an arbitrary, if significant, choice—like a composer’s “Opus I”—for his first really mature work. As regards his worldwide fame, he himself speaks of being read in Gaul, on the lower Danube, in southern Germany, and in Britain.

  The reasons for his success are obvious. His poems are short and readable, sometimes entertaining, sometimes serious, and always completely unpretentious. This was rare in his time, when poetry was only too commonly artificial, long-winded, and overwrought, and often dealt with stale mythological subjects. Long epics in imitation of Homer had been declared a mistake by the greatest of the Hellenistic poets, Callimachus: he insisted on brevity and fine craftsmanship. The success of Virgil’s Aeneid, however, had led to the vapid epics of Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus. Martial set himself resolutely against this trend, showing himself a true disciple of Callimachus—who he himself claims is the greatest Greek epigrammatist. Perhaps the chief single influence on him was Catullus (many of whose poems can justifiably be called epigrams): his dearest wish, he claims, would be to be placed second to Catullus.

  The epigram already had a long history by the time of Callimachus. As its name implies, it was originally a poem inscribed on an object such as a funeral monument, a dedication, or a prize. Soon the form came to be used for a wide variety of subjects, including the humorous and erotic. The metre was usually, but by no means exclusively, the elegiac couplet (the vast majority of Martial’s poems are in this metre). Under the early Empire the satirical epigram was much cultivated by Greeks writing at Rome, though their literary level was low. Martial, however, was so successful with this type that chiefly owing to his example “epigram” even came eventually to mean “short poem ending in witty turn of thought” (Concise Oxford Dictionary). In fact, Martial drew on the whole of the earlier tradition and, concentrating on the epigram (in its widest definition) as his one form of literary expression, brought it to a pitch of technical perfection never afterwards rivalled.

  He countered the inhere
nt problems of shortness principally by taking great pains over arranging the poems in books, so that they varied (or occasionally interrelated) according to length, metre, and subject-matter. But this aspect of his art no selection from his works can reproduce.

  As Martial himself says, he does not write about gorgons or harpies: mankind is his concern. It is his acute perception of human nature, and boundless interest in the life around him, that makes him so permanently interesting. But his concern with mankind is not malicious. He is careful to make this absolutely clear in the Preface to Book I, where he states categorically that he has not satirised any real people, not even under fictitious names. Admittedly, under the early Empire, he would have been ill-advised to attack people of any importance, for emperors tended to discourage personal attacks. But Martial’s warm-hearted character would in any case have avoided spitefulness. As a result, his verse may have lost some spice for his contemporaries, but it has gained timelessness and universality.

  The other topic he mentions in his Preface is obscenity. Here his defence rests chiefly on an appeal to tradition (citing Catullus among others), and on the familiar argument that those who don’t like it needn’t read it (see also III 86): in I 4 he (like Ovid and Catullus) makes the conventional claim that, although his verse may be loose, his life is pure. The supposedly scarifying obscenity of the “nauseous epigrams of Martial” (Byron’s facetious epithet) has unduly affected his reputation. In fact, only a comparatively small proportion of his poems could offend even the most prudish, and they go no further than much of Aristophanes, Catullus, or Juvenal. Modern readers, at least, are unlikely to be disturbed. More positively, he gives us a fascinating insight into an aspect of Roman life on which we have little information. The attitude towards sex that emerges from Martial is one of cheerful permissiveness, but certainly not wild and orgiastic promiscuity. Fornication is acceptable, and prostitution widespread; adultery is technically forbidden, but not to be taken too seriously. Homosexuality (or bisexuality) is regarded as natural, particularly with adolescent partners. “Perversions” such as oral sex are practised, but not considered quite decent: at any rate, as in the case of homosexuality, the active role is thought comparatively shameless, the passive role definitely shameful. Martial only mentions forms of multiple intercourse once, and then professes horror at them.