Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookfever, and the food he loathes swells[901] between his teeth. All wines[902] the miserable wretch spits out; old Alban wine,[903] of high-prized antiquity, disgusts him. Set better before him! and thickly-crowding wrinkles furrow his brow, as though called forth by sour[904] Falernian. At night, if anxious care has granted him perchance a slumber however brief, and his limbs, that have been tossing[905] over the whole bed, at length are at rest, immediately he sees in dreams the temple and the altar of the deity he has insulted; and, what weighs upon his soul with especial terrors,[906] he sees thee! Thy awful[907] form, of more[908] than human bulk, confounds the trembling wretch, and wrings confession[909] from him. These are the men that tremble and grow pale at every lightning-flash; and, when it thunders,[910] are half dead with terror at the very first rumbling[911] of heaven; as though not by mere chance, or by the raging violence of winds, but in wrath and vengeance the fire-bolt lights[912] upon the earth![913] That last storm wrought no ill! Therefore the next is feared with heavier presage, as though but deferred by the brief respite of this calm. Moreover, if they begin to suffer pain in the side, with wakeful fever, they believe the disease is sent to their bodies from the deity, in vengeance. These they hold to be the stones and javelins of the gods! They dare not vow the bleating sheep to the shrine, or promise even a cock's[914] comb to their Lares. For what hope is vouchsafed to the guilty sick?[915] or what victim is not more worthy of life? The character of bad men is for the most part fickle and variable.[916] While they are engaged in the guilty act they have resolution enough, and to spare. When their foul deeds are perpetrated, then at length they begin to feel what is right and wrong. Yet Nature[917] ever reverts to her depraved courses, fixed and immutable. For who ever prescribed to himself a limit to his sins? or ever recovered the blush[918] of ingenuous shame once banished from his brow now hardened? What mortal man is there whom you ever saw contented with a single crime? This false friend of ours will get his foot entangled in the noose, and endure the hook of the gloomy dungeon; or some crag[919] in the Ægean Sea, or the rocks that swarm with exiles of rank. You will exult in the bitter punishment of the hated name; and at length with joy confess[920] that no one of the gods is either deaf or a Tiresias.[921] FOOTNOTES: [817] _Displicet._ "To none their crime the wished-for pleasure yields: 'Tis the first scourge that angry justice wields." Badham. [818] _Ultio._ "Avenging conscience first the sword shall draw, And self-conviction baffle quibbling law." Hodgson. [819] _Urna._ From the "Judices Selecti" (a kind of jurymen chosen annually for the purpose), the Prætor Urbanus, who sat as chief judge, chose by lot about fifty to act as his assessors. To each of these were given three tablets: one inscribed with the letter A. for "absolvo," one with the letter C. for "condemno," and the third with the letters N. L. for "non liquet," i. e., "not proven." After the case had been heard and the judices had consulted together privately, they returned into court, and each judex dropped one of these tablets into an urn provided for the purpose, which was afterward brought to the prætor, who counted the number and gave sentence according to the majority of votes. In all these various steps, there was plenty of opportunity for the "gratia" of a corrupt prætor to influence the "fallax urna." [820] _Calvinus._ Martial mentions an indifferent poet of the name of Calvinus Umber, vii., Ep. 90. [821] _Acervo._ "One that from casual heaps without design Fortune drew forth, and bade the lot be thine." Badh. [822] _Fonteio consule._ Clinton (F. R., A.D. 118) considers that the consulship meant is that of L. Fonteius Capito, A.D. 59, which would bring the reference in this Satire to A.D. 119, the third year of Hadrian. There was also a Fonteius Capito consul with Junius Rufus, A.D. 67, and another, A.D. 11. «The Fonteius Capito mentioned Hor., i., Sat. v., 32, is of course far too early.» [823] _Proficis._ "Say, hast thou naught imbibed, no maxims sage, From the long use of profitable age?" Hodgson. [824] _Vitæ._ So Milton. "To know That which before us lies _in daily life_, Is the prime wisdom." [825] _Jactare jugum._ A metaphor from restive oxen. Cf. vi., 208, "Summitte caput cervice paratâ Ferre jugum." Æsch., Persæ, 190, _seq._ "And happy those whom life itself can train To bear with dignity life's various pain." Badham. [826] _Pyxide._ Properly a coffer or casket of "box-wood," πυξίς. Cf. Sat. ii., 141, "Conditâ pyxide Lyde." Suet., Ner., 47, "Veneno a Locustâ sumpto, et in auream pyxidem condito." [827] _Thebarum._ Egyptian Thebes had one hundred gates; hence ἑκατόμπυλοι. Cadmeian Thebes had seven. Vid. Hom., Il., Δ., 406. Æsch., S. Th., ἑπτάπυλος Θήβη. The latter is meant. The mouths of the Nile being also seven, viz., Canopic, Bolbitine, Sebennytic, Phatnitic, Mendesian, Tanitic, and Pelusiac. Hence Virg., Æn., vi., 801, "Septem gemini trepida ostia Nili." Ov., Met., v., 187, "Septemplice Nilo." xv., 753, "Perque papyriferi septemflua flumina Nili." [828] _Metallo._ "That baffled Nature knows not how to frame A metal base enough to give the age a name." Dryden. [829] _Sportula._ Vid. ad i., 118. Cf. x., 46, "Defossa in loculis quos sportula fecit amicos." Mart., vi., Ep. 48. Hor., i., Epist. xix., 37. Plin., ii., Ep. 14, "Laudicæni sequuntur: In media Basilicâ sportulæ dantur palam ut in triclinio: tanti constat ut sis disertissimus: hoc pretio subsellia implentur, hoc infiniti clamores commoventur." [830] _Bullâ._ Cf. v., 165, seq.; xiv., 5. Pers., v., 31, "Bullaque succinctis Laribus donata pependit." Plut. in Quæst. Rom., γέρων τις ἐπὶ χλευασμῷ προάγεται παιδικὸν ἐναψάμενος περιδέραιον ὃ καλοῦσι βοῦλλαν. "O man of many years, that still should'st wear The trinket round the neck thy childhood bare!" Badham. [831] _Esse._ Cf. ii., 149, seq., "Esse aliquos Manes et subterranea regna, ... Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum ære lavantur." Cf. Ov., Amor., III., iii., 1. [832] _Privatus._ This is commonly rendered by "concealed, sequestered," alluding to Jupiter's being hidden by his mother Rhea to save him from "Saturn's maw." But it surely means before he succeeded his father as king, and this is the invariable sense of "privatus" in Juvenal. Cf. i., 16, "Privatus ut altum dormiret." iv., 65, "Accipe Privatis majora focis." vi., 114, "Quid privata domus, quid fecerit Hippia, curas." xii., 107, "Cæsaris armentum, nulli servire paratum Privato." [833] _Tergens._ This appears to be the best and simplest interpretation of this "much-vexed" passage, and is the sense in which Lucian |