Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/103

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JUVENAL, SATIRE II

158What? Is a man who has administered aconite to half a dozen uncles to ride by and look down upon me from his swaying cushions? "Yes; and when he comes near you, put your finger to your lip; he who but says the word, 'That's the man!' will be counted an informer. You may set Aeneas and the brave Rutulian[1] a-fighting with an easy mind; it will hurt no one's feelings to hear how Achilles was slain, or how Hylas[2] was searched for when he tumbled after his pitcher. But when Lucilius roars and rages as if with sword in hand, the hearer, whose soul was cold with crime, grows red; he sweats with the secret consciousness of sin. Hence wrath and tears. So turn these things over in your mind before the trumpet sounds; the helmet once donned, it is too late to repent you of the battle." Then I will try what I may say of those worthies whose ashes lie under the Flaminian and Latin[3] roads.


SATIRE II

Moralists without Morals

I would fain flee to Sarmatia and the frozen Sea when people who ape the Curii[4] and live like Bacchanals dare talk about morals. In the first place, they are unlearned persons, though you may find their houses crammed with plaster casts of Chrysippus[5]; for their greatest hero is the man who has bought a likeness of Aristotle or Pittacus,[6]

  1. Turnus, king of the Rutulians.
  2. A favourite of Hercules, who was drawn into a well by the Naids.
  3. The sides of the great roads leading out from Rome were lined with monuments to the dead.
  4. A famous family of early Rome.
  5. The eminent Stoic philosopher, pupil of Cleanthes.
  6. One of the seven wise men of Greece, b. circ. B.C. 652.
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