SATIRE I
P. "O the vanity of mankind! How vast the void in human affairs!"
F. "Who will read stuff like that?"
P. "Is it to me you are speaking? Not a soul, by Hercules."
F. "What? nobody?"
P. "One or two perhaps or nobody."
F. "What a poor and lamentable result!"
P. "Why that? Are you afraid that Polydamas and his Trojan ladies[1] will put Labeo above me? Stuff and nonsense! And if thick-headed Rome does disparage anything, don't you go and put right the tongue in that false balance of theirs; look to no one outside yourself. For who is there in Rome who is not[2]—oh, if only I might say my secret!—and yet say it I must, when I look at these gray heads of ours, and our gloomy ways of living, and indeed everything that we have been doing since the days when we gave up our marbles, and put on the wise airs of uncles. So please forgive me! I would rather not say it—but what else can I do?—I have a wayward wit and must have my laugh out.
- ↑ Polydamas is from Homer (Il. xxii. 104-5). Polydamas and the high-born Roman ladies are supposed to represent the opinions of the respectable Mrs. Grundys of the day. Attius Labeo was a poor poet of the time, said to have translated Homer.
- ↑ The secret is that every one is an ass, see 1. 121. For the passage 8-12 I follow the punctuation and explanation given by Professor Housman (C.Q. Jan. 1913). Cachinno is a verb, "I laugh"; it has been commonly taken as a substantive ("a laugher") but there is no authority.
