PERSIUS, SATIRE I
threadbare cloak,[1] and then you say, 'I love the Truth; tell me the truth about myself!' How can the man do that? Would you like me to tell you the truth? You are just a fool, you old baldpate, with that pot-belly of yours sticking out a foot and a half in front of you! O happy Janus, who cannot be pecked at from behind by a stork, nor mocked by a hand nimble at mimicking white donkey-ears; at whom no tongue can be thrust out as far as that of a thirsty Apulian hound! O ye blue-blooded patricians, you who have to live without eyes in the back of your head, turn round and face the gibing in your rear![2] And what does the town say? "
F. "Why what else but this—that now at last we have verses flowing smoothly along, so that the critical nail[3] glides unjarred over the joinings. Our poet knows how to draw his lines as straight as if he were directing a ruddle cord with one eye shut. Whatever be his theme: whether it be the morals and luxury of the times, or the banquets of the great, the Muse furnishes him with the lofty style."
P. "Yes; and so we now see heroics produced by men who have been used to trifle over Greek verses—men who have not art enough to describe a grove, or commend the abundance of country life, with its baskets and its hearths, with its pigs and the smoking hay-heaps of the Palilia;[4] out of which emerges Remus, and thou, Cincinnatus,[5] polishing thy share-beam against the furrow, and
- ↑ These lines, again, are closely imitated from Hor. Epp. I. xix. 37.
- ↑ Janus, having two faces (bifrons), could not be ridiculed from behind.
- ↑ A metaphor from the art of the sculptor, who passes his nail along the surface to make sure that there is no inequality.
- ↑ The Palilia or Parilia were celebrated on the 21st of April, the supposed birthday of Rome. Part of the ceremony or sport of the day was to jump over burning heaps of hay.
- ↑ L. Quintus Cincinnatus. Alluding to the well-known story of his being saluted as Dictator on coming home from the plough.
Y 2
