PERSIUS, SATIRE IV
17What is your notion of the highest good? Is it to live off dainty dishes every day, and to have your delicate cuticle comforted by continual basking in the sun? Wait a bit, and this old woman here will give no other answer. Go, then, and blow your trumpet; "I am Dinomache's son; I am the pink of beauty!" Good! only remember that you are no wiser than this tattered old Baucis when she puffs off her greengroceries to some slipshod slave![1]
23Not a soul is there—no, not one—who seeks to get down into his own self;[2] all watch the wallet on the back that walks before! Ask any one whether he knows the property of Ventidius; "Whom do you mean?" he will ask. "O that rich man at Cures who owns more land than a kite can fly over." "What? Do you mean that fellow, hateful alike to the gods and his own Genius, who, on the day when he hangs up his yoke at the Cross Roads, hesitates to wipe off the dirt that has gathered round his cannikin of wine, and groans out, 'May it all be for the best!' and while the slave-lads are revelling over their hasty-pudding, munches an onion, skin and all, with a pinch of salt to it, and sucks down the dregs of some expiring vinegar?"
But, on the other hand, should you be living in lazy luxury, basking in the sunshine, there is always some one you never knew to jog you with his elbow, and, spitting savagely at you, cry, "Are these your vile practices?" . . .
42We keep smiting by turns and by turns presenting our own legs to the arrow. That is the rule of life; that is the lesson of experience. You have a
- ↑ The lines 21 and 22 have been variously, but not satisfactorily, explained. The name Baucis is that of a peasant-woman in one of Ovid's tales (Met. viii. 640 foll.). The general sense seems to be that the arts employed by Alcibiades are no better in their way than those used by an old woman in hawking vegetables to some slovenly fellow-slave.
- ↑ From line 23 to the end the subject is once more the want of self-knowledge.
