Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/465

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PERSIUS, SATIRE V

⁸⁸"What? When on leaving the Praetor's presence I had been made my own master by his rod, why am I not free to do everything that I want to do, excepting only what the red-titled Law of Masurius^[1] forbids? "

⁹¹Just listen then, and drop that wrath and those curling sneers from off your nose, while I pluck your old wife's notions out of your head. It was no part of the Praetor's business to impart to fools a delicate sense of duty, or empower them to make a right use of our fleeting life; it would be more easy to fit a hulking clodhopper with a harp. Reason forbids, and whispers privately into the ear that no man be allowed to do what he will spoil in the doing of it. The public law of man and Nature^[2] herself lay down this rule, that ignorance and imbecility should hold action to be forbidden them.^[3] If you would compound hellebore when you do not know at what point to steady the tongue of the steel-yard, the principles of the healing art forbid; if a hobnailed countryman, who knows nothing of the morning star, were to ask for the command of a ship, Melicerta^[4] would declare that modesty had perished from off the earth.

¹⁰⁴Has Philosophy taught you how to live rightly?^[5] Are you skilled in discerning the appearance of truth, that there be no false ring of copper underneath the

↑ Masurius Sabinus was a distinguished jurist in the reign of Tiberius. The titles of laws were written in red ink.
↑ These words come naturally from a Stoic. The Stoical doctrine of Nature had much to do with the adoption by Roman jurists of the theory of a "Law of Nature," the principles of which were applied to those who, not being Roman citizens, could not claim the benefit of pure Roman Law (ius civile). Maine shows in his Ancient Law how this fiction of a "Law of Nature lay at the root of what we call "Equity" in English law. The instrument by which the idea of a "Law of Nature" was grafted on to Roman law was the Praetor's Edict, each Praetor adopting and carrying on the Edict of his predecessor.
↑ This may either mean "may deem them to be forbidden to them" (which is precisely what incompetence never does), or else "holds back or checks action as though it were forbidden."
↑ Melicertes, otherwise Palaemon, was a sea deity.
↑ The catechism which follows seems modelled upon Hor. Epp. II. ii. 205-211.

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[1] Masurius Sabinus was a distinguished jurist in the reign of Tiberius. The titles of laws were written in red ink.

[2] These words come naturally from a Stoic. The Stoical doctrine of Nature had much to do with the adoption by Roman jurists of the theory of a "Law of Nature," the principles of which were applied to those who, not being Roman citizens, could not claim the benefit of pure Roman Law (ius civile). Maine shows in his Ancient Law how this fiction of a "Law of Nature lay at the root of what we call "Equity" in English law. The instrument by which the idea of a "Law of Nature" was grafted on to Roman law was the Praetor's Edict, each Praetor adopting and carrying on the Edict of his predecessor.

[3] This may either mean "may deem them to be forbidden to them" (which is precisely what incompetence never does), or else "holds back or checks action as though it were forbidden."

[4] Melicertes, otherwise Palaemon, was a sea deity.

[5] The catechism which follows seems modelled upon Hor. Epp. II. ii. 205-211.

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