SUMMARY OF SATIRE V

THIS satire begins with an enthusiastic acknowledgment by the poet of all that he owes to his beloved guide, philosopher, and friend, L. Annaeus Cornutus, and then goes on to discuss the great Stoical thesis that all men (Stoics of course excepted) are slaves. The whole is modelled upon Horace,

Sat. II. vii.

66

O for a hundred tongues, as the poets of old used to say! (1-4). Why such a prayer from you? You are not going to gather solemn vapourings on Mount Helicon, or inflict upon us the ghastly tales and grandiose mouthings of Greek Tragedy; yours is a more homely theme, to rebuke skilfully and pleasantly, in every-day language, the vices and the foibles of common life" (5-18).

No, no! my page is not to be swollen out with nothings. It is to you, dear friend, that I wish to open out my sou, that you may test it, and discern how sound it rings, and how deeply I have planted you in the recesses of my heart (19-29). From the day when I first put on the robe of manhood, when the two roads of life lay uncertainly before me, you took me under your guardian care; you folded me to your Socratic bosom, and taught me, with cunning hand, to discern the crooked and the straight. It was you who fashioned my soul; you made our two lives into one, alike for work and play. Sure, sure

am I that our two lives are derived from one common star, which links them both together (30–51).

No two men have the same desires. One is a busy merchant, another longs for ease: games, gambling, and love have each their votaries, but when their joints have been broken by old age and gout, all alike bemoan their days of grossness, and lament the life they have left behind them (52-61). Your delight is in study; you love to sow in the hearts of youth the good grain of Cleanthes. But men will not learn the one true lesson of life : "To-morrow," they say, "will be soon enough," and then again, “tomorrow": a morrow which is for ever pursued and never reached (62-72). What we want is freedom; but not the sort of freedom which is bestowed by the lictor's rod (73-82). "But is not the newly-made Davus free? has he not liberty to do what he likes? "Not so," says the Stoic; "no man is free who has not learnt the proper uses of life; no man is free to do what he will spoil in the doing of it. A doctor must understand medicine, a sailor navigation: how can a man live rightly if he does not understand the principle of right living, knowing what to aim at, what to avoid, how to behave in all the circumstances of life? Satisfy me on these points, and I will call you free, and a wise man to boot: but if your knowledge is but pretence, if you are but an ass in a lion's skin, reason will not listen to your claim; naught but folly can come out of a fool, not one step can he take without going wrong" (83-123). "For all that I am free," you say. "What? do you know of no master but one who uses the rod? Are you not a slave when your passions drive you this way or that way as they will? Avarice bids you rise and

scour the seas for gain. Luxury warns you that you are mad in giving up, for filthy lucre's sake, all the ease and all the joys of life. Which master will you obey? And if you once break free, how long will you keep your freedom? (124-160). Or is it Love that enslaves you? Chaerestratus feels his chain, but cannot make up his mind to break it: the slightest word from his mistress brings him back to her. What kind of freedom was it that he got from the lictor's rod?" (161-175). And what of the candidate for public office who courts the mob by shows? What of the superstitions of the Jews, or the many magical follies to which men enslave themselves? (176-188).

At this philosophy the varicose Fulfennius laughs aloud, and bids a hundred pence for a pack of your Greeklings (189-191).

SATVRA V

VATIBUS hic mos est, centum sibi poscere voces, centum ora et linguas optare in carmina centum, fabula seu maesto ponatur hianda tragoedo, vulnera seu Parthi ducentis ab inguine ferrum. "Quorsum haec? aut quantas robusti carminis offas

ingeris, ut par sit centeno gutture niti?

grande locuturi nebulas Helicone legunto,

si quibus aut Prognes aut si quibus olla Thyestae fervebit saepe insulso cenanda Glyconi.

5

tu neque anhelanti, coquitur dum massa camino, 10 folle premis ventos, nec clauso murmure raucus nescio quid tecum grave cornicaris inepte, nec scloppo tumidas intendis rumpere buccas.

1 The reference is to Iliad ii. 489, where Homer says that ten tongues and ten voices would be all too few to recount the leaders of the Achaean host; also to Virgil, who declares that a hundred tongues and a hundred voices would not be enough to tell all the forms of punishment in the lower world (Aen. vi. 625 foll.). See, too, Geor. ii. 43-4.

2 This line is closely imitated from Hor. Sat. I. i. 15.

A grotesque expression, after the manner of Persius. For whereas the demand made was for a hundred mouths for utterance, the speaker perverts the sense, and assumes that the hundred mouths are wanted for swallowing: as

1

SATIRE V

IT is the fashion of poets to cail for a hundred voices, a hundred mouths and a hundred tongues for their lays, whether their theme be a play to be gaped out by a lugubrious tragedian, or a wounded Parthian plucking an arrow from his groin.2

5"What are you driving at? What are these big lumps of solid poetry that you would cram down the throat so as to need a hundred throat-power to grapple with them? 3 Let those who meditate lofty themes gather vapours on Mount Helicon, if there be any who propose to set a-boiling the pot of Procne or of Thyestes, whereby that dullard Glyco may be provided with his nightly supper. But you are not one that squeezes the wind like the bellows of a forge when ore is a-smelting, nor are you one who croaks to himself some solemn nonsense with hoarse mutterings like a crow; nor do you swell out your cheeks till they burst with an

though the poet were a glutton stuffing himself with Thyestean meals.

4 Helicon, near Delphi, was the mountain of the Muses.

5 Referring to the grim tragic story of the supper off his own children that was served up to Tereus by his wife Procne.

• An actor of the time, who seems to have played the part of Tereus.

The metaphor of the bellows is closely imitated from Hor. Sat. I. iv. 19 foll,

369