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"For Chryses, live the shame of all my race, "By them consider'd as their worst disgrace? "Shall I on her with midnight music wait,

" And hold late revels at a harlot's gate?"

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Spoke like yourself;" cries Davus, "haste, and kill "A lambkin to the gods averting ill.

"But should she weep?" "And dost thou tremble, boy, "Lest her correcting slipper she employ?"

He who commands himself, is only free.
If any wear not chains, this-this-is he.

His freedom comes not through the prætor's hand,
Nor owes its being to a lictor's wand.

Are those men free, who wear the chalky gown,
Canvass the mob, and struggle for renown,
That future gossips, basking in the sun,

May tell what feats at Flora's feasts were done?
But now the troubled times of tumult past,
The reign of Superstition comes at last.
The fatted calf, the milk white heifer slay,
And feasts prepare for Herod's natal day.
Let colour'd lamps from every window beam,
Fat clouds of incense rise in oily steam,

Bright censers burn with flowery garlands crown'd,

And blooming violets breathe odours round.
Let hungry Jews at your rich banquets sup,
And wines luxuriant sparkle in their cup.
In whispers mutter the mysterious prayer,
And tremble at the rites yourselves prepare.

Tunc nigri lemures, ovoque pericula rupto:

Hinc grandes Galli, et cum sistro lusca sacerdos,
Incussere deos inflantes corpora,
si non

Prædictum ter mane caput gustaveris alli.
Dixeris hæc inter varicosos centuriones,
Continuo crassum ridet Vulfenius ingens,
Et centum Græcos curto centusse licetur.

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Now fancied evils fill you with affright,
Omens by day, and visions in the night :
Cybebe's shrines you visit with her priests,
Behold their orgies, and partake their feasts.
While the blind priestess incantations makes,
And o'er your heads the sounding sistrum shakes;
With direful omens all your souls alarms,

And guards you round with amulets and charms.
Now should you teach this doctrine to the crowd,
Some military fool would laugh aloud,

At a clipp'd farthing all the sages prize,

Whom Athens valued, and whom Greece thought wise.

THE

SATIRES OF PERSIUS.

SATIRE VI.

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