The Satires of Horace and Persius

by Horace

  120 no matter whether his illusions are caused by folly or anger.

  When Ajax kills inoffensive lambs he’s deranged. When you

  “after full deliberation” commit a crime for a pompous inscription,

  are you stable? Does a swollen head make sound decisions?

  If a man took to dressing up a lamb and carrying it round

  in a litter, providing (as if it were his daughter) clothes, and maids,

  and jewellery, calling it Ruby or Babs, and planning to marry it

  to a dashing husband, the Praetor would issue an injunction to bar him

  from control of his property and commit him to the care of his sane relations.

  Well if someone slays his daughter instead of a dumb lamb,

  220 you needn’t tell me he’s mentally balanced. The worst insanity

  is found in conjunction with wicked folly. A criminal is always

  mad, and whoever is entranced by Fame’s glassy glitter

  hears all around him the thunder of Bellona revelling in blood.

  ‘Join me now in denouncing extravagance and Nomentanus.

  It’s easy to prove that spendthrifts are fools and therefore madmen.

  One, on receiving a legacy of a million pounds from his father,

  issued a proclamation: fishermen, fruitgrowers, fowlers,

  perfumers and all the unholy gang from Tuscan Lane,

  poulterers and parasites, the whole Market including the Velabrum

  230 were to call at his house next morning. Of course, they came in droves.

  A pimp acted as spokesman: “Whatever my colleagues and I

  have in stock is as good as yours. You may order now or tomorrow.”

  Here’s what the fair-minded fellow replied: “You there sleep

  with your leggings on in the snow of Lucania to supply me

  with a boar for my dinner; you sweep fish from a wintry sea.

  I’m a layabout; I don’t deserve all this money. So here –

  fifty thousand for you – and you – and three times that

  for you with the wife who comes so quickly when called at midnight.”

  ‘Aesop’s son, with the object, I take it, of polishing off

  240 a lump sum of a million, took from Metella’s ear

  a magnificent pearl which he melted in vinegar. Could he have been madder

  if he’d flung it into a fast-flowing river or an open sewer?

  The sons of Quintus Arrius, a famous pair of brothers,

  twins in vice and frivolity and in their decadent tastes,

  lunched on nightingales, buying them up at vast expense.

  Where should they go? Do we check them as sound or mark them cracked?

  ‘If someone old enough to shave enjoyed playing odds and evens,

  building dolls’ houses, riding a big cock-horse,

  and harnessing mice to a tiny cart, he’d have to be simple.

  250 Well if I can prove that being in love is more infantile still,

  that there’s nothing to choose between playing with bucket and spade, as you did

  at the age of three, and getting upset and weeping with love

  for a piece of skirt, would you then do what Polemon did

  on being converted? Get rid of the invalid’s paraphernalia –

  leg-bands, pillow and muffler – just as he, we are told,

  quietly removed the garlands from his neck after being stopped

  on his way home from a binge by his teacher’s sober voice?

  When you press an apple on a sulky child he won’t have it.

  “Take it, pet!” He says “No.” If it wasn’t offered, he’d want it.

  260 In the same way the lover, who has been shut out, debates

  whether or not to call at the place he had meant to revisit

  until he was asked. He dithers at the door he hates. “Should I go

  now that she invites me? Or make an effort to stop this misery?

  She snubbed me; she calls me back; should I go? Not if she begged me!”

  Here’s a servant with a lot more sense: “Now sir, a thing

  which doesn’t admit of method or system can’t be handled

  by rules and logic. There are always two troubles in love:

  war and peace – things which change much as the weather.

  They come and go by blind chance; so if anyone sweated

  270 to give an account of their movements he’d make no better sense

  than if he tried to go mad with the aid of rules and logic.

  When you pick the pips from a Cox’s apple and go into transports

  if you manage to hit the ceiling, are you in command of your senses?

  When you let a stream of baby-talk trip from your silly old palate,

  have you more sense than the child with its doll’s house? And remember:

  folly can lead to bloodshed; passion is playing with fire.

  The other day when Marius stabbed Miss Hellas and then

  jumped to his death, was he deranged? Or would you acquit him

  of having an unsound mind and find him guilty of a crime,

  280 describing things, as one often does, in related terms?”

  ‘There used to be an old freedman who would wash his hands every morning

  and run, cold sober, from shrine to shrine, praying aloud:

  “Save me, just me, from death!” “I don’t ask much,” he would add.

  “With the gods all things are possible.” His sight and hearing were sound,

  but as for his brain – his owner would never have guaranteed that

  when selling him, unless he wanted to be sued. That sort of person

  belongs, according to Chrysippus, to Menenius’ flourishing family.

  ‘“O Lord who givest and takest away our heaviest sorrows”

  (a mother is praying for her son, who has been five months in bed)

  290 “If my boy succeeds in shaking off the quartan fever

  he will stand naked in the Tiber on the morning of the day which thou

  dost appoint for fasting.” If thanks to luck or the doctor the patient

  is saved from his critical condition, the crazy mother will hold him

  in the freezing water and kill him by bringing back his fever.

  And what destroyed her reason? Superstition, pure and simple.’

  Those are the weapons Stertinius, the eighth wise man, supplied

  for his friend, so that if abused I’d never fail to get even.

  The man who calls me insane will get just as many brickbats

  in return – which will help to remind him that he lives in a glass house.

  ‘My dear Stoic, to make up for your losses may you sell everything

  300 at a profit! But in what folly (there are several forms) do you think

  my madness consists? For I believe I’m sane.’

  What of it? When Agave tears the head off her luckless son

  and carries it round, does she believe she’s out of her mind?

  ‘All right, I’m a fool – one must acknowledge the truth –

  even a lunatic; but do make one point clear: from what

  mental defect do you think I’m suffering?’

  I’ll tell you. First,

  you’re putting up buildings; which means you’re copying tall men,

  though you measure no more than two foot from head to toe.

  You laugh at Turbo in his armour, saying his pluck and swagger

  310 are too big for his body. Well you’re just as funny yourself.

  Or are you entitled to do whatever Maecenas does,

  though you’re so unlike him and so unfit to challenge comparison?

  When a mother frog was away from home, a calf trod on

  her family. One escaped and told her the whole story –

  how a huge beast had squashed his brothers.

  ‘How big was it,’

  she said, as she puffed herself up
, ‘hardly as big as this?’

  ‘Half as big again.’

  ‘Well what about this?’ She continued

  to pump herself up and up.

  ‘You can blow till you burst,’ he answered,

  320 ‘but you’ll never be as big.’

  That picture is not so unlike yourself.

  And don’t forget your poems (just to add fuel to the flames).

  If there’s any such thing as a sane poet, you’re sane!

  Not to speak of your mad outbursts of rage –

  ‘Now stop it!’

  You’re living

  beyond your means –

  ‘Damasippus! Would you please mind your own business!’

  Your infatuation with hundreds of girls and hundreds of boys –

  ‘For heaven’s sake, have mercy as a greater to a lesser madman!’

  SATIRE 4

  Horace is treated to a disquisition on gastronomy by Catius who has

  just been attending a lecture on the subject.

  Catius! Where are you off to?

  ‘… No time to stop, for I must

  jot down these new philosophical rules which are going to eclipse

  Pythagoras and the condemned Athenian and Plato’s genius.’

  I know I shouldn’t delay you at such an awkward time;

  you will forgive me, won’t you? But if anything slips your mind

  you’ll soon recall it with that memory of yours, which is quite amazing

  whether it’s a natural gift or something acquired by practice.

  ‘Well I was anxious to make sure of remembering the whole lecture,

  for it was all subtle material presented in a subtle style.’

  10 Can you reveal the man’s name? Was he a Roman or a stranger?

  ‘I’ll repeat the rules from memory; the source must remain a secret.

  When serving eggs remember to choose the long variety,

  for they are superior in flavour to the round, and their whites are whiter;

  (the shells, you see, are harder and contain a male yolk).

  Cabbage grown in a dry soil is sweeter than what comes

  from the suburbs – stuff from a watered garden has the taste washed out of it.

  ‘If a visitor suddenly descends on you late in the day, and you want

  to save his jaws from having to struggle with a tough fowl,

  you’d be well advised to plunge it alive in Falernian juice.

  20 That will make it tender. The best quality mushrooms

  come from the meadows; the others are risky; you’ll get through the summer

  without sickness if you finish your lunch with black mulberries

  picked from the tree before the sun is unpleasantly hot.

  ‘Aufidius always mixed his honey with strong Falernian –

  a bad idea; when the veins are empty it doesn’t do

  to fill them with anything that isn’t mild. So a mild type of mead

  is better for moistening the lining of the stomach. If the bowels are sluggish,

  mussels and ordinary shellfish and tiny sorrel leaves

  will remove the blockage – all to be taken with white Coan.

  30 Slippery shellfish begin to swell as the moon waxes,

  but the finest varieties aren’t found growing in every sea.

  The large Lucrine cockle is better than the one from Baiae;

  Circeii is the place for oysters; urchins come from Misenum.

  Tarentum, the home of luxury, is proud of her broad scallops.

  ‘The average person cannot lay claim to the art of dining.

  First there is a complex science of flavours which has to be mastered.

  And it isn’t enough to sweep fish from a high-priced slab

  unaware of which are better with sauce and which should be grilled

  in order to tempt the flagging guest to resume eating.

  40 ‘If you like your meat tasty make sure that the boar which bends

  the big round dish is an Umbrian fed on acorns of ilex;

  the Laurentian is poor, because he has been fattened on sedge and reeds.

  ‘Roes from the vineyard don’t invariably make good eating.

  The expert on hare will go for the wings of the fertile female.

  The optimum age of fish and fowl and their natural properties

  eluded every researcher’s palate before mine.

  ‘Some talents are confined to devising new pastries,

  but to overspecialize in one department is unsatisfactory.

  Imagine someone whose sole concern was decent wine

  50 and who didn’t care about what kind of oil his fish were cooked in!

  ‘If you put Massic wine out of doors in fine weather,

  any thickness it may have will be cleared by the night air,

  and the aroma which causes giddiness will pass away; whereas

  straining it through linen spoils it by removing the full flavour.

  With Surrentine, a connoisseur adds Falernian lees,

  then cleverly uses a pigeon’s egg to collect the sediment.

  (Impurities stick to the yolk, you see, as it sinks to the bottom.)

  ‘When a drinker is flagging, fried prawns and African snails

  will renew his zest. Lettuce won’t, for it floats on the stomach,

  60 which is sour after all the wine and craves to be re-awakened

  rather by the tang of ham and sausages – in fact it enjoys

  any savouries that come in hot from the messy stall.

  It is worth while to become thoroughly versed in the contents

  of double sauce. The simple consists of fresh olive oil,

  which has to be mixed with a heavy wine and also with brine.

  (Make sure the brine comes from a stinking Byzantine jar.)

  Stir in some chopped herbs, bring to the boil, and sprinkle

  with saffron from Coórycus. Let it stand; then add in conclusion

  the oil obtained by squeezing the choice Venafran olive.

  70 ‘Apples from Tivoli are inferior in taste to those of Picenum,

  which is odd, for they look nicer. Venuculan grapes should go

  to the preserving jar; the Alban are better for drying in smoke.

  You’ll find I was the first to serve these with apples;

  I was the first to provide wine-lees and tartar, and to sift

  white pepper and black salt into clean little dishes.

  ‘It’s a dreadful mistake to pay three thousand for fish at the market

  and then to squeeze the sprawling creatures in a narrow dish.

  How utterly sickening when a servant hands you a cup with fingers

  covered in grease from the stolen pickings he has just been nibbling,

  80 or an old bowl is encrusted with a layer of nasty fuzz!

  Ordinary brushes, dusters, sawdust – think how little

  expense they involve; but when they’re forgotten the disgrace is enormous.

  Imagine sweeping a mosaic pavement with a dirty broom

  of palm-leaves, or keeping grubby covers on Tyrian upholstery,

  forgetting that, as these items cost little trouble and money,

  failure to provide them is less excusable than it is in the case

  of things that only the rich can expect to have in their dining-rooms.’

  What expertise! For god’s sake, Catius, look, we’re friends,

  so be sure to take me to the next lecture, wherever it is.

  90 For even if you told me his entire doctrine, word for word,

  it wouldn’t mean the same secondhand. And apart from that,

  there’s the man’s face and presence. You don’t think it important

  to see him because you have happily had that privilege, but I

  have a passionate longing to find my way to that far-off fountain

  and from there to draw instructions for a truly happy life.

  SATIRE 5

  Like
its famous prototype in the Odyssey Book XI, this dialogue is set in Hades. Ulysses faces the prospect of returning home penniless, and so he asks the prophet Tiresias how he can restore his fortunes.

  ‘Answer me one more question, Tiresias, besides what you’ve told me.

  Can you suggest ways and means of recovering the property

  I’ve lost… What are you laughing at?’

  ‘So the man of many wiles

  is not content to return to Ithaca and see the gods

  of his homestead!’

  ‘You, sir, have never told a lie. You see

  how, as you foretold, I’m returning home naked and destitute;

  there both my cellar and livestock have suffered at the suitors’ hands.

  Yet breeding and character, without assets, aren’t worth tuppence.’

  ‘Let’s not mince words. Poverty is what you’re afraid of.

  10 So here’s the way to get rich. Suppose you’re given a thrush

  or something else for yourself, let it fly away to the glitter

  of a great household with an aged master. Your sweetest apples

  and the various glories that come to you from your tidy farm –

  let the rich man taste them before the god of your hearth, for he

  is more worthy of honour. He may be a liar and a man of no family,

  an escaped convict stained with his brother’s blood; no matter.

  If he asks you to go for a walk, be sure to keep outside him.’

  ‘What? Defer to some filthy menial? I did not behave

  like that at Troy, where I always strove with my betters!’

  ‘All right,

  20 you’ll be a pauper.’

  ‘I shall brace my heart to bear what you spoke of.

  I have endured even greater ills e’er now. So tell me, sir,

  with your prophet’s insight, how to rake in piles of cash.’

  ‘I’ve told you and I’ll tell you again. You must fish cunningly around

  for old men’s wills. If one or two are clever enough

  to nibble the bait off the hook and escape your clutches, you mustn’t

  be so disappointed as to give up hope and abandon your craft.

  If a case, of whatever size, comes up, discover which party

  is rich and childless; then, although he’s a crook and even

  has the gall to indict a better man, you take his side.

  30 As for the citizen who has the sounder case and character,

  despise him, if there’s a son at home or a fertile wife.

  Say “Peter”, for instance, or “Paul” (susceptible ears enjoy