The Satires of Horace and Persius

by Horace

  Use your strength to get over mountain, stream and bog.

  10 Then, when you’ve struggled through and arrived at your destination,

  this is how you should hold the parcel – you mustn’t carry

  the bundle of books under your arm, like a hick with a lamb,

  or tipsy Pirria with her stolen ball of wool, or a workman

  with cap and slippers at the dinner of a prominent fellow tribesman.

  Don’t tell all and sundry how much you sweated to carry

  poems which I hope Caesar will enjoy reading and hearing.

  Those, then, are my many instructions. Press ahead.

  Good-bye; and please don’t trip and fall down on all you’re charged with!

  EPISTLE 14

  Horace’s longings are contrasted (somewhat sophistically) with hissteward’s.

  Steward of the woods and the farm which makes me myself again

  (and which you despise, although it provides for five households,

  and sends to Varia’s market their five trusty fathers):

  let’s see if I am better at pulling thorns from my mind

  than you from the ground; is Horace or his land in sounder condition?

  Although my tender concern for Lamia keeps me in town

  (he’s mourning his brother, weeping with inconsolable grief

  for the brother he has lost), my thoughts keep stealing away to where you are,

  and my mind is eager to break the bar that closes the track.

  10 I envy the countryman, you the city-dweller.

  Whoever admires another’s surroundings dislikes his own;

  yet each is a fool to blame the place, which doesn’t deserve it.

  The mind is the real culprit – it never escapes from itself.

  When you were an ordinary servant, you secretly pined for the country;

  now you’re a steward, you long for the games and baths of the city.

  But I, as you know, am consistent – I depart in gloomy spirits

  whenever some tedious business-concerns drag me to Rome.

  Our tastes are not the same: that’s the root of the difference

  between you and me. What you regard as a wilderness, lonely

  20 and forbidding, is a beautiful spot to one who feels as I do,

  and who doesn’t like what fascinates you. I know – it’s the brothel

  and greasy café that make you long for the town; and the fact

  that your plot will produce pepper and spice sooner than grapes,

  and that no tavern is round the corner to serve you drink,

  and no floosie at hand to provide tunes on her pipe

  while you clump up and down on the floor. At the same time

  you work in fields which haven’t been touched by a hoe for ages,

  unyoke the ox and look after him, stripping leaves for his belly.

  The river makes further unwelcome work, when after a cloudburst

  30 it has to be trained by dykes to avoid the sunny meadows.

  Well now, I’ll tell you what really prevents us from singing in unison:

  the man who went in for fine togas and sleek hair,

  who charmed, as you know, the greedy Cinara without a present,

  and would drink the clear Falernian wine from midday on,

  is content with a simple meal and a doze on the grass by the river.

  Fun’s fine; but there comes a time when it ought to stop.

  Out in the country no one jabs at my happy position

  with sidelong glances, or hurts me with venomous back-biting. No,

  the neighbours laugh when they see me shifting sods and boulders.

  40 You keep thinking of the lads in town chewing their rations,

  and would give anything to join them; my wheedling houseboy in Rome

  envies you the use of firewood, flock and garden.

  From sloth the ox longs for the harness, the horse for the plough.

  In my view each should be willing to ply the trade he knows.

  EPISTLE 15

  The poet looks forward to the pleasures of a health resort.

  How is the climate in winter, Vala, at Velia and Salernum?

  What sort of people are there? And what is the road like? Baiae,

  you see, is ruled out by Antonius Musa; which none the less

  makes me unpopular there. As I take cold showers in winter,

  the town grumbles that I am deserting its myrtle groves

  and slighting the sulphur baths which are said to rid the muscles

  of the most tenacious ailments. It is rather indignant at patients

  who dare to plunge their head and stomach under the showers

  at Clusium’s spring, or make for Gabii and the chilly uplands.

  10 I must find a new resort and prevail on my horse to pass

  the familiar inns. ‘Where are you going? We’re not on the way

  to Cumae or Baiae!’ the driver will shout, pulling in anger

  on the left rein; but the horse’s ear’s in its bridled mouth.

  Which of the two towns has the better supply of food?

  Do they drink from tanks that collect the rain or from wells of water

  that never fail? I don’t think much of the local wine.

  On my own estate I’m willing to tolerate almost anything;

  at the seaside, however, I look for something high-class and mellow

  to banish my worries, to carry a generous flood of hope

  20 into my veins and heart, to supply me with plenty of words,

  and make me as attractive as a lad to some Lucanian girl.

  Which district is richer in hares, and which in boars?

  Whose coastal waters conceal more fish and urchins?

  I can then go home from there as fat as a true Phaeacian.

  Do write and tell me; I’ll abide by your judgement.

  After strenuously working his way through all that his father

  and mother had left him, Maenius acquired the name of a wit –

  a drifting sponger, an eater without a fixed abode,

  who accosted friend and foe alike in his quest for lunch,

  30 and cruelly spread malicious lies about all and sundry.

  Like a tornado or vortex, he spelt disaster for the market;

  and whatever he managed to get, he fed to his greedy belly.

  When he had extracted little or nothing from those who applauded

  or dreaded his spite, he used to devour platefuls of tripe

  or cheap lamb – enough to fill a trio of bears.

  He would even assert, like Bruty when he had changed his ways,

  that wastrels should have their bellies burnt with red-hot plates.

  And yet, when he got his hands on a larger piece of plunder,

  he’d reduce it to a pile of debris. ‘By god, I’m not surprised,’

  40 he would say, ‘that some folks swallow their fortunes. There’s nothing better

  than a fat thrush, or nicer than the paunch of a good sow!’

  That’s me to the life. I admire the safe and humble,

  when funds are low; I’m quite a Stoic with plain fare.

  But when something finer and more delectable comes, I say

  that truth and the good life are only attained by those,

  like you, whose solid wealth is reflected in splendid villas!

  EPISTLE 16

  After describing his Sabine estate, Horace reflects on the nature of goodness.

  My dear Quinctius, to save you asking about my farm –

  whether it feeds its master from the furrow, or makes him rich

  with the fruit of the olive, with apples, or meadows, or vine-clad elms –

  I’m writing a chatty letter on the nature and site of the place.

  If I told you the chain of mountains was broken by a shady valley,

  so that the sun in its morning approach looks on the right side

  and warms the l
eft as it speeds away in its flying car,

  you’d praise its mildness. What if I added that the bushes grow

  lots of cornels and plums, that the oak and ilex delight

  10 the herd with plenty of acorns and the owner with plenty of shade?

  Why you’d say Tarentum’s greenery had been brought nearer to home!

  There is also a spring, which deserves to give its name to the river.

  (The Hebrus is no more cool or clear as it winds across Thrace.)

  The stream is good for an invalid’s head – and for his stomach.

  This retreat, which I love and which is, I assure you, delightful,

  keeps me fit, you’ll be glad to hear, in the heat of September.

  Your life is in order if you manage to be what you seem.

  We in Rome have long been accustomed to call you happy;

  but you mustn’t put anyone’s view of yourself above your own,

  20 or count anyone happy apart from the wise and good,

  or, if people constantly say you’re sound and healthy,

  conceal and disguise your fever as dinner approaches, until

  with knife and fork in hand you suddenly start to shiver.

  Fools, from a wrong-headed shyness, hide their open wounds.

  If someone spoke of the wars you had fought on land and sea,

  and stroked your eagerly listening ear with words like these:

  ‘May Jove, who cares for both you and the country, keep it a secret

  whether the people are more concerned for your welfare

  or you for the people’s’, you’d know the praise belonged to Augustus.

  30 When you allow yourself to be called ‘wise and faultless’,

  do tell me, is the name you acknowledge really yours?

  ‘Well, I enjoy being called “good” and “wise”, as you do.’

  What the public gave today it can take, if it likes, tomorrow;

  it tears the badge of office from one who has proved a failure.

  ‘Drop it, it’s mine.’ I drop it, and walk sadly away.

  If the same public came after me, shouting ‘Thief!’ and ‘Lecher!’,

  and alleged I had strangled my own father with a knotted cord,

  should I be hurt by such false charges, and change colour?

  False honour delights, and lying slander dismays,

  40 no one, unless he’s flawed and infirm. So who is the good man?

  ‘He who abides by the senate’s decrees and the laws and statutes;

  who as an arbiter settles many important cases, as a sponsor ensures payment,

  as a witness victory in court.’

  But his own household and his neighbours, one and all, can see

  he’s rotten inside, and owes his appeal to a handsome skin.

  ‘I haven’t stolen or run away’ – if one of my slaves

  said that, I’d answer: ‘As a reward you’re not being flogged.’

  ‘I haven’t committed murder.’ ‘You won’t feed crows on a cross.’

  ‘I’m sound and honest.’ The Sabine shakes his head in dissent.

  50 The wary wolf is afraid of the pit, the hawk of the snare,

  which it rightly treats with suspicion, and the pike of the hidden hook.

  The truly good eschew sin from a love of virtue.

  You refrain from crime, because you’re afraid of punishment.

  If you thought no one would notice, you’d rob the gods themselves.

  When, from a thousand bushels, you steal a single bean,

  the loss is slighter on that account, but not the crime.

  Your good man, who commands the respect of the bench and board,

  when he offers a pig or an ox to appease the wrath of the gods,

  utters aloud ‘Father Janus’ or ‘Apollo’, and then

  60 mutters in a furtive, inaudible whisper ‘Lovely Laverna

  grant I may cheat, and be thought a fine and holy man;

  cover my sins in darkness and in clouds my acts of deception.’

  I fail to see in what respect a miser is better

  or freer than a slave, when he stoops at a cross for the sake of a coin

  stuck in the ground. For desire entails fear, and to me

  the man who is subject to fear will never attain freedom.

  When a person rushes about, engrossed in making money,

  he throws away his weapons and deserts the post of Virtue.

  If you take him prisoner, don’t kill him – you’ll get something for him.

  70 He’ll make a useful slave, toiling in furrow or pasture;

  give him a ship and let him winter on the high seas;

  or let him serve the market, carrying corn and victuals.

  The wise and good man will have the courage to say

  ‘Pentheus, lord of Thebes, what shame, what degradation

  will you make me suffer?’

  ‘I will take your goods.’

  ‘You mean my cattle,

  cash, couches and plate? You’re welcome.’

  ‘I’ll have you kept

  in handcuffs and fetters under the eye of a cruel jailer.’

  ‘God himself will set me free whenever I wish.’

  He means, I take it, ‘I’ll die’. Death is the end of the race.

  EPISTLE 17

  How to behave to one’s patron.

  Dear Gauche, although you’re alive to your own interests,

  and know how one really ought to behave to superior people,

  here are the views of your humble friend, who has much to learn.

  It’s like a blind man wanting to act as a guide; but perhaps

  you may find something in my words that you would care to adopt.

  If you enjoy the quiet life and sleeping till daybreak,

  if you’re unable to stand dust and the noise of wheels

  and staying at inns, Ferentínum’s the place for you.

  For the rich are not the only happy people. The man

  10 who passes unnoticed from birth to death hasn’t lived badly.

  If you want to help your friends and coddle yourself a little,

  take your bones to one who lives off the fat of the land.

  ‘If Aristippus could put up with a dinner of greens, he wouldn’t

  mix with princes.’

  ‘If my critic could learn how to mix with princes,

  he’d turn up his nose at greens!’ Now tell me, which man’s precept

  and example do you prefer? Or rather, let me explain,

  as I am older, why the outlook of Aristippus

  is better. They say he parried the snapping Cynic as follows:

  ‘I perform for myself, you for the people. My way

  20 is far more honest and splendid. I serve in order to drive

  a carriage and eat with a prince; you only beg for scraps,

  but you’re still inferior to the giver though you boast of your independence.’

  Aristippus could adjust to any style and condition.

  Though he aimed higher, he was normally happy with what he had.

  But I’d be surprised if the man dressed in the double rag

  prescribed by austerity could adjust to a change in his style of life.

  One won’t wait until he is given a purple garment;

  he’ll walk through the crowded streets wearing anything at all;

  and he’ll give a perfectly tailored performance in either role.

  30 The other fellow will avoid in horror, as worse than the plague,

  a cloak made in Miletus; he’ll freeze to death if you don’t

  return his rags. Return them, and save the ass’s life!

  To do deeds and parade prisoners before the people –

  that is to touch the throne of Jove and mount to heaven.

  To have won the esteem of Rome’s leaders is some distinction.

  ‘Not every man has the good fortune to get to Corinth.’

  The fellow
who dreaded failure stayed in his seat. ‘Very well then,

  what of the one who made it? Did he act like a man?’

  Here, if anywhere, is what we are after. One man shrinks

  40 from the load as too great for his small body and spirit;

  the other lifts it and carries it home. If manliness isn’t

  an empty name, the trier deserves the prize and the glory.

  Those who never mention their need to a patron obtain

  more than those who ask; and polite acceptance is different

  from grabbing. And that is the point and purpose of the whole business.

  ‘My sister needs a dowry; my mother is badly off;

  the farm is unable to support us, and I cannot find a buyer.’

  Whoever says that cries ‘Give us some food!’ Another chimes in

  ‘Me, too!’ The loaf is divided and the gift halved.

  50 If the crow could feed in silence he’d obtain more to eat,

  and he’d have to cope with a great deal less strife and resentment.

  When a travelling companion on the way to Brindisi or lovely Sorrento

  complains of the jolting, the bitter cold and the torrents of rain,

  or moans that his trunk has been broken open and his money stolen,

  he’s like the girl with her well-known tricks, who is always lamenting

  the theft of a necklace or anklet, until in the end, when she’s suffered

  a real loss and is really upset, no one believes her.

  A person who has once been laughed at doesn’t bother to help

  the prankster who has broken his leg at the cross, though in floods of tears

  60 he swears by holy Osiris and cries ‘O please believe me!

  I’m not fooling. Be kind, and help an injured man!’

  ‘Ask a stranger!’ the locals shout in a raucous chorus.

  EPISTLE 18

  Further thoughts on the client-patron relationship.

  Dear Lollius, frankest of men: unless I’m mistaken,

  you’d hate to seem like a sponger, having claimed the role of a friend.

  As a lady differs from a whore in appearance as well as in character,

  so one can always tell a friend from a bogus sponger.

  There is also an opposite vice to this, and almost worse:

  namely a boorish rudeness, out of place and abrasive,

  which affects a close-cropped style of hair and discoloured teeth

  in the hope of passing for absolute candour and genuine virtue.