No More Learning

There is an endless succession of figures to annoy: the too successful
lawyer, the treacherous spy, the legacy-hunter. How one's anger blazes
when a ward is driven to evil courses by the unscrupulous knavery of a
guardian, or when a guilty governor gets a merely nominal sentence!

Marius, who pilled his province, 'scapes the laws,
And keeps his money, though he lost his cause:
His fine begged off, contemns his infamy,
Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three--
Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain,
Leaves thee, victorious province, to complain!
Such villainies roused Horace into wrath,
And 'tis more noble to pursue his path
Than an old tale of Trojan brave to treat,
Or Hercules, or Labyrinth of Crete.

It is no time to write fabulous epics when cuckolds connive at
a wife's dishonour, and when horse-racing ne'er-do-wells expect
commissions in the army. One is tempted to fill volumes in the open
street about such figures as the forger carried by his slaves in a
handsome litter, or about the wealthy widow acquainted with the mode
of getting rid of a husband by poison.

Wouldst thou to honours and preferment climb?
Be bold in mischief--dare some mighty crime,
Which dungeons, death, or banishment deserves,
For virtue is but drily praised--and starves.
To crime men owe a mansion, park, and state,
Their goblets richly chased and antique plate.
Say, who can find a night's repose at need,
When a son's wife is bribed to sin for greed,
When brides are frail, and youths turn paramours?
If nature can't, then wrath our verse ensures!
Count from the time since old Deucalion's boat,
Raised by the flood, did on Parnassus float:
Whatever since that golden age was done,
What human kind desires, and what they shun,
Joy, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, transport, rage,
Shall form the motley subject of my page.
And when could Satire boast so fair a field?
Say, when did vice a richer harvest yield?
When did fell avarice so engross the mind?
Or when the lust of play so curse mankind?
O Gold, though Rome beholds no altar's flame,
No temples rise to thy pernicious name,
Such as to Victory, Virtue, Faith are reared,
Or Concord, where the clamorous stork is heard,
Yet is thy full divinity confessed,
Thy shrine established here, in every breast.

After a vigorous outburst against the degrading scramble among
impoverished clients for doles from their patrons, and a mordant
onslaught upon the gluttony of the niggardly rich, Juvenal sees in his
age the high-water mark of iniquity.

Nothing is left, nothing for future times,
To add to the full catalogue of crimes:
Vice has attained its zenith; then set sail,
Spread all thy canvas, Satire, to the gale.


_II. --A Satire on Rome_

This sharp indictment is put in the mouth of one Umbricius, who is
represented as leaving his native city in disgust. Rome is no place
for an honourable character, he exclaims.

Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell.
Ah, mine no more! There let Arturius dwell,
And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite,
Can white to black transform, and black to white.
Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold,
Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold!
But why, my friend, should _I_ at Rome remain?
_I_ cannot teach my stubborn lips to feign;
Nor when I hear a great man's verses, smile,
And beg a copy, if I think them vile.

The worst feature is the predominance of crafty and cozening Greeks,
who, by their versatility and diplomacy, can oust the Roman.

I cannot rule my spleen and calmly see
A Grecian capital--in Italy!
A flattering, cringing, treacherous artful race,
Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face;
A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,
Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician,
All trades his own your hungry Greekling counts;
And bid him mount the sky--the sky he mounts!