THE SIXTH SATIRE OF JUVENAL. THE ARGUMENT. This fatire, of almost double length to any of the reft, is a bitter invective against the fair fex. 'Tis indeed, a common-place, from whence all the moderns have notoriously ftolen their sharpest railleries. In his other fatires, the poet has only glanced on fome particular women, and generally scourged the men. But this he referved wholly for the ladies. How they had offended him I know not: but upon the whole matter he is not to be excufed for imputing to all, the vices of fome few amongst them. Neither was it generously done of him, to attack the weakest as well as the fairest part of the creation: neither do I know what moral he could reasonably draw from it. It could not be to avoid the whole fex, if all had been true which he alledges against them : for that had been to put an end to human kind. And to bid us beware of their artifices, is a kind of filent acknowledgment, that they have more wit than men which turns the fatire upon us, and particularly upon the poet; who thereby makes a compliment, where he meant a libel. If he intended only to exercise his wit, he has forfeited his judgment, by making the one half of his readers his mortal enemies; and amongst the men, all the happy lovers, by their own experience, will disprove his accufations. The whole world must allow this to be the wittiest of his fatires; and truly he had need of all his parts, to maintain, with so much violence, fo unjust a charge. I am fatisfied he will bring but few over to his opinion: and on that confideration chiefly I ventured to tranflate him. Though there wanted not another reason, which was, that no one elfe would undertake it: at least, Sir C. S. who could have done more right to the author, after a long delay, at length abfolutely refused fo ungrateful an employment; and every one will grant, that the work must have been imperfect and lame, if it had appeared without one of the principal members belonging to it. Let the poet therefore bear the blame of his own invention; and let me fatisfy the world, that I am not of his opinion. Whatever his Roman ladies were, the English are free from all his imputations. They will read with wonder and abhorrence the vices of an age, which was the most infamous of any on record. They will bless themselves when they behold those examples, related of Domitian's time: they will give back to antiquity thofe monfters it produced; and believe with reafon, that the fpecies of those women is extinguished, or at least that they were never here propagated. I may fafely therefore proceed to the argument of a fatire, which is no way relating to them; and firft obferve, that my author makes their luft the most heroic of their vices: the reft are in a manner but digreffon. He kims them over; but he dwells on this: when he seems to have taken his laft leave of it, on the fudden he returns to it: 'tis one branch of it in Hippia, ano ther in Meffalina, but luft is the main body of the tree. He begins with this text in the first line, and takes it up with intermiffions to the end of the chapter. Every vice is a loader, but that's a ten. The fillers, or intermediate parts, are their revenge; their contrivances of fecret crimes; their arts to hide them; their wit to excuse them; and their impudence to own them, when they can no longer be kept fecret. Then the perfons to whom they are most addicted, and on whom they com monly beftow the laft favours: as ftage-players, fidlers, finging-boys, and fencers. Those who pass for chafte amongst them, are not really fo; but only for their vaft dowries, are rather fuffered, than loved by their own hufbands. That they are imperious, domineering, scolding wives; set up for learning and criticism in poetry, but are false judges. Love to speak Greek, (which was then the fashionable tongue, as French is now with us.) That they plead caufes at the bar, and play prizes at the bear-garden. That they are gofhips and news-mongers: wrangle with their neighbours abroad, and beat their fervants at home. That they lie-in for new faces once a month; are fluttish with their husbands in private; and paint and dress in public for their lovers. That they deal with Jews, diviners, and fortune-tellers: learn the arts of mifcarrying, and barrenness. Buy children, and produce them for their own. Murder their husband's fons, if they ftand in their way to his eftate, and make their adulterers his heirs. From hence the poet proceeds to fhew the occafions of all thefe vices, their original, and how they were introduced in Rome, by peace, wealth, and luxury. In conclufion, if we will take the word of our malicious author, bad women are the general ftanding rule; and the good, but fome few exceptions to it. IN Saturn's reign, at Nature's early birth, There was that thing call'd chastity on earth; When in a narrow cave, their common fhade, The sheep, the shepherds, and their gods were laid: When reeds and leaves, and hides of beaftswere spread 5 By mountain housewives for their homely bed, And moffy pillows rais'd, for the rude huf band's head. Unlike the nicenefs of our modern dames, Ver. 1. In Saturn's reign,] In the Golden Age. Thofe first unpolifh'd matrons, big and bold, Gave fuck to infants of gigantic mold; Rough as their favage lords who rang'd the wood, And fat with acorns belch'd their windy food. 15 For when the world was buxom, fresh and young, Her fons were undebauch'd, and therefore ftrong : 20 And whether born in kindly beds of earth, year 25 Her common fruits in open plains expos'd, Ere thieves were fear'd, or gardens were inclos'd. At length uneafy Juftice upwards flew, And both the fifters to the ftars withdrew; Ver. 15. And fat with acorns] Acorns were the bread of mankind, before corn was found. Ver. 23. Ev'n under Jove,] When Jove had driven his father into banishment, the Silver Age began, according to the poets. Ver. 28. uneafy Justice &c.] The poet makes Juftice and Chastity fifters, and fays that they fled to heaven together, and left earth for ever. |