THE

FIRST SATIRE

OF

JUVENAL.

THE ARGUMENT.

The poet gives us firft a kind of humorous reafon for his writing: that being provoked by hearing fo many ill poets rehearse their works, he does himself juftice on them, by giving them as bad as they bring. But fince no man will rank himself with all writers, it is eafy to conclude, that if fuch wretches could draw an audience, he thought it no hard matter to excel them, and gain a greater efteem with the public. Next he informs us more openly, why he rather addicts himself to fatyr, than any other kind of poetry. And here be dif covers that it is not so much his indignation to ill poets, as to ill men, which has prompted him to write. He therefore gives us a fummary and general view of the vices and follies reigning in his time. So that this first fatyr is the natural

ground-work of all the reft. Herein be confines kimfelf to no one fubject, but strikes indifferently at all men in his way: in every following fatire be has chofen fome particular moral which he would inculcate; and lashes fome particular vice or folly, (an art with which our lampooners are not much acquainted.) But our poet being defirous to reform his own age, but not daring to attempt it by an overt-act of naming living perfons, inveighs only against those who were infamous in the times immediately preceding his, whereby he not only gives a fair warning to great men, that their memory lies at the mercy of future poets and biftorians, but also with a finer ftroke of his pen, brands even the living, and perfonates them under dead men's names.

I have avoided as much as I could possibly the borrowed learning of marginal notes and illuftrations, and for that reafon have tranflated this satire fomewhat largely. And freely own (if it be a fault) that I have likewife omitted most of the proper names, because I thought they would not much edify the reader. To conclude, if in two or three places I have deferted all the commentators, it is because they first deferted my author, or

at least have left him in fo much obfcurity, that too much room is left for gueffing.

TILL fhall I hear, and never quit the fcore,
Stunn'd with hoarfe Codrus' Thefeid, o'er
and o'er ?

Shall this man's elegies and t'other's play
Unpunish'd murder a long fummer's day?
Huge Telephus, a formidable page,
Cries vengeance; and Oreftes' bulky rage
Unfatisfy'd with margins clofely writ,
Foams o'er the covers, and not finish'd yet.
No man can take a more familiar note
Of his own home, than I of Vulcan's grott,
Or Mars his grove, or hollow winds that blow
From Ætna's top, or tortur'd ghosts below.
I know by rote the fam'd exploits of Greece;
The Centaurs fury, and the golden fleece;
Through the thick fhades th' eternal fcribler bauls,
And shades the statues on their pedestals.
The best and worst on the fame theme employs
His mufe, and plagues us with an equal noise.
Provok'd by these incorrigible fools,

I left declaiming in pedantic schools;

Where, with men-boys, I ftrove to get renown, Advifing Sylla to a private gown.

But, fince the world with writing is poffeft,
I'll verfify in fpite; and do my best,

To make as much wafte paper as the reft.
But why I lift aloft the fatire's rod,

And tread the path which fam'd Lucilius trod,
Attend the caufes which my Muse have led :
When fapless eunuchs mount the marriage-bed,
When mannish Mevia, that two-handed whore,
Aftride on horfe-back hunts the Tufcan boar,
When all our lords are by his wealth outvy'd,
Whofe razor on my callow beard was try'd;
When I behold the fpawn of conquer'd Nile,
Crifpinus, both in birth and manners vile,
Pacing in pomp, with cloak of Tyrian dye,
Chang'd oft a-day for needless luxury;

And finding oft occafion to be fan'd,
Ambitious to produce his lady-hand;

}

Charg'd with light fummer-rings his fingers fweat,

Unable to support a gem of weight:
Such fulfom objects meeting every where,
'Tis hard to write, but harder to forbear.
To view fo lewd a town, and to refrain,
What hoops of iron could my fpleen contain!
When pleading Matho, born abroad for air,
With his fat paunch fills his new-fashion'd chair,

And after him the wretch in pomp convey'd,
Whose evidence his lord and friend betray'd,
And but the wifh'd occafion does attend
From the poor nobles the last spoils to rend,
Whom ev'n fpies dread as their fuperior fiend,
And bribe with presents; or, when presents fail,
They send their prostituted wives for bail:
When night-performance holds the place of merit,
And brawn and back the next of kin difherit;
For fuch good parts are in preferment's way,
The rich old madam never fails to pay
Her legacies, by nature's standard giv'n,
One gains an ounce, another gains eleven:
A dear-bought bargain, all things duly weigh'd,
For which their thrice concocted blood is paid.
With looks as wan, as he who in the brake
At unawares has trode upon a snake;
Or play'd at Lyons a declaiming prize,
For which the vanquish'd rhetorician dies.
What indignation boils within my veins,
When perjur'd guardians, proud with impious
gains,

Choak up the streets, too narrow for their trains!
Whose wards by want betray'd, to crimes are led
Too foul to name, too fulfom to be read!