A. PERSII FLACCI SATIRA E. PROLOGUS. INTRODUCTION. Ir is generally supposed that Persius, in publishing his Satires or contemplating their publication, wrote these few lines as a sort of Introduction. They have the appearance of a fragment, and it is not unlikely he meant to write more. By this supposition some difficulty arising out of the want of connexion will be removed. The verses are no more than an apology for his presumption in presenting his offering to the Muses. He says he is conscious that he is no poet, and he seems to imply that he was driven to write by want, as Horace says he was. But this can only have been meant by Persius for a joke, and a way of introducing a stroke at the many poets of the day who wrote for patrons and for what they could get. Some, including Casaubon, Passow, Jahn, take the verses as a prologue only to the first Satire, which they suppose is meant by carmen nostrum in v. 7. The title is due to the grammarians, whatever Persius meant. The metre is the choliambic or scazon, the trimeter iambic with a spondee in the last place, as in Catullus' ode which begins "O funde noster, seu Sabine, seu Tiburs." (C. 44.) ARGUMENT. I never drank from Hippocrene nor dreamt upon Parnassus, that I should be a poet. The Muses' haunts I leave for those who wear the ivy. I am but little better than a clown, who bring my offering to the poets' store. Who taught the parrot and the pie to speak? Hunger, the teacher of all arts, able to reach even forbidden tongues. Let hope of gain but shine upon them, and you would think our crows and magpies were singing Muses' nectar. NEC fonte labra prolui caballino, 1. Nec fonte labra prolui caballino,] Muses, one named Aganippe (Juvenal, S. vii. 6, n.), and the other about thirty stadia further west, named Hippocrene, which had its name from the legend that it was produced by a stroke of Pegasus' hoof. They both flowed down the northern side of Helicon, feeding the streams Permessus and Olmeius; and the waters of both were supposed to inspire those who drank them. 2. Nec in bicipiti somniasse Parnasso] The range of Parnassus terminates on the B b Memini, ut repente sic poeta prodirem ; Heliconidasque pallidamque Pirenen Illis remitto quorum imagines lambunt Hederae sequaces: ipse semipaganus south with high cliffs, called by the ancients Paidpiades, under which lay the town of Delphi. These rocks, in one place, about the centre, are divided, and on each side of the chasm rises a high peak. Between the two flows the stream Castalia, celebrated for its connexion with Apollo. From these two hills Parnassus came to be spoken of as having two tops, as in Soph. Antig. 1126, σὲ δ ̓ ὑπὲρ διλόφου πέτρας Herodotus (viii. 32, 39) speaks of two summits of Parnassus, which he calls Tithorea and Hyampeia; and Ovid (Met. i. 316) has: "Mons ibi verticibus petit arduus astra duobus Nomine Parnassus, superatque cacumine nubes." Insomniasse' he refers to the dream of Ennius, noticed on vi. 10. 3. ut repente sic poeta prodirem;] 'Sic' has a force of its own, which is not easily expressed in English. Horace (C. ii. 11. 14) has : "Cur non sub alta vel platano vel hac Pinu jacentes sic temere et rosa," where I have quoted a place from Terence (Phorm. i. 2. 94). Virgil (Aen. iii. 668) The has "recepto Supplice sic merito." Greeks used our in the same way; and the Scholiast on Soph. Aj. 1179, says it is ἀντὶ τοῦ ὡς ἔτυχε. 'Just as I was,' is perhaps the best rendering here: "that I should turn out a poet all of a sudden, just as I was ;" that is, an illiterate person, as Casaubon says. 4. Heliconidasque pallidamque Pirenen] The best MSS. are said to have Heliconiadas.' Passow and Heinrich prefer Heliconidas,' which is found in some MSS. As Jahn observes, both forms are good. The association of the Muses with Helicon and Parnassus Müller (Hist. Gr. Lit. p. 27) attributes to the Pieriaus, to whom he assigns the invention of Greek poetry, and who, he says, originally inhabited those parts, and afterwards, migrating northwards, gave the Muses their other habitations on Olympus and in Thrace. Pirene was the name of a 5 spring (or perhaps more than one) at Corinth, at which, according to the legend, Bellerophon caught Pegasus. Through Pegasus, who was associated with the Muses, Pirene came to be so too; and Persius gives it the epithet which the imagination commonly connects with poets and other men of study. Casaubon notices that the Greek poets did not give this distinction to Pirene, and that the Romans perhaps did so from ignorance. Very probably. 5. quorum imagines lambunt] See note on Juv. S. vii. 29, "Ut dignus venias hederis et imagine macra," and Ovid, Trist. i. 7. 1: 'Paganus,' as 6. ipse semipaganus] stated on Juv. xvi. 33, is used for a civilian as opposed to a soldier. 'Semipaganus Casaubon takes to mean but half a soldier, that is but half a poet, quoting in illustration Pliny, Epp. vii. 25, "sunt enim ut in castris sic etiam in literis nostris plures cultu pagano, quos cinctos et armatos et quidem ardentissimo ingenio diligentius scrutatus invenies." Forcellini also compares the two places (Paganus). Jahn gives another interpretation. Pagani' he says are those of the same pagus,' and those of the same pagus' had the same sacred rites. True poets are 'pagani,' but Persius only aspires to be half a poet, and so he is only half a 'paganus.' I do not believe this is Persius' meaning, nor need we think much about the soldiers. Semipaganus' is half a clown, not above half educated and polished. "Pagani dicuntur rustici qui non noverunt urbem" (Schol.). What follows is only a way of saying that he brings his contribution 6 6 Ad sacra vatum carmen affero nostrum. to the common stock of poetry, all of which rem "auriculas imitari mobilis albas." construction is extremely common in the odes of Horace. I have collected a number of instances on C. i. 1. 18, "indocilis pauperiem pati." 12. Quod si dolosi spes refulserit nummi,] He does not stop to explain what he means, but goes on, as if he had said "want drives men to write verses," but if a ray of hope beams forth that they are going to get money by them, straightway you would think our "crow poets and poetic pies" (as Holyday translates it) were pouring Pegasus' nectar from their tongue. He means they write for money, and if they suddenly see a chance of getting it, they become excited, and begin spouting away as if their stuff was Muses' nectar. The money is called 'dolosus' I suppose because it cheats them into believing themselves somebody, or it may be taken as a general epithet. There is a note on 'cantare' on Juv. S. i. 3. As to Pegaseius see note on v. 4. The word is Ionic in its formation. The reading of most MSS. and of Casaubon is 'Pegaseium melos,' which he defends though it is against the metre. "Nectar' is the reading of the Scholiast, who says "in aliis est melos." "Non fuit in terris vocum simulantior ales, and Theocritus speak of the Muses' nectar, Barthius (Adv. xxiv. 17) shows that Pindar 8. Quis expedivit psittaco suum xaîpe,] He asks who taught the parrot or the magpie to speak? And he answers it was hunger, and this he means to imply is the reason why so many parrots and magpies take to poetry. So Horace says of himself paupertas impulit audax Ut versus face(Epp. ii. 2. 51). It seems their way of teaching the bird to speak was to starve it. Expedire' is here to make easy, as 'impedire is to make difficult. So it is equivalent to 'docere' in the next line. 'Suum xaîpe' means that the word was a common one for parrots, who are frequently taught to say 'how d'ye do' with us, or 'how are you?' The Roman women were very fond of parrots, which were brought from India. Ovid wrote a very pretty elegy on the death of Corinna's parrot (Amor. ii. 6). He says (23, sq.): Reddebas blaeso tam bene verba sono.' Jahn says 11. artifex sequi voces.] This is the same Greek construction as in S. i. 70, "nec ponere lucum artifices," and i. 59, which proves nothing. But some MSS., and two of the best, have 'nectar,' and there is no doubt I think of 'melos' being a gloss, the original of which was probably mel.' 'Cantare nectar' is not mere jargon' as Gifford says, but is as intelligible as speaking honey,' or many like expressions which use has made tawdry, and which suit the ancient languages better than our own. The MSS. are in favour of the form 'poetridas,' and the form is analogous to avλnrpís, the feminine of auAnths. Casaubon though he allows this form adopts 'poetrias,' which is the ordinary Greek word, Tоinτpía. 'Poetidas' is another reading, of which and poetridas' Burmann (on Ovid, Heroid. xv. 183) says they are "ignota veteribus vocabula neque adsciscenda." however Juvenal speaks of women-critics not poets. I do not know what Persius had to do with women here. They would be nothing to his purpose. in Romanam civitatem SATIRA I. INTRODUCTION. THE object of this satire is to ridicule the literary taste of the day. The poet begins with a verse supposed to be taken from a poem of his own, which he begins repeating to a friend. The friend tells him no one will read his poetry; and this gives him occasion to express his contempt for public opinion and his reasons for despising it; which are, that while every body must write and spout, every body writes and spouts for effect, and none are satisfied without vulgar applause. So men write lewd verses to catch wanton ears, and mincing stuff to please the delicate critics. The man upon his trial is not satisfied unless the court applaud his eloquence. And what is this applause? The rich man has it of course, while behind his back he is only laughed at; and whoever gets it must be content to share it with the feeblest drivellers, and to earn it by pandering to a vicious taste, and avoiding all offence to the great people. He appeals at last to the admirers of the worthies of the old Greek comedy-" Eupolis atque Cratinus Aristophanesque poetae "—and is ready to abide by their judgment. We cannot rightly infer from this that Persius had written or had not written in any other style than satire. The opening verse is not one he would have chosen as a specimen of his style if he wished to produce something very good, and it is plainly only made for the occasion. It is neither very good nor very bad. It is a specimen of the morbid school of sentimental poetry, and reminds us of the celebrated parody of Byron in the Rejected Addresses, “Where nought is every thing, and every thing is nought;" and though it is not impossible that Persius may have suffered for some of his juvenile productions, as our poet had suffered before he wrote the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in which the spirit of this satire is sometimes seen, there is no necessity for supposing it was written under such provocation. The form in which it is written, involving frequent interruptions and many supposed speakers and several quotations from poems of the day and opposing sentiments and criticisms, constitutes the chief difficulty of the satire. I have tried to make these matters plain, but I have had to differ in turn from the other commentators, sometimes agreeing with one and sometimes with another. Any one who tries to read the satire without a great deal of study and without help, will see how difficult it is to follow the argument and to determine the arrangement. The allusions are soon disposed of, and do not constitute the chief difficulty in reading Persius. There is no clue to the date. ARGUMENT. O human griefs! O what an empty world! Why, who will read this stuff?' Speak you to me? No one, of course; yes, one or two, perhaps. But that were shame to you.' Why so? Lest the fine folk like Labeo more than me ? Pshaw! weigh not |