The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

Still shall I hear and never pay the score, Stunned with hoarse Codrus' "Theseid" o'er and o'er? Shall this man's elegies and the other's play Unpunished murder a long summer day?

The poet exclaims against the dreary commonplaces in contemporary poetry, and against recitations fit to crack the very statues and colonnades of the neighbourhood! But he also underwent his training in rhetoric.

So, since the world with writing is possessed, I'll versify in spite, and do my best To make as much wastepaper as the rest!

It may be asked, why write satire? The reason is to be found in the ubiquitous presence of offensive men and women. It would goad anyone into fury to note the social abuses, the mannish women, and the wealthy upstarts of the imperial city.

When the soft eunuch weds, and the bold fair Tilts at the Tuscan boar with bosom bare, When all our lords are by his wealth outvied Whose razor on my callow beard was tried, When I behold the spawn of conquered Nile, Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile, Pacing in pomp with cloak of purple dye— I cannot keep from satire, though I try!

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.