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SATIRE 2
high-quality honour' (incoctum generoso honesto). Such spiritual food-offerings,
however, are acceptable to heaven.
Several people are addressed, but as Persius' presence is not acknowledged
in return, no dialogue develops. Instead the poet assumes the worshippers'
voices, quotes their prayers (often in a ridiculous form), and then comments
satirically in propria persona. The liveliness of the style comes partly from the
varied use of statement, question, and prayer, partly from the comic device
whereby things are treated as living agents and vice versa (a prayer is acquisitive
— emax, a coin sighs in despair, a dead man is a bidental— i.e. a piece of
ground which has been fenced off after being struck by lightning), and partly
from the shifts of tone produced by different levels of diction. Thus some
prayers run as follows: ' If only my uncle would pop off (etndliai)' and ' O that
I might rub out (expungam) that ward of mine.' At the other end of the scale
we have a line worthy of a Hebrew prophet:
o curuae in terris animae caelestium inanes
O souls bent on earth, devoid of the things of heaven!
And sometimes the two effects come together, when a sordid prayer is offered
in the solemn language of supplication.
Although the second satire lacks the breadth and variety of Juvenal's tenth,
it is more consistently noble in spirit. This quality gained esteem for Persius
among the Church Fathers, the monks of the Middle Ages, and all who had
been taught diat 'to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat
oframs'. 1
Satire 3
Late in the morning a lazy student, who is a comic representation of Persius
himself, is wakened by a companion. He tries in a rather hectic and dishevelled
way to start work, but fails to make any progress. The companion lectures him
on indolence and complacency, and finally launches into a sermon on remorse:
magne pater diuum, saeuos punire tyrannos
haut alia ratione uelis, cum dira libido
mouerit ingenium feruenti tincta ueneno:
uirtutem uideant intabescantque relicta.
O mighty father of the gods, when sadistic lust with its point
dipped in fiery poison incites despots to savage
cruelty, may it please thee to inflict just one punishment on them:
let them behold Goodness and waste with remorse at having spurned her.
These lines have a grandeur which impressed even Milton. 2 We tend to forget
that they are addressed to an audience of one student with a hangover.
• Samuel 1.15.21. Cf. Plato, Akibiades 3 149C
2 Mihon, P.L.
5O5
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