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SATIRARUM

Q. HORATII FLACCI

LIBER PRIMUS.

SATIRA I.

Qui fit, Mæcenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem
Seu ratio dederit seu fors objecerit, illa
Contentus vivat, laudet diversa sequentes?
O fortunati mercatores! gravis annis
Miles ait multo jam fractus membra labore.
Contra mercator navem jactantibus Austris:

Militia est potior. Quid enim? Concurritur; horæ
Momento cita mors venit aut victoria læta.
Agricolam laudat juris legumque peritus,
Sub galli cantum consultor ubi ostia pulsat.

SAT. 1.

1-3. ut nemo ... vivat, laudet...? i. e. ut nemo vivat (quisque) laudet. Though the first clause contains the negative form of expression, the affirmative notion only is to be supplied to the second. So below, v. 109. : nemo se probet, ac potius laudet.

Cicero has a noted instance of this usage, De Orat. iii. 14. Nemo extulit... (no one extols a speaker for speaking intelligibly to his audience), sed contempsit, etc. (but all despise one who cannot do so). 4. gravis annis. Cp. σὺν γήρᾳ

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10

Bapús, Soph. Ed. T. 17. and Virg. En. ix. 246., passages to be quoted chiefly in support of the received reading, against the conjecture armis. annis, it should be observed, is 'years of service.'

8. cita mors. Carm. II. xvi. 29. The whole idea is perhaps taken from the sentiment of Ajax, in Hom.

II. O. 511.

10. consultor pulsat. See Epist. 11. i. 104.; and cp. Cic. Pro Muren. 9.: Vigilas tu de nocte tu tuis consultoribus respondeas: ille ut eo, quo intendit, mature cum exercitu perveniat; te gallorum, illum buccinarum cantus exsuscitat.

Ille, datis vadibus qui rure extractus in urbem est,
Solos felices viventes clamat in urbe.

Cetera de genere hoc, adeo sunt multa, loquacem
Delassare valent Fabium. Ne te morer, audi
Quo rem deducam. Si quis deus, En ego, dicat,
Jam faciam quod vultis: eris tu, qui modo miles,
Mercator; tu, consultus modo, rusticus; hinc vos,
Vos hinc mutatis discedite partibus. Eja!
Quid statis?-nolint. Atqui licet esse beatis.
Quid causæ est, merito quin illis Jupiter ambas
Iratus buccas inflet neque se fore posthac
Tam facilem dicat, votis ut præbeat aurem ?
Præterea, ne sic, ut qui jocularia, ridens

Percurram, quamquam ridentem dicere verum
Quid vetat? ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi
Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima;·
Sed tamen amoto quæramus seria ludo.
Ille gravem duro terram qui vertit aratro,

11. vadibus, from vas, 'a surety;' one "qui pro altero vadimonium promittebat."-Varro.

vadimonium, 'a promise (in law) or recognisance.'

vadimonium sistit, he keeps his recognisance,' i. e. appears in court. Cic. Pro P. Quint. 8.

vadm. mihi deserit, he forfeits it,' i. e. by not appearing. Ibid. 23. vadari, 'to hold (a person) to bail.' See Sat. 1. ix. 36.

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20. Quid causæ est quin? (What is there to prevent his being, i. e.) Must he not be, provoked?

23. Præterea. Here a fresh argument is beginning; checked, however, by a parenthesis, to excuse diversion to a more serious vein and particular application.

23. jocularia, farces' exodia. See Liv. vii. 2., where the rise of farce and comedy at Rome is described; its first step, the addition of jocularia 14. Fabium, Eques Rom. Nar- to the Tuscan dance; its next tranbonensis,' a stoic, fond of, and tire-sition to saturæ, with musical acsome in, argument,-if we may trust companiment; then a plot, dialogue, the allusion here, and Sat. 1. ii.

1:4.

15. Si quis deus, etc. Sat. 11. vii.

24.

16. En ego, jam faciam. Comp. the abrupt emphatic position of jam in Liv. xxiii. 8.: Jam ego, inquit, sanguine Hannibalis sanciam K. fœdus.

and scenic representation; while, as it assumed its most artificial shape, the young Romans, leaving the play to trained actors, claimed a place for and performed, as amateurs, the old jocularia, then called exodia (whether these were interludes,' as in Smith's Dict. and Sigonius's note, or afterpieces').

·

Perfidus hic caupo, miles nautæque, per omne
Audaces mare qui currunt, hac mente laborem
Sese ferre, senes ut in otia tuta recedant,
Aiunt, cum sibi sint congesta cibaria; sicut
Parvula, nam exemplo est, magni formica laboris
Ore trahit quodcunque potest atque addit acervo
Quem struit, haud ignara ac non incauta futuri.
Quæ, simul inversum contristat Aquarius annum,
Non usquam prorepit et illis utitur ante
Quæsitis sapiens, cum te neque fervidus æstus
Demoveat lucro neque hiems, ignis, mare, ferrum,
Nil obstet tibi, dum ne sit te ditior alter.
Quid juvat immensum te argenti pondus et auri
Furtim defossa timidum deponere terra?
Quod si comminuas, vilem redigatur ad assem.

At, ni id fit, quid habet pulchri constructus acervus ?
Millia frumenti tua triverit area centum,

Non tuus hoc capiet venter plus ac meus: ut si
Reticulum panis venales inter onusto
Forte vehas humero, nihilo plus accipias quam
Qui nil portarit. Vel dic quid referat intra
Naturæ fines viventi, jugera centum an

29. hic. Not as if the 'publican' had been already mentioned, but in opposition to ille, v. 28. The " caupo is more fittingly introduced among the examples here than the 'consultus,' whose profession would not have been adopted merely for a livelihood.

nautæ. i. e. mercatores, as in v. 6.

32. Compare Juvenal, xiv. 272

275.

33. formica. Virg. Geor. i. 186. (and in Scripture, Proverbs, vi. 6.). 36. inversum. A favourite compound with Horace; perhaps here, as some suggest, borrowing its meaning from the "inversa Aquarii urna."

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contristat. Virg. Geor. iii. 279.: pluvio contristat frigore cœlum. Aquarius. Ibid. 304.: extremoque irrorat Aquarius anno. The sun is reckoned to enter Aquarius on the 16th of January.

38. cum te, the apodosis to quæ. 'But she uses her store like a wise creature, whereas you . . . .

te. i. e. the miser; on whom the satire is suddenly turned. (This changing of the persons addressed is a difficulty in Carm. IV. ii.)

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Mille aret? At suave est ex magno tollere acervo.".
Dum ex parvo nobis tantundem haurire relinquas,
Cur tua plus laudes cumeris granaria nostris ?
Ut tibi si sit opus liquidi non amplius urna
Vel cyatho et dicas: Magno de flumine mallem
Quam ex hoc fonticulo tantundem sumere.
Plenior ut si quos delectet copia justo,

Eo fit,

55

65

Cum ripa simul avulsos ferat Aufidus acer.
At qui tantuli eget quanto est opus, is neque limo
Turbatam haurit aquam neque vitam amittit in undis. 60
At bona pars hominum decepta cupidine falso,
Nil satis est, inquit; quia tanti, quantum habeas, sis.
Quid facias illi ? Jubeas miserum esse, libenter
Quatenus id facit: ut quidam memoratur Athenis
Sordidus ac dives, populi contemnere voces
Sic solitus: Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.
Tantalus a labris sitiens fugientia captat
Flumina.... Quid rides? Mutato nomine de te
Fabula narratur: congestis undique saccis
Indormis inhians et tanquam parcere sacris
Cogeris aut pictis tanquam gaudere tabellis.
Nescis quo valeat nummus? quem præbeat usum ?
Panis ematur, olus, vini sextarius; adde

52. Soph. Philoct. 647. may be | Quæstio... compared.

54. urna, cyatho. See on Carm. 111. viii. 13.

58-60. See (for illustration of this) the Eastern story in the Rambler, No. 38., and Gray's Ode to Vicissitude, stanz. 8.

61. bona pars. Cp. "bona magnaque pars."-Lucret. v. 1024. A phrase found in Terence also.

62. tanti, quantum habeas, sis. Juvenal's lines, iii. 140., with a different application, are parallel to this: Protenus ad censum, de moribus ultima fiet

70

Quantum quisque suâ nummorum
servat in arcâ,
Tantum habet et fidei.

63. libenter quatenus, 'let him be miserable if he likes it ;' lit., since he is so of his own choice.'

miserum esse. Juv. xiv. 304. 66. Cp. Juv. xiv. 152–5.; e contrar., Eurip. Ion, 630.

68-71. Tantalus .... inhians. σrep 8 Távtaλos... ÉTIKEXNVÓTES μóvov T xpvoiy.-Lucian. Timon. 17.

sacris. Cp. Sat. II. iii. 109. sq. 73. Compare Pope, Mor. Essays, iii. 79.

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