SATIRE IX

Juvenal

THE SORROWS OF A REPROBATE

    I SHOULD like to know, Naevolus, why you so often
look gloomy when I meet you, knitting your brow
like a vanquished Marsyas.⁴ What have you to do
with the look that Ravola wore when caught playing
that dirty trick with Rhodope? If a slave takes a
lick at the pastry, he gets a thrashing for his pains!
Why do you look as woe-begone as Crepereius Pollio

⁴ Flayed by Apollo when beaten in a musical contest.

when he goes round offering a triple rate of interest,
and can find no fool to trust him? Why have you
suddenly developed those wrinkles? You used to be
an easily contented person, who passed as a home-bred
knight that could make biting jests at the dinner-
table and tell witty town-bred stories. But now you
are a different man. You have a hang-dog look;
your head is a forest of unkempt, unanointed hair;
your skin has lost all the gloss that it got from
swathes of hot Bruttian birdlime, and your legs are
dirty and rough with sprouting hair. Why are you
as thin as a chronic invalid in whom a burning 4-day
fever has long made its home? One can detect in a
sickly body the secret torments of the soul, as also
its joys: the face takes on the stamp of either.
You seem, therefore, to have changed your mode of
life, and to be going in a way opposite to your past.
Not long ago, as I remember, you used to frequent
the Temple of Isis and that of Peace with its Ganymede,
and the secret places on the Palantine of the Foreign
Mother [Cybele] and Ceres (for in what temple
aren't there women who prostitute themselves?) you,
a more notorious adulterer than Aufidius, and what
you say nothing of, that you would even degrade the
husbands themselves.
    " Many men have found profit in my mode
of life; but I have made nothing substantial out
of my labours. I sometimes have a greasy cloak
given me that will save my toga--a coarse and crudely
dyed garment that has been ill-combed by the
Gallic weaver--or some trifle in silver of an inferior
quality. Man is ruled by destiny; even those
parts of him that lie beneath his clothes. .. What
greater monster is there in the world than a miserly
debauchee? 'I gave you this,' says he, 'and then
that; and later you got ever so much more.' Thus he
makes a reckoning with his lusts. Well, set out the
counters, call in the lads with the reckoning board,
count out five thousand sesterces all told, and then
enumerate my services.... I am less accounted for
than the poor slave who ploughs his master's field.
You used to deem yourself a delicate and good-
looking youth, fit to be Jove's own cup-bearer; why
aren't men like you willing to pay for your own
morbid pleasures by showing a kindness to a poor
follower or a worshipper? But the pretty fellow
has presents sent to him of green sunshades or big am-
ber balls on his birthday, or on the first day of showery
spring, when he lounges at full length in a huge easy
chair counting over the secret gifts he has received
upon the Matron's Day! ¹
    " Tell me, you sparrow, for whose benefit are you
keeping all those hills and farms in Apulia, all those
pasture-lands that tire out the kites? Your stores
are filled with rich grapes from your Trifoline vine-
yard, or from the slopes that look down upon Cumae,
or the expansive Gaurus: whose vats seal up
more vintages destined for long life than yours?
Would it be a great matter to present a few acres to
the loins of an exhausted client? Do you think it is
better, that this country woman, with her cottage and
her babe and her pet dog, should be bequeathed to a
friend who beats the cymbals? 'You're an impudent
beggar,' you say. Yes, but my rent cries out for me
to beg; and so does my single slave-lad--as single as
that big eye of Polyphemus which helped the wily
Ulysses to make his escape. And one slave is not

¹ The 1st of March [The Matronalia - like our Mother's Day];
see Hor. Od. III . viii. 1. [the one who plays the male role with him
is shortchanged while the "pretty fellow" who plays a female role
gets presents. There is some confusion as to who is talking to
and about who in this section; I went with P. Green's estimation]

enough; I shall have to buy a second and feed
both. What shall I do, tell me, when the winter
howls? What about their shivering feet and shoulders
when December's north wind blows? Shall I say
' Hold on, and wait till the cicadas make a noise ' ?
[i.e. wait for summer]
    " And though you ignore and pass by my other
services, what price do you put on this, that were I
not your true and devoted client, your wife would still
be a virgin? You know how often, and in what ways,
you have asked that service of me, and what promises
you made to me; more than once or twice she was
eloping when I caught her in my arms: she had even
smashed your marriage-tablet, and was just signing
a new one. I had a long night's work to win her back,
while you were whimpering outside. The bed is my
witness--and so are you, for you heard what was being
said and done inside. Many a household in which a
union that was unstable, ready to break up, and all but
dissolved, has been saved by the intervention of a lover.
Which way can you turn? Which service do you put first,
which last? Does it mean nothing, you thankless and per-
fidious man, nothing at all, that I have presented you with
a little son or daughter? For you rear the children, and
love to spread abroad in the gazette the proofs of your
virility. Hang up garlands over your door! You are now
a father; I have given you something to rebut gossip
with. You have now parental rights; through me you can
be entered as an heir, and receive an entire legacy,
with a nice little windfall into the bargain; to all
which perquisites many more will be added if I make
up your family to the full number of three."
    Indeed, Naevolus, you have just cause of com-
plaint. But what has he got to say on the other side?
(Naevolus) "He takes no notice, and looks around for
another two-legged donkey like myself. But remember,
my secrets are for your ears alone; keep my complaints
fast locked up in your own bosom. It is a fatal
thing to have for your enemy a man who keeps
himself smooth by pumice-stone! The man who has
lately entrusted me with a secret has a consuming
hatred of me, believing I have revealed everything
that I know; he will not hesitate to take up a sword,
or to lay open my head with a club, or to put a
lighted candle against my door [arson]. Nor can you
disregard or make nothing of the fact that for a man of
his means the price of poison is never high. So
keep my secrets close--as close as did the Council
of Areopagus ! "
    O Corydon, Corydon ! Do you suppose that
a rich man has any secrets? Though his slaves hold
their tongues, his beasts of burden and his dog will
talk; his door posts and his marble columns will tell
tales. Let him shut the windows, and close every
chink with curtains; let him fasten the doors, remove
the light, turn everyone out of the house, and permit
no one to sleep close by--yet the tavern-keeper close
by will know before dawn what he was doing at the
second cock-crow; he will hear also all the tales
invented by the pastry-man, by the head cooks and
the carvers. For what calumny will they hesitate to
concoct against their masters when a slander will
avenge them for their strappings? Nor will some
tippling friend be wanting to look for you at the
crossways, and, do what you will, pour his drunken
story into your wretched ear. So just ask those
people to hold their tongues about the things you
questioned me about just now! Why, they would
rather blab out a secret than drink as much stolen
wine as Saufeia used to swill when conducting a public
sacrifice. There are many reasons for right living; but
the chiefest of them all is this, that you may think
little of the talk of your slaves. For the tongue is
the worst part of a bad slave; and yet worse still is
the plight of a man who cannot escape from the talk
of those whom he supports with his own bread and
money.
    " Your advice is excellent, but it is vague. What
do you advise me to do now, after all my lost time
and disappointed hopes? for the short span of our
poor unhappy life is hurrying swiftly on, like a flower,
to its close: while we drink, and call for chaplets, for
unguents, and for maidens, old age is creeping on us
unperceived."
    Be not afraid; so long as these seven hills of
ours stand fast, pathic friends will never fail you:
from every quarter, in carriages and in ships, those
gentry who scratch their heads with one finger will
flock in. And you have always a further and
better ground of hope--if you only put a tooth to
rocket-wort.
    " Such maxims are for the fortunate; my Clotho
and Lachesis are well pleased if I can fill my belly
with my labours. O my own little Lares, whom I am
accustomed to supplicate with a pinch of frankincense
or spelt, or with a tiny garland, when will I have enough
of what will keep my old days from the beggar's staff
and mat? Twenty thousand sesterces at interest, well
secured; some vessels of plain silver (yet Censor
Fabricius would still have condemned them) and a
couple of stout Moesian porters on whose hired
necks I may be taken comfortably to my place in the
bawling circus. Let me have besides a stooping en-
graver, and a painter who will quickly dash off any
number of likenesses. This is enough for a poor man
like me. It is a pitiful prayer, and I have little hope
even of that; for whenever Fortune is supplicated on
my behalf, she plugs her ears with wax fetched from
that selfsame ship which escaped from the Sicilian
songstresses through the deafness of her crew." ¹

¹ Ulysses stuffed the ears of his followers with wax to
prevent them hearing the voices of the Sirens (Od. xii.
39 foll.).

dirty trick : performing oral sex; which relates to the next line about "pastry". This is one of the three satires that was frequently omitted in the past due to sexual content. That content has been softened or omitted by the translator here as elsewhere. Regrettably, wit has been lost with the obscenity.

Ganymede : "(Ganumêdês). The son of Tros, king of Dardania, brother of Ilus and Assaracus. According to Homer he was carried away by the gods for his beauty, to be the cup-bearer of Zeus, and one of the immortals ... The rape of Ganymede was represented in a group by the sculptor Leochares.." Peck
This name is frequently used to describe an attractive boy and the object of homosexual desire.

green : the color was considered effeminate and amber balls the ladies used to cool and keep dry their hands; in other words - women's gifts.

sparrow : "The lechery of the sparrow was proverbial in antiquity .." Green

a friend who beats the cymbals : "A eunuch priest of Cybele" Miller.

Polyphemus : the cyclops; Ulysses got away by putting his one eye out.

three : Juvenal is talking about marriage laws, e.g.: "By the Lex Papia Poppaea a candidate who had several children was preferred to one who had fewer (Tacit. Ann. xv.19; Plin. Ep. vii.16). Freedmen who had a certain number of children were freed operarum obligatione (Dig. 38 tit.1 De Operis Libertorum); and libertae, who had four children, were released from the tutela of their patrons (Ulp. Frag. tit.29). Those who had three children living at Rome, four in Italy, and five in the provinces, were excused from the office of tutor or curator (Inst. 1 25; Dig.27 ..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Papia_Poppaea

Council of Areopagus : highly aristocratic Athenian high council.

Corydon : from a story by Virgil where this Corydon fears detection because he has a "passion for his master's favourite" Green.

Saufeia : A woman by this name is described in Satire VI :

"Well known to all are the mysteries of the
Good Goddess, when the flute stirs the loins and the
Maenads of Priapus sweep along, frenzied alike by
the horn-blowing and the wine, whirling their locks
and howling. What foul longings burn within their
breasts! What cries they utter as the passion palpi-
tates within! How drenched their limbs in torrents
of old wine! Saufeia challenges the concubines to an
erotic dancing contest. Her agility wins the prize..."

pathic : pathicus : "one who submits to anal sex" Whitaker.

scratch : Green figures this likely to have been a "secret sign." Rudd says only one finger is used to avoid messing up the hair.

rocket-wort : a supposed aphrodisiac. It is believed there are some lines are missing and Rudd has the better hope as being a rich old woman.

Clotho, Lachesis : Two of the Fates.

Lares : household gods.

Moesia : an area covered by parts of Serbia and Bulgaria today; the name comes from the Moesi, a Thracian tribe that lived there. The Romans conquered the area in the first century B.C.

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