SATIRE XII

Juvenal

HOW CATULLUS ESCAPED SHIPWRECK

    MY birthday, Corvinus, is not as dear as this day,
when my festal altar turf is awaiting the animals vowed
to the Gods. To the Queen of Heaven I lead a snow-
white ewe lamb; another fleece as white will be sur-
rendered to the Goddess ¹ armed with the Moorish ²
Gorgon; but the frolicsome victim destined for Tarpeian
Jove is shaking the tight stretched out rope and brandishing
his brow; for he is a bold young steer, ripe for temple and
for altar, and fit to be sprinkled with wine; it already shames
him to suck his mother's milk, and with his budding horn he
assails the oaks. Were my fortune large, and as ample
as my desires, I should have been hauling along a bull
fatter than Hispulla, slow-footed from his very bulk;
reared on no neighbouring herbage he, but showing
in his blood the rich pastures of the Clitumnus.³ And
because of his neck he must be slain by a tall servant,
in order to celebrate the return of my still trembling
friend who has lately gone through such terrors, and
now marvels to find himself safe and sound.
    For besides the perils of the deep he escaped a
lightning stroke. A mass of dense black cloud shut
out all the heavens, and a flash of fire struck the sails.
Every man believed himself smitten by the bolt, and
soon in his terror thought that no shipwreck could be
so terrible as a ship on fire. All happened in the same
way and as frightfully as when a storm arises in a poem,
when lo! a new kind of crisis arose: hear it and give

¹ Pallas.
² The Gorgon (or Gorgons) were supposed to belong to
Libya.
³ Famed for their breed of white cattle.

your pity once again, though the rest is part of the
same story, an awful fate, well known to many, and
testified by a votive tablet in many of our temples.
Who doesn't know that it is Isis who feeds our
painters? ¹
    Yes, a similar fate befell our friend Catullus also.
For now the hold was half full of water, and the
waves rocked the hull from side to side, so that
the white-haired skipper, with all his skill, could
bring no help to the labouring mast, he resolved to
deal with the winds by beginning to jettison like the
beaver, who makes himself a eunuch, that he may
escape--with the loss of his testicles; he knows well
[the price of] the drug in his groin! "Overboard with
what's mine!" shouted Catullus "Everything", ready
to cast headlong his finest wares: purple garments,
such as would have befitted a soft Maecenas, with
other fabrics dyed even on the sheep's back by the
noble nature of the herbage--though doubtless the
hidden virtues of the water and air of Baetica ² also
lend their aid. Nor did he hesitate to throw over
pieces of silver plate--chargers wrought by Parthen-
ius,³ and bowls holding three gallons, fit to slake the
thirst of the Centaur Pholus ⁴ or the wife of Fuscus.
Besides these were baskets and dishes without num-
ber, and much embossed work out of which the crafty
purchaser of Olynthus ⁵ had slaked his thirst. What
other man is there, in what part of the world, who
would dare to value his life above his plate, or his
safety above his property? Some men are so blinded
and depraved that, instead of making fortunes for
the sake of living, they live for their fortunes' sake.

¹ i.e. by employing them to paint votive tablets for her
temples.
² Baetica was one of the provinces of Spain, called after
the Baetis (Guadalquivir). The wool was famed for its
golden colour.
³ An engraver, otherwise unknown.
⁴ The Centaurs were famed for their drinking capacity.
⁵ Philip of Macedon.

    And now most of the cargo has gone overboard,
but even these losses do not ease the vessel; so in
his extremity the skipper had to fall back upon
cutting away the mast, and so find a way out of his
straits--a dire pass indeed when no remedy can be
found but one that diminishes the ship! Go now, and
commit your life to the winds! Go trust yourself to
a hewn plank which parts you from death by four
finger-breadths of pitch-pine, or seven if it be extra
wide! Next time, along with a small fish net and
bread and a pot-bellied flagon, consider taking
some axes for use in a storm.
    But soon the sea fell flat, and our mariners
came on better times. Destiny proved stronger than
wind and wave; the cheerful Fates, with kindly hand,
spun a milder yarn of white wool, then sprang up
what was no stronger than a gentle breeze, under
which the poor ship sped on by the sorry help of out-
stretched garments, and the single sail now left to
her on her prow. Soon the South winds abated, and
back came the sun, bringing hope of life; and then
there came into view the lofty height ¹ so dear to
Iulus, and preferred by him for his abode to his step-
mother's Lavinum, a height that took its name from
the white sow whose wondrous womb made glad the
Phrygians' hearts, and gained fame for her thirty
teats--a sight never seen before!
    And now at length the ship comes within the huge
structure built to enclose the sea.² She passes the
Tyrrhenian lighthouse, and those arms which stretch
out and meet again in mid-ocean, leaving Italy far
behind--a port more wondrous far than those of

¹ The Alban Mount.
² The port of Ostia, built by Claudius and called Portus
Augusti.

Nature's making. Then the skipper, with his
crippled ship, makes for the still waters of the inner
basin in which any Baian shallop may ride in safety.
There the sailors shave their heads ¹ and delight, in
garrulous ease, to tell the story of their perils.
    Away then, ye boys, and with reverent tongues
and souls hang up garlands upon the shrines, sprinkle
meal upon the knives, and deck the soft altars of
verdant turf. I will quickly follow, and having duly
performed the greater rite, will return thence home,
where my little images of shining crumbling wax are
being decked with slender wreaths. Here will I
appease my own Jove; here will I offer incense
to my paternal Lares, and scatter pansies of every
hue. Here all is bright; my gateway, in token of the
holiday, has raised long branches, and is worshipping
with early-morning lamps.
    Look not askance, Corvinus, upon these rejoic-
ings. The Catullus for whose return I set up all
these altars has three little heirs of his own. You
may wait long enough before you find anyone to
bestow [even] a sickly hen, just closing her eyes,
upon so fruitless a friend; nay, a hen would be
all too costly: no quail will ever fall for a man who
is a father! But if the rich and childless Gallitta or
Pacius have a touch of fever, their entire porticoes
will be dressed out with tablets fastened in due
form: there will be some to vow oxen, not elephants,
indeed, seeing that elephants are not for sale, nor does
that beast breed in Latium, or anywhere beneath our
skies, but is fetched from the dark man's land to be
fed in the Rutulian forest and the domains of Turnus.²
The herd is Caesar's,² and will serve no private
master, since their forefathers were wont to obey the

¹ In fulfilment, no doubt, of a vow, made in the moment of
danger.
² The emperors kept a herd of elephants for games, etc.,
at Laurentum, near the kingdom of the Rutulian Turnus.

Tyrian Hannibal and our generals and the Moles-
sian king,¹ and to carry cohorts on their backs--no
small fraction of a war--whole towers going forth to
battle! Therefore Novius ² would not hesitate, Pacu-
vius Hister ² would not hesitate, to lead that ivoried
monster to the altar, and offer it to Gallitta's Lares,
the only victim worthy of such august divinities, and
of those who hunt their gold. For the latter worthy,
if permitted, will vow to sacrifice the tallest and
comeliest of his slaves; he will place fillets on the
brows of his slave-boys and maidservants; if he has
a marriageable Iphigenia ³ at home, he will place
her upon the altar, though he could never hope for
the hind of tragic story to provide a secret sub-
stitute.⁴
    I commend the wisdom of my fellow townsman,
nor can I compare a thousand ships to an inherit-
ance; for if the sick man escape the Goddess of
Death, he will be caught within the net, he will
destroy his will, and after the prodigious services of
Pacuvius will, maybe by a single word, make him
heir to all his possessions, and Pacuvius will strut
proudly over his vanquished rivals. You see there-
fore how well worth while it was to slaughter that
maiden at Mycenae! Long live Pacuvius! may he
live, I pray, as many years as Nestor; may he possess
as much as Nero plundered; may he pile up gold
mountain-high; may he love no one, and be by none
beloved !

¹ Pyrrhus.            ² Legacy-hunters.
³ Sacrificed by her father Agamemnon to procure a fair
wind for the Greek fleet.
⁴ Later tradition pretended that a hind had been sub-
stituted for Iphigenia.

Queen of Heaven: Juno; Minerva is the Goddess who is "armed" because she had the image of Medusa on her shield. The Tarpeian rock was in the capitol.

Iulus : Son of Aeneas.

images : The household gods or Lares.

quail : Double entendre. Besides being a smaller bird it is a "term of endearment" Whitaker.

oxen: Literally "hecatombs" : Great sacrifices originally consisting of a hundred oxen.

thousand ships : As in "the face that launched a thousand ships" from Mycenaen Greece to Troy.

Nestor : Known for his long life.

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