These, urged by want, assume the nurse's care,
And learn to breed the children which they bear.
Those shun both toil and danger; for, though sped,
The wealthy dame is seldom brought to bed:
Such is the power of drugs, and such the skill
They boast, to cause miscarriages at will!
Weep'st thou? O, fool! the blest invention hail,
And give the potion, if the gossips fail;
For, should thy wife her nine months' burthen bear
An Ethiop's offspring might thy fortunes heir!
A sooty thing, fit only to affray,
And, seen at morn, to poison all the day! (600)
Supposititious breeds, the hope and joy
Of fond, believing, husbands, I pass by;
The beggars' bantlings, spawn'd in open air,
And left by some pond side, to perish there.
From hence your Flamens, hence your Salians come;
Your Scauri, chiefs and magistrates of Rome !
Fortune stands tittering by, in playful mood,
And smiles complacent on the sprawling brood;
Takes them all naked to her fostering arms,
Feeds from her mouth, and in her bosom warms:
Then to the mansions of the great she bears
The precious brats, and for herself prepares
A secret farce; adopts them for her own:
And when her nurslings are to manhood grown,
She brings them forth, rejoiced to see them sped,
And wealth and honours dropping on their head!
Some purchase charms, some (more pernicious still)
Thessalian philters, to subdue the will
Of an uxorious spouse, and make him bear
Blows, insults, all a saucy wife can dare.
From hence proceeds that dizziness, from hence
Those vapours which envelop every sense,
That strange forgetfulness from hour to hour;
And well if this be all :-more fatal power,
600. This was one among many of the superstitions of the Romans.
More terrible effects, the dose may have,
And force thee, like Caligula, to rave,
When his Cæsonia squeezed into the bowl
The dire excrescence of a new-dropt foal.
Then Uproar rose; the universal chain
Of Order snapp'd, and Anarchy's wild reign
Came on apace, as if the queen of heaven
Had fired the Thunderer, and to madness driven.
Thy mushroom, Agrippine, was innocent, (619)
To this accursed draught! that only sent
One palsied, bedrid sot, with gummy eyes,
And slavering lips, heels foremost to the skies;
This, to wild fury roused a bloody mind,
And call'd for fire and sword; this potion join'd,
In one promiscuous slaughter, high and low,
And levell'd half the nation at a blow.
Such is the power of philters! such the ill
One sorceress can effect by wicked skill!
They hate their husband's spurious issue; this,
If this were all, were not, perhaps, amiss:
But they go further; and 'tis now some time,
Since poisoning sons-in-law appeared no crime.
Mark then, ye fatherless! what I advise,
And trust, oh trust, no dainties, if you're wise:
Ye heirs to large estates! touch not that fare,
Your mother's fingers have been busy there;
See! it looks livid, swoll'n:-oh check your haste,
And let your wary fosterfather taste
Whate'er she sets before you: fear her meat,
And be the first to look, the last to eat.
But this is fiction all! I pass the bound
Of satire, and encroach on tragic ground!
Deserting truth, I choose a fabled theme,
And, like the buskin'd bards of Greece, declaim
619. Claudius was poisoned by a mushroom, his favourite food. was prepared," Tacitus says, "by Locusta, and given to him when he was either half stupid, or half asleep."
In deep-mouth'd tones, in swelling strains, on crimes
As yet unknown to our Rutulian climes!
Would it were so! but Pontia cries aloud, (637)
"No, I perform'd it. See! the fact's avow'd—
I mingled poison for my children, I:
'Twas found upon me, wherefore then deny?"
What, two at once, most barbarous viper! two!
Nay, seven, had seven been there." Now let us view,
Uncheck'd by doubt, whate'er the tragic stage
Displays of Progne and Medea's rage.
These ancient dames, in infamy were bold,
And acted monstrous deeds-but not for gold.
In every age, we see, with less surprise,
Such horrors as from bursts of fury rise,
When stormy passions, scorning all control,
Rend the mad bosom, and unseat the soul.
As when impetuous winds and driving rain
Mine some huge rock, that overhangs the plain,
The cumbrous mass descends with thundering force,
And spreads resistless ruin in its course.
Curse on the woman who reflects by fits,
And in cold blood her cruelties commits!
They see, upon the stage, the Grecian wife
Redeeming, with her own, her husband's life;
Yet, in her place, would willingly deprive
Their lords of breath, to keep their dogs alive!
Abroad, at home, the Belides you meet, (654)
And Clytemnestras swarm in every street;
But here the difference lies; those bungling wives
With a blunt axe hack'd out their husbands' lives:
637. There were two monsters of this name; the first was the wife of Vectius Bolanus, a man of high rank and estimation, who gave her twin-children poison, in the time of Nero. The other Pontia, to whom Juvenal more particularly alludes, was the wife of Drymo; whose family took care to perpetuate her crime by the following inscription on her tomb: "Pontia Titi Pontii filia heic sita sum, quæ, duobus natis à me veneno consumptis, avaritiæ opus misere mihi mortem conscivi. Tu quisquis es qui hàc transis, si pius es quæso à me oculos averte." 654. The Belides were the daughters of Danaus.
While, now, the deed is done with dextrous art,
And a drugg'd bowl performs the axe's part.
Yet if the husband, prescient of his fate,
Have fortified his breast with mithridate,
She baffles him e'en there, and has recourse
To the old weapon, for a last resource.
TO TELESINUS, ON THE NEGLECT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS.
YES, all the hopes of learning, 'tis confest,
And all the patronage, on CÆSAR rest:
For he alone the drooping Nine regards—
When now our best and most illustrious bards
Drop their ungrateful studies, and aspire,
Baths, bagnios, what they can, for bread, to hire;
With humbled views, a life of toil embrace,
And deem a crier's business no disgrace;
Since Clio, driven by hunger from the shade,
Mixes in crowds, and bustles for a trade.
And truly, if (the bard's too frequent curse)
No coin be found in thy Pierian purse,
"Twere not ill done to copy, for the nonce,
Machæra, and turn auctioneer at once.
Hie, my poetic friend; in accents loud,
Commend thy precious lumber to the crowd,
Tubs, presses, chests, jointstools; swell with the praise
Of Edipus and Tereus, the damn'd plays
Of Faustus, Paccius :-better so, than deal (12)
In oaths and informations, for a meal.
Leave that resource to Cappadocian knights,
To Gallogreeks, and such newfangled wights
As want or infamy has chased from home,
And driven, in barefoot multitudes, to Rome.
Come, my brave youths :-the genuine sons of rhyme,
Who in sweet numbers couch the true sublime,
Shall, from this hour, no more their fate accuse,
Or stoop to pains unworthy of the Muse.
VER. 12. Of either Faustus or Paccius nothing is known; and their works appear to have followed the fate of their authors.
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