* Learn this; and after, envy not the store Damn me, whate'er those book-learned blockheads say, Solon's the veriest fool in all the play. Top-heavy drones, and always looking down, Muttering betwixt their lips some mystic thing, Is only this, that nothing can be brought Is it for this they study? to grow pale, A spark, like thee, of the man-killing trade, * Note X. My pulse unequal, and my breath is strong, He drinks a swilling draught; and, lined within, Your yellow skin?-No more of that; I'm well. That stood betwixt a fair estate and me, And, doctor, I may live to bury thee. Thou tell'st me, I look ill; and thou look'st worse. I've done, says the physician; take your course. The laughing sot, like all unthinking men, Bathes, and gets drunk; then bathes, and drinks again: His throat half throttled with corrupted phlegm, Then trumpets, torches, and a tedious crew His heels stretched out, and pointing to the gate;" And slaves, now manumized, on their dead master wait. They hoist him on the bier, and deal the dole, But what's thy fulsome parable to me? I grant this true; but still the deadly wound Some coarse cold sallad is before thee set; Bread with the bran, perhaps, and broken meat; Fall on, and try thy appetite to eat. These are not dishes for thy dainty tooth: What, hast thou got an ulcer in thy mouth? Why stand'st thou picking? Is thy palate sore, That bete and radishes will make thee roar? Such is the unequal temper of thy mind, Thy passions in extremes, and unconfined; Thy hair so bristles with unmanly fears, As fields of corn, that rise in bearded ears; And when thy cheeks with flushing fury glow, The rage of boiling cauldrons is more slow, When fed with fuel and with flames below. *Note XI. } With foam upon thy lips and sparkling eyes, Thou say'st, and dost, in such outrageous wise, That mad Orestes,* if he saw the show, Would swear thou wert the madder of the two. * Note XII. NOTES ON TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS. SATIRE III. . Note I. And parchment with the smoother side displayed.-P. 231. The students used to write their notes on parchments; the inside, on which they wrote, was white; the other side was hairy, and commonly yellow. Quintilian reproves this custom, and advises rather table-books, lined with wax, and a stile, like that we use in our vellum table-books, as more easy. Note II. A fuming-pan thy Lares to appease.-P. 232. Before eating, it was customary to cut off some part of the meat, which was first put into a pan, or little dish, then into the fire, as an offering to the household gods: this they called a Libation. Note III. Drawn from the root of some old Tuscan tree.-P. 232. The Tuscans were accounted of most ancient nobility. Horace observes this in most of his compliments to Mæcenas, who was derived from the old kings of Tuscany; now the dominion of the Great Duke. |