Delphi Complete Works of Juvenal (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 35) by Juvenal Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis

Author:Juvenal, Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis [Juvenal, Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Delphi Classics
Published: 2014-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

Satire 2. Moralists without Morals

Vltra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet et glacialem

Oceanum, quotiens aliquid de moribus audent

qui Curios simulant et Bacchanalia uiuunt.

indocti primum, quamquam plena omnia gypso

Chrysippi inuenias; nam perfectissimus horum, 5

si quis Aristotelen similem uel Pittacon emit

et iubet archet pluteum seruare Cleanthas.

frontis nulla fides; quis enim non uicus abundat

tristibus obscenis? castigas turpia, cum sis

inter Socraticos notissima fossa cinaedos? 10

hispida membra quidem et durae per bracchia saetae

promittunt atrocem animum, sed podice leui

caeduntur tumidae medico ridente mariscae.

rarus sermo illis et magna libido tacendi

atque supercilio breuior coma. uerius ergo 15

et magis ingenue Peribomius; hunc ego fatis

inputo, qui uultu morbum incessuque fatetur.

horum simplicitas miserabilis, his furor ipse

dat ueniam; sed peiiores, qui talia uerbis

Herculis inuadunt et de uirtute locuti 20

clunem agitant. ‘ego te ceuentem, Sexte, uerebor?’

infamis Varillus ait, ‘quo deterior te?’

loripedem rectus derideat, Aethiopem albus.

quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes?

quis caelum terris non misceat et mare caelo 25

si fur displiceat Verri, homicida Miloni,

Clodius accuset moechos, Catilina Cethegum,

in tabulam Sullae si dicant discipuli tres?

qualis erat nuper tragico pollutus adulter

concubitu, qui tunc leges reuocabat amaras 30

omnibus atque ipsis Veneri Martique timendas,

cum tot abortiuis fecundam Iulia uuluam

solueret et patruo similes effunderet offas.

nonne igitur iure ac merito uitia ultima fictos

contemnunt Scauros et castigata remordent? 35

[1] I would fain flee to Sarmatia and the frozen Sea when people who ape the Curii and live like Bacchanals dare talk about morals. In the first place, they are unlearned persons, though you may find their houses crammed with plaster casts of Chrysippus; for their greatest hero is the man who has bought a likeness of Aristotle or Pittacus, or bids his shelves preserve an original portrait of Cleanthes. Men’s faces are not to be trusted; does not every street abound in gloomy-visaged debauchees? And do you rebuke foul practices, when you are yourself the most notorious of the Socratic reprobates? A hairy body, and arms stiff with bristles, give promise of a manly soul: but the doctor grins when he cuts into the growths on your shaved buttocks. Men of your kidney talk little; they glory in taciturnity, and cut their hair shorter than their eyebrows. Peribomius himself is more open and more honest; his face, his walk, betray his distemper, and I charge Destiny with his failings. Such men excite your pity by their frankness; the very fury of their passions wins them pardon. Far worse are those who denounce evil ways in the language of a Hercules; and after discoursing upon virtue, prepare to practise vice. “Am I to respect you, Sextus,” quoth the ill-famed Varillus, “when you do as I do? How am I worse than yourself? “ Let the straight-legged man laugh at the club-footed, the white man at the blackamoor: but who could endure the Gracchi railing at sedition? Who will not confound heaven with earth, and sea with sky, if Verves denounce thieves, or Milo cut-throats? If Clodius condemn adulterers, or Catiline upbraid Cethegus; or if Sulla’s three disciples inveigh against proscriptions? Such a man was that adulterer who, after lately defiling himself by a union

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