Persius (satirist)

Satires (Persius)

• attestation: Persius attributes poetic imitation not to divine inspiration but to the Belly as master of the arts and dispenser of genius (Satires (Persius) > The Prologue)

  "It was that master of the arts, that dispenser of genius, the Belly, who has a rare skill in getting at words which are not his own."

• attestation: Persius argues that bombast and mawkish prettiness have replaced honest labour in Roman literary culture (Satires (Persius) > Satire I > Summary of Satire I)

  "Persius answers that public applause is corrupt, that bombast and mawkish prettiness have replaced honest labour"

• attestation: Satire I takes the form of a dialogue between Persius and a Friend about the value of literary effort (Satires (Persius) > Satire I > Summary of Satire I)

  "The poem takes the form of a dialogue between Persius and a Friend."

• attestation: Persius recalls giving up marbles as a symbol of leaving childhood behind and putting on the wise airs of uncles (Satires (Persius) > Satire I > Text)

  "everything that we have been doing since the days when we gave up our marbles, and put on the wise airs of uncles."

• attestation: Persius says poets who produce words worthy of cedar oil wish for lasting fame (Satires (Persius) > Satire I > Text)

  "Do you mean to tell me that any man who has uttered words worthy of cedar oil will disown the wish to have earned a place in the mouths of men?"

• attestation: Persius characterizes praise from the audience as unreliable and declares his heart is not made of horn (Satires (Persius) > Satire I > Text)

  "I am the last man to be afraid of praise, if by chance when writing I let fall something good. My heart is not made of horn."

• attestation: Persius laments the vanity of mankind and the vast void in human affairs as the opening line of his satiric poem (Satires (Persius) > Satire I > Text)

  "O the vanity of mankind! How vast the void in human affairs!"

• attestation: Persius recommends the satiric tradition of Calliroe as afternoon entertainment for vulgar readers (Satires (Persius) > Satire I > Text)

  "To such gentlemen I would commend the play-bill in the morning, for the afternoon Calliroe."

• attestation: Persius warns that biting satiric truths may cause great friends to turn cold (Satires (Persius) > Satire I > Text)

  "But why rasp people's tender ears with biting truths? Take heed that the doorsteps of your great friends do not grow cool towards you."

• attestation: Persius argues that men who thirst for gold wrongly project their own fleshly lusts onto the gods (Satires (Persius) > Satire II > Summary of Satire II)

  "Thirsting ourselves for gold, we believe the gods must love it also. Why measure the Gods by our own fleshly lusts?"

• attestation: Persius addresses Satire II to his friend and fellow-pupil Plotius Macrinus on the occasion of Macrinus's birthday (Satires (Persius) > Satire II > Summary of Satire II)

  "Persius takes advantage of the birthday of his friend and fellow-pupil Plotius Macrinus"

• attestation: Persius counsels approaching the gods with clean hands and a pure heart rather than costly sacrifices (Satires (Persius) > Satire II > Summary of Satire II)

  "Let us approach them with clean hands and a pure heart, and the homeliest offerings will win their favour."

• attestation: Old women offer the most foolish prayers on behalf of babies, beseeching the gods for worldly success (Satires (Persius) > Satire II > Summary of Satire II)

  "Old women offer the most silly prayers on behalf of babes."

• attestation: Persius describes prayers for kings and queens to desire a child as a match for their daughter (Satires (Persius) > Satire II > Text)

  ""May kings and queens desire him for their daughter! May the maidens scramble for him! May roses bloom wherever he plants his foot!""

• attestation: Satire III argues that the moral invalid believes himself sound while greed, lust, fear, and rage demonstrate otherwise (Satires (Persius) > Satire III > Summary of Satire III)

  "So too the moral invalid tells himself he is sound while greed, lust, fear, and rage show the contrary."

• attestation: Persius exhorts the reader to learn what they truly are, why they were brought into the world, and what constitutes the true end for man (Satires (Persius) > Satire III > Summary of Satire III)

  "Learn what you are, and why you were brought here; what is the true end for man, and what are his duties."

• attestation: Satire III warns that a man who feels ill consults a doctor but returns to old habits after recovery, leading to his grave (Satires (Persius) > Satire III > Summary of Satire III)

  "A man feels ill and consults his doctor, who orders rest and abstinence. Feeling better after a few days, he returns to his old habits, rejects the warnings of friends, and is carried to the grave."

• attestation: Persius warns that the time will come when it will be too late to mend one's moral failings (Satires (Persius) > Satire III > Summary of Satire III)

  "The time will come when it will be too late to mend."

• attestation: Persius describes the process of writing as involving two-coloured parchment cleansed of hair, paper, and a knotty reed-pen (Satires (Persius) > Satire III > Text)

  "We now take up our book, and the two-coloured parchment, well cleansed of hair, some paper too, and the knotty reed-pen."

• attestation: Persius compares the idle man to moist and ductile clay that needs to be shaped on the swift-revolving wheel (Satires (Persius) > Satire III > Text)

  "You are moist and ductile clay; what you need is to be taken in hand from this instant, and moulded ceaselessly on the swift-revolving wheel."

• attestation: Persius observes that people lash others and are lashed in turn, as the universal rule of social life (Satires (Persius) > Satire IV > Summary of Satire IV)

  "Thus we lash and are lashed in turn."

• attestation: Persius argues that no one has knowledge of himself, yet all are ready to discourse about their neighbours (Satires (Persius) > Satire IV > Summary of Satire IV)

  "Not one of us has any knowledge of himself, though we are all ready to discourse about our neighbours."

• attestation: Persius counsels looking into one's own heart and acknowledging how poorly furnished it is (Satires (Persius) > Satire IV > Summary of Satire IV)

  "Look carefully into your own heart, and acknowledge how poorly you are furnished."

• attestation: Persius advises casting off everything that is not yourself and living in your own house (Satires (Persius) > Satire IV > Text)

  "Cast off everything that is not yourself; let the mob take back what they have given you; live in your own house, and recognise how poorly it is furnished."

• attestation: Persius describes the diversity of human pursuits: trade, sleep, games, dice, and lust (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Summary of Satire V)

  "Men are of a thousand kinds, and diverse are the colours of their lives. One pursues trade, another sleep, another games, another dice, another lust."

• attestation: Satire V begins with Persius's acknowledgment of his debt to his guide, philosopher, and friend L. Annaeus Cornutus (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Summary of Satire V)

  "This satire begins with an enthusiastic acknowledgment by the poet of all that he owes to his beloved guide, philosopher, and friend, L. Annaeus Cornutus"

• attestation: Satire V discusses the Stoical thesis that all men except Stoics are slaves (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Summary of Satire V)

  "goes on to discuss the great Stoical thesis that all men, Stoics excepted, are slaves."

• attestation: Persius argues that true liberty is not bestowed by the lictor's rod, and that no man is free who has not learnt the proper uses of life (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Summary of Satire V)

  "But what we want is true liberty, not the kind bestowed by the lictor's rod. No man is free who has not learnt the proper uses of life."

• attestation: Persius argues that true liberty cannot be had merely by a Publius enrolled in the Veline tribe receiving a ration ticket (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "What we want is true liberty, not that kind by which any Publius enrolled in the Veline tribe becomes the possessor of a ration ticket."

• attestation: Persius describes the Praetor's rod as the instrument by which a slave is formally manumitted but not truly freed (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  ""What? When on leaving the Praetor's presence I had been made my own master by his rod, why am I not free to do everything that I want to do?""

• attestation: Persius personifies Avarice and Luxury as rival masters contending for the obedience of the supposedly free man (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "Avarice bids you rise and scour the seas for gain. Luxury warns you that you are mad in giving up all the ease and all the joys of life. Which master will you obey?"

• attestation: Persius poses the Stoic test: has Philosophy taught you to live rightly, to discern truth from appearance, to separate what should be aimed at from what should be avoided? (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "Has Philosophy taught you how to live rightly? Are you skilled in discerning the appearance of truth? Have you marked off the things to be aimed at, and those again to be avoided?"

• attestation: Persius says the fashion of poets is to call for a hundred voices, mouths, and tongues for their songs (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "It is the fashion of poets to call for a hundred voices, a hundred mouths and a hundred tongues for their lays."

• attestation: Persius warns that retaining a crafty fox in one's heart despite a smooth brow means losing the freedom he granted (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "But if you hold to your old skin, and though your brow be smooth still keep a crafty fox in that vapid heart of yours, I take back what I have just granted you."

• attestation: Persius declares that he speaks to Cornutus alone, showing how large a portion of his soul belongs to his teacher (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "To yourself alone, Cornutus, do I speak. It is a joy to me to show you, beloved friend, how large a portion of my soul is yours."

• attestation: As a youth, Persius lost the guardianship of the purple toga and hung up his bulla as an offering to the short-girt household gods (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "When first as a timid youth I lost the guardianship of the purple, and hung up my bulla as an offering to the short-girt household gods"

• attestation: Persius placed himself in the hands of Cornutus, whose rule straightened his crooked ways and whose reason moulded his struggling soul (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "I placed myself in your hands, Cornutus. Your rule, applied with unseen skill, straightened out the crooked ways; my soul, struggling to be mastered, was moulded by your reason."

• attestation: Persius and Cornutus were united in their work and their hours of rest (Satires (Persius) > Satire V > Text)

  "We two were one in our work; we were one in our hours of rest."

• attestation: Persius advises using what one has and not forcing a man to live scurvily for the sake of an heir (Satires (Persius) > Satire VI > Summary of Satire VI)

  "Do not force a man to live scurvily for the sake of an heir."

• attestation: Persius says he is wintering in his own Luna, heedless of the multitude and without envy of richer inferiors (Satires (Persius) > Satire VI > Summary of Satire VI)

  "I am wintering in my own Luna, regardless of the multitude, without envy of inferiors richer than myself."

• attestation: Persius advises using what one has, thrashing out the harvest, and committing a new crop to the soil (Satires (Persius) > Satire VI > Summary of Satire VI)

  "Use what you have, say I; thrash out your harvest, and commit a new crop to the soil."

• attestation: Persius refuses to eat nettles and smoked pig's cheek so that an undeserving heir may feast on goose's liver (Satires (Persius) > Satire VI > Text)

  "Am I to have my holiday dinner off nettles and a smoked pig's cheek in order that some day your young ne'er-do-weel may regale himself on a goose's liver?"

• attestation: Persius lives heedless of the mob, refusing to grow thin with vexation even though men of baser birth grow rich around him (Satires (Persius) > Satire VI > Text)

  "Here I live, heedless of the mob, untroubled because that corner of my neighbour's field is richer than my own; and though men of baser birth than I were growing rich, I should still refuse on that account to be bent double and grow thin with vexation."

• attestation: Persius warns against hoarding for an ungrateful heir who will be wrathful that the estate has been curtailed (Satires (Persius) > Satire VI > Text)

  "But your heir, you say, will be wrathful that you have curtailed your property. What? are you to be afraid of taunts like these on the other side of the grave?"

• attestation: Persius urges selling one's soul for gain and ransacking every corner of the earth to turn every coin into two (Satires (Persius) > Satire VI > Text)

  "Go, sell your soul for gain; buy and sell; ransack cunningly every corner of the earth; turn every coin into two."