Satires 2.5 (Fairclough)

ULYSSES. One more question pray answer me, Tiresias, besides what you have told me. By what ways and means can I recover my lost fortune? Why laugh?

TIRESIAS. What! not enough for the man of wiles to sail back to Ithaca and gaze upon his household gods?

ULY. O you who have never spoken falsely to any man, you see how I am returning home, naked and in need, as you foretold; and there neither cellar nor herd is unrifled by the suitors. And yet birth and worth, without substance, are more paltry than seaweed.

TIR. Since, in plain terms, ’tis poverty you dread, hear by what means you can grow rich.

Suppose a thrush or other dainty be given you for your own, let it wing its way to where grandeur reigns and the owner is old. Your choice apples or whatever glories your trim farm bears you, let the rich man taste before your Lar; more to be reverenced than the Lar is he. However perjured he may be, though low of birth, stained with a brother’s blood, a runaway slave, yet, if he ask you to walk with him, do not decline to take the outer side.

Not so at Troy did I bear myself, but ever was matched with my betters.

TIR. Then you will be a poor man.

ULY. I’ll bid my valiant soul endure this. Ere now worse things have I borne. Go on, O prophet, and tell me how I am to rake up wealth and heaps of gold.

TIR. Well, I have told you, and I tell you now. Fish craftily in all waters for old men’s ills, and though one or two shrewd ones escape your wiles after nibbling off the bait, do not give up hope, or drop the art, though baffled. If some day a case, great or small, be contested in the Forum, whichever of the parties is rich and childless, villain though he be, who with wanton impudence calls the better man into court, do you become his advocate; spurn the citizen of the better name and cause, if he have a son at home or a fruitful wife. Say: “Quintus” it may be, or “Publius” (sensitive ears delight in the personal name), “your worth has made me your friend. I know the mazes of the law; I can defend a case. I will let anyone pluck out my eyes sooner than have him scorn you or rob you of a nutshell. This is my concern, that you lose nothing, and become not a jest.” Bid him go home and nurse his precious self; become yourself his counsel. Carry on, and stick at it, whether “the Dog-star red Dumb statues split,” with his elbow, “how steady he is, how helpful to his friends, how keen?” More tunnies will swim up, and your fish-ponds swell.

Again, if one with a fine fortune rears a sickly son whom he has taken up, then for fear lest open devotion to a childless man betray you, by your attentions worm your way to the hope that you may be named as second heir, and if some chance send the child to his grave, you may pass into his place. Seldom does this game fail.

Suppose someone gives you his will to read, be sure to decline and push the tablets from you; yet in such a way that with a side glance you may catch the substance of the second line on the first page. Swiftly run your eye across to see whether you are sole heir or share with others. Quite often a constable, new-boiled into a clerk, will dupe the gaping raven, and Nasica the fortune-hunter will make sport for Coranus.

ULY. Are you mad? or do you purposely make fun of me with your dim oracle?

TIR. O son of Laertes, whatever I say will or will not be; for prophecy is great Apollo’s gift to me.

ULY. But what means that story? Tell me, if you may.

TIR. In the days when a youthful hero, the Parthian’s dread, scion of high Aeneas’s lineage, shall be mighty by land and sea, the tall daughter of Nasica, who dreads paying up in full, shall wed gallant Coranus. Then shall the son-in-law thus proceed: to his father-in-law he shall give the tablets of his will, and pray him to read them. After many a refusal at length Nasica shall take them, and read them to himself, and shall find that nothing is left to him and his but—to whine.

Here’s another hint I give you. If it so chance that some crafty dame or freedman sways an old dotard, make common cause with them. Praise them, that they may praise you behind your back. This too helps; but far better is it to storm the citadel itself. Will the idiot write poor verses? Praise them. Is he a libertine? See that he has not to ask you; yourself obligingly hand over Penelope to your better.

ULY. You think so! Can she be tempted,—she so good, so pure, whom the suitors could not turn from the straight course?

TIR. Yes, for the young suitors who came were sparing of their gifts; their thoughts were not so much on loving as on eating. So it is your Penelope is virtuous; but if just once she gets from one old man a taste of gain in partnership with you, then she will be like the hound, which can never be frightened away from the greasy hide.

I will tell you something that happened when I was old. A wicked-old crone at Thebes, by the terms of her will, was buried thus: her corpse, well oiled, her heir carried on his bare shoulders. She wanted, of course, to see whether she could give him the slip when dead. I suppose, when she was living, he had borne too hard upon her.

Be cautious in your approach; neither fail in zeal, nor show zeal beyond measure. A chatterbox will offend the peevish and morose; yet you must not also be silent beyond bounds. Act the Davus of the comedy, and stand with head bowed, much like one overawed. With flattery make your advances; warn him, if the breeze stiffens, carefully to cover up his precious pate; shoulder a way and draw him out of a crowd; make a trumpet of your ear when he is chattering. Does he bore you with his love of praise? Then ply him with it till with hands uplifted to heaven he cry “enough!” and blow up the swelling bladder with turgid phrases.

And when from your long care and servitude he sets you free, and wide awake you hear the words, “To one-fourth let Ulysses be heir,” then, now and then, scatter about such words as these, “Ah! is my old friend Dama now no more? Where shall I find one so firm, so faithful?” and if you can do a bit of it, drop in some tears. If your face betray joy, you can hide it. If the tomb is left to your discretion, build it in style: let the neighbours praise the handsome funeral. If one of your co-heirs happens to be older than you, and has a bad cough, say to him that if he would like to buy land or a house that is in your share, you would gladly knock it down to him for a trifle.

But Proserpine, our queen, calls me back. Live and fare well!