Satire XIV (Gifford)

Yes, there are faults, Fuscinus, that disgrace
The noblest qualities of birth and place;
Which, like infectious blood, transmitted, run,
In one eternal stream, from sire to son.
If, in destructive play, the senior waste
His joyous nights, the child, with kindred taste,
Repeats, in miniature, the darling vice,
Shakes the small box, and cogs the little dice.
Nor does that infant fairer hopes inspire,
Who, trained by the gray epicure, his sire,
Has learned to pickle mushrooms, and, like him,
To souse the becaficos, till they swim!--
For take him, thus to early luxury bred,
Ere twice four springs have blossomed o'er his head,
And let ten thousand teachers, hoar with age,
Inculcate temperance from the stoic page;
His wish will ever be, in state to dine,
And keep his kitchen's honor from decline!
Does Rutilus inspire a generous mind,
Prone to forgive, and to slight errors blind;
Instill the liberal thought, that slaves have powers,
Sense, feeling, all, as exquisite as ours;
Or fury? He, who hears the sounding thong
With far more pleasure than the Siren's song;
Who, the stern tyrant of his small domain,
The Polypheme of his domestic train,
Knows no delight, save when the torturer's hand
Stamps, for low theft, the agonizing brand.--
O, what but rage can fill that stripling's breast,
Who sees his savage sire then only blest,
When his stretched ears drink in the wretches' cries,
And racks and prisons fill his vengeful eyes!
And dare we hope, yon girl, from Larga sprung,
Will e'er prove virtuous; when her little tongue
Ne'er told so fast her mother's wanton train,
But that she stopped and breathed, and stopped again?
Even from her tender years, unnatural trust!
The child was privy to the matron's lust:--
Scarce ripe for man, with her own hand, she writes
The billets, which the ancient bawd indites,
Employs the self-same pimps, and looks, ere long,
To share the visits of the amorous throng!
So Nature prompts: drawn by her secret tie,
We view a parent's deeds with reverent eye;
With fatal haste, alas! the example take,
And love the sin, for the dear sinner's sake.--
One youth, perhaps, formed of superior clay,
And warmed, by Titan, with a purer ray,
May dare to slight proximity of blood,
And, in despite of nature, to be good:
One youth--the rest the beaten pathway tread,
And blindly follow where their fathers led.
O fatal guides! this reason should suffice
To win you from the slippery route of vice,
This powerful reason; lest your sons pursue
The guilty track, thus plainly marked by you!
For youth is facile, and its yielding will
Receives, with fatal ease, the imprint of ill:
Hence Catilines in every clime abound;
But where are Cato and his nephew found!
Swift from the roof where youth, Fuscinus, dwell,
Immodest sights, immodest sounds expel;
THE PLACE IS SACRED: Far, far hence, remove,
Ye venal votaries of illicit love!
Ye dangerous knaves, who pander to be fed,
And sell yourselves to infamy for bread!
REVERENCE TO CHILDREN, AS TO HEAVEN, IS DUE:
When you would, then, some darling sin pursue,
Think that your infant offspring eyes the deed;
And let the thought abate your guilty speed,
Back from the headlong steep your steps entice,
And check you, tottering on the verge of vice.
O yet reflect! for should he e'er provoke,
In riper age, the law's avenging stroke
(Since not alone in person and in face,
But even in morals, he will prove his race,
And, while example acts with fatal force,
Side, nay outstrip, you, in the vicious course),
Vexed, you will rave and storm; perhaps, prepare,
Should threatening fail, to name another heir!
--Audacious! with what front do you aspire
To exercise the license of a sire?
When all, with rising indignation, view
The youth, in turpitude, surpassed by you,
By you, old fool, whose windy, brainless head,
Long since required the cupping-glass's aid!
Is there a guest expected? all is haste,
All hurry in the house, from first to last.
"Sweep the dry cobwebs down!" the master cries,
Whips in his hand, and fury in his eyes,
"Let not a spot the clouded columns stain;
Scour you the figured silver; you, the plain!"
O inconsistent wretch! is all this coil,
Lest the front hall, or gallery, daubed with soil
(Which, yet, a little sand removes), offend
The prying eye of some indifferent friend?
And do you stir not, that your son may see
The house from moral filth, from vices free!
True, you have given a citizen to Rome;
And she shall thank you, if the youth become,
By your o'er-ruling care, or soon or late,
A useful member of the parent state:
For all depends on you; the stamp he'll take,
From the strong impress which, at first, you make;
And prove, as vice or virtue was your aim,
His country's glory, or his country's shame.
The stork, with snakes and lizards from the wood
And pathless wild, supports her callow brood;
And the fledged storklings, when to wing they take,
Seek the same reptiles, through the devious brake.
The vulture snuffs from far the tainted gale,
And, hurrying where the putrid scents exhale,
From gibbets and from graves the carcass tears,
And to her young the loathsome dainty bears;
Her young, grown vigorous, hasten from the nest,
And gorge on carrion, with the parent's zest.
While Jove's own eagle, bird of noble blood,
Scours the wide champaign for untainted food,
Bears the swift hare, or swifter fawn away,
And feeds her nestlings with the generous prey;
Her nestlings hence, when from the rock they spring,
And, pinched by hunger, to the quarry wing,
Stoop only to the game they tasted first,
When, clamorous, from the shell, to light they burst.
Centronius planned and built, and built and planned;
And now along Cajeta's winding strand,
And now amid Præneste's hills, and now
On lofty Tibur's solitary brow,
He reared prodigious piles, with marble brought
From distant realms, and exquisitely wrought:
Prodigious piles! that towered o'er Fortune's shrine,
As those of gelt Posides, Jove, o'er thine!
While thus Centronius crowded seat on seat,
He spent his cash, and mortgaged his estate;
Yet left enough his family to content:
Which his mad son, to the last farthing, spent,
While, building on, he strove, with fond desire,
To shame the stately structures of his sire!
Sprung from a father who the sabbath fears,
There is, who naught but clouds and skies reveres;
And shuns the taste, by old tradition led,
Of human flesh, and swine's, with equal dread:--
This first: the prepuce next he lays aside,
And, taught the Roman ritual to deride,
Clings to the Jewish, and observes with awe
All Moses bade in his mysterious law:
And, therefore, to the circumcised alone
Will point the road, or make the fountain known;
Warned by his bigot sire, who whiled away,
Sacred to sloth, each seventh revolving day.
But youth, so prone to follow other ills,
Are driven to AVARICE, against their wills;
For this grave vice, assuming Virtue's guise,
Seems Virtue's self, to undiscerning eyes.
The miser, hence, a frugal man, they name;
And hence, they follow, with their whole acclaim,
The griping wretch, who strictlier guards his store,
Than if the Hesperian dragon kept the door.--
Add that the vulgar, still a slave to gold,
The worthy, in the wealthy, man behold;
And, reasoning from the fortune he has made,
Hail him, A perfect master of his trade!
And true, indeed, it is--such MASTERS raise
Immense estates; no matter, by what ways;
But raise they do, with brows in sweat still dyed,
With forge still glowing, and with sledge still plied.
The father, by the love of wealth possest,
Convinced--the covetous alone are blest,
And that, nor past, nor present times, e'er knew
A poor man happy--bids his son pursue
The paths they take, the courses they affect,
And follow, at the heels, this thriving sect.
Vice boasts its elements, like other arts;
These, he inculcates first: anon, imparts
The petty tricks of saving; last, inspires,
Of endless wealth, the insatiable desires.--
Hungry himself, his hungry slaves he cheats,
With scanty measures, and unfaithful weights;
And sees them lessen, with increasing dread,
The flinty fragments of his vinewed bread.
In dog-days, when the sun, with fervent power,
Corrupts the freshest meat from hour to hour,
He saves the last night's hash, sets by a dish
Of sodden beans, and scraps of summer fish,
And half a stinking shad, and a few strings
Of a chopped leek--all told, like sacred things,
And sealed with caution, though the sight and smell
Would a starved beggar from the board repel.
But why this dire avidity of gain?
This mass collected with such toil and pain?
Since 'tis the veriest madness, to live poor,
And die with bags and coffers running o'er.
Besides, while thus the streams of affluence roll,
They nurse the eternal dropsy of the soul,
For thirst of wealth still grows with wealth increast,
And they desire it less, who have it least.--
Now swell his wants: one manor is too small,
Another must be bought, house, lands, and all;
Still "cribbed confined," he spurns the narrow bounds,
And turns an eye on every neighbor's grounds:
There all allures; his crops appear a foil
To the rich produce of their happier soil.
"And this, I'll purchase, with the grove," he cries,
"And that fair hill, where the gray olives rise."
Then, if the owner to no price will yield
(Resolved to keep the hereditary field),
Whole droves of oxen, starved to this intent,
Among his springing corn, by night, are sent,
To revel there, till not a blade be seen,
And all appear like a close-shaven green.
"Monstrous!" you say--And yet, 'twere hard to tell,
What numbers, tricks like these have forced to sell.
But, sure, the general voice has marked his name,
And given him up to infamy and shame:--
"And what of that?" he cries. "I valued more
A single lupine, added to my store,
Than all the country's praise; if cursed by fate
With the scant produce of a small estate."--
'Tis well! no more shall age or grief annoy,
But nights of peace succeed to days of joy,
If more of ground to you alone pertain,
Than Rome possessed, in Numa's pious reign!
Since then, the veteran, whose brave breast was gored,
By the fierce Pyrrhic, or Molossian sword,
Hardly received for all his service past,
And all his wounds, TWO ACRES at the last;
The meed of toil and blood! yet never thought
His country thankless, or his pains ill bought.
For then, this little glebe, improved with care,
Largely supplied, with vegetable fare,
The good old man, the wife in childbed laid,
And four hale boys, that round the cottage played,
Three free-born, one a slave: while, on the board,
Huge porringers, with wholesome pottage stored,
Smoked for their elder brothers, who were now,
Hungry and tired, expected from the plow.--
TWO ACRES will not now, so changed the times,
Afford a garden plot:--and hence our crimes!
For not a vice that taints the human soul,
More frequent points the sword, or drugs the bowl,
Than the dire lust of an "untamed estate"--
Since, he who covets wealth, disdains to wait:
Law threatens, Conscience calls--yet on he hies,
And this he silences, and that defies,
Fear, Shame--he bears down all, and, with loose rein,
Sweeps headlong o'er the alluring paths of gain!
"Let us, my sons, contented with our lot,
Enjoy, in peace, our hillock and our cot"
(The good old Marsian to his children said),
"And from our labor seek our daily bread.
So shall we please the rural Powers, whose care,
And kindly aid, first taught us to prepare
The golden grain, what time we ranged the wood,
A savage race, for acorns, savage food!
The poor who, with inverted skins, defy
The lowering tempest and the freezing sky,
Who, without shame, without reluctance go,
In clouted brogues, through mire and drifted snow,
Ne'er think of ill: 'tis purple, boys, alone,
Which leads to guilt--purple, to us unknown."
Thus, to their children, spoke the sires of yore.
Now, autumn's sickly heats are scarcely o'er,
Ere, while deep midnight yet involves the skies,
The impatient father shakes his son, and cries,
"What, ho, boy, wake! Up; pleas, rejoinders draw,
Turn o'er the rubric of our ancient law;
Up, up, and study: or, with brief in hand,
Petition Lælius for a small command,
A captain's!--Lælius loves a spreading chest,
Broad shoulders, tangled locks, and hairy breast:
The British towers, the Moorish tents destroy,
And the rich Eagle, at threescore, enjoy!"
"But if the trump, prelusive to the fight,
And the long labors of the camp affright,
Go, look for merchandise of readiest vent,
Which yields a sure return of cent. per cent.
Buy this, no matter what; the ware is good,
Though not allowed on this side Tiber's flood:
Hides, unguents, mark me, boy, are equal things,
And gain smells sweet, from whatsoe'er it springs.
This golden sentence, which the Powers of heaven,
Which Jove himself, might glory to have given,
Will never, never, from your thoughts, I trust--
NONE QUESTION WHENCE IT COMES; BUT COME IT MUST."
This, when the lisping race a farthing ask,
Old women set them, as a previous task;
The wondrous apophthegm all run to get,
And learn it sooner than their alphabet.
But why this haste? Without your care, vain fool!
The pupil will, ere long, the tutor school:
Sleep, then, in peace; secure to be outdone,
Like Telamon, or Peleus, by your son.
O, yet indulge awhile his tender years:
The seeds of vice, sown by your fostering cares,
Have scarce ta'en root; but they will spring at length,
"Grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength."
Then, when the firstlings of his youth are paid,
And his rough chin requires the razor's aid,
Then he will swear, then to the altar come,
And sell deep perjuries for a paltry sum!--
Believe your step-daughter already dead,
If, with an ample dower, she mount his bed:
Lo! scarcely laid, his murderous fingers creep,
And close her eyes in everlasting sleep.
For that vast wealth which, with long years of pain,
You thought would be acquired by land and main,
He gets a readier way: the skill's not great,
The toil not much, to make a knave complete.
But you will say hereafter, "I am free:
He never learned those practices of me."
Yes, all of you:--for he who, madly blind,
Imbues with avarice his children's mind,
Fires with the thirst of riches, and applauds
The attempt, to double their estate by frauds,
Unconscious, flings the headlong wheels the rein,
Which he may wish to stop, but wish in vain;
Deaf to his voice, with growing speed they roll,
Smoke down the steep, and spurn the distant goal!
None sin by rule; none heed the charge precise,
THUS, AND NO FARTHER, MAY YE STEP IN VICE;
But leap the bounds prescribed, and, with free pace,
Scour far and wide the interdicted space.
So, when you tell the youth, that FOOLS alone
Regard a friend's distresses as their own;
You bid the willing hearer riches raise,
By fraud, by rapine, by the worst of ways;
Riches, whose love is on your soul imprest,
Deep as their country's on the Decii's breast;
Or Thebes on his, who sought an early grave
(If Greece say true), her sacred walls to save.
Thebes, where, impregned with serpents' teeth, the earth
Poured forth a marshaled host, prodigious birth!
Horrent with arms, that fought with headlong rage,
Nor asked the trumpet's signal, to engage.--
But mark the end! the fire, derived, at first,
From a small sparkle, by your folly nurst,
Blown to a flame, on all around it preys,
And wraps you in the universal blaze.
So the young lion rent, with hideous roar,
His keeper's trembling limbs, and drank his gore.
"Tush! I am safe," you cry; "Chaldæan seers
Have raised my Scheme, and promised length of years."
But has your son subscribed? will he await
The lingering distaff of decrepit Fate?
No; his impatience will the work confound,
And snap the vital thread, ere half unwound.
Even now your long and stag-like age annoys
His future hopes, and palls his present joys.
Fly then, and bid Archigenes prepare
An antidote, if life be worth your care;
If you would see another autumn close,
And pluck another fig, another rose:--
Take mithridate, rash man, before your meat,
A FATHER, you? and without medicine eat!
Come, my Fuscinus, come with me, and view
A scene more comic than the stage e'er knew.
Lo! with what toil, what danger, wealth is sought,
And to the fane of watchful Castor brought;
Since MARS THE AVENGER slumbered, to his cost,
And, with his helmet, all his credit lost!
Quit then the plays! the FARCE OF LIFE supplies
A scene more comic in the sage's eyes.
For who amuses most?--the man who springs,
Light, through the hoop, and on the tight-rope swings;
Or he, who, to a fragile bark confined,
Dwells on the deep, the sport of wave and wind?
Fool-hardy wretch! scrambling for every bale
Of stinking merchandise, exposed to sale;
And proud to Crete, for ropy wine, to rove,
And jars, the fellow-citizens of Jove!
THAT skips along the rope, with wavering tread,
Dangerous dexterity, which brings him bread;
THIS ventures life, for wealth too vast to spend,
Farm joined to farm, and villas without end!
Lo! every harbor thronged and every bay,
And half mankind upon the watery way!
For, where he hears the attractive voice of gain,
The merchant hurries, and defies the main.--
Nor will he only range the Libyan shore,
But, passing Calpé, other worlds explore;
See Phœbus, sinking in the Atlantic, lave
His fiery car, and hear the hissing wave.
And all for what? O glorious end! to come,
His toils o'erpast, with purse replenished, home,
And, with a traveler's privilege, vent his boasts,
Of unknown monsters seen on unknown coasts.
What varying forms in madness may we trace!--
Safe in his loved Electra's fond embrace,
Orestes sees the avenging Furies rise,
And flash their bloody torches in his eyes;
While Ajax strikes an ox, and, at the blow,
Hears Agamemnon or Ulysses low:
And surely he (though, haply, he forbear,
Like these, his keeper and his clothes to tear)
Is just as mad, who to the water's brim
Loads his frail bark--a plank 'twixt death and him!
When all this risk is but to swell his store
With a few coins, a few gold pieces more.
Heaven lowers, and frequent, through the muttering air,
The nimble lightning glares, or seems to glare:
"Weigh! weigh!" the impatient man of traffic cries,
"These gathering clouds, this rack that dims the skies,
Are but the pageants of a sultry day;
A thunder shower, that frowns, and melts away."
Deluded wretch! dashed on some dangerous coast,
This night, this hour, perhaps, his bark is lost;
While he still strives, though whelmed beneath the wave,
His darling purse with teeth or hand to save.
Thus he, who sighed, of late, for all the gold
Down the bright Tagus and Pactolus rolled,
Now bounds his wishes to one poor request,
A scanty morsel and a tattered vest;
And shows, where tears, where supplications fail,
A daubing of his melancholy tale!
Wealth, by such dangers earned, such anxious pain,
Requires more care to keep it, than to gain:
Whate'er my miseries, make me not, kind Fate,
The sleepless Argus of a vast estate!
The slaves of Licinus, a numerous band,
Watch through the night, with buckets in their hand,
While their rich master trembling lies, afraid
Lest fire his ivory, amber, gold, invade,
The naked Cynic mocks such restless cares,
His earthen tub no conflagration fears;
If cracked, to-morrow he procures a new,
Or, coarsely soldering, makes the old one do.
Even Philip's son, when, in his little cell
Content, he saw the mighty master dwell,
Owned, with a sigh, that he, who naught desired,
Was happier far, than he who worlds required,
And whose ambition certain dangers brought,
Vast, and unbounded, as the object sought.--
Fortune, advanced to heaven by fools alone,
Would lose, were wisdom ours, her shadowy throne.
"What call I, then, ENOUGH?" What will afford
A decent habit, and a frugal board;
What Epicurus' little garden bore,
And Socrates sufficient thought, before:
These squared by Nature's rules their blameless life--
Nature and Wisdom never are at strife.
You think, perhaps, these rigid means too scant,
And that I ground philosophy on want;
Take then (for I will be indulgent now,
And something for the change of times allow),
As much as Otho for a knight requires:--
If this, unequal to your wild desires,
Contract your brow; enlarge the sum, and take
As much as two--as much as three--will make.
If yet, in spite of this prodigious store,
Your craving bosom yawn, unfilled, for more,
Then, all the wealth of Lydia's king, increast
By all the treasures of the gorgeous East,
Will not content you; no, nor all the gold
Of that proud slave, whose mandate Rome controlled,
Who swayed the Emperor, and whose fatal word
Plunged in the Empress' breast the lingering sword!