Satire II

Set the whitest of white stones, Macrinus, to mark this bright day that places the gliding years to your account! Pour out libations to your Genius! You are not the man to utter a huckster’s prayer, such as you could only entrust to the gods in privacy. Most of our great men offer their libations from censers that divulge no secrets: it is not every man that is ready to make away with mutterings and whisperings from the temples, and to offer prayers such as all men may hear. “A sound mind,” “a fair name,” “good credit” — such prayers a man utters aloud, and in a stranger’s hearing — the rest he mutters to himself, under his breath: “O if only my uncle would go off! what a fine funeral I would give him!” or “if only favouring Hercules would cause a crock of silver to grate against my harrow!” or “if only I could wipe out that ward of mine who stands next before me in the succession: for indeed he is scrofulous, and full of acrid humours.” “There’s Nerius (lucky dog!) burying his third wife.” Is it that you may put up prayers like these with all due piety that you dip your head every morning twice and three times in the Tiber, washing off in his waters all the pollutions of the night?

Come now, answer me this question: it is a very little thing that I want to know; What is your opinion of Jupiter? Would you rank him above — “Above whom?” — Above whom, you ask? Well, shall we say Staius? or do you stick at that? Could you name a more upright judge than Staius; or one more fitted to be a guardian to an orphan family? Well then, just whisper to Staius the prayer with which you would impress the ear of Jupiter: — “O gracious Jupiter!” he would cry, “O Jupiter!” And will not Jupiter call upon himself, think you? Do you imagine that he has condoned everything because, when it thunders, the sacred fire rends an oak-tree in twain sooner than you and your house? Or because you are not lying in a grove, at the bidding of Ergenna and a sheep’s liver, an accursed and abhorred object, will Jupiter therefore offer you his foolish beard to pluck? And what is the price by which you have purchased a kindly hearing from the gods? Is it a dish of lights and greasy entrails?

See how a granny, or an auntie who fears the gods, takes baby out of his cradle: skilled in averting the evil eye, she first, with her middle finger, applies the charm of lustrous spittle to his forehead and slobbering lips; she then dandles the wizened Hopeful in her arms, and destines him in her prayers to the domains of a Licinus, or the mansion of a Crassus; “May kings and queens desire him for their daughter! May the maidens scramble for him! May roses bloom wherever he plants his foot!” — No! never shall prayer of mine be committed to a nurse; reject, O Jupiter, her petition, though she be clothed in white to ask it of thee!

You pray for strength of limb, and for a body that shall not fail you in old age. Good; but your grand dishes and rich ragouts forbid the gods to listen to you, and stay the hand of Jupiter.

Lusting for wealth, you slay an ox, and summon Mercury with a liver. “Grant that my household gods may prosper me!” you cry; “grant increase to my flocks and herds!” But how can that be, poor fool, when the fat of all those heifers is melting away in the flames? Yet on the fellow goes, bent upon winning his wish with his entrails and his rich cakes: — “I am now adding field to field, and flock to flock,” he cries, ever hoping and hoping on, till at length his last coin, duped and disappointed, heaves a vain sigh at the bottom of his purse!

Were I to offer you cups of silver, or gifts richly inlaid with gold, your heart would beat high with joy, and drops of sweat would trickle from your left breast. Hence your idea of overlaying the faces of the gods with triumphal gold; for you say, “Let those among the brazen brothers rank highest who send us dreams most free from gouty vapours, and let their beards be all of gold! Gold has now ousted Numa’s crockery, and the bronze vessels of Saturn; it has supplanted the urns and Tuscan pottery of the Vestals.

O Souls bowed down to earth, and void of all heavenly thoughts! What avails it to bring our ideas into the temples, and to infer from this sinful flesh of ours what is pleasing to the gods? It is the flesh that has spoilt our oil by mingling it with casia, and misused Tyrian purple for the soaking of Calabrian fleeces; it is this that has bidden us pluck the pearl from the shell, and tear out the veins of shining ore from the native clay. The flesh indeed sins, it sins, and yet it gets profit from its sinning. But tell me this, ye priests, what avails gold inside the sanctuary? Just as much as the dolls which maidens dedicate to Venus! Nay rather let us offer to the gods what the blear-eyed progeny of the great Messala cannot give out of his lordly salver: — a heart rightly attuned towards God and man; a mind pure in its inner depths, and a soul steeped in nobleness and honour. Give me these to offer in the temples, and a handful of corn shall win my prayer for me!