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Satire V
Translated by Philip Francis
LEAVING imperial Rome, my course I steer | |
| To poor Aricia, and its moderate cheer. | |
| From all the Greeks, in rhetorician lore, | |
| The prize of learning my companion bore. | |
| To Forum-Appii thence we steer, a place | 5 |
| Stuffed with rank boatmen, and with vintners base, | |
| And laggard into two days’ journey broke | |
| What were but one to less-encumbered folk: | |
| The Appian road, however, yields most pleasure | |
| To those who choose to travel at their leisure. | 10 |
| The water here was of so foul a stream | |
| Against my stomach I a war proclaim, | |
| And wait, though not with much good-humor wait, | |
| While with keen appetites my comrades eat. | |
| Night o’er the earth now spread her dusky shade, | 15 |
| And through the heavens her starry train displayed, | |
| What time, between the slaves and boatmen rise | |
| Quarrels of clamorous rout. The boatman cries, | |
| “Step in, my masters!” when with open throat, | |
| “Enough, you scoundrel! will you sink the boat?” | 20 |
| Thus, while the mule is harnessed, and we pay | |
| Our freights, an hour in wrangling slips away. | |
| The fenny frogs with croakings hoarse and deep, | |
| And gnats, loud buzzing, drive away our sleep. | |
| Drenched in the lees of wine, the watery swain | 25 |
| And passenger in loud alternate strain | |
| Chant forth the absent fair, who warms his breast, | |
| Till wearied passenger retires to rest. | |
| Our clumsy bargeman sends his mule to graze, | |
| And the rough cable to a rock belays, | 30 |
| Then snores supine; but when at rising light | |
| Our boat stood still, up starts a hare-brained wight: | |
| With sallow cudgel breaks the bargeman’s pate, | |
| And bangs the mule at a well-favored rate. | |
| Thence onward laboring with a world of pain, | 35 |
| At ten, Feronia, we thy fountain gain: | |
| There land and bathe; then after dinner creep | |
| Three tedious miles, and climb the rocky steep | |
| Whence Anxur shines. Mæcenas was to meet | |
| Cocceius here, to settle things of weight; | 40 |
| For they had oft in embassy been joined, | |
| And reconciled the masters of mankind. | |
| Here, while I bathed my eyes with cooling ointment, | |
| They both arrived according to appointment; | |
| Fontcius too, a man of worth approved, | 45 |
| And no man more by Antony beloved. | |
| Laughing we leave an entertainment rare, | |
| The paltry pomp of Fundi’s foolish mayor, | |
| The scrivener Luscus; now with pride elate, | |
| With incense fumed, and big with robes of state. | 50 |
| From thence our wearied troop at Formiæ rests, | |
| Murena’s lodgers, and Fonteiust guests. | |
| Next rising morn with double joy we greet, | |
| For Plotius, Varius, Virgil here we meet: | |
| Pure spirits these; the world no purer knows; | 55 |
| For none my heart with more affection glows: | |
| How oft did we embrace! our joys how great! | |
| For sure no blessing in the power of fate | |
| Can be compared, in sanity of mind, | |
| To friends of such companionable kind. | 60 |
| Near the Campanian bridge that night we lay, | |
| Where commissaries our expense defray. | |
| Early next morn to Capua we came. | |
| Mæcenas goes to tennis; hurtful game | |
| To a weak stomach, and to tender eyes, | 65 |
| So down to sleep with Virgil, Horace lies. | |
| Then by Cocceius we were nobly treated, | |
| Whose house above the Caudian tavern’s seated. | |
| And now, O Muse, in faithful numbers tell | |
| The memorable squabble that befell, | 70 |
| When Messius and Sarmentus joined in fight, | |
| And whence descended each illustrious wight. | |
| Messius, of high descent, from Osci came; | |
| His mistress might her slave Sarmentus claim. | |
| From such famed ancestry our champions rise. | 75 |
| “Hear me, thou horse-faced rogue,” Sarmentus cries. | |
| We laugh; when Messius, throwing up his head, | |
| Accepts the challenge. “O,” Sarmentus said, | |
| “If you can threaten now, what would you do, | |
| Had not the horn been rooted out, that grew | 80 |
| Full in thy front?” A gash, of deep disgrace, | |
| Had stained the grisly honors of his face: | |
| Then on his country’s infamous disease, | |
| And his own face, his ribaldry displays: | |
| Begs him the one-eyed Cyclops’s part to dance, | 85 |
| Since he nor mask nor tragic buskins wants. | |
| Messius replied, in virulence of strain: | |
| “Did you to Saturn consecrate your chain? | |
| Though you were made a scrivener since your flight, | |
| Yet that can never hurt your lady’s right. | 90 |
| But, prithee, wherefore did you run away? | |
| Methinks a single pound of bread a day | |
| Might such a sleek, thin-gutted rogue content.” | |
| And thus the jovial length of night we spent. | |
| At our next inn our host was almost burned, | 95 |
| While some lean thrushes at the fire he turned. | |
| Through his old kitchen rolls the god of fire, | |
| And to the roof the vagrant flames aspire. | |
| But hunger all our terrors overcame, | |
| We fly to save our meat and quench the flame. | 100 |
| Apulia now my native mountains shows, | |
| Where the north-wind burns frore, and parching blows; | |
| Nor could we well have climbed the steepy height, | |
| Did we not at a neighboring village bait, | |
| Where from green wood the smouldering flames arise, | 105 |
| And with a smoky sorrow fill our eyes. | |
| In chariots thence at a large rate we came | |
| Eight leagues, and baited at a town, whose name | |
| Cannot in verse and measures be exprest, | |
| But may by marks and tokens well be guessed. | 110 |
| Its water, nature’s cheapest element, | |
| Is bought and sold; its bread most excellent; | |
| Which wary travellers provide with care, | |
| And on their shoulders to Canusium bear, | |
| Whose bread is gritty, and its wealthiest stream | 115 |
| Poor as the town’s of unpoetic name. | |
| Here Varius leaves us, and with tears he goes: | |
| With equal tenderness our sorrow flows. | |
| Onward to Rubi wearily we toiled, | |
| The journey long, the road with rain was spoiled | 120 |
| To Barium, famed for fish, we reached next day, | |
| The weather fairer, but much worse the way. | |
| Then water-cursed Egnatia gave us joke, | |
| And laughter great to hear the moon-struck folk | |
| Assert, if incense on their altars lay, | 125 |
| Without the help of fire it melts away. | |
| The sons of circumcision may receive | |
| The wondrous tale, which I shall ne’er believe, | |
| For I have better learned, in blissful ease | |
| That the good gods enjoy immortal days, | 130 |
| Nor anxiously their native skies forsake, | |
| When miracles the laws of nature break. | |
| From thence our travels to Brundusium bend, | |
| Where our long journey and my paper end. | |
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