[Further abridged for class by George H. Williams.]
From The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis: Translated into English Verse by Mr. Dryden and Several Other Eminent Hands (London, 1693). The text follows the 1693 edition in spelling and capitalization, with only a few obvious typos corrected. I've added paragraph numbers and have footnoted some of the passages in classical languages and obscure allusions, but haven't tried to track down every reference. Greek words are transliterated. Whenever possible, I've used Dryden's own translations of Roman authors. This abridgment is about a third of the original; the paragraph numbers correspond to the original unabridged text, and show where omissions have been made. A very few omissions within paragraphs are noted by ellipses.
[32] And now, my Lord, to apply what I have said, to my present Business; the Satires of Juvenal and Persius, appearing in this New English Dress, cannot so properly be Inscrib'd to any Man as to Your Lordship, who are the First of the Age in that way of Writing. Your Lordship, amongst many other Favours, has given me Your Permission for this Address; and You have particularly Encourag'd me by Your Perusal and Approbation of the Sixth and Tenth Satires of Juvenal, as I have Translated them. My fellow Labourers, have likewise Commission'd me, to perform in their behalf this Office of a Dedication to you; and will acknowledge with all possible Respect and Gratitude, your Acceptance of their Work. Some of them have the Honour to be known to your Lordship already; and they who have not yet that happiness, desire it now. Be pleas'd to receive our common Endeavours with your wonted Candor, without Intitleing you to the Protection of our common Failings, in so difficult an Undertakeing. And allow me your Patience, if it be not already tir'd with this long Epistle, to give you from the Best Authors, the Origine, the Antiquity, the Growth, the Change, and the Compleatment of Satire among the Romans. To Describe, if not Define, the Nature of that Poem, with it's several Qualifications and Virtues, together with the several sorts of it. To compare the Excellencies of Horace, Persius and Juvenal, and shew the particular Manners of their Satires. And lastly, to give an Account of this New Way of Version which is attempted in our Performance. All which, according to the weakness of my Ability, and the best Lights which I can get from others, shall be the Subject of my following Discourse.
[37] There has been a long Dispute amongst the Modern Critiques, whether the Romans deriv'd their Satire from the Grecians, or first Invented it themselves. Julius Scaliger and Heinsius, are of the first Opinion; Casaubon, Rigaltius, Dacier, and the Publisher of the Dauphin's Juvenal maintain the Latter. If we take Satire in the general signification of the Word, as it is us'd in all Modern Languages, for an Invective, 'tis certain that it is almost as old as Verse; and tho' Hymns, which are praises of God, may be allow'd to have been before it, yet the defamation of others was not long after it. After God had Curs'd Adam and Eve in Paradise, the Husband and Wife excus'd themselves, by laying the blame on one another; and gave a beginning to those Conjugal Dialogues in Prose; which the Poets have perfected in Verse. The Third Chapter of Job is one of the first Instances of this Poem in Holy Scripture: Unless we will take it higher, from the latter end of the second; where his Wife advises him to curse his Maker.
[38] This Original, I confess, is not much to the Honour of Satire; but here it was Nature, and that deprav'd: When it became an Art, it bore better Fruit. Only we have learnt thus much already, that Scoffs and Revilings are of the growth of all Nations; and consequently that neither the Greek Poets borrow'd from other People their Art of Railing, neither needed the Romans to take it from them. But considering Satire as a Species of Poetry; here the War begins amongst the Criticks.
[39] Scaliger the Father will have it descend from Greece to Rome; and derives the word Satyre, from Satyrus, that mixt kind of Animal, or, as the Ancients thought him, Rural God, made up betwixt a Man and a Goat; with a Humane Head, Hook'd Nose, Powting Lips, a Bunch, or Struma under the Chin, prick'd Ears, and upright Horns; the Body shagg'd with hair, especially from the waste, and ending in a Goat, with the legs and feet of that Creature. But Casaubon, and his Followers, with Reason, condemn this derivation; and prove that from Satyrus, the word Satira, as it signifies a Poem, cannot possibly descend. For Satira is not properly a Substantive, but an Adjective; to which, the word Lanx, in English a Charger, or large Platter, is understood: So that the Greek Poem made according to the Manners of a Satyr, and expressing his Qualities, must properly be call'd Satyrical, and not Satire: And thus far 'tis allow'd, that the Grecians had such Poems; but that they where wholly different in Specie, from that to which the Romans gave the Name of Satire.
[40] Aristotle divides all Poetry, in relation to the Progress of it, into Nature without Art: Art begun, and Art Compleated. Mankind, even the most Barbarous have the Seeds of Poetry implanted in them. The first Specimen of it was certainly shewn in the Praises of the Deity, and Prayers to him: And as they are of Natural Obligation, so they are likewise of Divine Institution. Which Milton observing, introduces Adam and Eve, every Morning adoring God in Hymns and Prayers. The first Poetry was thus begun, in the wild Notes of Nature, before the invention of Feet, and Measures. The Grecians and Romans had no other Original of their Poetry. Festivals and Holydays soon succeeded to Private Worship, and we need not doubt but they were enjoyn'd by the true God to his own People; as they were afterwards imitated by the Heathens; who by the light of Reason knew they were to invoke some Superiour Being in their Necessities, and to thank him for his Benefits. Thus the Grecian Holydays were Celebrated with Offerings to Bacchus and Ceres, and other Deities, to whose Bounty they suppos'd they were owing for their Corn and Wine, and other helps of Life. And the Ancient Romans, as Horace tells us, paid their thanks to Mother Earth, or Vesta, to Silvanus, and their Genius, in the same manner. But as all Festivals have a double Reason of their Institution; the first of Religion, the other of Recreation, for the unbending of our Minds: So both the Grecians and Romans agreed, after their Sacrifices were perform'd, to spend the remainder of the day in Sports and Merriments; amongst which, Songs and Dances, and that which they call'd Wit, (for want of knowing better,) were the chiefest Entertainments. The Grecians had a notion of Satyres, whom I have already describ'd; and taking them, and the Sileni, that is the young Satyrs and the old, for the Tutors, Attendants, and Humble Companions of their Bacchus, habited themselves like those Rural Deities, and imitated them in their Rustick Dances, to which they join'd Songs, with some sort of rude Harmony, but without certain Numbers; and to these they added a kind of Chorus.
[41] The Romans also (as Nature is the same in all places) though they knew nothing of those Grecian Demi-Gods, nor had any Communication with Greece, yet had certain Young Men, who at their Festivals, Danc'd and Sung after their uncouth manner, to a certain kind of Verse, which they call'd Saturnian; what it was, we have no very certain light from Antiquity to discover; but we may conclude, that, like the Grecian, it was void of Art, or at least with very feeble beginnings of it. Those Ancient Romans, at these Holydays, which were a mixture of Devotion and Debauchery, had a Custom of reproaching each other with their Faults, in a sort of Extempore Poetry, or rather of tunable hobling Verse; and they answer'd in the same kind of gross Raillery; their Wit and their Musick being of a piece. The Grecians, says Casaubon, had formerly done the same, in the Persons of their petulant Satyrs: But I am afraid he mistakes the matter, and confounds the Singing and Dancing of the Satyrs, with the Rustical Entertainments of the first Romans. The Reason of my Opinion is this; that Casaubon finding little light from Antiquity, of these beginnings of Poetry, amongst the Grecians, but only these Representations of Satyrs, who carry'd Canisters and Cornucopias full of several Fruits in their hands, and danc'd with them at their Publick Feasts: And afterwards reading Horace, who makes mention of his homely Romans, jesting at one another in the same kind of Solemnities, might suppose those wanton Satyrs did the same. And especially because Horace possibly might seem to him, to have shewn the Original of all Poetry in general, including the Grecians, as well as Romans: Though 'tis plainly otherwise, that he only describ'd the beginning, and first Rudiments of Poetry in his own Country.
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[53] Quintilian says, in plain words, Satira quidem tota, nostra est: And Horace had said the same thing before him, speaking of his Predecessor in that sort of Poetry, Et Gręcis intacti Carminis Author. Nothing can be clearer than the Opinion of the Poet, and the Orator, both the best Criticks of the two best Ages of the Roman Empire, than that Satire was wholly of Latin growth, and not transplanted to Rome from Athens. Yet, as I have said, Scaliger, the Father, according to his Custom, that is, insolently enough, contradicts them both; and gives no better Reason, than the derivation of Satyrus from sathu, Salacitas; and so from the Lechery of those Fauns, thinks he has sufficiently prov'd, that Satyre is deriv'd from them. As if Wantonness and lubricity, were Essential to that sort of Poem, which ought to be avoided in it. His other Allegation, which I have already mention'd, is as pitiful: That the Satyres carried Platters and Canisters full of Fruit, in their Hands. If they had enter'd empty-handed, had they been ever the less Satyres? Or were the Fruits and Flowers, which they offer'd, any thing of kin to Satyre? Or any Argument that this Poem was Originally Grecian? Causaubon judg'd better, and his Opinion is grounded on sure Authority; that Satyre was deriv'd from Satura, a Roman word, which signifies Full, and Abundant; and full also of Variety, in which nothing is wanting to its due Perfection. 'Tis thus, says Dacier, that we lay a full Colour, when the Wool has taken the whole Tincture, and drunk in as much of the Dye as it can receive. According to this Derivation, from Satar comes Satura, or Satira: According to the new spelling, as optamus and maxumus are now spell'd optimus and maximus. Satura, as I have formerly noted, is an Adjective, and relates to the word Lanx, which is understood. And this Lanx, in English a Charger, or large Platter, was yearly fill'd with all sorts of Fruits, which were offer'd to the Gods at their Festivals, as the Premices, or First Gatherings. These Offerings of several sorts thus mingl'd, 'tis true, were not unknown to the Grecians, who call'd them pankarpon thysian, a Sacrifice of all sorts of Fruits; and panspermion, when they offer'd all kinds of Grain. Virgil has mention'd these Sacrifices in his Georgiques.
Lancibus & pandis, fumantia reddimus Exta:
And in another place, Lancesq; & liba feremus. That is, we offer the smoaking Entrails in great Platters; and we will offer the Chargers, and the Cakes.
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[72] This is what I have to say in General of Satire: Only as Dacier has observ'd before me, we may take notice, That the word Satire is of a more general signification in Latin, than in French, or English. For amongst the Romans it was not only us'd for those Discourses which decry'd Vice, or expos'd Folly; but for others also, where Virtue was recommended. But in our Modern Languages we apply it only to invective Poems, where the very Name of Satire is formidable to those Persons, who wou'd appear to the World, what they are not in themselves. For in English, to say Satire, is to mean Reflection, as we use that word in the worst Sense; or as the French call it, more properly, Medisance. In the Criticism of Spelling, it ought to be with i and not with y; to distinguish its true derivation from Satura, not from Satyrus. And if this be so, then 'tis false spell'd throughout this Book: For here 'tis written Satyr. Which having not consider'd at the first, I thought it not worth Correcting afterwards. But the French are more nice, and never spell it any other ways than Satire.
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[89] I wou'd willingly divide the Palm betwixt them; upon the two Heads of Profit and Delight, which are the two Ends of Poetry in general. It must be granted by the Favourers of Juvenal, that Horace is the more Copious, and Profitable in his Instructions of Humane Life. But in my particular Opinion, which I set not up for a Standard to better Judgments, Juvenal is the more delightful Author. I am profited by both, I am pleas'd with both; but I owe more to Horace for my Instruction; and more to Juvenal, for my Pleasure. This, as I said, is my particular Taste of these two Authors: They who will have either of them to excel the other in both qualities, can scarce give better Reasons for their Opinion, than I for mine: But all unbiass'd Readers, will conclude, that my Moderation is not to be Condemn'd: To such Impartial Men I must appeal: For they who have already form'd their Judgment, may justly stand suspected of prejudice; and tho all who are my Readers, will set up to be my Judges, I enter my Caveat against them, that they ought not so much as to be of my Jury. Or, if they be admitted, 'tis but Reason, that they shou'd first hear, what I have to urge in the Defence of my Opinion.
[90] That Horace is somewhat the better Instructor of the two, is prov'd from hence, that his Instructions are more general: Juvenal's more limited. So that granting, that the Counsels which they give, are equally good for Moral Use; Horace, who gives the most various Advice, and most applicable to all Occasions, which can occurr to us, in the course of our Lives; as including in his Discourses, not only all the Rules of Morality, but also of Civil Conversation; is, undoubtedly, to be preferr'd to him, who is more circumscrib'd in his Instructions, makes them to fewer People, and on fewer Occasions, than the other. I may be pardon'd for using an Old Saying, since 'tis true, and to the purpose, Bonum que communius, eo melius. Juvenal, excepting only his first Satire, is in all the rest confin'd, to the exposing of some particuler Vice; that he lashes, and there he sticks. His Sentences are truly shining and instructive: But they are sprinkl'd here and there. Horace is teaching us in every Line, and is perpetually Moral; he had found out the Skill of Virgil, to hide his Sentences: To give you the Virtue of them, without shewing them in their full extent: Which is the Ostentation of a Poet, and not his Art: And this Petronius charges on the Authors of his Time, as a Vice of Writing, which was then growing on the Age. Ne Sententię extra Corpus Orationis emineant: He wou'd have them weav'd into the Body of the Work, and not appear emboss'd upon it, and striking directly on the Reader's view. Folly was the proper Quarry of Horace, and not Vice: And, as there are but few Notoriously Wicked Men, in comparison with a Shoal of Fools, and Fops; so 'tis a harder thing to make a Man Wise, than to make him Honest: For the Will is only to be reclaim'd in the one; but the Understanding is to be inform'd in the other. There are Blind-sides and Follies, even in the Professors of Moral Philosophy; and there is not any one Sect of them that Horace has not expos'd. Which as it was not the Design of Juvenal, who was wholly employ'd in lashing Vices, some of them the most enormous that can be imagin'd; so perhaps, it was not so much his Talent. Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico, tangit, & admissus circum pręcordia ludit. This was the Commendation which Persius gave him: Where by Vitium, he means those little Vices, which we call Follies, the defects of Humane Understanding, or at most the Peccadillos of Life, rather than the Tragical Vices, to which Men are hurri'd by their unruly Passions and exorbitant Desires. But in the word omne, which is universal, he concludes, with me, that the Divine Wit of Horace, left nothing untouch'd; that he enter'd into the inmost Recesses of Nature; found out the Imperfections even of the most Wise and Grave, as well as of the Common People: Discovering, even in the great Trebatius, to whom he addresses the first Satire, his hunting after Business, and following the Court, as well as in the Persecutor Crispinus, his impertinence and importunity. 'Tis true, he exposes Crispinus openly, as a common Nuisance: But he rallies the other, as a Friend, more finely. The Exhortations of Persius are confin'd to Noblemen: And the Stoick Philosophy, is that alone, which he recommends to them: Juvenal Exhorts to particular Virtues, as they are oppos'd to those Vices against which he declaims: But Horace laughs to shame, all Follies, and insinuates Virtue, rather by familiar Examples, than by the severity of Precepts.
[91] ...I must confess, that the Delight which Horace gives me, is but languishing. Be pleas'd still to understand, that I speak of my own Taste only: He may Ravish other Men; but I am too stupid and insensible, to be tickl'd. Where he barely grins himself, and, as Scaliger says, only shews his white Teeth, he cannot provoke me to any Laughter. His Urbanity, that is, his Good Manners, are to be commended, but his Wit is faint; and his Salt, if I may dare to say so, almost insipid. Juvenal is of a more vigorous and Masculine Wit, he gives me as much Pleasure as I can bear: He fully satisfies my Expectation, he Treats his Subject home: His Spleen is rais'd, and he raises mine: I have the Pleasure of Concernment in all he says; He drives his Reader along with him; and when he is at the end of his way, I willingly stop with him: If he went another Stage, it wou'd be too far, it wou'd make a Journey of a Progress, and turn Delight into Fatigue. When he gives over, 'tis a sign the Subject is exhausted; and the Wit of Man can carry it no farther. If a Fault can be justly found in him; 'tis that he is sometimes too luxuriant, too redundant; says more than he needs, like my Friend the Plain Dealer, but never more than pleases. Add to this, that his Thoughts are as just as those of Horace, and much more Elevated. His Expressions are Sonorous and more Noble; his Verse more numerous, and his Words are suitable to his Thoughts; sublime and lofty. All these contribute to the Pleasure of the Reader, and the greater the Soul of him who Reads, his Transports are the greater. Horace is always on the Amble, Juvenal on the Gallop: But his way is perpetually on Carpet Ground. He goes with more impetuosity than Horace; but as securely; and the swiftness adds a more lively agitation to the Spirits. The low Style of Horace, is according to his Subject; that is generally groveling. I question not but he cou'd have rais'd it. For the First Epistle of the Second Book, which he writes to Augustus, (a most instructive Satire concerning Poetry,) is of so much Dignity in the Words, and of so much Elegancy in the Numbers, that the Author plainly shews, the Sermo Pedestris, in his other Satires, was rather his Choice than his Necessity. He was a Rival to Lucilius his Predecessor; and was resolv'd to surpass him in his own Manner. Lucilius, as we see by his remaining Fragments, minded neither his Style nor his Numbers, nor his purity of words, nor his run of Verse. Horace therefore copes with him in that humble way of Satire. Writes under his own force, and carries a dead Weight, that he may match his Competitor in the Race. This I imagine was the chief Reason, why he minded only the clearness of his Satire, and the cleanness of Expression, without ascending to those heights, to which his own vigour might have carri'd him. But limiting his desires only to the Conquest of Lucilius, he had his Ends of his Rival, who liv'd before him; but made way for a new Conquest over himself, by Juvenal his Successor. He cou'd not give an equal pleasure to his Reader, because he us'd not equal Instruments. The fault was in the Tools, and not in the Workman. But Versification, and Numbers, are the greatest Pleasures of Poetry: Virgil knew it, and practis'd both so happily; that for ought I know, his greatest Excellency is in his Diction. In all other parts of Poetry, he is faultless; but in this he plac'd his chief perfection. And give me leave, my Lord, since I have here an apt occasion, to say, that Virgil, cou'd have written sharper Satires, than either Horace or Juvenal, if he wou'd have employ'd his Talent, that way. I will produce a Verse and half of his, in one of his Eclogues, to justifie my Opinion: And with Comma's after every Word, to shew, that he has given almost as many lashes, as he has written Syllables. 'Tis against a bad Poet; whose ill Verses he describes. Non tu, in triviis, indocte, solebas, stridenti, miserum, stipula, disperdere carmen? But to return to my purpose, when there is any thing deficient in Numbers, and Sound, the Reader is uneasie, and unsatisfi'd; he wants something of his Complement, desires somewhat which he finds not: And this being the manifest defect of Horace, 'tis no wonder, that finding it supply'd in Juvenal, we are more Delighted with him. And besides this, the Sauce of Juvenal is more poignant, to create in us an Appetite of Reading him. The Meat of Horace is more nourishing; but the Cookery of Juvenal more exquisite; so that, granting Horace to be the more general Philosopher; we cannot deny, that Juvenal was the greater Poet. I mean in Satire. His Thoughts are sharper, his Indignation against Vice is more vehement; his Spirit has more of the Commonwealth Genius; he treats Tyranny, and all the Vices attending it, as they deserve, with the utmost rigour: And consequently, a Noble Soul is better pleas'd with a Zealous Vindicator of Roman Liberty; than with a Temporizing Poet, a well Manner'd Court Slave, and a Man who is often afraid of Laughing in the right place: Who is ever decent, because he is naturally servile...
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[95] Thus far that Learned Critick, Barten Holiday, whose Interpretation, and Illustrations of Juvenal are as Excellent, as the Verse of his Translation and his English are lame, and pitiful. For 'tis not enough to give us the meaning of a Poet, which I acknowledge him to have perform'd most faithfully; but he must also imitate his Genius, and his Numbers; as far as the English will come up to the Elegance of the Original. In few words, 'tis only for a Poet to Translate a Poet. Holiday and Stapylton had not enough consider'd this, when they attempted Juvenal: But I forbear Reflections; only I beg leave to take notice of this Sentence, where Holiday says, A perpetual Grinn, like that of Horace, rather angers than amends a Man. I cannot give him up the Manner of Horace in low Satire so easily: Let the Chastisements of Juvenal be never so necessary for his new kind of Satire; let him declaim as wittily and sharply as he pleases, yet still the nicest and most delicate touches of Satire consist in fine Raillery. This, my Lord, is your particular Talent, to which even Juvenal could not arrive. 'Tis not Reading, 'tis not imitation of an Author, which can produce this fineness: It must be inborn, it must proceed from a Genius, and particular way of thinking, which is not to be taught; and therefore not to be imitated by him who has it not from Nature: How easie it is to call Rogue and Villain, and that wittily? But how hard to make a Man appear a Fool, a Blockhead, or a Knave, without using any of those opprobrious terms? To spare the grossness of the Names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full Face, and to make the Nose and Cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of Shadowing. This is the Mystery of that Noble Trade; which yet no Master can teach to his Apprentice: He may give the Rules, but the Scholar is never the nearer in his practice. Neither is it true, that this fineness of Raillery is offensive. A witty Man is tickl'd while he is hurt in this manner and a Fool feels it not. The occasion of an Offence may possibly be given, but he cannot take it. If it be granted that in effect this way does more Mischief; that a Man is secretly wounded, and though he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious World will find it for him: Yet there is still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly Butchering of a Man, and the fineness of a stroak that separates the Head from the Body, and leaves it standing in its place. A man may be capable, as Jack Ketche's Wife said of his Servant, of a plain piece of Work, a bare Hanging; but to make a Malefactor die sweetly, was only belonging to her Husband. I wish I cou'd apply it to my self, if the Reader wou'd be kind enough to think it belongs to me. The Character of Zimri in my Absalom, is, in my Opinion, worth the whole Poem: 'Tis not bloody, but 'tis ridiculous enough. And he for whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury. If I had rail'd, I might have suffer'd for it justly: But I manag'd my own Work more happily, perhaps more dextrously. I avoided the mention of great Crimes, and apply'd my self to the representing of Blind-sides, and little Extravagancies: To which, the wittier a Man is, he is generally the more obnoxious. It succeeded as I wish'd; the Jest went round, and he was laught at in his turn who began the Frolick...