Part 7 (1/2)

of the _Ars Poetica_ (102) reappears in the far less natural

verum nec nocte paratum plorabit, qui me volet incurva.s.se querela (_Pers_. i. 91).

A man's tears must come from his heart at the moment, not from his brains overnight, if he would have me bowed down beneath his piteous tale. CONINGTON.

He speaks of his verses so finely turned and polished--

ut per leve severos effundat iunctura unguis (i. 64).

So that the critical nail runs glibly along even where the parts join. CONINGTON.

In this fantastically contorted and affected phrase we may espy an ingenious blending of two Horatian phrases,

totus teres atque rotundus, externi ne quid valeat per leve morari (_Sat._ ii. 7. 86),

and the simple

ad unguem factus

f _Sat._ i. 5. 32.[237]

There is no need to multiply instances. Horace appears everywhere, but _quantum mutatus ab illo!_ As the result of this particular method of borrowing, a.s.sisted by affectations and obscurities which are all his own, Persius attains to a kind of spurious originality of diction, which often degenerates into sheer eccentricity. In spite of the fact that the original text can almost everywhere be reconstructed with certainty, he is almost the most obscure of Latin poets to the modern reader. A few instances will suffice. There were, it appears, three ways of mocking a person behind his back: one might tap the fingers against the lower portion of the hand in imitation of a stork's beak, one might imitate a donkey's ears, or one might put out one's tongue. When Persius wishes to say 'Ja.n.u.s, I envy you your luck, for no one can mock at you behind your back!' he writes (i. 58):

O Iane, a tergo quem nulla ciconia pinsit, nec ma.n.u.s auriculas imitari mobilis albas, nec linguae, quantum sitiat canis Apula, tantae.

Happy Ja.n.u.s, whom no stork's bill batters from behind, no nimble hand quick to imitate the a.s.s's white ears, no long tongues thrust out like the tongue of a thirsty Apulian b.i.t.c.h.

The obscurity of the first line springs in part from the fact that the custom is not elsewhere spoken of. The second line may pa.s.s. The third defies literal translation. It means 'no long tongues thrust out like the tongue of a thirsty Apulian b.i.t.c.h'. But the omission of all mention both of 'protrusion' and of the 'dog days' makes the Latin almost without meaning. The epithet _Apula_ becomes absurd. A 'thirsty Apulian dog' is barely sufficient to suggest the midsummer drought of Apulia.

This is an extreme case; it is perhaps fairer to quote lines such as

si puteal multa cautus vibice flagellas (iv. 49),

'if in your zeal for the main chance you flog the exchange with many a stripe,' a mysterious pa.s.sage generally supposed to mean 'if you exact exorbitant usury'. A little less enigmatic, but fully as forced and unnatural is

dum veteres avias tibi de pulmone revello (v. 92),

'while I pull your old grandmotherly views from your heart,' or the extraordinarily harsh metaphor of the first satire (24)--

quo didicisse, nisi hoc fermentum et quae semel intus innata est rupto iecore exierit caprificus?

What is the good of past study, unless this leaven--unless the wild fig-tree which has once struck its root into the breast, break through and come out? CONINGTON.

which means nothing more than 'What is the good of study unless a man brings out what he has in him?' A far more serious source of obscurity, however, is his obscurity of thought. Even when the sense of individual lines has been discovered, it is often difficult to see the drift of the pa.s.sage as a whole. Logical development is perhaps not to be expected in the 'hotch-potch' of the 'satura'. But one has a right to demand that the transitions should be easy and the drift of the argument clear. This Persius refuses us. The difficulties which he presents are--as in the case of Robert Browning--in part due to his adoption of the traditional dramatic form in satire, a form in which clearness of expression is as difficult as it is desirable. But we cannot excuse his obscurity as we sometimes can in Browning--either as being to some extent a realistic representation of the discursiveness and lack of method that characterize the reasonings of the average intelligent man, or on the other hand as springing from the intensity of the poet's thought. It is not the case with Persius that his thoughts press so thick and quick upon him, or are of so deep and complicated a character, as to be incapable of simple and lucid expression. It is sheer waywardness and perversity springing from the absence of true artistic feeling to which we must attribute this cardinal defect. For his thought is commonplace, and his observation of the minds and ways of men is limited.

The qualities that go to the making of the true satirist are many. He must be dominated by a moral ideal, not necessarily of the highest kind, but sufficiently exalted to lend dignity to his work and sufficiently strongly realized to permeate it. He must have a wide and comprehensive knowledge of his fellow men. A knowledge of the broad outlines of the cardinal virtues and of the deadly sins is not sufficient. The satirist must know them in their countless manifestations in the life of man, as they move our awe or our contempt, our admiration or our terror, our love or our loathing, our laughter or our tears. He must be able to paint society in all its myriad hues. He must have a sense of humour, even if he lacks the sense of proportion; he must have the gift of laughter, even though his laughter ring harsh and painful. He must have the gift of mordant speech, of epigram, and of rhetoric. He must drive his points home with directness and lucidity. Mere denunciation of vice is not enough. Few prophets are satirists; few satirists are prophets.

Of these qualities Persius has all too few. The man who has become the pupil of a Cornutus at the age of sixteen, who has shunned a public career, and is characterized by a _virginalis verecundia_, is not likely, even in a long life, to acquire the knowledge of the world required for genuine satire. The satirist, it might almost be said, must not only have walked abroad in the great world, but must have pa.s.sed through the fire himself, and in some sense experienced the vices he has set himself to lash. But Persius is young and, as far as might be in that age, innocent. His outlook is from the seclusion of literary and philosophic circles, and his satire lacks the peculiar vigour that can only be got from jostling one's way in the wider world. In consequence the picture of life which he presents lacks vividness. A few brilliant sketches there are; but they are drawn from but a narrow range of experience. There is nothing better of its kind than the description in the first satire of the omnipresent poetaster of the reign of Nero, with his affected recitations of tawdry, sensuous, and soulless verse (15):

Scilicet haec populo pexusque togaque recenti et natalicia tandem c.u.m sardonyche albus sede leges celsa, liquido c.u.m plasmate guttur mobile conlueris, patranti fractus ocello.

tunc neque more probo videas nec voce serena ingentis trepidare t.i.tos, c.u.m carmina lumb.u.m intrant et tremulo scalpuntur ubi intima versu.

Yes--you hope to read this out some day, got up sprucely with a new toga, all in white, with your birthday ring on at last, perched up on a high seat, after gargling your supple throat by a liquid process of tuning, with a languis.h.i.+ng roll of your wanton eye. At this you may see great brawny sons of Rome all in a quiver, losing all decency of gesture and command of voice, as the strains glide into their very bones, and the marrow within is tickled by the ripple of the measure. CONINGTON.

A few lines later comes a similar and equally vivid picture (30):

ecce inter pocula quaerunt Romulidae saturi, quid dia poemata narrent.