The satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis / translated into English verse by William Gifford.

  • Juvenal
Date:
1802
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis / translated into English verse by William Gifford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    137/574 (page 57)
    Why wait they then ? Why, like the Galli, say, ^ Do they not seize the knife without delay, > And hack at once their useless flesh away? 3 Gracchus admir’d a trumpeter, or fife, And, with an ample dower, became his wife; The contract sign’d, the wonted bliss implored; A costly supper decks the nuptial board, And the new bride, amidst the wondering room, Lies in the bosom of th’ accursed groom! And do we now, O Peers! a Censor need, Or an Aruspex? do not these exceed. These portents, all that Nature disavows. Of calving women and of lambing cows ! being eunuchs from this respectable set. It is not without cause, therefore, that Juvenal wonders why the latter preserve so trifling a mark of distinction; the abolition of which would completely assimilate them to their worthy prototypes. Ver. 170. Gracchus admir'd, <^c.] Whether this horrid transaction really happened, as Juvenal relates it, cannot now be told, as none of his contem- poraries speak of it: certain it is, that Nero had set the example, and, as our author well observes, qids nonfaciet quodprincepsf That I may not be obliged, as Tacitus says, to return to so disgusting a subject, (ne sccpius eadem prodi- gentia narranda sit,) I will give his account of it. “ At the feast of Tigellinus, the Emperor personated a woman, and was given in marriage to one of his favourites called Pythagoras. The augurs assisted at the ceremony, the portion was paid, the genial couch prepared, the nuptial torches lighted up, and all which in a natural marriage is covered with darkness, freely exposed to the view of the people.” ylrm. xv. 38. Ver. 176 And do we now, O Peers! a Censor need. Or an Aruspex?'] The first, says Holyday, purified the city from offences,by punishment; the second from monstrous births,prodigies, &c. by sacrifices and expiations. It was the service of these that was now wanted. I