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.

    450/574 (page 370)
    And sperage wild, which, from the mountain’s side, My liousemaid left her spindle to provide; And grapes long kept, yet pulpy still, and fair, And the rich Signian, and the Syrian pear. And apples, that in flavour and in smell. The boasted Picene equal, or excel; Nor need you fear, my friend, their liberal use. For age has mellow’d and improv’d their juice. How homely this! yet once this homely fare, Our senate deem’d it luxury to share; When the good Curius thought it no disgrace. O’er a few sticks his little pot to place. With roots, which now the squalid wretch disdains. Who digs the live-long day in cumbrous chains, And who remembers still, with fond regret. The savoury relish of a season’d teat. Time was, when on the rack a man would lay The well-dried flitch against a solemn day. And think his friends when met, with decent mirth, To celebrate the hour which gave him birth. On this, and what the sacrifice had spar’d, (For then the gods were thought of,) well had far’d. Ver. 119. When the good Curius, ^c.] This good old man is the constant theme of our author’s praise. He was a pattern of frugality, when all were frugal; an incorruptible statesman, and a great and successful commander: but the particular allusion in this place, is to the well-known anecdote of his being found by the Samnite embassadors, sitting by a small fire, and prepaiing a dish of turnips for his supper, with his own hands.