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.

    451/574 (page 371)
    Some kinsman, who had three times consul been, And general and dictator, from the scene Of business now retir’d, would gaily haste. Before the wonted hour, to such repast. Shouldering the spade^ that, with no common toil, Had tam’d the genius of the mountain soil. Yes, when the world was fill’d with Rome’s just fame. And Romans trembled at the Fabian name. The Scauran, and Fabrician; when they saw Stern censors keep their stern colleagues in awe, No virtuous hero deem’d it his concern. Or worth a moment’s serious pain, to learn What land, what sea, the fairest tortoise bred. Whose clouded shell might best adorn his bed- His bed was small, and did no signs impart. Or of the painter’s, or the graver’s art. Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass, Show’d the rude features of a vine-crown’d ass; Ver. 147. Save where the front, cheaply inlaid with brass, Show'd the rude features of a vine-crown^ d ass;] parvis frons serea lectis ** Vite coronati caput ostendebat aselli “ Ad quod, &c. All the commentators that I have seen, suppose this ass’s head to be hung out in the fields, and the beds, or rather couches, of those rustics, to be so placed as to afford them a sight of it as they sat at meat! what gratification they could possibly derive from such a spectacle, these deponents do not say.” There was, indeed, as Britannicus observes, from Columella, a very ancient