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.

    559/574 (page 479)
    And here, Volusius, I rejoice at least, That fire was unprofan’d by this curs’d feast, Fire, rapt from heaven! and you, I think, will join Your greetings to the element, with mine. But least you doubt, if those who came in time. First at the bloody banquet, and the crime. Relish’d the treat; know those who came the last, And when the rest had finish’d the repast. Stoop’d down, and scraping where the wretch had lain, With savage pleasure lick’d the gory plain. The Vascons once (the story yet is rife) With such dire aliment sustain’d their life; Ver. 116. And here Volusius, (^c.] I cannot see the purport of this apos- trophe to Volusius. It is not, indeed, unusual with our author, when he is ridiculing one species of superstition, to manifest something like tenderness for another; but even this caprice could not influence him here; for the Romans cared little for fire, and the Egyptians, I believe, still less. The mysteries of Mithra were neither unknown, nor unpracticed at Rome, when Juvenal wrote: if his friend was attached to those, a compliment might be intended; though, even in that case, the introduction of Prometheus would shew a want of judgment. I can think of nothing to the purpose. Ver. 125. The Vascons once, (^c.] The Vascons were a people in the north- east of Spain, who took part with Sertorius, and stood a long and severe siege from Cn. Pompey, and Metellus. Holyday says that Sertorius compelled these two chiefs to raise the siege, after their capital had been reduced to a state of the most dreadful necessity; but Val. Max. (lib. vii. 6,) who also mentions the calamities of the besieged, speaks of that general as already dead. Hoi-um (the Numanhnes) trucem pertinaciam in consimilifacinore Cali- guritanorum execrahilis impietas supergressa est; qui, quo per sever antius inter- empti Sertorii cinerihus Jidem prestarent, (quia nullum jam aliud in urbe eorum supererat animal,) ad usum nefarice dapis verteru/it.