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.

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    He who the flesh of animals declin’d, As piously as man’s; and could not find A will to feed on pulse of every kind! Vee. 240. and could not find, A zeill to feed on pulse of every kind!] Juvenal alludes to the popular story of Pythagoras forbidding his followers the use of beans. I do not intend to enter into the various conjectures of the learned respect- ing the origin of this singular, and superstitious piece of abstinence: no two of them agree together, and all seem equally vague and unsatisfactory. For myself, when I consider many parts of this man’s character, as it is to be col- lected from a variety of writers, and find him, in mathematics, in astronomy, in theology, many centuries beyond his age, I am almost tempted to regard these tales, respecting his veneration or abhorrence for this or that particular kind of pulse, as the invention of later times. Instead, therefore, of wasting our ingenuity on endless conjectures, we should do better, perhaps, to call to mind the history of the golden tooth, and be previously certified of the existence of the fact! Frintcdby W.Bulmerand Co. Cieveland-rowi St. James't.