Kate Meng Brassel, University of Pennsylvania
Below I include the opening of Persius’ third satire, translated into fourteeners, following Stallings’ Lucretius’ The Nature of Things (a poem with which Persius’ 6-part libellus makes important contact, for example with “void” in the last position of the first line of Satire 1, above). I have made an effort to translate the notorious ambiguity of this scene’s “voices” (Housman, Reckford, D’Alessandro-Behr) in contrast to available English translations (Conington-Nettleship, Braund, Rudd), which all seek to mark out voices, characters, or even scenery, formatting the text in ways that render void the interpretive work inherent in ancient lectio. I have tried to make the active experience of “reading” Persius accessible to the contemporary reader. This is a sample of the full satire.
Satire 3.1-34
Of course – it’s this. Relentless. Brilliant morn’s already at
the windows, and it magnifies the narrow cracks with light.
We’re snoring loud enough to ventilate Falernum’s foam,
stiff stuff – the dial’s shadow (meanwhile) says it’s almost noon.
What are you doing? Crazy Dog-Day heat’s been cooking crops
for hours now, and every sheep’s beneath a sheltering elm,
says someone from my crew. What, really? Truly? Hurry, come
here, someone! No one? Glass-green bile arises, surging up:
I split in half–you’d think the herds of Arcady were braying.
And now a book and two-toned skin whose hairs are shaven off
have reached my hands, as well as papers and a knotty reed.
Then we complain: the liquid’s hanging clumpy from the pen
But after adding eau de source to thin out black squid-ink,
we then complain because the nib is dribbling doubled drips.
You loser, more a loser every day: is this what things,
what we have come to? Why not like a little baby dove
or puerile prince demand food mashed to pap-puree,
then wrathfully refuse the teat of mommy’s lullaby?
Am I to work with such a pen? Who gets these words? Why chant
these ambiguities? The joke’s on you. You’ve come unglued,
deplorable. A half-baked pot, when struck, rings false, responds
deficiently when still composed of greenish, uncooked slime.
You’re wet, soft mud: away with you (and quick), upon the bitter
wheel for shaping without end! But on your father’s farm
there’s grain in moderation and a sacred jar for salt
(Why be afraid?) and offering-dish, protectress of the hearth.
Is that enough? Or would you put on airs and bust a lung
since you’re the thousandth branch upon the Tuscan family tree
or since you don your special toga just to greet your censor?
Leave medals to the masses. I know you inside, skinside.
You’re not ashamed to live like Natta, sloppy, belt undone?
But that guy's numbed with vice: the fatted grease has overgrown
his entrails, too; he knows no shame, nor what he’s lost. He’s sunk
so deep his bubbles nevermore will rise to break the waves.