Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/221

 woman will not follow when an Empress leads the way? The whole world was ablaze then and falling down in ruin just as if Juno had made her husband mad. Less guilty therefore will Agrippina's mushroom be deemed, seeing that it only stopped the breath of one old man, and sent down his palsied head and slobbering lips to heaven, whereas the other potion demanded fire and sword and torture, mingling Knights and Fathers in one mangled bleeding heap. Such was the cost of one mare's offspring and of one she-poisoner.

A wife hates the children of a concubine; let none demur or forbid, seeing that it has long been deemed right and proper to slay a stepson. But I warn you wards—you that have a good estate—keep watch over your lives; trust not a single dish; those hot cakes are black with poison of a mother's baking. Whatever is offered you by the mother, let someone taste it first; let your trembling tutor take the first taste of every cup.

Now think you that all this is a fancy tale, and that our Satire is taking to herself the high heels of tragedy? Think you that I have out-stepped the limits and the laws of those before me, and am mouthing in Sophoclean tones a grand theme unknown to the Rutulian hills and the skies of Latium? Would indeed that my words were idle! But here is Pontia proclaiming "I did the deed; I gave aconite, I confess it, to my own children; the crime was detected, and is known to all; yes, with my own hands I did it." "What, you most savage of vipers? you killed two, did you, two, at a single meal?" "Aye, and seven too, had there chanced to be seven to kill!" 135