Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/428



has well explained the difficulties of this satire. Throughout its first sixty-two verses, it is aimed at those who live amiss though they know the right way; and the satirist takes himself as a specimen of the class (Class. Quart. Jan. 1913, pp. 26–28). Persius alternately acts the part of the youth satirised (which explains the use of the first person in stertimus, findor, querimur) and alternately assumes the role of a monitor, expostulating with the young man and trying to recall him to a sense of the follies and wasted opportunities of his life (1–43). Childish sports are suitable to the age of childhood; but when childhood is past, and knowledge has arrived, the serious purposes of life must be faced (44–62).

From that point onwards the theme is more general, being directed against those who have not been illuminated by philosophy (63–118).

"What? still sleeping? Won't you be up and doing?" "How can I? won't somebody come to help me? My pen won't write, and the ink won't mark" (1–14). Mere baby that you are! you are running to waste; satisfied with your competency, you're letting the precious moments slip, and will soon be no better than Natta who has lost all sense of right and wrong. What torture more horrible than to feel that virtue has for ever passed out of 342