Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/451



satire begins with an enthusiastic acknowledgment by the poet of all that he owes to his beloved guide, philosopher, and friend, L. Annaeus Cornutus, and then goes on to discuss the great Stoical thesis that all men (Stoics of course excepted) are slaves. The whole is modelled upon Horace, Sat. ii. vii.

O for a hundred tongues, as the poets of old used to say! (1–4). "Why such a prayer from you? You are not going to gather solemn vapourings on Mount Helicon, or inflict upon us the ghastly tales and grandiose mouthings of Greek Tragedy; yours is a more homely theme, to rebuke skilfully and pleasantly, in every-day language, the vices and the foibles of common life " (5–18).

No, no! my page is not to be swollen out with nothings. It is to you, dear friend, that I wish to open out my soui. that you may test it, and discern how sound it rings, and how deeply I have planted you in the recesses of my heart (19–29). From the day when I first put on the robe of manhood, when the two roads of life lay uncertainly before me, you took me under your guardian care; you folded me to your Soeratic bosom, and taught me, with cunning hand, to discern the crooked and the straight. It was you who fashioned my soul; you made our two lives into one, alike for work and play. Sure, sure 365