Satires (Juvenal)

The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.

Frontispiece depicting Juvenal and Persius, from a volume translated by John Dryden in 1711.

Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a wide-ranging discussion of society and social mores in dactylic hexameter.[1] The sixth and tenth satires are some of the most renowned works in the collection. The poems are not individually titled, but translators have often added titles for the convenience of readers.

Roman Satura was a formal literary genre rather than being simply clever, humorous critique in no particular format. Juvenal wrote in this tradition, which originated with Lucilius and included the Sermones of Horace and the Satires of Persius.[2] In a tone and manner ranging from irony to apparent rage, Juvenal criticizes the actions and beliefs of many of his contemporaries, providing insight more into value systems and questions of morality and less into the realities of Roman life. The author employs outright obscenity less frequently than Martial or Catullus, but the scenes painted in his text are no less vivid or lurid for that discretion.

The author makes constant allusion to history and myth as a source of object lessons or exemplars of particular vices and virtues. Coupled with his dense and elliptical Latin, these tangential references indicate that the intended reader of the Satires was highly educated.[3] The Satires are concerned with perceived threats to the social continuity of the Roman citizens: social-climbing foreigners, unfaithfulness, and other more extreme excesses of their own class. The intended audience of the Satires constituted a subset of the Roman elite, primarily adult males of a more conservative social stance.

Manuscript tradition

The controversies concerning the surviving texts of the Satires have been extensive and heated. Many manuscripts survive, but only P (the Codex Pithoeanus Montepessulanus), a 9th-century manuscript based on an edition prepared in the 4th century by a pupil of Servius Honoratus, the grammarian, is reasonably reliable. At the same time as the Servian text was produced, however, other and lesser scholars also created their editions of Juvenal: it is these on which most medieval manuscripts of Juvenal are based. It did not help matters that P disappeared sometime during the Renaissance and was only rediscovered around 1840. It is not, however, uncommon for the generally inferior manuscripts to supply a better reading in cases when P is imperfect. In addition, modern scholarly debate has also raged around the authenticity of the text which has survived, as various editors have argued that considerable portions are not, in fact, authentically Juvenalian and represent interpolations from early editors of the text. Jachmann (1943) argued that up to one-third of what survives is non-authentic: Ulrick Knoche (1950) deleted about hundred lines, Clausen about forty, Courtney (1975) a similar number. Willis (1997) italicizes 297 lines as being potentially suspect. On the other hand, Vahlen, Housman, Duff, Griffith, Ferguson and Green believe the surviving text to be largely authentic: indeed Green regards the main problem as being not interpolations but lacunae.[4]

In recent times debate has focused on the authenticity of the "O Passage" of Satire VI, 36 lines (34 of which are continuous) discovered by E.O. Winstedt in an 11th-century manuscript in Oxford's Bodleian Library. These lines occur in no other manuscript of Juvenal, and when discovered were considerably corrupted. Ever since Housman translated and emended the "O Passage" there has been considerable controversy over whether the fragment is in fact a forgery: the field is currently split between those (Green, Ferguson, Courtney) who believe it isn't, and those (Willis, Anderson), who believe it is.[4]

Synopsis of the Satires

Book I

Satire I: It is Hard not to Write Satire


This so-called "Programmatic Satire" lays out for the reader a catalogue of ills and annoyances that prompt the narrator to write satire.[5] Some examples cited by Juvenal include eunuchs getting married, elite women performing in a beast hunt, and the dregs of society suddenly becoming wealthy by gross acts of sycophancy. To the extent that it is programmatic, this satire concerns the first book rather than the satires of the other four known books. The narrator explicitly marks the writings of Lucilius as the model for his book of poems (lines 19–20), although he claims that to attack the living as his model did incur great risk (lines 165–67). The narrator contends that traditional Roman virtues, such as fides and virtus, had disappeared from society to the extent that "Rome was no longer Roman":[5]

Satire II: Hypocrites are Intolerable

170 lines. The narrator claims to want to flee civilization (i.e. Roma) to beyond the world’s end when confronted by moral hypocrisy. Although the broad theme of this poem is the process of gender inversion, it would be an error to take it as simple invective against pathic men. Juvenal is concerned with gender deviance

Satire III: There is no Room in Rome for a Roman

322 lines. In the place where Numa Pompilius (the legendary second king of Rome) received a nymph’s advice on creating Roman law, the narrator has a final conversation with his Roman friend Umbricius, who is emigrating to Cumae. Umbricius claims that slick and immoral foreigners have shut a real Roman out of all opportunity to prosper. Only the first 20 lines are in the voice of the narrator; the remainder of the poem is cast as the words of Umbricius.

In 1738, Samuel Johnson was inspired by this text to write his "London: A Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal". The archetypal question of whether an urban life of hectic ambition is to be preferred to a pastoral fantasy retreat to the country is posed by the narrator:

Satire IV: The Emperor’s Fish

154 lines. The narrator makes the emperor Domitian and his court the objects of his ridicule in this mock-epic tale of a fish so prodigious that it was fit for the emperor alone. The council of state is called to deal with the crisis of how to cook it, where the fish can neither be cooked by conventional means due to its size, nor can it be cut into pieces. The main themes of this poem are the corruption and incompetence of sycophantic courtiers and the inability or unwillingness to speak truth to power.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's motto, vitam impendere vero (to pay his life for the truth) is taken from the passage below, a description of the qualifications of an imperial courtier in the reign of Domitian:

Satire V: Patronizing Patronage

173 lines. The narrative frame of this poem is a dinner party where many potential dysfunctions in the ideal of the patron-client relationship are put on display. Rather than being a performance of faux-equality, the patron (Virro as in 9.35) emphasizes the superiority of himself and his peers (amici) over his clients (viles amici) by offering food and drink of unequal quality to each. Juvenal concludes with the observation that the clients who put up with this treatment deserve it.

Book II

Satire VI: The Decay of Feminine Virtue

c. 695 lines. For the discussion and synopsis, see Satire VI.

Book III

Satire VII: Fortuna (or the Emperor) is the Best Patron

243 lines. Juvenal returns to his theme of distorted economic values among the Roman elite – in this instance centered on their unwillingness to provide appropriate support for poets, lawyers, and teachers. It is the capricious whims of fate that determine the variables of a human life.

Satire VIII: True Nobility

275 lines. The narrator takes issue with the idea that pedigree ought to be taken as evidence of a person’s worth.

Satire IX: Flattering your Patron is Hard Work

150 lines. This satire is in the form of a dialogue between the narrator and Naevolus – a male prostitute, the disgruntled client of a pathic patron.

Book IV

Satire X: Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering

366 lines. The theme of this poem encompasses the myriad objects of prayer unwisely sought from the gods: wealth, power, beauty, children, long life, et cetera. The narrator argues that each of these is a false Good; each desired thing is shown to be not good in itself, but only good so long as other factors do not intervene. This satire is the source of the well-known phrase "mens sana in corpore sano" (a healthy mind in a healthy body), which appears in the passage above. It is also the source of the phrase "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses) – the only remaining cares of a Roman populace which has given up its birthright of political freedom (10.81).

Satire XI: Dinner and a Moral

208 lines. The main themes of this poem are self-awareness and moderation. The poem explicitly mentions one apothegm γνῶθι σεαυτόν (know thyself) from the temple of Apollo at Delphi, while its theme calls to mind another μηδέν ἄγαν (nothing in excess). The subject, in this instance, is the role of food and the cena (formal dinner) in Roman society. The narrator contrasts the ruinous spending habits of gourmands with the moderation of a simple meal of home-grown foods in the manner of the mythical ancient Romans.

Satire XII: True Friendship

130 lines. The narrator describes to his addressee Corvinus the sacrificial vows that he has made for the salvation of his friend Catullus from shipwreck. These vows are to the primary Roman gods – Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva (the Capitoline Triad)- but other shipwrecked sailors are said to make offerings to Isis. In the passage quoted above, the narrator asserts that his sacrifices are not to curry favor or gain an inheritance, common reasons for making vows among those who would not hesitate to sacrifice their slaves or even children if it would bring them an inheritance.

Book V (incomplete)

Satire XIII: Don’t Obsess over Liars and Crooks

249 lines. This poem is a dissuasion from excessive rage and the desire for revenge when one is defrauded. The narrator recommends a philosophical moderation and the perspective that comes from realizing that there are many things worse than financial loss.

Satire XIV: Avarice is not a Family Value

331 lines. The narrator stresses that children most readily learn all forms of vice from their parents. Avarice must actually be taught since it runs counter to nature. This vice is particularly pernicious, since it has the appearance of a virtue and is the source of a myriad of crimes and cruelties.

Satire XV: People without Compassion are Worse than Animals

174 lines. The narrator discusses the centrality of compassion for other people to the preservation of civilization. While severe circumstances have at times called for desperate measures to preserve life, even the most savage tribes have refrained from cannibalism. We were given minds to allow us to live together in mutual assistance and security. Without limits on rage against our enemies, we are worse than animals.

Satire XVI: Soldiers are above the Law

60 lines preserved. The primary theme of the preserved lines is the advantages of soldiers over mere citizens.

Notes

  1. Lucilius – the acknowledged originator of Roman Satire in the form practiced by Juvenal – experimented with other meters before settling on dactylic hexameter.
  2. There were other authors who wrote within the genre, but only the texts of these three have been extensively preserved.
  3. The intended reader was expected to understand these references without recourse to footnotes or reference works on Greco-Roman myth and history. The Satires are sophisticated literary works for a sophisticated reader.
  4. 1 2 Green, 1998, Introduction: LIX-LXIII
  5. 1 2 Miller, Paul Allen. Latin Verse Satire. 2005, page 232
  6. The word virtus in line 20 is the ultimate source of the English word virtue and is related to the Latin word vir (elite man). While the English term has primarily a moral connotation, the Latin word encompassed all characteristics appropriate to a vir – in short excellence. The narrator's point is that the only thing that makes one rightly nobilis (known, famous) is being personally outstanding.

References

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