What's Rome to me, what business have I there? I who can neither lie nor falsely swear? Nor praise my patron's undeserving rhymes, Nor yet comply with him nor with his times? Unskilled in schemes by planets to foreshow, Like canting rascals, how the wars will go; I neither will nor can prognosticate To the young gaping heir his father's fate; Nor in the entrails of a toad have pried, Nor carried bawdy presents to a bride: For want of these town-virtues, thus alone I go conducted on my way by none; Like a dead member from the body rent, Maimed and unuseful to the government. DRYDEN. This bitterness Juvenal seasons at times with saturnine jests of a type that is all his own. Virro gives rancid oil to his poor guests as dressing to their salad: illud enim vestris datur alveolis quod canna Micipsarum prora subvexit acuta, propter quod Romae cum Boccare nemo lavatur, quod tutos etiam facit a serpentibus atris (v. 88). Such oil to you is thrown, Such rancid grease, as Afric sends to town; So strong that when her factors seek the bath, All wind and all avoid the noisome path. GIFFORD. When the blind _delator_, Catullus Messalinus, is summoned to give his advice concerning the gigantic turbot: nemo magis rhombum stupuit; nam plurima dixit in laevom conversus, at illi dextra iacebat belua. sic pugnas Cilicis laudabat et ictus et pegma et pueros inde ad velaria raptos (iv. 119). None dwelt so largely on the turbot's size, Or raised with such applause his wondering eyes; But to the left (O treacherous want of sight) He poured his praise;--the fish was on the right. Thus would he at the fencer's matches sit, And shout with rapture at some fancied hit; And thus applaud the stage machinery, where The youths were rapt aloft and lost in air. GIFFORD. Grimmest of all is the jest on the mushrooms set before Virro: vilibus ancipites fungi ponentur amicis, boletus domino, sed quales Claudius edit ante illum uxoris, post quem nihil amplius edit (v. 146). You champ on spongy toadstools, hateful treat! Fearful of poisons in each bit you eat: He feasts secure on mushrooms, fine as those Which Claudius for his special eating chose, Till one more fine, provided by his wife, Finished at once his feasting and his life! GIFFORD.