P. Yet Lucilius lashed[1266] the city, and thee, O Lupus,[1267] and thee too, Mucius,[1268] and broke his jaw-bone[1269] on them. Sly Flaccus touches every failing of his smiling friend, and, once admitted, sports around his heart; well skilled in sneering[1270] at the people with well-dissembled[1271] sarcasm. And is it then a crime for me to mutter, secretly, or in a hole? A. You must do it nowhere. P. Yet here I will bury it! I saw, I saw with my own[1272] eyes, my little book! Who has not asses' ears?[1273] This my buried secret, this my sneer, so valueless, I would not sell you for any Iliad.[1274] Whoever thou art, that art inspired[1275] by the bold Cratinus, and growest pale over the wrathful Eupolis and the old man sublime, turn thine eyes on these verses also, if haply thou hearest any thing more refined.[1276] Let my reader glow with ears warmed by their strains. Not he that delights, like a mean fellow as he is, in ridiculing the sandals of the Greeks, and can say to a blind man, Ho! you blind fellow! Fancying himself to be somebody, because vain[1277] of his rustic honors, as Ædile[1278] of Arretium,[1279] he breaks up the false measures[1280] there. Nor again, one who has just wit enough to sneer at the arithmetic boards,[1281] and the lines in the divided dust; quite ready to be highly delighted, if a saucy wench[1282] plucks[1283] a Cynic's[1284] beard. To such as these I recommend[1285] the prætor's edict[1286] in the morning, and after dinner--Callirhoe. FOOTNOTES: [1181] _Oh curas!_ These are the opening lines of his Satire, which Persius is reading aloud, and is interrupted by his "Adversarius." He represents himself as having meditated on all mundane things, and, like Solomon, having discovered their emptiness, "Vanitas vanitatum!" Cf. Juv., Sat. i., 85, "Quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, Gaudia, discursus; nostri est farrago libelli." It is an adaptation of the old Greek proverb, ὅσον τὸ κένον. [1182] _Adversarius._ "Interpretes plerique hunc Persii amicum seu monitorem volunt: ego vero et morosum adversarium, et ridiculum senem intelligo." D'Achaintre. [1183] _Quis legit hæc?_ The old Gloss. says this line is taken from the first book of Lucilius.