And thou, with a consenting glance, reply; } If thou thy own solicitor become, And bidst arise the lumpish pendulum; If thy lewd lust provokes an empty storm, And prompts to more than nature can perform; If, with thy guards, thou scour'st the streets by night, And dost in murders, rapes, and spoils delight;[227] Please not thyself, the flattering crowd to hear, 'Tis fulsome stuff to feed thy itching ear. Reject the nauseous praises of the times; Give thy base poets back their cobled rhimes: Survey thy soul, not what thou dost appear, But what thou art, and find the beggar there.[228] FOOTNOTES: [219] The compliment, at the opening of the Pharsalia, has been thought sarcastic. It certainly sounds so in modern ears: if Nero could only attain empire by civil war, as the gods by that of the giants, then says the poet, ----_Scelera ipsa nefasque Hac mercede placent_.---- [220] Note I. [221] Note II. [222] Note III. [223] Note IV. [224] Note V. [225] Note VI. [226] Note VII. [227] Note VIII. [228] Note IX. NOTES ON TRANSLATIONS FROM PERSIUS. SATIRE IV. Note I. _Socrates._--P. 243. Socrates, whom the oracle of Delphos praised as the wisest man of his age, lived in the time of the Peloponnesian war. He, finding the uncertainty of natural philosophy, applied himself wholly to the moral. He was master to Xenophon and Plato, and to many of the Athenian young noblemen; amongst the rest to Alcibiades, the most lovely youth then living; afterwards a famous captain, whose life is written by Plutarch. Note II. _Tell me, thou pupil to great Pericles, Our second hope, my Alcibiades._--P. 243. Pericles was tutor, or rather overseer, of the will of Clinias, father to Alcibiades. While Pericles lived, who was a wise man, and an excellent orator, as well as a great general, the Athenians had the better of the war. Note III. _Can'st punish crimes._--P. 244. That is, by death. When the judges would condemn a malefactor, they cast their votes into an urn; as, according to the modern custom, a balloting-box. If the suffrages were marked with #Theta#, they signified the sentence of death to the offender; as being the first letter of #Thanatos#, which, in English, is death. Note IV. _Drink hellebore._--P. 244. The poet would say, that such an ignorant young man, as he here describes, is fitter to be governed himself than to govern others. He therefore advises him to drink hellebore, which purges the brain. Note V. _Say, dost thou know Vectidius?_--P. 245. The name of Vectidius is here used appellatively, to signify any rich covetous man, though perhaps there might be a man of that name then living. I have translated this passage paraphrastically, and loosely; and leave it for those to look on, who are not unlike the picture. Note VI.