Satires of Juvenal and Persius

fursum

When a pimp accepts the goods of adulterers, if the wife
has no legal right to inherit, and he has learned to stare at the ceiling,
learned to snore with a vigilant nose over his cup,
when he thinks it right to hope for the command of a cohort
who has donated his wealth to the stables, and lacks all
the census of his ancestors, while he flies with rapid axle
along the Flaminian Way—for a boy Automedon the charioteer of Achilles was holding the reins—
while he himself boasted of his cloaked mistress.
Is it not tempting to fill capacious wax tablets
in the middle of the crossroads? When now he is carried on a neck
of six bearers, exposed here and there, and almost naked in his chair,
recalling much of the supine Maecenas,
a document-signer who had made himself wealthy and blessed
by means of small tablets and a damp gem.
A powerful matron meets him, who, about to serve
soft Calenian wine to her husband, mixes in toad-poison,
and the better Locusta a notorious poisoner instructs her crude neighbors
how to carry their blackened husbands out through fame and the people.
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Dare something worthy of the Gyarae islands and prison,
if you wish to be someone: honesty is praised and shivers with cold.
To crimes they owe their gardens, their mansions, their dining tables,
their antique silver, and the goat standing outside the drinking cups.
Syllanus

Whom does the corrupter of his greedy daughter-in-law allow to sleep?
Who suffers under depraved brides and the adolescent adulterer?
If nature denies it, indignation makes the verse,
whatever it can, such as I write, or Clunienus.
From the time when Deucalion, with the clouds lifting the sea,
ascended the mountain in his boat and sought the fates,
and little by little, soft stones cultivated life,
and Pyrrha showed the naked girls to the men.