Hence I would rather owe my humble birth,

Frail brother of the giant brood, to Earth.

Poor youth! in vain the ancient sleight you try;

In vain, with frantic air and ardent eye,

Fling every robe aside and battle wage

With Numidian bears upon the Alban stage:

All see the trick, and, spite of Brutus’ skill,

There are who count him but a trifler still;

For in his day it cost no mighty pains

To gull a prince with much more beard than brains.

Rubrius, though not, like thee, of noble race,

Followed with equal terror in his face;

And, labouring with a crime too foul to name,

More than the pathic satirist lost to shame.

Montanus’ belly next, and next appeared

The legs on which his monstrous pile was reared.

Crispinus followed, daubed with more perfume,

Thus early, than two funerals would consume;

Then bloodier Pompey,1 practised to betray,

And quietly whisper noble lives away.

Fuscus,2 an arm-chair strategist, is there,

Whose corpse the Dacian vultures wait to tear.

Last, shy Veiento with Catullus3 came,

Deadly Catullus, who, at beauty’s name,

Took fire, although unseen: a wretch whose crimes

Struck with amaze e’en these prodigious times;

A base, blind parasite, a murderous lord,

Raised from the bridge-end to the council-board;

Yet fitter still to dog the travellers’ heels

And whine for alms to the descending wheels,

To blow soft kisses to the cars until

They reach the foot of steep Aricia’s hill.

None dwelt so largely on the turbot’s size,

Or raised with such applause his wondering eyes;

But to the left (Oh, treacherous want of sight!)

He poured his praise—the fish was on the right!

Thus would he in the amphitheatre sit

And shout with rapture at some fancied hit;

And thus applaud the stage machinery; where

The youths are rapt aloft and lost in air.

Nor fell Veiento short. As if possessed

With all Bellona’s rage, his labouring breast

Burst forth in prophecy: ‘O Prince, I see

The omens of some glorious victory!

Some monarch taken prisoner of war:

Arviragus hurled from his British car!

The beast’s a foreigner: there is no lack

Of prickles bristling all along his back.’

Proceed, Fabricius, and what remains untold

(The turbot’s age and birth-place) next unfold.

The emperor now the important question put:

‘How say ye, Fathers? Shall the fish be cut?’

‘Oh, far be that disgrace,’ Montanus cries;

‘No, let a dish be formed of amplest size,

Within whose slender sides the fish, dread sire,

May spread his vast circumference entire.

The matter’s urgent; someone is required—

Prometheus—to see the oven’s fired.

Bring, bring the tempered clay, and let it feel

The quick gyrations of the plastic wheel.

But, Caesar, thus forewarned, make no campaign

Unless your potters follow in your train.’

Montanus ended; all approved the plan,

And all the speech, so worthy of the man.

Versed in the old court luxury, he knew