Juvenal (original) (raw)

But who is to guard the guards themselves?

Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (c. 55 – c. 140), anglicized as Juvenal, was a Roman satiric poet.

Satires I · II · III · IV · VI · VIII · IX · X · XIV · XV · External links

Semper ego auditor tantum? numquamne reponam
Vexatus totiens rauci Theseide Cordi?
- O heavens! while thus hoarse Codrus perseveres
  To force his Theseid on my tortured ears,
  Shall I not once attempt “to quit the score,”
  Always an auditor, and nothing more!
- Line 1 (tr. William Gifford)
Difficile est saturam non scribere.
- It is difficult not to write satire.
- Line 30 (tr. M. Madan)
Probitas laudatur et alget
- Honesty is praised, and starves.
- Line 74 (tr. John Stirling and P. A. Nuttall)
  Honesty is praised and left out in the cold. (tr. R. C. Seaton)
Poena tamen praesens, cum tu deponis amictus
turgidus et crudum pavonem in balnea portas.
hinc subitae mortes atque intestata senectus;
it nova nec tristis per cunctas fabula cenas:
ducitur iratis plaudendum funus amicis.
- But you will soon pay for it, my friend, when you take off your clothes, and with distended stomach carry your peacock into the bath undigested! Hence a sudden death, and an intestate old age; the new and merry tale runs the round of every dinner-table, and the corpse is carried forth to burial amid the cheers of enraged friends!
- Line 142 (tr. G. G. Ramsay)

Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.

No man ever became extremely wicked all at once.

Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.
- Censure pardons the raven, but is visited upon the dove.
- Line 63 (tr. Bartlett's, 14th ed.)
Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.
- No man ever became extremely wicked all at once.
- Line 83 (tr. H. T. Riley)
- Compare: "There is a method in man’s wickedness, / It grows up by degrees."—Beaumont and Fletcher, A King and No King, act v, sc. 4

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?

Me nemo ministro fur erit, atque ideo nulli comes exeo.
- No man will get my help in robbery, and therefore no governor will take me on his staff
- Line 46 (tr. G. G. Ramsay)
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?
- Lines 75-78 (tr. John Dryden)
Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,
quam quod ridiculos homines facit.
- Bitter poverty has no harder pang than that it makes men ridiculous.
- Lines 152-3 (tr. Bartlett's, 14th ed.)
  Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest, / Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest. (tr. Samuel Johnson)
  The hardest thing to bear in poverty is the fact that it makes men ridiculous. (tr. Peter Green)
  Wretched poverty offers nothing harsher than this: it makes men ridiculous. (tr. Charles Witke)
Haut facile emergunt quorum virtutibus opstat
res angusta domi.
- It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.
- Line 164 (tr. Bartlett's, 14th ed.)
  Slow rises Worth, by Poverty deprest. (tr. Samuel Johnson)
Hic vivimus ambitiosa paupertate omnes.
- We all live in a state of ambitious poverty.
- Line 182 (tr. Bartlett's, 11th ed.)
The question is not put how far extends
His piety, but what he yearly spends;
Quick, to the business; how he lives and eats;
How largely gives; how splendidly he treats;
How many thousand acres feed his sheep;
What are his rents; what servants does he keep?
The account is soon cast up; the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.
- Lines 234-242 (tr. John Dryden)
Nemo malus felix.
- No bad man is ever happy.
  * Line 8 (tr. Lewis Evans)
Vitam impendere vero.
- Dedicate one’s life to truth.
- Line 91 (tr. Noel Parker)
Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.
- This is my will and my command: let my will be the voucher for the deed.
- Line 223 (tr. G. G. Ramsay)
- Misquoted: Sic volo, sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas.
Nunc patimur longae pacis mala, saevior armis
luxuria incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem.
- Now we are suffering the evils of a long peace. Luxury, more destructive than war, has engrossed us, and avenges the vanquished world.
- Line 292 (tr. J. K. Hoyt and Anna L. Ward)
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
- But who will guard the guardians themselves?
- Line 347 (tr. J. D. Belton)
  But who is to guard the guards themselves? (tr. Lewis Evans)
  Who watches the watchmen? (tr. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen)
- The original context is that a husband might lock his wife in the house to prevent her adulteries, but she is cunning and will start with the guards; hence, who guards the guards? The phrase has come to be applied broadly to people or organisations acting against dishonesty or corruption, esp. in public life. See Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? at Wikipedia.
Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus.
- Virtue is the one and only nobility.
- Line 20 (tr. W. Wallace)
  Nobility is the one only virtue. (tr. Bartlett's, 9th ed.)
- Compare: "We'll shine in more substantial honours, And to be noble we'll be good."—Thomas Percy, Winifreda (1720)
Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori
et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.
- Count it the greatest sin to prefer life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth living.
- Line 83 (tr. Bartlett's, 14th ed.)
Nam si tibi sidera cessant,
nil faciet longi mensura incognita nervi,
quamvis te nudum spumanti Virro labello
viderit et blandae adsidue densaeque tabellae
sollicitent, autos gar ephelketai andra kinaidos.
- If your stars go against you, the fantastic size of your cock will get you precisely nowhere, however much Virro may have drooled at the spectacle of your naked charms, though love-letters come in by the dozen, imploring your favors.
- Line 33 (tr. Peter Green)
Quanto delphinis ballaena Britannica maior.
- As much as the whale of Britain exceeds dolphins.
- Line 14 (tr. Lewis Evans)
Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator.
- The traveller with empty pockets will sing even in the robber's face.
- Line 22 (tr. Lewis Evans)
Nam qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
panem et circenses.
- The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddles no more, and longs eagerly for just two things—Bread and Games.
- Line 78 (tr. W. R. Halliday); see bread and circuses
Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano.
- You should pray for a sound mind in a sound body.
- Line 356 (tr. W. F. H. King); see mens sana in corpore sano
  One should pray to have a sound mind in a sound body. (tr. ODQ, 3rd ed.)
Multi committunt eadem diverso crimina fato: Ille crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hic diadema.
- Many commit the same crime with a very different result. One bears a cross for his crime; another a crown.
  * Lines 104-105 (tr. George Seldes)
Quippe minuti semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas ultio.
- Revenge is always the gratification of a petty and a weak and little mind.
  * Lines 189-190 (tr. W. Wallace)
Maxima debetur puero reverentia.
- The greatest reverence is due the young.
- Line 47 (tr. Bartlett's, 14th ed.)
  The greatest reverence is due to a child. (tr. William Turner)
Indica tigris agit rabida cum tigride pacem
perpetuam, saevis inter se convenit ursis.
- The Indian tiger lives in perfect peace with the fierce
  Tigress, and savage bears live together in harmony.
  * Line 163 (tr. A. S. Kline)
Fati valet hora benigni.
- One moment of benignant fate.
- Line 4 (tr. G. G. Ramsay)
- Compare: Samuel Bishop, Epigram XL

Editions

William Gifford, The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, 2nd ed. (London: W. Bulmer & Co., 1806)
M. Madan, A New and Literal Translation of Juvenal and Persius, new ed. (Oxford: Bliss and Baxter, 1813), 2 vols.
John Stirling and P. A. Nuttall, Satiræ: with the Original Text reduced to the Natural Order of Construction, &c., rev. ed. (London: Thomas Ward, 1825)
W. Wallace, The Satires of Juvenal and Persius, Literally Translated (Dublin: William Holbrooke, 1848)
Lewis Evans, The Satires of Juvenal, Persius, Sulpicia, and Lucilius (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852)
G. G. Ramsay, Juvenal and Persius (London: William Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1918)
Peter Green, The Sixteen Satires (Great Britain: Penguin Books Ltd., 1968)
A. S. Kline, "Juvenal (55–140) — The Satires". Poetry in Translation (2000–2025)

Compendiums

Craufurd Tait Ramage, Beautiful Thoughts From Latin Authors (Liverpool: Edward Howell, 1864), pp. 157–86
H. T. Riley, Dictionary of Latin Quotations, ... with a Selection of Greek Quotations (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1856)
John Devoe Belton, A Literary Manual of Foreign Quotations, Ancient and Modern (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1891)
Wm. Francis Henry King, Classical and Foreign Quotations, 2nd ed. (London: Whitaker and Sons, 1889); 3rd ed. (1904)
John Bartlett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1891), p. 46
John Bartlett, Christopher Morley and Louella D. Everett, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 11th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1938), p. 1006
John Bartlett and Emily Morison Beck, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 14th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1968), pp. 139–40
J. K. Hoyt and Anna L. Ward, The Cyclopædia of Practical Quotations (New York: I. K. Funk & Co., 1882), p. 546
Kate Louise Roberts, Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1922)
George Seldes, The Great Quotations (New York: Pocket Books, 1967), p. 244
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1979), pp. 287–8

Miscellaneous

William Turner, Exercises to the Accidence; or, An Exemplification of the Several Moods and Tenses, &c. (London, 1713), p. 143
R. C. Seaton, Napoleon's Captivity in Relation to Sir Hudson Lowe (London: George Bell and Sons, 1903), p. 236
W. R. Halliday, The Pagan Background of Early Christianity (Liverpool and London, 1925), p. 55
Charles Witke, Latin Satire: The Structure of Persuasion (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), p. 132
Noel Parker, Portrayals of Revolution: Images, Debates, and Patterns of Thought on the French Revolution (Southern Illinois UP, 1990), p. 25

Wikipedia