Notes

1] Dryden was an accomplished and prolific translator of classical texts, especially of the major Latin poets; his translation of Virgil (1697) is well-known. In the years after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when he lost his official posts of Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal because of his continued loyalty to the ousted James II, translations were a significant source of income for him. That they were so marks a development of the book market: the presence of "mere English readers," many of them women, who knew no Latin and Greek, but who wished to become acquainted with the acknowledged masterpieces of the past. In 1693 Dryden published a new translation of the poems of Juvenal and Persius, prefaced by an extensive and influential "Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire." His translation of Juvenal's third satire is vigorous and idiomatic. He had clearly read the Imitation of this satire by John Oldham, published ten years earlier, and he borrows phrases from it here and there. Comparison of these two poems makes clear what Dryden meant by his distinction between "paraphrase" and "imitation." The former renders the original as faithfully as the requirements of verse and English idiom permit, the latter updates the original by applying its topics to modern life. Dryden's Juvenal was an important item in the small personal library of the young Samuel Johnson, whose London is another imitation of Juvenal's third satire. One of the features of Dryden's Juvenal is the addition of explanatory notes for the benefit of readers who had not had a classical education. Dryden's notes to Juvenal III are given here, identified by the initial "D." Parallel texts (Latin and English translation) of Juvenal's poem (with notes) are available on-line at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/juv-sat3lateng.html. In book form, the new edition in parallel Latin and English texts in the Loeb Classical Library, Juvenal and Persius, edited and translated by Susanna Morton Braund (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2004) is recommended.The standard edition of Dryden is the California edition of The Works of John Dryden, ed. H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., et al; the Juvenal appears in volume 4, Poems 1693-1696, ed. A. B. Chambers, William Frost, and Vinton A. Dearing.

3] Cumae: "a small city in Campania, near Puteoli, or Puzzolo, as it is called. The habitation of the Cumaean Sybil." (D.) Campania is the district around Naples in southern Italy. The Cumaean Sibyl (the accepted modern spelling) was a prophetess inspired by the god Apollo, famous for her great age.

6] Baiae: "another little town in Campania, near the sea: a pleasant place." (D.)

8] Prochyta: "a small barren island belonging to the kingdom of Naples." (D.)

14] padders: street robbers, muggers.

15] in dog-days: "the poets in Juvenal's time used to rehearse their poetry in August." (D.)

19] Conduit Gate: the scene is set outside the gate known as the Porta Capena, which opened onto the Appian Way, the main road to southern Italy; an aqueduct ran above it.

20] Numa: "the second king of Rome [715-672 BCE]; who made their laws, and instituted their religion." (D.)

21] nymph: "Aegeria, a nymph, or goddess, with whom Numa feigned to converse by night; and to be instructed by her in modelling his superstitions." (D.)

23] Jews: banished from the city of Rome by the emperor Domitian.

45] Dedalus: "meaning, at Cumae." (D.) When the famous inventor and his son Icarus flew away from Crete on wings on which feathers were attached by wax, Icarus flew too close to the sun, causing the wax on his wings to melt, with fatal effect, but his father landed successfully near Cumae.

49] Lachesis: "one of the three Destinies, whose office was to spin the life of every man; as it was of Clotho to hold the distaff, and Atropos to cut the thread." (D.)

52] Arturius: "any debauched and wicked fellow who gains by the times." (D.)

56] oppress the poor/ By farm'd excise: Dryden here inserts a reference to contemporary England; a contractor would buy for cash from the government the right to collect excise taxes, keeping the difference between the amount paid and the amount raised by tax collection, an obvious invitation to oppress taxpayers.

57] common-shore: open sewer.

58] rent the fishery: another reference to contemporary England; Juvenal lists various more or less unsavoury types of public works contracts that might be exploited for gain, some without equivalents in Dryden's England. bear the dead: i.e., to the place of burial.

68] thumbs bent back: "in a prize of sword-players, when one of the fencers had the other at his mercy, the vanquished party implored the clemency of the spectators. If they thought he deserved it not, they held up their thumbs and bent them backwards, in sign of death." (D.)

70] jakes: a privy (and what is deposited there).

80] canting: exploiting a particular jargon, here, that of astrology.

87] member: limb.

95] Verres: "praetor in Sicily, contemporary with Cicero; by whom accused of oppressing the province, he was condemned. His name is used here for any rich vicious man." (D.)

97] Tagus: "a famous river in Spain, which discharges itself into the ocean near Lisbon in Portugal. It was held of old, to be full of golden sands." (D.)

110] Orontes: "the greatest river of Syria; the poet here puts the river for the inhabitants of Syria." (D.)

111] Tiber: the river on which Rome stands.

117] mitre: "an Asian headdress, the wearing of which by men was regarded by the Greeks and Romans as a mark of effeminacy" (Oxford English Dictionary).

118] Romulus: "first king of Rome; son of Mars, as the poets feign; the first Romans were originally herdsmen." (D.)

121] horrid: standing on end.

122] Stilling: exuding.

126] A representative selection of place names from the Greek world (Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor).

129] purchase: buy landed estates, the hallmark of the gentry in Dryden's England.

130] denizen'd: naturalized.

143] that town: "he means Athens; of which, Pallas the goddess of arts and arms was patroness." (D.)

158] treads: mates with the hens.

163] All female parts were played by male actors in the Roman theatre.

167] Antiochus, Stratocles: "two famous Grecian mimics, or actors, in the poet's time." (D.)

179] on the square: on equal terms.

198] A rigid Stoic: "Publius Ignatius, a Stoic, falsely accused Bareas Soranus, as Tacitus tells us." (D.) Bareas was the patron and pupil in philosophy of his accuser; see Tacitus, Annals, 16: 21-33.

202] the gown: the toga, formal dress of the Roman governing class, who are said to be in thrall to the immigrant Greeks in humbler dress, who have no official status.

203] Diphilus, Protogenes: "were Grecians living in Rome." (D.) These are representative Greek names.

206] bubble: dupe.

216] That is, all the officials who ought to be transacting business indoors at their morning levees are racing through the streets in order to compete against other in paying social visits to wealthy childless women.

219] praetor: a senior magistrate, preceded through the streets of Rome by two lictors, officers carrying the fasces, symbolic of the praetor's authority.

226] half a brace: just one. tribune: Juvenal's Latin indicates that a military tribune is meant; a senior officer in a Roman legion, usually a person of established social position. bouts: sexual encounters.

230] the chair: in which she sat to attract customers, and from which she stepped down only when a satisfactory price for her services had been offered.

232] Numa: see above, l. 20 note. Numa's wife: Dryden's addition, perhaps on the analogy of Caesar's wife; she is not mentioned by Juvenal.

233] him: "Lucius Metellus, the high priest; who when the temple of Vesta was on fire, saved the Palladium [statue of Pallas Athene]." (D.)

262] happy punks: fortunate prostitutes.

266] Roscian Law: "Roscius a tribune, who ordered the distinction of places in public shows, betwixt the noblemen of Rome and the plebeians." (D.) Not to be confused with the famous actor named Roscius.

270] the judging chair: Roman magistrates were officially seated in curule chairs made of ivory.

271] Juvenal says simply that the poor would be wise to leave Rome; Dryden, following the standard commentaries on Juvenal, elaborates this into a reference to the events of 496 BCE, when the plebeians, enraged by their treatment at the hands of the patricians, left Rome and set up camp on the nearby Mons Sacer. They returned when the patricians agreed to the institution of the two tribunes of the people.

284] "The meaning is, that men in some parts of Italy never wore a gown (the usual habit of the Romans) till they were buried in one." (D.) By "gown" Dryden means the toga.

289] mimic: actor, performer.

302] Cossus: "here taken for any great man." (D.)

310] cracknels: hard biscuits, usually dish-like in shape (since the page-boy is young, this sweetmeat makes a suitable bribe). But as the next line indicates, the boy does not eat them, but sells them; what he gets in this way, added to "offerings" (tips), increases the "vails" (income from gratuities) that he makes from his position in the great man's household.

325] lumber: old furniture. The poor have so little that little labour is needed to remove it.

329] A garret was the uppermost level of a house reached by a staircase; the cock-loft above was reached by a ladder.

330] "The Romans used to breed their tame pigeons in their garrets." (D.)

332] Codrus: "a learned man, very poor; by his books supposed to be a poet. For, in all probability, the heroic verses here mentioned which rats and mice devoured, were Homer's works." (D.)

336] plate: ironic, since all the listed items are made of clay, not of silver or pewter, the usual materials of tableware referred to collectively as "plate."

337] Chiron: a centaur famous for his learning and skill in instruction, accidentally but fatally wounded by Hercules.

346] Arturius: another imagined representative of the arrogance of wealth.

354] Parian stone: marble.

355] Polyclete: Polycleitus, a famous Greek sculptor of the third century BCE, whose work is now known only through many copies made by the Romans.

357] Pallas to the breast: i.e., a bust of Pallas.

364] play-house: in Juvenal, the chariot races.

373] a Pythagorean treat: "he means herbs, roots, fruits, and salads" (D.), the diet recommended by the philosopher Pythagoras.

386] Drusus: probably a reference to the emperor Claudius (41-54), one of whose names was Drusus, and who was notoriously somnolent.

392] press: crowd.

395] shoal: crowd.

396] chairman's pole: one of the two long poles by which a sedan chair was carried by two men. Dryden substitutes a modern sedan chair for the litter (portable couch) of the ancient world.

400] doles: meals served out of doors by Roman social organizations to their members.

402] Dutch kitchens: Dutch ovens, metal pots for roasting meat.

404] Corbulo: "a famous general in Nero's time, who conquered Armenia, and was afterwards put to death by that tyrant, when he was in Greece, in reward of his great services. His stature was not only tall, above the ordinary size; but he was also proportionably strong." (D.)

407] botching: careless mending (which makes them more liable to tear again).

421] rubbers: towels.

425] ferryman: "Charon the ferry-man of Hell, whose fare was a half-penny [two farthings] for every soul." (D.) Charon ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx, which encircled Hades nine times around. Souls who arrived without an obol, the small coin Dryden equates to a halfpenny, could not be transported across the river for 100 years.

431] potsherds: bits of broken pottery.

432] ware: clay pots.

440] scouring: moving through the streets looking for trouble.

443] friend: "the friend of Achilles was Patroclus, who was slain by Hector." (D.) See Homer, Iliad, Book XVI.

469] lays me on: attacks me with blows.

470] Before the bar: into court (having beaten you, the assailant sues you for assault).

490] "Rome was originally ruled by kings; till for the rape of Lucretia, Tarquin the proud was expelled. After which it was governed by two consuls, yearly chosen: but they oppressing the people, the commoners mutinied, and procured tribunes to be created, who defended their privileges, and often opposed the consular authority, and the Senate." (D.) See above, lines 271-4, note.

498] Aquinum: "the birthplace of Juvenal, in the country not far from Rome." (D.)

Other poems by John Dryden