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Persius 1. 107–10

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

William S. Anderson
William S. Anderson
Affiliation:
yale University
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Extract

Persius places these words in the mouth of his interlocutor, who states one of the traditional arguments against satire in the contrived manner typical of our poet. The passage may be translated: ‘What need is there to rasp upon tender little ears with biting truth? Be careful that the thresholds of the great do not perhaps grow cold towards you; here there is the nasal sound of the canine letter.’

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 3-4 , November 1958 , pp. 195 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

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References

1 Ciresola, T., La Formazione del linguaggio poetico di Persio (Rovereto, 1953), p. 40, this clause as an example of ‘compenetrazione delle immagini’ and expands it as fol lows: ‘hie sonat latratus caninus tarn acer ut videatur littera r, quae dicitur canina’. See also Austin's note on Quintilian 12. 9. 9.Google Scholar

1 Fiske, G. C., ‘Lucilius: the Ars Poetica of Horace and Persius’, H.S.C.P. xxiv (1913), 1–36Google Scholar. Cf. also Shero, L. R., ‘The Satirist's Apologia’, Wisconsin Cl. St. ii (1922), 148–67.Google Scholar

2 Hor, . Serm. 1. 4. 93.Google Scholar

3 Ibid. 2. 1. 85.

4 The irresponsibility is conveyed by the charge that the satirist slanders others (male dicere). Cf. Lucilius 1016 and 1034, also Horace, , Serm. 2. 1. 82.Google Scholar

5 In addition to the canine metaphor the satirists use the verb laedere to express this point. Cf. Lucilius 1035 and Horace, , Serm. 1. 4. 78; 2. 1. 21 and 67.Google Scholar

1 Lucilius 2: irritata canes quam homo quam planiu: dicit. 377 r: non multum est, hoc cacosyntheton atque canina si lingua dico: nihil ad me, nomen hoc illi est.

2 Donatus, on Ter. Ad. 282, removes all possible doubts about the allusion in 2 wher he says: ‘irritari proprie canes dicuntur Lucilius de littera R …’ However, the exac context of 2 remains a matter of opinion Marx argued from Persius that, if Persiui imitated Lucilius at this point, it would be necessary to assume a prologue to Book I in the form of a dialogue. But he also assumed that the fragment, under these conditions would refer to the wrath of the powerful, in accordance with the scholiast of Persius: ‘ea ad iram potentium hominum pertinent’. It seems to me that the scholiast has unduly influenced Marx and others, for the dog is traditionally associated with the satirist and his techniques in other passages of Lucilius and Horace. Therefore I accept the interpretation of Shero, , op. cit., p. 165, and of E. H. Warmington in the Loeb edition of Lucilius (cf. his lines 3–4), namely, that Lucilius designates ‘the snarl of satire’.Google Scholar

3 Cf. the citations from the life of Persius and his scholia in Lucilius 165 and 383. Cf. also Fiske, G. C., ‘Lucilius and Persius’, T.A.P.A. xl (1909), 121–50.Google Scholar