Aulus persius flaccus

O natal star, thou producest twins of widely different character. [Lat., Geminos, horoscope, varo Producis genio.]

Quantum est in rebus inane! How much folly there is in human affairs.

Please not thyself the flattering crowd to hear; 'Tis fulsome stuff, to please thy itching ear. Survey thy soul, not what thou does appear, But what thou art.

Retire within thyself, and thou will discover how small a stock is there. [Lat., Tecum habita, et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.]

Each man has his own desires; all do not possess the same inclinations.

Let them (the wicked) see the beauty of virtue, and pine at having forsaken her. [Lat., Virtutem videant, intabescantque relicta.]

Lives there the man with soul so dead as to disown the wish to merit the people's applause, and having uttered words worthy to be kept in cedar oil to latest times, to leave behind him rhymes that dread neither herrings nor frankincense.

Check disease in its approach.

Hunger is the teacher of the arts and the bestower of invention. -Magister artis ingenique largitor Venter

Confined to common life thy numbers flow, And neither soar too high nor sink too low; There strength and ease in graceful union meet, Though polished, subtle, and though poignant, sweet; Yet powerful to abash the from of crime And crimson error's cheek with sportive rhyme. [Lat., Verba togae sequeris, junctura callidus acri, Ore teres modico, pallentes radere mores Doctus, et ingenuo culpam defigere ludo.]

The belly (i.e. necessity) is the teacher of art and the liberal bestower of wit.

Out of nothing can come, and nothing can become nothing.

Things fit only to give weight to smoke.

Live according to your income.

Is then thy knowledge of no value, unless another know that thou possessest that knowledge?

The man who wishes to bend me with his tale of woe must shed true tears - not tears that have been got ready overnight.

You follow words of the toga (language of the cultivated class). [Lat., Verba togae sequeris.]

That no one, no one at all, should try to search into himself! But the wallet of the person in front is carefully kept in view. [Lat., Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere, nemo! Sed praecedenti spectatur mantica tergo.]

You pray for good health and a body that will be strong in old age. Good-but your rich foods block the gods' answer and tie Jupiter's hands.

Thou art moist and soft clay; thou must instantly be shaped by the glowing wheel. [Lat., Udum et molle lutum es: nunc, nunc properandus et acri Fingendus sine fine rota.]

For Yesterday was once To-morrow.

We consume our tomorrows fretting about our yesterdays.

Is any man free except the one who can pass his life as he pleases?

The stomach is the teacher of the arts and the dispenser of invention.

And don't consult anyone's opinions but your own.

Bad advice is often most fatal to the adviser.

Learn whom God has ordered you to be, and in what part of human affairs you have been placed.

Indulge, and to thy genius freely give, For not to live at ease is not to live.

Oh, the cares of men! how much emptiness there is in human concerns!

But when to-morrow comes, yesterday's morrow will have been already spent: and lo! a fresh morrow will be for ever making away with our years, each just beyond our grasp.

Our life is our own to-day, to-morrow you will be dust, a shade, and a tale that is told. Live mindful of death; the hour flies.

I know you even under the skin.

He conquers who endures.

It is pleasing to be pointed at with the finger and to have it said, "There goes the man." [Lat., At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier his est.]

Nothing can be born of nothing; nothing can be resolved into nothing.

Oh, what a void there is in things.

Each man has his fancy.

Your knowing a thing is nothing, unless another knows you know it.

The belly is the giver of genius.

He who conquers, endures.

Author details

Persius: Biography and Life Work

Persius was a notable Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin.

Aulus Persius Flaccus was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satire , he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of his poetic contemporaries. His works, which became very popular in the Middle Ages , were published after his death by his friend and mentor, the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Cornutus .

Philosophical Views and Reflections

The chief interest of Persius's work lies in its relation to Roman satire in its interpretation of Roman Stoicism , and in its use of the Latin tongue. The influence of Horace on Persius can, in spite of the silence of the Life, hardly have been less than that of Lucilius. Not only characters, as noted above, but whole phrases, thoughts and situations come directly from him. The resemblance only emphasizes the difference between the caricaturist of Stoicism and its preacher. Persius strikes the highest note that Roman satire reached; in earnestness and moral purpose he rises far superior to the political rancour or good-natured persiflage of his predecessors and the rhetorical indignation of Juvenal . From him we learn how that philosophy could work on minds that still preserved the depth and purity of the old Roman gravitas. Some of the parallel passages in the works of Persius and Seneca are very close, and cannot be explained by assuming the use of a common source. Like Seneca, Persius censures the style of the day, and imitates it. Indeed, in some of its worst failings, straining of expression, excess of detail, exaggeration, he outbids Seneca, whilst the obscurity, which makes his little book of not seven hundred lines so difficult to read and is in no way due to great depth of thought, compares poorly with the terse clearness of the Epistolae morales . A curious contrast to this tendency is presented by his free use of "popular" words. As of Plato , so of Persius, we hear that he emulated Sophron ; the authority is a late one (the Byzantine Lydus , De mag. I.41), but we can at least recognize in the scene that opens Sat. 3 kinship with such work as Theocritus ' Adoniazusae and the Mimes of Herodas .

The first important editions were: (1) with explanatory notes: Isaac Casaubon (Paris, 1605, enlarged edition by Johann Friedrich Dübner , Leipzig, 1833); Otto Jahn (with the scholia and valuable prolegomena, Leipzig, 1843); John Conington (with translation; 3rd ed., Oxford, 1893), etc. ; but there are several modern editions.

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