“Yet what state did Xerxes return in, on relinquishing Salamis?
He vented his savage rage by lashing the winds, Caurus, Eurus,
Who’d never experienced the like even in their Aeolian prison,
He bound Poseidon, the Earthshaker himself, with chains,
(That was lenient. What? Didn’t he think him worth branding
Too? What god would have chosen to be that man’s slave?)
What state was he in? In a single ship, of course, sailing the
Bloodstained waves, his prow slowly pushing corpses aside.
So often that’s the price extracted for man’s desire for glory.”
(X.170–187, from translation by A.S. Kline)
Our Book Club for April is the Satires by Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (Juvenal). Wikipedia describes them as follows:
The Satires (Latin: Saturae) are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written between the end of the first and the early second centuries [CE]. Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a wide-ranging discussion of society and social mores in dactylic hexameter.[1]
You can read whichever text you like. Here are some translations available online for free:
Translation by A. S. Kline, online at Poetry in Translation
Translation by Francis Hodgson, online or to download at archive.org
Verse translation by Charles Badham, online or to download at archive.org
Discussion will start and continue in the Forums, and we will meet via Zoom on Tuesday, April 30 at 11 a.m. EDT.
Happy reading!
[1] Wikipedia article ‘Satires (Juvenal)᾽