Persius

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.

Aulus Persius Flaccus (34–62) was a Roman satirical poet and moralist.

Quotes

The Satires

Translations are taken from G. G. Ramsay's revised edition of Juvenal and Persius in the Loeb Classical Library (1940)

• Magister artis ingenique largitor
  venter.
  • That master of arts, that dispenser of genius, the Belly.
  • Prologue, line 10.

• Quis leget haec?
  • Who’ll read that sort of thing?
  • Satire I, line 2 (translated by W. S. Merwin).

• Nec te quaesiveris extra.
  • Don’t consult anyone’s opinions but your own.
  • Satire I, line 7.

• Usque adeone
  scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter?
  • Is all your knowledge to go so utterly for nothing unless other people know that you possess it?
  • Satire I, line 26.

• At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier "hic est".
  • O but it is a fine thing to have a finger pointed at one, and to hear people say, "That's the man!"
  • Satire I, line 28.

• Nec nocte paratum,
  plorabit qui me volet incurvasse querella.
  • The man who wishes to bend me with his tale of woe must shed true tears – not tears that have been got ready overnight.
  • Satire I, line 90.

• Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta.
  • Let them recognize virtue and rot for having lost it.
  • Satire III, line 38.
    • Alternate translation (by William Gifford):—
      "In all her charms, set Virtue in their eye,
      And let them see their loss, despair, and—die!"

• Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere! nemo!
  Sed praecedenti spectatur mantica tergo.
  • None, none descends into himself, to find
    The secret imperfections of his mind.
  • Satire IV, line 23 (translated by John Dryden).

• Tecum habita: noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.
  • Live with yourself: get to know how poorly furnished you are.
  • Satire IV, line 52.

• Cum lux altera venit,
  iam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud cras
  egerit hos annos et semper paulum erit ultra.
  • 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.
  • Satire V, line 67.

• Nostrum est
  quod vivis, cinis et manes et fabula fies.
  vive memor leti, fugit hora.
  • 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.
  • Satire V, line 151.

External links

• Works by Persius at Project Gutenberg