SATIRES

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27500, 6 November 1954, Page 3

SATIRES

JUVENAL’S SATIRES WITH THE SATIRES OF PERSIUS (Dent, 230 pp.) in the William Giffprd Translation revised and annotated by John Warrington and with an Introduction by H. J. Rose, M.A. (Oxon.), F.BA., is a new addition to Everyman’s Library, Human vices and follies have never been more brilliantly castigated than by Juvenal, and the spirited verse translation of William Gifford, though done in 1802, could not be bettered. By careful comparison with the best modern Latin texts, the translation has bem revised and added to (where Gifford omitted passages of the originals) by John Warrington in the interests of accurc iy and completeness. His useful footnotes identify persons, places and unfamiliar historical events. The result is a most readable version of these great satires, which also provides a remarkable picture of Rome in the first half of the first century A.D. The addition of the six satires of Persius (34-62 A.D.) holds special interest, because modern research has been able to make more sense of this writer, who was once held to be the most obscure of all Roman writers. His Satires Were in dialogue form, with no indication of who the speaker was. This indication has now been supplied and, though the style still remains odd and mannered, the meaning is clearer.