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IT becomes all men, who desire to excel other animals,I. Desire to excel other animals] Sese student præstare ceteris animalibus. The pronoun, which was usually omitted, is, says Cortius, not without its force; for it is equivalent to ut ipsi: student ut ipsi præstent. In support of his opinion he quotes, with other passages, Plaut. Asinar. i. 3, 31: Vult placere sese amicæ, i.e. vult ut ipse amicæ placeat; and Cælius Antipater apud Festum in "Topper," Ita uti sese quisque vobis studeat æmulari, i.e. studeat ut ipse æmuletur. This explanation is approved by Bernouf. Cortius might have added Cat. 7: sese quisque hostem ferre—properabat. "Student," Cortius interprets by "cupiunt." to strive, to the utmost of their power,To the utmost of their power] Summâ ope, with their utmost ability. "A Sallustian mode of expression. Cicero would have said summâ operâ, summo studio, summâ, contentione. Ennius has 'Summa nituntur opum vi.'" Colerus. not to pass through life in obscurity,In obscurity] Silentio. So as to have nothing said of them, either during their lives or at their death. So in c. 2: Eorum ego vitam mortemque juxta æstumo, quoniam de utrâque siletur. When Ovid says, Bene qui latuit, bene vixit, and Horace, Nec vixit malè, qui vivens moriensque fefellit, they merely signify that he has some comfort in life, who, in ignoble obscurity, escapes trouble and censure. But men thus undistinguished are, in the estimation of Sallust, little superior to the brute creation. "Optimus quisque, says Muretus, quoting Cicero, "honoris et gloriæ studio maximè ducitur;" the ablest men are most actuated by the desire of honor and glory, and are more solicitous about the character which they will bear among posterity. With reason, therefore, does Pallas, in the Odyssey, address the following exhortation to Telemachus: Hast thou not heard how young Orestes, fir'd With great revenge, immortal praise acquir'd ? * * * * * O greatly bless'd with ev'ry blooming grace, With equal steps the paths of glory trace ! Join to that royal youth's your rival name, And shine eternal in the sphere of fame. like the beasts of the field,Like the beasts of the field] Veluti pecora. Many translators have rendered pecora "brutes" or "beasts;" pecus, however, does not mean brutes in general, but answers to our English word cattle. which nature has formed grovelingGroveling] Prona. I have adopted groveling from Mair's old translation. Pronus, stooping to the earth, is applied to cattle, in opposition to erectus, which is applied to man; as in the following lines of Ovid, Met. i. 76: Pronaque cum spectent animalia cætera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, cælumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus." "—while the mute creation downward bend Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend, Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes Beholds his own hereditary skies. Dryden. Which Milton (Par. L. vii. 502) has paraphrased: There wanted yet the master-work, the end Of all yet done; a creature, who not prone And brute as other creatures, but endued With sanctity of reason, might erect His stature, and upright with front serene Govern the rest, self-knowing, and-from thence Magnanimous to correspond with heaven. So Silius Italicus, xv. 84: Nonne vides hominum ut celsos ad sidera vultus Sustulerit Deus, et sublimia finxerit ora, Cùm pecudes, volucrumque genus, formasque ferarum, Segnem atque obscænam passim stravisset in alvum. See'st thou not how the Deity has rais'd The countenance of man erect to heav'n, Gazing sublime, while prone to earth he bent Th' inferior tribes, reptiles, and pasturing herds, And beasts of prey, to appetite enslav'd? "When Nature," says Cicero, de Legg. i. 9, "had made other animals abject, and consigned them to the pastures, she made man alone upright, and raised him to the contemplation of heaven, as of his birthplace and former abode;" a passage which Dryden seems to have had in his mind when he translated the lines of Ovid cited above. Let us add Juvenal, xv. 146: Sensum à cælesti demissum traximus arce, Cujus egent prona et terram spectantia. To us is reason giv'n, of heav'nly birth, Denied to beasts, that prone regard the earth. and subservient to appetite.
