Old Age

Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Satires, 4.10, tr. G. G. Ramsay:

Give me length of days, give me many years. O Jupiter! Such is your one and only prayer, in days of strength or of sickness; yet how great, how unceasing, are the miseries of old age! Look first at the mis-shapen and ungainly face, so unlike its former self: see the unsightly hide that serves for skin; see the pendulous cheeks and the wrinkles like those which a matron baboon carves upon her aged jaws in the shaded glades of Thabraca. The young men differ in various ways: this man is handsomer than that, and he than another; one is stronger than another: but old men all look alike. Their voices are as shaky as their limbs, their heads without hair, their noses drivelling as in childhood. Their bread, poor wretches, has to be munched by toothless gums; so offensive do they become to their wives, their children, and themselves, that even the legacy-hunter, Cossus, turns from them in disgust. Their sluggish palate takes joy in wine or food no longer, and all pleasures of the flesh have been long ago forgotten. . . . [some lines omitted]

Another translation by Lewis Evans (1881), whose version is copiously annotated:

"Grant length of life, great Jove, and many years!" This is your only prayer in health and sickness. But with what unremitting and grievous ills is old age crowded! First of all, its face is hideous, loathsome, and altered from its former self; instead of skin a hideous hide and flaccid cheeks; and see! such wrinkles, as, where Tabraca extends her shady dells, the antiquated ape scratches on her wizened jowl! There are many points of difference in the young: this youth is handsomer than that; and he again than a third: one is far sturdier than another. Old mens faces are all alike—limbs tottering and voice feeble, a smooth bald pate, and the second childhood of a driveling nose; the poor wretch must mumble his bread with toothless gums; so loathsome to his wife, his children, and even to himself, that he would excite the disgust even of the legacy-hunter Cossus! His palate is grown dull; his relish for his food and wine no more the same; the joys of love are long ago forgotten; and in spite of all efforts to reinvigorate them, all manly energies are hopelessly extinct. Has this depraved and hoary lechery aught else to hope? Do we not look with just suspicion on the lust that covets the sin but lacks the power?

 A third one in verse by William Gifford's hand:

        "Life! length of life!" For this, with earnest cries,
        Or sick or well, we supplicate the skies.
        Pernicious prayer! for mark what ills attend,
        Still, on the old, as to the grave they bend:
        A ghastly visage, to themselves unknown,
        For a smooth skin, a hide with scurf o'ergrown,
        And such a cheek, as many a grandam ape,
        In Tabraca's thick woods, is seen to scrape.
        Strength, beauty, and a thousand charms beside,
        With sweet distinction, youth from youth divide;
        While age presents one universal face:
        A faltering voice, a weak and trembling pace,
        An ever-dropping nose, a forehead bare, 
        And toothless gums to mumble o'er its fare.
        Poor wretch, behold him, tottering to his fall,
        So loathsome to himself, wife, children, all,  
        That those who hoped the legacy to share,
        And flattered long—disgusted, disappear.
        The sluggish palate dulled, the feast no more  
        Excites the same sensations as of yore;    
        Taste, feeling, all, a universal blot,
        And e'en the rites of love remembered not:
        Or if—through the long night he feebly strives
        To raise a flame where not a spark survives;
        While Venus marks the effort with distrust,    
        And hates the gray decrepitude of lust.

There is another beautiful translation in verse by Charles Badham (London, 1814). The Latin text:

        ‘Da spatium vitae, multos da, Iuppiter, annos’: 
        hoc recto vultu, solum hoc, et pallidus optas,
        sed quam continuis et quantis longa senectus                190
        plena malis! deformem et taetrum ante omnia vultum
        dissimilemque sui, deformem pro cute pellem
        pendentisque genas et talis aspice rugas
        quales, umbriferos ubi pandit Thabraca saltus,
        in vetula scalpit iam mater simia bucca.                        195
        plurima sunt iuvenum discrimina; pulchrior ille
        hoc atque ille alio, multum hic robustior illo:
        una senum facies, cum voce trementia membra
        etiam leve caput madidique infantia nasi,
        frangendus misero gingiva panis inermi;                       200
        usque adeo gravis uxori natisque sibique,
        ut captatori moveat fastidia Cosso,
        non eadem vini atque cibi torpente palato
        gaudia, nam coitus iam longa oblivio, vel si
        coneris, iacet exiguus cum ramice nervus                      205
        et quamvis tota palpetur nocte, iacebit.
        anne aliquid sperare potest haec inguinis aegri
        canities? quid quod merito suspecta libido est
        quae venerem adfectat sine viribus?

A more literal tranlsation of the last lines of the satire is that of Paul Murgatroyd's (2017):

        Again, intercourse has by now long been forgotten, or,

        should you try, your little penis with its varicocele lies there

        and, despite being stroked all night long, will lie there.

        Can this sickly, white-haired phallus really hope for

        anything? What about the fact that lust which strives after sex

        without strength is quite rightly suspect?