ABSTRACT
Persius’s fame survived the collapse o f civilization, and no Latin poet except Virgil can produce a more distinguished pro cession o f witnesses to merit.3 He was read and remembered by Cassiodorus, Isidore, Bede, and Heiric o f Auxerre. His popu larity between 900 and 1200 is attested by the entries in monastery catalogues and by the number o f extant manuscripts: while authors like Catullus and Lucretius have come down by a single line, the pattern o f Persius’s tradition is so confused that it cannot be reconstructed in detail. In medieval England he is quoted by
William of Malmesbury, John of Salisbury, Walter Map, Roger Bacon; in renaissance Italy by Petrarch, Boccaccio, Laurentius Valla, Politian. In the sixteenth century he is imitated by Skelton, Wyatt, and Joseph Hall;4 the hispid character of early English satire is partly due to a false assessment o f his qualities. ‘Lay her i ’ the earth/ says Laertes of Ophelia, ‘and from her fair and un polluted flesh let violets spring." Though he did not know it, Shakespeare may have been influenced by Persius’s sneer at the pretentious litterateur (1.39 f )
nunc non e tumulo fortunataque favilla nascenturviolae?
