Be alert (your country needs lerts): Horace, Satires 1.9

Abstract

Who is that man with the handshake? Don't you know …He is an onlooker, a heartless type,Whose hobby is giving everyone else the lie.Laudatur et alget. The Fifties had faith: ‘This satire is nowadays the most popular of all and still read in many classical sixth forms where one otherwise shuns the Sermones.’ The Sixties knew: ‘This poem … will always be a general favourite’; yes, I bear witness, who lent an ear to the L. A. Moritz track for J.A.C.T.'s showcase of Latinitas back in the golden age of vinyl (I still do: ego uero oppono ∣ auriculam, 76f.). (…) The Nineties wonder. ‘Perhaps the most straightforward and immediately appealing of the ten poems, and perhaps the most delicious example of Horace's brand of ironic humour.’