THE SATYRICON

PETRONIUS

Two thousand and ten copies of

this edition have been printed,

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The present copy is

No. 564

THE

SATYRICON

From the Latin of

PETRONIUS

Translated and Introduced by

ALFRED R. ALLINSON

PRIVATELY ISSUED

FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

NEW YORK

THE PANURGE PRESS

COPYRIGHT, 1930

BY

THE PANURGE PRESS

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

INTRODUCTION

Tacitus writes (Annals, XVI. Chapters 17 and 18-20, A.D. 66): "Within a

few days, indeed, there perished in one and the same batch, Annaeus Mela,

Cerialis Anicius, Rufius Crispinus and Petronius. . . . With regard to

Caius Petronius, his character and life merit a somewhat more particular

attention. He passed his days in sleep, and his nights in business, or

in joy and revelry. Indolence was at once his passion and his road to

fame. What others did by vigor and industry, he accomplished by his

love of pleasure and luxurious ease. Unlike the men who profess to

understand social enjoyment, and ruin their fortunes, he led a life of

expense, without profusion; an epicure, yet not a prodigal; addicted

to his appetites, but with taste and judgment; a refined and elegant

voluptuary. Gay and airy in his conversation, he charmed by a certain

graceful negligence, the more engaging as it flowed from the natural

frankness of his disposition. With all this delicacy and careless ease,

he showed, when he was Governor of Bithynia, and afterwards in the year

of his Consulship, that vigor of mind and softness of manners may well

unite in the same person. With his love of sensuality he possessed

talents for business. From his public station he returned to his usual

gratifications, fond of vice, or of pleasures that bordered upon it. His

gayety recommended him to the notice of the Prince. Being in favor at

Court, and cherished as the companion of Nero in all his select parties,

he was allowed to be the arbiter of taste and elegance. Without the

sanction of Petronius nothing was exquisite, nothing rare or delicious.

"Hence the jealousy of Tigellinus, who dreaded a rival in the good

graces of the Emperor almost his equal; in the science of luxury his

superior. Tigellinus determined to work his downfall; and accordingly

addressed himself to the cruelty of the Prince,-- that master passion,

to which all other affections and every motive were sure to give way.

He charged Petronius with having lived in close intimacy with Scaevinus,

the conspirator; and to give color to that assertion, he bribed a slave

to turn informer against his master. The rest of the domestics were

loaded with irons. Nor was Petronius suffered to make his defense.

"Nero at that time happened to be on one of his excursions into Campania.

Petronius had followed him as far as Cumae, but was not allowed to proceed

further than that place. He scorned to linger in doubt and fear, and yet

was not in a hurry to leave a world which he loved. He opened his veins,

and closed them again, at intervals losing a small quantity of blood,

then binding up the orifice, as his own inclination prompted. He

conversed during the whole time with his usual gayety, never changing

his habitual manner, nor talking sentences to show his contempt of death.

He listened to his friends, who endeavored to entertain him, not with

grave discourses on the immortality of the soul or the moral wisdom of

philosophers, but with strains of poetry and verses of a gay and natural

turn. He distributed presents to some of his servants, and ordered

others to be chastised. He walked out for his amusement, and even lay

down to sleep. In this last scene of his life he acted with such calm

tranquillity, that his death, though an act of necessity, seemed no more

than the decline of nature. In his will he scorned to follow the example

of others, who like himself died under the tyrant's stroke; he neither

flattered the Emperor nor Tigellinus nor any of the creatures of the

Court. But having written, under the fictitious names of profligate

men and women, a narrative of Nero's debauchery and his new modes of vice,

he had the spirit to send to the Emperor that satirical romance, sealed

with his own seal,-- which he took care to break, that after his death

it might not be used for the destruction of any person whatever.

"Nero saw with surprise his clandestine passions and the secrets of his

midnight revels laid open to the world. To whom the discovery was to be

imputed still remained a doubt. Amidst his conjectures, Silia, who by

her marriage with a Senator had risen into notice, occurred to his memory.

This woman had often acted as procuress for the libidinous pleasures of

the Prince, and lived besides in close intimacy with Petronius. Nero

concluded that she had betrayed him, and for that offense ordered her

into banishment, making her a sacrifice to his private resentment."

Two questions arise out of this famous passage: 1. Is Petronius

(Arbiter), author of the Satyricon, the same person as the Caius

Petronius here described, and spoken of by the Historian as

"elegantiae arbiter" at the Court of Nero? 2. Is the existing

Satyricon the "satirical romance" composed by the Emperor's victim

during his dying hours and sent under seal to the tyrant?

Both points have been long and vigorously debated, but may now be

taken as fairly well settled by general consent,-- the answer to

the first query being Yes! To the second, No!

The Introductory Notice to Petronius, in the noble "Collection des

Auteurs Latins," edited by M. Nisard, sums up the controversy thus:

"Is Petronius, here mentioned by Tacitus, the Author of the Satyricon,

and are we to regard this work as being the testamentary document

addressed to Nero of which the Historian speaks?" These two questions

so long and eagerly disputed, may be looked upon as decided by this

time. The Consular, the favorite of Nero, the "arbiter of taste and

elegance" at the Imperial Court, is generally acknowledged to be our

Petronius Arbiter; whose book, diversified as it is with "strains of

poetry and verses of a gay and natural turn," with its tone of good

company and its easy-going Epicurean morality, is so much in keeping

with the cheerful, uncomplaining death of the pleasure-loving courtier

who understood his master's little peculiarities, and had, like

Trimalchio, adopted for his motto, "Vivamus, dum licet esse,"-- "Let

us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." At any rate in our own

opinion, this first point is finally and definitely decided.

"Can this satire (The Satyricon) be the testament of irony and hate

which the victim sent to his executioner? To this further question

we answer No!-- and our personal conviction on the point is shared

by the most weighty authorities. We will limit ourselves here to

one or two observations. According to Tacitus, Petronius had already

caused his veins to be opened, when he started to recapitulate the

series of Nero's debaucheries in this deposition. The document

therefore must necessarily have been brief; whereas the work we

possess, too extensive as it stands to have been composed by a dying

man, was originally of much greater length, for it seems proved by

the titles affixed to the Manuscripts that nearly nine-tenths of the

whole is lost. Besides, Petronius had expressly limited his statement

to an account of Nero's secret debaucheries, with no further disguise

beyond the use of fictitious names,-- 'under the names of profligate

men and women.' Lastly the extremely varied character of the Work is

diametrically opposed to a view, making it out to have been a personal

libel, a piece of abuse that only stops short of giving the actual

name of the individual pilloried."

What is known of Petronius himself, the man Petronius?-- Granting

an affirmative answer may be given to question 1, something; but even

then not much.

His name was Caius Petronius; he was a Roman Eques or Knight, born at

Massilia (Marseilles). Even these initial points are not quite firmly

established; Pliny and Plutarch speak of Titus Petronius, and the facts

of his being an Eques and his birth at Marseilles rest on conjectural

evidence. He was successively Proconsul of Bithynia, and Consul, in

both which high offices he showed integrity, energy and ability.

He was in high favor at the Court of Nero, where he devoted his undoubted

talents and genial wit to the amusement of the Prince, the systematic

cultivation of an elegant and luxurious idleness and the elaboration of a

refined profligacy. He won the title among his fellow courtiers of "arbiter

elegantiae," a nickname that with time appears to have grown into a sort

of surname, posterity knowing him universally as Petronius Arbiter.

Eventually he incurred the jealousy and enmity of Nero's all-powerful

Minister, Tigellinus, who contrived his ruin. Informed against for

conspiracy, or at any rate association with conspirators, he voluntarily

opened his veins. Displaying much fortitude and a fine indifference,

he died calmly and composedly, spending his last hours in merry

conversation with his friends, the recitation of light-hearted verses and

the composition of a candid and circumstantial account of the Emperor's

debaucheries, which he sent under seal to his Master as his dying bequest.

Pliny (1) and Plutarch (2) add further touch, that previous to his death

he broke to pieces a Murrhine vase of priceless value, which was amongst

his possessions, to prevent its falling into the tyrant's hands.

As to his great work, the so-called Satyricon, its characteristics and

place in literature, we cannot do better than quote from what Professor

Ramsey says of it in the "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography":

"A very singular production, consisting of a prose narrative interspersed

with numerous pieces of poetry, and thus resembling in form the Varronian

Satire, has come down to us in a sadly mutilated state. In the oldest

MSS. and the earliest editions it bears the title Petronii Arbitri

Saturicon, and as it now exists, is composed of a series of fragments,

the continuity of the piece being frequently interrupted by blanks, and

the whole forming but a very small portion of the original, which, when

entire, contained at least sixteen books, and probably many more. It

is a sort of comic romance, in which the adventures of a certain

Encolpius and his companions in the south of Italy, chiefly in Naples

or its environs, are made a vehicle for exposing the false taste which

prevailed upon all matters connected with literature and the fine arts,

and for holding up to ridicule and detestation the folly, luxury and

dishonesty of all classes of the community in the age and country in

which the scene is laid. A great variety of characters connected for

the most part with the lower ranks of life are brought upon the stage,

and support their parts with the greatest liveliness and dramatic

propriety, while every page overflows with ironical wit and broad

humor. Unfortunately the vices of the personages introduced are

depicted with such minute fidelity that we are perpetually disgusted

by the coarseness and obscenity of the descriptions. Indeed, if we

can believe that such a book was ever widely circulated and generally

admired, that fact alone would afford the most convincing proof of the

pollution of the epoch to which it belongs. . . .

"The longest and most important section is generally known as the

Supper of Trimalchio, presenting us with a detailed and very amusing

account of a fantastic banquet, such as the most luxurious and

extravagant gourmands of the empire were wont to exhibit on their

tables. Next in interest is the well-known tale of the Ephesian

Matron, which here appears for the first time among the popular

fictions of the Western world, although current from a very early

period in the remote regions of the East. . . . The longest of

the effusions in verse is a descriptive poem on the Civil Wars,

extending to 295 hexameter lines, affording a good example of

that declamatory tone of which the Pharsalia is the type. We

have also 65 iambic trimeters, depicting the capture of Troy

(Troiae Halosis), and besides these several shorter morsels are

interspersed replete with grace and beauty."

Teuffel in his masterly "History of Roman Literature" is brief, but to

the point, in what he says of the Satyricon: "To Nero's time belongs

also the character-novel of Petronius Arbiter, no doubt the same

Petronius whom Nero (A.D. 66) compelled to kill himself. Originally

a large work in at least 20 books, with accounts of various adventures

supposed to have taken place during a journey, it now consists of a heap

of fragments, the most considerable of which is the Cena Trimalchionis,

being the description of a feast given by a rich and uneducated upstart.

Though steeped in obscenity, this novel is not only highly important for

the history of manners and language, especially the plebeian speech,

but it is also a work of art in its way, full of spirit, fine insight

into human nature, wit of a high order and genial humor. In its form

it is a satira Menippea, in which the metrical pieces interspersed

contain chiefly parodies of certain fashions of taste."

"The narrator and hero of the romance," Nisard writes in his

Preliminary Notice to "Petronius," "is a sort of Guzman d'Alfarache,

a young profligate, over head and ears in debt, without either fortune,

or family, and reduced, with all his brilliant qualitites, to live

from hand to mouth by dint of a series of more or less hazardous

expedients. The pictures he draws with such a bold and lifelike

touch change and shift without plan or purpose, following each other

with the same abrupt inconsequence we observe in real life; and we

are strongly tempted to conclude Petronius has largely depicted in

them the actual phases of his own, that of a self-made adventurer,

appropriating as his own with extraordinary success the tone of

persiflage and the ironical outlook on existence of a man of high

birth and station. With equal ease he sounds the most contradictory

notes. Verse and prose, precepts of rhetoric and of ethics, scenes

of profligate indulgence, comic descriptions of a feast where

luxury is carried to ludicrous extremes, anecdotes told in the

happiest manner, notably the world-famous tale of the Ephesian

Matron, epic poetry even, love letters and love talk breathing

a refined, almost chivalric, spirit,-- such is the strange fabric

of this drama, at once passionate, derisive, fanfaronading, tragic

and burlesque, where the grand style and the most graceful narrative

tread on the heels of provincial patois and popular saws. . . .

"Petronius' book belongs essentially to the class of Satirae

Menippeae, of which Varro had given the first example in the works

he composed in imitation of the Greek Menippus, and of which Seneca's

Apocolocyntosis is another capital instance."

All critics agree upon the excellence of the Satyricon as a work of

art, though many take exception to the grossness of the subject

matter. Indeed there can be no two opinions as to the brilliancy

and refinement of our Author's style generally; while the vivid

picturesqueness of the narrative on the one hand, and the perfect

adaptation of the language to the rank and idiosyncrasy of the

interlocutors on the other, are particularly noteworthy. "The very

criticisms which have been launched against Petronius are mingled

with admiring panegyric which a due regard for truth has forced

from his assailants; and in the mouth of an enemy, praise counts

for much more than blame. Even the barbarisms and vulgarities of

expressions that at times seem to disfigure his style, are in the

eyes of Menage the perfection of art and appropriateness; he puts

them only in the mouths of servants and debuachees devoid of any touch

of refinement. Note on the other hand with what elegance he makes

his well-born characters speak. Petronius assigns to each one of

his actors the language most suited to him. This is a merit precious

in direct ratio to its rarity; the shadows with which a skillful

painter darkens his canvas, only serve to bring out in more startling

relief the beauties of the picture. Justus Lipsius epigrammatically

styles him auctor purissimae impuritatis." (Heguin de Guerle.)

The first thing to strike us is the brilliancy and liveliness of the

book-- fragmentary as is the condition in which it has come down to

us-- as a Novel of Adventure. The reader is hurried on, his interest

forever on the stretch, from episode to episode of the exciting, and

more often than not scandalous, adventures of the disreputable band

of light-hearted gentlemen of the road, whose leader is that most

audacious and irresponsible of amiable scamps, Encolpius, the narrator

of the moving tale. With the exception of the six chapters devoted

to describing the glories and absurdities of Trimalchio's Feast,

which form a long episode apart, and a most entertaining one, the

action never pauses. From lecture-room to house of ill fame, from

country mansion to country tavern, from the market for stolen goods

in a city slum to the Chapel of Priapus, from a harlot's palace to a

rich parvenu's table, from Picture Gallery to the public baths, from

ship and shipwreck to a luxurious life of imposture in a wealthy

provincial town, we are hurried along in breathless haste. The pace

is tremendous, but the road bristles with hairbreadth escapes and

stirring incidents, and is never for one instant dull or tame.

Probably the nearest parallel in other literatures is the so-called

picaresque romances of Spain, of which Don Pablo de Segovia; Lazarillo

de Tormes; and, if we regard it of Spanish origin, the incomparable

Gil Blas de Santillana, may be taken as typical examples.

A mere Novel of Adventure then? Not so! The Satyricon is this; but it

is a great deal besides. It abounds in clear-sighted and instructive

apercus on education, literature and art, and contemporary deficiencies

in these domains; its prose is interspersed with many brilliant fragments

of verse, mostly parodies and burlesques, some ludicrous, some beautiful.

Over and above its merits as a tale, it is a copious literary miscellany,

over-flowing with wit and wisdom, drollery and sarcasm.

Last but not least, this work of fine, if irregular, genius contains

probably the most lifelike and discriminating character painting in

the realm of everyday life to be found in all the range of ancient

literature. To appreciate this, it is only necessary to name three

or four of the principal dramatis personae:--

Encolpius, the gay, unprincipled profligate, but never altogether

worthless, narrator of the story;

Ascyltos, his comrade and rival, as immoral and good for nothing as the

other, but without his redeeming touch of gentlemanliness and "honor

among thieves";

Giton, the minion, changeable and capricious, with his pretty face and

wheedling ways;

Tryphaena, the beautiful wanton, who "travels the world for her pleasures";

Lichas, the overbearing and vindictive merchant and Sea-captain; Quartilla,

the lascivious and unscrupulous votary of Priapus; Circe, the lovely

"femme incomprise" of Croton; and finally, the never to be forgotten

Eumolpus, the mad poet, the disreputable and starving pedant, at once

"childlike and bland" with an ineffable naivete of simple conceit, and

frankly given up to the pursuit of the most abominable immoralities, now

bolting from the shower of stones his ineradicable propensity for reciting

his own poetry has provoked, now composing immortal verse, calm amid

the horrors of storm and wreck and utterly oblivious of impending death.

Another point, the admirably clever adaptation of the language to the

social position and character of the persons speaking, merits a word

or two more. While both the general narrative, and the conversation

of the educated dramatis personae, Eumolpus for instance, are marked

by a high degree of correctness of diction and elegance of phrase, the

talk of such characters as Trimalchio and his freedmen friends,

Habinnas and the rest, and other uneducated or half-educated persons,

is full not merely of vulgarisms and popular words, but of positive

blunders and downright bad grammar. These mistakes of course are

intentional, and it is only another proof of the lack of humor and

want of common sense that often marked the industrious and meritorious

scholars, particularly German scholars, of the old school, that some

commentators have actually gone out of their way to correct these

errors in the text of Petronius. There are hundreds of them; two or

three examples must suffice here. Libra rubricata says Trimalchio

(Ch. VII.-- xlvi), meaning libros rubricatos, "lawbooks," and vetuo

"I forbid," while his guests indulge in such glaring solecisms as

malus fatus, exhortavit, naufragarunt. The whole of Chapter VII.,

where Trimalchio's guests converse freely with one another in the

temporary absence of their host, and afterwards Trimalchio harangues

the company on various subjects, is full of these diverting "bulls."

From the philologist's point of view the book is particularly valuable

as containing almost our only specimens of the Roman popular, country

speech,-- the lingua Romana rusticana, so all important as the link

between literary Latin and the Romance languages of modern Europe.

Two or three examples again must suffice: minutus populus, exactly the

modern French "le menu peuple," urceatim plovebat, "it rained in

bucketfuls," non est miscix, "he's no shirker," bono filo est, "he has

good stuff in him." It is also a storehouse of popular saws and sayings,

sometimes of a fine, vigorous outspokenness, not to say coarseness of

expression, such as: caldum meiire et frigidum potare, "to piss hot and

drink cold"; sudor per bifurcam volabat, "the sweat was pouring down

between my legs"; lassus tanquam caballus in clivo, "as tired as a

carthorse at a hill."

"In addition to the corruptions in the text," says Professor Ramsay,

"which are so numerous and hopeless as to render whole sentences

unintelligible, there are doubtless a multitude of strange words and

of phrases not elsewhere to be found; but this circumstance need

excite no surprise when we remember the various topics which fall

under discussion, and the singular personages grouped together on

the scene. The most remarkable and startling peculiarities may be

considered as the phraseology appropriate to the characters by whom

they are uttered, the language of ordinary conversation, the familiar

slang in everyday use among the hybrid population of Campania, closely

resembling in all probability the dialect of the Atellan farces. On

the other hand, wherever the author may be supposed to be speaking

in his own person, we are deeply impressed by the extreme felicity

of the style, which, far from bearing marks of decrepitude or decay,

is redolent of spirit, elasticity, and vigorous freshness."

As to the text, the following remarks by Professor Ramsay, give a

complete statement which it is impossible to improve upon. "Many

attempts," he writes, "have been made to account for the strangely

mutilated condition in which the piece has been transmitted to modern

times. It has been suggested by some that the blanks were caused by

the scruples of pious transcribers, who omitted those parts which were

most licentious; while others have not hesitated to declare their

conviction that the worst passages were studiously selected. Without

meaning to advocate this last hypothesis-- and we can scarcely

believe that Burmann was in earnest when he propounded it-- it is

clear that the first explanation is altogether unsatisfactory, for

it appears to be impossible that what was passed over could have been

more offensive than much of what was retained. According to another

theory, what we now possess must be regarded as striking and favorite

extracts, copied out into the common-place book of some scholar in the

Middle Ages; a supposition applicable to the Supper of Trimalchio and

the longer poetical essays, but which fails for the numerous short and

abrupt fragments breaking off in the middle of a sentence. The most

simple solution of the difficulty seems to be the true one. The

existing MS. proceeded, in all likelihood, from two or three

archetypes, which may have been so much damaged by neglect that

large portions were rendered illegible, while whole leaves and

sections may have been torn out or otherwise destroyed.

"The Editio Princeps of the fragments of Petronius was printed at

Venice, by Bernardinus de Vitalibus, 1499; and the second at Leipzig,

by Jacobus Thanner, in 1500; but these editions, and those which

followed for upwards of a hundred and fifty years, exhibited much

less than we now possess. For, about the middle of the seventeenth

century, an individual who assumed the designation of Martinus

Statilius, although his real name was Petrus Petitus, found a MS.

at Traun in Dalmatia, containing nearly entire the Supper of

Trimalchio, which was wanting in all former copies. This was

published separately at Padua, in a very incorrect state, in 1664,

without the knowledge of the discoverer, again by Petitus himself

at Paris, in the same year, and immediately gave rise to a fierce

controversy, in which the most learned men of that day took a share,

one party receiving it without suspicion as a genuine relic of

antiquity, while their opponents, with great vehemence, contended

that it was spurious. The strife was not quelled until the year

1669, when the MS. was dispatched from the Library of the proprietor,

Nicolaus Cippius, at Traun, to Rome, where, having been narrowly

scrutinized by the most competent judges, it was finally pronounced

to be at least three hundred years old, and, since no forgery of such

a nature could have been executed at that epoch, the skeptics were

compelled reluctantly to admit that their doubts were ill founded.

The title of the Codex, commonly known as the Codex Traguriensis,

was Petronii Arbitri Satyri Fragmenta ex libro quinto decimo et sexto

decimo, and then follow the words 'Num alio genere furiarum,' etc.

"Stimulated, it would appear, by the interest excited during the

progress of this discussion, and by the favor with which the new

acquisition was now universally regarded by scholars, a certain

Francis Nodot published at Rotterdam, in 1693, what professed to be

the Satyricon of Petronius complete, taken, it was said, from a MS.

found at Belgrade, when that city was captured in 1688, a MS. which

Nodot declared had been presented to him by a Frenchman high in the

Imperial service. The fate of this volume was soon decided. The

imposture was so palpable that few could be found to advocate the

pretensions put forth on its behalf, and it was soon given up by

all. It is sometimes, however, printed along with the genuine

text, but in a different type, so as to prevent the possibility of

mistake. Besides this, a pretended fragment, said to have been

obtained from the monastery of St. Gall, was printed in 1800,

with notes and a French translation by Lallemand, but it seems

to have deceived nobody."

In the present version the portions of the narrative derived from

this alleged Belgrade MS. are not specially distinguished from the

genuine text; this is done advisedly, in order not to interrupt the

continuity of the story. This does not of course for a moment imply

that these interpolations are regarded as other than spurious, but

as they are both amusing reading in themselves as well as admirable

imitations of our Author's style, and supply obvious lacunae in the

plot, making the whole book more interesting and coherent, they

have been retained as an integral part of the work.

We append three or four extracts bearing upon Petronius and the

Satyricon, and interesting either on account of the source from

which they come, the quaintness of their expression, or the weight

of their authority.

From the "Age of Petronius," by Charles Beck, 1856: "Among the small

number of Latin writers of prose fiction, Petronius, the author of

the Satyricon, occupies a prominent place. . . . As to this book, the

quality of its language and style and the nature of its contents

constitute it one of the most interesting and important relics of

Roman lierature, antiquities and history.

"The work, at least the portion which has come down to us, contains

the adventures of a dissipated, unprincipled, but clever, cultivated

and well-informed young man, Encolpius, the hero himself being the

narrator. The book opens with a discussion on the defects of the

existing system of education, in which the shortcomings of both

teachers and parents are pointed out. Next follows a scene in the

Forum, in which the hero and his companion, Ascyltos, are concerned,

and which exhibits some of the abuses connected with judicial

proceedings. After a brief and passing mention of the vices and

hypocrisy of the priests, the highly interesting portion containing

an account of the banquet of Trimalchio follows. This is succeeded

by the account of the acquaintance which the hero, disappointed and

dispirited by the faithless conduct of his companion, forms with a

philosopher, Eumolpus, who besides discussing some subjects relating

to art, especially painting, and to literature, gives an account of

his infamous proceedings in corrupting the son of a family in whose

house he had been hospitably received. The hero accepts the invitation

of the philosopher to accompany him on an excursion to Tarentum. The

account of the voyage, of the discovery made by Encolpius that he is

on board a vessel owned by a person whose vengeance he had just ground

to apprehend, of his fruitless attempt to escape detection, of the

reconciliation of the hostile parties, and of the destruction of the

vessel and the greater portion of the passengers by shipwreck, is

full of interest. The hero and his immediate companions, being the only

persons that escaped death, make their way to Croton, where Eumolpus, by

representing himself as the owner of valuable and extensive possessions

in Africa, works so upon the avarice and cupidity of the inhabitants,

who are described as a set of legacy-hunters by profession, that he

meets with the most hospitable reception. An intrigue of the hero with

a beautiful lady of the city occupies a large part of this section

of the story. The book closes with an account of the measures

which Eumolpus takes for the purpose of avoiding the detection of

his fraud, by working anew upon the avarice of his hosts. The close

is abrupt as the beginning had been; the book is incomplete in both

parts; the end, as well as the beginning, is wanting.

"That the author of this work was a man of genius is unquestionable.

The narrative of the events of the story is simple,-- exciting,

without exhausting, the interest of the reader, the description

of customs, chiefly those of the middle classes of society, is

invaluable to the antiquarian, and the importance of the work in

this respect can scarcely be overrated; the personages introduced

into the story are drawn with such a clearness of perception of

their characteristics, and such an accuracy of portraiture,

extending to the very peculiarities of the language used by each,

that they appear to live and breathe and move before our eyes."

From John Dunlop's History of Fiction: "The most celebrated fable of

ancient Rome is the work of Petronius Arbiter, perhaps the most

remarkable fiction which has dishonored the literature of any

nation. It is the only fable of that period now extant, but is

a strong proof of the monstrous corruption of the times in which

such a production could be tolerated, though no doubt writings of

bad moral tendency might be circulated before the invention of

printing, without arguing the depravity they would have evinced,

if presented to the world subsequent to that period.

"The work of Petronius is in the form of a satire, and, according

to some commentators, is directed against the vices of the court of

Nero, who is thought to be delineated under the names of Trimalchio

and Agamemnon,-- an opinion which has been justly ridiculed by

Voltaire. The satire is written in a manner which was first

introduced by Varro; verses are intermixed with prose, and jests

with serious remark. It has much the air of a romance, both in

the incidents and their disposition; but the story is too well

known, and too scandalous, to be particularly detailed.

"The scene is laid in Magna Graecia; Encolpius is the chief character

in the work, and the narrator of events;-- he commences by a lamentation

on the decline of eloquence, and while listening to the reply of

Agamemnon, a professor of oratory, he loses his companion, Ascyltos.

Wandering through the town in search of him, he is finally conducted

by an old woman to a retirement where the incidents that occur are

analogous to the scene. The subsequent adventures,-- the feast of

Trimalchio,-- the defection and return of Giton,-- the amour of

Eumolpus in Bithynia,-- the voyage in the vessel of Lichas,-- the

passion and disappointment of Circe,-- all these follow each other

without much art of arrangement, an apparent defect which may arise

from the mutilated form in which the satire has descended to us.

"The style of Petronius has been much applauded for its elegance,--

it certainly possesses considerable naivete and grace, and is by much

too fine a veil for so deformed a body."

From Addison's Preface to his Translation of Petronius: "'Petronius,'

says that judicious critic, Mons. St. Evremond, 'is to be admired

throughout, for the purity of his style and the delicacy of his

sentiments; but that which more surprises me, is his great easiness

in giving us ingenuously all sorts of Characters. Terence is perhaps

the only author of Antiquity that enters best into the nature of

persons. But still this fault I find in him, that he has too little

variety; his whole talent being confined in making servants and old

men, a covetous father and a debauched son, a slave and an intriguer,

to speak properly, according to their several characters. So far,

and no farther, the capacity of Terence reaches. You must not expect

from him either gallantry or passion, either thoughts or the discourse

of a gentleman. Petronius, who had a universal wit, hits upon the

genius of all professions, and adapts himself, as he pleases, to a

thousand different natures. If he introduces a Declaimer, he assumes

his air and his style so well, that one could say he had used to

declaim all his life. Nothing expresses more naturally the constant

disorders of a debauched life than these everlasting quarrels of

Encolpius and Ascyltos about Giton.

"Is not Quartilla an admirable portrait of a prostitute woman? Does

not the marriage of young Giton and innocent Pannychis give us the

image of a complete wantonness?

"All that a sot ridiculously magnificent in banquets, a vain affecter

of niceness, and an impertinent, are able to do, you have at the Feast

of Trimalchio.

"Eumolpus shows us Nero's extravagant folly for the Theater, and his

vanity in reciting his own poems; and you may observe, as you run

over so many noble verses, of which he makes an ill use, that an

excellent poet may be a very ill man. . . . The infirmity he has of

making verses out of season, even at death's door; his fluentness in

repeating his compositions in all places and at all times, answers his

most ridiculous setting out, where he characteristically tells him,

"I am a Poet, and I hope, of no ordinary genius.' . . .

"There is nothing so natural as the character of Chrysis, and none of

our confidantes come near her. Not to mention her first conversation

with Polyaenus,-- what she tells him of her mistress, upon the affront

she received, has an inimitable simplicity. But nobody, besides

Petronius, could have described Circe, so beautiful, so voluptuous,

and so polite. Enothea, the Priestess of Priapus, ravishes me with

the miracles she promises, with her enchantments, her sacrifices, her

sorrow for the death of the consecrated goose, and the manner in which

she is pacified when Polyaenus makes her a present, with which she

might purchase a goose and gods too, if she thought fit.

"Philumena, that complaisant lady, is no less entertaining, who after

she had cullied several men out of their estates, in the flower of

her beauty, now being old and by consequence unfit for pleasures,

endeavored to keep up this noble trade by the means of her children,

whom she took every opportunity to introduce with a thousand fine

discourses to old men, who had no heirs of their own.

"In a word, there is no part of Nature, no profession, which Petronius

doth not admirably paint. He is a Poet, an Orator, a Philosopher,

and much more besides, at his pleasure."

Lastly Teufel, writing of the Satyricon in Pauly's Encyclopedia,

says: "The whole plan of the work is that of a novel; two freedmen,

Encolpius and Ascyltos, are enamored of a boy Giton, and the

adventures which have their origin in this circumstance, and

which they encounter severally, the acquaintances which they

make (for instance of Trimalchio and Eumolpus), form the contents

at least of that portion of the book which has come down to us.

But the book contains in this dress of a narrative, descriptions

of manners, partly of single places (for example of Croton),

partly of certain classes (for example of Trimalchio, a rich

upstart, who apes the manners of a refined man of the world, but

exposes himself most ridiculously, of Encolpius, a good-natured,

cowardly and licentious Greek, of Eumolpus, a vain and tasteless

poet, and at the same time a thoroughly demoralized preacher of

virtue), all drawn with masterly truthfulness even to the minutest

detail. The tone is humorous throughout; the dramatis personae

act and speak, even in the most offensive circumstances, with an

openness, unconcern and self-satisfaction, as if they had the most

undoubted right to be and think as they do; at the same time, a vein

of gentle irony pervades the whole, which indicates the author's

moral independence and higher standpoint, as well as his sincere

gratification at the amusing and filthy scenes which he describes;

he accompanies his heroes at every step with a smile on his lips

and a low laugh. The work belongs therefore, by its contents as

well as its tone, to the department of satire, resembling in tone

Horace, in form the Minippean satire.

"For not only does the language occasionally pass over from prose to

verse (limping iambs and trochees), but entire poems of greater extent

are interwoven (Troiae Halosis and Bellum Civile), which are usually

put in the mouth of Eumolpus, and which always have a satirical object,

sometimes a double one, as in the case with the Bellum Civile, which

ridicules Lucan, as well as his opponents personified by Eumolpus,

the writer with genuine humor placing himself above both, and dealing

against both his blows with impartial justice. The language is always

suited to the character of the persons speaking, elegant in Encolpius,

bombastic in Trimalchio. The language put in the mouth of the last is

for us an invaluable specimen of the lingua Romana rustica, as it

obtained in that part of Italy where the scene is laid,-- in Campania,

and especially Naples. In conformity with the originally Greek

character of this region, the language of Trimalchio and his

companions is full of Greek words and Grecisms of the boldest kind

(such as coupling the neuter plural with the verb in the singular).

Characteristic of the local dialect are the many archaisms, compounds

not known in the written language, the frequent solecisms, the many

proverbial and extravagant expressions, the numerous oaths and curses."

A brilliant passage from Emile Thomas' remarkable study of Petronius

and contemporary Roman society, entitled, "Petrone: L'Envers de la

Societe Romaine" (Paris, 1902), may fitly sum up the situation.

"This romance," he writes, "such delightful and at the same time

such difficult reading, a work at once exquisite and repulsive,

gives us by virtue of its defects no less than of its merits a fairly

adequate representation of the under-side of Roman civilization.

Would it not be a gain, and a great one, for the systematic history

of morals and literature at Rome to restore this work to its proper

place? and is not this place pretty well identical, barring of course

the difference of field and form, with that reserved in Greek Art

for the vases, statuettes and pottery of Tanagra, and of the periods

before and after Tanagra; in one word, whatever allows us to

comprehend, or at least get a glimpse of, the Ancient world under

the aspects of its everyday life? Everybody knows how successful

has been the revolution, and how fruitful in results, which has

been brought about under our own eyes in these departments of

Greek History and Archeology.

"Well! here (in Petronius) we have among the authors of Rome a

veritable genre painter, of a sort to take the place for us, at

any rate in part, of the graceful vase-paintings of Antiquity, as

well as of the grotesques of Greek art.

"From yet another aspect, not a few points of resemblance may be

detected between Petronius and the lighter literary productions,

novels, tales, burlesque narratives, vers de societe, and even

journals, of the last two Centuries. Our Author is refined, not

to say blase, but none the less inquisitive, full both of sagacity

and passion, always exact, and above and beyond all else, a supreme

master of style. Laying aside all false delicacy, let us hear what

he has to tell us of the daily routine, of the outward aspect, and

even of the hidden secrets, of Roman existence. Nowhere else has

human life been lived on an ampler scale; no other people, no other

society, has ever displayed so much variety, so many contrasts,

such heights of grandeur and such depths of degradation."

ALFRED R. ALLINSON.

THE SATYRICON

CHAPTER ONE

Such a long time has passed since first I promised you the story of my

adventures I am resolved to keep my word today, seeing we are happily

met together to season those matters with lively conversation and tales

of a merry and diverting sort.

Fabricius Veiento was discoursing very wisely to us just now on the

follies of superstition, exposing the various forms of priestly

charlatanry, the holy men's mania for prophecy, and the effrontery

they display in expounding mysteries they very often utterly fail to

comprehend themselves. Is it not much the same type of madness that

afflicts our declaimers, who shout: "These wounds I got, defending

our common liberties; this eye I lost in your behalf. Give me a

helping hand to lead me to my children, for my poor maimed limbs

refuse to bear my weight." Even such extravagances might be borne,

if they really served to guide beginners in the way of eloquence; but

all pupils gain by these high-flown themes, these empty sounding

phrases, is this, that on entering the forum they imagine themselves

transported into a new and strange world.

This is the reason, in my opinion, why young men grow up such

blockheads in the schools, because they neither see nor hear one

single thing connected with the usual circumstances of everyday

life, nothing but stuff about pirates lurking on the seashore with

fetters in their hands, tyrants issuing edicts to compel sons to

cut off their own fathers' heads, oracles in times of pestilence

commanding three virgins or more to be sacrificed to stay the

plague,-- honey-sweet, well-rounded sentences, words and facts

alike as it were, besprinkled with poppy and sesame.

Under such a training it is no more possible to acquire good taste

than it is not to stink, if you live in a kitchen. Give me leave to

tell you that you rhetoricians are chiefly to blame for the ruin of

Oratory, for with your silly, idle phrases, meant only to tickle

the ears of an audience, you have enervated and deboshed the very

substance of true eloquence.

Young men were not bound down to declamations in the days when Sophocles

and Euripides found the very words they wanted to best express their

meaning. No cloistered professor had as yet darkened men's intellects,

when Pindar and the nine Lyric bards shrank from emulating the Homeric

note. And not to cite poets exclusively,-- I cannot see that either

Plato or Demosthenes ever practised this sort of mental exercise. A

noble, and so to say chaste, style is not overloaded with ornament,

not turgid; its own natural beauty gives it elevation.

Then after a while this windy, extravagant deluge of words invaded

Athens from Asia, and like a malignant star, blasting the minds of

young men aiming at lofty ideals, instantly broke up all rules of

art and struck eloquence dumb. Since that day who has reached the

perfection of Thucydides, the glory of Hyperides? Nay! not a poem

has been written of bright and wholesome complexion; but all, as if

fed on the same unhealthy diet, have lacked stamina to attain old age.

Painting moreover shared the same fate, after Egypt presumptuously

invented a compendious method for that noble Art.

Such and suchlike reflections I was indulging in one day before a

numerous audience, when Agamemnon came up, curious to see who it was

they were listening to so attentively. Well! he declined to allow

me to declaim longer in the Portico than he had himself sweated in

the schools but: "Young man," he cries, "seeing your words are

something better than mere popular commonplaces, and-- a very rare

occurrence-- you are an admirer of sound sense, I will confide to

you a professional secret. In the choice of these exercises it is

not the masters that are to blame. They are forced to be just as

mad as all the rest; for if they refuse to teach what pleases their

scholars, they will be left, as Cicero says, to lecure to empty

benches. Just as false-hearted sycophants, scheming for a seat at

a rich man's table, make it their chief business to discover what

will be most agreeable hearing to their host, for indeed their only

way to gain their end is by cajolement and flattery; so a professor

of Rhetoric, unless like a fisherman he arm his hook with the bait

he knows the fish will take, may stand long enough on his rock

without a chance of success.

"Whose fault is it then? It is the parents deserve censure, who

will not give their children the advantages of a strict training.

In the first place their hopes, like everything else, are centered

in ambition, and so being impatient to see their wishes fulfilled,

they hurry lads into the forum when still raw and half taught, and

indue mere babes with the mantle of eloquence, an art they admit

themselves to be equaled by none in difficulty. If only they would

let them advance step by step in their tasks, so that serious

students might be broken in by solid reading, steady their minds

with the precepts of philosophy, chasten their style with unsparing

correction, study deep and long what they propose to imitate, and

refuse to be dazzled by puerile graces, then and then only would

the grand old type of Oratory recover its former authority and

stateliness. Nowadays, boys waste their time at school; as youths,

they are jeered at in the forum, and what is worse than either, no

one will acknowledge, as an old man, the faultiness of the teaching

he received in his younger days.

"But that you may not imagine I disapprove of satirical impromptus

in the Lucilian vein, I will myself throw my notions on this matter

into verse:

"He that would be an orator, must strive

To follow out the discipline of old,

And heed the laws of stern frugality;

Not his to haunt the Court with fawning brow,

Nor sit a flatterer at great folks' boards;

Not his with boon companions o'er the wine

To overcloud his brain, nor at the play

To sit and clap, agape at actors' tricks.

But whether to Tritonia's famous halls

The Muses lead his steps, or to those walls

That Spartan exiles rear'd or where

The Sirens' song thrill'd the enraptured air

Of all his tasks let Poesy be first,

And Homer's verse the fount to quench his thirst.

Soon will be master deep Socratic lore,

And wield the arms Demosthenes erst bore.

Then to new modes must he in turn be led,

And Grecian wit to Roman accents wed.

Nor in the forum only will he find

Meet occupation for his busy mind;

On books he'll feast, the poet's words of fire,

Heroic tales of War and Tully's patriot ire,

Such be thy studies; then, whate'er the theme,

Pour forth thine eloquence in copious stream."

Listening attentively to the speaker, I never noticed that Ascyltos had

given me the slip; and I was still walking up and down in the gardens

full of the burning words I had heard, when a great mob of students

rushed into the Portico. Apparently these had just come from hearing

an impromptu lecture of some critic or other who had been cutting up

Agamemnon's speech. So whilst the lads were making fun of his

sentiments and abusing the arrangement of the whole discourse, I

seized the opportunity to escape, and started off at a run in pursuit

of Ascyltos. But I was heedless about the road I followed, and indeed

felt by no means sure of the situation of our inn, the result being

that whichever direction I took, I presently found myself back again

at my starting point. At last, exhausted with running and dripping

with sweat, I came across a little old woman, who was selling herbs.

"Prithee, good mother," say I, "can you tell me where I live?"

Charmed with the quiet absurdity of my question, "Why certainly!"

she replied; and getting up, went on before me. I thought she

must be a witch; but presently, when we had arrived at a rather

shy neighborhood, the obliging old lady drew back the curtain of

a doorway, and said, "Here is where you ought to live."

I was just protesting I did not know the house, when I catch sight

of mysterious figures prowling between rows of name-boards, and

naked harlots. Then when too late, I saw I had been brought into

a house of ill fame. So cursing the old woman's falseness, I threw

my robe over my head and made a dash right through the brothel to

the opposite door, when lo! just on the threshold, whom should I

meet but Ascyltos, fagged out and half dead like myself? You would

have thought the very same old hag had been his conductress. I

made him a mocking bow, and asked him what he was doing in such

a disreputable place?

Wiping the sweat from his face with both hands, he replied, "If

you only knew what happened to me!"

"Why! what has happened?" said I.

Then in a faint voice he went on, "I was wandering all over the

town, without being able to discover where I had left our inn, when

a respectable looking man accosted me, and most politely offered to

show me the way. Then after traversing some very dark and intricate

alleys, he brought me where we are, and producing his affair, began

begging me to grant him my favors. In two twos the woman had taken

the fee for the room, and the man laid hold of me; and if I had not

proved the stronger, I should have fared very ill indeed."

While Ascyltos was thus recounting his adventures, up came his

respectable friend again, accompanied by a woman of considerable

personal attractions, and addressing himself to Ascyltos, besought

him to enter, assuring him he had nothing to fear, and that as he

would not consent to play the passive, he should do the active

part. The woman on her side was very anxious I should go with

her. Accordingly we followed the pair, who led us among the

name-boards, where we saw in the chambers persons of both sexes

behaving in such fashion I concluded they must every one have been

drinking satyrion. On seeing us, they endeavored to allure us to

sodomy with enticing gestures; and suddenly one fellow with his

clothes well tucked up assails Ascyltos, and throwing him down on

a bed, tries to get to work a-top of him. I spring to the sufferer's

rescue, and uniting our efforts, we make short work of the ruffian.

Ascyltos bolts out of the house, and away, leaving me to escape

their beastly advances as best I might; but discovering I was too

strong for them and in no mood for trifling, they left me alone.

After running about almost over the city, I caught sight of Giton,

as it were a fog, standing at the corner of an alley close to the

door of our inn, and hurried to join him. I asked my favorite

whether he had got anything ready for our dinner, whereupon the lad

sat down on the bed and began wiping away the tears with his thumb.

Much disturbed at my favorite's distress, I demanded what had

happened. For a long time I could not drag a word out of him, not

indeed till I had added threats to prayers. Then he reluctantly

told me. "That favorite or comrade of yours came into our lodging

just now, and set to work to force me. When I screamed he drew

a sword and said, 'If you're a Lucretia, you've found a Tarquin'."

Hearing this, I exclaimed, shaking my two fists in Ascyltos' face.

"What have you to say now, you pathic prostitute, you, whose very

breath is abominable?" Ascyltos feigned extreme indignation, and

immediately repeated my gesture with greater emphasis, crying in

still louder tones, "Will you hold your tongue, you filthy gladiator,

who after murdering your host, had luck enough to escape from the

criminals' cage at the Amphitheater? Will you hold your tongue,

you midnight cut-throat, who never, when at your bravest, durst face

an honest woman? Didn't I serve you for a minion in an orchard,

just as this lad does now in an inn?"

"Did you or did you not," I interrupted, "sneak off from the

master's lecture?"

"What was I to do, fool, when I was dying of hunger? Stop and

listen to a string of phrases no better than the tinkling of broken

glass or the nonsensical interpretations in dream books? By great

Hercules, you are dead baser than I; to compass a dinner you have

condescended to flatter a Poet!" This ended our unseemly wrangle,

and we both burst into a fit of laughter, and proceeded to discuss

other matters in a more peaceable tone.

But the recollection of his late violence coming over me afresh,

"Ascyltos," I said, "I see we cannot get on together; so let us

divide between us our bits of common funds, and each try to make

head against poverty on his own bottom. You are a scholar; so

am I. I don't wish to spoil your profits, so I'll take up

another line. Else shall we find a thousand causes of quarrel

every day, and soon make ourselves the talk of the town."

Ascyltos raised no objection, merely saying, "For today, as we

have accepted, in our quality of men of letters, an invitation to

dine out, don't let us lose our evening; but tomorrow, since you

wish it, I will look out for a new lodging and another bedfellow."

"Poor work," said I, "putting off the execution of a good plan."

It was really my naughty passions that urged me to so speedy a

parting; indeed I had been long wishing to be rid of his jealous

observation, in order to renew my old relations with my sweet Giton.

Ascyltos, mortally offended at my remark, rushed out of the room

without another word. So sudden a departure boded ill; for I knew

his ungovernable temper and the strength of his passions. So I

went after him, to keep an eye on his doings and guard against

their consequences; but he slipped adroitly out of my sight, and

I wasted a long time in a fruitless search for the rascal.

After looking through the whole city, I came back to my little room,

and now at length claiming my full tale of kisses, I clip my darling

lad in the tightest of embraces; my utmost hopes of bliss are

fulfilled to the envy of all mankind. The rites were not yet

complete, when Ascyltos crept up stealthily to the door, and

violently bursting in the bolts, caught me at play with his

favorite. His laughter and applause filled the room, and tearing

off the mantle that covered us, "Why! what are you after," he cries,

"my sainted friend? What! both tucked cozily under one coverlet?"

Nor did he stop at words, but detaching the strap from his wallet,

he fell to thrashing me with no perfunctory hand, seasoning his

blows with insulting remarks. "This is the way you divide stock

with a comrade, is it? Not so fast, my friend." So unexpected

was the attack I was obliged to put up with the blows in silence.

Accordingly I took the matter as a joke, and it was well I did so;

otherwise I should have had to fight my rival. My counterfeited

merriment calmed his anger, and he even smiled faintly. "Look you,

Encolpius," said he, "are you so buried in your pleasures, you

never reflect that our money is exhausted, and the trifles we have

left are valueless. Town is good for nothing in the summer days;

there'll be better luck in the country. Let's go visit our friends."

CHAPTER TWO

Necessity constrained me to approve his advice and restrain the

expression of my resentment. So, loading Giton with our scanty

baggage, we quitted the city and made our way to the country

house of Lycurgus, a Roman knight. Ascyltos had been a minion

in former days, so he gave us an excellent reception, and the

company assembled there rendered our entertainment still more

delightful. First and foremost was Tryphaena, a very handsome

woman, who had come with Lichas, master of a ship and owner of

estates near the seacoast.

Words cannot describe the pleasures we enjoyed in this most

delightful spot, though Lycurgus's table was frugal enough.

You must know we lost no time in pairing off as lovers. The

lovely Tryphaena was my fancy, and readily acceded to my wishes.

But scarcely was I in enjoyment of her favors, when Lichas,

furious at his lady-love being filched from him, insisted I

must indemnify him for the injury done him. She had long been

his mistress; so he made the festive proposal that I should

make good his loss in person. He pressed me passionately;

but Tryphaena possessing my heart, my ears were deaf to his

importunities. My refusal made him still more eager and he

followed me about like a dog, and actually came into my chamber

one night. Finding his entreaties scorned, he tried to force me;

but I shouted so loudly I roused the household and by favor of

Lycurgus's countenance was saved from the ruffian's attempts.

Eventually thinking Lycurgus's house inconvenient for his

purpose, he endeavored to persuade me to be his guest. When

I refused his invitation, he got Tryphaena to use her influence.

The latter begged me to comply with Lichas's wishes, what made

her so ready to do so being the prospect of leading a more

independent life there. Accordingly I follow where my love

leads the way. But Lycurgus, having renewed his former relations

with Ascyltos, would not let him go. So we agreed that he should

stop with Lycurgus, whilst we accompanied Lichas, resolving at

the same time that, as opportunity offered, we should each and

all lay hands on anything handy for the common stock.

My consent delighted Lichas beyond measure. He hurried on

our departure all he could, and forthwith bidding our friends

farewell, we arrived the same day at his house. Lichas had

cleverly arranged it in such a way that he sat beside me during

the journey, while Tryphaena was next to Giton. This he had

contrived because he knew the woman's notorious fickleness,

and the result justified his expectations. In fact she

instantly fell in love with the lad, as I saw easily enough.

Lichas moreover made a point of drawing my attention to the

circumstance, and assured me there was no doubt about it.

This made me receive his advances more complacently, at which

he was overjoyed. He felt certain the injury my mistress was

doing me would turn my love into contempt, and that consequently

out of pique against Tryphaena, I should be the more disposed

to welcome his proposals.

Such was the state of affairs under Lichas's roof. Tryphaena

was desperately enamored of Giton; Giton's whole heart was

aflame for Tryphaena; I hated the sight of both; while Lichas,

studying to please me, contrived some fresh diversion every

day. Doris, his pretty wife, eagerly seconded his efforts,

and that so charmingly she soon drove Tryphaena from my heart.

A wink informed Doris of the state of my feelings, and she

returned the compliment with alluring glances; so that this

mute language, anticipating the tongue, furtively expressed the

mutual liking we had simultaneously conceived for one another.

I soon saw Lichas was jealous, and this made me cautious;

while the quick eyes of love had already revealed to the wife

the husband's designs on me. The first opportunity we had of

conversing together, she announced her discovery to me. I

frankly admitted the fact, and told her how austerely I had

always treated his advances. But like a wise, discreet woman,

she only said, "Well! well! we must act judiciously in the

matter." I followed her advice, and found that, to yield to

the one was to win the other.

Meanwhile, while Giton was recruiting his exhausted strength,

Tryphaena was for returning to me; but on my repulsing her

overtures, her love changed into furious hate. Nor was the

ardent little wanton long in discovering my dealings both

with husband and wife. The former's naughtiness with me she

made light of, for she lost nothing by it; but she went

savagely for Doris and her secret pleasures. She denounced

her to Lichas, whose jealousy proving stronger than his love,

he prepared for revenge. However Doris, warned by Tryphaena's

maid to look out for storms, refrained from any clandestine

meetings for the present.

As soon as I learned the truth, cursing at once Tryphaena's

perfidy and Lichas's ingratitude, I made up my mind to be

gone. Fortune moreover was in my favor; for the very day

before a vessel, dedicated to Isis and laden with rich

offerings for the feast of the goddess, had run ashore on

the rocks of the neighboring coast.

I talked the matter over with Giton, and he readily enough

agreed to my plan, for Tryphaena, after draining him of his

strength, was now openly neglecting him. Accordingly we set

off betimes next day for the coast, and easily got aboard the

wreck as we were known to Lichas's servants, who were in charge.

But finding they insisted on attending us everywhere out of

politeness, so stopping any chance of looting, I left Giton

with them and seizing an opportunity to get away by myself,

crept into the poop, where stood the image of Isis. This I

robbed of a rich mantle and a silver sistrum, besides

appropriating other valuables from the Captain's cabin. This

done, I slipped down a mooring-rope without anybody seeing me

except Giton, who likewise eluded the men in charge before

very long and sneaked after me.

On his coming up, I showed him my booty, and we resolved to

make the best of our way to Ascyltos, but we could not reach

Lycurgus's house till next day. Arrived there, I gave Ascyltos

a brief account of the robbery, and of our untoward love

adventures. His advice was to get Lycurgus on our side,

telling him that fresh persecutions on the part of Lichas had

determined our sudden and secret flight. When he heard this

Lycurgus took an oath he would never fail us as a bulwark

against our enemies.

Our flight was not observed until Tryphaena and Doris awoke

and got up; for every morning we made a point of attending

these ladies' toilette. Our unwonted absence therefore being

noticed, Lichas dispatched messengers to look for us,

particularly to the seashore. From them he heard of our

having visited the ship, but not a word about the robbery.

This was still undiscovered, because the poop lay seawards,

and the Master had not as yet returned to his vessel.

Eventually, when no doubt remained as to our flight, which

annoyed Lichas extremely, the latter turned furiously upon

Doris, considering her to be responsible for it. I will not

describe his language nor the violence he indulged in towards

her; indeed I do not know the details. Enough to say that

Tryphaena, the originator of all the disturbance, prevailed on

Lichas to go and look for us at Lycurgus's house, as being our

most likely place of refuge, choosing herself to accompany him

thither, that she might find opportunity to load us with the

abuse and scorn we had so well merited at her hands.

Setting out next day, they arrived at the mansion. We were not

at home, Lycurgus having taken us to a feast of Hercules that

was being celebrated at a neighboring village. Learning this,

they followed us in all haste, and came up with us in the Portico

of the Temple. Their appearance disconcerted us not a little.

Lichas instantly began to complain bitterly of our running away to

Lycurgus; but was met with such an angry brow and haughty air

by the latter, that plucking up a spirit, I loudly cried shame on

his lecherous attempts on my person both under Lycurgus's roof

and his own. Tryphaena interfered, but got the worst of it,

too, for I proclaimed her baseness to the crowds of people our

altercation had attracted, and in token of the truth of my

allegations, I showed them Giton pale and bloodless and myself

brought to death's door by the strumpet's wantonness. The

crowd burst into loud shouts of laughter, which so abashed our

adversaries that they withdrew, crestfallen and vowing vengeance.

Perceiving we had quite won Lycurgus over, they determined to

wait for him at his own house, in order to disabuse his mind

of this prepossession in our favor. The solemnities finished

too late for us to return to the mansion that night; so Lycurgus

took us to a country lodge of his situated halfway thither.

Here he left us next morning still asleep, while he went home

himself to attend to the dispatch of business. He found Lichas

and Tryphaena waiting for him there, who talked him over so

cleverly, they actually persuaded him to deliver us up into

their hands. Lycurgus, a man naturally cruel and treacherous,

meditating how best to betray us, urged Lichas to go for help,

while he went himself to the lodge to secure our capture.

Arrived there, he accosted us with as harsh a mien as ever

Lichas might have been expected to show; then, wringing his

hands, he upbraided us with our falsehood to Lichas, and

ordered us to be kept fast prisoners in the chamber where

we lay, excluding Ascyltos and refusing to hear a word from

him in our defense. Taking the latter with him to his mansion,

he left us behind in custody till his return.

On the journey Ascyltos tried in vain to modify Lycurgus's

determination, but neither prayers, caresses nor tears would

move him. Accordingly our comrade conceived the idea of setting

us at liberty by other means. Indignant at Lycurgus's harshness,

he positively refused to sleep with him, and so found himself

in a better position to carry out the plan he had formed.

Waiting till the household were buried in their first sleep,

he took our bits of baggage on his shoulders, and slipping

through a breach in the wall he had previously marked, he

reached the lodge at daybreak. Entering the house unopposed,

he sought our room, which the guards had taken care to secure.

There was little difficulty in opening the door, for the bolt

being of wood, he loosened this by inserting an iron bar.

Presently the lock dropped off, and awoke us in falling, for

we were snoring away in spite of our unhappy situation. Yet

so sound asleep were our guards, being tired out with watching,

that the crash roused no one but ourselves.

Then Ascyltos, entering our prison, briefly told us what he

had done for us, nor indeed were many words necessary. While

we were busy dressing, it occurred to me to kill the watchmen

and loot the house. I confided my notion to Ascyltos, who

approved of the robbery, but said we could gain our ends better

without bloodshed. Accordingly, knowing as he did all the ins

and outs of the premises, he led us to the store chamber, the

doors of which he undid. Appropriating the more valuable of

the contents, we made off while it was still early morning,

and avoiding the public roads, never stopped till we deemed

ourselves safe from pursuit.

Hereupon Ascyltos, taking breath, declared emphatically what

delight he had felt in pillaging Lycurgus's house. He was

an arrant miser, he said, and had given him good reason to

complain; while he had never paid him a farthing for his

nights' work, he had at the same time kept him on very short

commons and the thinnest of drink. So niggardly indeed was

the fellow that notwithstanding his boundless wealth, he used

to deny himself the barest necessaries of life.

Unhappy Tantalus, with plenty curst,

'Mid fruits for hunger faints, 'mid streams for thirst:

The Miser's emblem! who of all possess'd,

Yet fears to taste, in blessings most unbless'd.

Ascyltos was for returning to Naples that same day. "But

surely," said I, "it is acting imprudently to go to the very

place of all others where they are most likely to look for us.

Let us keep away for a while and ramble about the country.

We have the means to do it in comfort." My advice was approved,

and we set out for a hamlet embellished with a number of

agreeable country residences, where several of our familiars

were enjoying the pleasures of the season. But scarcely had

we covered half the distance when a storm of rain coming down

in bucketfuls compelled us to fly for shelter to the nearest

village. Entering the inn, we found a crowd of other travelers

who had turned in there to escape the inclemency of the weather.

The throng prevented our attracting notice, which made it all

the easier for us to pry about in search of anything we could

appropriate. Ascyltos picked up from the floor, quite

unobserved, a little bag containing a number of gold pieces.

We were delighted at this lucky beginning; but fearing some one

might claim the money, we stole away by the back door. There

we found a servant saddling some horses, who at that moment

left them to go back to the house for something he had forgotten.

Profiting by his absence, I snatched a superb riding-cloak from

a saddle, undoing the straps that fastened it. This done, we

made off into the nearest wood under cover of some outhouses.

Sitting down in the depths of the wood, where we were in

comparative safety, we held a council of war about concealing

the gold, not wishing either to be accused of the theft or to

be robbed of it ourselves. Finally we decided to sew it up in

a hem of an old threadbare tunic, which I threw round my

shoulders, and entrusting the cloak to Ascyltos, we prepared

to start for the city by way of bypaths. But just as we were

quitting the forest, we hear a voice pronounce these terrible

words: "They shan't escape. They've gone into the wood; and if

we spread out and search everywhere, they'll easily be caught."

These words filled us with such consternation that Ascyltos and

Giton dashed away through the bushes in the direction of the

city; while I stepped back so hurriedly that, without my knowing

it, the precious tunic slipped from my shoulders. At length,

tired out and unable to go a step further, I lay down under a

tree, and then for the first time discovered my loss. Vexation

gave me new strength, and starting up again to look for the

treasure, I wandered up and down for a long time in vain,

till worn out with toil and trouble I plunged into the darkest

recesses of the forest, where I remained for four weary hours.

Sick at last of the horrible solitude, I sought a way out, but

as I advanced I caught sight of a peasant. Then indeed I wanted

all my assurance, and it did not fail me. Going boldly up to

him, I asked my way to the city, complaining I had been lost

for ever so long in the wood. He led me very civilly into the

high road, where he came upon two of his comrades, who reported

they had searched all the paths through the forest, but had

found nothing except a tunic which they showed him.

I had not the impudence to claim the garment, as may be supposed.

My vexation redoubled, and I uttered many a groan over my lost gold.

Thus it was already late when I reached the city. Entering the

inn, I found Ascyltos stretched half dead on a bed. Disturbed

at not seeing the tunic intrusted to my care, Ascyltos eagerly

demanded it. After a while my strength came back a little, and

I then told him the whole misadventure; but he thought I was

joking, and though an appealing flood of tears further confirmed

my asseverations, he remained obviously incredulous, thinking I

wanted to cheat him out of the money. But after all, what most

troubled our minds was the hue and cry after us. I mentioned

this to Ascyltos, but he made light of it, having managed to

extricate himself successfully from the affair. Besides he was

convinced we were safe enough, for we were not known, and nobody

had set eyes on us. Still we thought it advisable to feign

sickness, so as to have a pretext for keeping our room the

longer. But our cash running short, we had to go abroad sooner

than we had intended, and under the spur of necessity to sell

some of our plunder.

CHAPTER THREE

On the approach of night we took our way to the market-place, where we saw

an abundance of goods for sale, not indeed articles of any great value, but

rather such as needed the kindly veil of darkness, considering their rather

shady origin. Thither we also conveyed our stolen riding-cloak, and

seizing the opportunity, displayed a corner of it in a quiet spot, hoping

a buyer might be attracted by the beauty of the garment.

It was not long before a countryman, whose face seemed somehow familiar

to me, approached in company with a young woman, and began to examine the

cloak minutely. On the other part Ascyltos, casting his eye on the rustic

customer's shoulders, was instantly struck dumb with surprise. Nor could

I myself avoid some perturbation of mind when I saw him; for he appeared

to be the identical peasant who had found our old tunic in the loneliness

of the wood. Yes! he was the very man. But Ascyltos, afraid to trust

his eyes and anxious not to do anything rash, first went up to the fellow

as a would-be purchaser, drew the tunic from his shoulders and began to

scrutinize it carefully.

By a wonderful stroke of luck the rustic had not as yet had the

curiosity to search the seams, but was offering the thing for sale

with an indifferent air as some beggar-man's leavings. When Ascyltos

saw our money was intact and that the vendor was a person of no great

account, he drew me a little aside from the throng and said, "Do you

observe, comrade, our treasure that I was regretting as lost is come

back again? That is our tunic and it seems to have the gold pieces

in it still: they haven't been touched. But what can we do about it?

How are we to prove ownership?" I was greatly cheered not only at

beholding our loot once more, but also because I thus found myself

freed from a villainous suspicion, and at once declared against any

sort of beating about the bush. I advised we should bring a civil

action right out to compel him to give up the property to its rightful

owners by law, if he refused to do so otherwise.

Not so Ascyltos, who had a wholesome fear of the law. "Who knows us,"

he said, "in this place, or will believe what we say? My own strong

opinion is we should buy the property, our own though it be, now we

see it, and rather pay a small sum to recover our treasure than get

mixed up in a lawsuit, the issue of which is uncertain."

What worth our laws, when pelf alone is king,

When to be poor is to be always wrong?

The Cynic sage himself, stern moralist,

Is not averse to sell his words for gold;

Justice is bought, the highest bidder wins,

A partial Judge directs a venal Court.

But alas! except for a brace of copper coins, which we had purposed to

spend on lupines and peas, we were penniless just then. So, for fear

the prey might escape us meanwhile, we resolved to part with the cloak

at a lower price, making the profit on the one transaction balance the

loss on the other. Accordingly we spread out our merchandise; but the

woman who had hitherto been standing beside the countryman closely

muffled, now suddenly, after carefully scanning certain marks on the

cloak, laid hold of the hem with both hands, and screamed out "Stop,

thieves! Stop, thieves!" at the top of her voice.

At this we were not a little disconcerted, but that we might not seem

to acquiesce without a protest, we in our turn seized the tattered,

filthy tunic, and declared no less spitefully it was our goods they

had in their possession. But our case was far from being on all fours

with theirs; and the crowd, that had gathered at the outcry, began to

make fun of our impertinent claim, and not unnaturally, when on the

one side they asserted their right to a most valuable cloak, but we

to this old rag hardly worth mending. However Ascyltos adroitly

stopped their ridicule by crying out, directly he could get a hearing,

"Well! look you, every man likes his own property best; let 'em give

us up our tunic, and they shall have their cloak."

Both the rustic and the young woman were ready enough to make the

exchange; but a couple of attorneys, or to give them their true name,

night-prowlers, who wanted to appropriate the cloak themselves,

demanded that both the articles in dispute should be deposited with

them, and the Judge look into the case in the morning; for not only

must the ownership of these be investigated, but quite another

question altogether as well, to wit, a suspicion of theft on the

part of both parties.

The bystanders were by this time all in favor of sequestration, and an

individual in the crowd, a bald man with a very pimply face, who was in

the habit of undertaking occasional jobs for the lawyers, impounded the

cloak, saying he would produce it on the morrow. But the real object

was self-evident, that the knavish crew having once got hold of the

article in question, they might smuggle it out of the way, while we

should be scared by the fear of a charge of theft from putting in an

appearance at the appointed time. This was very much what we wanted

ourselves, and luck seconded the wishes of both parties. For the

countryman, indignant at our requiring the surrender of an old rag,

threw the tunic in Ascyltos's face, and withdrawing his own claim

altogether, merely demanded the sequestration of the cloak as the

only object of litigation. Having thus recovered our treasure, as

we felt, we rush off full speed for our inn, and bolting the room

door, start making merry over the astuteness both of our opponents

and of the crowd, who had exercised so much ingenuity in giving us

back our money!

As we were unstitching the tunic to take out the gold pieces, we

overheard some one asking the innkeeper what kind of people they

were who had just entered his house. Terrified at the question, I

went down after he had gone, to see what was the matter, and found

that a Pretor's lictor, whose duty it was to see the names of

strangers entered in the public registers, had seen two such enter

the inn, whose names he had not yet taken down, and was therefore

making inquiries as to their nationality and business. This

information the inn-keeper gave in such an offhand manner as made

me suspect his house was not altogether a safe place for us; so,

to avoid the chance of arrest, we determined to leave the place

and not return till after dark. Accordingly we sallied forth,

leaving the care of providing our dinner to Giton.

As our wish was to avoid the frequented streets, we went by way of

the more lonely districts of the city. Towards nightfall we met

in a remote spot two respectably robed and good-looking women, and

followed them slowly and softly to a small temple, which they entered,

and from which a strange humming was audible, like the sound of voices

issuing from the recesses of a cavern. Curiosity impelled us likewise

to enter the temple, and there we beheld a number of women, resembling

Bacchantes, each brandishing an emblem of Priapus in her right hand.

This was all we were permitted to see; for the instant they caught

sight of us, they set up such a shouting the vault of the sacred

building trembled, and tried to seize hold of us. But we fled as

fast as our legs would carry us back to our inn.

Scarcely had we eaten our fill of the dinner Giton had provided us,

when the door resounded with a most imperative knocking. Turning

pale, we demanded, "Who's there?"-- "Open the door," was the answer,

"and you'll find out." We were still arguing when the bolt tumbled

off of itself, the door flew open and admitted our visitor. This

was a woman with her head muffled, the very same who a little time

before had been standing by the countryman's side in the market.

"Ah, ha!" she cried, "did you suppose you had really made a fool of

me? I am Quartilla's maid, Quartilla whose devotions before the

grotto you disturbed. She is coming in person to the inn, and begs

to speak with you. Do not be afraid; she brings no accusation, and

has no wish to punish your fault. She only wonders what god it was

brought such genteel young men into her district."

We were still dumb, not knowing in the least what kind of response

to give, when the mistress herself entered, accompanied only by a

young girl, and sitting down on my couch, wept for ever so long.

Not even then had we a word to offer, but looked on in amazement at

this tearful display of pretended grief. When the enticing shower

had exhausted itself, she drew back the hood that concealed her

haughty features, and wringing her hands till the finger joints

cracked, "What means this recklessness?" she cried; "wherever have

you learned these knavish tricks that for audacity outdo the heroes

of the story-books. By heaven! I pity you! for be sure no man ever

looked with impunity on forbidden sights. Truly our neighborhood is

so well stocked with deities to hand, you will easier meet with a

god than a man. But don't imagine I've come here vindictively; I'm

more moved by your youth than angered by the wrong you have done

me. It was in sheer ignorance, I still think, you committed your

unpardonable act of sacrilege.

"Last night I was grievously tormented, and shaken with such

alarming tremblings, I dreaded an attack of tertian ague. So in

my sleep I prayed for a remedy, and was bidden seek you out, that

you might assuage the violence of the complaint by means of a

cunning contrivance also indicated in my dream. But indeed and

indeed it is not so much this cure I am exercised about; what

wrings my heart and drives me almost to despair is the dread that

in your youthful levity you may reveal what you saw in the shrine

of Priapus, and betray the counsels of the gods to the common herd.

This is why I stretch forth suppliant hands to your knees, and beg

and pray you not to turn into ribaldry and jest our nocturnal rites,

nor willingly divulge the secrets of so many years,-- secrets known

to barely a thousand persons all told."

After this impassioned appeal she again burst into tears, and shaken

by mighty sobs, entirely buried her face and bosom in my couch.

Meantime, moved at once by pity and apprehension, I bade her keep

a good heart, and be quite easy on either head. For, I assured her,

not one of us would divulge the mysteries, and moreover, if the god

had revealed any extraordinary means of curing her ague, we would

second divine providence, even if it involved danger to ourselves.

The woman cheered up at this promise, and fell to kissing me thick and

fast, and changing from tears to laughter, combed back with her fingers

some stray locks that had escaped from behind my ears. "I make truce

with you," she said, "and withdraw my case against you. But if you

had not agreed about the remedy I am seeking, I had a posse of men all

ready for tomorrow to avenge my wrongs and vindicate my honor.

"Contempt is hateful; what I love is power,

To work my will at my own place and hour.

A wise man's scorn bends the most stubborn will,

The noblest victor he who spares to kill."

Next, clapping her hands together, she suddenly burst into such a fit

of laughter as quite alarmed us. The maid, who had entered first

followed suit, and was followed in turn by the little girl who had

come in along with Quartilla.

The whole place reechoed with their forced merriment; meantime, seeing

no reason for this rapid change of mood, we stand staring now at each

other, now at the women. At length says Quartilla, "I have given

express orders that no mortal be admitted into this inn today, that

you may, without interruption, apply the remedy for my ague."

"At this declaration Ascyltos stood for a time appalled; for myself,

I turned colder that a Gallic winter, and was unable to utter a word.

Still our numbers somewhat reassured me against any disaster. After

all, they were only three weak women, quite incapable of any serious

assault on us, who if we had nothing else manly about us, were at

least of the male sex. Anyway we were all ready prepared for the fray;

in fact I had already so arranged the couples, that if it came to a

fight, I should myself tackle Quartilla, Ascyltos the waiting-maid,

Giton the girl.

In the middle of these reflections, up came Quartilla to me to be

cured of her ague; but finding herself sadly disappointed, she flung

out of the house in a rage. Returning after a little, she had us

seized by some unknown bravos and carried off to a magnificent palace.

CHAPTER FOUR

At this crisis amazement and consternation quite broke our spirit, certain

death seeming to stare us miserably in the face. "I beseech you, lady," I

cried, "if you have any sinister design, put us out of our misery at once;

we have done nothing so heinous as to deserve torturing to death." The

maid, whose name was Psyche, now carefully spread a rug on the marble

floor, and endeavored to rouse my member into activity, but it lay cold as

a thousand deaths could make it. Ascyltos had muffled his head in his

mantle, having doubtless learned from experience the peril of meddling

with other people's secrets. Meantime Psyche produced two ribbons from

her bosom, and proceeded to tie our hands with one and our feet with the

other. Finding myself thus fettered, "This is not the way," I protested,

"for your mistress to get what she wants." "Granted," replied the maid;

"but I have other remedies to my hand, and surer ones."

So saying, she brought me a goblet full of satyrion, and with quips and

cranks and a host of wonderful tales of its virtues, induced me to drain

off nearly the whole of the liquor. Then, because he had slighted her

overtures a little before, she poured what was left of the stuff over

Ascyltos's back without his noticing. The latter, seeing the stream of

her eloquence dried up, exclaimed, "Well! and am I not thought worthy to

have a drink too?" Betrayed by my laughter, the girl clapped her hands

and cried, "Why! I've given it you already, young man; you've had the

whole draft all to yourself." "What!" put in Quartilla, "has Encolpius

drunk up all our stock of satyrion?" and her sides shook with pretty

merriment. Eventually not even Giton could contain his mirth, particularly

when the little girl threw her arms round his neck, and gave the boy, who

showed no signs of reluctance, a thousand kisses.

We should have cried out for help in our unhappy plight, but there was

no one to hear us and besides Psyche pricked my cheeks with her hair pin

every time I tried to call upon my fellow countrymen for succor, while

at the same time the other girl threatened Ascyltos with a brush dipped

in satyrion. Finally there entered a catamite, tricked out in a coat of

chestnut frieze, and wearing a sash, who would alternately writhe his

buttocks and bump against us, and beslaver us with the most evil-smelling

kisses, until Quartilla, holding a whalebone wand in her hand and with

skirts tucked up, ordered him to give the poor fellows quarter. Then we

all three swore the most solemn oaths the horrid secret should die with us.

Next a company of wrestlers appeared, who rubbed us over with the proper

gymnastic oil, which was very refreshing. This gradually removed our

fatigue and resuming the dinner clothes that we had taken off, we were

then conducted into the adjoining room, where the couches were laid and

all preparations made for an elegant feast in the most sumptuous style.

We were requested to take our places, and the banquet opened with some

wonderful hors d'oeuvres, while the Falernian flowed like water. A

number of other courses followed, and we were all but falling asleep,

when Quartilla cried, "Come, come! can you think of sleep, when you know

this livelong night is owed to the service of Priapus?"

Ascyltos was so worn out with all he had gone through he could not keep

his eyes open a moment longer, and the waiting-maid, whom he had scorned

and slighted, now proceeded to daub his face all over with streaks of

soot, and bepaint his lips and shoulders as he lay unconscious.

I too, tired with the persecutions I had endured, was just enjoying

forty winks, as they say, while all the household, within doors and

without, had copied my example. Some lay sprawling about the diners'

feet, others propped against the walls, while others snored head to

head right on the threshold. The oil in the lamps had burned low, and

they shed a feeble, dying light, when two Syrian slaves came into the

banquet-room to crib a flagon of wine.

Whilst they were greedily fighting for it and scuffling amongst the

silver, it parted and broke in two. At the same moment the table with

the silver plate collapsed, and a goblet falling from perhaps a greater

height than the rest, struck the waiting-maid who was lying exhausted on

a couch underneath and cut her head open. She screamed out at the blow,

at once discovering the thieves and awakening some of the drunkards. The

Syrians, thus caught in the act, threw themselves with one accord onto

a couch, and started snoring as if they had been asleep ever so long.

By this time the chief butler had wakened up and put fresh oil into the

expiring lamps, while the other slaves after rubbing their eyes a bit,

had resumed their posts, and presently a cymbal-player came in and roused

us all up with a clash of her instruments. So the banquet was resumed,

and Quartilla challenged us to start a fresh carouse, the tinkle of

cymbals still further stimulating her reckless gaiety.

The next to appear is a catamite, the silliest of mankind and quite

worthy of the house, who beat his hands together, gave a groan, and

then spouted the following delightful effusion:

"Who hath a pathic lust,

With Delian vice accurst;

Who loves the pliant thigh,

Quick hand and wanton sigh;

Come hither, come hither, come hither,

Here shall he see

Gross beasts as he,

Lechers of every feather!"

Then, his poetry exhausted, he spat a most stinking kiss in my face;

before long he mounted on the couch where I lay and exposed me by force

in spite of my resistance. He labored hard and long to bring up my

member, but in vain. Streams of gummy paint and sweat poured from his

heated brow, and such a lot of chalk filled the wrinkles of his cheeks,

you might have thought his face was an old dilapidated wall with the

plaster crumbling away in the rain.

I could no longer restrain my tears, but driven to the last extremity of

disgust, "I ask you, lady," I cried, "is this the 'night-cap' (ambasicoetas)

you promised me?" At this she clapped her hands daintily, exclaiming,

"Oh you clever boy! what a pretty wit you have! Of course you didn't

know 'night-cap' is another name for a catamite?" Then, that my comrade

might not miss his share too, I asked her, "Now, on your conscience, is

Ascyltos to be the only guest in the room to keep holiday!"

"So?" she cried, "why! let Ascyltos have his 'night-cap' too!" In

obedience to her order, the catamite now changed his mount, and

transferring his attentions to my friend, set to grinding him under

his buttocks and smothering him with lecherous kisses.

All this while Giton had been standing by, laughing as if his sides

would split. Now Quartilla, catching sight of him, asked with eager

curiosity, whose lad he was. When I told her he was my little favorite,

"Why hasn't he kissed me then?" she cried, and calling him to her glued

her lips to his. Next minute she slipped her hand under his clothes,

and pulling out his unpractised tool, she observed, "This will be a very

pretty whet tomorrow to our naughty appetite. For today,-- 'After such

a dainty dish, I will taste no common fish!'"

Just as she was saying this, Psyche approached her mistress laughingly

and whispered something in her ear. "Yes! yes!" exclaimed Quartilla,

"a capital idea! why should not our little Pannychis lose her maidenhood!

'tis an excellent opportunity, indeed." Immediately they brought in a

pretty enough little girl, and who did not appear to be more than seven

years old the same child who had accompanied Quartilla on her first

visit to our room at the inn. So amid general applause and indeed at

the special request of the company, they began the bridal preparations.

I was horrified, and declared that, while on the one hand Giton, who was

a very modest boy, was quite unequal to such naughtiness, on the other

Pannychis was far too young to endure the treatment a woman must expect.

"Why!" said Quartilla, "is the girl any younger than I was when I first

submitted to a man? May Juno, my patroness, desert me, if I can mind

the time when I was a maid. As a child I was naughty with little boys

of my own age, and presently as the years rolled by, with bigger lads,

till I reached my present time of life. Hence I suppose the proverb

that says: 'Who carried the calf, may well carry the bull.'"

Fearing my favorite might get into greater troubles if I were not there,

I got up to assist at the wedding ceremony.

By this time Psyche had thrown the bridal veil over the child's head;

our pathic friend was marching in front with a torch; a long procession

of drunken women followed, clapping their hands, having previously

decked the marriage bed with a splendid coverlet. Then Quartilla, fired

by the wanton pleasantry, likewise rose from table, and seizing

Giton drew him into the chamber. The lad was not at all loath to go,

and even the child manifested very little fear or reluctance at the

name of matrimony.

In due course when they were in bed and the door shut, we sat down on

the threshold of the nuptial chamber, and first of all Quartilla applied

an inquisitive eye to a crack in the door contrived for some such

naughty purpose, and watched their childish dalliance with lecherous

intentness. She drew me gently to her side to enjoy the same spectacle,

and our faces being close together as we looked, she would, at every

interval in the performance, twist her lips sideways to meet mine, and

kept continually pecking at me with a sort of furtive kisses.

Suddenly in the midst of these proceedings a prodigious thumping made

itself heard at the entrance door, and whilst everybody was wondering

what the unexpected interruption might mean, we saw a soldier come in,

one of the nightwatch, with a drawn sword in his hand and surrounded by

a crowd of young men. The fellow glared about him with bloodshot eyes

and braggadocio airs; presently spying Quartilla, he cried, "What have

we here, abandoned woman? How dare you make game of me with your

falsehoods and cheat me out of the night you promised me? But you

shan't go unpunished, I can tell you; you and your lover shall find

out you have a man to deal with."

Obeying the soldier's orders, his comrades now bind Quartilla and

myself together, mouth to mouth, bosom to bosom, and thigh to thigh,

in the midst of shouts of laughter. Then the catamite, still by the

soldier's order, began to beslaver me horribly all over with the

odious kisses of his stinking lips-- a treatment I had no means either

of escaping from or avoiding. Before long he debauched me, and worked

his full will upon my body. Meantime, the satyrion I had drunk a

while before, stirring every fiber to lasciviousness, I began to

perform on Quartilla, while she, fired with a like wantonness, showed

no repugnance to the game. The young soldiers burst into fits of

laughter at the ludicrous performance; for, while myself mounted

by a vile catamite, involuntarily and almost without knowing what

I was at, I kept moving to him just as fast and furiously as Quartilla

was wriggling under me.

At this moment Pannychis, unaccustomed at her age to love's ardors,

raised a sudden cry of pain and consternation, which the soldiers heard.

The poor child was in the act of being ravished, and the triumphant

Giton had won a not bloodless victory. Roused by the sight, the man

rushed at them, and clipped now Pannychis, now Giton, and now both of

them together, in his sturdy arms. The girl burst into tears and

besought him to take pity on her tender years; but her prayers were

entirely unavailing, the soldier being only the more excited by her

childish charms. All Pannychis could do was to throw a veil over her

face and resign herself to endure whatever fate might bring her.

But at this crisis who should come to the unfortunate child's rescue,

as if she had dropped from the sky, but the very same old woman who had

beguiled me the day I was inquiring my road home? She burst into the

house with loud cries, declaring that a band of robbers was prowling

about the neighborhood while peaceful citizens were crying in vain for

help, the guard being asleep or busy with their victuals, at any rate

nowhere to be found. The soldier, much disturbed at what she said,

fled precipitately from the house and his companions following his

example, freed Pannychis from the impending danger which had threatened

her and relieved us all of our terror.

So weary was I by this time of Quartilla's lecherousness that I began to

revolve means of escape. I opened my mind to Ascyltos, who was only too

pleased to hear of my purpose, longing to be rid of Psyche's importunities.

The whole thing would have been plain enough sailing had not Giton been

locked up in the chamber; for we wished to take him with us and save him

from the viciousness of these strumpets. We were anxiously debating the

point when Pannychis fell out of bed, and her weight dragged Giton after

her. He was unhurt, but the child, having given her head a slight knock,

raised such an outcry that Quartilla in a fright rushed headlong into the

room, and so gave us an opportunity to escape.

Taking advantage of this opening without an instant's delay, we fly with

all speed to our inn and throwing ourselves into bed, spent the rest of

the night in security.

Going abroad next day, we came upon two of Quartilla's fellows who had

kidnapped us to her palace. No sooner did Ascyltos clap eyes on the

rascals than he vigorously attacked one of them, and after beating and

seriously wounding him, came to my help against the other. But this

last bore himself so stoutly that he managed to wound us both, though

only slightly, escaping himself without a scratch.

CHAPTER FIVE

The third day had now arrived, the date appointed for the free banquet

at Trimalchio's; but with so many wounds as we had, we deemed it better

policy to fly than to remain where we were. So we made the best of our

way to our inn, and our hurts being only skin-deep after all, we lay in

bed and dressed them with wine and oil.

Still one of the rascals was lying on the ground disabled, and we were

afraid we might yet be discovered. Whilst we were still debating sadly

with ourselves how we might best escape the storm, a slave of Agamemnon's

broke into our trembling conclave, crying, "What! don't you recollect

whose entertainment it is this day?-- Trimalchio's, a most elegant

personage; he has a time-piece in his dining-room and a trumpeter

specially provided for the purpose keeps him constantly informed how

much of his lifetime is gone." So, forgetting all our troubles, we

proceed to make a careful toilette, and bid Giton, who had always

hitherto been very ready to act as servant, to attend us at the bath.

Meantime in our gala dresses, we began to stroll about, or rather to amuse

ourselves by approaching the different groups of ball-players. Amongst

these we all of a sudden catch sight of a bald-headed old man in a russet

tunic, playing ball amid a troupe of long-haired boys. It was not however

so much the boys, though these were well worth looking at, that drew us

to the spot, as the master himself, who wore sandals and was playing with

green balls. He never stooped for a ball that had once touched ground,

but an attendant stood by with a sackful, and supplied the players as

they required them. We noticed other novelties too. For two eunuchs

were stationed at opposite points of the circle, one holding a silver

chamber-pot, while the other counted the balls, not those that were in

play and flying from hand to hand, but such as fell on the floor.

We were still admiring these refinements of elegance when Menelaus runs

up, saying, "See! that's the gentleman you are to dine with; why! this

is really nothing else than a prelude to the entertainment." He had not

finished speaking when Trimalchio snapped his fingers, and at the signal

the eunuch held out the chamber-pot for him, without his ever stopping

play. After easing his bladder, he called for water, and having dipped

his hands momentarily in the bowl, dried them on one of the lads' hair.

There was no time to notice every detail; so we entered the bath, and

after stewing in the sweating-room, passed instantly into the cold chamber.

Trimalchio, after being drenched with unguent, was being rubbed down, not

however with ordinary towels but with pieces of blanketing of the softest

and finest wool. Meanwhile three bagnio doctors were swilling Falernian

under his eyes; and seeing how the fellows were brawling over their liquor

and spilling most of it, Trimalchio declared it was a libation they were

making in his particular honor.

Presently muffled in a wrap-rascal of scarlet frieze, he was placed in

a litter, preceded by four running-footmen in tinseled liveries, and

a wheeled chair, in which his favorite rode, a little old young man,

sore-eyed and uglier even than his master. As the latter was borne

along, a musician took up his place at this head with a pair of miniature

flutes, and played softly to him, as if he were whispering secrets in

his ear. Full of wonder we follow the procession and arrive at the

same moment as Agamemnon at the outer door, on one of the pillars of

which was suspended a tablet bearing the words:

ANY SLAVE

GOING ABROAD WITHOUT THE MASTER'S

PERMISSION

SHALL RECEIVE ONE HUNDRED LASHES

Just within the vestibule stood the doorkeeper, dressed in green with

a cherry-colored sash, busy picking peas in a silver dish. Over the

threshold hung a gold cage with a black and white magpie in it, which

greeted visitors on their entrance.

But as I was staring open-eyed at all these fine sights, I came near

tumbling backwards and breaking my legs. For to the left hand as you

entered, and not far from the porter's lodge, a huge chained dog was

depicted on the wall, and written above in capital letters: 'WARE DOG!

'WARE DOG! My companions made merry at my expense; but soon regaining

confidence, I fell to examining the other paintings on the walls. One

of these represented a slave-market, the men standing up with labels

round their necks, while in another Trimalchio himself, wearing long

hair, holding a caduceus in his hand and led by Minerva, was entering

Rome. Further on, the ingenious painter had shown him learning accounts,

and presently made steward of the estate, each incident being made clear

by explanatory inscriptions. Lastly, at the extreme end of the portico,

Mercury was lifting the hero by the chin and placing him on the highest

seat of a tribunal. Fortune stood by with her cornucopia, and the three

Fates, spinning his destiny with a golden thread.

I noticed likewise in the portico a gang of running-footmen exercising

under a trainer. Moreover I saw in a corner a vast armory; and in a

shrine inside were ranged Lares of silver, and a marble statue of Venus,

and a golden casket of ample dimensions, in which they said the great

man's first beard was preserved. I now asked the hall-keeper what were

the subjects of the frescoes in the atrium itself? "The Iliad and Odyssey,"

he replied, "and on your left the combat of gladiators given under Laenas."

We had no opportunity of examining the numerous paintings more minutely,

having by this time reached the banquet-hall, at the outer door of which

the house-steward sat receiving accounts. But the thing that surprised

me most was to notice on the doorposts of the apartment fasces and axes

fixed up, the lower part terminating in an ornament resembling the bronze

beak of a ship, on which was inscribed:

TO GAIUS POMPEIUS TRIMALCHIO

AUGUSTAL SEVIR,

CINNAMUS HIS TREASURER

Underneath this inscription hung a lamp with two lights, depending from

the vaulting. Two other tablets were attached to the doorposts. One,

if my memory serves me, bore the following inscription:

ON DECEMBER THIRTIETH AND

THIRTY-FIRST

OUR MASTER GAIUS DINES ABROAD

The other showed the phases of the moon and the seven planets, while

lucky and unlucky days were marked by distinctive studs.

When, sated with all these fine sights, we were just making for the

entrance of the banquet-hall, one of the slaves, stationed there for

the purpose, called out, "Right foot first!" Not unnaturally there

was a moment's hesitation, for fear one of us should break the rule.

But this was not all; for just as we stepped out in line right leg

foremost, another slave, stripped of his outer garments, threw himself

before our feet, beseeching us to save him from punishment. Not indeed

that his fault was a very serious one; in point of fact the Intendant's

clothes had been stolen when in his charge at the bath,-- a matter of

ten sesterces or so at the outside. So facing about, still right foot

in front, we approached the Intendant, who was counting gold in the

hall, and asked him to forgive the poor man. He looked up haughtily

and said, "It's not so much the loss that annoys me as the rascal's

carelessness. He has lost my dinner robes, which a client gave me on

my birthday,-- genuine Tyrian purple, I assure you, though only once

dipped. But there! I will pardon the delinquent at your request."

Deeply grateful for so signal a favor, we now returned to the

banquet-hall, where we were met by the same slave for whom we had

interceded, who to our astonishment overwhelmed us with a perfect

storm of kisses, thanking us again and again for our humanity.

"Indeed," he cried, "you shall presently know who it is you have

obliged; the master's wine is the cup-bearer's thank-offering."

Well! at last we take our places, Alexandrian slave-boys pouring snow

water over our hands, and others succeeding them to wash our feet

and cleanse our toe-nails with extreme dexterity. Not even while

engaged in this unpleasant office were they silent, but sang away

over their work. I had a mind to try whether all the house servants

were singers and accordingly asked for a drink of wine. Instantly an

attendant was at my side, pouring out the liquor to the accompaniment

of the same sort of shrill recitative. Demand what you would, it

was the same; you might have supposed yourself among a troupe of

pantomime actors rather than at a respectable citizen's table.

Then the preliminary course was served in very elegant style. For

all were now at table except Trimalchio, for whom the first place was

reserved, by a reversal of ordinary usage. Among the other hors d'oeuvres

stood a little ass of Corinthian bronze with a packsaddle holding

olives, white olives on one side, black on the other. The animal was

flanked right and left by silver dishes, on the rim of which Trimalchio's

name was engraved and the weight. On arches built up in the form of

miniature bridges were dormice seasoned with honey and poppy-seed. There

were sausages, too, smoking hot on a silver grill, and underneath (to

imitate coals) Syrian plums and pomegranate seeds.

We were in the middle of these elegant trifles when Trimalchio himself

was carried in to the sound of music, and was bolstered up among a host

of tiny cushions, a sight that set one or two indiscreet guests laughing.

And no wonder; his bald head poked up out of a scarlet mantle, his neck

was closely muffled, and over all was laid a napkin with a broad purple

stripe or laticlave, and long fringes hanging down either side. Moreover

he wore on the little finger of his left hand a massive ring of silver

gilt, and on the last joint of the next finger a smaller ring, apparently

of solid gold, but starred superficially with little ornaments of steel.

Nay! to show this was not the whole of his magnificence, his left arm was

bare, and displayed a gold bracelet and an ivory circlet with a sparkling

clasp to put it on.

After picking his teeth with a silver toothpick, "My friends," he began,

"I was far from desirous of coming to table just yet, but that I might

not keep you waiting by my own absence, I have sadly interfered with my

own amusement. But will you permit me to finish my game?" A slave

followed him, bearing a draughtsboard of terebinth wood and crystal

dice. One special bit of refinement I noticed; instead of the ordinary

black and white men he had medals of gold and silver respectively.

Meantime, whilst he is exhausting the vocabulary of a tinker over the

game, and we are still at the hors d'oeuvres, a dish was brought in with

a basket on it, in which lay a wooden hen, her wings outspread round her

as if she were sitting. Instantly a couple of slaves came up, and to the

sound of lively music began to search the straw, and pulling out a lot

of peafowl's eggs one after the other, handed them round to the company.

Trimalchio turns his head at this, saying, "My friends, it was by my

orders the hen set on the peafowl's eggs yonder; but by God! I am very

much afraid they are half-hatched. Nevertheless we can try whether they

are eatable." For our part, we take our spoons, which weighed at least

half a pound each, and break the eggs, which were made of paste. I was

on the point of throwing mine away, for I thought I discerned a chick

inside. But when I overheard a veteran guest saying, "There should be

something good here!" I further investigated the shell, and found a very

fine fat beccafico swimming in yolk of egg flavored with pepper.

Trimalchio had by this time stopped his game and been helped to all the

dishes before us. He had just announced in a loud voice that any of us

who wanted a second supply of honeyed wine had only to ask for it, when

suddenly at a signal from the band, the hors d'oeuvres are whisked away

by a troupe of slaves, all singing too. But in the confusion a silver

dish happened to fall and a slave picked it up again from the floor;

this Trimalchio noticed, and boxing the fellow's ears, rated him soundly

and ordered him to throw it down again. Then a groom came in and began

to sweep up the silver along with the other refuse with his besom.

He was succeeded by two long-haired Ethiopians, carrying small leather

skins, like the fellows that water the sand in the amphitheater, who

poured wine over our hands; for no one thought of offering water.

After being duly complimented on this refinement, our host cried out,

"Fair play's a jewel!" and accordingly ordered a separate table to be

assigned to each guest. "In this way," he said, "by preventing any

crowding, the stinking servants won't make us so hot."

Simultaneously there were brought in a number of wine-jars of

glass carefully stoppered with plaster, and having labels attached

to their necks reading:

FALERNIAN; OPIMIAN VINTAGE

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD.

Whilst we were reading the labels, Trimalchio ejaculated, striking

his palms together, "Alackaday! to think wine is longer lived than

poor humanity! Well! bumpers then! There's life in wine. 'Tis the

right Opimian, I give you my word. I didn't bring out any so good

yesterday, and much better men than you were dining with me."

So we drank our wine and admired all this luxury in good set terms.

Then the slave brought in a silver skeleton, so artfully fitted that

its articulations and vertebrae were all movable and would turn and

twist in any direction. After he had tossed this once or twice on

the table, causing the loosely jointed limbs to take various postures,

Trimalchio moralized thus:

Alas! how less than naught are we;

Fragile life's thread, and brief our day!

What this is now, we all shall be;

Drink and make merry while you may.

CHAPTER SIX

Our applause was interrupted by the second course, which did not by any

means come up to our expectations. Still the oddity of the thing drew

the eyes of all. An immense circular tray bore the twelve signs of the

zodiac displayed round the circumference, on each of which the Manoiple

or Arranger had placed a dish of suitable and appropriate viands: on

the Ram ram's-head peas, on the Bull a piece of beef, on the Twins fried

testicles and kidneys, on the Crab simply a crown, on the Lion African

figs, on a Virgin a sow's haslet, on Libra a balance with a tart in one

scale and a cheesecake in the other, on Scorpio a small sea-fish, on

Sagittarius an eye-seeker, on Capricornus a lobster, on Aquarius a wild

goose, on Pisces two mullets. In the middle was a sod of green turf,

cut to shape and supporting a honey-comb. Meanwhile an Egyptian slave

was carrying bread around in a miniature oven of silver, crooning to

himself in a horrible voice a song on wine and laserpitium.

Seeing us look rather blank at the idea of attacking such common fare,

Trimalchio cried, "I pray you gentlemen, begin; the best of your dinner

is before you." No sooner had he spoken than four fellows ran prancing

in, keeping time to the music, and whipped off the top of the tray.

This done, we beheld underneath, on a second tray in fact, stuffed

capons, a sow's paps, and as a centerpiece a hare fitted with wings

to represent Pegasus. We n