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"The Satyricon by Petronius translated by Alfred R. Allinson." (1930) The Panurge Press, New
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THE SATYRICON
PETRONIUS
Two thousand and ten copies of
this edition have been printed,
ten copies of which are for the
Editors of The Panurge Press.
None of these is intended for
other than private circulation
among adult collectors of erotica.
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
NEW YORK
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 (Troiæ 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 Ménage 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." (Héguin 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 aperçus 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
personæ:--
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 naïveté 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 personæ,
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 naïveté
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 personæ 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
(Troiæ 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 Société 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 blasé, 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 reëchoed 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 vertebræ 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 noticed besides four figures of
Marsyas, one at each corner of the tray, spouting out peppered fish-sauce over the fishes
swimming in the Channel of the dish.
We all join in the applause started by the domestics and laughingly fall to on the choice viands.
Trimalchio, as pleased as anybody with a device of the sort, now called out, "Cut!" Instantly the
Carver advanced, and posturing in time to the music, sliced up the joint with such antics you
might have thought him a jockey struggling to pull off a chariot-race to the thunder of the organ.
Yet all the while Trimalchio kept repeating in a wheedling voice, "Cut! Cut!" For my part,
suspecting there was some pretty jest connected with this everlasting reiteration of the word, I
made no bones about asking the question of the guest who sat immediately above me. He had
often witnessed similar scenes and told me at once, "You see the man who is carving; well; his
name is Cut. The master is calling and commanding him at one and the same
time."
Unable to eat any more, I now turned towards my neighbor in order to glean what information I
could,
and after indulging in a string of general remarks, presently asked him, "Who is that lady bustling
up and down the room yonder?" "Trimalchio's lady," he replied; "her name is Fortunata, and she
counts her coin by the bushelful! Before? what was she before? Why! my dear Sir! saving your
respect, you would have been mighty sorry to take bread from her hand. Now, by hook or by
crook, she's got to heaven, and is Trimalchio's factotum. In fact if she told him it was dark night
at high noon, he'd believe her. The man's rolling in riches, and really can't tell what he has and
what he hasn't got; still his good lady looks keenly after everything, and is on the spot where you
least expect to see her. She's temperate, sober and well advised, but she has a sharp tongue of her
own and chatters like a magpie between the bed-curtains. When she likes a man, she likes him;
and when she doesn't, well! she doesn't.
"As for Trimalchio, his lands reach as far as the kites fly, and his money breeds money. I tell
you, he has more coin lying idle in his porter's lodge than would make another man's whole
fortune. Slaves! why, heaven and earth! I don't believe one in ten knows his own master by
sight. For all that, there's never a one of the fine fellows a word of his wouldn't send scuttling
into the nearest rat-hole. And don't you imagine he ever buys anything; every mortal thing is
home grown,-- wool, rosin, pepper; call for hen's milk and he'd supply you!
As a matter of fact his wool was not first-rate originally; but he purchased rams at Tarentum and
so improved the breed. To get home-made Attic honey he had bees imported direct from Athens,
hoping at the same time to benefit the native insects a bit by a cross with the Greek fellows.
Why! only the other day he wrote to India for mushroom spawn. He has not a single mule but
was got by a wild ass. You see all these mattresses; never a one that is not stuffed with the finest
wool, purple or scarlet as the case may be. Lucky, lucky dog!
"And look you, don't you turn up your nose at the other freedmen, his fellows. They're very
warm men. You see the one lying last on the last couch yonder? He's worth his eight hundred
thousand any of these days. A self-made man; once upon a time he carried wood on his own two
shoulders. They do say,-- I don't know how true it may be, but I've been told so,-- he snatched an
Incubo's hat, and so discovered a treasure. I grudge no man's good fortune, whatever God has
seen good to give him. He'll still take a box o' the ear for all that, and keeps a keen eye on the
main chance. Only the other day he placarded his house with this bill:
C. POMPEIUS DIOGENES
IS PREPARED TO LET HIS GARRET
FROM JULY FIRST,
H